Snowball Earth

Episode 12

The bad guy got his comeuppance, his kaiju is a bloody mess, and he's somehow going to make amends with the protagonist by the final curtain call. I was prepared. I woke up, drank my coffee, and jammed out to my tunes to further pump myself (Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights, in case anyone's wondering). I even had a rough outline in my head of what I thought I was going to jot down before I pressed the play button on my computer. Everything seemed good to go. Turns out it ain't over till the fat kaiju sings.

I was right to expect Snowball Earth to expand on Colonel Sagami's Flashback Emporium. When a still-bloodied Sagami cries about how empty his life has been chasing after his stupid dream, another flashback comes in to swoop in to reveal his more tender side. We see him take off his soldier children while they hide away from the horrors of the frozen post-apocalyptic apocalypse and all that. The sequence is supposed to make Sagami look like a good father figure, and yes, he does have some heartwarming moments with the kids he's raising for his project, and yes, I know those kids seem loyal to him, but somehow, I don't buy it. The flashback comes out of nowhere and is too forced for anything to be believable. He manipulated these kids to fight for him to relive his glory days as the savior before Tetsuo came along. There's no logical reason why he should be suddenly framed like this. This sequence is written like a guy who overheard someone sarcastically say “Gendo Ikari is the Best Dad Ever” and didn't get the irony. After the flashback sequence ends, Sagami tells Yuma that he brainwashed her and the other kids. She cries and rejects those claims, but I'm sorry to tell you this, Yuma. You're right. You're 100% right. Deadass, even, as the kids today say.

About Tetsuo. He's the only logical character here. That is, if you take away from the fact that he's trying to empathize with a guy who tried to kill him many times over. Whatever. He's at least more of an adult than Sagami. What did Tetsuo want? Not to be the savior. Just to live a chill life in peace. One where nobody has to suffer. Fair. It's the type of reasonable desire I would expect out of a character like Tetsuo. Sagami hears this, and his immediate reaction is “Is he an idiot?” Really? You're saying that after *checks notes* literally everything? Might I remind you once more that you had the chance to defeat Tetsuo and become the savior yourself in some backwards way, but you let him go?

But all right, Sagami has his moment of catharsis, the flashback sequence is over, and our baddie is still a bloody mess. In the far recesses of my mind, I can faintly hear Mike Ehrmantraut tell this episode to shut up and let this guy die in peace. That doesn't happen. Remember the girl who randomly popped up in the last episode? Y'know, the one who set Sagami up to destroy Tetsuo's spaceship so he can become the savior (except not really)? She was a kaiju in human form that switched bodies with one of Sagami's soldiers so she could infiltrate him. And she was that one kaiju that was sitting out on the ledge of the building in Tokyo that Sagami and his crew were staring at before they got mauled by that three-headed kaiju. My complaints about this episode aside, this is a nice use of set-up and pay-off. The trade-off is that we're going to have to stretch this series out to one more episode. I shouldn't be surprised that an anime would get 13 episodes instead of the usual 12. I'm actually all for one last fight against a baddie we didn't see coming. It can add some extra oomph into the mix if done right. If only it didn't come after the last few episodes were so stretched out just the same.

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Snowball Earth is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.