Bokurano is a depressing manga that just uses mecha as it's excuse for a premise which is completely filled with psychological trauma.

The mecha battles are not the main focus in here. Don't be fooled by the cover. For what anyone could care, the mecha could have been a space ship or a magical uniform and it wouldn't make as much of a difference.

While the manga is surprisingly good in the psychological analysis department, it is however not as good in the mecha fighting and the sci-fi department. The fights lose their touch when you know that they are, as shown by the synopsis of the manga, a doomed battle with no hopes of selfish victory. Rather, it feels like a Mayan ritual where people are made to be sacrificed in order for the continued survival of their race.

While this does bring a good view into questions of life and death when one is confronted with the same and the nature of the human soul, it can make one feel alienated with the plot. There is nothing to root for and the stakes are worthless from the very start. There is no glimmer of hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, so as to speak. While the mecha in question is being powered by the human will, there is not a real great display of where human will actually matters to change the status quo.
While it's true most characters display a good amount of human will, it is simply not enough to make a difference in the universal scale of things. By the end, everyone is a plaything of fate and nothing ever matters.

However, in spite of it flaws, I would agree that the manga did atleast the psychological aspect right. This manga can be heavily divisive depending upon the nature of the reader and hence you may or you may not appreciate it. You will of course, definitely not enjoy it given its depressive premise and the nihilistic aspect where nothing truly matters.

There are many other similarly depressive works, which however don't revolve around a world ending crisis and only revolve around the horrors of everyday life like domestic abuse, bullying, etc. There is not much difference between bokurano and them and bokurano isn't good enough to make a mark when compared to these.

TLDR:Read it if you like similarly depressive works like madoka magica for instance. Don't read it if you want some good mecha action or some plot resolution.

7/10