Suisei no Gargantia - Episode 6 Discussion / Poll

[Dark Wing]

Looks like I was right in that Ledo would start to develop some kind of feelings for Amy he probably don't know what it's called yet. However from the preview images it seems the happy days won't last long especially after seeing that shot of Ledo pushing Amy out of his way to get into Chamber.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by FredFriendly

If, say, it had been Bellows and other older women dancing, would it have been less objectionable to you?

I won't speak for Kim, but yes, it would have been less objectionable to me. When the girls first appear they are shot from a distance, so we don't really know who they are. I expected to see a trio of anonymous adult performers dancing on stage, not our 16-yo heroine and her two best friends.

To me, that whole belly dancing scene was objectionable because, a) the women dancing were in fact young girls, and b) the atmosphere was more like that encountered in strip joints where the dancers will perform extra services (which makes it even more objectionable considering the age of the girls).

Of course, this is me applying my own standards to the Gargantian culture. What we learn from this episode is that not only is it okay for the men of Gargantia to view young teenage girls as overt sex symbols, they are actually encouraged to do so, and young teenage girls are encouraged to exhibit and flaunt their sexuality openly in front of men, titillating and exciting them as much as possible.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks! If we still had rep points, I'd give you some.

[Pong]

Ledo is probably one of the most interesting characters that showed up in anime in years. He comes from a world were life was reduced to bare essentials needed to continue the war. Not only is Ledo himself as much a tool of war as Chamber, the entire alliance seemingly structured itself around the war with Hideazu to the point that nobody even considered what they'll do if they win. To call what separates him from Earthlings a "wall of cultural differences" would understatement. They come from two completely different worlds.

I love how it's portrayed, and this episode does it perfectly. It's not played for laughs, we can see that Ledo is seriously troubled when he has no orders to follow, and is confused by all those weird inefficient ideas that Earthlings have, like the fact that food can be enjoyed and is not only source of nutrition or that once you secured things like food and air, you might want to use your money for something else.

I love he's slowly learning to live on his own terms and trying to find something he wants to do instead of just following orders. I also liked that it's slow process and the second he assumes there's danger present he falls back on his military training.

We finally see just why Chamber needs Ledo anyway. For all his super-AI capabilities it seems he still must rely on human judgement for more complicated things.

The dance scene was... awesome, simply awesome. I don't just mean in fanservice sense either. It was beautifully choreographed and animated. You could be the gayest man in the world and still enjoy every minute of it.

Lots of interesting tibids too like the fact that the Galaxy ways are made of ancient nano-machines. Also the ending. Oh man things are getting interesting as the plot thickens. I'll be waiting for the next episode on the edge of my seat.

10/10 Perfect episode!

[Grey]

A little bit heavy on the scantily clad femme focus this time. But, along with the BGM, it did create some cool, eerie dissonance when Ledo flipped out at the octopus.

Also, 99.97% probability that the...squid thing at the end is Hideauze? Spooky. And ancient nanomachines in the water?

I look forward to seeing more undersea salvaging and exploration!


Edit: I hope Ledo doesn't break anything by killing that squid thing. Like wiping out a crucial part of a nanomachine system that transmits power.

[taofd]

Wasn't too impressed w/ this episode. There was a noticeable drop in animation quality and there was too much of a focus on fan service. Recent episodes make me wonder who is the target demographic of this series...

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by taofd

Wasn't too impressed w/ this episode. There was a noticeable drop in animation quality and there was too much of a focus on fan service. Recent episodes make me wonder who is the target demographic of this series...

I'm starting to get a little worried, too. They really hooked me in with the early episodes and now it feels like they've gone on some completely different track. I wouldn't say I outright disliked this or the previous episode, but I'm definitely not impressed. Originally, I was very intrigued by the backdrop of the plot. Hopefully the psuedo-hideauze creature seen at the end of this episode will serve as a launchpad to get back into that 'lore' of the series.

[Grey]

Maybe the Hideauze are a failed engineering project of the people who went into space. Tried to engineer octopi/squid to do some space tasks but lost control and they became the autonomous Hideauze. Mutated them and merged them with nanomachines maybe?

That would be a pretty sad and dangerous blunder.

Maybe they can use these semi-Hideauze as a trojan that carries some sort of destructive payload to the Hideauze nest. If the show ever brings the Alliance-Hideauze conflict back into Ledo's story.

[bastek66]

Originally Posted by taofd

Wasn't too impressed w/ this episode. There was a noticeable drop in animation quality and there was too much of a focus on fan service. Recent episodes make me wonder who is the target demographic of this series...

