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EP. REVIEW: Japan Sinks: 2020

Also their world is weirdly empty. Japan's a pretty densely populated island and they're hitting up towns all the time, yet they rarely encounter other people. It's kinda weird.

A voiceover in Episode 2 or 3 mentioned that spoiler[100 million people went missing as a result of the earthquake and tsunami], but it's still pretty weird considering that's spoiler[over 95% of the entire population. Granted though, there were still tons of people in the port scene.]

Panoptican wrote:

The daughter running away at first and becoming grief stricken seems like an especially realistic take.

See this is where they very nearly lost me. I could maybe see her running away if they were strangers, but she ran away from her friends and teammates who were actively calling for her help. Yes, there are people who would do that, but they're awful. I can relate to Shinji not wanting to get in the robot, but I just cannot understand how you could leave people you know without even trying to help them.

I was also surprised that the lockers weren't bolted to the floor. Japan's supposed to be earthquake proof, but even here in CA, we bolt bookshelves and filing cabinets to the wall and lockers to the floor.

Anyway, those were my biggest problems with the first two episodes, and they were far outweighed by how intense the earthquake scenes were. And the bodies dropping out of the trees... Btw, I still don't quite get why Mari's plane went down.

As for unexploded ordinance, we dropped a lot of bombs on Japan (over 200K tons in 1945 alone). They found one at Sendai Airport in 2012, and in Okinawa in 2019, among others. Germany unearths about 2000 tons of unexploded munitions every year. Even England is still finding uxb's (the most recent I found with a quick search was 2018).

Also, until she cleared the sign, I was fully expecting a minor quake to bury him in the grave he was digging for himself. >.>

WHY DID MARI’S AIRPLANE GO DOWN?! It was literally flying in the sky! Above the damage! And the helicopters? I get that communication is disrupted, but why are flying vehicles affected to that extent?

Still it raises the question of why the authorities didn't go ahead and dispose of the bomb(s?) they knew about instead of fencing it off.

After the first episode, while I questioned a few things that happened (why did the plane land on a river full of bridges when it was flying above open sea when it got into trouble? Did the mother actually outswim a tsunami? Where did the father get the lights and power to illuminate the shrine?), it still felt like this could become a pretty good disaster drama.

Episode 2 made some more questionable choices, but still, not bad.

spoiler[However, from episode 3 on everything just gets more and more ridiculous, and now 8 episodes in I'm almost getting Mayoiga-vibes: is this actually meant as a drama, or is it a comedy in disguise? I still quite enjoy watching it, but for all the wrong reasons.]

It makes me wonder how much Yuasa was actually involved in the production. Apart from the story, even the art style feels off. His distinct style might not look that great when looking at stills, but really comes to live through the animation. Unless it doesn't, as in much of Japan Sinks. It almost looks like someone without his talent tried to replicate the style. And failed.

spoiler[You know a show is going downhill when a racist old fart becomes your favorite character in the show. And I still hope that kid dies a gruesome death. His random use of English annoys the shit out of me ]

Mari's works as a member of a rescue team overseas. At least, I assume that's what Ayumu meant when she told she said "if you're so good at saving other people's children, why don't you save your own?"

Nanami death was just a punch in the gut. I am so glad Dr. Stone explained it so well so when it happened I understood it perfectly.

I get that Haruo is a recluse forced into a group at this point but holy shit the guy who promised to keep you safe just got blown up and now all three female members of the group are in an out-and-out brawl with a rapist maybe you could [expletive] do something?

At the top of the hill, Ayumu seems bothered by the attention Nanami is giving to Haruo and, perhaps purposefully, plans to interrupt by feigning injury only to tell Nanami she needs to pee.