Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Alright Franxx, you are forgiven for episode 14 and thank god this whole mess was sorted out relatively fast. I was truly prepared for this to drag on for several episodes but looks like they had the sense to cut it short and give the audience what it wants. So we get an animation extravaganza with a grand battle against what looks to be Klax headquarters. So it’s actually understandable why the previous episode felt a bit forced, they needed to split these two so that they could get the real fireworks ready for a full reunion and confession. Honestly I don’t think that aspect was handled well as the breakup just made everyone look bad with how sudden it was. The resolution does make for a bombastic spectacle but the means to get to it was clunky.

Goro wins the best character of the episode award for seeing Ichigo once again be ready to block HIro from getting to Zero Two and making the best call for the situation. So much so that I wonder just why Ichigo is squad leader when Goro is clearly more qualified for the position. When this episode was about to go down a long and annoying road Goro stepped in and decided to put a stop to it. And thanks to Hiro riding with Ichigo she was able to see that she pretty much didn’t have a hope in hell with him, finally allowing her to get over her crush and make the right call. Albeit with a little bit of a sore loser attitude. Thus does Hiro and Zero Two do what any couple should do regarding a misunderstanding like this and talk. Cue emotional confessions, crying, kissing and a metaphoral representation of what sounded like really good sex.

So as we can see the major character conflicts have been resolved, Ichigo has given up on Hiro(Or at least I hope she has by this point), the team have worked out their differences and Hiro and Zero Two are together again fully embracing their love for one another. By all accounts you would think this is where the series would end and yet we still got nine more episodes to go. So here’s my take, throughout the series Franxx has been teasing a dark turn of storytelling, several hints have been dropped to that effect for in this episode alone we have the higher ups suicide bombing both pilots and adults for their own agenda and the human like cocoon that dropped out of a Klax core.(Klax being humans is a rather predictable turn of events but hey it could lead to some good story development.) If there was any point where Darling in the Franxx would shift to a darker toned story then this would undoubtedly be it.

We got confirmation of a new threat but with Strelizia’s new upgrade in power I see this going either the way of Gurren Lagann whether the threat gets massively overpowered and needs the power of love to upgrade everyone to defeat it or we are going to go the road of Evangelion where in the challenges become more mental and the organisations cruelty and hidden agendas comes to light. As far as the adults are concerned, I previously stated that I don’t care and I still don’t. The thing that carries this show and keeps me coming back is the characters so my primary focus is just how much this change of tone is going to affect them. Considering episode 14 I fear they may botch it but making developments purposefully infruitating. Still I am interesting in just where this is going, sadly though we won’t get to see this next Saturday as likely to recover from the animation explosion that was this episode, no Franxx episode will air. Instead we got to wait an extra week for the next episode. I don’t mind leaving it at this for now but truly were is this going to go once things start up again?

Last time Darling and the Franxx had it’s best episode yet which raised my opinion of the series and gave me hopes for greater things moving forward. So it’s sad that they follow this up with the worst episode of the series to date. This episode was pure frustration to watch because you knew exactly what was happening and just how easily it could have been avoided. If either Hiro o Zero Two tried to explain the situation and what happened in the past then things wouldn’t have got this bad. If both Hiro and Zero Two hadn’t gone to see each other at the exact same time. But most importantly, if somebody could have stopped Ichigo from going too far. Oh boy if there is a serious casualty in this whole mess, it’s Ichigo. I haven’t seen a fanbase turn on a character so fast but hey Zorome wasn’t cared for that much in the beginning either and now he’s actually rather endearing. So could Ichigo turn this around? In a way she is a victim of the writing as they needed someone to put a rift between Zero Two and Hiro so Ichigo turned out to be the tool to make that possible. Looking at the situation from her perspective it’s actually understandable why she took measures to separate Zero Two and Hiro.

