After a shattering loss to Team Velshtein, Team Satomi
begins to wonder if its really just luck that’s gotten them so far in the
IG-1. Tired of being passed over time
and time again, River makes a bold decision that’s sure to shake things up for
him and Takeshi. And love is in the air
when Takeshi’s blossoming romance with Team Skylark’s Fantine becomes frontpage
news just before their big race. With
two powerful teams standing in their way, Takeshi, Liz and Amy have their work
cut out for them if they want to have a chance at making the Finals.
We enter Lap 2 of IGPX with some definite improvements
from Lap 1…how long I’m gonna keep calling these reviews “Laps” will probably
not last long (not the best joke).
But
we got more races and a chance to see different teams of mechs operating in
very unique ways.
When it comes to the
characters though, IGPX kind of struggles in that department.
Though one character did make some serious
moves in this set, everyone else feels mostly staggered at best and at worst
uninteresting.
Let’s break it all down.
We got two full races in this set and snippets from a
very, very short third.
Velshtein wasted
no time laying out Team Satomi to the point where you could call it a crushing
loss.
That left Satomi’s track record at
one win, one loss and a draw, pretty up and down for an underdog team in their
first year in the big leagues.
Thankfully, the team didn’t get kicked out of the running yet and was
able to build some XP taking on other teams to prepare for the final boss, we
all knew it would be Velshtein again.
The
Edgeraid and Skylark races were both excellent and lit a fire under Takeshi’s
ass that he and the girls had to work together and formulate plans rather than
just let him Maverick his way to a win.
Edgeraid’s wire-fu was an interesting gimmick and their lead having a
talking pet of their own provided some fun Cat vs. Dog banter between them and
Luca.
The Skylar match was even better
due to Fantine and Takeshi’s duel being a very fast paced and rapid fire
fight.
This was probably the most
personal of the races to date because we’ve seen Takeshi and Fantine being
friendly, the latter being 100% kind words and flirting.
Now they had to race each other despite their
growing feelings.
And once Takeshi got
his act together, it was a pretty damn good fight with both being about evenly
matched.
Both races were great in the
end and I’m glad neither were cut down for the sake of other episode plots.
The character stuff was more of a mixed bag.
River finally made the decision to leave Team
Satomi after he rightly deduced he was never gonna race in Takeshi’s spot.
Even Takeshi told Fantine that he knew River
was never gonna race as long as he was on his team.
And yet everyone was either bummed (Satomi)
or surprised (just about everyone else) when River decided to quit…don’t they
realize how crummy they’ve been to him when he hadn’t done anything but ask for
a chance?
River did get a little
aggressively stubborn trying to find ways to prove himself but he still has my
sympathies.
Now he has a chance to take
on Takeshi in a match as he signs up with Sledge Mamma.
How he’s able to do this so late in the
season…who knows and I probably shouldn’t think too hard about it.
But you can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on
that race next time.
Takeshi continued
his roller coaster of Maverick to Bummed Out to Uncertain to Maverick
again.
There were times where he did
show promise as a racer: allowing Mark to unlock his Mechs full potential
during a Time Trial and giving Fantine the fight she really wanted.
Overall though, it’s hard to like Takeshi as
a leading guy when his moods all over the map.
Liz continues to shine thanks to Michelle Rodriguez’s performance and
learning a few new fun tidbits about her character: Mainly that she’s freaked
out by dogs and clearly has feelings for Takeshi…I think she could do better
but love is love I guess.
One side story I think was either unnecessary or needed
some more time was the Mark/Satomi plotline.
Mark needing to hide his history so as not to upset Satomi felt
shoehorned in.
Satomi’s been dealing
with looking for sponsorships and navigating corporate politics and it seems
that her Grandfather, who founded Team Satomi, has a history that isn’t all
pretty.
Clearly it took a lot for her to
get this team to where it is and its constantly on the verge of being disbanded
cause the Satomi name isn’t enough of a brand.
And yet Satomi refuses handouts of any kind, even from a teammate like
Mark who’s just trying to help her out.
Mark should have just been honest about his history from the beginning,
there was no reason to hide it and Satomi didn’t have to be so grumpy about it
either.
This all just felt forced and a
way to give Satomi and Mark more to do beyond their roles.
If it were up to me: have Satomi already
aware of Mark’s family history and make them old friends (maybe even Exs if you
want to spice things up).
Mark lends
some of his families support Satomi’s way, she’s nervous about it and thinks it
might be a way to get back in her “good graces”.
But Mark assures her of his loyalty to the
team while trying to hold back that he still has a torch for her (something
that would work its way to the end of the show for proper payoff).
Huh, not often I try suggesting rewrites for
an entire character arc.
All in all, the racing was in top form for this set of
episodes and some of the characters made some important strides in their arcs.
When we return on Friday, we reach the end of
the first half of IGPX, the end of the First Season as it was broadcast on
Toonami.
Takeshi will have two big
rivals to contend with and there’s the championship on the line for one of
those races.
Season 1, Lap 3 begins this
Friday at the Gundam Anime Corner (Race Lap jokes aren’t done yet apparently).
No comments:
Post a Comment