Thunder 3

Episode 8

Thankfully, things are looking up, if only so slightly, for this maligned anime adaptation. Mainly that's because stuff actually starts to happen in this episode, as several disparate plotlines show signs of – finally – starting to converge.

Remember the teacher who reluctantly lent The Small Three his PS5 game back in the first episode? You know, the one whose entire fault it was that the kids were transported through a TV screen to a strange world in the throes of alien invasion? Yeah, him. He slinks up to Pyontaro's house and meekly asks for his game disc back when he learns that after an entire month, the kids still haven't yet returned. He doesn't mention anything about his sketchy multidimensional software. Either the man's completely incompetent, or a total weasel. I'm edging towards the first option, as he's later so easily browbeaten by a group of other students to let them into his house to play on his game console.

This seems like an unusual teacher-student dynamic, but he goes with the flow, and as a result, this shining paragon of how not to foster the next generation ends up dragging another bunch of kids into a war-torn alternate dimension along with him. The scene of the funny cartoon kids essentially singing for their supper, much like the Small Three did several episodes previously, made me smile.

Once again, the Small Three themselves do little but barely exist on the story's periphery. At least now, it looks like they might do something proactive. Their relative irrelevance is at least mitigated by the presence of the other cartoon people in the episode, including Futaba and her glacially progressing storyline. Are we supposed to believe that she's been wandering around and sleeping on the floor of the alien spacecraft for an entire month now? Something's not adding up with this storytelling.

It's also the third episode where she's been stuck in the same room with her cute new fluffy/feathery buddy Q-chan, whom she has a sweet dream about at the episode's beginning. It's crudely interrupted by a bunch of alien soldiers who attempt to vaporise her, but fail. Futaba's deeply unhappy that they've dared to try and hurt her new pet, and these alien dudes learn why screaming anime toddlers are so terrifying. I also chuckled when, in accurately toddler-like fashion, she bowls them out of the way as she runs through them. She doesn't have the cognitive ability to conceive of attacking them back, but knocking them over like comedy bowling pins is a good enough result.

Down on the ground, the hapless Rebellion guys have mixed results to their flawed paramilitary operation. Countless broken bodies line the streets (at least I assume they're broken; the CG models in this show make them look like discarded action figures), but a few brave souls who remember they've been given superpower-granting alien-derived nasal sprays start to fight back. This part in the manga is a lot of fun, and very reminiscent of Gantz's loopier moments. It's almost enjoyable in this version, if only the constant zoomed-in framing and lethargic direction didn't immediately nullify any spectacle or scale this battle could have generated.

Combatants summoning enormous Gatling guns from nowhere is super-cool, as is the ability to conjure exploding articulated lorries from the ether. These abilities do come with a price, however, which is unconsciousness following a few minutes of activation. That's why Segami must finally summon his own power to protect his female companion. “Move fast and hit really hard” is a decent skill when battling an entire legion of mooks, and Segami's Flash-like movement is kind of cool, even if the desperately compromised animation comprises a still frame of him sliding across the screen with some electricity effects layered on top.

Although the desperately poor production hampers what could have been a fantastic episode, this episode of Thunder 3 remains at least half-entertaining. I imagine that's the absolute pinnacle of what we can expect going forward.

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Thunder 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.