Promare

You may not know Hiroyuki Imaishi’s name from a glance, but if you’ve paid attention to any mecha or action-oriented anime released in the past two decades, you most certainly know his work. The 47-year-old veteran behind 2016’s Space Patrol Luluco, 2013’s Kill La Kill and, most famously, 2007’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Imaishi has established himself over his nearly 25-year career as one of the preeminent directors of action anime alive today. Known for his anarchic art style, eccentric premises and hot-blooded heroes with way more courage than common sense—harkening to the “Super Robot” action series of the late ’70s and early ’80s—Imaishi is your man for gorgeous anime with big explosions and big emotions.
Promare, his first feature in over 15 years and the first film from his Studio Trigger, as well as his third collaboration with screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima, does little if anything to buck that trend. Galo Thymos, a brash, likable and frankly very stupid young man whose life motto is, and I quote, “balls to the wall,” is our protagonist. Galo is a rookie firefighter of the Burning Rescue squad, a high-tech team of mech suit-clad rescue workers tasked with fighting the Mad Burnish terrorist organization made up of humans with destructive pyrotelekinetic abilities. In the wake of capturing Lio Fotia, the leader of Mad Burnish, Galo sets out to discover the origins behind the Burnish terrorists’ abilities and the shadowy malefactors who seek to exploit those powers for their own ends.
If there’s one aspect of the film where Promare distinguishes itself, it’s with its art style. Rich in brilliant blue and fuschia tones, crisp CG-rendered action sequences and clever callback visual gags like bold-type, screen-eclipsing title cards (à la Kill La Kill), Promare is the best-looking anime to come out of Studio Trigger to date and quite honestly, could give 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse a run for its money in terms of the sheer density of visual stimuli displayed on screen.