Forum - View topicGargantia on the Verdurous Planet (TV).
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kgw
 Posts: 1057 Location: Spain, EU |
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It was an interesting twist that spoiler[the same argument that could wage war against Hideauze-whalesquids, made Striker's cult totally unacceptable for Chamber].
But let's admit it, spoiler[Chamber was the brains of the team, and cooler than Ledo. At least, I am sure Ledo would have not shout "Drop dead you tin can!"] I was about to say to for an anime that started in a interstellar war, the series wasn't quite bloody spoiler[if we count out nameless pirates, whalesquids & cultists. Except former Fleet Comander and Chamber, no main character died in the series]. And we are not sure about the later. |
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bizarcasm
Posts: 22 |
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Episode 13
spoiler[I have to admit, it's kind of funny that the character who I found the most interesting and felt went through the most interesting development was Chamber. Not that there wasn't a fair amount of growth for the other characters, but it was all fairly normal stuff. Integrating into society, learning to think for yourself, etc. But Chamber was something different, he was special. It's kind of rare for mechas to have actual personalities. Most of the time they're less robots, and more high-tech suits of armor. Even if they do have personalities, they usually are subtle, low-key, and mysterious. While sentient AI's aren't that rare in anime, sentient mecha's are. Chamber was an actual character who, while clearly being a machine, had his own thoughts and ideals. He would argue, compromise with, and even occasionally emotionally support his pilot. That's something I'd never seen before.] spoiler[ What made him even more interesting, was that he actually seemed like an AI. Often times an AI or robot in anime will just seem like a reserved, socially awkward human girl, who needs to learn how to let herself feel emotions, or something. Chamber though, was, well not exactly cold, but cool, analytical, and approached existence from his own point of view. Instead of learning how to become human himself, he learned how appreciate humanities strengths and weaknesses, and his own relationship with them. He was able to realize his own limitations, and find his own sense of purpose. He viewed himself as the apex of human civilization and technology, but because of that, it seemed like he held humanity in both a sort of reverence, as in, "I am amazing, therefore, the beings that created me must also be amazing."] spoiler[ There was also a parental aspect to him, which I found interesting. Ever since I'd read the interview quote about the supposed message the director had towards young adults, and wondered what he meant exactly. Obviously, there was the period when Ledo was looking for work, but that didn't really seem like the major theme of the show. I think the theme had a lot of it had to do with parents, which seems a little odd at first, because not a single character in the entire show has one. Amy and Bevel don't. Ledo doesn't. Ridget doesn't. And Pinion seems like an orphan as well. I think Melty may have mentioned her parents once, but other than that, there are none. ] spoiler[ Even so, the only named character deaths in the show were of parental figures. The Commodore for Ridget, and Chamber for Ledo. Kugel also sort of fills that role, despite how little we actually see him. Even Pinion's brother, too, sort of falls in that category. The two main ones though, the Commodore and Chamber, were both characters who wholeheartedly believed in their wards, and were willing to entrust the future to them. I'm not sure exactly what they were going for, but it seems to be something along the lines of learning to accept the mistakes and respect the sacrifices of the previous generations, while at the same time not being afraid to think for yourself and find your own way forward, or something like that.] |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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Now that's how you make a finale for a 13 episode series.
Very satisfying. |
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Melanchthon
 Posts: 550 Location: Northwest from Here |
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Just finished Waterworld, I mean, Gargantia, after a four episode mini-marathon.
