What They Say:
When Ledo has an encounter with a whalesquid undersea, he attacks and kills it because of its similar appearance to the Hideauze. Little did he know that whalesquid are considered sacred, so murdering one is taboo, and soon the whole ship is in an uproar over it. Ledo, however, believes that whalesquid {\i1}are{\i0} Hideauze and he’s determined to carry out his mission by slaughtering more of them before they decide to target humans on Earth. Just as Amy tries to stop Ledo, a huge pod of whalesquid approaches the fleet…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Halfway through the series, things are finally starting to clearly kick up a few notches from the increasingly more peaceful slices of life we had settled into as Ledo attempted to adjust to a wonderful new home, now seeing the arrival of what Ledo believes to be a Hideauze. Although the people of Earth all believe these creatures to be peaceful and even sacred, it turns out that Ledo and Chamber are absolutely correct, and after the destruction of one due to Bellows being unable to stop the determined and unwavering Ledo and the indestructible Chamber, the entire species seems bent on war against humanity, swarming up to approach the fleet in unbelievable numbers. Things don’t go fully to hell just yet, but it seems that Ledo’s attack may have been the trigger to awakening these creatures to the destructive instincts characterizing those he’s used to in space, and while the fleet on the whole remains very against the idea of provoking these creatures further, a couple of them are ready to use Ledo’s power to get past them in ways not previously possible, clearly just the extra trigger needed to recreate humanity’s space war on its peaceful original home, and the one person who can stop them seems to suddenly meet his end.
Well now. This is rather different from what we’ve been seeing lately now isn’t it? I suppose this is Urobuchi’s way of lulling us into a false sense of security, only to pull this on us. Even with the audience watching his every move for signs of this, I’d say this sudden mood reversal halfway through the series managed to pull that off pretty well. The Blu-ray and DVD releases are set to each contain an extra episode, so it seems likely that those won’t be very important to the overall plot. That means that there really are only five episodes left, so after what this episode set up, it’s definitely interested to think how it will all end up. With the way things are going, the hell in space could easily end up consuming humanity’s last safe place just the same, showing us that humanity only ever had itself to blame for the state it ended up with. Would that really happen after making us love all the little details of this world for all this time? With what this episode did to the status quo, I honestly could see it going to either extreme. The only thing that’s definite at this point is that we’re dealing with some very different issues from now on.
This episode spent most of its time being as tense as possible, for better or worse. It feels a bit sudden, the plot of the beloved sea creatures really being these terrible aliens and now becoming the new enemy seems a bit silly, and the very ending seems very contrived, although I hope the next episode will solve some of this. On the other hand, the tension is definitely here, as perfectly as the creators clearly intended, and I have to specifically mention the brief scene of a wrench falling, only to be caught just before making a loud sound as an especially excellent way to build on that. Things could go very right or very wrong from this point, so I’m keeping a close eye on it.
In Summary:
This episode is without a doubt the game-changer. Our peaceful vacation on the beautiful Earth has been shattered by the threat of space aliens possibly taking action against the entire human race for the offense of the misplaced foreigner, and there’s every possibility that it could get as bad for everyone else as it was for him before he came here. Some of these twists and the way they’re presented, given what we’ve built up until now, don’t feel as natural as I would’ve liked, but for an episode focused on making the audience as tense as possible while watching this play out, it definitely does its job for the time being. Now it has a lot to deal with in five episodes.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, 27” 1080p HDTV.
