This was a pretty good and satisfying penultimate episode. Good cliffhanger end that sets up what should be a solid finale.
This episode was somewhat predictable, but its overall execution was quite satisfying, so that largely made up for the predictability.
I didn't really have a major problem with Chamber so easily going along with Ledo's decision to oppose Striker/Kugel. You could chalk it up to Chamber being programmed to be completely loyal to his pilot no matter what. Or, if you want, you could chalk it up to Chamber being smart enough to tell that something fishy was going on with Striker so that motivated him to take Ledo's position. Perhaps Chamber even feels that Gargantia's ways are ultimately more productive than the society that Striker has set up. In any event, I don't find it that hard to roll with.
The biggest question mark for the finale is that key, and exactly what it will do. It adds a nice touch of uncertainty to what would otherwise be a perhaps overly predictable finale. Oh, I now expect a pretty happy ending here, but who knows what'll happen if and when that key is used.
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Originally Posted by Irenesharda
I wouldn't say it's forgettable, but it did have wasted potential.
It actually almost feels as if there were 4 or 5 different writers writing 4 or 5 completely different stories and then they tried to make them all converge somehow, without really know what the other writer wrote.
- You had one thing going on with the space battle and a future Utopian society that's not exactly what it seems.
- Then you have the battle-hardened fish out of water story, who is trying to fit into a society that doesn't need him.
- Then you have a romance harem slice-of-life antics story trying to squeeze in there.
- And then you have the darker, moral-challenging plot line involving the Hideauze and what really makes us human, and where does one draw the line.
- And now they've tossed that out AGAIN, to have a humanity vs. enslaving rogue A.I. rebellion storyline where the A.I. is trying to save humanity by taking over it and enforcing its mechanical logic.
They have all these storylines that would have been great plots singularly, but they instead tried to have them all fit in a single cour show, thus every single one of them is only half done and everything becomes haphazard.
This was a good episode, but this has been one off kilter show. I've come this far, I might as well see how it ends.  |
To be fair, the only thing here that feels like a bit of a red herring to me is "And then you have the darker, moral-challenging plot line involving the Hideauze and what really makes us human, and where does one draw the line." The debates that this subforum had on this topic seems largely moot now. On the whole, the dark revelation about the Hideauze seems mainly to only be relevant to Ledo's character development, rather than anything tying into a larger theme.
Oh, it's possible that the final episode will delve a
bit more back into this, but given that there's still a Striker that needs to be defeated, and a war to be won, and presumably some degree of an aftermath that includes Ledo happily reuniting with Amy and the rest of Gargantia, I doubt they'll have much time to squeeze in much more re-examination of the Hideauze.
Ultimately, this story really is mostly about one teenager/young adult's journey into adulthood, and everything that entails. It's just done against a very fantastical and somewhat dark backdrop, fitting of Gen's writing style and taste.
That being said, this show has been rather bloodless by Gen's standards, and I somehow doubt that the finale will get all that bloody.
However, Gen wanted to write the first and the last episodes, and that along with this mysterious Key plot element does suggest to me that there could be a big surprise or two in the finale.