A setting that doesn’t go ballistic over faux PDAs?
Impressions:
Unfortunately, both this and Darwin had pretty poor second episodes. I see the vision more for this than I do for Darwin, which was just a very empty episode that pretty much redid the first episode, except without the whole backstory, or anything that required animation for that matter. Hell, Charlie wasn’t even in probably 75% of the episode. His only scene really was a replay of the bully guy yelling at him because he’s a vegan, and vegans are terrorists in that weird-ass setting, and then he evaporated for the entire second half. Isn’t this what your show is about? Isn’t this the interesting part? Guess not, if it’s not being focused on.
I don’t mind cutting things up to focus on a single girl at a time, and half an episode is plenty of space to put together something funny, meaningful, or both, but I think it flubbed the climax and denouement both times. Also, both apparently taking place over like a month each felt really unneeded. The first was definitely the weaker. He didn’t actually do anything at all, and then smash cut, he practice off-screen super duper hard for weeks. See? Bandages. But we’re not going to show that or anything. And it was a success… whatever the hell that even means. What exactly did we learn here about ourselves or each other? How did either of them grow or develop? That they both see each other as slightly more serious, I guess?
The second was a little better, in that she actually did suck at what she was trying to do, and the pathetic attempt at attempting to bond with her or pretending to be a couple had at least a couple decent gags, but again, I feel like the character stuff at the end fell a bit short. There’s always a good chance for growth and bonding in failure, and resolving to pick yourself up and try again. And it would’ve been a nice change to have her be the one to encourage and pick up him, but I feel like the whole kiss and romance faff distracts from that if that was the intent. It was the perfect moment to fully act out the scene and show her progress as well. But the fanservice must fanservice, I suppose.
