Category: Toward the Terra

Seriously, this episode turned out incredibly exciting. I know I already wowed over the first half of the series, but as things look now, the second half of Toward the Terra is going to beat it in every single way. If the series can keep up the pacing for the final episodes, then when we’re talking about one of the best science-fiction anime of the past few years. Anyway, things didn’t turn out like I predicted after the previous episode. Toni and Physis get taken hostage by Keith, to help him escape, but both of them manage get away safely from him. Karina, however, is not so fortunate, and she dies through her worries of having lost her only son. Her death certainly was a memorable one, and it puts Toni in an interesting position, because some day, he’ll have to face the fact that he indirectly killed his own mother. We also see Blue back in action, and for some reason, he sees the same memories in Keith as the ones in Physis. The question now remains: why was Blue the only one who could sense the guy’s real memories? The link between Physis and Mother Eliza still remains a huge mystery. The bubbles seen in the memory probably stand for the strange place Shiroe ran into in episode eight, but that doesn’t explain Physis’s role in it. Anyway, right now, the Myu are in trouble, and the younger ones are going to have to accept that they’ll have to leave Nazca. After all, Keith sent enough back ups to take care of them. I suspect that they’ll be heading for Terra again, but I wonder how they’ll find out its location. We’re in for at least one more major time-leap, up to the point where Tobi has fully grown up. I suspect that next episode will be spent on escaping from Keith, where Blue probably plays his final trump card, after which the Myu manage to remain hidden for a number of years. But then again, this is all based on the information in the OP, and we all know how misleading that one can be. ^^;]]>

Whoa!! Seriously!!! If anyone claims to be able to predict what happens at the end of this episode, he’s lying. Whoa… that was unexpected!!! Seriously!!! And I definitely do not mean this in a bad Code-Geass way, where one small, well-timed Deus ex Machina can kill hundreds of thousands of people. No, this makes perfect sense, but holy god… I never expected Toni to have such a great role in this episode. The new OP suggested that he’ll be playing some kind of big role, but I never thought too much behind it. Anyway, regarding the new OP and ED, they’re quite good, and I like them better than the old ones. I’m also very curious about the way Keith was depicted. He no longer looks like the maniacal bastard in the first OP, and he looks quite pitiful now. But then again, the previous OP also taught us not to take it too seriously, as it was very, very misleading! So, Keith is going to escape, and he’s going to take Toni, the one who attacked and freed him, along with him. This means that Karina will really be alone now! Also, what will become of Physis now, and what the heck is her link to Mother Eliza? Why did she feel that Keith’s and her own memories of Terra were the same? And what will Keith now be doing afterwards? The fact that Toni grows up does mean that we’re in for a few more major time-leaps. And what further role will Swena have? Seriously, I loved this episode, especially the ending. The fact remains that this series can just continue to dish out surprise after surprise, and we’re only at episode fourteen. What will the rest of the series offer us?]]>

Another major episode: the first contact between Jomie and Keith. Seriously, I love the fast pacing of this show, it’s only been a few episodes, and already the plot has taken leaps forward. Physis also played a bit role in this episode, the first time she actually does, and it seems that the Myu will be leaving Nazca quite soon, depending on how Keith will get out of the situation he was in at the end of the episode. The highlight of the episode was definitely the showdown between Keith and Jomie. Keith decides to go down on Nazca’s atmosphere in order to find him, and Jomie immediately senses that this person may not land. After quite an exciting battle, Keith manages to get captured. Physis, however, who has been watching from the sidelines, feels some strange things coming from this guy. I couldn’t exactly understand what, but he seems to hold the key to the location of Terra. When his mind is being read, though, all that shows up are the images of earth that Mother Eliza has been implanting in him. The next episode is promising to be really exciting, and I’m glad to see that Physis finally gets a bit of development for herself.]]>

Toward the Terra continues to push forward one of the most complex plots of the season, and it does such a good job at it. I especially love the current Nazca-arc, and I can only imagine what the second half of the anime has in store for us. For this episode, there is another time-leap: three years. I advice you to pay attention from the beginning, since only two episodes in the episode another person dies, and quite sudden as well. It’s Yui, the father of the first child born on Nazca. Sam, meanwhile, turns out to be alive, but heavily brainwashed, up to the point of insanity. Mother’s influence turned out to be too much in the end. Swena also saw him again for the first time in years, and it seems that Shiroe is still on his mind. I also loved how much Swena has changed since she was in love with him. Later, when he arrives on a space-ship, he meets a Myu that didn’t get picked up by Blue. He’s already able to read people’s thoughts, and Keith was really scary when he found out. In the end, though, Keith takes the Myu with him, since his ability is useful, after all. Back at Nazca, the conflict between the old and the new Myu finally escalates in a fight. The younger ones have nothing to do with Terra, they haven’t been oppressed like the older ones, who want to return to the planet of their dreams. Overall, this was typically an episode to progress the plot. Along with Seirei no Moribito and Saiunkoku Monogatari, this is the series where I look forward to episode 13 the most, as most story-focused anime try to have a big spectacle at the end of a season, and the story in these anime already is awesome.]]>

