Katsumi reaches her breaking point as the burden of
destiny becomes too much. As she finds
comfort in the arms of police officer Roy De Vice, the rest of the AMP must
find a way to keep Katsumi on their side, not just for her power but for her
friendship as well. However, it is Rally
Cheyenne, the AMP’s enigmatic section chief, who might be the key to keeping
Katsumi on the force. For she has
information Katsumi has long sought: the truth behind the Silent Crisis that
nearly destroyed humanity. Will this
revelation drive Katsumi away for good?
Or will it fuel her desire to end the Lucifer Hawk threat once and for
all?
As I enter week three of covering this series, my hopes
for Silent Mobius rising to meet its true potential keep moving further and
further away. From the beginning, this
show has been hampered by a number of problems.
The story moves to quick and provides no clear context. The cast is huge and barely given any time to
shine. The AMP feels totally outmatched
and barely able to keep up with the enemy they’ve been created to fight
against. And the animation is only
getting worse, I didn’t even think that last part was possible. By the time I finished this set, I know I
have to accept that few of those aforementioned issues might never
improve. Every once in a while a glimmer
of hope shines through. But then the
show takes five steps backwards to mess itself up.
In truth, the first two episodes of this set could easily
be skipped and nothing important would be lost.
That’s sad because when it comes to characters getting their time in the
spotlight, only Kiddy has managed to be truly memorable. Lebia and Yuki both got boring episodes,
though Lebia’s might be the more criminal because it squanders potential (like
much of Silent Mobius), while Yuki’s episode is generic and content to play
itself with minimal cliché dialogue with lots of Esper Aniem themed tropes that
have been done to death (raised in a lab, tried to escape, escaped former
friend comes looking for revenge, etc.).
Lebia could pretty much be the Motoko Kusinagi of the AMP. She has the ability to tap into all manner of
tech using her five senses, almost mystically.
It’s a cool idea but Lebia comes off as a second rate Motoko than her
own strong character. It also isn’t
helped that the main cause of the Cheshire Cat virus that hit Tokyo was a
massive bluff for a pointless, rage inducing reason that made me so mad with
this show for a second (nearly sacrificing lives for something as trivial as
“hey remember your dads bday? I sure do, let’s turn the lights back on and
celebrate).
Most of this weeks set took the time to focus on the
events that shaped the present day conflict with the Lucifer Hawks. Rally, Katsumi and the past all got their own
separate, yet interconnected episodes. Rally
got to flex her esper muscles and take on her evil sister Rosa, who dropped the
bomb to the whole team that she, Rally and Katsumi all are offsprings of people
with Lucifer Hawk blood. The revelation
that Rally and Katsumi have Lucifer Hawk blood in their veins feels a little
too “Darth Vader” to me. The fact that
everyone kind of accepts this is another example of rushed storytelling. And, at last, Rally begins to fit the Syllia
role from Bubblegum Crisis, a person with exteremly deep ties to the battle
that she keeps from her subordinates and expects them to just trust her. Thankfully, Rally never comes off as
psychotic as much as she is just plain cryptic, and she can handle herself in
battle…and yes she is a gorgeous boss.
Still, her being a bad ass would not be enough to simply let me accept
things at face value, I’d need to let the news simmer before making a final
decision to remain with the AMP.
Katsumi’s reaction to the news that she and her sexy boss
are both offspring of the enemy is handled both well and not so well. Not so well in that, for whatever reason,
Katsumi suddenly accepts the LH’s as her people and refuses to fight
them…why? If anything, the proper reason
for getting Katsumi to potentially quit the AMP is Rally keeping this from her
as long as she has. The Lucifer Hawks
have been straight evil from the get go and there’s no reason for Katsumi to
suddenly sympathize with them. The only
reason I think she handles the news well is because she isn’t quick to let
Rally off the hook like everyone else does.
Granted, she’s the only one of the five members who has to deal with
having the blood of the enemy, I doubt that’s an easy pill to swallow, and if
it is somehow just accepted and moved on from, well that’s just bad
storytelling.
That glimmer of hope I mentioned came from what happened
next. Katsumi was given a bit of “Days
of Future Past” treatment where psudeo new big bad, Ganoza, showed Katsumi a
future where she was hunted along with other Lucifer Hawks because she was a
Category IV, a LH/Human hybrid. We got
to see Katsumi happy at first, having left the AMP to live with Roy and find
true love with him. I was a little
confused with the sudden time jump of 6 months.
Somehow that gave me the idea that this wasn’t all going to be a new
status quo. Also, try as they might to show us a sympathetic Lucifer Hawk, one
who tried to save Katsumi from rogue Lucifer Hawk hunters, I never believed the
creatures good guy act. Still, it was a
good “what if” scenario to show Katsumi and give her a little more to chew on
until Roy came in and reassured her that his feelings for her are more reality
than anything in her life right now, it was cute seeing them together.
Lastly, we closed on the long awaited look at the “Silent
Crisis” that started all of this…and it should have been two episodes. We get a host of new faces, spend little time
with any of them besides Giggelf’s annoying protégé we saw in the first
episode, and the episode kind of ends without anything being revealed except
for…well Giggelf’s kind of stupid. It’s
true, thinking energy from a dark dimension could save the Earth from…insert
environmental message of the week (it’s never made truly clear), does that ever
sound like that’s going to work…EVER?!
We also only got vague tidbits of Giggelf having Lucifer Hawk blood in
his veins, hence how Katsumi got her own.
But we still don’t know where Rally and her sister Rosa got their powers
from and, after all that build up, we never got to see the Silent Crisis in
full. The only take away from this
disappointing time trip are the images Fuyuka received of Katsumi in garb
similar to what Rosa and Ganossa were both wearing from Nemesis. Looks like our heroine is headed for the Dark
Side at some point.
Silent Mobius is…constantly disappointing and yet I want
it to work so freaking badly. It’s like
little to no thought has gone into pushing this series to fulfil it’s true
potential. It’s there, it’s all there,
the elements for a truly legendary classic.
And yet the series flounders in terrible animation, cliché backstories
and rushed/cryptic storytelling, almost as if the production staff just wanted
to get it over with and earn their paychecks.
It’s been a while since I reviewed an Anime with this many problems and
it’s only reached the halfway mark. But
I doubt this show is going to pull off a legendary winner of an ending like
Code Geass Season 2. I may not be
psychic, but I cant imagine this show getting a very high score in a couple of
weeks…and I really hope I’m wrong.
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