Man, I tried to give Active Raid's première episode another shot because the guy in charge did Planetes, which is an all-time great anime, just in case I missed something or I was just off at the time of watching it at first, but nope. It's terrible.
I suppose I have to keep in mind that the same guy did s-CRY-ed and Code Geass, too. One-hit wonder.
If you are expecting him to outright repeat a show in exactly the same vein as Planetes, that is a very easy way to be disappointed. I imagine some people shared your thoughts when he made Gun X Sword back in 2005. You can find elements of the specific directorial style Taniguchi used for Planetes in the likes of Infinite Ryvius and (no joke!) Maria the Virgin Witch, which are good shows that you may or may not enjoy, but it'll never be literally the same.
There's a couple of things about Taniguchi that I can personally appreciate but which, understandably so, aren't going to be everyone else's cup of tea. As a director, the guy doesn't really want to repeat himself. In fact, he likes to take on very different projects whenever possible. Probably a vague extension of how his early industry career was mostly oriented towards robot anime, yes, but very distinct kinds of it (from kid-friendly Super Robot shows to a couple of Gundam series, GaoGaiGar and Gasaraki). Otherwise, he would have already made Code Geass S3, because that's certainly what the largest number of people on this planet would want from him (which qualifies as his biggest hit in the more mainstream sense, love it or hate it). But most of those folks probably don't know he never made (and probably never wanted to make) an Infinite Ryvius II nor a Planetes II. Given that I've enjoyed all of his shows for different reasons -from the most serious to the most campy- and don't want to see an endless spiral of repetition, none of this bothers me.
Aside from all of the above, Active Raid is being written by a Tokusatsu screenwriter, Naruhisa Arakawa, which isn't a small difference. Even if the director hypothetically wanted to make the same kind of show, which he clearly doesn't, the writing style is obviously not going to remain identical. So far it's been a divisive choice. The first episode's structure is either pretty entertaining (albeit shallow) or just boring, depending on who you ask. But even if later episodes change things up, one way or another, they almost certainly won't be what you are looking for. In the meanwhile, I'll just be one of the handful of people on this forum who didn't dislike ep 1.
