Category: Seikaisuru Kado

I hold many, many grievances with this turn Kado has taken but all things considered the show hasn’t become a trainwreck as I previously thought it would. The developments are rather forced but they at least work from a narrative standpoint. We have effectively transition to a story about the effects of pushing advancement and it’s consequences to humanity vs evil Aliens. I don’t like the transition at all but I can’t say the show has become terrible. It’s lesser but still watchable as a series. but boy do I lament the loss of what it could have been. In this episode we have the prime minster looking out to the city stating that “The events of these last few months have advanced humanity hundreds of years.” Indeed, imagine how fantastic it would be if we could actually see the effects and consequences of such drastic incorporation of revolutionary technology. We pushed off the consequences of Wam by having it that not everyone can make one. However with the introduction of Sanza that problem has been remedied while bringing in a whole new revolution of people who no longer need sleep. However aside from one news broadcast that was abruptly cut off by one of our main characters, we have no real knowledge of just how these things have affected society. The way the prime minister speaks of it suggested that nothing has happened yet which is such a cheap way of avoiding discussing the issue.

Now we have a universal controller getting introduced to the entire world and what, the UN are fine with this? Surely there must be world leaders heavily concerned over how screwed the economy is after these groundbreaking bombshells? See Za Shunina didn’t need to become a villain. There are plenty affected by his changes that can fill the role just as well. Hell why isn’t anyone attempting to assassinate ZaShunina? Sure we don’t know if it’s possible but that shouldn’t stop them. What even are the world governments doing with ZaShunina already throwing everything out of whack with yet another gift. By all accounts they should be painting him as a villain and trying to turn the populace against him. After all, ZaShunina has declared that he dislikes the nature of government and believes it is a broken system. ZaShunina vs the government, now that’s a conflict that makes for far more interesting storytelling and would really put Shindo’s talents as a negotiator to the test. Certainly a more interesting development that ZaShunina vs Super Saiyan Saraka and bio boosted armour Shindo.

They really are tossing any sense of ambiguity to Za Shunina now. They at least were showing him regretting killing Shindo and holding doubts over this whole thing. But then to nail his villain status full on we have Za Shunina monologuing his evil plan to ominous music while surrounded by dead Shindo clones. People claim this isn’t out of character but it truly is. ZaShunina is practically god and has been studying humanity since he landed. There is no possible way he could misunderstand the value of human life. But now suddenly he cannot understand our puny mortal emotions and it is up to humanity to teach him about wuv. Bloody hell, he’s a godlike being who created the universe, I think he can figure out how emotion works. Still i liked the kiss between Shindo and Saraka even if I find their recent romantic development to be rather forced and trite. But I think the reason i liked it had to do with the natural way it was animated. On that note, one thing I truly must give this series credit for is that it is one of the few CGI animated shows that managed to mostly avoid the janky execution of CGI.

In fact this entire series has been a very impressive effort and shows that fully CGI shows can truly match that of 2D animation. Other shows, like berserk 2017, could certainly take notes on how well this show manages it CGI aspects. In truth at times it does interchange between 2D and 3D animation but the fact that these changes are not as jarring as they would be in previous CGI shows goes to show that finally Japanese animation has found a way to incorporate CGI into anime naturally. Perhaps the engine by Arc System Works could have influenced the level of quality of CGI animation. Seriously check out the Dragonball Fighter Z game by them and be amazed at 3D animation that could very well convince you that it was 2D. If they tinker more that that then we could very well get CGI anime near indistinguishable from 2D anime.

So despite my aggravation with how the last episode ended, this episode starts of strong with how the universe was created and the anisotropic beings watching over it. The whole sequence was great and beautifully alien. That half of the episode explaining how Saraka ended up on end was actually very strong and despite the fact that what is being done with it is downright stupid, I find it to be a good backstory. But the second half of this episode was terrible. It just felt like the writer was replaced with a bottom barrel light novel author and the anime tropes shot up. i don’t like how Saraka is pulling this romantic trope crap with Shindo now and it’s almost as if we have become a shounen battle manga with those fight scenes.