I just have to say: WHOA! Toward the Terra continues to surprise me. This time, by killing off none other than Sam! That’s about the opposite I suspected out of their reunion. It’s cruel, but now it seems that Sam’s only role was to involve Keith personally against Jomie, and boy, has he grown up to be scary. I can understand why he now seems to be referred to as a walking war-machine, and it seems that the time of the Myu on Nazca will be short-lived. Towards the Terra is really on its way to become the best series of the spring-season, and only Seirei no Moribito can rival its complex storyline. It’s interesting to see the difference between the reactions of the older and younger Myu, now that nine months are spent on the planet. The young ones can’t remember the tragedy that befell the older ones, after all. The older Myu kept living a considerable part of their life towards the moment that they could arrive on earth. This was their dream, and it’s got to be hard to give it up. The younger ones are full of new dreams and hopes. Karina also has her baby in this episode, after which many others will probably follow. That was one great moment. Overall, the episode was as grand as usual, though the animation looked off somehow. It’s clear that a different animation-department than usual handled this episode, which may not have been the best idea. I also caught them misspelling Sam’s name (“Som”!?) at one point. I can imagine Keith looking even scarier with some proper animation. Speaking of which, the creators should update the OP a bit. If feels out of place now after so many time-leaps. ^^;]]>

Woo! Jomie is back! And surprisingly, we skip another six years in time, since the previous episode. The biggest surprise has to be Swena, who turned into a journalist (no sign of her husband yet, did she divorce from him?), looking for the origin of the Myu. Finally I understand why she left, back in episode six, and I must say that it indeed was a better decision for her to leave Keith. After all, now she can act on her own, which will become much more interesting than just one of Keith’s henchmen. I really like what I saw from her in this episode, and she’s showing some great promise for the future! 🙂 Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to Sam. For the entire episode, we don’t see both of them. Keith has probably become the most elite of elite, though I do reckon that this wasn’t possible for Sam. Does this mean that Sam has left him, or do the two of them still have contact? In any case, this episode also explains what the Myu have been doing for the past few years: wander around aimlessly. Jomie at one point suggested trying to contact the planet earth by sending various peace-messages. These messages just didn’t work at all, and when Jomie found out that they caused the death of a Myu (Shiroe), he stopped doing this. Now, ten years later, there still isn’t a sign of Earth. The interesting thing is that Physis seems to have abandoned the idea of going to earth, and predicted a red planet to be their saviour. Near the end of the episode, they reach it. I’m not sure what it is, but this episode greatly increased my interest for this series. Especially after rewatching it, I realize how good this episode really was. There isn’t really much tension, but many interesting things happen. Seeing that Jomie still has contact with the youngest people on the “Moby Dick” (aka, the children we saw in the first episodes) also was really interesting. They’re still treated as children, even though they grew up, simply because there’s nobody younger than them. These “children” actually come up with the idea to make children the “natural way”, instead of what has been the custom. It seems strange for him, to only think of such a thing after ten years, but it does make sense. After all, if you’ve grown up, knowing nothing about the subject, it’s not like you’re able to take the initiative on these issues. Near the end of the episode, we also see two of the children confess to each other. To be honest, during this episode I kept comparing Toward the Terra with Heroic Age, and then I really realized how truly crap the latter is. Both anime feature exiles who struggle to survive, though Heroic Age had to come up with an unbelievably strong Age who keeps on fighting until there is peace, and that’s about all there is to the storyline. Compare that to Toward the Terra and its complex storytelling from three different parties. Overall, the climax was just great. The next episode will probably focus on the exploration of the new red planet, and I honestly can’t wait. I do wonder, though, when we’ll see Keith getting in contact with the Myu. I originally believed that the previous episode would cause him to question Mother Eliza, but that seems to be not true at all, since he still remains an elite. When I first saw his picture on the OP, I thought that he’d also be some king of Myu, though I was totally wrong on that one, it seems.]]>

The climax of the Shiroe-arc! And boy, is it a great one. The OP is actually very misleading, as with this episode, two characters who I thought would be major side-characters were already written out of the show. There’s actually nothing much to say about this episode. It was incredibly emotional, especially the last part, and it worked out really well. Shiroe meets a tragic end, I first believed that Mother Eliza would let him go, though Keith is actually ordered to shoot him down. This again shows how much of a robot Keith is, when he kills the guy, just because Mother Eliza tells him to. What kind of influence does she have on him? We also see her claim that she’ll be Keith’s past and memories, if he desires them. There’s definitely much hope for this series if all of its climaxes continue to be of this quality. In the next episode, we should probably see Jomie back for real, while Keith will probably go to the location where Shiroe told him the answer to his past lies.]]>

