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.