Yes, I am still mad that they are turning Za Shunina evil. It takes what was originally a nice morally complex subject and cheapens it down to a black or white answer. Plus they are going to forced levels to turn Za Shunina evil as now his motivation has changed from increasing the amount of information humans produce so the anisotropic has more  to process, into transferring humans to the anisotropic. Guess what? Turns out humans will most likely not survive the trip and Za Shunina doesn’t care about that fact as long as at least one makes it through. Look…Za Shunina has always been rather vague about his intentions but when first interacting with humanity he didn’t show this level of tactlessness. I went through the hoops, he showed respect for humanity and he even showed respect for life in how he returned the passengers sucked into Kado. So what in the hell has happened to cause him to change so drastically. Why is he suddenly forcing his decisions on people and pretty much killing anyone that gets in his way? Even on that matter he’s half assed about it. Why is he going to the trouble of engaging in beam straggles when he could make a hand appear within their bodies and crush their hearts. He’s a being on par with god, if he wanted to kill them then they should be dead. I like that they are at least showing that he is somewhat regretting his actions but I just can’t buy that Za Shunina couldn’t pick up on the importance of human life from all the media he consumes.

Something powerful was lost when Kado pulled that twist and quite frankly it’s not going to recover from that. I don’t really like how much they are pushing for the Shindo/Saraka pairing when the two were having decent adult chemistry without the usual love comedy nonsense. I am not saying I don’t approve of the pairing but I just find it cringe worthy in how it’s handled at the moment. I am thankful that Saraka didn’t pull a usual “Baka! Hentai” routine upon waking up naked beside Shindo but I really have to question whether this whole thing was necessary. This was mentioned in the comments on a previous post but I do find that Shindo has been doing very little actual negotiating in this series. Mostly he has just been acting as ambassador for Za Shunina. Episode 0 gave the impression that he would be implementing plans to integrate Za Shunina’s gifts but really he hasn’t done anything like that. If anything, all he really did was relegate all the work to his co-worker. And now it looks like he’s going againest Za Shunina all shounen hero style. That’s rather disappointing.

Let us ignore the elephant in the room for a moment and say that up until that point this episode was quite good. The explanation that Za-Shunina put forward essentially admitting that the Anisotropic created humanity was quite excellent and really puts ZaShunina’s alien nature into perspective. I in particular really like his explanation as to why humanity was created in the first place. To put it in the absolute lowest terms, the Anisotropic is like a fully decked out gaming PC that’s only used to play solitaire. They wanted information to process and the universe was found wanting. So they went and created millions of worlds in hopes that one would provide them a fountain of information they crave. The one planet that managed this was earth and now ZaShunina is attempting to advance earth in hopes of providing an endless amount of information for Anisotropic. All things considered that makes sense and shows why ZaShunina going to such efforts to advance humanity for what seemed like no benefit. He even went over the last of his gifts, which is essentially the universal controller for creation. It was a bit of a dick move for him to accidently leave Shindo stuck for three days while he was screwing around with time but it does show just how disconnected he is from human nature. Overall we now know what ZaShunina is after and his end goal. By all account his motivations are actually quite beneficial to humanity and his innovations could result in a brand new frontier for the human race. One of boundless imagination.

So with all due respect…what…in the holy hell…was that?! I mean what?! You have done it haven’t you? You pulled a Samurai Flamenco. (Clarification: Samurai Flamenco was an anime which started as portraying sentai heroes in a realistic setting but went straight to crazy town after a sudden genre shift.) I did express concern that this series might go the route of turning ZaShunina into a villain but this is so jarring a shift that I have whiplash. ZaShunina my man, you were doing so well. By all accounts Shindo didn’t even reject your invitation into the anisotropic, it’s just that after you put someone through three days of being stopped in time and throw this in their face then of course he would need some time to process it! This is not out of character for ZaShunina but just suddenly declaring to make a copy of Shindo and then erase the current one with a super magic beam sword is just…what?! I mean if he wanted to erase Shindo then couldn’t he done it without the light show or was that to make Saraka’s appearance all the more “EPIC”.

Yes, Saraka is now a secret anisotropic being and I am certain that was not foreshadowed in the slightest. Even the ring in this episode didn’t seem to be previously featured and really feels like a last minute rewrite. Oh this feels like a twist that the show will not recover from and it pretty much destroys the goodwill I had for the series. True, this show wasn’t going to be my anime of the year but I at least appreciate what it was going for. An alien popping down to earth to help advance mankind is a much rarer story that what it has now become. It’s us vs them now. The inventions the alien presented to us could greatly benefit humanity but they are not right because they alien and only humanity is right. Humanity hell yeah! You know, if aliens do show up on earth I am certain a large amount of Sci-fi media would be labeled as racist, with this show being one of them. I am more than a little annoyed that Saraka’s nonsense is not only being put forward but also being constituted as “The Right Answer”. That’s not how this works show. You don’t dictate what is the right answer. Free will is part of humanities creed and therefore attempting to shove values on the viewer is indicative of disdain for humanity itself. You can’t berate an alien figure for shoving his values on humanity while doing the same thing. That’s just hypocrisy.

