What I really like about this series is how they can cause tension and danger and yet still subvert your expectations. I had thought it would be Akihiro and a few other named characters would die. But instead it was the one everyone was trying to save, and I think that made more impact than if it had been Akihiro or Norba, or one of Turbine girls. This show does extremely well at giving tension and emotional weight, without having to resort to simply killing named characters to get an emotional response.
Some shows fail at this. Prime examples are shows like Aldnoah or Captain Earth, where there was zero tension at all because there was no danger or even threat of consequences because everyone knew the heroes would win every time. In this series, the heroes DO win every time, and yet with expert story telling and characters development, I still feel the tension and the possible consequences and even the fear of death, even if the actual kill count is low to nil.
Many I have read think you need to kill named characters to be emotionally effective, and that is quite true most of the time. But sometimes it also can be mishandled by just killing people for the sake of shock value and emotional manipulation. Here, I was able to gain emotional impact and hurt from the death of a character that we had only been introduced to a few episodes ago. I think it was the combination of his relationship with an actual named character and how much Masahiro meant to Akihiro. It was the fact that both Tekkadan and Turbines wanted to save him and were doing their best to do so. It was showing what a horrible life Masahiro and his fellow child slaves were enduring, that collectively made Masahiro's death that much more impactful. The realization that this is what could have happened to Tekkadan's men if they didn't form such a tight knit bond with each other and have such support between each other, with leaders who looked after the group. Masahiro couldn't take the idea of having hope again, his life as human debris destroyed him and it breaks your heart to see him choose death like that.
This will really hurt Akihiro, but I think it will also give him purpose. He was already the leader of the Human Debris in Tekkadan, but I can see him expanding that and going on a campaign to help other Human Debris so that what happened to his brother won't happen to others.
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Originally Posted by LightningZERO
Considering how Masahiro was introduced and how quickly he was killed, I honestly felt nothing. It is so predictable that you just know the MS hugging scenes will end with someone dying.
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In response, basically what I said above.
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I wish that they had focus more on Akihiro's hypocrisy, you know, telling about Masahiro he can have a new family while Mika killing his old "family"left and right. It is no surprise that Masahiro went crazy.
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I can't call Akihiro a hypocrite. He is telling Masahiro that he can have a new family waiting for him with Tekkadan, which was true. Mika was fighting to protect himself and his family, and Akihiro had no knowledge of the other kids. Also, from what Masahiro said, about his family being only his brother and parents, he probably didn't think of the other pilots as "family", they were comrades that hung together and probably friends, but not family. Masahiro has probably seen other human debris come and go, get sold off or die, so he probably refrained from forming and kind of deep relationships. Notice that it was only the red head kid that kept complaining about Pedro, for Masahiro, he kind of just moved on.
Masahiro snapping had nothing to do with his comrades dying, it was his own mentality fracturing at the thought of hope and family when he had decided to do away with both those things, because it would only lead to him being hurt.
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Mika is badass, but honestly at this point he's pretty bland and zero development. He stays the same character as the 1st episode while Orga getting lots of development and interactions. I hope that will change soon
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I can't say he's had zero development, we've seen him change here and there with the construction of Tekkadan. And yet, I also think that characters like him and Atra are not really supposed to make leaps and bounds in development. They are pretty comfortable at where they are and they continue to show more and more layers to themselves, but in the end, they've really kind of grown to most of their potential. Orga and Kudelia are the two characters that seem to have the more dynamic growth and Mika and Atra watch and support them as they do so.
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Originally Posted by DuelGundam2099
Where did you get that idea from? We haven't seen them without their shirts off nor did they mention such thing.
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Masahiro has been out of his suit twice and the other boys we've seen out of their's once. All of them eat like they're starved, their bones are showing through their skin, and they have little to no muscle mass. It amazes me how they expected these kids to be good pilots when they hardly feed them anything.
