Gasaraki is the story of one young man by the name of Yushiro Gowa, who is a "Kai". I can't tell you exactly what a "kai" is, that would be a spoiler. Any ways, Yushiro's family is the owner of a very powerful and influential company that is secretly developing bipedal weapons platforms called Tactical Armors (AKA Mechs/Giant Robots). But, these arn't just any mechs, these mechs don't use motors for propulsion, they use an artificial muscle tissue known as "mile one". And to add to things, Yushiro's family seems rather distant and cold towards him, all except his little sister.

To quote the back of the first volume of the series:

"The apocalypse is now!

It's hard to give a synopsis of Gasaraki, it's a rather complex series. So I'll just say when you watch the series, it'll seem A LOT different from anything your thinking about it right now.

Ok, in premise, the story sounds really great to me. Unfortunately, Gasaraki unfolds sooooo slowly, so complexly, and leaves so many unanswered questions, that it falls short of being a great anime, and falls back to being average, or maybe slightly above average at best.

Now for any of you action junkies out there who read the synopsis from the back of the first volume case and got all excited.. well.. I'd hate to break it to you, but your in for disappointment. There arn't that many battle scenes, and seeing as how the creators were trying to make the mechs seem more believable, they're not all that agile, which leads to slow battles. So you'd probably wanna invest your cash in something with a little more bang.

Into the lovey dovey side of things? Well, your in for disappointment to. There isn't much in the way of lovey dovey in this series at all. Heck, theres only one "relationship" (and i use that word losely) in the entire series.

Into complex storys that you have to watch six or seven times, pick at every little detail, and draw up character relation webs just to keep things straight? Then theres something here for you. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that Gasaraki has a rather intriguing story. But, you may find yourself disappointed that some things just arn't explained very well, or at all in some cases.

While the animation is good. It's far from stellar. I can remember a few scenes that deserved an 8, and others that deserve a 5, but overall, it just wasn't anything that impressive. The character designs leave a lot to be desired (except in a few cases) and the animation gets a little choppy every now and then.

The English voice acting was... ok. nothing impressive. just ok. Most of the characters just come off as bland though, and there are a few scenes that will make you cringe. However, a few good scenes manage to drag the score up to a 6.

In terms of the Japanese audio (please note, i haven't watched the entire series in Japanese yet.) is much better then the English. Characters express more emotion, and aren't as bland. .

Music - 6/10

I like the opening and ending themes, in fact, scratch that, i love the opening theme. Unfortunately, the music in the series is, well, just average. nothing really special. Nothing really memorable in the way of music at all.

The packaging is nice. colorful DVD cases, with nice artwork. The DVDs themselves have no artwork on them however, but still look cool. The box for the boxset is cool to, It makes a fine addition to any anime fans shelves (even without the DVDs). The only problems i really had with the packaging were #1. It's really hard to pull the 8th DVD out of the box. And #2. Some of the artwork displayed on the cases isn't quite as good as it could have been.

DVD Content - 4/10

Ack. Get ready for poorly designed menus, and a lack of extras. Seriously, i think throughout the 8 DVDs, there were a few video interviews (maybe, but maybe I'm thinking of something else), a glossary, and some text interviews (well, half of them anyways, they give you a URL and tell you to visit it for the other half, which just pissed me off.) As for the DVD menus, well, they leave a lot to be desired. Really, i expected more from ADV.

I bought the 8 DVD boxset of Gasaraki on eBay for about $35-40. I don't regret it, as i personally enjoyed the series. But I can't just overlook it's flaws and recommend it to people when i know they probably won't enjoy it.