Heroic Age

Plot (from Wikipedia):
There was once a primeval race which called itself the "Golden Tribe". They possessed many powers, including the ability to create Planets and see into the future. They then called on primitive beings far across the galaxy and told them to explore the universe. Three races were able to reply to their call and the Golden Tribe referred to those as the "Silver Tribe", the "Bronze Tribe", and the "Heroic Tribe". Long after, just as the Golden Race was about to move on to another universe, a new race replied to their call. The newcomer, Humankind, was referred to as the "Iron Tribe".

Due to their extraordinary powers and aggressive nature, the titanic beings known as the "Heroic Tribe" instigated an interstellar civil war and caused the destruction of thousands of planets and stars. The expanding ruin angered the Golden Tribe, and forced them to capture and punish the surviving five members of the Heroic Tribe for the destruction they had caused. Caught in a magical cage, they were subdued and condemned to serve races weaker than them. Reduced to the state of diamond-like stones, they were given to five individuals, who were then referred to as "Nodos". The Heroic Tribe member, Bellcross, entered the body of a boy from the Iron Tribe, and became known as the fifth Nodos. The child was directly raised by the Golden Race on the ruined planet, Oron, in order to fulfill a prophecy passed down by the Iron Tribe's royal family.

It was then that the Golden Tribe issued prophecies to each Tribe (Iron and Silver) who possessed a Nodos, telling them that they could make contracts with those exceptional beings and allowed both parties to draw a specific number of clauses, called 'Labors'. In the Iron Tribe's case, there are twelve conditions, the famous 'Twelve Labors', assigned to a yet to be found, lone human announced as their new messiah: a teenager named Age.

However, soon after they came into play in the equation, the Iron Tribe's homeworld, Earth, was attacked by several dozen hives from the Bronze Tribe. The local population was exterminated and the planet conquered, forcing the survivors to emigrate towards safer parts of the universe. It was later revealed that the attack had been staged by the Silver Race, who ruled over the insect-like Bronze Tribe. To this day, the Iron Tribe is still greatly endangered by the combined forces of the Silver and Bronze Tribes and, although its new homeworld is still ensconced in a relative sense of safety and secrecy, its survival, however, is only guaranteed by this stealthiness, as the difference of power between the youngest race and the others is still too great.

My Thoughts:
At first glance I thought I would enjoy this series since it was in the genre that I normally do enjoy watching. So I did my research and so many people have given this bad reviews so I decided not to watch it at first but my curiosity got the better of me so I decided to watch it.

In the beginning I really could not see why people were giving this series bad reviews but towards the middle I realized why. The pacing of the plot was getting slower towards the middle the fights would last more than 1 episode. I honestly did not mind this since, it reminded me of the pacing of the classics (aka Voltes V, Voltron, Mazinger-Z). The plot was definitely nice but nothing spectacular. Some of the animation was really good and some parts were so-so. I watched the English dubbed version and quite honestly they did a good job. There were times definitely where I felt like I should just drop it but I just could not. Something about just tugged me along and towards the last 4 or 5 episodes it started to speed up and definitely get better. The ending was to me fair. Definitely not a tear jerker but tugs your emotions just enough.

Overall, I liked the series and will give it a 3.5 out 5.