Alright, the pacing on this series has honestly started detracting from the overall experience. Ao’s only just setting off on his adventure now? It took him four episodes to do that when it really only should’ve been one or two. As one of you lunatics already mentioned, this is doubly worrisome since the series is supposed to only be half the length of the first show, and it’s already going at half-speed.
The pacing’s actually even worse for the purposes of this column, since so little’s seemingly happened that I’m at something of loss for discussion points that I haven’t already explored here. Ao’s grandfather leaving important life choices up to the kid (because he’s mature enough as a middle-schooler - - sheesh!) continues to show how much more assertive he is than Renton. We continue to get little crumbs to reiterate how Eureka somehow wound up in this other world, and I continue to suspect that we won’t get any substantial explanations until much farther down the line. And the sloth continues to be such a cute little bugger!
Maybe the most salient point in this episode centers on all these people coming out of the woodwork to “pay it forward” and help Ao out since Eureka and the Nirvash saved them ten years ago. That isn’t anything revelatory, of course, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t moving. Really, that’s the strength of the show. The repetitious aerial mecha fights really blur together, but I’m still compelled to watch because there’s always proper CARE lavished on the characters’ body language, voice acting and respective plights. There are so many characters, I’m having a hard time of keeping track of who’s who - - but I’m always caring about them, at least.
And I think I might've brought that up in a previous column, too. Ha!
Watch this episode, "Plant Coral" 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
I haven't seen anything official that says that this series is only going to be half the size of the original. It's much more likely that they have only released the schedule of episodes up to half of what they will be showing. The second half could be coming later.
I hope so I usually don't have a problem with slow character based shows...see that other time traveling show tom loves to pick on that I loved...but this is moving slow for me...fact that I didn't like the ending of the original may have something to do with that though...and yeah..a middle schooler making these kind of decisions for himself...ehhhh...still definitely a change form the last show.
@FoxxFireArt: Well so far Wikipedia's listed 26 episodes and FUNimation's Simulcast page has listed 24. I don't see anything that might contradict this yet but if it turns out you're right and the show actually does last longer then that'll explain the slow pace. But I really hope nothing happens to botch this up at the last second.
BTW, minor spoilers but even less happens w/ the next episode.
@LordTerminal:
There is a strong possibility that what is listed on those sites is just the Summer season schedule. When the Fall season is near, they could be releasing the next portion.
The fact that FUNi and wikipedia are showing different numbers speaks to that.