This series was one of the first heavy-hitting anime I watched growing up. I thoroughly enjoy it and find it thought-provoking to the point that you could lose yourself in endless mountains of ideas.
However, there's so much I feel hasn't been explained that it's caused me to feel conflicted about the series. All of the Gekkostate supporting cast feel like they're just they're as opposed to people you can care about and are simply fixtures who happen to be involved in the main story. How they all came together is not resolved at all, and there's so much one wishes could be said as opposed to watching Renton constantly being a dork (which isn't awful, but at times it's just annoying). I have my own theories as to why people like Gidget are on the team, but I get infuriated with how little they seem to be present near the end of the series. This is stuff you would definitely get to see in a long-running series, but don't in an anime-only story.
I also find it very upsetting that Diane seems to act very creepy in the one episode where Renton finally meets her, like something has possessed her, and I wish I knew why she was so intent on staying in the Command Cluster instead of coming home. And I want to know what happened to Renton's mom and grandma in full, not just the cheap "they're dead". That may fly with a different series, but not here. Those people obviously mattered.
It's like the series itself makes you feel powerless at times to a world beyond comprehension and discourages the answers you really want in favor of emphasizing the romance between Renton and Eureka. You want to see the Thurstons all back home and happy, but that doesn't happen. You don't even see Holland and Talho's baby born. The sequel only furthers this problem by not knowing what to do with the story, ignoring the predecessor almost completely, and raising more questions.
Finally, this is my biggest issue: the series seems to revolve on a principle that people should and hoping that things will get better. I am almost led to believe the series itself is suffering from a lack of ability to explain itself and on some meta level, it's reflected in the way it's written and how each new installment seems to hike the confusion even more and further remove us from getting a resolution that feels definitive.
I really adore this show, but I also get so upset that it expects us to just assume everything will get all better without showing it getting better. Characters genuinely muddle through a conflict bigger than what they can deal with, and honestly, feel like they are ill-prepared to handle it, then go away from it having done only a bit to fix it and lamenting they were too late. That's human, but it's saddening.
A good idea for another sequel would be showing a world that isn't so naive and has actually assembled a force to deal with the problems directly instead of assuming it's okay.
It's not okay. Someone has to deal with the fallout. Humanity has to improve!
I wish they resolved more!
This series was one of the first heavy-hitting anime I watched growing up. I thoroughly enjoy it and find it thought-provoking to the point that you could lose yourself in endless mountains of ideas.
However, there's so much I feel hasn't been explained that it's caused me to feel conflicted about the series. All of the Gekkostate supporting cast feel like they're just they're as opposed to people you can care about and are simply fixtures who happen to be involved in the main story. How they all came together is not resolved at all, and there's so much one wishes could be said as opposed to watching Renton constantly being a dork (which isn't awful, but at times it's just annoying). I have my own theories as to why people like Gidget are on the team, but I get infuriated with how little they seem to be present near the end of the series. This is stuff you would definitely get to see in a long-running series, but don't in an anime-only story.
I also find it very upsetting that Diane seems to act very creepy in the one episode where Renton finally meets her, like something has possessed her, and I wish I knew why she was so intent on staying in the Command Cluster instead of coming home. And I want to know what happened to Renton's mom and grandma in full, not just the cheap "they're dead". That may fly with a different series, but not here. Those people obviously mattered.
It's like the series itself makes you feel powerless at times to a world beyond comprehension and discourages the answers you really want in favor of emphasizing the romance between Renton and Eureka. You want to see the Thurstons all back home and happy, but that doesn't happen. You don't even see Holland and Talho's baby born. The sequel only furthers this problem by not knowing what to do with the story, ignoring the predecessor almost completely, and raising more questions.
Finally, this is my biggest issue: the series seems to revolve on a principle that people should and hoping that things will get better. I am almost led to believe the series itself is suffering from a lack of ability to explain itself and on some meta level, it's reflected in the way it's written and how each new installment seems to hike the confusion even more and further remove us from getting a resolution that feels definitive.
I really adore this show, but I also get so upset that it expects us to just assume everything will get all better without showing it getting better. Characters genuinely muddle through a conflict bigger than what they can deal with, and honestly, feel like they are ill-prepared to handle it, then go away from it having done only a bit to fix it and lamenting they were too late. That's human, but it's saddening.
A good idea for another sequel would be showing a world that isn't so naive and has actually assembled a force to deal with the problems directly instead of assuming it's okay.
It's not okay. Someone has to deal with the fallout. Humanity has to improve!