The One With The Cuban Missile Crisis
May. 18th, 2012 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordWell, "Cuban". Featuring Che Guevara Fidel Castro "Philadel Kest".
Wow, hardly any ecchi stuff!
And to my surprise, the episode bored me to tears!
I mean, last week I complained about the ecchi stuff taking up so much space it left no room for the plot, but this time there was no ecchi stuff and hardly any plot, or interesting design elements, or things I can accept as a plot substitute in a pinch. I just thought this episode was really really boring.
SO DULL. Let's see: What was the conflict we were supposed to care about?
1) Fujiko getting killed? We know the show isn't going to kill off Fujiko. No suspense there.
2) Kest getting killed? We're not invested in this character, we don't really care if he lives or dies.
3) World War Three starting? This show is obviously not going to be about WWIII, and furthermore the possibility of a world war was brought up five minutes ago, we're not invested in that either.
4) Whether Fujiko is in love with Kest? Who cares. Again, we're given no real reason to care about that. Furthermore, it seems clear all secondary characters in this show are one-shot, never to be brought back, so I seriously doubt Kest is ever going to be mentioned again.
NO SUSPENSE ANYWHERE. There's two uncommonly calm people sitting on a plane, and eventually deux ex machina Goemon shows up and ends the conflict with a single swipe of his sword - nothing is sacrificed, and nothing is gained.
To make it even less interesting, the structure of the episode ("two weeks earlier", "a month later", "again, two weeks earlier", etc.) was an absolute mess, like they wanted to confuse the audience so they wouldn't realize the main conflict was completely predictable.
And speaking of deus ex Goemon: This annoyed the hell out of me:
Fair enough this is a pretty silly franchise, but basic rules of physics usually apply. Goemon! Can't you at least brace yourself against the wind and motion? Lower your center of gravity a little bit? Anything to convince me you're actually standing unsecured on the top of a biplane in flight? No? Oh, okay...
I really have to wrack my brain to think of anything I enjoyed about this episode. Well, the music continues to be pretty good, I was upset when Yuji Ohno was replaced but I have to admit he really hasn't brought much to the franchise musically since the eighties, at the very least. This new score is exciting!
I liked that we finally got some concrete pointers that this series is taking place in the sixties (ersatz Cuban missile crisis and Fujiko referring to the Beatles as a current band). That's awesome.
And, uh... Let's see... Goemon referring to Fujiko as Maria, that was nicely consistent.
And I actually enjoy Goemon having a bit of a crush on Fujiko. It's almost a homage to Green Jacket, where they had a thing going at the beginning.
And random joy, uh... More of that grafitti?
Wow, hardly any ecchi stuff!
And to my surprise, the episode bored me to tears!
I mean, last week I complained about the ecchi stuff taking up so much space it left no room for the plot, but this time there was no ecchi stuff and hardly any plot, or interesting design elements, or things I can accept as a plot substitute in a pinch. I just thought this episode was really really boring.
SO DULL. Let's see: What was the conflict we were supposed to care about?
1) Fujiko getting killed? We know the show isn't going to kill off Fujiko. No suspense there.
2) Kest getting killed? We're not invested in this character, we don't really care if he lives or dies.
3) World War Three starting? This show is obviously not going to be about WWIII, and furthermore the possibility of a world war was brought up five minutes ago, we're not invested in that either.
4) Whether Fujiko is in love with Kest? Who cares. Again, we're given no real reason to care about that. Furthermore, it seems clear all secondary characters in this show are one-shot, never to be brought back, so I seriously doubt Kest is ever going to be mentioned again.
NO SUSPENSE ANYWHERE. There's two uncommonly calm people sitting on a plane, and eventually deux ex machina Goemon shows up and ends the conflict with a single swipe of his sword - nothing is sacrificed, and nothing is gained.
To make it even less interesting, the structure of the episode ("two weeks earlier", "a month later", "again, two weeks earlier", etc.) was an absolute mess, like they wanted to confuse the audience so they wouldn't realize the main conflict was completely predictable.
And speaking of deus ex Goemon: This annoyed the hell out of me:
Fair enough this is a pretty silly franchise, but basic rules of physics usually apply. Goemon! Can't you at least brace yourself against the wind and motion? Lower your center of gravity a little bit? Anything to convince me you're actually standing unsecured on the top of a biplane in flight? No? Oh, okay...
I really have to wrack my brain to think of anything I enjoyed about this episode. Well, the music continues to be pretty good, I was upset when Yuji Ohno was replaced but I have to admit he really hasn't brought much to the franchise musically since the eighties, at the very least. This new score is exciting!
I liked that we finally got some concrete pointers that this series is taking place in the sixties (ersatz Cuban missile crisis and Fujiko referring to the Beatles as a current band). That's awesome.
And, uh... Let's see... Goemon referring to Fujiko as Maria, that was nicely consistent.
And I actually enjoy Goemon having a bit of a crush on Fujiko. It's almost a homage to Green Jacket, where they had a thing going at the beginning.
And random joy, uh... More of that grafitti?