Demography is exactly that which they want. It's currently third most preordered anime of season.

[Midonin]

I keep forgetting little points.

One is the flute metaphor. Something that comes from a bad place that needs a hole poked into it to make something good. Obvious but effective.

Two. "Turtle shell ass" doesn't really sound like an insult, at least through my lens. If Bellows is packing a little backside, more power to her. It worked for Team Vivid!

[Guardian Enzo]

Very good ep - but does anyone else think it did exactly what #5 did, only it was good? I wasn't sure last week's ep was necessary in any way but this one seems to totally obsolete it, because it covered the same themes only in far better fashion. This really should have been episode 5.

[bastek66]

First blush

Look how subtlety is this anime:

Spoiler for Before private dance:

Spoiler for After private dance:

Spoiler for Before you call it stretch:

[Jetzero Infinity]

Nice episode this week. It was interesting seeing Ledo struggle with the concept of money, and I like how it tied into him trying to understand work in the last ep showing that there was some value to it despite people's complaints. Also nice to see the romance between him and Amy progressing quite a bit. The angles for those dancing scenes felt a bit too much at times but I guess the purpose was to highlight Ledo's attraction so I sort of get where they were going with it. Should be interesting to see where the romance stuff leads since Ledo doesn't really have any concept of the subject at all.

The Hideauze related stuff was also pretty nice. I thought Ledo would cause a bigger scene after that freakout but it was nice to see them avoid that cliche, though I wonder what'll happen now that he's confirmed the real deal are living on the planet.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Very good ep - but does anyone else think it did exactly what #5 did, only it was good? I wasn't sure last week's ep was necessary in any way but this one seems to totally obsolete it, because it covered the same themes only in far better fashion. This really should have been episode 5.

Yes. We could have done without the previous episode, or perhaps combined some of the better themes of it into this one. As it stands, I couldn't properly enjoy this episode, even though it was clearly the superior one, because I felt like we were wasting time treading the same water over again. A little 'down time' is fine, but two episodes is a bit much.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Yes. We could have done without the previous episode, or perhaps combined some of the better themes of it into this one. As it stands, I couldn't properly enjoy this episode, even though it was clearly the superior one, because I felt like we were wasting time treading the same water over again. A little 'down time' is fine, but two episodes is a bit much.

Agreed, this episode was much better than last week but there were still some meh things here too.

It would have been best if they took the best things from both episodes and made one episode focused on Ledo trying to find a purpose on Gargantia.

[kyp275]

Reading through this thread makes me think some people would be happier if every female characters are fully wrapped from head to toe and act like nuns. Some people IMO takes political correctness entirely way too far.

That said, glad to see the story turning its focus on the space-squid threat, it's about time.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by taofd

Wasn't too impressed w/ this episode. There was a noticeable drop in animation quality and there was too much of a focus on fan service. Recent episodes make me wonder who is the target demographic of this series...

That's exactly what I thought when I saw this episode. I kept getting the feeling that the show didn't know who it's target audience was and so were trying a bit of everything. However, as with a lot of times when you do that, you end up pleasing nobody.

I know some who came in thinking it was an action mecha, some who thought it was a slice-of-life with a little romcom, some even thinking it was a harem/ecchi. And because Gargantia has some of all these things, no one knows really what to think.

[Jimmy C]

The quality drop when Amy and friends got on stage was atrocious. My first thought was, "who are those girls?" Then, "I think that's supposed to Amy, but isn't her other friend supposed to be dark haired?""

[jeroz]

Again, I have to remind you guys that Hanaharu designed characters for Kamichu. So finding the most idiotic excuses for things you don't like.

[OliverTwist]

I'll give this 1 more episode because it looks like something might finally be happening, but if it's a red herring I think I'm done with the series. It hasn't turned out to be anything like what I was expecting after the first 2 episodes.

I'd be more interested if it didn't look like everything from this point on was gonna be driven by Ledo protecting the generic love interest Amy.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by kyp275

Reading through this thread makes me think some people would be happier if every female characters are fully wrapped from head to toe and act like nuns. Some people IMO takes political correctness entirely way too far.

That said, glad to see the story turning its focus on the space-squid threat, it's about time.

To be fair fan service wasn't this strong in previous episode, this one feels little out of the norm.

I enjoy the slow development of interaction between Ledo and the rest of the people. It give us sense that Ledo is really starting to bond and learn from other. Now we pretty much set the character dynamics, the real plot should be kicking in soon.