Overall, I'd give it a B+. It a pretty good show, excepting episode 5, which was the worst single episode of anime I've seen this year (Crude, 20 years out-of-date bigotry against transsexuals is hilarious). If Garganita has a weakness, it is the supporting cast. Lavish detail is spent on showing how Ledo learns what it means to be human, but the sporting cast gets essentially no development at all, even the love interest Amy*. This is probably a function of the show being too short -- a few more developmental episodes would have helped. The ending battle was less than epic. I'm sure mecha aficionados could tell if the mecha battle was good or not, personally I find mecha battles boring and tedious. And the supporting sea battle had plenty of Bay-plosions but too little time was spent on it to get a feel for the battle itself. And I thought the Heaven's Ladder bit was an unnecessary Deus Ex Machnina, although totally awesome. Science Fiction-wise, while the technology was rather generic, the best science fiction isn't about science at all, but rather about humanity, and this show excelled at that. I am still conflicted about the spoiler[commander being dead] -- it has important symbolic purpose, but at the same time I think it would be better to give the evil inherent to humanity a human face. The final question is, having seen this, would I purchase it if and when it gets licensed? No. Sadly, while still a good show, it's not world I want to return to. And really, I didn't enjoy it that much. It wasn't well, fun. Cool, yes. But not fun. *After reading bizarcasm's above post, forgive me if I do not wish to deal with quoting spoiler tags, I have to say a support character is really developed well -- spoiler[Chamber]. That was impressive, I'll admit. |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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I assume you mean "no less than epic."
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Knoepfchen
 Posts: 698 |
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Great points, bizarcasm, I agree with all of them.
This was a 10/10 finale for me. It provided everything - action and thrill, heroism and emotions, awesome dialogue and badassery at it's finest while being very fast paced without feeling too rushed. Had me laughing, suffering, cheering, and crying. A few seconds into the episode it was clear Urobuchi wrote this one (first and only one after the pilot, and about time). Striker's and Chamber's chat felt like Psycho-Pass never ended and reconciled me with the cult plot that I did not find all that great in the beginning. Things might have gone a bit overboard with bishi Pinion's fangirl squad, but in a fun way. I was also quite pleasantly surprised that neither spoiler[Ledo] nor spoiler[Pinion] got to sacrifice themselves after they'd already made their resolves. spoiler[Chamber kicking Ledo out of the cockpit, deeming him unfit as a soldier and having nothing left to enlighten him with anymore] was a real tear jerker for me. What wonderfully hopeful lines this brilliant AI had to say about humanity and its future! Why someone at the studio decided it was a good idea to spend so much time on that awkward fanservice while there were so many great things, themes, and morals to explore in this world, I do not know, but I am glad the last episodes provided enough solid and interesting background for such an awesome finale. Still, I believe this show that I would rate good to very good for now could have been an easy excellent with a little bit more focus. All in all, this was a very satisfying one for me: The setting was great, the characters made me care about them, it was so very pretty to look at, and when the focus was on, it was spot on. |
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NottJim
 Posts: 36 Location: Edinburgh, UK |
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I watched episodes 12 and 13 back to back and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Chamber absolutely stole the show in the end, and I was pleasantly surprised by the final resolution of the battle spoiler[Chamber ejecting Ledo, saving him so he could go on and live his life and then sacrificing himself to destroy Striker]. I was a little disappointed they didn't spend more time after the battle to show us the characters living their lives on Gargantia, but this is a very minor nit pick. Rating this show is difficult for me. Should you rate a show based upon the potential it showed at the beginning and how well it delivered upon it? If so I thought this show was going to be better than it turned out. The middle section was distinctly iffy and they setup some grand premises that where never really explored or resolved i.e. the larger galactic war between the hideauze and the humans, and earths place in that. But the story they did tell was really compelling, the characters were not generic, and developed nicely over the span on the show. In the end I rate this a solid 8/10. |
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Miranox
 Posts: 247 Location: Montreal, Canada |
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The ending, although predictable, turned out better than I thought. As others have said, spoiler[Chamber pretty much stole the spotlight. I will remember this show because it has the most awesome AI character I have seen.] However, I can't call this ending "good". Everything happened too quickly and there were too many cliché moments, such as the point where spoiler[Amy showed up to cheer for Ledo.]