This week on Kado, ZaShunina looks to be throwing in another gift before mankind has time to process his last one. This time a device which when observed, allows one to comprehend the anisotropic. This would also tie into Wam as the thing which prevented the explosion of energy devices is people’s inability to understand the anisotropic. I don’t quite like ZaShunina’s approach this time as he really does seem to be going over the heads of the government and using the media to push what is a pretty devastating change on the world. With Wam he at least acknowledged the government and presented his case to them. Here he didn’t even bother to have a talk with the prime minister about it. Though I am concerned over this series only show a small picture of the effect of ZaShunina’s changes as here we get some actually discussion on tv about the consequences of Wam only to have a character shut the TV off and discuss other matters.

Then there’s the conversation with Saraka where she takes a day to show Shindo her way of life in a bid to justify her reasoning for wanting ZaShunina to return to where he came. Basic summary boils down to undermining the achievements humans have made so far by advancing with the help of ZaShunina. Saraka wants humans to move at there own pace and advance without ZaShunina’s help. And I am sorry Saraka, but this reasoning is asinine. Civilization has always advanced through trade and what is ZaShunina but a trader? His gifts are akin to introducing new technologies of native tribes. Pushing him away out of fear of change is really just prideful nonsense as she is making the assumption that humanity can advance on its own. Case in point, the Sakoku period of Japan was a period where for 200 years Japan isolated themselves from the rest of the world. Guess what happened? The world advanced without them and they became hopelessly outclassed by the advancements of other countries. Saraka uses the modern landscape as an example of humanity’s progress but girl that progress is the result of Japan playing catch up with the rest of the world. I agree with the president that ZaShunina is pushing advancement far too fast but it’s just foolhardy to push him away out of some misplaced sentimentality over humanity’s achievements. Girl, humanity came close to killing ourselves off on more than one occasion. The achievements you speak off where built on the blood and struggles of decades of screwing around with no idea and even then our current society is far from a perfect system. ZaShunina offers to bypass thousands of years of meandering and reach the next level of humanity. You want to push that aside so you can keep playing in the mud till you make something meaningful? Good luck.

But this is worrisome as the tone of ZaShunina looks to be gearing towards a villainous angle. I hope that this is merely an uncanny valley effect of ZaShunina becoming more human and therefore his reactions become more suspicious. One of the biggest mistakes this anime could make would be to turn the alien evil and prove Saraka’s philosophy right. The message of the series would take on a rather misguided message and this becomes yet another alien invasion story with a us vs them conclusion. My hope is that it dodges that particular landmine and ZaShunina is someone who may have an agenda but not a evil one. Even having his changes be a matter of good intentions gone horribly awry would do well to characterise ZaShunina’s general nativity over the nature of mankind.

I was wrong about the recap episode this week. Perhaps it was after this episode or maybe I was just mistaken. Well you don’t hear me complaining about this as I get to see the fallout from the last episode. Or at least what should have been the fallout. I got a little annoyed with the developments this week as while last week had the Japanese reveal the secret to creating Wam to the world, it appears that not everyone has the aptitude for making them. Thus the story brushed aside what would have been very interesting developments in favorite of focusing on the next Kado gift. Seeing as this series is all about this Aliens effect on humanity, I find it distasteful to hand wave off the long term consequences of his gifts. Makes me think that this series will shy away from the darker aspects of the human condition even when it’s relevant. It is refreshing to see a series where humans approach an alien lifeform with reactions that are not KILL or Capture for experimentation then KILL! Likewise for the Alien creature itself. But it is important to remark on the negative aspects of Kado pushing human advancement rather than just throw down revolutionary gifts and say “Well some revolution will happen in the future and it will be fine I guess?”

Well today we rolled a cube and it was oddly rather exciting despite nothing going wrong. It’s time to move Kado to a less bothersome location now that the passengers are freed and zaShunina makes things difficult by putting down conditions on how his cube should move. The solution is to literally roll a giant cube through Japan which goes surprisingly well despite how messy it sounds. Don’t know why everyone found Shindo’s idea of rolling it along it’s edges so impressive seeing as it doesn’t really change much and it is pretty obvious idea.

