#217: Jinki:Extend (2005)

 

Studio: Feel

Director: Masahiko Murata

Screenplay: Hiroyuki Kawasaki, Hitomi Amamiya and Naruhisa Arakawa

Based on a manga by Sirou Tunasima

Voice Cast: Fumiko Orikasa as Aoba Tsuzaki; Takuma Takewaka as Ryouhei Ogawara; Tomoko Kawakami as Elnie Tachibana; Yuuna Inamura as Akao Hiiragi; Ai Nonaka as Satsuki Kawamoto; Junko Minagawa as Mel J Vanette; Rokurō Naya as Genta Ogawara; Satsuki Yukino as Shizuka Tsuzaki; Yoshino Takamori as Minami Kōsaka; Yukari Tamura as Rui Kōsaka

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

[Contains Major Plot Spoilers]

When I was getting into anime in the early 2000s, there were a spate of mecha shows from this time, usually from the defunct ADV Films, that we got on DVD in the United Kingdom, and with its front of the first cover of the first volume of two girls, one with black hair and the other with blonde hair, there is a telling sense that this one was trying to appeal more on these characters then the robots, something which became apparent with the titles I have finally reached only nowadays. These two are important to have on the cover however as they are central to this show's plot. The first scene of the first episode presents these two, without anyone batting an eye at teenagers piloting sophisticated robots, fighting each other in "Jinki" war robots in the centre of Tokyo. With the likes of the Roppongi district already destroyed in the conflict, the blonde girl, drawn as a more "moe" cute figure, is the villain of the conflict if clearly brainwashed, with one of the virtues of anime and manga being how they can with ease depict a character losing their sanity or moral compass with just the eyes, rather than trying to emote it as an actor in live action with a varying quality per actor. The other is the heroine, who is completely outmatched, with the series starting in media res with the intention of skipping back to before this conflict transpired. One would presume it would be when they are together in the same training camp as friends if you had no prior knowledge to this series, maybe with the pair as close as sisters, maybe with a tragic back-story involved between them. 

This is not what you will get, and the structure of Jinki: Extend is complicated, trying to adapt the manga in only thirteen episodes, and in mind that it covers two different parts of the franchise in one tale. The figure with black hair, Aoba, comes from the first of Sirou Tunasima's manga Jinki (2000-1), of her story within the country of Venezuela that opens this series, whilst the blonde girl named Akao was the central figure of Jinki: Extend (2002-6), the sequel manga, which covers the segments for this TV series with her within Japan later on in the timeline. Jinki:Extend, barring some questionable attempts at edginess, is a generic mecha show which has virtues but whose greatest issue is that it did not have the time, nor the pacing, to tell its story, an attempt to cram two parts of the manga, with its two leads, into one series with new plot changes and the issue that Aoba wil be missing for episodes, which is significant for a thirteen part series.

Jinki:Extend's  biggest issue right from the gate is that thirteen episodes are deceptively long; this length should be long enough to tell tales like the one in this series, but like other anime I have seen, this barely has enough time in reality to tell the version it wants properly. It has, because of its source material, to attempt a juggle game of two different time periods at once, but with an instant issue that you will not get context for when this series is set even if eventually reached, not giving you the scale of the world and the conflict. I have mentioned Aoba's tale is set within Venezuela, but unless you recognise the locations replicated, you get no context for this initially, nor that this is actually set in 1988 when she is introduced, with Aoba shipped off from Japan to a Jinki defence base against her will. Without the context fully established of what they are against, this show has to struggle with making its narrative, a basic one of an evil group of Jinki pilots attacking around the world, work or that this is also an alternative history narrative, where this is going into the early nineties by its end with giant robots as destructive military forces.

It has a plot in this early act to work on, even if it kept the history and context vague, that Aoba finds herself in a scenario with an almost all-male team at the defence base she comes to befriend, but a huge emotional strife with Shizuka, her mother who she does not even call "mother" and she has no emotional connection, with Shizuka herself showing none back either and with the desire instead to turn her daughter into a killing machine. Nonetheless, Aoba shows a superhuman ability, and enthusiasm, to pilot one of the Jinki, and one of the best moments of this entire series is that it takes the time to deal with this, as it needs to be honed out of the un-athletic girl who was more interested in plastic model kits before.

