Today on Darling in the Franxx…a beach episode. A beach episode. Really? I mean i suppose even one of my favorite shows, Gurren Lagann, had a beach episode but in that case the story wasn’t taking itself too seriously so it was fine. It even took shots at the concept by having the main fanservice girl go conservative and disappointing the crew. Here though, Darling in the Franxx can’t seem to find a level between being serious and not taking itself seriously. I mean we are in a mostly destroyed world where humanity lives in rolling plantations but there’s a small patch of land with foliage and a beach to have a beach episode. The group has swimsuits despite not having an ocean or a indoor pool at their birdcage. We have the boys getting all excited by swimsuits and asking about kissing, alongside confirmation of humanity abandoning cities to ruin and foreboding dark tidings. I feel conflicted on this show, truly. Based on what I have seen so far I can say it does have merit but alongside that merit is is the ridiculous and similarity.
I had to stop myself rolling my eyes at having the council of Papa Seele declare being surprised about Hiro being her partner(Despite evidence that was the case) and then declaring that Zero Two would bring him to the Grand Crevasse to start human instrumentality or whatever they are calling it in this one. These guys don’t really add anything, they just sit around, reference vague terms and twiddle their thumbs assuming that everything will work out exactly as planned with no effort on their part. Just like Seele. If they are to be here then let them have a presence or at least some meaning on the plots events. So far they are just there to justify the plot contrivance of not getting Hiro in the Franxx sooner.
Another issue potentially rears its head as I fear that this series may be on the verge of developing Kiznaiver syndrome. Wherein the plot is derailed by introducing various love triangles and troubles which proceed to dominate the show with frustrating love antics. In this episode i am already seeing a chart forming with various lines of who likes who. Kokoro appears to be forming feelings for Mitsuru while Futoshi clearly has a bit of a thing with her and Mitsuru seems to be forming some kind of trust between his old partner Ikuno. Zorome and Miku seem mutual though both wouldn’t admit it. Meanwhile Hiro digs Zero Two, Ichigo digs Hiro and Goro has pretty much confirmed that he likes Ichigo though seems unable to recognise his own heartbreak. We got a whole host of feelings and whatnot that could be easily escalated into teenage love troubles as people pine about senpai not noticing them while simutanously lacking the balls to take the indicative to confess. Made all the worse by these kids clear lacking sex education and you got a big boiling pot of teenage angst just ready to overflow. So I am hoping they take a more ambitious route instead of resorting to shipping wars. Like i don’t know? Start killing them off one by one? Ah even that might be a bit on the predictable side.
The most interesting aspect of this episode is the discovery of the town and the kids reaction to it. This could end up being these kids version of the data creature in From the new World, something which throws off their worldview. We do see Kokoro take a book that looks to be about raising babies so I am guessing that would lead to her getting some big questions. Zero Two appears to know the most about the situation and remarks about the city being abandoned. Note her choice of words isn’t evacuated but instead suggesting that humans willfully left the town to rot. Biggest theory I have now is of humans migrating to some sort of data like existence and abandoning physical living together. Hence what the kids protect are actually giant servers containing the virtual population. Thus these mecha pilot kids may be the only real true humans on the planet. These spects interest me about Darling in the Franxx and despite misgiving this could still go in a interesting direction provided the writer takes the opportunity. Though it’s still going to be hard to put forth a serious plotline when we got mecha controlled by female asses.
