I must say, despite my current worry from the direction ID-0 is heading towards the climax, we have another solid episode in our hands. Here’s one of the thing ID-0 continues to prove itself to be quite adept of: their pacing never drags. All the events progress gradually, and there aren’t many unnecessary scenes, if at all. Adam’s masterplan still rubs me in a wrong way (which I will detail below), but I guess that is an issue I have to live with for now. The concept of Rajeev planets, when we really get into it, is rather an intriguing one. Nothing is free. For every gold mine that human get their hands into, there will be some sorts of toxic, something nasty that is born as the result of excessively abused the source because we human break the harmony provided by Mother nature. In this case, the wandering planets are born to absorb the Onichalt. They’re dangerous because they have evolved to the point of achieving new intelligence, adapting freely to the new environment. They’re dangerous also because the human race has become too dependable to the Orichalt. Hey cannot live without it. This might sound like the usual conflict of most of sci-fi fictions out there but here ID-0 succeed because we learn about the irreplaceable roles of Onichalt in first few episodes before this Rajeev bastards start to run wild and threaten to destroy the humanity. As far as solid settings go this is as solid as an Orichalt rock.
In the first half, we back to the dynamic of the group, and serve as a necessary breather before the all-out attack in the second half. Almost everyone (including Fa-Losers) has some solid moments, except for Captain Grayman as he acts out of character. I’m not sure if his reactions are meant to show us how he deeply cares for Ido like his own family, but the switch between “who is that Alice again, why we care” and “I know you need our support Ido, let’s save Alice” moments later is just too jarring for me. Ido and Maya together have an excellent moment, as Ido, in his badly injured body, still insists to mind-trance back to his I-Machine form (at a cost of his body) because for him now that form is the true him.
Thanks god that Adam’s plan of using Alice is just to gather information from her to create his own Orillian. Well, when he kidnapped that poor girl last week I expected much worse. Though imagine he shoots his own “sperms” to the “ovaries” of the planet to save the humanity give a big smile to my face, as silly as it sounds. Like Ido said, Adam’s over-confident, drunken with power that he doesn’t realize the plan has backfired on him. Now to my qualms, I’m gladly to overlook how he conveniently learn all the necessary information and creates his own Orillian versions OFF-SCREEN in that little time, but why he sees the need to shoot himself in the head? I know, he’s MAD but that doesn’t justify how he can mind-trance back to his I-Machine body. He’d need the mask, right? One of the more interesting villain is an old man Hakubi, the one who often talked to Masked Man about various conspiracy plans. This episode reveals his real purpose is to achieve immortal. He has been in some sort of secret organization that tranced back to their clone young bodies to live forever, and they wish to achieve true immortality by becoming Orillians. These guys are much more sinister and dangerous than little Adams who just want some attention, but whether or not these guys die or whatever they plan after the explosion is still up in the air. I would love to see them come back though I find them rather interesting.
Finally, Alice starts talking. What is it that trigger her then? One thing I know for sure is that when that little girl starts talking, the humanity is at its stake.
