Series about humans and/or mythical beings wielding magical power to fight against their enemies or go about their everyday lives is not so uncommon in the anime industry nowadays. Helping set Unbreakable Machine Doll apart in the market is that it takes place in an alternate reality where humans often spend their time on the side-lines during battle – using special dolls or “automatons” to fight for them in their place. Also serving as (often) faithful companions to their masters, these dolls are not limited in their appearance – with some being more humanoid in design while others closely resemble that of an animal or mythical creature.
Unbreakable Machine Doll follows one such “puppeteer” by the name Raishin Akabane, alongside his romantically-attached doll Yaya. Following an incident several years prior, Raishin enrolls in the esteemed Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart in Liverpool, with hopes of extracting revenge against the school’s most powerful puppeteer – Magnus. The only way to accomplish this goal is to face off against him in the Walpurgis Night festival, where the school’s top 100 students duke it out until only one remains to claim the legendary title of ‘Wiseman’. However, as the school’s second last student in terms of rank, Raishin and Yaya must first work towards getting their names in the Top 100 and set their revenge plan into motion.
Not a Series That One Might Expect at First Glance
Like a growing number of anime series released and sometimes even dubbed in the English market nowadays, I consider Unbreakable Machine Doll to be a “stepping-stone” anime. Like other titles such as Kamisama Dolls, The Severing Crime Edge and Rozen Maiden Zuruckspulen, these are series which are neither completed in the one season nor can they provide at least a satisfactory conclusion should they be discontinued. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially in Japan where there are other mediums such as the source manga or light novel to work with. However in an English speaking market where there are more manga and light novel series than publishers available to effectively localise/publish them all, there is a risk that viewers of these anime will never receive a full experience if there are never additional seasons commissioned from them.
I mention this in length because the first season comes across as little more than three intriguing short stories of four episodes each, none of which come close to showing Raishin Akabane going up against Magnus. Instead, these chapters follow the lead duo as they begin settling into their new school life (With some assistance from Rank #6 Charlotte Belew and her automaton Sigmund), working their way into the Top 100 and the character-oriented events which immediately followed the beginning of the tournament. As the contest itself isn’t even 20% complete by the time all 12 episodes end, there is a lot more room for the story of Unbreakable Machine Doll to grow and lead to its final showdown. I honestly doubt that even a 26-episode season could result in an adequate conclusion without cutting out too much – especially considering the original light novel series is at 14 volumes and counting.
Solid Plot and Character Development
Although a lot of world-building and character development remains before I could call myself “satisfied” with the story being told, all three arcs were genuinely interesting and distinct from one another. While I will not delve too much into the specifics of each arc, each of these maintained a good balance between using human characters and incorporating the concepts behind the automatons / the world based around their use. Suiting its MA15+ rating (Albeit being listed for “Strong animated nudity”), the story proved to be surprisingly dark and rich with content and did not attempt to just be another fanservice-laden tale. Arc #2, in particular, proved to be my favourite, posing questions about the morality and ethics surrounding the creation/research of new automatons and their effective use by a puppeteer.
While there is still a lot of ground to cover with the development of both Raishin and Yaya, the character development in Unbreakable Machine Doll was more than satisfactory. Small peeks into Raishin’s past left me intrigued, while other characters including Charlotte and the sibling duo of Loki / Frey also proved interesting. Other characters were just there when needed and would need more development to be considered anything more than minor characters in my opinion – including Irori and Komurasaki – both of whom appear alongside Yaya in the ending sequence.
Visually Average but Some Nice Action Scenes!
The overall visual quality in Unbreakable Machine Doll comes across as average at best, with decently (although not elaborately) detailed character designs and some nice locales which suit the series’ British setting. That being said, the animation quality tended to improve considerably during the numerous fast-paced action scenes which were present throughout the series.
Similar to series such as Black Butler, Funimation’s newly commissioned English dub of Unbreakable Machine Doll lets people know almost immediately that the series takes place in the United Kingdom. Kristin McCollum, Kristin Sutton and David Wald most prominently maintain distinct accents as Kimberley, Charlotte and Sigmund respectively. Other notable voice actors/actresses working on Unbreakable Machine Doll include Clifford Chapin as Raishin, Bryn Apprill as Yaya, Chris Burnett as Loki and Lindsay Seidel as Frey. Given the authenticity it loaned to the setting, I personally preferred the English dub. However, the Japanese dub is also available to cater to individual preferences.
FUNimation Entertainment Deliver Sizable Batch of Extra Content
As I have come to expect from most anime releases from FUNimation Entertainment in recent years, Unbreakable Machine Doll comes with a nice collection of on-disc extras to enjoy after you have watched the series.
These extras include audio commentary for select episodes, a set of six “mini-OVA’s” which have been dubbed into English, promotional videos, a US trailer, Clean OP/ED sequences, a “Pixel Art” version of the closing song and trailers for an assortment of series. Although this will very likely differ in Madman Entertainment’s DVD release of this show, the Blu-ray release includes trailers for: Space Dandy, .hack//Sign, Nobunagun, High School DxD New, Noir and FUNimation.com.
Unbreakable Machine Doll Series I Would Like to See More From
Although this season alone could hardly be considered an all-encompassing experience by itself, Unbreakable Machine Doll has laid ample groundwork for future development in later seasons. Although battling dolls in a series is not a completely new concept, the ideas and world-building that went into this series delivered an overall intriguing tale that I would like to see more from in the future. I would be quite disappointed if nothing more came from this anime adaptation.
