Anime / Obsolete

We cannot resist.

In 2014, aliens revealed themselves to request trade with humanity. For each metric ton of limestone, they would in exchange provide a thought-controlled general-use robot known as an Exoframe. Cheaper than an aircraft, tank, or firearm, and easy enough for anyone to operate, the Exoframe spreads change throughout the world in the blink of an eye... Meanwhile, the Republic of Azania wants to utilize the tech behind Exoframes to improve quality of life throughout Africa.

However, there's a terrorist group that's taking advantage of the Exoframes^note Sometimes also known as EXOFRAMES in order to sow chaos. Their name... the Outcast Brigade.

Obsolete (stylized as OBSOLETE) is a 3D CG YouTube Original Mecha anime series created by Gen Urobuchi, with production handled by Buemon. It first premiered on 3 December 2019 via streaming on the Bandai Namco Arts YouTube channel, with six episodes released so far. A second cour of six episodes was released with the first episode by December 1, 2020.

The show has various dubs made in English, Indonesian, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish aside from Japanese.

Obsolete also has a manga adaptation, known as OBSOLETE: Hanabusa's Report, by Yoshihiro Sono. It's serialized in Kadokawa's Comic Newtype web comic site. It has concluded as of October 2021.

The official site is here.

The series had a Blu-Ray release in Japan on March 2021. Sentai Filmworks will release it in the second quarter of 2022.

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Obsolete features the following tropes:

