I hate to say it, but I’m starting to lose interest in this series. This episode was the final nail in the coffin for me to admit that. This was the episode when the main plot returns again after the string of bizarrre filler lately, but what we got for it… I can’t really say that it was worth the build up.
So, Mix gets kid-napped, Zessica is doing nothing but angst and every father in this show is an asshole: Mikono and Mix’s treat their daughters as junk, while Amata’s fater left him and who knows: perhaps he’s eve that Mikage guy. The amount of angst in this episode, it didn’t work for me aside from Mix and Andy, but even that resulted in a cheesy kidnapping.
This type of angst unfortunately is something that is all over Shoji Kawamori’s series. I got tired of it in Macross Frontier and Arjuna, and even Basquash had some of it. I was hoping that Mari Okada would be able to keep him straight, and I guess that the twists here are more creative, but this angst still remains annoying.
The worst was Zessica, who just plainly dived into emo and lost herself in her angst and crush for Amata. It’s a shame that even after 18 episodes, her character still is nothing more than “I like Amato but have no chance on him because of Mikono”. It’s all just so superficial. The mecha action battle of this episode also was quite boring and also couldn’t keep my interest. Something needs to happen for this series now, and quickly.
Rating: – (Disappointing)
>>I was hoping that Mari Okada would be able to keep him straight,
Wait, you mean Mari “Milk all the angst till it’s dry and then some” Okada?
What Tiresias said.
I can’t say for certain whether angst features heavily in Kawamori’s work. He always seemed like the one twisting things on its head instead.
I can say for certain though that Mari Okada has angst in spades. I will never forget the scene in AnoHana where literally every character started bawling their eyes out in one of the last eps. Even Popo and Tsuruko’s waterworks got going with very little indication of their reasoning for doing so. I just couldn’t take it, it made the show which was one of my favorites at the start of the season, a laughable melodramatic try hard of a show. Then there is BRS, possibly the most angsty show in recent history. She’s got a bit of a track record. Though she’s also done some awesome episodes. She’s just rather inconsistent.
Sympathetic reaction. You know if how everyone around you is laughing, you get the urge to laugh too even if th joke wasn’t particularly funny? It’s the same logic. I’ve cried too in a situation that didn’t really warrant it (although it certainly was somewhat sad) because the emotions around me affected me.
Mari Okada’s writing of emotions is always very realistic.
Realistic, but not plausible. I agree with Taka; the great individual characterization of each childhood friend was lost in a general catharsis that apparently “solved everything”.
Um, what’s the difference between ‘realistic considering the situation’ and ‘plausible’?
If there’s a subtle difference between the terms, I’d say the climax of Ano Hana was both, albeit very cheesy.
Plausible is a congruency with the established elements of the narrative. So many personalities reacting the same way to a problem may be realistic, but it’s not congruent with how the story was being handled.
What I meant by that is that Mari Okada’s angst is at least interesting and well developed. Shoji Kawamori’s angst often feels shallow to me.
I guess you haven’t watch Black Rock Shooter, then (good for you). The angst, it burns!
Okada Mari, like may other writers, falls under the hit-or-miss category. Sometimes she writes well, and sometimes she writes…well, Black Rock Shooter. And mind you, for that particular example she was the main writer so you can’t accuse others of ‘tainting’ her work – oh no, that one is purely her.
I won’t see her name and peg “Instant Failure,” but I won’t see her name and say “Instant Success, Quality Assured” either.
This episode reminded me so much of 1st season, when Sirius defected to the Angels…and his reason for going was just as stupid as Zessica’s, it’s like they are only going because the show asked so -_-
I didn’t really hate Zessica before because she was being used as a plot device, but after this episode, I can’t feel that way anymore; her reaction after seeing Mix getting kidnapped is stupid too, saying: “She sacrificed herself to me”
Geez, not only Mix didn’t do it willingly, didn’t you want to go so badly? So why are you feel bad and worried for Mix to be taken there? Makes no sense…
Why shouldn’t she blame herself for Mix being taken?
