Conclusion: Upotte!!

Guns!

Guns.

What a strange setting. Girls are guns. Er, I mean...guns are girls. Actually I think everyone in their school is a gun. Except for the Japanese teacher of course. Except that's not really supposed to be special because the teacher doesn't appear half the time (at least in this adaptation).

Wait, what's going on again?

Anyways, the OP (I.N.G. by Iori Nomizu, Misuzu Togashi, Kaori Sadohara and Misato) and ED (Calendar by Kaori Sadohara) are classic Xebec productions - slightly hyper, OP is better than ED, but in the end, neither is a song to really shove into your music player. Save that space for some Guilty Crown. Nothing special here, let's move on.

The graphics are again, classic Xebec - the obviously Photoshop-gradient eyes that made series such as Kanokon, Ladies vs Butlers, and Softenni unique in terms of art style is back, along with the nice, smooth, and tablet-drawn cute faces that we have come to expect from them (the color palette isn't as obviously distinct as, say, Manglobe's, but it's getting there). In fact, I think this style of drawing improves on the original manga's style - the main character (an FN FNC) looks a bit too narrow and cat-like for my tastes.

And now, for the lack of plot.

WARNING: PLOT FAILURE IMMINENT

The world of Upotte!! is actually a very good one. It kills two birds with one stone - first, that of a classic slice-of-life/school-life with a hint of rom-com between the teacher and FNC; and second, that of an 'educational' series where the series tells you trivia about a subject (in this case, guns), and you say, "Oh that's cool, I didn't know that before". The world in itself also allows for creative interactions between the gun-girls than a regular school-life series would be (as evidenced by the training tournaments they had in the second half of the season [read: Counterstrike CTF]).

What's not included in those categories? Shitty action-based plots that have nothing to do with anything.

I mean, what the hell was the point of those anti-human guns appearing? Couldn't have it been wrapped up better? Why wasn't that sort of "gun mistreatment" issue brought up earlier in the series? Why does the Japanese teacher not jump into the action sooner? Why is there a prevention of actual drama due to the completely ridiculous fact that "bullets from [gun-girls] don't hurt humans permanently"? Just...why?

Oh God this is starting to look a LOT like a little yuri series we all know and love somewhat

And it's not like, you know, there wasn't an entirely independent set of school-life/rom-com developments already going on in the series that would have been perfectly fine to continue. FNC was going to confess to the teacher! Sig (SG 550) was going to confess to FNC! L85A1 was going to cutely whimper and break down again! What's wrong with just doing that instead of breaking out into a random action arc that has nothing to do with anything? 

Look, look - I do want creativity in these standard school-life series. I really do. Really really really. But this is not how to do it. I don't want random 1-2 episode miniarcs popping up and concluding the season. I want a good, realistic slice-of-life that either focuses on slice-of-life or introduces the major concluding arc and, well, makes it a concluding arc. Fuck this scattered episodic plot nonsense.

And Upotte!! in retrospect had a lot of potential too. I really like these educational series - they provide another form of entertainment other than fanservice and stupid-ass slapstick comedy. I liked Spice & Wolf and the economic morsels that it taught. I love Maoyuu Maou Yuusha and the mix of adventure/education/romance/etc. it provides. And I really liked how Upotte!! provides trivia about guns. I found the rail system for upgrading the M16 line of guns (from the A1 version to the A4 version) pretty interesting, even if I wasn't a gun junkie before. More anime/manga should aim to do this - after all, comedy, romance, and tragedy may be great in plays, but they're definitely not the only things that interest people. Get on it. 

Whoah.

But Upotte!! dragged out the boring bits a bit (like the standoff between M16 and SAKO Rk 95 Tp in the tournament) and completely fucked up the ending with that random story. The moral of this story? Xebec shouldn't try to do shit that they're not used to. Stick with the snappy fanservice. Stick with the light rom-com. Stick with the school-life with a tinge of action. That's what you're good with. If you're gonna stick deep stuff somewhere, it better have not come out from your ass. A nice teacher-student rom-com would have been perfect, but noooo...

Recommendation: Watch for the slight bits of laughter and to learn about guns in a new way - but beware of plot failures.

WEAPONS IN DISGUISE