Once everything is moved zaShunina drops the bombshell for his next gift to humanity. That being to remove humanity’s need to sleep. To that let me say, sign me the hell up. If there are any kids reading this blog(Chances slim to none) that when you are younger having the money to afford things is more important. But when you have steady income job when you are older, time becomes your most valuable commodity. Rule of thumb is when you are young you have all the time in the world but nothing to spend it on. When you are older you have tons of things to spend time on but no time to spent. So if I can trade my sleeping hours for more spare time without consequence but you bet I would. To most of you however this proposal may not sound all that big considering his last change was infinite energy. It sounds that way at first but when you think about it, this is just as devastating.  WIth an extra 8 hours a day you could put it into work and earn double your paycheck. Even taking into account what people could accomplish with that extra time would be incredible. In terms of the economy businesses would need to be open 24/7 for there will be no point when people sleep. In fact what’s the point of having beds anymore? Besides maybe the occasional rest and adult time those things would be unneeded. The changes this would make to society as a whole would be astronomical. You would be able to get ten days work done in seven and most importantly…people would final have time to get through their backlogs.

Of course their is going to be kickback from this. Namely does this process make someone still human? Shindo certainly isn’t too excited by the prospect but I really do wonder how he didn’t realise that he hadn’t slept in a week. zaShunina has clearly crossed a line whether he knows it or not by altering Shindo without his permission. This alteration brings up more concerns as black companies would certainly abuse it to make working conditions even worse and it draws up the question that maybe zaShunina’s final aim is to turn humanity into something like himself. As Shindo’s mother brought up, perhaps he’s alone in the universe and seeking a being close to himself. Whatever the result I just say for zaShunina should to bring this gift to our reality. Cause I sorely need it.

Looks to be the tread this week for unexpected reveals and rather uneventful episodes. This week’s episode mainly dealt with zaShunina hiring that annoying Scientist girl Shinawa to figure out how his Wam work. Not sure why he couldn’t just tell them how it worked but I guess but his logic he figured humanity wouldn’t accept an answer that didn’t come from a human. Or simply zaShunina is simply playing around with humanity to see if they can come to their own answers. His talk with the prime minister looked to be for two reasons. One was to convince him to go along with his plan and the other seems to be to affirm if he was correct in presenting humans with Wam. It up for debate if zaShunina was right or wrong in this matter as we are still oblivious to his true intent. The prime minister absolved him of guilt by saying that regardless of what is done with Wam, it would be the fault of the user and not the one who gifted it. I counter that be saying if the gifts intent was to cause chaos then the giver does hold responsibility. You can’t give a loaded gun to a child and then say it’s his own fault if he manages to shoot himself. I despair that this annoying creature must remain present in the series but I guess someone had to fill the role of genius Scientist. To be fair her antics are less aggravating besides her attempt to eat zaShunina’s hand for some odd reason. I am willing to put up with her considering that her actions in this episode essentially ended up being one giant “Fuck you” to the UN.

Boy, was that glorious. Sure we will hand over the Wam in our possession but first let’s give the entire world a self help guide on how you can make a infinite energy source with a piece of paper. Certainly makes the government’s plight seem ridiculous in hindsight when it’s not the objects themselves that matter, but their form. Meaning you could make one of these out of cow dung and it would still work. So the government were getting antsy over what are essentially useless glass balls. Still there is the long term effects of just what this revelation could do to the world. Previously I said I was on the side of Saraka but in light of this episode’s development I have shifted my stance. It is true that humanity is not ready for infinite energy but just when would they be? When oil, fossil fuels and other resources run out? Likely not. I have trouble seeing a scenario where Wam are adopted and thing work just as intended as without doubt in the hands of the government there would be an attempt to monopolize the energy.

Honestly i don’t think humanity would ever be ready for Wam. So the approach of just throwing it out to the people and letting it all sort itself out is actually not a bad idea. Humans tend to adapt to anything and regardless if a strict policy was placed on the use of Wam then it was going to end up in the wrong hands regardless. When you think about something like the internet, it’s growth was spontaneous. It wasn’t controlled or planned to be become what it is today. It just morphed into what you see before you. This new revolution could lead to bloodshed and chaos but the benefits of what could come from this are uncountable. Still this could be the first move for zaShunina as he does not appear to be fond of the idea of countries. Much like others suspect, perhaps this is a plan to throw government into chaos and thus rewrite just how humanity governs itself. From what I hear next week’s episode of Kado will be a recap episode. Rather unfortunate considering the reveal it dropped.

