Renton would’ve done well to at least bring a weapon out of Gekkostate’s armory with him. Yeesh. As with KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE, I can’t help but get a little anxious about how naïve some of these underage heroes get about venturing out on their own into the big scary world. Kid’s lucky the worst thing that happened to him was getting mugged by the hobo.
Incidentally, I’ve got to comment on how I appreciated the understated nature of that scene with the two sort-of trading apologies. Anime often gets really on-the-nose, and this show’s been getting better about letting the viewer infer things on their own. Actually, it’s been on an upswing in total, lately.
Just a lot of good scenes in this one…
- Renton waking up into a trance festival and grooving to the beat felt like a ready-made meme. I don’t think I’ll bother looking it up on YouTube, but I’m sure somebody, somewhere, has already cut that part out, out of context, and edited it to any number of ironically juxtaposed music. It also, again, harps on how this feel almost like mecha by way of MTV.
- Eureka’s “girl talk” with the crew member whose name escapes (there are too many passengers on Gekkostate!) was some nicely effective character development. Shows how her cold nature’s actually the result of a double whammy of usual teen cluelessness and her own isolated, artificial upbringing.
- Yes, it’s juvenile, but I did get a good chuckle out of how the serious heart-to-heart about mentors in the bathroom accommodated interruptions for farting. It put the relief back in the show’s comic relief, it did.
- The Beams might seem like some scary strangers, but I’m even be swayed by how much of a better time they’re having with this whole air combat thing. At the least, they're no kicking the shit out of Renton.
Watch this episode, "Krackpot" here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
