Terraformars

Episode 8

The desire to tell a serious story can be very dangerous in a series like Terraformars. It can make the characters more compelling, but it also threatens to drain the show of its energy. The fight scenes take a back seat to character development this week, and results are mixed.

We're introduced to German officer Adolf in this episode, and he seems like a pretty decent guy once you get past his name's obvious connotations. As Adolf and his crew fight off several Terraformar ambushes, a series of flashbacks offers a look at the big guy's backstory. The rainy nighttime atmosphere sets a dark mood on its own, but Adolf's past would have been just as depressing on a sunny day.

Adolf is an early adopter for the augmentation surgery, having been used as a test subject early in his childhood. It's the kind of “kid gets turned into a science experiment” story that appears all the time in anime, and Terraformars offers a pretty dark take on the premise. The scenes of Adolf adapting to his electrical powers pack an emotional punch, but his appearance does a better job of showing how much he's suffered for his abilities. It turns out there's a good reason the collar on his jacket is so absurdly high.

The rest of Adolf's backstory is equally downbeat, and it's tough to see him find happiness when it's clearly not going to last. It's a solid effort at character development, but it seems odd that Adolf goes from captive test subject to college student without any explanation for his sudden freedom. Without enough information to go on, the audience is asked to infer a lot of plot points in a short amount of time. It's a distraction that could (and should) have been avoided with about thirty seconds of exposition. As it stands, I'm just going to assume that the scientists handed Adolf a lollipop, sent him home, and told him to come back in six months for a checkup.

For whatever bumps the flashbacks hit, they do make Adolf one of the most interesting characters in Terraformars. Where most of the Annex crew members seem to be there with a specific goal in mind, Adolf appears to be using the mission as an escape from the rest of his life. Instead of undergoing painful experiments or getting hurt by the people he cares about, he gets to cut loose and electrocute some space bugs. You know you've got a tragic character when a suicide mission is his idea of a vacation.

The parts of this episode that aren't devoted to developing Adolf are average at best. As cool as his electric throwing knives are, the combat scenes are fairly static. The dark, moody lighting helps hide the reduced amount of character movement, but the excitement factor still drops sharply. Terraformars is at its best when it pushes the limit of ridiculous action stunts, and it simply isn't doing that this week.

Good writing hasn't ever been a selling point for Terraformars, but this episode manages to do an acceptable job without much action to lean on. The show runs the risk of staying too bleak for too long if it continues to focus solely on Adolf, but there's always the possibility that fighting some aliens will help him cheer up. With a pinch of sunlight and a teaspoon of explosions, this week's issues should be fairly easy to remedy.

Rating: B-

Terraformars is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Paul Jensen also covers anime and manga at SharkPuppet.com.