It’s just that under the present circumstances, that was the worst thing she could have done. For she was reenacting exactly what happened in their past to tear them apart and wound up Zero Two to the point that Hiro would see her at her lowest moment. Made all the worst by Ichigo forcefully stopping Hiro from running after Zero Two with her forced confession. Which really was in bad taste as it spits on Goro’s confession to her. Yes, she is under no obligation to love Goro just because he confessed to her but I just find it heartless to disregard his feelings entirely and chase after a doomed crush. You can tell she started things out of concern for Hiro but then her own emotions started pushing things too far that even the team was uncomfortable with how she was handling the situation. You cannot say there wasn’t any spite in how she ostracised Zero Two, particularly in trying to force her out of the next operation. This episode has Ichigo be selfish and ignorant which earned the venomous reception of the internet. For she is the single thing preventing the scene viewers wish to see between Hiro and Zero Two with the action being made all the more hateable by it being born of good intentions amplified with selfish desire.

The thing that makes this episode problematic is that while the characters actions make sense, the situation is just so utterly contrived. It’s clear the writer wanted drama and to tease out the reunion between Hiro and Zero Two. This series of unfortunate events just to create a conflict to force Zero Two away from the team is frustrating to behold and makes all the characters look bad for it. Which makes it more painful when you consider that it will take more than one episode to resolve this stupid misunderstanding between the characters. If they are smart about it, this development could be fixed fast as I am sure not many are a fan of it. But I fear we are in for episodes of Zero Two brooding over Hiro, Hiro brooding over Zero Two and Ichigo trying to sandwich herself in Hiro’s broken heart while Goro looks over it with depressed resignation. And boy, that certainly doesn’t sound fun. Oh and as a final note it is rather humorous for Mitsuru completely brush off Hiro remembering his promise despite him obsessing over it in a previous episode. Not sure if he was just playing it cool or if Kokoro helped him get over it.

That was the best episode of Darling in the Franxx to date. Truly I am impressed with this though it may be perhaps because the fanservice aspects of the show were not present at all during this episode. Todays episode was spent entirely on the past of Hiro and Zero Two. When this episode is over it brings a whole new light on events before this. All the strange disconnected things that Zero Two did throughout the series just suddenly click and you realize just what she was trying to do. Her distaste for tests, her love for sweet things, searching for picture books in the library, her insistence on Hiro calling her Zero Two over giving a new nickname and even why she calls him Darling. It all connects right back to when they were children as Hiro is the one who influenced all of this. Well the picture book seems influenced by what we can assume is her creator which appears to not be the plantation. They were shocked to find a creature as humanlike as Zero Two.

On that front Dr Franxx certainly lost a lot of points today. Up till now he seemed like the voice of reason within the society but seeing him torture Zero Two with delight over her Kalozuar characteristics certainly paints him in a new light. It’s possible that in the future he wishes to somehow atone for his actions but it’s just as likely that he’s motivated by pure cold scientific curiosity. HIro also could go through a massive character shift here as well as in his memories he certainly is more confident and motivated when compared to his teenage self. But the memory erase seems to have screwed him up bad. With the return of his memories by episodes end this could very well spell a return of the confident Hiro of the past which I would find most agreeable. But yes that moment, when Hiro confirms that he remembers to Zero Two and her turning back to realize that Hiro is indeed the boy she loved in the past. Damn that was a cruel cliffhanger. When taking into account Zero Two’s breakdown it does seem to be more the product of deciding that after all these hints with no results that Hiro wasn’t the boy she knew in the past which pushed her objective to “Becoming human.” So I suspect shes going to cool down quite a bit with his return. What’s more I wonder if the return of Hiro’s memories cause him to start responding more confidently to her advances. Now that would certainly be fun to see.