Her entire character development led up to this moment. How she started to change, how she couldn’t really change, how she couldn’t go back to what once was. How everyone around her settled into their respctive roles, and she remained the odd one out, stuck in a limbo not knowing what to do. Her self-confidence was slowly eroding, but the memory of that self-confidence kept her together – “I’m strong, damn it! This won’t destroy me”-esque. And then there comes the enemy saying ‘Hai guis, we’ll give up this whole war thing if you give us a strong willed female. No really, that’s all we want.’Of course she was going to take the bait. It likely looked like the perfect solution to her, allowing everyone else to become happy.
…then Mix gets kidnapped trying to protect her. Ooops.
Keep in mind that we also know nothing of her childhood. Right now she is the most mysterious person in the cast; everyone else around her is screwed up, I honestly doubt she’s have a normal life up to that point.
When I thought the series could not make me even more confused…it did. Angst, I can handle, everyone goes through it time to time. But emo? Nope, not going to have that crap. I don’t see the appeal of being sad all the time and moping, I really don’t. This episode should have done better and the constant beating of dead horses (Mikono’s dad problems, Mix’s boy problems, Amata’s lack of balls and chasing a hardly-worth-it girl, etc) is making the anime hardly worth watching.
I watched the anime to be entertained, not see the same ‘problems’ you would see in a Twilight flick.
you know jessica aside th episode wasn’t that bad Isumo who definately is main chracter’s father kicked ass,(I hope it was just a confusion of names becuase there is nothing indicating it could have been Mikage Psgl’s) Plus Jessica’s Angst aside, it makes perfect sense to give one person to the enemy if it will end a long war full of casulties , I was actually suprised no one proposed it sooner.
This show was ludicrous from the start.
I feel like I’m the only one who still likes Zessica. The way she’s falling apart at the seams, breaking down, is delicious for me to watch. My favorite genre is character study, but I want the setting to take the characters it studies through the wringer and not just look at them. Her development’s particularly interesting in that they seem to be contrasting it rather heavily with Mikono coming out of her shell.
Everyone expected Zessica to defect. It was hinted at pretty obviously, I really didn’t expect it to fail and have Mix removed instead. Aquarion really loves using its whole cast – Mix and Andy are probably the two most unimportant characters in the main cast, I can’t think of any other anime where their equivalents got such an important role.
Mikono is the only one I really dislike here. When was the last time she got away from a stunt with even than a slap on the wrist?
There’s something about this episode that’s just so wrong, between Andy’s moping even harder than Amata ever did, Zessica taking every dead end face on, and the sudden revelation that Mikono and Cayenne can have a simple talk between siblings. This show clearly doesn’t consider its audience to be intelligent people, I had (like most people) my fair share of issues with Guilty Crown but EVOL top its crappiness on almost every level.
“doesn’t consider it’s audience to be intelligent people”
GC took that shit to an unbeatable level.
Stay mad GC fans.
This show thrives on over the top portrayal of emotions (emo and angst included), at least that’s what made it enjoyable for me. Yet suddenly it looks like people are looking for more down to earth writing? Too much of a contrast to other running series perhaps?
@Ananas
That’s giving Guilty Crown waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much credit. At least Evol doesn’t make me want to murder every cast member.
Ha ha! Yeah, I grant you that one, but at least GC made it clear that most characters were openly hateable through their actions, in EVOL I want to murder the lead characters for being a bunch of emo annoying kids who have nothing to stand for but a petty love life (you got to love when they go thinking “after the war with the abductors is over let’s fuck no condom style, cause it’s gonna be over soon you know and we’re gonna win for sure, after all they’re nothing more than a bunch of monster of the week fodder material”).
Saw this coming…I always felt it strange for you to blog this, but I guess you never watched the one before this.
It’s Aquarion, and is nothing more than a huge mess of innuendo and strangeness mixed with flash.