After parting ways with Gashin, Amou makes his way to Risa’s hometown in hopes to pass on her necklace to one of her relatives. Unfortunately upon his arrival, he discovers that her family home has been demolished and learns her relatives have fled and scattered in fear of the Asian Military capturing and/or killing them for being related to someone affiliated with the terrorists. Luckily Amou was able to find a contact to be introduced to Risa’s childhood friends, and was able to pass on the news of her death. But at the same time, Amou came to learn about a lot of sickening things going on in Risa’s hometown, further explaining why she left to join the rebels. You can meet a fate worse than death if you end up with an unfortunate encounter or drawing the attention of Deputy Governor, Major Liu Fu.
This guy is worse than trash. He will make anyone his target over the dumbest and most trivial things. Today’s unfortunate victims were Mr. Nose and his daughter over a freaking DROP of wine on his uniform.
Major Liu Fu character design also puzzled me because I actually wondered if he was supposed to be Human or not– but then again, this guy doesn’t have a speck of Humanity in him, so you can’t even call him one. He views the Japanese as his “prey” and harming or just outright killing them is his source of entertainment, and he makes profit off the books through Human Trafficking.
Thanks to bit of luck, Mr. Nose and his daughter were found together unharmed. But boy, did it make me nauseous to think what was in store for little Hina if she hadn’t been saved. Thank god Amou found his resolve, for everyone’s sake.
However, I was very frustrated with the way they wrapped up this conflict. After all that build-up and nerve-wracking tension of what was in store for everyone who was arrested by the Deputy, it instantly fizzled out. I also found it to be a bit of a convenient cop-out to have everything resolved with Amou’s declaration that he will defend his fellow people, and left off with a warning to Major Liu Fu. Sure, he was finally exposed for Human Trafficking and dual bookkeeping secret accounts, but you’re telling me that Amou and everyone else was able to get out scotch free after all that? What about the consequences of Amou’s intervention? Are we really supposed to believe that just because Major Liu Fu is effectively being removed from power, means that they are saved? And wasn’t the Asian Military supposed to be super organized and fearsome? Based on the theme of oppression we’ve been seeing so far, I find the way this situation has been resolved to be rather superficial. This is the part in the story-telling that is not working for me because I’m pretty sure we are probably never going to hear about this town or its people again. They served their purpose of making Amou find his resolve, and now it’s time to move on.
And after this episode, although I do feel it’s still far too early to really say if this is the case… but it feels almost as though they are trying to avoid making this show feel too heavy and are trying to balance it with light-hearted moments and humor, namely with Gai since he is the one that really draws that out right now. I don’t know, it’s just the kind of the impression I’m getting from this show right now. We’ll have to see if that changes at all in the upcoming episodes. The more Amou becomes exposed to the oppression the Japanese face, the heavier the story can get.
Next week, it looks like we’re going to see another similar situation where we have a psycho enemy solider looking to ruthlessly kill people for entertainment or over the stupidest things/accusations of terrorism. With Amou grouped p against with Gashin, the two are due to meet their newest member of the squad who was briefly introduced to us this episode. I just hope the next incident doesn’t have another anti-climatic conclusion like this one.
Pacing-wise the show so far seems to be more about Amou learning to find his resolve to fight the occupiers and team up with the resistance; the hero’s journey.
That said, I do hope the show starts addressing/hinting at plot points like the occupiers’ motives and the rogue mecha soon. Worst case scenario is the writing cramming this stuff into the very last episodes (I recall some anime series I saw doing this, but have totally forgotten their titles now).
PS. Apparently Netflix will be releasing their live-action Cowboy Bebop series in about 2 weeks’ time on Nov 19th. Will you be checking it out?
They are definitely taking it slow with Amou finding the will and courage to take arms for the sake of protecting others.
I am also growing more concerned with the lack of plot points regarding the occupier’s motives. However perhaps we might be getting somewhere since they did mention the Asian Territory being (AFTE) “Asian Free Trade Entente” and known for forced labor, which could be a sign for countries who cashed in to exploit Japan’s crisis. This would sort of explain why they are suffering from inhumane treatment, injustice and deaths all across the country, regardless of the domain they are a part of.
I am curious about Ghost’s situation. Is it really not being piloted by someone? Or perhaps- rather than an A.I. maybe it really is like a Ghost of such as inheriting one’s conscious. It was interesting to see it under-going its repair, whether it’s done by itself or there’s actually a person doing the work. They used an interesting angle for the shot.
As for Cowboy Bepop, hmmm visually it looks really good, but it still felt rather “meh” for me, so I’m not in a rush to check it out at this time. Maybe later if I hear it’s worth watching. That said, I do hope this adaption will be good for everyone’s sake.
Notice: Ep 6 will be released as double-post with Ep 7 next week
UPDATE: DROPPED! I will not be releasing an entry on Episode 6 and 7.
I was hoping to at least get to ten episodes (since there will be 25 episodes), but I’m not enjoying this show enough to continue the coverage. :\
Since we are already half way through the Fall Season, I will not be doing any late pick-ups. Instead I’ll be using this allotted time to make further progress with the YGO 5D’s entries I’m queuing up.
I was not aware that Kyokai Senki was going to be 25 episodes long; I guess this explains why the plot pacing is taking its sweet time to go places.
Although at least the latest episode finally revealed the foreign powers’ motive for being in Japan (to claim the autonomous mechs for themselves), which is more concrete than being a bunch of cruel dicks for the sake of cruel dickery (and coming of like some kind of right-wing Japanese political thought that evil foreigners will eat the poor defenseless Japanese alive).
What other titles are you enjoying from this season? So far I’ve been enjoying Banished From the Hero’s Party, and caught up with Faraway Paladin.
Although I’m not enjoying it enough to continue writing about it (the show overall feels “meh” to me at the moment), I do still plan to continue watching Kyoukai on and off. I’ll probably just binge four episodes of the month until it gets to a point where I’m more into it to watch it weekly again. I’m mostly just sticking around for the battles and the A.I.’s at this point, but if the script’s execution bugs me too much, I’ll probably drop it altogether because of all things, frankly that’s what been bothering me the most.
There were a lot of titles I have expressed interest for in the beginning, but a lot of them just kinda fell off for me. I do plan to catch up with Banished from the Hero’s Party when I can because I do want to see how much better it gets as you mentioned before. I fell behind because I had a bunch of stuff I needed to do.
Apart from Taishou, (which I’m still covering at the moment), I’ve taken a brief look at Komi-san and Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu. Currently Komi-san is the only one I am watching on the weekly basis, which is my favourite show this season so far. Tsuki to Laika is on-hold in order to binge at a late date. (And if you haven’t heard already, SevenSeas announced last week they are the ones bringing over the novels. I will be pre-ordering the moment it becomes available to do so.)
I’ve also been meaning to catch up to 86-86. I’m kicking myself a lot right now for not finishing the first cour before the second cour started airing since I probably would have been covering that one over Kyoukai. Unfortunately I really wasn’t in the mood to watch something tragic/depressing, and I’ve realized I’m kinda still in the mood to avoid that kind of stuff. So I’ve been leaning more towards light-hearted series that’ll make me laugh more so than cry. That said, I have been reading 86-86 novels! I’ve only watched the first episode of the first cour, so I don’t know how graphic it gets when the deaths start rolling in. It’s nifty to know in advance when things get bloody so I can cover my eyes. My copies of Vol 3 – 8 have just arrived today after getting the order in the night before they were sold out again. With the paper shortage and supply chains disruptions, it really is important to pre-order the series you want, or get ahead of the crowd if the adapted show is supposed to air in an upcoming season.