It's not groundbreaking, but s-CRY-ed is an entertaining series that hits more than it misses.

Plot Summary
The Lost Ground is an area of Japan that was devastated by unusual events some twenty years ago, where Native Alters - people with what are known as Alter powers - live. Alter powers allow a human to manipulate matter, and most use theirs to create devices that are primarily used for self defense and attack. The area is ruled over by an organization called HOLD in the neighboring developed city, which is separated by a wall from the Lost Ground. HOLD sees Native Alters as a threat to a peaceful society, and captures any that they deem have gotten out of control. Kazuma is a Native Alter who lives in the Lost Ground with an orphaned girl named Kanami, whom he looks after as a little sister. Kazuma sees HOLD's oversight as a form of oppression, and when a HOLY officer from HOLD named Ryuho attempts to subdue him, the two become bitter enemies. Kazuma and Ryuho will fight to defend their own convictions in a battle that soon becomes larger than the both of them.

The Review
If you want to watch something that's pure entertainment without requiring any deep thought, s-CRY-ed is a good choice. It's more action-oriented than most of the series that I watch, but it's good for a break from all of the heavy stuff.

The series starts out as almost pure action. The focus is on battles between Kazuma and whatever enemy of the day that he has run into. Thankfully, the tone changes at around the halfway mark, otherwise this would have been a very boring show. As in most cases, once the focus went away from the daily battles to the larger story at hand, s-CRY-ed got noticeably better. Since I am not a big fan of purely action oriented titles, when the focus shifted to character stories I was more drawn in and wanted to follow the story. There are characters on both sides of the conflict that are all interesting to watch.

Plot-wise, there's nothing here that will challenge your ideas of what anime is or make you want to search for deep philosophical meaning. It may be heavy on the action front, but the story holds together and is worth watching in its own right. You watch s-CRY-ed when you want to see people go after each other with mecha that they create from seemingly nothing, but also have a decent plot to go with it. Toss in a couple of cute girls, and you've got a good show for when you just want to kick back and watch something.