In terms of plot, MJP is admittedly not very ambitious. Aliens trying to invade Earth, humans fight back, a few robots are the key to resisting them, we win in the end, and there's no massive plot twists or shocking moments along the way. And you know what? That's perfectly fine in my book. Because MJP's staff put their effort into making a story with a bunch of really fun characters interacting with each other and made the heroes' growth as a team one of the important plot threads. A lot of times, mecha series will have a "team building" episode wherein inexplicably everyone's teamwork is bad and they have to learn to respect everyone else even though previously and afterwards it's never a problem again. MJP makes the team gradually work with this, and early episodes involve a lot of plans going to hell for one reason or another.
And yes, there's the dreaded Hiraiface, but it's less of a pressing matter in this case because the series allows for much more cartoony expressions, letting people be much more emotive as a result. The mecha fights are also pretty awesome, featuring long exchanges with people fighting onscreen. You don't get the sense they're just recycling lots of stock footage. Admittedly sometimes you can get the sense there's almost TOO much happening in the fights and it's hard to keep track of every little detail, but eh, sacrifices.
Compared to Valvrave and Gargantia -the other two series that came out in 2013- there's absolutely no contest which is the best of the three. Valvrave tried extremely hard to be edgy and be chock full of shocking moments even when they made no sense, while Gargantia had a fun slice-of-unusual-life premise but was undermined by inconsistent characterization midway through the story and a shift in plot that wasn't necessary. MJP's conflict is established in the first episode and sticks with it as we see just how far Team Rabbits goes. The story isn't excessively dark in spite of all the offscreen casualties, but the comedy never feels forced either... instead it just feels natural that it would come about on account of all the disfunctional characters featured.
Manga Truly Majestic
In terms of plot, MJP is admittedly not very ambitious. Aliens trying to invade Earth, humans fight back, a few robots are the key to resisting them, we win in the end, and there's no massive plot twists or shocking moments along the way. And you know what? That's perfectly fine in my book. Because MJP's staff put their effort into making a story with a bunch of really fun characters interacting with each other and made the heroes' growth as a team one of the important plot threads. A lot of times, mecha series will have a "team building" episode wherein inexplicably everyone's teamwork is bad and they have to learn to respect everyone else even though previously and afterwards it's never a problem again. MJP makes the team gradually work with this, and early episodes involve a lot of plans going to hell for one reason or another.
And yes, there's the dreaded Hiraiface, but it's less of a pressing matter in this case because the series allows for much more cartoony expressions, letting people be much more emotive as a result. The mecha fights are also pretty awesome, featuring long exchanges with people fighting onscreen. You don't get the sense they're just recycling lots of stock footage. Admittedly sometimes you can get the sense there's almost TOO much happening in the fights and it's hard to keep track of every little detail, but eh, sacrifices.
Compared to Valvrave and Gargantia -the other two series that came out in 2013- there's absolutely no contest which is the best of the three. Valvrave tried extremely hard to be edgy and be chock full of shocking moments even when they made no sense, while Gargantia had a fun slice-of-unusual-life premise but was undermined by inconsistent characterization midway through the story and a shift in plot that wasn't necessary. MJP's conflict is established in the first episode and sticks with it as we see just how far Team Rabbits goes. The story isn't excessively dark in spite of all the offscreen casualties, but the comedy never feels forced either... instead it just feels natural that it would come about on account of all the disfunctional characters featured.
Give it a look, it's worth it.