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.
Hmmm looks like this turning into yet another of the ‘Gaijinn bad, Nippon #1!’ nationalist shows that pop up from time to time. Yawn.
We’ll see. It does seem a bit nationalistic, especially with the “pan” concept, which was kind of insulting to the rest of the world. I didn’t mind the politics in this episode though. But we’ll see, it feels like the series is playing its cards very close to its chest still, so I think it’s too early to tell.
Aaaaaand, yeah. I also really dislike the scientist girl. In a series of mostly level headed adults, she really feels out of place. Maybe that’s the point, but they could have had an eccentric character that doesn’t fall into the “hyperactive and quirky” cliche that we’ve seen numerous times before (and has almost always been annoying).
But I have to say, overall, I’m enjoying this. It’s the kind of high concept sci-fi that can easily lose me, in fact I’m always expecting each episode to disappoint me somehow, but so far it’s riding a fine line that makes it enjoyable for me.