Darling in the Franxx – 24[Never Let Me Go]

And it’s time for Darling in the sorry I just can’t bring myself to care anymore Franxx. Well once again my previous assertions of what this episode was to be turned out half true and half false. For one they actually did show the final confrontation against VIRM and it was just as disappointing as I could have expected. This episode really was is just a hodgepodge of moments that just felt really familiar for you have seen this plenty of times before. Even the final revelation of Hiro and Zero two being reincarnated just feels so bloody token. The final confrontation basically boils down to Zero Two floating about the place for years and finally finding the VIRM home planet. VIRM then doing something to Hiro to try to prove to be a credible threat and our heroes overcoming things with the power of friendship which didn’t seem to be happening in a moment, so VIRM once again had Zero Two at their mercy for days and still managed to do diddly squat. Seriously why don’t we just head back to earth, it would likely take VIRM a couple of centuries to throw together a new plan and even then they wouldn’t be a

threat. So power of friendship, impregnating a planet with a bomb and the home planet is destroyed along with Hiro and Zero Two. Only for VIRM to show right the back up and state that they would get those pesky humans next time. So fantastic, that heroic sacrifice our heroes did was completely pointless besides buying a bit more time, which they already kinda had cause VIRM got their asses kicked already and likely wouldn’t return for a couple of centuries regardless. This was all just routine, VIRM were a crappy version of anti-spirals and never posed a significant threat and even the battle itself wasn’t even hype cause Strelizia prime can’t do anything fancy. It really did feel like this show wanted to get it over with which makes me wonder why they bothered showing the VIRM battle in the first place.

On Zero Two and Hiro’s sacrifice I must admit to something and that is that these two certainly became very boring didn’t they? I mean Hiro was never anything special but flashbacks showed that once upon a time he had at least a more interesting and bold character which could have resurfaced but instead we are stuck with a wet paper towel for the rest of the series. But the greatest sacrifice is Zero Two because at the beginning of this series this girl did have character but by series end? What happened to you girl? I remember it feeling jarring when Zero Two did a sudden character shift but I at least was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt as it seemed there were some semblance of it going somewhere. Such as that small nightmare sequence she had with all the pilots she killed from years of piloting a Franxx haunting her.(Funny how we danced over that particular plot point isn’t it? Zero Two has killed a lot of people and she was very much about to do the same to Hiro too if he didn’t remember.) But that lead nowhere, it was never brought up again. Instead we are left with a dull boring Zero Two whose personality boils down to “Loves Hiro” and that’s it.

As for the group on earth we just get time skip after time skip with little emotional weight. Klax bring back greenery to the earth so the whole harsh survival aspect is pretty much thrown out the window so that whole episode painting dark tidings of the planet being too far gone to support life is rendered a big pile of pointless. Oh and Ikuno fixed everyone’s life expectancy so they get to live full lives. Well except her own of course because the future has no need for lesbains that ain’t making babies. Ah yes that’s another thing we need to talk about isn’t it? I have stated before that I normally don’t look very deep for sexism or discrimination with character roles in media as it normally is something where no clear line is defined and must come down to the perspective of the viewer themselves. But there are cases where such aspects are so apparent that even I must find it questionable and Ikuno’s fate is something that really rubs me the wrong way. The reasoning behind her shortened lifespan is arbitrary and asinine and when you see all the other characters getting married and having children, then see Ikuno lying in a hospital bed dying and you can’t help but feel it’s hateful undertone.

Well it’s over and I see people pointing the finger at A-1 pictures for the decline of this series from the halfway point. I personally though don’t as this was one main guys passion project so if anything the blame falls on him but I also see a trend in this that could very well be the downfall of trigger. In the past few trigger works there has been a certain reliance on fan pandering. More and more they seem to be relying on past glory to heighten their new series and that is very much the downfall of Franxx as it abandoned what it’s identity was and became a knockoff of Gurren Lagann. Even Little Witch Academia has the same problem as Franxx in abandoning potentially great story threads for the safer route. I may be off base here but I think I see signs which could indicate Trigger no longer being hailed as the savior of anime.