As a whole, Jinki Extend wasn’t exactly what I would call a first class anime show. The story started out on a strong note and then started to go downhill halfway through the series. A lot of that has to do with the producers’ catastrophic attempt to cram in two different storylines (the Aoba story and the Akao story) in one 12 episode series. This meant that a lot of details and potential character development were lost along the way and the lame rushed ending says it all. It makes you wonder why people decided to watch this show when it first aired instead of watching Starship Operators which was airing at the same time.
The show had a rather exciting fast paced ending song but I did find the parts where the singer stressed her voice rather annoying. The animation quality was also more or less high. The real redeeming feature about the show, however, was its cast of characters. Most of them were interesting to say the least, even the bad guys. While Aoba and Rui were some of my favourites; Aoba for her strong will and determination and Rui for her no nonsense attitude, her jealousy of Aoba on the outside and her fondness of Aoba on the inside.
The real star of the show as far as I’m concerned is, however, Kousaka Minami, Rui’s foster mother. I knew I was going to like her character from the moment she was introduced. She plays the mother figure and effective leader of the young pilots in the show. Her cheerful attitude is quite amusing and may at times make her look like an idiot (something which Rui keeps taunting her about) but that is just a clever act. She learned to behave that way in order to live beyond all the hard times she has been through. While Rui keeps criticising her for her carefree attitude, she never showed any signs of being bothered by this criticism and kept looking after Rui as if she was her real mother. She was also quite supportive of Aoba when she was brought to Angel HQ and provided the same support (with her usual sense of humour) many years later to Aoba when Angel tried to recruit her to the organisation. Her infatuation with a man who is a lot older than her (Genta san) was also one of the most amusing aspects of the show. I have to point out that Kousaka’s voice actress Takamori Yoshino did a great job in bringing her character to life.
In short, Kousaka Minami was one of the best motherly characters in anime history.
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