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Spring season Anime is upon us, must see

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singveld

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“Suisei No Gargantia” Surges With Greatness

Latest work from renowned writer, Gen Urobuchi, has finally debuted, and it’s no less than stunning – breaking the limits of epic within its first 23 minutes, Suisei no Gargantia is memorable already.
The introductory speech of an unknown male begins the story. He talks about “humanity’s Eden”, Avalon, as well as Heroes and the many challenges that await them.
As one should quickly come to realize, a lot of odd names will be tossed around – so be prepared. Humanity is threatened by “Hideaze”, a race of monsters attacking humans and endangering their future. The “Heroes” are the members of the so-called Galactic Alliance of Humanity, valiant protectors of the human race who use mechas in order to get rid of the Hideaze in outer space, and that’s what’s about to begin.
Although this speech is a mere welcoming into the series, one can already notice the very first stunning aspect of Suisei No Gargantia – its animation. The realms of outer space that are shown, and the other environmental features are all astonishing, showing great detail, and easily immersing the viewer into a completely original world.
A world which quickly falls captive to disorder – an order is given for all units to wake from their sleep in order to prepare for an upcoming operation. The protagonist is introduced – he’s Second Lieutenant Ledo, and immediately appears to be a faithful soldier as the first item to strike his mind is “where’s the enemy?” But thankfully, we’re presented some more background info instead of going into some Rambo scenes.
The operation is explained – and it’s a rather complex one, with a substantial amount of precise intel, objectives, and very specific vocabulary. This adds to the visuals in exhibiting how imaginative Urobuchi is when it comes to his creations – very few works feature such original elements, let alone ones which are threshed out to such an excruciating degree, and it’s only the first ten minutes of the first episode.
The gist of the assignment is a surprise operation requiring the Alliance’s every soldier to destroy the Hideaze’s nest using mass-tactics, and quickly make an escape.
The outcome is rather predictable of course – the operation goes rather smoothly at first, yet the Alliance’s forces are rapidly overthrown and have to fall back.
Despite this part being easy to foretell however, it still has quite a few interesting points to it. The animation is incredibly smooth, streamlined to an extent that the viewer becomes more than a spectator, but like a third entity watching the action unfold first-hand. Fast-paced scenes of mechanical monstrosities clashing make for an immense sight – it’s astonishing, yet there is one other interesting element for the more discerning viewer, and it’s Ledo’s speech.
He seems to be a seasoned soldier, with a lot of experience to the point where he has stopped feeling fear, even in these crucial battles. He’s confident, even fearless as a warrior, yet he also seems to be more than just a warrior with fighting on his mind – he may be an elite soldier, but he may not be as flawless when it comes to life itself, making for an intriguing protagonist. He’s a refreshing lead character as he has an inner-struggle – a side of purpose, and a side of ambition.
His starts falling back, where he’s then caught – a creature managed to land an attack on Ledo, and although he manages to get rid of this disgusting insect-like life form, he is thrown into space, tossed to an unknown place.
The second part of the episode commences to a more exotic universe. The already famous bishoujo from the many PVs, May, is running through the alleys of a market, apparently in high spirits.
It’s completely different from what we’ve seen before – this new world appears far less advanced, and much more primitive in comparison to the one where Ledo had come from. Yet this place isn’t dreary either, it’s a bustling tropic paradise – and one which happens to come with a cute and lively bishoujo in a vivid outfit.
She delivers a contract to an elder female which evidently permits them to use the place they’re staying until tomorrow night. Apparently, the elder of the two ladies leads a treasure hunting squad, and what they have dug up now is none other than out main character’s mecha. They’re hoping to open the machine up, though their archaic methods wield no results.
As they are working on this futuristic machine, the bishounen comes back to life, woken up by his interface system, Chamber – an AI which has been aiding him from the beginning. It has been over 6 months since the incident we’ve seen in the first part – despite the apparently tremendous damage that would have been received, both the mecha and its owner are perfectly fine.
He was woken up because the current situation requires the pilot’s decision – what should they do in this unknown place they can’t find the location of, among those people they aren’t even sure are humans? It’s time to see what the pilot thinks.
But before going on with that, note the genius – it’s absolutely evident Ledo will have to stay on this unknown planet for a while, and it will certainly be entertaining to see how he will integrate with this alien society. Besides the conventional woes that he doesn’t speak their language, in neither a figure nor literal sense, and is ignorant of their culture, in every way imaginable, there is also the fact that, as mentioned before, this fellow has some more fundamental problems with life.
In other words, socializing is certainly not his forte.
Night comes, and Ledo gets out of his mecha – looking ready to casually explore the area, yet he doesn’t get the chance as May comes back with the engineers from before. Unsure of their status as friend or enemy, he hides before the lights are turned on, and when May tries to work her way around the mecha that the engineers came ready to dissect, she gets grabbed by Ledo, who threatens the engineers with a gun as he runs off with a new bishoujo hostage on his shoulder.
She does try to escape, yet our protagonist is a top-tier soldier, and he is not the slightest bit shaken by the cute girl’s moves – in fact, he even teases her, pulling on her skirt slightly to make her speak. Chambers need languages samples in order to identify the language these people are speaking – and in order to do that, our protagonist apparently does whatever is necessary. These more playful moves of his show he’s not a robotic war machine – hinting at his personality being deeper than just an average soldier.
He runs frantically so Chamber can analyze the area, before quickly finding himself stunned in the midst of his aimless running. In front of him lies a vast expanse of water, a great endless sea which leaves him wonder where in the world is he – and as he turns around, it’s a breathtaking sight he finds – a grand maze-like island of industry, reminiscent our own world’s factories, minus the grandiose sci-fi elements of course.
Also greatly noticeable is the music, the tunes that play while on this unknown world are fittingly inspiring of one’s inner-voodoo – and not only are they enjoyable, they also further the captivating qualities of Suisei no Gargantia’s universe, ambiance that invites a mood and the viewer alike.
Not forgetting the story, May is finally able to release herself, and Ledo is immediately confronted by many natives of this foreign land, all equipped with basic modern weaponry – he has to summon his mecha, which has apparently finished its analysis. The air breathable, a shock to our hero who apparently never experienced such a planet – and incidentally, they’re on earth, which is the last revelation before the end rolls.
It seems so much more lies behind all this – our characters are definitely in the future, in which case what exactly happened to earth? The once home planet now seems abandoned all save for some refugee civilization – a subject that itches almost as much as the many lingering questions behind all of our peculiar characters.
In one episode, Suisei No Gargantia has shown so much of why it is so great already, but actually revealed so little. The amazing aspect is how it promises so much, and births so many questions – leaving the wait for the next episode to be painful as whether it’s the plot or the characters, the viewer can only be eager to know more.
 

