Recap: Though he is at an impasse with the Gargantia fleet, Ledo begins to communicate with humanity’s survivors.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Gargantia continues its strong start with this episode, mostly focusing on worldbuilding and establishing the setting. The language barrier carefully walks the line between being tiresome and plausible – they still can’t communicate properly, but Chamber translates without too much trouble. It does lead to a funny bit or two (“An animal carcass?!”), and overall it works just fine, unlike the conlang bullshit in The Devil Is A Part-Timer.

Gargantia is apparently one of many floating cities on Earth, forming some sort of fleet for an unknown purpose. Ledo drops the knowledge that something caused Earth to freeze over in the past, which is presumably why the Alliance ditched it for their big spaceship to begin with. Amy refers to this story as a legend when talking to her brother, which is maybe a little heavy-handed but the conversation does its job.

Lastly, to keep the pacing up, they stick in a little bit of mecha action at the end of the episode as Ledo fries some pirates. Fun!

Other points of interest: Ledo looks to be carving some sort of ocarina with his laser gun and the bone/whatever he’s been fiddling with, and some sort of insect has evolved in the ocean that apparently stores enough electricity to shoot lightning into the sky. This is clearly going to be important later somehow.

Gee’s Thoughts:
With this episode, we get to see some more world-building as Ledo’s situation conveniently gives us a window into some needed exposition to help us get our bearings. Turns out Earth is 100% ocean and its remaining inhabitants live a semi-nomadic lifestyle on their giant scavenging fleets. Basically they’re earthbound Quarians, and since Quarians are essentially spacefaring gypsies, it all kind of comes full circle. Snarky observations aside, this episode does a great job of pulling me into the world of Gargantia, and I find the current Earth to be a far more inviting and engaging set-piece than the poor-man’s Gunbuster space opera setting we saw in the first episode. From the gliders to the gorgeous environments, I can only hope we’ll be spending as much time on Earth as possible.

In addition, we get to see just how ridiculously overpowered Ledo’s mecha can be against vastly inferior technology as it effortlessly blows up a pirate fleet and disintegrates its owners. Gotta say, it was pretty awesome. It’ll be interesting to see how Gargantia introduces conflict into its narrative when the main character’s weapon of choice completely outstrips every known weapon available to the setting. Overall, episode 2 did a better job of keeping me invested and assuming Urobuchi Gen doesn’t go too overboard with the philosophical musings and senseless breaking of cute girls, we should have something quite nice on our hands.

Zigg’s Thoughts:
I was already seriously impressed by episode 1 of Gargantia and episode 2 did nothing to shake me in my conviction that this is the best start of the season. Admittedly, a bit of this is because the show has started introducing pretty much everything I like in my sci-fi. Future tech vs. rough homemade machinery? Giant city ships? Adventures on the high seas (I secretly wished Waterworld was good)? Flying sequences? It’s like this show was made for me!

Beneath the superficial sparkle though, there’s some seriously impressive work going on here. The show is robust and pragmatic with its worldbuilding, blending show and tell in just the right denominations. The dialogue takes care to lay out all the major points for us but the exposition is blended well into the natural flow of the conversations and also leaves enough to implication that it doesn’t feel the characters are just standing around spouting things for our benefit. By choosing to largely make Amy the POV for this episode we get a good feel for the other side of the standoff and also get to hustle around the (amazingly gorgeous) streets of the Gargantia, giving us a better feel for what life is like day-to-day.

The plot also ticks along nicely, never slowing enough to become lethargic but also not getting ahead of itself. It’s really rather refreshing to see a confrontation in anime where nobody acts like an idiot and both sides talk it out, leading to a shaky but gradual understanding. It’s impressively mature storytelling that’s blessedly free of some cackling idiot to throw a spanner in the works. The tentative friendship that begins to blossom between Ledo and Amy is sweet without ever losing the slightly alien edge to it, and Ledo’s magnificent destruction of the pirate fleet is a satisfyingly action-packed payoff to a mostly slow, dialogue driven episode. It’s also a timely reminder of just apart he stands from the natural order of this world.

If there’s one worry I have it’s that Gargantia is showing signs of what I dub the Dances With Wolves plot – superior being is forced to survive in the company of ‘savages’, realises how corrupt his own society is and ultimately fights against them alongside his new friends. It’s not a bad plot but it’s pretty played out at this point and with Urobuchi at the helm I’m hoping that’s far off the mark and he can throw in some nasty twists to surprise us. I’ve also got to give special mention to the incredible art – I love the ‘feel’ of the world, used and worn but never shabby or dilapidated. It’s a universe that feels lived in yet still conveys incredible wonder. Oh and the great CG. And the incredible ‘Milky Way’ sequence. And the gorgeous ED. Can you tell I enjoyed this a lot?