Watching this came from two places. One coming from a very deep love of Saint Seiya which is one of my favorite shonen battle series in recent memory. It was a blast to simply go through. The next big part was from playing the Weekly AMQ game. Saint Seiya is a manga from the famous Mangaka Masami Kurumada. There was a number of people in the chat mentioning other Kurumada works. This one came out of the blue because it was actually localized in the west. Kurumada’s work did not take off in North America, so B’T X felt like a unicorn. 

The story behind B’T X is incredibly simple. During a science convention, genius Kotaro Takamiya was kidnapped by the Machine Empire. His younger brother Teppei, after having disappeared for eleven years for mysterious reasons, wanted to meet up with him again. It’s too bad they only got a few minutes before the villains showed up. Now, Teppei has a mission to save his brother from the heart of the machine empire. Only takes him waking the legendary B’T (Beat) X, to take a chance at saving his missing brother Kotaro. 

At almost every single story telling level, B’T X couldn’t be more stripped down and simple then it is. The name “Machine Empire” gives that a way a bit already. How about the area the villains currently control is literally called “The Area”. Or Teppei fighting enemies posted from one point to another point as he gets closer to The Area which are called “Points”.  That sets up the general format of this anime because it’s Teppei and X getting stronger after defeating one enemy after another to where they become a serious threat. 

If there is one that makes it special, it’s the character work. The concept of a B’T is a living machine that is attached to their donors blood in an unbreakable bond. Except in X and Teppei’s case where Karen was X’s original donor and Teppei has some of her blood through a transfusion. I mean, Karen saved Teppei’s life and then trained him for eleven years. So Teppei and X start out as allies of convenience and learn to have an unbreakable bond towards the end that makes them powerful. I’m glad there is a continuous dynamic that makes it interesting. 

The imperfections and fall outs in the machine empire provide some interesting layers to the story. There are true believers who believe in the goals of the empire to the point they would blindly go to their deaths for them. At the same time, there are leaders who believe in the goals but see the seams falling out and, in their limited positions, are trying to fix them and can’t get it done. There are other Donors and B’Ts out there who are giving tough love to help Teppei become the ultimate savior and have clearly defected from the empire too. So there are different layers of simple characters in this shonen battle series which made it interesting. 

Visually, the series is good looking but there is a lot of bank animation in the form of power ups and special attacks. There are a lot of wonderful character designs and B’T designs that make everything stand out and fill in unique places. As a whole, the show is between good and okay. It’s good to turn your mind off material to have on in the background because there are no surprises in this series at all. Besides some small surprises, but nothing major. Compared to a huge work like Saint Seiya, I would consider this as an interesting item if you are curious about more things Kurumada created besides Saint Seiya. Still ok on its own, but that’s about it.