The lack of context, barring a few huge exposition dumps, does not help Jinki:Extend at all though, and considering the thirteenth episode was never released until OVA, this does feel like a troubled production or one which struggled to work out its world. The blonde haired girl, Akao, is introduced in the Venezuela plotline, but exists as a primary character more in the part set three years later back in Japan. A more advanced version of the Jinki defence force exists by this point, with a whole group of girls and women piloting multiple Jinki, who were introduced in Venezuela. With no memories from before those three years previous, Akao also has superhuman powers of her own which are of interest to an evil group, one behind a series of "Lost Life Scenarios" where they indiscriminately attack major locations globally. This is where the show also does show some more adult flecks to its plumage, as whilst the main villain is a rather bland masked man, his back-story of an emotionally damaged person whose goals are for pure nihilistic destruction, interested in perverting Akao from a girl with an emotional block to even pilot a robot into one who will destroy whole cities, is definitely interesting as a character touch. The plot gets into clones, with Akao connected to a woman whose decision to love another turned this villain into something desiring from then on to destroy everything with a band of even more nastier customers.

There is not a lot of time to really get into this cast with a two timeline narrative to consider, especially as the other female dominated crew of Jinki pilots do not get a lot to work with. Akao is pretty bland in truth, but considering her narrative as a figure literally created from the death of another, she could have grown. The lack of Aoba throughout halfway through is even more an issue, as she starts off as a likable figure, one who literally has to get physically competent enough to pilot a mech, and grow as a person with her own emotional barriers with her biological mother something the show tries to close out fully by the final episode. The episode entirely about Aoba trying to improve her stamina, of everyone at the Venezuelan base helping her covertly train to improve her health, in the food they make her to even a special robot training machine powered by exercise bicycle, is the best episode of the series because it is entirely about giving a character some growth. It also feels the one distinct moment for this show as a mech narrative as the one time this aspect of this genre has been examined. Her lack of involvement for a key chunk of the Japanese narrative, especially when she is aware of the machinations of the villains in one brazenly monologuing about it to her, even breaks logic let alone causes a huge issue of the most well invested into character not being available.

There are far too many characters and plot points to cram into this series, the story finished on the twelfth episode quickly whilst episode thirteen, an epilogue for the DVD/OVA era, is an epilogue for the characters themselves. Even then as well, whilst I have softened to this program considerably from my first hostile reactions a time ago, Jinki:Extend has other disadvantages. It does not get a chance to stick out as a mech show. It is a show that has Masami Obari, a well known director and a highly well regarded mech animator, as a collaborator, and has Kenji Kawai, Mamoru Oshii's regular composer, of all people scoring the series, but only little pieces of the drama stick out. Also despite a large female cast dominating the show, this has a few moments which cross a line, its attempt to be adult not working or a work being split into also trying to sell for horny male viewers, which comes off as really problematic for a show that, aside from those moments, barely makes sense for the tone.

One henchmen is explicitly a molester, with chameleonic shape shifting abilities, with a thing for little sister fantasies brought in, who targets one pilot by posing as her older brother, and Shizuka, as in the manga but in a very different context, is a rape victim, with her relationship to Aoba as the child of this complicated as a result. Hers is a really dicey plot, as she until episode twelve, when her humanity and conflict is brought in, is unredeemable, which as a rape victim, when that abruptly is introduced into her back-story, makes it really problematic. The scene, abruptly transpiring, involves the main villain, an act in his despair over not being with the woman he loved, which is far more problematic in how that just happens as a scene, even if thankfully off-screen, and in how she is, despite being the villain, clearly for a character a mentally damaged person alienated from her own child and with Stockholm Syndrome in terms of why she even stays with the perpetrator on his side. It gets weirder when a clone named Lady Shiva is brought in, a pure id of evil and Aoba's chirpy but sadistic doppelganger, with this plot back story one of the attempts at being mature which undercuts Jinki:Extend so badly, especially when this wants to riff in the era of mecha show after Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), especially in Aoba and her mother's distance as a dynamic evoking the lead Shinji and his father (and villain) Gendo from the famous series.

Fan service creeps in slowly, for a show where it feels tonally abrupt to include in. Aoba is caught with her pants down a couple of times. Eyes roll. There is how Lady Shiva, a psychopathic clone who references Stendhal's The Red and the Black at one point, kisses even her own technical daughter, which feels like cheap and questionable fan service, and part of a dubious aspect alongside having her kiss any girl in her vicinity, among a group with that pervert Jinki pilot with a little sister interest, or the abrupt moment one briefly seen is dunking Akao into strange liquid which partially dissolves her pilot's suit. This content is the part of Jinki:Extend which I do hate, in a show which is okay and has its moments. It feels so at odds with the show it is part of, one which wants to be serious but really does not have the time to try at this, and compensating with content which has not aged well at all.