• A Day in the Limelight: "Carhuincho" centers on Peruvian troops in Exoframes facing off against OB Exoframes in the Peruvian forests.
• The Alleged Car: For all of the awesome Black Box technology they carry, it's mentioned in the episode "Area 51" that the Exoframes given to humanity may be this by galactic standards. Michelle (the top scientist researching the Exoframes) notes that a lot of them show signs of prior wear and tear.
• All There in the Manual: The anime's official website includes:
  • A timeline of events
  • Technical specifications of Exoframes, including those appearing in actual episodes and apocryphal designs published by Hobby Japan and approved by Nitroplus.
  • The OBSOLETE RESEARCH REPORT MOOK released by Hobby Japan has Exoframe lineart and story details on what's happening on Earth post-Peddler reveal.
• Adaptation Expansion: The manga version has non-anime chapters that shows how the world is responding to the use of Exoframes from when the Peddlers revealed themselves in 2014 under "REPORT" chapters. The events are seen through the eyes of Shoichi Hanabusa, an ex-US military veteran turned investigative reporter.
• Anachronic Order: The first episode is set in 2023, when the US Marine Corps EXOFRAME Force Recon team intervenes in the border conflict between Peru and Ecuador; subsequent episodes focusing on each team member's individual backstories jump back to the mid-2010's.
• Antagonist Title:
  • Episode 1 "Outcast" refers to the mysterious Outcast Brigade, which the EXOFRAME Force Recon team encounters during their mission in South America.
  • With the reveal that Jamal is destined to become an officer in Outcast Brigade, the eponymous Episode 6 is retroactively this as well.
  • Also, episode 9, where last line tells us that Carhuincho is Zahir’s callsign
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • "Bowman" ends with the USMC detachment in Angola defeating Exoframe-equipped insurgents, at the cost of heavy casualties and leaving Bowman as the Sole Survivor of the attack. This leads to Washington acknowledging the military threat and potential of Exoframes, and Bowman's secondment to the Exoframe Force Recon unit tasked with investigating and hunting down hostile groups that operate Exoframes.
  • "Carhuincho" has Peruvian troops taken out by OB forces. This lines up with the first episode "Outcast".
  • "Santa Muerte" has the female illegal immigrant successful in sneaking into Arizona. However, her male friend had to stay back in the Mexican desert in order to fight off the Exoframes used by the cartel sicarios.
• BFG: The Peruvian Exoframe squad had Browning M2 heavy machine guns that were fixed into a mount that would fit an Exoframe's hand. This wouldn't save them as the OB operative picking them off had an even bigger gun. This is also done with OB and CSS Exoframe units, except the former uses the DShK instead.
• Black Box: Even top scientists have little or no idea about how Exoframes work and they haven't able to reverse-engineer the technology to build a completely new Earth-made Exoframe.
• Bluff the Imposter: During a demonstration of their uparmored Exoframes to Rei Miyajima, Captain Wangchuk of the Indian Army Special Warfare Brigade Ladakh Scouts demonstrates a "traditional Indian exercise" while operating an Exoframe. At the end of the episode, Wangchuk reveals to a subordinate that the exercise was actually a common Japanese calisthenic routine, and the fact that the Miyajima didn't call him out on it confirmed Wangchuk's suspicions that Miyajima was not from Japan, much less seconded by the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force as he claimed to be (with the implication he is in fact a Japanese-American, given his chronologically later involvement in EXOFRAME Force Recon, shown previously in Episode 1)
• Bulungi: The African Republic of Azania is playing a key role in the second season. "Reshep" suggests that it's next to Tanzania since it shares a land border.
• Crossover: Despite its novelty, the show has managed to get one with Armored Trooper VOTOMS, focused around an Exoframe customised to look like Chirico's custom Red Shoulder Scopedog. So far, the crossover-exclusive Exoframe has appeared in an homage to the VOTOMS opening with Obsolete characters, the Super Robot Wars X-Ω video game, and a model kit sold in the Moderoid toyline. It helps that the notorious Real Robot Genre director and VOTOMS creator Ryosuke Takahashi serves as the show's producer.
• Doomed by Canon: "Carhuincho" takes place prior to "Outcast", so Zahir would have taken out Peruvian forces before the USMC intervenes.
• Fastball Special: In "Jamal", Jamal and Kayira pull this off against a Mil Mi-24 "Crocodile" with their Exoframes; notabily, Kayira first jumps to safety before her now-abandoned Exoframe is thrown into the tail rotor of the helicopter, causing it to crash.
• Fictional Geneva Conventions: Shortly after the first Exoframes appeared in 2014, the US, EU, China and Japan entered into the Sankt Gallen Arrangement, to regulate the trade and use of Exoframes, as well as preventing them from being used as weapons of war. However, by the present day of 2023, the treaty has mostly faded into irrelevance as various conflicts in the interceding years made it clear that Exoframes were too much of a Game Changer to not be exploited (this was discussed by Bowman and the EXOFRAME Force Recon team while conducting training in Area 51 in "Area 51").
• History Repeats: At the end of "Soldier Brat", Zahir assumes command of Jamal, Kayira and the other Child Soldiers after personally executing their previous commanding officer for incompetence. The Time Skip epilogue of "Jamal" similarly ends with the titular character, now a fully-fledged officer in Outcast Brigade along with Kayira, executing a local warlord harassing another group of Child Soldiers, and subsequently recruiting the latter to their cause.
• Improvised Weapon: "Bowman" shows the first use of Exoframes in combat, at the hands of guerrilla fighters using them as war mounts while armed with assault rifles and Rocket-Propelled Grenades, or strapped with explosives for suicide charges. While all of the guerrillas are eventually eliminated, the casualty count among the Marines (including a couple of M1 Abrams tank platoons) is just obscene. Lampshaded earlier in the episode when one of Bowman's fellow Marines compares the idea of using Exoframes in such a way to "a Toyota carrying a heavy machine gun".
• Jungle Warfare: "Carhuincho" centers on jungles in the Peruvian mountains.
• Lampshade Hanging: In "Bowman", a U.S. Marine mocks the whole situation regarding the Exoframes as sounding like a typical Japanese Anime.
• LEGO Body Parts: At Area 51, after the test Exoframes were blasted by the A-10 Thunderbolt - a surviving Exoframe was able to repair simply by slapping on broken off parts from an Exoframe of a different make. This ease of repair makes it that, the best way to take down an Exoframe is to kill its driver.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In "Carhuincho", a Peruvian Exoframe soldier sees visions of Incas while looking at a Cedron bottle.
• Middle Eastern Terrorists: In "Loewner", it's the hostile group operating Exoframes as suicide bombing platforms in the Persian Gulf. It's implied that Outcast Brigade is secretly helping them.