singveld

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Suisei no Gargantia – 02

It may not be Sunday yet but someone got their hands on the pre-air Blu Ray disc containing the first two episodes of Suisei no Gargantia. Luckily my wait was cut in half but now I’m sad because there are no more episode to be gotten ahead of time.
Two episodes in and I’m already beginning to get invested in Suisei no Gargantia. If there’s anything the second episode does flawlessly, it’s immersing me in the world and unravelling it bit by bit. There’s no rush here, as the episode takes the time to paint a picture of where Red has landed and the people who occupy the planet. That’s where the point-of-view shift to Amy comes in.
Since the entirety of the first episode was focused on our male lead, it only seems fair that our female lead should get some focus. Through Amy we see the adventurous and light-hearted side of the story. Aside from seeing some of the more slice-of-life elements she brings to the table, we presumably see the beginning of her romance with Red. Only speculation at this point, but I’m guessing that’s where the story will head at some point; even Suisei no Gargantia won’t escape all the typical mecha plot tropes. Their first official exchange – let’s not the kidnapping – had an air of innocence, brought about by Amy who just feel excited to meet someone new and not care about his origins.
Even so, the bigger focus was on Amy as the heroine of the series, and getting to know her has started off well. We get a glimpse at her rather innocent life and get introduced to her life, which gives us a little more background information. Being only the second episode, there isn’t all that much to discuss here yet and showing her brother didn’t add anything to the plot for the moment. Still, it served as a nice part deux of the series introduction.
In terms of pacing, it seems like the series is committed to taking things slowly. It’s pleasant and doesn’t rush the plot, whilst potentially signalling that Suisei no Gargantia won’t be over-extending itself with a more complex plot. That’s not to say the speed of events unfolding won’t pick up in upcoming episode. Considering the ending, it doesn’t feel like the story will be focused on the pleasant, slice-of-life for that much longer; at least not as the sole focus. And what about that ending?
Urobuchi Gen may not be bringing his usual dark plot to the series, however there is still a little element of it left behind. Red’s response to the pirate attack in particular brings up some feelings that our favourite “butcher” isn’t done with his morally ambiguous characters. I may be reading too much into it, but Red’s ease of using annihilation takes him from being just a stranded war pilot to someone with more complexity and possibly a darker side. I suspect this will be brought up, and to what extent remains to be seen. Does Suisei no Gargantia have the time to do this? We’ll have to wait and see.
At this point, I’m still excited about Suisei no Gargantia. It’s concentrating its efforts on the adventure side for now, whilst hinting at some radical developments. Completely fine by me, and I’m anxious to find out what the story has in store for us in both character development and action.
 
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