as a mecha model obsessed madman, i have ended up with Kyoukai Senki model kits without having heard of or watched the show. Most of my knowledge comes from packaging art and google-translated text and the scant few wikis that exist. A cursory google search reveals that at least some people interpret the show as being nationalist, touching on themes like Japan being dominated by foreign governments and declining japanese birth rates. How bad is it, is it worth a watch? its supposedly one of the few recent shows with 2d mecha animation.
i read somewhere that China or some province in china banned the show because of its portrayal of one of the leaders of the chinese-coded faction as being involved with human trafficking, even though the faction's higher up leadership retaliates and gets rid of the human trafficker in their faction after its brought to their attention, which seems to me like something the real china would do as one of the few places where billionaires can get a death sentence, and more than the other factions apparently do when corruption is revealed. so it's weird to me that a nationalist japanese fiction would portray China (or the Oceanic Economic something-or-other in the show i think) as actually effectively fighting corruption.
Gimme the Based Leftist Take on the show before i watch it and become brainwashed into imperial japan apologia, Hexbears! Is it Cringe, Based, Both, or Incoherent?
in terms of the models, i like the angular militaristic designs and smaller scale (models are 1:72 instead of gundam's usual 1:144 scale, meaning the mechs are smaller and therefore slightly more realistic), but i am conflicted about the whole 'most of the mecha are autonomous or remote-operated' thing. I like that most of the mechs (except the china/oceanic faction's Nyuren) CAN have a pilot even if they usually don't though, and i do enjoy a mech-borne drone commander remote operating their squad as they pilot their own craft. The AI chibi animal hologram things on the packaging art look like they would be annoying in the show, i cringe just imagining their helium-pitched voices. it's also cool that the mech hands have 3 fingers and 2 thumbs, i like a slightly de-anthropomorphized mecha that plays around with human proportions and limbs like that. Also the American faction's mecha names are super american-sounding, with names like Jo Hound and Brady Fox, definitely stupid enough to be american, and reminiscent of real vehicles like the M1 Abrams and Bradley APC.