Shangri-La – 03



Short Synopsis: Kuniko sneaks into Atlas.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
A solid episode for Shangri-La, and I must say that I’m still intrigued by this show. It may not be the best thing out of all the currently airing shows, but there is potential if the creators manage to push the right buttons. So far, they’ve already done a pretty good job in this, despite the predictability of some points. I mean, in this episode for example we learn that Kuniko’s mother is in Atlas as well…

Gee, I wonder where she could be… [/sarcasm]

What I liked about this episode was the extra bit of depth it gave to the setting. It was a nice touch for that woman of the last episode that yelled at Kuniko to make another appearance in this episode. Atlas was like expected nothing like ‘the promised land’, but looks more like something akin to an anthill.

Right now, Atlas really looks like your average totalitarian empire who oppresses all outsiders, but we’re only three episodes in. I’m interested to see whether the creators can give it a unique touch. Right now the creators seem to be moving in the direction of the huge contrasts between rich and poor, and while this is forming a good base there still seems to be something missing. It also poses an interesting array of questions, though: the Metal-Age are indeed a double-edged sword, but their actions do provide security for the sick and elder who have trouble taking care of themselves. That also begs the question: how are these people coming by in cities that don’t have the Metal-Age?

I also liked the development from Kuniko. This episode establishes her as flawed, rather than the perfect army-commander that the first two episode made her look like. Her big flaw is that she easily gets distracted, even though she probably doesn’t mean any harm. Because she’s lived in the comfort of the detention centre in which she was surrounded by certainty, returning to the uncertain world outside of Atlas has turned her a little insecure.

8 thoughts on “Shangri-La – 03

  1. Kuniko is beginning to get on my nerves – this episode doesn’t show another side to her character, it basically rewrites it.

    and the production quality decreased, like, 120%…

  2. Off topic question: psgels, have you seen Monster?? Ive read some very good reviews about it when it came out, im thinking about giving it a try…

  3. How was it “rewritten”? If anything this episode adds more weight to her character. She’s continuing to grow from where she was in episode 1, she’s hardly confused she’s facing the fact that her group’s actions have indirectly caused hardship to some of the townspeople who don’t want to fight for equality due to their own experiences and reasons and things those people have had to go through, despite the fact that she considers herself as fighting for them from the very beginning. I might have agreed that she was losing some of her confidence/activeness/edge but the fact that she acts right after merely a few minutes of this by getting back to her active self and wanting to learn more about the world/Atlas and take an active role gets her right back to growing off of where she was in episode 1+2.

    And if you’re referring to her running away instead of fighting, they were barely passed the entrance of a totally high-tech enemy facility! (And her forged card even worked when it was scanned so it was even more a surprise when it still reacted and sounded an alert to her when she passed and they started closing the partitions).

    And her reaction to seeing first hand how massive Atlas is compared to her minuscule little town was hardly out of character when all she’s experienced are her little town and a detention center (it’s like the realization of how tiny the Earth is from space). Her thoughts were obviously, why the hell is there an Atlas Lottery when the ENTIRE population of her minuscule little town that she’s been fighting for could easily be supported in Atlas (she has no idea about the various levels of Atlas lifestyle we’ve seen and seen more of through Mi-ko, only the propaganda of the privileged lifestyle in Atlas).

  4. I agree with your blogged thoughts on the ep, I thought this episode built nicely on what came before and expanded things out again like good science fiction. I too feel the show is laying a good foundation and could potentially be something special if they press the right buttons going forward. Given that the show is going to be atleast 24 episodes I think there’s plenty of time for this as they continue to build everything up.

    I’m very interested in seeing how Atlas is going to progress since Mikuni’s faction is what I think most of us expected of Ryoko.

    Bruce, I’ve heard the same, it’s supposedly really good. The first couple of eps I’ve seen were really gripping if you like methodically paced stories with lots of intrigue.

  5. TJ: actually that’s not the courtesy of Kuniko, but rather of the very bad subbers with a very bad sense of humour. It sounds a lot less suggestive in Japanese.

  6. I have a feeling that if a town in the Tokyo area doesn’t have a Metal Age presence, the government would manipulate things so that there would be a chapter created.

    For that matter, I wonder what Japan is like outside of Tokyo. It may be that only those unwilling or unable to move out of Tokyo has to live in such squalor. It does look like Tokyo may have been a normal city until relatively recently, a decade or two at most, given that Momoko and Miko worked at a bar in Roppongi without being drastically older now.

  7. Kuniko has to be the most annoying charcter in that episode, seriously I would have let her die. Who wonders about things when being shot at?

    This blogger said it was better than “Guin Saga”, hate to tell you but its been pretty shite so far.

    A world economy predominantly reliant on Carbon trading; please, it shows an infantile understanding of economics. We have carbon trading today and on a global scale, it certainly isn’t a main source of economic revenue. In addition who will enforce it? What happens if a country decides bugger this?

    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n07/donald-mackenzie/the-political-economy-of-carbon-trading

    Other negatives: pedophile women, seriously what the F? Make-up on little girls? I remember a time i.e. Cowboy Bebop when you had clever stories and no pedos and hebos in an anime.

    Positives: gay/transgeneder main/supporting characters.

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