I will admit that it’s not as if the events in this episode were surprising or unpredictable as I pretty much knew where it was going the whole way through. What makes this episode work was the the execution was on point throughout and it didn’t matter if the events could be guessed beforehand, you were still glued to the screen to see them all unfold. This could very well be a changing point for Darling in the Franxx, where it stops being that strange enjoyable mecha show with weird fanservice and actually branches out into something truly taking note of. Or this could very well be a Little Witch Academia situation where episodes promise greatness only to let down once the next episode starts. Regardless I have found during the string of strong episodes this series is having that it is essentially the only anime I covered during the Winter season that I actually felt interested in seeing what it was to bring each week. Depending on what comes I may even start recommending that people watch this show and be frustrated that they can’t get past the ass controls. Yes, they certainly could have used more subtlety in that department.

Three episode coverage this week as many things got in the way of my casual blogging, the much late preview being one of them. I must say that the last few episodes of Franxx have been quite strong as we have had a string of character development episodes which have really fleshed out the cast. As well as shed some light on the situation of the world itself. First up we have Zoromes episode where he manages to meet what may be his biological mother in the lower city plantation and through talking with her found that becoming an adult isn’t quite what he expected. My previous theory of there being no true humans in the city turned out to not be true and instead it seems that adults just spend their time in a machine that partially drugs them with doses of happiness. Social interaction has more or less disappeared as the woman states she hasn’t talked with her husband in years. Ultimately it seems that the children above are distinctly more human than the seemingly privileged adults living in the plantation. By episodes end it seems Zorome stopped caring about becoming an adult and prefers to enjoy his time up with the others, even mentioning his fondness for arguing with Miku. While locking away his memories of something devastating the woman told him and the way the officers treated him like some kind of contaminant.

Our second episode mainly focuses on Kokoro, Mitsuru and Futoshi with a rather disheartening route as Kokoro chooses to swap partners so she can work with Mitsuru, leaving Futoshi devastated. While in one way this could be considered a betrayal on Kokoro’s part as before there relationship was shown to be rather wholesome, it does bring some more context to those previous interactions. Futoshi is obviously head over heels for Kokoro but when examining previous interaction it does feel like a one sided arrangement. Kokoro very much puts up with Futoshi and his general overbearing affection most likely pushed Kokoro away. Whereas Mitsuru gives her space and doesn’t treat her like everyone else does. Seeing the greenhouse conversations I felt things were moving in this direction but you still feel bad for Futoshi. Though hopefully this is a good lesson for him. As for Ikuno this episode gave more credence to the theory of her being a lesbian considering her attempting a girl on girl control of a Franxx. I am not quite sold on her batting for the other team considering there is little evidence of her having sexual interest in women. I feel the internet is jumping to extremes again. It’s clear she holds a disdain for boys, likely thanks to Mitsuru, but just because she doesn’t like boys doesn’t mean she wants to pull ichigo under the covers. In the same way that just because Mitsuru is salty over Hiro forgetting their promise to pilot together doesn’t mean he’s secretly thirsty for man meat. Though considering that the mechs are often used as a metaphor for sexual intercourse I can’t say that people are wrong for coming to these conclusions.

The third episode focuses on Zero Two and has thrown the Red and Blue Oni theory back on the table. With her going increasingly more out of control and monstrous shes pushing aside her own teammates. Ultimately her fixtation to become human is pushing her to kill Klaxosaurs while being unaware that her fixation is only making her less human. But what makes this rather interesting is that Zero Two apparently met Hiro back then at a point where he was a golden boy and lost his memories. Theories are going around that Hiro might be a clone and that Zero Two is attempting to find the original Hiro who died through him. Either way we basically find that the squad of the series is indeed an oddball within the facility as they see children who go through much more rigorous testing to make them nice little puppets. The fact that the kids developed more human charistics may indeed be some sort of plan by Franxx, either because of curiously or some end goal. It’s clear the man wants these kids to be human and is slowly letting them know of society. Perhaps so they can judge it? We reach the middle point of Franxx and if there is to be a turning point, this is most likely it. This show could potentially become something else entirely in it’s next cour or we could just continue as things have been. What’s your move Franxx?