Concrete Revolutio

Episode 10

Concrete Revolutio has shown us plenty of jumps forward and backward in time throughout its run, but never before has it jumped as far as the twenty-fifth century. When I saw that in this week's episode, I thought, "This is a game changer." Having seen the whole episode now, I don't know if I would still go that far. However, episode 10 definitely reveals that one of our characters knows far more than he was previously telling us. He's seen all this history before—multiple times—but now he's involved with it.

Jaguar is the time traveler in question. He has a magical stopwatch, which he clicks to jump forward and backward in time. He does this a lot in fact—Jaguar has visited the current timeline no less than three different times at different stages of his life, all for different purposes. We're now in April 1968, not too long before Jiro's separation from the Superhuman Bureau, and Jaguar must face off against one of his former selves, who is fighting for a cause that he since determined to be foolish and maybe even evil. Of course, Younger Jaguar also thinks he's fighting evil—making history better by eliminating its most powerful evil figures. The conflict between black-and-white conceptions of good and evil and more nuanced ones returns.

The first of Jaguar's visits came when he worked in the future as part of the Time Patrol. They're a sort of futuristic anime Peabody and Sherman, going back in time to keep history on track. Somewhere along the line though, Jaguar decided that the people meddling with history may have the right idea. He laments that the 25th Century doesn't have superhumans and wanted to see how he could change that by eliminating those who stood in its way. By the way, if you're wondering how Jaguar became a superhuman when his home time doesn't have them, he implies that his animal nature may be more literal than it seems. On the other hand, his existence could be due to any number of the episode's acknowledged paradoxes.

The other theme of this week's installment is that you can't change history, including your own personal past. Jaguar wants to destroy his former history-changing self and his group, the Infernal Queen, partly because what they're doing is wrong and counterproductive. However, he's also motivated by some shame over his past and the desire degree to save his current self from it. IQ!Jaguar has now set his sights on the Superhuman Bureau, believing that their attempts to control superhumans is evil and may contribute to the superhuman-free future. That puts Bureau!Jaguar on his kill list too, since he could erase his future self without damaging who he is in the past. The same is not true in reverse though, which is why Bureau!Jaguar must tread carefully. He tells Kikko he joined the Superhuman Bureau in order to confront and defeat his past self, through different means.

Despite all the time travel, this is one of the most straightforward Concrete Revolutio episodes so far. Perhaps that's inevitable at this stage in the game; we've arranged most of the puzzle pieces, so the image is clearer even without the few still missing. Watching this cleared up so many of my questions from previous episodes. We learn why only Jiro can pilot Equus and why it didn't come with him when he left the Superhuman Bureau (because Jaguar made it for him). We now fully understand Jaguar's control over time. Given all the new stuff we also got—and the huge wrench Jaguar's reveal throws in everything—I think it's also fair to say that the writing and direction are improving. The Concrete Revolutio team is learning how to wield their creation, crafting episodes that viewers don't have to struggle to understand. In this case, we zero in on one character and a few simple, clearly articulated themes in the midst of all the madness.

While there are revealing moments with other characters (Jiro and Emi's closeness throughout), and they do play key roles in the episode's plot (Kikko), the focus remains on Jaguar, his journey, and his relationship to his own past. The themes include the aforementioned "maturing in your sense of morality" and "you can't rewrite the past." These are easy to digest, even with the funky paradoxes that Concrete Revolutio uses to explain the latter problem. The "maturing morality" theme has shown up many times before, like in the episode about Earth-chan that is also explicitly referenced this week. Perhaps if Concrete Revolutio had tried this tactic earlier on, it could have been more dramatically successful. For all the fascinating ideas it started with, the show's erratic structure made them difficult to grasp. It's nice to see that coming under control.

Heck, even the mysterious "paradoxes" are consistent and striking here. They serve as a metaphor for the more literal "rewriting" of history—not the kind that Time Patrol!Jaguar fights, but the changing of historical accounts. Even with pieces of their past gone, the importance of a figure to their own time doesn't diminish. That's what Bureau!Jaguar figures has saved him after he kills his IQ past. He remains alive, only to find that Kikko showed his time travel device to the doctor, who pledges to study it and find his own methods of improving it. Along with creating its own paradox (the product of an innovation inspires its creation), this causes Jaguar to muse that he's still around because his time travel discovery made him too important to human history and cannot be erased without destroying time itself. Kikko suggests there's something different going on, though. Maybe the cosmos doesn't meddle in these affairs at all, but lets the people decide their own history.

Jaguar has likely changed his own personal history, too. Patrol!Jaguar returns to his home century at the end of the episode after the credits roll. Will he be a different person now that he's met his "future" selves and work to stop them—or will he seek out some other means for achieving what he wants? Will he go down the same path? We don't know, but the character has the same infinite potential, with new experiences possibly changing him further. In the broader societal sense implied by the series' politics, perhaps this theme also tells us something about Japan's own attempts to reinvent itself after World War II, facing the world as a new economic power in the 1960s.

Concrete Revolutio has so many cool characters, themes, and plots in its toybox. I'm glad that its creative team is finally learning how to make something compelling out of those tools. There's simply too much potential and ambition here to let it squander in obscurity. This episode was a giant step forward for this series.

Rating: A+

Concrete Revolutio is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.