It puts a teenager on a rocket and fires him into orbit to fight, and it never stops treating that as the most normal thing in the world. Bones animates every Earth Engine launch off Tanegashima like a genuine space program event, and the Livlaster's key-turn is the kind of ritual you start mouthing along with by episode six. Daichi, Teppei, Hana and Akari make the Midsummer's Knights feel like actual friends rather than cockpit furniture, which matters when Amara and Moco are out there harvesting human libido like it's a resource extraction contract. The catch is that the script, from the Star Driver brain trust, will happily bury you in orgone, Ego Blocks and Puck's monologuing without ever making it click. Watch it for the craft, the designs and the rainbow over Tanegashima, and let the exposition wash past.

Just before summer vacation, second-year high school student Daichi Manatsu notices an odd circular rainbow in the sky over Tanegashima. It resembles one that appeared when his father died in an unexplained accident years earlier. He travels to the island alone and becomes entangled with Globe, a secret agency formed to protect humanity from alien forces. Robotic invaders from Uranus, known as the Kill-T-Gang, aim to sap the planet's life energy. Daichi's video game skills, paired with a special weapon called the Livlaster, make him a fitting pilot for a giant robot that could be humanity's best chance. He soon gains the support of a group of committed young people, each bringing talents of their own to the fight.