Okay… so this series has just delved into WTF-territory. I think it’s best to just quote Random Curiosity’s summary to show what I mean:
“Flora explains that, in the past, descendants of giants related to the creation of the universe lived on the moon. Earthdash was created by gods, and mankind’s playing of sports with balls stems from the fights of those gods. The legend is of someone with the ability to manipulate the ball of thunderbolts saving Earthdash and the moon, and the trajectory of that ball shows the shape of the creation of the universe.”
I mean, who in his right mind can come up with such a ridiculous back-story? And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg in this episode. From the moon they ended up at what seems to be the place where Iceman grows up and lost his arm and leg, called Dead Bottom. In there, Sera and Flora (who blew her cover, by the way, with nobody being really surprised) somehow end up working at a night club while Miyuki fixes their bigfoots which were badly damaged in the crash. Miyuki then runs into another tech geek who hates her last name.
Dan meanwhile ends up arrested from out of nowhere by strange masked people, and then ends up fighting in some sort of bloody arena to the death. He ends up beating his enemy with… a basketball. When he’s forced to kill his opponent, he runs away and a bounty is suddenly on his head. He then ends up in a weird place with huge lizards and another mysterious bigfoot. Yang meanwhile pops up from out of nowhere and hires a prisoner to kill off Dan.
Does it make any sense? No. Did I like it? I guess so, yes. The setting has definitely gotten heaps more intriguing with this episode. Setting aside the really weird story of how people are playing basketball today because that’s how the Gods fought with each other, Dead Bottom looks like a really interesting setting, that’s definitely shown a different side of the world that Dan and the others live in. This episode also debuted a bunch of new background tracks, and they really fit with the dark and mysterious image that comes from this city.
In the next episode, we should see the new director taking over. It’s going to be interesting whether he can give this show the finale it deserves.
Rating: * (Good)
To be fair, it’s become a bit of a trend to try and relate modern settings, especially sports-in-fantasy-world settings, back to ancient legends or mythologies (both made-up and actual)
I guess that makes it all “deep” or sophisticated or something – it’s not a particularly bad dimension to add to a show, but when it has become so overused, generic, and almost tacked-on unnecessarily as it seems to have been here, you start to wonder..
Also, I very much bet you those ruins in that Desert Town are connected to this whole god legend. If so, it does at least show that this wasn’t totally unplanned.
But seriously, just because “origins” are interesting, that doesn’t make them necessary or even good. Especially if it’s used as an excuse to create some sort of dramatic “ohh Godly” related finale. Sometimes BASKETBALL WITH ROBOTS can be absolutely fine on its own.
Yeah, the thing I liked mostly about the ancient setting with the gods was that the creators were actually crazy enough to use it in this context, even though it doesn’t make any iota of sense. The most interesting part in this episode was the idea of having an underground city with strange masked spidermen around, in which Iceman seems to have grown up. It’s a nice way to flesh out Earthdash a bit.