T5W#116-Top 5 Things I Would Do Differently with the Silent Mobius TV Series

Well thank God it’s finally over and done with.  Still, as I prepare to put Silent Mobius in my rear view I cant help but wonder…why do I care about how it turned out and why do I feel like it deserved better?  I’ll admit, I love the concept, I do.  And as much as I despise most of the characters, I think they were all just poorly served by a rushed story that left a lot of them in the dust with nothing to do while Katsumi killed everything for them.  So for today’s Top 5, I’m going to talk about 5 things I’dve done differently with the TV adaptation of Silent Mobius.  I’ve ranted about a lot of this stuff already so I might be a bit on repeat.  However, I’m gonna approach this with a bit more hope in my heart and equally hope some Anime studio is reading and maybe takes my thoughts under consideration.

 

#5-Windows to the Past (Not a Drive By)

The long history of events leading up to the “Silent Crisis” that begins the birthing process of the AMP deserves more than just Rally’s poor cliff notes edition.  The flashback episode at the midpoint of the series was probably one of the worst episodes, focusing too much and yet too little on Gigelf and Fuyuka’s less than stellar romance.  There’s a lot of things going on around them involving other mages and the families of Lebia, Nami and Lum Cheng, but they’re just glossed over or just shrugged to the side after a mention.  Hell, even Ganossa’s villainous intentions are supposedly explained here…somewhere.  This should be the area where we get some real focus, not a rush job.  Either spread the story throughout the series run or do a 2-3 part tale that gives us all the info we need to digest.  Heck, a Fate/Zero style prequel would be awesome if done right (in many ways Fate/Zero blows Fate/Stay Night out of the water).

 

#4-Cut Down the Cast (by like a lot)

Early on, Silent Mobius made it clear that this was Katsumi’s show.  She was going to get like 80% of the total screentime and story focus.  Everyone else was lucky enough to get a story of their own in, two if they were very lucky.  One of my favorite moments of the early episodes was when the AMP read the comments about their unit on the police message boards.  They were stunned to see that they weren’t so much hated as they were totally dull and forgettable.  And that never really changed as the series went on.  As a result, everyone except Kiddy, Roy and Ralph got lost in a shuffle of unexplored and underdeveloped characters.  This is basic writing 101.  If you’re not going to give everyone their due, then don’t include them at all.  Lebia, Yuki, Nami, Lum Cheng and Isozaki could be taken out of the equation and nothing would be lost from their absence, nothing is certainly gained in the TV series, that’s for sure.  Sure getting rid of them all defeats the AMP’s reasons for being comprised of all women.  But if they aren’t going to do anything, why include them at all?

 

#3-Make the AMP useful

One of the biggest, most glaring flaws of the beginning of the show is, for a special unit dedicated to taking down Lucifer Hawks…the AMP kind of sucks at their job.  The uniqueness of using magic and technology combined to defeat these monsters loses its luster when it can do diddly squat.  It isn’t until Katsumi comes along and kills a Lucifer Hawk almost with ease that the AMP gets recognized as a legit unit…for one womans power alone.  The only other competent members of the team were Kiddy and Rally, when she wanted to get off her chair and do something.  However, Yuki, Nami and Lebia remained stagnant.  Besides their powers and appearances, there was nothing to make everyone in the AMP truly special or crucial to the fighting the Lucifer Hawks.  It feels wrong to compare them to the Sailor Senshi but Usagi wasn’t the only one who got a lot of character focus in all of Sailor Moon.  Sailor Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus all got their time to shine and kick ass and prove they didn’t need Moon Power all the time to win.  My point is, the AMP should be more than capable of handling things, Katsumi or no Katsumi.  Before she arrives, Kiddy boasts that they’ve been doing just fine up until then…but as much as I love Kiddy, I find that hard to believe.

 

#2-Movie Trilogy?

As you probably gathered from yesterdays review, I thought the Silent Mobius Movies were pretty damn good compared to the show.  The story might not have been the best but the animation and more mature feel was a natural fit for something like Silent Mobius.  So, to kind of depart from the TV series suggestions, why not do this as a new film trilogy?  Fate/Stay Night is doing this with their “Heaven’s Feel” storyline starting at the end of this year and it looks freaking fantastic (then again it’s Fate and Ufotable, theyre a match made in “ahem” heaven).  Giving Silent Mobius a big movie level budget and with no restrictions from TV censors, you could make it as scary, violent and mature as you possibly can…just like how the 2 part movie looks.  Make them as long as you want, make them as epic as you want.  Maybe, just maybe it can make up for all of the character stuff that might get left out as a result (though with three movies working at this story, I don’t think there’s an excuse for that).

 

#1-It Takes Heart

It became clear to me before the halfway mark of the show that the studio commissioned to work on Silent Mobius simply stopped caring about it long before the first episode even came out.  The constant changes in animation were lazy.  Most of the characters were given less and less to do week after week until they were all but forgotten.  The story seemed to be heading towards an epic conclusion but it was abruptly stopped and held off in favor of a possible second season.  Did the production team just hate the project?  Was it rushed behind the scenes by studio interference or an incompetent director?  Whatever the case, any Anime project needs a fair amount of HEART behind it to make it work, whether it’s a cash grab or a passion project.  The lack of TLC I felt from this show arguably made me more angry than anything the cast wasn’t doing on screen.  This show can work as a concept, it SHOULD work as a series.  So yeah, of all the suggestions I can offer on this Top 5, this would be the biggest one: put Silent Mobius in the hands of someone who cares about its storytelling power and gives a damn about the cast of character Kia Asamiya spent years writing for.  If this can be done…I might give the series and chance and find something to like about it more than the trainwreck I spent most of October watching.