Tousouchuu: Great Mission 382d5l

From Chronus Inc comes a show based on the live action game from 2004. In a race against time, celebrity contestants try to outmaneuver black-clad hunters for a chance to win a cash prize. The future has the human race living on the moon but the rules of the game still apply. We follow a group of eccentric characters as they compete for the prize.

I enjoy the humor and skill set of the group of celebrity contestants as they work together or not to win the prize. The voice actors are all on point with good-natured banter while avoiding the hunters. The animation style is ... reminiscent of shows from the 1990's colorful and consistent, the CGI 2d and 3d blend in well for this style of show. There is a under current of life on the moon that is a slow burn for the reveal. I appreciate that there is no excessive bloody violence nor fan service in the show.

I recommend this show if you like straightforward action that is PG rated, or you are feeling nostalgic for shows from the 90's with a better budget for animation. Also a big fan of Racoon Dog Man he deserves his own series.

An anime about a glorified game of Tag with sidequests broadcasted on TV. This anime went under the radar on its release because of its "old" artstyle, subpar animation, inaccessibility and poor marketing. "Run for Money: Great Mission" is inspired by the japanese reality competition show of the same name, which not many may have watched (myself included). This, however, is a different experience from the original show. Watching the anime I felt nostalgic, for this is the kind of show/cartoon I'd watch on TV as a child, although after finishing the whole thing, I can't recommend others to go through with it.

The music is ... one of the strongest points the anime has. Each theme is distinct and comfortable to hear. I'd love to explain it better and list some examples, but the OST is simply impossible to find online. There is a good mix for hype instrumentals and range, including some character-exclusive music (like Sawyer's theme, or Sigma's). The Hunters have their own sound design, making them feel like a proper disruption to the game's flow.

The visual aspect of the series is...weird. The characters give this 90's vibe that evokes that previously mentioned nostalgia, with colorful designs that blend urban clothes and some "action" elements like shoulderpads or spikes. The animation is not a strong point, which sadly harms this fast-paced action series. The Hunters are animated with shameless CGI, which in my opinion is a risky but endearing choice, though many people would feel weirded out by it. Even if you dig the style, it is nothing to write home about.

Talking about the characters in general is incredibly frustrating. Some characters are charming and with lots of cool interactions, mostly main characters like Luna, Sigma, Penta or Hal. But MOST of the cast is, simply put, filler. Each game needs to have aprox. 16 participants, and some characters are taken out or changed to add variety, but none of those add anything of interest to the game. Some minor characters have this specific niche that makes them extremely useful in One scenario before being caught. Others do simply nothing.

The "Great Missions" are the sidequests that add a backstory to each stage's setting. For example, the first stage takes place in Shibuya, with the missions themed around the players fighting a kaiju-like monster like godzilla. These Missions take protagonism above the "Run for Money" tag game, involving NPCs and constant secondary challenges that the players typically participate in. They are...ok-ish. It is apparent the missions distract from the "main event" that was supposed to be the Hunters catching the Players. However, they fulfill a nice role of creating a sub-plot inside these games that would, otherwise, be fairly straightforward. As the series progresses, there are some Great Missions that shake the formula a little, or that raise the stakes a lot. A nice precedent the series leaves early on is that not ALL great missions will be cleared, so it leaves some room for unpredictability. Of course, the missions involve NPCs that can't create deep, lasting stories outside their own stage, so it also feels pretty inconsequential.

The narrative of the anime as a whole is bittersweet. I'll drop a SPOILER WARNING HERE in case you want to jump in blindly. We get a cute, endearing relationship between Sawyer and Hal living in a Moon Colony, whose environment is contaminated, creating this disease that the brothers want to overcome by living in a nicer place. There is forshadowing dropped about other characters, and about the game itself. My opinion, as someone who has watched all 97 episodes, is that it's delivery is frustrating. The story comes to a halt whenever a Run for Money game starts, and whenever it moves in an unexpected direction, it tends to go nowhere. The second half of the series introduces several plot points that raise the stakes and creates interest, but they are either short-lived or not used properly. The last stage specially has a non-sensical premise only for the sake of using all the forshadowing the anime delivered.

My final thoughts are a mess. On one side, I'll it I enjoyed watching it. I got emotional once or twice, getting actually invested whenever the story took a sudden turn, slowly enjoying the journey. On the other, I also it I wanted to drop it once or twice, and losing momentum made it hard to come back to it. Some stages felt eternal and with little to no sauce to it. I have additional notes and comments in my list, if you are still interested on it. I honestly believe this is the kind of show a kid would watch while having lunch after coming home from class. And maybe that's all it was meant to be.

Run Protag-kun Run!

Based on a popular Japanese game show where contestants run away from things for money, Run For Money: The Great Mission had a fun premise going for it. Instead, what we got was another low-quality dystopian future anime about some guy living on the moon trying to save his sick little brother by entering Run For Money and winning the prize money so he can afford to pay for the medicine.

It is not devoid of fun, however. I enjoyed the voice acting, the Agent Smith androids chasing the contestants were fun, and there were some tense moments which I enjoyed, but, I mean, ... just look at the show. The art and backgrounds are not well animated making it extremely awkward to watch. Couple that with the unnecessarily basic story and quirky yet ultimately bland characters, and you've got an anime that's just kind of crappy. You might as well find and watch the actual game show it's based on.

This is a Toei Animation anime, and as we all know, it is morally and ethically okay to pirate the shit out of Toei Animation's catalogue of anime, but you might be better off finding something better to pirate that lives up to its premise and sticks the landing.

3/10 Wasted Potential.