Keith’s story now also begins to draw to its climax. This episode again was better than the previous one, and it featured quite some important plot events. Still, I think that this anime will really kick off in its second half, when all the characters are fleshed out properly. As of now, I can’t really connect to Keith yet, due to the fact that his character just isn’t as interesting as Jomie’s yet. But that could change when he finds out about his secret. I’m not sure what it is, but Shiroe’s words last time, about how he’s like a robot may have held some kind of truth. During this episode, Shiroe hacks into the database of the ship, in order to find out about Keith, and eventually, he runs into a strange room full of strange test-tubes with humans in it. He believes that Keith was raised in the same way. And if he did, then it does make sense. Nobody from the place he grew up remembers him, not because their memories have been erased, these memories never existed to begin with. He needed a birthplace for administrational records, so he just got assigned a random city/planet. It also explains why Mother Eliza looks the way she did, in combination with some other information given in this episode: she looks like the woman closest to the person she talks to. Some people see their girlfriend, while others see their mothers. When Keith woke up, he never had a woman close to him to begin with, so I assume that she was taking on a random form. In the end, Shiroe gets caught, though. I’m not sure whether him, being a Myu is being found out, but he does manage to escape. He hides in a park somewhere, looking to tell Keith his secret. He’s looking pretty bad, by the way. It’ll be very interesting to see how Keith will react to this. And how the heck is Shiroe going to survive this? And when will we see Swena back again, if she does return in the first place? Sam also went through quite a bit of development when Jomie hacks into a practice plane he was flying in to send a message of peace. He now knows that Jomie is the leader of the Myu, and he really shows this. We never really see this explicitly, but I think that deep inside, everyone on the crew has negative feelings for the Myu. Otherwise, Sam wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. We also see him, at one point, admit that he just isn’t good enough to become a member, unlike Keith. This again shows how insensitive Keith can be. It’s great to see Jomie back, by the way, even though it only was for a few seconds. I’m looking forward to the next episode, it’s promising to become a major one. :)]]>

When the episode started, it took a while before I got used to the time-leap that took place between this episode and the previous one. I’m not sure how many years passed, but probably two or three of them. Those who paid attention during the OP noticed that next to Keith, Sam and Sweena there’s another person. This guy gets introduced in the current episode, sortof. He appears to be the kid that Jomie failed to rescue, back in episode five. Keith has grown out to become the most elite student of the academy, still befriended with Sam and Swena. Shiroe turned into a rather cocky brat, totally opposite from his younger version. An interesting detail is that somehow, nobody detected that he’s a Myu. It’s interesting, but in a way, he’s quite similar to Jomie. And whoa, Swena just left like that, getting married to a random guy! I never expected her to disappear from the plot again after just less than two episodes. At this point, I was really wondering whether I missed an episode, or something. Still, I must commend the creators to come up with a twist like that. The episode gets really interesting, though, when Shiroe starts investigating on Keith’s past. At the previous episode, I thought the fact that he lost his memories meant that he failed the growing-up test. But in fact, this was because he knew something that shouldn’t become known. And judging by the fact that his entire memory has been removed, including that of all the people he grew up with, he must have done or been something pretty important or dangerous. Seeing Keith punch Shiroe at the end of the episode also surprised me, after being called a cold robot without any emotions (for sending his “girlfriend” off like that). I do wonder what Jomie has been doing for the past few episodes, though. I originally thought that he’d be heading straight for Terra, but now it seems that it’s either very far away, or the coordinates are gone. He’s currently probably looking for a way to get there, I believe. It’s interesting, though, that the main character doesn’t appear for more than two episodes. It’s not often that you see such a thing happen in an anime.]]>

Whoa, a whole episode without Jomie? Interesting. This episode was really meant to introduce Keesu (how the heck do you spell his name correctly) and bring Sam and Swena back into the story. I’m surprised that I’m actually the only one who remained blogging this series by the way. Ah well, that never stopped me from blogging. ^^; Anyway, it seems that the children who turned 14 and passed the coming-of-age test are sent to a space-station. Sam, Swena and Keesu all ended up on the same station, but for a strange reason, Keesu lost his memory in the process, while Sam and Swena got to keep it. If I had to guess, then he failed his coming-of-age test. The episode itself wasn’t really special, a ship carrying new recruits accidentally crashed into the space-station, and Sam and Keesu, who became friends fast, were just to embark on an exercise outside of the space-station, so they were the first who’d be able to reach them. Swena appeared to be among these new recruits, and they were safely rescued. Keesu, however, ended up in danger and Sam saved him. Swena afterwards started to fall in love with Keesu, and their rivals looked rather pissed. Still, there is potential for the future, especially since they’re going to have to be connected to Jomie, some way in the future.]]>