It is a show which feels at a point of trying to sell this genre to a different audience, how Godannar (2003-4) and Gravion (2002-4) have a lot of fan service in terms of titillation. You can see this, in a less creepy way, when discrete under the sheets, two female character have horseplay between themselves admiring how much they have "changed", but for the most part, this is a show with a muted tone, where the Jinki for their unnatural laser cannons and "Phantom" abilities are military machines in a grounded context. It is a series where the show redeems itself in that, when allowed to breath, the character when they are not in combat situation and bonding are a likable bunch, if really at odds to the fan service and the more problematic content.

A lot of the show does suffer in having little time to establish these figures, a series which could have benefitted from twenty six episodes. Something as simple as Aoba being a plastic robot model enthusiast, clearly for the viewers, is still a character trait that could have still found its way throughout the series, but only comes up in the bonus thirteenth episode. The character of Mel J Vanette, who is fascinating as a British character from Nottingham in England of all places, does feel like another figure of a cast that is excessively large yet takes up a whole episode for a subplot that was unnecessary. Again a character designed for fan service, who has a huge chest and a costume design that would need strategic use of tape, she is again another character who would have been interesting if fleshed out, beyond the adult loner who wears shades, in how she is a rouge, out for revenge in a Jinki she managed to steal, who joins the heroes out of her own morality.  

If this is quite a negative review at times, only the problematic content which cannot be ignored is truly bad. Jinki:Extend when it can breathe does have moments I liked, mostly all the character interaction rather than the actual narrative with the giant robots. When it works - when Aoba has her training episode, when the characters are allowed to stand out, even that the plot is centred on someone having his heart broken to the point he will massacre hundreds - it does work. The twelfth episode, with the huge hurdles to navigate in a story that was not fully covered, does well with what it can, even managing a hard turn, considering how the character of Shizuka is deeply problematic in what you learn of her, in having her have a layer brought out of complexity even if the show has clearly oversimplified and botched material it could not properly tackle without being problematic. The bonus thirteenth episode is also good, actually good  - everyone, even briefly, gets a moment, and this even has world building in how one, to her disappointment, desiring to turn the Jinki into civilian tools will have the understandable hurdle of the populous just viewing them as killing machines. It is sweet in having Aoba develop back-story from photos and unprocessed photo film found in her old home, memories once lost rediscovered. It is legitimately funny when one girl, too young to drink, still pretends to be drunk for fun with the two adults who are, one of the later fixated on old technology is firing off twenty year old fireworks that still work in a back garden. The productions' flaws do not help the show, including the attempts at plotting which add obscurity to the show, and also the tasteless moments in what the production attempted to include, but this bonus episode, despite that being what it is, manages to be a good epilogue for what is in all truth merely average to okay with deep flaws.

Studio Feel's first television show was this, so that probably explains the show's many flaws. With exceptions, they have focused more on fan service shows like Bikini Warriors (2015), or comedies like Please Tell Me! Galko-chan (2016). The Jinki franchise would continue in various forms even decades later, though it is telling to its flaws that, rebooted with visual novels from Jinki: EXTEND Re:VISION (2010), they were adult visual novels with sexual content, the PS4 and Nintendo Switch releases of the PC game Jinki Resurrection (2020) removing this content. Maybe you could have attempted a version of this world with erotic content, but in mind Jinki:Extend had issues just telling a mech drama in pacing, and that a lot of its edgier content was woefully out-of-place, there is the uncomfortable sense, alongside most of the female cast being teenagers, that this franchise has gone the wrong direction with its potential unless they really managed something of note.

 In the 2000s titles I have seen, it was clear the mecha genre was trying to find audiences in a variety of ways, including the bluntest in sex selling. The strange thing is that, from its tone to its anthemic end song Mirai to yuu na no kotae by angela, Jinki:Extend among them was a more conventional mecha narrative which was more serious in tone among those I have seen. It feels a work that was pulled in directions which made no sense, where its moments of being silly should have stuck to one other memorable sequence, robot pilot training involving dribbling a soccer ball away from another robot, than some of the stuff which, viewed now, does require a trigger warning or a lot of sighs to deal with. Those moments are abrupt in a show, for most its length, alien to them, which is strange as well, for a mech narrative set in the late eighties into the nineties, with an alternative history back-story left abandoned on the table alongside its character dramas which would have been compelling. The more I have learnt of what Jinki:Extend came from, the more the virtues stand out as much as clearly the wrong priorities were focused from even from the beginning, resulting in the mess onscreen. I once reacted negatively to this show, in terms of being average, and whilst the flaws are more striking now with new eyes, the virtues in their pieces are there too.