So here we have the conclusion of Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. Overall I’d have to say that it’s a solid ending, but nothing special. The animation in the final episode was very well done, and the whole bond between Ledo and Chamber really stood out as the best (even though it’s kindof weird that Chamber died… seeing as how he’s an AI and could easily have survived if he just copied his personality to that escape pod or something).
The evil robot who took control over humanity was definitely a more solid final conflict than “the Hideazu are human”, It was very sudden though, and acted like how everything was just wrapped up neatly… even though a ton of people died. Seriously, this show was more dramatic about the Hideazu being human (even though they were more than guilty of their own things) than the murder of tons of innocent people.
But yeah, as the final conflict… it does feel like we just skimmed the surface here. Gargantia should have been 24 episodes long, because the creators can actually do very nice things if they continue to build up from here. With this though, it just feels like too much is missing, and none of the characters really got their chance to show their growth, apart from Ledo perhaps, but even he feels like he can become better with another season. He may have changed, but he doesn’t really feel rounded still. This is why I feel like the perfect length for a series is 26 episodes: it’s neither too short nor too long; it has enough time to develop its characters really well, and it also needs to pace itself properly so there is little chance of dragging on. But yeah, that does require budget, and the producers probably didn’t manage to gather enough for 2 cours.
As for the overall writing itself… I’d say that this story is Urobuchi Gen’s worst written story, save for perhaps Blassreiter. It was definitely lighter than what he wrote before, but what I missed here was the character-development, going back to what I said before. All of his other adaptations so far had development that made some sort of impact, even on a shorter story. This one mostly had its world building, and while it was well-done, the setting wasn’t THAT special.
Rating: 4,5/8 (Good)
Actually, there was a small hint that Chamber did copy himself onto a handheld device that Ledo was holding right near the end.
Shame they never actually bothered to explore it. Sailing through the sea and encountering other ships and more run ins with other pirates would’ve been more interesting than wasting time with belly dancing and one sided debates about whether killing is right or wrong.
I think the world that they were in was pretty unique. The story was written well too. However, I feel we only got to see Ledo. I didn’t feel for Pinion/Amy/Ridget/Piratebooblady at all during the fight. It would have been nice to delve deeper into each person’s character rather than having one scene that defines them.
Okay, the more I look at the concept of the show, the more I’m reminded of Escaflowne.
Of Gen Urobuchi’s work, this is my least favorite – which goes to show how much better a series is if he is writing most of it. Madoka, Fate/Zero, and PSYCHO-PASS are all on another level, dialogue/thematic-wise. I hope Urobuchi is back to his hands-on approach in his next work, or hire more talented writers to work with.
To add what PSGELS said, this show was sabotaged by audience pandering. Great start, solid ending, ruined by a mediocre middle.
exactly, ESPECIALLY since only the first and last episode were written by Gen in the first place. I mean not only do they use otaku pandering, but they actually stuck Gens name on it just to get people to watch. Then its like whoops hes only writing/directing two of the 13 eps.
This anime was just bad, period. It shouldn’t have been made, it hasn’t gone anywhere that people haven’t seen millions of times before.
Didn’t care about the characters except for chamber and kind of ledo. Amy was annoying for 58% of the scenes she was in, Ridget was a one-dimensional character – on full bitch/angry mode all the time, and the commander that died didn’t even want to MEET Ledo. . .wtf?! That’s kind of important you know.
Basically the other writers did a HUGE disservice to Gen’s name and should be ashamed of themselves.
Wouldn’t really call it an Urobuchi series since he only did the first and last episode.
As a reminder to everyone talking about Urobochi, he only personally wrote the first and last episodes, the rest were by a whole slew of other people.
Yeah I agree that this show should have been around 24 episodes to bring out its full potential. Granted the the writers did a pretty good job with the amount of time given, but the series could have been so much more. It would have given characters besides Ledo and Chamber much more development though at the very least they did enough to make me care about some of them. It would have also for much more and better world building.
Overall I don’t think this series was bad by any means and in fact I thought it was pretty good to an extent. Too bad we’ll most likely never see what this series could have truly been.
And I want to correct people. Urobuchi and the director both collaborated on writing the actual story’s plot and general direction. That means Urobuchi’s involvement WAS quite big. It was AFTER he helped write the story that he wrote the first and last episodes as a guide for the new writers to do their stuff and bring the story to life. As for how much credit either him or the director had in the original plan, I don’t know. The only thing we know is that the general setting was thought up by the director, who always wanted to write about a world that lived on top of water.
I reckon the last episode would have been a pretty awesome conclusion to a series had there been proper build up – but I felt that a lot of the elements, like psgels said were just skimmed over and wrapped up in a bow and then done with. For example, the character of Pinion: suddenly he starts acting like a martyr, while 2 episodes ago he was an egocentric moron, while another episode earlier he was a greedy avenger, while at the start he was merely comic relief – I felt there was no proper developement, he just changed spontaneously – which really irks me, because I don’t even feel he is a character any more. Also, Lukrage – what happened there? Where did her change come from? What happens to the people in the cult? There are so many unanswered questions and it was just so dissatisfying. I had held onto a shred of hope and amour for this show, but the last episode killed it.
The only praise I have is how aptly they portrayed Chamber and Ledo’s bond – it teared me up and actually moved me. However I still think it was not very well developed and quite unbelievable. What a disappointment.
Did anyone else feel that the SnG’s story was somewhat fragmented? (dunno how else to put it) Gen did write the first and last episodes, and probably provided framework for everything in between, but the other screenwriters had to fill in the rest of their episodes with their own material. Seems like a lot of this material didn’t contribute to the ending.
I agree, if this show was 2-cour long, more could have been done. We never knew the story behind Ledo’s clone/brother, and a lot of Gargantia’s crew never got enough emphasis towards the end (save Pinion). And I would have liked to see more of how the G.A. operates, for a better comparison with the Gargantia lifestyle.
And now we know where the Sybil System comes from.