It seems as if the Lucifer Hawks have backed off…for
now. Which is a good thing because the
AMP has a whole slew of other problems to deal with. A new recruit, Lum Cheng, joins the AMP. But this young upstarts hotheaded attitude
isn’t earning her any favors with her teammates, especially Katsumi and
Kiddy. Meanwhile, Lebia finds herself
assigned to a case with Ralph and Roy and Yuki ends up trapped in the
future. And Kiddy’s love for Ralph is
put to the test when she is framed for murder.
Sometimes, it’s the threats too close to home that are even more
dangerous than the Lucifer Hawks themselves.
Anytime a production reaches the halfway mark on a show,
it’s good to take a step back, reflect on what’s come before and think about
how to proceed going forward. Sometimes
it’s good to start with a fresh slate, put up a fresh canvas and start
anew. Maybe you do a time skip, maybe
you just reset the status quo with a new conflict. Or you introduce a poor mans Chun Li who’s an
obnoxious brat molded in with a cast that’s already too large and tough to
handle…it’s moves like this that make me think this show isn’t going to get any
better.
The first half of this weeks set had some of the worst
moments in Silent Mobius thus far.
Bringing in Lum Cheng is extremely pointless. She comes in like a lone wolf and immedietly
pisses everyone off, nevermind the viewers.
Oh and she wants Roy all to herself…cause why not give Katsumi more on
her plate than she needs. Her
introduction to this show changes nothing and if you ignore her presence in
every episode, nothing is lost but a few precious moments of time that could be
better spent developing everyone else who is in extremely dire need of
character growth. Nami and Lebia have
both been left out in the cold, do they even have a point on this series
anymore? Rally is all but missing save
for a nice heart to heart she has with Katsumi.
Of the core cast of women, only Katsumi and Kiddy have any really good
story or depth to them. Watching the two
of them bond over their shared inner demons: Kiddy being a cyborg and Katsumi
being part Lucifer Hawk, was touching and proof that this show can make some of
these core friendships work.
And if you think ive forgotten about Yuki, trust me, I
wish I could. This week, she gets sent
back in time 30 years just before the Silent Crisis. Here she meets a boy Toru, falls in love with
him, and decides to just forget trying to figure out how she got to the past
and just stay there for good. SO MUCH
WRONG INSTANTLY!!!! Firstly, how the hell did Yuki get sent back in time to
begin with? Second, why isn’t she trying
to return to her time period? Thirdly,
why the Disney esque romance in a show where Katsumi asks her boyfriend to kill
her if she goes full on dark side? See,
if Yuki had been shown as a character who hates the present and the world she
lives in, only to be shown a world of peace (even with disaster on the
horizon), I could see that as her motivation to stay in the past with
Toru. But no, Yuki has been background
noise up until now and everything about this episode seemed so forced. Hell, we even see Katsumi’s parents in a news
report in the past (naturally Yuki doesn’t spot them). That would have been so cool to see one of
the AMP members interacting with two individuals at the forefront of the
disaster that brought them together.
Silent Mobius has made a lot of missteps, most of them resulting in
boring character episodes. “Labyrinth”
however, takes the cake as the worst episode of the series so far.
The latter two episodes this week did manage to bring
things back a little bit. Kiddy got
another strong episode, facing a new Megadyne who has been taken over by a
Lucifer Hawk (more on that in a minute).
Seeing Ralph and Katsumi immedietly come to her aid while Isozaki and
Lum Cheng pretty much wrote her off, was great.
For all their bickering, Kiddy and Ralph have been as strong, if not a
stronger, couple than Katsumi and Roy.
Speaking of, Katsumi and Roy reached a very important crossroads. Whereas Kiddy and Ralph are in a good place
now, Katsumi forced Roy to decide what he would do if she went to the dark side
of the Lucifer Hawks. Roy’s reply is a
strong one and a respectable one.
However, thanks to Rally sucking at romantic advice, Katsumi ended
things with him. Why do I get the
feeling Rally went to the Sam Raimi Spider Man school of dealing with
Superheroes in Relationships? I doubt
things will stay cold between Katsumi and Roy for very long. Theirs is one of the shows better pillars and
fracturing that when the show could really use the support is not the smartest
move.
One thing of note from this week is the concept of the
Lucifer Hawks sneaking their way into human society, indicating a larger
endgame in play. We saw Ganoza brokering
a deal with the President of the company behind the Megadyne Cyborgs and also
saw a Lucifer Hawk taking control of one of Tokyo’s most dangerous gangs, the
Ghouls. If we had an episode dedicated
to the bad guys to explore this new set up, that would be so beneficial. We even got a really good Roy/Ralph story
focusing on their investigation of their own department and discovering the
Police are trying to make new bio monsters to combat the Lucifer Hawks just to
keep up with the AMP. It’s a stupid
plan, stupidest of the stupid. It does
show the pressure the Lucifer Hawk threat is putting on the city now, even if
the AMP are in fairly decent shape. If
anything, it also tells me that the AMP need to just kick out Nami, Yuki, and
Lum Cheng and bring on Ralph and Roy as their permanent teammembers just
because they seem more competent at their job than the people tasked with
bringing down the Lucifer Hawks. Lebia
can stay…I don’t know why she just can.
Right now, Katsumi, Kiddy, Roy and Ralph are the only
reasons im still caring about this show (that and I have two volumes to go, I
cant back out now). Silent Mobius had a
chance to start correcting a lot of things with the beginning of it’s second
half. Instead, it piles on the BS
storytelling and introduces another character who is the most useless yet
(that’s saying a lot with Nami and Yuki in your cast). I want to like this show, I want to like
these characters. But what’s the point
in doing so when the show itself feels like it could care less about everything
going on in it? Halfway through the show
and already I want there to be a reboot with a cut down cast, better animation
and a better focused story. Cause right
now, this show is driving me crazy and Silent Mobius is a story I want to
succeed…somehow.
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