Brave Bang Bravern!

Episode 9

Episode 9 of Brave Bang Bravern! is a reminder that no matter how wild your work is, you can always throw another curveball at your audience.

So, uh, I guess Smith just is Bravern, right? I had to back it up and watch it twice to confirm but it sure seems like Smith was reborn as Bravern and managed to go back in time. I'm honestly in awe of the boldness of this plot point, just a giant middle finger to paradox and time travel issues. Through the power of love, all things are possible, etc. I didn't think that there could be any more homoerotic tension in the Isami-Smith-Bravern love triangle, and somehow Smith found a way to heroically sacrifice himself so hard that he collapsed the waveform and folded himself into Bravern completely. Of course, Bravern acts like a giant super robot/tokusatsu hero, because he was secretly Smith and grew up watching those shows. Astonishing stuff.

I've also got to hand it to Smith for the stylish exit from the afterlife. Sure, we all die eventually, and we end up in one of any number of seemingly infinite holding spaces: Heaven, Hell, HFIL, Valhalla, the Shadow Realm, a poorly lit Costco at 3 AM. Smith manages to not only escape from this zone of eternal PS2 bootup space, but he does so in the most unbelievable way you can imagine: by making a giant mecha robot lady experience human emotions for the first time and have a magical space climax. Smith, you absolute legend!

Also, there's some other stuff that happens in this episode too! Bravern gets a rad new form that is the envy of all children who love toy robots (I'm in that group as well). The evil robots dying was hilarious, “I'm sad that I'm not sad” is a great final death line. It's a little hard to parse in real time as I found myself thinking about the time travel implications for the series, but it is great nonetheless.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Brave Bang Bravern! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.