Brain Powerd

Coastlines have vanished, flooding is constant, earthquakes won't stop — Earth is slowly drowning — and somewhere beneath the ocean sits the reason why: a massive alien spacecraft called Orphan that's trying to claw its way to the surface. If it succeeds, most of humanity dies. That's the opening situation in Brain Powerd, a 26-episode TV series from Sunrise directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the guy who made Gundam. The story centers on Hime, a teenage girl who stumbles into one of Orphan's mysterious organic mechas — living machines called Brain Powerds that actually bond with their pilots. She ends up aboard the Novis Noah, a ship working to stop Orphan's resurrection. Eventually she's joined by Yu, a former agent of Orphan who switches sides once he understands what 'winning' actually means for the rest of the planet. The mechas here are genuinely strange-looking — biological and almost creature-like, designed by Mamoru Nagano — and the soundtrack is by Yoko Kanno, so the sound design alone is worth your attention. The show leans more into character drama and moral grey areas than straightforward robot action. If you worked through Neon Genesis Evangelion or RahXephon and wanted something with that same brooding, character-first energy wrapped around mecha conflict, Brain Powerd scratches a similar itch. It's slower and weirder than its reputation suggests, but that's kind of the point.