Busy going nowhere…
What They Say:
The day before summer vacation starts, Daichi who is a high school boy, sees a rainbow on TV in an island. “I’ve seen this rainbow before…” He is suddenly urged to visit this island to find about this rainbow, bits of forgotten memories from the past and his father’s mysterious death. At the island, he encounters a gigantic unknown robot called “Earth Engine”. He is asked by a crew member, “Are you the Captain”? From then on, Daichi is sucked into the space battle against robots from Uranus, “Kiltgung”. When the stars shines brightly in the sky, the battles begin.
The Review:
For all that they seem to have Earth’s worst interests at heart, Amarok and Malkin have their own backers down on the surface – the Macbeth Enterprises, who are taking a more active interest in their investment now that the ‘Machine Goodfellow’ trials are underway. The company’s CEO, Kube, seems to have a particularly strong attachment to the two Kiltgang pilots, and a corresponding desire to see them succeed.
Meanwhile, the repercussions of Eiji’s “escape” are beginning to make themselves felt – in particular, its effect on the elite’s escape plan, the Kivotos Plan, and how that affects the dynamics of a certain dysfunctional family; while the Auditors are about to pay Hana a visit…
Okay, I’ll admit it – we’re reaching the stage of the series now where, in the absence of any real progress, I’m beginning to lose faith that the magic that worked oh so well on previous Bones shows Star Driver and Eureka Seven will strike again here. While this episode confirms explicitly a lot that’s been hinted at previously (mainly around the Kivitos Plan and Hana’s origins, after Teppei got similar treatment last week), it manages to do all that without actually feeling like it’s going anywhere.
Let me try and explain that. There are two aspects at work here: the Big Picture, looking at the larger things that are happening around the Globe and Macbeth teams; and the smaller picture, the links between the characters and the character development that the show’s trying to do. Of the Big Picture, there’s very little going on – so little as to be inconsequential. The show’s revelations to date have mostly been in the character development & motivations department – but even there, while there’s been plenty going on, so far at least it’s difficult to see what purpose the things we’re learning about serve.
Which means that instead of ramping up mystery, tension and action, the show’s ramping up on feelings of detachment, frustration and annoyance, and this in not a good thing. Not by a long shot. While it’s always doubtful whether comparing one show with other past glories is a good thing, it earned Captain Earth a certain amount of leeway in setting itself up, but it’s burning through that leeway quite quickly now with still not much to show for it.
In Summary:
So, slow progress. Glacial, even, and still a lot of ground to cover before it lives up to the eyecatch (“Everything will be obvious soon”) in Episode One. I still have hope, but it’s fading…
Content Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 27” Apple iMac, 2.9GHz Core i5, 32GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.9