Overall, this series can be described as a roller-coaster. I considered it the most promising show of the season at first but then it took a nose dive so hard that it smashed through the ocean floor. It eventually managed to dig itself out and rise up again, but not without a few hiccups along the way. We probably should thank Urobuchi for rescuing it. Next time, they should just let him write the entire script... |
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Animerican14
 Posts: 963 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
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I don't think it's so much of a matter of "letting" him write the entire script as it is a matter of how time-consuming (and rare) it is for one person to write a show's entire script a-la-Madoka. (Being in charge of the scenario, as Urobuchi was for the most part on Gargantia, probably not so mentally exhausting.) I recall hearing something like this on scriptwriting on ANNCast, once. He's a hot item now as well, so surely there are other projects keeping him busy. There's a quality middle-ground that can be reached between "All-Urobuchi=Awesomesauce" and "Little-Urobuchi=NotSoAwesomesauce." I considered PSYCHO-PASS a more cohesive package, and it was largely just he and another writer for the script. And it's not like the director himself has a neglible impact on how a show comes together. In Gargantia's case, it was a director whose most famous work before was that FMA Brotherhood film. Even so-- further possible elaboration pending-- I still thought Gargantia to be a nice show to watch this season; "very good," by my present generalization. It was fun seeing bits of social commentary embedded-- or seemingly embedded-- in just about everything these past few episodes, especially while imagining that it was Japanese conformist society being critiqued. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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Alright, my final thoughts on this one:
It didn't end up being as smart as it initially seemed like it was going to be. The social commentary didn't end up going much of anywhere, and the moral dilemmas were circumstantially made irrelevant. I personally didn't really mind the 'breather' episodes 5 and 6 like most others seemed to: they expanded the setting of the Gargantia fleet and allowed for some introspection on Ledo's part. Actually, it was episode 10 where the wheels started to come off for me, especially right after the most interesting part of the show: the video recording. That happened... and then not really much was ever made of it after that. Pinion suddenly starts acting like a moron in a very out of character way, which starts a wave of stupidness that kind of permeates everything for a while. Then, we get to the evil oppressive fleet. Why are they evil? Because they dump people into the ocean. Why do they do that? fudge if I know. Why else are they evil? Because their ships are all dark and stuff. What a hamfisted way to handle that. If the show had more episodes, we could maybe have had time for the characters to have a dawning realization that the place is messed up, and an actual moral dilemma over starting a rebellion but instead we get that. Oh, and spoiler[Kugel is dead, and it's been Striker the whole time.]. Not only is that a twist for the sake of a twist, it's also less interesting. That's not to say that I completely hated the show; there were some very good things, too. Here are some more brief pluses and minuses for me: + Everything about the hideauze was really cool, from the design to the concept. + The asthetics and culture of Gargantia was very cool + Ridget was a very good character, and her development was well handled - Shitty CG. Made me completely uniterested in everything mech related + Drawing animation was very good. + Awesome soundtrack + some good subtle executional things in the first couple of episodes, like with the first contact between Ledo and the Gargantians. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Yeah about that in this episode the critique of Japanese conformist society was repeat of what was said in Psycho Pass,but just done worse with no moral dilemma.In PP we had people who are happy with society as it is(and they shown to be normal human beings),in Gargantia we have only soulless religious followers who looked gloomy.
No,they were killed because now they cant contribute anything to the society.Which is stupid because they can but that is another thing. |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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Kugel was applying the same principles as the Alliance... cull the sick and the weak. Except if you applied real-world science, it would actually make sense to throw people overboard when you had such a big population in such close quarters.
Also, Chekov's Gun was the most awesomest Chekov's Gun ever. Literally. Who would have thought spoiler[ the ability to water plants was just a byproduct of using a water spray as a blast shield.] |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Huh? I'm actually still confused about the "Heaven's Key" thing. Wasn't it just spoiler[a cannon]? |
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getchman
 Space CowboyPosts: 9120 Location: Bedford, NH |
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It used to be able to spoiler[launch ships into space. now its just a really cool cannon] |
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Brent Allison
 Posts: 2444 Location: Athens-Clarke County, GA, USA |
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I figured Pinion's spoiler[leaving Gargantia and getting stoked about near-infinite lost technology to play with] was another way of saying, "Greed makes you stupid." I'm willing to accept changes in character like that if the social context abruptly changes because it shows that the character has another side to them that can be brought out, even a dumb, disappointing one. I'd call this one of the more satisfying of the season. The ending left it very unlikely that there will be a 2nd season, and that's a good thing. Otherwise I'm imagining a Gargantia season two with one of Ledo's female comrades wormholing in and love-triangling up the place. |
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