A nice introduction for our last team member, I suppose.
So, this one uses one of the classics: the side character wants none of this, but then an enemy shows up perfectly tailored to need that character’s skills. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it I guess.
Akira ends up separated from the others (thanks to being slapped into the next county by Eleanor. No, she has no remorse.) and, by happenstance, lands in the care of the very girl they were looking for, Youko Nishina. She’s really happy to meed another Theian, and they actually kind of hit it off, but the call to action, the idea of summoning her Engine to fight… yeah, Youko can’t do that.
The reason why, as we get in a whole demonstration and flashback, has to do with a childhood trauma. She and some friends were lost in the local wilderness in winter. It being freezing, she summoned her Engine and its heat powers only to get called a monster, lose all her friends, and accidentally burninate the countryside in the process. So, she’s got a bit of a traumatic block.
Before the others can catch up, one of EDVA’s mooks does. This one has massive freezing powers, fending off ENIA and plummeting the whole region into a dire freeze in the middle of summer. Youko and Akira flee from it, but it’s clear they can’t hide forever. The others get to the general vicinity and engage the enemy, only to end up iced in place as bait for Akira. Way to fail, standard team.
Despite not knowing of the bait, Akira gears up to go back out despite injuries, because it’s the right thing to do. This inspires Youko to face her fears and do the same, so she’s ultimately the cavalry that gets anything done. She and her engine have an epic beam battle, resulting in the timely incineration of EDVA’s attack drone and her joining of the team.
Along with Youko comes a little something her Theian mom left for her: a talking cat robot entity that can, apparently, take the form of a flying battle wagon for the crew when needed. He’s at least got an attitude, so hopefully our mascot will be fun in the rest of the show.
So, short little plot summary, let me touch on an aside. It’s not just Vividred, which I have reviewed; the director of this is very known for doing fanservice. Yet, while the first episode had a little rear end focus and the occasional panty shot (obscured), the second episode and the third here basically had none. The shots are still often pretty well composed, with some really good ones in Youko’s flashback and during the battle with the freezing monster, but this does pretty much lack the prurient focus of the creator’s previous works. The angles aren’t as avant garde in general, either, it’s all pretty standard cinematography. I don’t know if the studio had a few things to say or what, but I know there are some people very mad about this and probably some folks who are breathing sighs of relief.
Personally, I’m not in either camp. Could I take this being a little, or even a lot more fanservicey? Yeah, especially if it has skill to its execution. Do I think that what we have rather than what we maybe could have had in an alternate universe is worth complaint? No, not really. I don’t think this is “a betrayal” or anything like that. It wouldn’t even be worth comment if I didn’t have a lot of empty space and a bit of a grudge.
Now, in the context of there being a conversation on how chasing a Western export audience may be sanitizing anime, and whether or not that’s a good thing if it is true, I’m of the opinion that it’s not a good thing if it is true. Not every show has to be gore and sex to the nines, not by a long shot, but they never were and frankly part of the charm of anime (especially older titles) is that the Japanese creative scene was more willing to use a full array of potential tools if they fit an artistic vision. It’s your choice to watch; if you see something that offends you, change the channel. Having every show be a product first, that has to be safe and marketable and color within the lines is how we, in any media to which this applies, get cesspools filled with mediocre dreck as a few genres that I needn’t name here have become.
I don’t think that creative freedom is truly dead, or even killed by export or Western/Global influence in general. Cyberpunk was an anime that adapts a Western property in a Western setting, that couldn’t exist without cross-pollination and a studio willing to build bridges across either Eurasia or the Pacific, and it pretty freely pulled out the stops in order to properly represent its genre and story just like you’d want. And it made bank enough to bring Trigger back for a sequel, which is pretty rare. But I can’t say that I don’t see why some folks worry.
In the context of Vertex Force, though? Well, it’d be a bit sad if this came about as a mandate from someone other than the main creator, but if the creatives looked at the story they were telling and said, “you know, maybe not this time.”? More power to them in that case. If it doesn’t work without butt shots, it wasn’t going to work with them. And so far, I think this show is working well enough. I think before I changed the Fanservice slider (which can still slide around in future episodes), I’d ask for a traditional animation base; some of the scenes in this episode use 2D animation, and unlike Shikizakura where the 2D was even more tragic than the 3D because they were working with newbies and no budget, the standard animation here was gorgeous. I’m open to CGI, but when you can and do use that, why?
Anyway… that doesn’t distract from Vertex Force’s “so far, so good” coast either. See you next week.