YMMV / Buddy Complex

• Angst? What Angst?: When Aoba discovers what happened to all the friends and family he knew about, he's taken the fact that they are all gone pretty well.
  • Of course, he's far more worried about Hina, yet he cannot figure out the truth.
  • He does get a little angst upgrade after he realizes that Hina is not the Hina he knows and his chances to go back are basically zero.
• Awesome Music:
  • UNISONIA.
  • Ano Sora ni Kaeru Mirai de.
  • TWIN BIRD.
• Cliché Storm: The first episode has been called out for having a lot of this including an invasion, a high school student going to school, the apparent death of a love interest, etc. It doesn't help that viewers keep comparing with Valvrave the Liberator. On the other hand, the use of time travel has made the series stand out a bit.
• Complete Monster: Evgeni Gedar is a 90-something year-old Bizon Gerafil, a Zogilian pilot sent to the past, revealed in the final three episodes of the show to have become the new leader of the Zogilian Empire under a new name. Even back under his old name, he already had an obsession with his childhood friend, Hina Ryazan, and tried to seek vengeance against his personal enemy, Watase Aoba, because he saw Aoba interacting with Hina. At one point, he then forces Hina to do Coupling, causing Hina physical pain. After his time-traveling experience, it was revealed that he was the pilot who tries to kill Aoba during the first episode, and is planning to seek revenge against Aoba after more than seventy years. To this end, Evgeni then overtakes the Zogilian Empire through a Military Coup and orders his soldiers to build a large cannon in space. After Aoba and his companions tries to stop his plans, Evgeni then sacrifices his own men so that he could use the cannon as a test drive, and also to lure in the Alliance members. After one of his subordinates is disgusted by his actions and tries to arrest him, Evgeni then spitefully tries to obliterate the Earth using his cannon in his last moments. Whatever redeeming qualities Bizon might've originally had are obliterated by Evgeni, who ultimately was a spiteful, cruel and petty individual that tries to satiate his vengeance for his wounded ego and pride.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gengo Kuramitsu, the Captain of the Cygnus, has a significant fanbase for being a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Expy: The Weinberg siblings are very similar to Thomas and Relena Norstein from Digimon Data Squad.
• Genius Bonus: The power output of the Gorgon Nectar cannon in the last two episodes is equivalent to 50 megatons of TNT. This is a match for the explosive power of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created by mankind. With that much raw energy hitting Aoba & Hina's Coupling shield, it's no wonder it tore open a rip in the time-space continuum...
• Ho Yay: The two main male leads have barely interacted but the viewers are already seeing a lot of this with the "nice coupling." Even this is followed by an actual proposal so that the two boys will connect...
  • Not to mention the compatibility they have when coupling. The way the characters describe it doesn't◊ help.◊
  • Episode 5 has this: Dio: Don't slam that into me! /Aoba: I'm doing fine, am I not? /Dio: If you want to back me up, at least be honest.
  • In episode six, a new Coupler shows up and Dio can't sync with him, but Aoba can, and Dio is shown to be rather upset...
  • The latter half of the series does away almost entirely with this, surprisingly. If one were to watch the show without dialogue involved, it would be quite easy not to see it, as much of the Ho Yay in the series comes from the "Coupling" terminology.
• Memetic Mutation: NICE COUPLING.
  • HINAAA!
  • "Is it 2014?"^Explanation While the show was slated for release on January 5th, it was actually released on January 1st, New Years Day. When the first antagonist appears, he travels back in time to the year 2014, and immidiately asks, "Is it really 2014?" This has lead to many New Years jokes.
  • Say: "connect with Dio."
    • Huh?! Dio?!
  • "Darth Vader?" ^{Explanation (big spoilers)}Bizon's aged appearance and his heavy life support in the final episode's post-credits scene is reminiscent of a certain Dark Lord of the Sith, not to mention the whole Love Makes You Crazy thing going on with him.
  • From the Super Robot Wars X reveal trailer, Hina saying "Zogilia no Teki!" has found its way towards fans repeating the line.
  • You thought your Buddy is going to be Hina, but it was I, DIO!!^ExplanationDio Junyou Weinberg, a blonde aloof rival-like character, has the same first name with Dio Brando, a blonde aloof EVIL character. Dio Brando being a Fountain of Memes himself means that a lot of his memes can be gratuitously applied to Dio Junyou Weinberg. Further irony occurs when it turns out Dio Brando's voice actor is part of the Buddy Complex voice cast... but as Dr. Wilhelm Hahn.
• Moral Event Horizon: In season two, Bizon/Evgeni sacrifices a huge chunk of the loyal Zogilian forces defending their Kill Sat in order to lure the Alliance members attacking it into a trap.
• Narm: The first episode had a robot from the future missing every single attack on a kid running on a bike. Well, looks like all techs no brain. It does make sense in-universe however given that the robot has protocols to not shoot down unarmed civilians.
  • Another common complaint about the series was that the series, as a whole, was Narmtastic. Some viewers argued that, if it had gone the Mazinkaiser route of insanity instead of leeching off of Gundam's stock tropes while playing the romantic angle as seriously as possible, it might have been more than So Okay, It's Average.
• Narm Charm: A lot of the show's fans would argue that it has this, citing its earnestness and competence in executing typical mecha tropes.
• Rewatch Bonus: The last episode reveals that the scenes scattered throughout the series colored in sepia are actually events that happened in different timelines.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general opinion on /m/ regarding the show, where it's commonly described with such terms as "incredibly solid," "nothing special, but well executed," and "the most inoffensive anime of 2014."
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: A common complaint about the series is that it's too similar to other mecha series Sunrise made, which is often a starter complaint for every Sunrise mecha series since just about all of them use the "reluctant hero thrust into war" plot device. Each series usually starts to differ after that.