• Mini-Mecha: The Exoframes are a little over a couple of meters tall, with operators riding a saddle rather than wearing it as powered armor.
• Mundane Utility: The manga shows that Exoframes are used in sports like football.
  • Some of the designs allow the operator to safely fish or to carry cargo better.
  • In "Area 51", the US military tested them by making the operator use them to play basketball.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Captain Wangchuk of the Ladakh Scouts is a reference to decorated Indian Army Colonel Sonam Wangchuk.
• No Place for a Warrior: After a ceasefire is declared in Sub-Saharan Africa, Zahir notes that Jamal, Kayira and the other Child Soldiers can now go back to school and lead normal lives; however, out of loyalty to their new commander for giving their life new meaning, they choose to follow him, becoming the Outcast Brigade of the present day.
• Not Rare Over There: It didn't seem like it initially from the human perspective, cheap and common limestone for high-tech Exoframes that greatly enhance labour. But it's actually the other way around, limestone is rare on many worlds (the vast majority of it on Earth is from marine life) and the Exoframes traded already had signs of wear and tear, so they're well-used cast-offs.
• Only in It for the Money: While on the verge of winning a battle against raiders attacking an oil refinery in the Persian Gulf, Cerberus Security Services receive word that their client has refused to pay for their services, so the former promptly order all their Exoframe contractors to stand down, leaving the latter to their fate.^note Some viewers who have previous PMC experience have commented that CSS officials should have taken their client to court instead of abandoning them to their fate.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: After 11 episodes of grim military sci-fi thriller, Episode 12, "Konoka Kokonoha" inexplicably depicts Magical Girl Warrior mecha pilots, whose schoolgirl characters are drawn in a traditional anime style, rather than Obsolete's realistic designs. It's only at the end of the episode that the camera pulls back and reveals that the whole thing is an in-universe anime series that Bowman's unit is watching on a laptop, clearly having nothing better to do.
• Palette Swap:
  • Despite the show having roughly fourteen different exotype types, paying close attention to their designs reveals that there are roughly five major casing types: light Exoframes^note Improvised Armed / Border Crossing, industrial, Outcast-style Exoframes^note Pakistani, Armored, Submersible, Outcast Brigade, Azanian, USMC Exoframes^note Prototype / Mass-produced, Submarine Exoframes^note Deep Sea / Russian, and other Exoframes^note Indian, Cerberus, Peruvian; VOTOMS crossover.
  • Most of their shared models can be justified: the light Exoframes' shared appearance can be explained by their low-budget status, the Submarine Exoframes need similar engineering, and the American ones are clearly an evolution of each other... But the Outcast-style Exoframes, despite seemingly being used by different groups, gives a hint on what they might have in common. Seemingly averted with the Indian / Cerberus models, which don't seem to share any common origin despite sharing the same cockpit armor — moreso with the Peruvian Exoframe, which has the Outcast-style cockpit/chest and the Cerberus armor but is clearly shown fighting against the Outcast Brigade.
• Prevent the War: The second season trailer suggests that the Outcast Brigade is trying to forment conditions for a major war with Exoframes.
• Private Military Contractors: Cerberus Security Services in Episode 4, "Loewner", in which Loewner served in.
• Protagonist Title:
  • Episodes 2 through to 6 are named after the main character of that segment, with "Bowman", "Miyajima Rei" and "Loewner" depicting the backstories of each member of EXOFRAME Force Recon.
  • An interesting variation with Episode 5's "Soldier Brat" and Episode 6's "Jamal"; as a two-parter episode, the first half suggests that the protagonist is so unlikely to survive the events of the story that he was not worth naming, while the second half establishes that Jamal has a future as a fully-fledged member of the nascent Outcast Brigade after accepting Zahir as the new commander of his squad of Child Soldiers.
• Real Robot Genre: Despite their extraterrestrial origins, the Exoframes (especially those with human after-market modifications) still require periodic maintenance, and can be damaged or destroyed with sufficient firepower.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Some viewers who watched "Bowman" were not happy to see the Marine contingent in Cariba having a Bittersweet Ending since they should've been able to take out the insurgent Exoframes. Others have pointed out that the US didn't want to adopt EXOFRAMES and it was only until their near defeat in Cariba that the US military changed their minds. Plus, they used guerrilla tactics to ambush them at unexpected places. One Marine in that episode compared the possibility of guerrillas and terrorist using EXOFRAMES to technicals, which was used by American and Western European forces only in Afghanistan and later on in Iraq.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: "Santa Muerte" has an illegal immigrant trying to sneak into Arizona alongside a coyote smuggler. However, they encounter militiamen roving the land border armed with M2 machine guns in technicals.
• Skeleton Motif: Outcast Brigade Exoframes such as Zahir's personal unit are marked with an insignia of a white skull with two red scars.
• Shown Their Work: While not shown clearly, "Bowman"'s setting in Cariba province is an oil-rich region and there has been occasions where hostile anti-government groups have demanded secession from the rest of Angola due to the abysmal poverty levels while other parts of Angola benefit from oil money.
• Too Good to Be True: In the episode "Bowman", Bowman and a fellow Marine trade jokes about how the Peddlers' offer is probably this, with them mentioning conspiracy theories about the neural link of the Exoframes being programmed to brainwash pilots. In the episode "Area 51", Michelle also mentions that a thorough inspection of the Exoframes America has purchased shows that they almost universally have some amount of prior wear and tear, making Michelle snark that maybe the Exoframes are The Alleged Car.
• Took a Level in Badass: Under Zahir's (offscreen) training, the African Child Soldiers become competent guerrilla fighters and Exoframe pilots, making use of squad tactics and their relative mobility to quickly outmaneuver and overwhelm enemy tanks and helicopter gunships while suffering virtually no casualties at the beginning of Episode 6, in contrast to their status as Red Shirts subjected to a Mook Horror Show by the very same enemies in Episode 5.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Humanity gets the better end of this; limestone is rare across the galaxy, but on Earth it's cheap as dirt (it averages about forty dollars per ton). Even if the Exoframes are The Alleged Car by galactic standards, it's still an incredible deal.

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