It occurs to me in watching this episode that DDDDD has a lot of old Gainax to it. They were in the news this week, finally declaring bankruptcy (to be honest I didn’t realize they still existed), so maybe Gainax was already on my mind. But chief animation director/character designer Ito Nobutake is a Gainax veteran (it shows), and this is really the sort of material vintage Gainax would have been extremely comfortable with. It’s like Gainax through a soft-focus lens, though – there’s some spark of energy or edge that’s just lacking. For me at least.
I’m kind of still waiting for the Asano Inio subversiveness to show itself, too. What strikes me about these first two “true” eps of DDDDD is how conventional they are. The sci-fi element and the CGDCT stuff too – it’s all very well-worn. I keep thinking there have to be a few major twists coming, given who the author is, and maybe there will be. It’s all perfectly fine – but I don’t really come into a series like this looking for “fine”. It’s early enough to realistically hope there’s more. But it won’t be for all that much longer.
The business with Kadode and the teacher is at least uncomfortable. I kept thinking to myself how selfish this was of her, and then he pointed out the exact reason why. This could ruin him, even if it were totally innocent. Of course Kadode doesn’t want it to be innocent, at least when she walks in the door of his apartment. She’s obviously not dumb, and she seems to realize what an awful idea all this is. But then he drops that “friends with benefits” line, and then there’s the implication that he might be some sort of government agent. So who the hell knows what we’re supposed to take away from this exchange.
On the sci-fi front, the whole resentment of the U.S. military for taking over a disaster operation is as old-hat as a 1920’s Borsalino. This resentment causes the Japanese government to get adventurous, developing their own weapon and firing on an enemy craft on their own authority. Of course what strikes me about the whole alien angle is that – to this point at least – any damage and casualties have been self-inflicted. Not to say they won’t in future but at this point, I see no indication the aliens have engaged in any hostile act that caused intentional damage or injury to humans.
Where does the guy at the end come in? Well, he’s voiced by Miyu Irino and he’s obviously the idol from the group Kadode used to fangirl over. Given that he’s supposed to be dead I’m going to assume he’s an alien himself – the first one we’ve actually met unless you count the little creature at the end of Episode 0. Either way he figures to at least shake things up, and TBF things could use a little shaking up at this point. I’m interested, but I can already feel that interest wavering ominously.
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