Recap

With a great deal of help, Daichi is able to defeat the attacking mecha. He’s then drawn into the machinations of the GLOBE Organisation and their ongoing research into his mysterious weapon, dubbed a ‘Livlaster’.

Zigg’s Thoughts

This isn’t quite as good as the opening episode, but it’s worse for the right reasons, if that makes sense. After the tease of the first instalment, a good show needs to start laying down basic worlbuilding, plots and characters. Captain Earth‘s problem here is that it probably tries to do too much of that at once. Still, that’s better than the alternative, and it gives us ample reason to be interested in the things which are going on.

The cool thing about this episode is the way it takes some fairly well established tropes of the genre, and then puts just enough of a spin on them to make them interesting again. So yeah, you’ve got your standard secret organisation dedicated to the protection of Earth. But the conflict between GLOBE and SALTYDOG adds a bit of interesting frission to the whole setup. We’ve seen enemies come from within organisations before – Evangelion practically wrote the book on it – but this aggressive, internal-affairs battle between the two factions is refreshingly grounded in reality and adds a real sense of bite and danger to what might have been a very typical ‘fall into the cockpit’ situation. There’s nothing more eminently hateable than evil that lurks behind stuffed shirts and ISO 9001 forms, and so SALTYDOG are a great foil for the bright young things that are our heroes.

Their EEEEEVIL also leads to probably this episode’s best moment, the cathartic final scene where Daichi is able to drag himself out to the beach and then blow up the transmitter that’s causing him and his compatriots so much pain. There’s a million things wrong with this scene, chiefly because it’s as corny as hell, but it somehow works because…it’s as corny as hell. Sometimes you’ve got to know when to embrace cliché, and this was absolutely one of those times. Speaking of embracing cliché, I’m impressed by the way the show has handled Hana thus far. It was encouraging to see she’s already showing signs of coming out of her shell, and I’ve got real hope she’ll actually become a character rather than another sad silent girl.

Like I said earlier, the major weakness of this episode is that it simply tries to do too much in the time given. Some of this is necessary groundwork of course, but if there’s a section I’d cut, it’d probably be the part concerning the Kiltgang. The idea that the evil aliens are actually being controlled from Earth is a really compelling one, and the entire scene with the fake beach and the mysterious computer is mysterious and piques the interest, but it probably deserved better than being crammed into an episode that’s mostly a focussed character piece. Still, this was very enjoyable, high quality entertainment all round. With Daichi having disrupted the status quo so much, I’ll be interested to see where they go from here.

Random Observations

• One episode in and we’re already seeing copious reuse of that stock footage combining sequence.
• The opening is catchy in a generic sort of way, but nothing special
• I’m much more partial to the ED, though musically it’s only OK. It’s an impressive visual presentation though.
• Way too much talk of Daichi showing people his ‘boomerang’ here.
• Do SALTYDOG bring their own branded coffee cups with them wherever they go?

Gee’s Thoughts

Like most 2nd episodes, Captain Earth doesn’t really do too much, nor did it really need to in the grand narrative scale. Daichi wins his fight against weird booby lady. Gotta say, it’s really refreshing to have a giant robot that just punches things until they win. Pretty nicely animated too, though otherwise not too notable. No, the bigger emphasis this episode is on Daichi as a person and the events that surround his newfound situation. Turns out his old friends Purple Rainbow Guy Teppei and Delicious Brown Girl Hana have been held at this facility this whole time. In addition, this is due to the actions of SALTYDOG, the ambiguously evil government organization that works along with GLOBE to protect the earth from the bad guys who really need to get to Earth for some reason. Honestly all the techno-babble left me pretty confused as to what the actual details are, but it seems long story short: Bad dudes are trying to get to Earth. That’s bad, let’s go beat them up.

Daichi himself is pretty damn simple-minded, to the point where I might call him too simpleminded for his own good. Between his intense desire to show people his boomerang and his general inability to grasp the situation, I can’t help but wonder if the boy has a few screws loose. Still, I’ll take simple straightforward optimism over the usual angst, apathy, and anxiety that usually plagues modern mecha protagonists. Captain Earth isn’t my darling of the season, but it’s proved itself to be a competent mecha anime so far. Let’s see if Bones can keep this up.