Rideback

Usually I write a review the moment I finish something, but it's been a couple of days since I watched this and it was so mid I don't know what to write lmao. I was really in the mood to watch something kind of mecha-y with your usual political intrigue sub story and I thought this anime wouldn't disappoint.

The plot follows a university student, Rin. She's a former ballet dancer that quit because of an injury. The world is, funnily enough, set in 2025, a near future in which some kind of an organization took over the whole world - but for the most part daily life remains the same. There's something in this anime I really love to see in most media set in the near future, tech predictions. Phones are extremely compact and tiny, by which we can date the creation of the light novel to an era when phones were getting smaller and smaller. All of the phones look akin to the Haier P7, but they have a high tech screen you can pull out if you want to watch bigger stuff. I love this prediction, it really stuck with me because I do remember the time when everyone was saying and panicking "the phones are just gonna keep getting smaller!!!!!".

Rin finds herself looking for an activity to join and stumbles upon a workshop looking place with a weird motorbike. These weird bikes are called "ridebacks" and they look like a motorbike had a child with a small mecha. They have hands, and they can drive in a bike looking form, or their wheels can stand side by side as if they're legs. Rin found out that she has a knack for driving these ridebacks due to her being a former dancer, she understands physics well and has some kind of an innate ability to control a rideback well. Rin seems to have found herself a group of people to hang out with and a new hobby to enjoy.

Since the anime is so short, it really speeds through (pun not intended) the plot too much, way too much. In like one of the first 3 episodes we have a race, and that's where the club activity part of this anime kind of stops and we immediately get thrown in the political intrigue part of the story. Rin basically gets branded as a terrorist by episode 4 or something, and the rest of the episodes are just spent on various shenanigans regarding that. I think there was a big lack of friends being friends, and of.. well.. actual rideback driving and culture. We don't really get a good enough look into these things, they could've just as well been normal bikes for all we care.

The characters suffer from the "I'm going to do a REALLY dumb thing which will definitely have horrible consequences for everyone" thing, and it gets a bit frustrating... because it's these choices that move the plot along. Despite that, Rin was a likeable.. figure. She's very quiet and humble, almost to the point of seeming like pure cardboard Mary Sue. But, and I don't necessarily think this was on purpose, she doesn't give a shit about literally anyone in the story. She's so obsessed with this Rideback thing she'll gladly be branded a terrorist just to feel the adrenaline rush course through her veins, and she'll do it in her bland white dress and sandals. And she'll do it again and again. And honestly, good for her... Although we definitely spend too much time on lingering shots of her spinning and spinning on that damn thing.

Some other nice things about this anime was the lack of in your face fanservice, there was an ever so slightly short pantyshot in the first episode that's easy to miss and a few questionable fashion choices by the token sexy lady characters, but nothing is really obnoxious. I feel like this anime had really decent female characters too, the journalist lady and the other best rideback driver that's also a woman, and also that one army intelligence woman as well. Usually you don't get to see that in political intrigues with racing. It's just that, the story was so quick we didn't have enough time to develop anyone. Sometimes short anime can be such a hit, yet sometimes it's such a rushed job I don't even remember anyone's name.

Oh and despite this anime being made in 2009, I feel like cgi doesn't look any better or worse than most cgi in modern anime, what's up with anime cgi being so consistent in its lack of quality lmao.

All in all, I wouldn't really go around recommending this anime. It feels like you miss out on nothing by not watching it, it's neither here nor there. It had a lot of potential with a cool premise, but it's not gripping enough to be worthwhile. I honestly don't even know why I finished it! I don't usually rate stuff but this was a 5/10 if I've ever seen one.