This week on Planet With, wimpy paladin decides to take on a sealing device, becomes an antagonist and…wins? I mean wow, I never saw this coming. Yousuke generally felt to me to be the gentle sort who was looking out for others but once Benika fell prey to her own sealing device causing her to lose all drive and motivation, Yousuke just went full villain. Not that I don’t understand his motivation here, he lost his brother and now the woman he loves is stuck in a eternal dream with that same brother so the only way he can see himself being happy is joining Benika in that dream. Of course the sealing faction won’t do that for free so Yousuke needs to seal the earth in Benika’s place, essentially fulfilling her last wish before falling to the sealing device. The parallel between him and Souya’s current mental state is interesting as both lost everything they care about and no longer care what happens to the world. So I love that Yousuke actually turned out to be the greatest threat to the earth despite being the more timid paladin solely because he didn’t approach the objective of sealing the earth with half hearted feelings. Benika didn’t truly want to seal the world and the sealing faction themselves seem torn on the idea with Generalissimo holding great respect for cat sensei’s wishes and Shiraishi not quite keen on the idea herself as she didn’t really want earth to go down without a fight. Yousuke on the other hand has strong conviction, kicks all the other paladins ass and accomplishes the goal.
If there is some spirit being channeled in this episode it’s hot blooded robot anime as what happens after this is true super robot action with all it’s cheesy glory. I am a little disappointed that Nozomi’s role remains firmly in the love interest alone category but damn if the second half of this episode was some truly hype action. Seeing what happens to a world that’s been sealed was interesting as it felt as though time had stopped and the direction from that to Souya pulling everyone out of the dream was excellent. Souya’s new found conviction was a little on the sudden side but I can see how he reached it and hopefully the people of paradise don’t end up some massive deus ex machina for the rest of the series but looks like this will be the one and only time they will lend a hand. It’s been very much an unsung hero of the series but the sound design is absolutely excellent. It can be easy to overlook such a thing but it can really make the difference when action is on screen. I have been taken out of the moment at times when I happened to recognized a stock effect being used.
I recall a show I watched were it showed a laser about to fire and I noticed that the power up noise was literally Samus’s arm cannon charge sound effect from Metroid Prime. Here through you can really feel those blows and the impacts. I recommend watching this series with headphones as it is certainly an experience. It’s a shame that the CGI cannot match that level of quality, I have gotten used to it for the most part but I find myself thinking of how much better things would looking if they animated the fights in 2D instead of 3D. My apologies to the CGI team of this show but these robots just don’t fit in this series they are far too out of place so it would have been better they someone made some filter to help them blend better or just scrapped CGI entirely. Well the Paladins are all down and that leaves just the sealing faction and the Dragon left to take down. So how hype will those fights be? Considering the scale of escalation it’s looking like the Generalissimo fight will be in space with them ending with fighting the dragon on the moon, which sounds pretty hype to me.