Well this went down as easy as I thought it would. United Nations are bullying Japan to give up all the Wam, Japan is naturally clueless over what to do with it and there are a whole host of people who find it too good to be true. So far the only negative effect aside from pure economic collapse is that Wam could lead to the problem of global warming. The specifics are a bit over my head but from what I can assume it appears that while Wam is a perfect power source, it is still being utilised by imperfect machines. Machines leave waste heat and introducing Wam to the world would result in the creation of more machines. Which in turn would lead to a far greater amount of waste heat which would contribute to global warming.  Though such an issue would take several hundreds of years to actually manifest.

The UN wants the Wam to be confiscated though by the UN that mainly refers to its five permanent members. Two of which(USA and Russia) serve to lose out the most of Wam are distributed. Thus the main conflict is finding a compromise which allows the Wam to be used while not throwing people under a bus. I find my opinion in agreement with Saraka who surmises that humanity is in no way ready for a gift such as Wam. Though regarding her I do find her to be far more suitable comic relief that the other girl as her general embarrassment over laughing on the negotiation table and frustration with Shindo is far more entertaining than a ditzy genius scientist that has no common sense

The prologue phase appears to be complete and now this show looks to be what I originally called it as. In that regard however i have come to accept that this will be one of those shows which isn’t really hyped up. Kado is slow paced and methodical with a focus on political situations that result out of this Alien shaking up the planet. Admittedly it’s not the type of show you can get on the edge of your seat for. More the type to enjoy with a cup of tea. Well za-Shunina appears to have chosen a representative who can be the key to the whole situation and…oh god no. It’s the scientist girl. I was dreading this but I somehow knew this girl was going to come into this somehow. No matter how much I didn’t want her to.

I admit this show moves at a pace that is rather slow but he concept it sets up is truly brilliant. Normally in alien invasion stories the threat is clear as the aliens blow up the white house and attack humanity. Other versions usually paint humans as the antagonist force attacking something they don’t understand. However in Kado, the Alien and humans understand their positions. Logic and reason are prevalent in the discussions at work here and thus the threat of an Alien comes in a new force. The thing that makes zaShunina such a devastating factor is not his potential for warfare but rather his gifts to help humanity’s advancement. Wam’s are his first gift and being an infinite energy source that looks to require no maintenance as well as easy to transport and make, he has effectively devastated the energy market. All major energy production companies are rendered utterly moot in face of this device which results in companies shutting down and thousands losing their jobs. Assuming of course they plan to go down quietly. Make no mistake, they will try to find something wrong with these wam’s and discourage their use. Even I think that what is promised is rather too good to be true.

That is only one of the problems with an even bigger problem being that Japan is now the holder of the greatest energy device known to man and the only present manufacturer. The preview does hint at discontent over Japan’s monopoly over the devices. So the question is, just why is zaShunina presenting these wams to Japan? We get somewhat of an explanation over just why he chose Japan though admittedly it’s a little sigh inducing. Apparently Japan has more “heart” than the rest of the world and thus seem more likely to share the gifts zaShunina presents. This logic is fairly flimsy and zaShunina does mention that heart is only a word that represents half the mention of the quality used to judge. Personally I prefer to think of it that Japan had the prefect dimensional parameters for the manifestation of Kado. Really both of these are just a flimsy excuses to make Japan the center of the story, much like Kyubei’s explanation about emotional energy in Madoka was a flimsy excuse to justify magical girls over magical boys. What’s important here is that Japan now has the solution to the energy crisis and zaShunina has left the distribution, use and handling of these devices completely within the hands of the Japanese government. Painting a giant target on Japan because with a device like this, someone is going to want to try weaponising it. Thus having it that anyone can grab one of these things opens up the dangers of them being greatly misused. Whereas withholding such a device from the world makes you public enemy number one.

The first episode makes it clear where this series is planning to take itself as it’s most likely up to Shindo to find a way of reaping the benefits of this fantastic device while preventing it from sparking World War III. This being only the first of zaShunina’s gifts as I am certain he has more groundbreaking items at hand. He has already shown that he can duplicate food which could end world hunger and is most likely capable of teleportation as well. Both equally as devastating to earth economy. Something that I think could really carry the series is the interaction between zaShunina and Shindo as the two do sometimes devolve into amusing bickering from time to time. The negotiator on the side of the Japanese government briefly broke character upon witnessing it though previously she did state that she was wary of Shindo. These three character show good potential for growth and i hope they do and that things are kept as far away from the weird science girl as much as possible. Comic relief characters are all well and good but when a show has such a mature serious atmosphere, having some hyper teenager who looks like she jumped out of a light novel adaption just kills the mood. With the stakes laid out and the setup pretty much done I hope this is the point this show really takes off.