In the year 2045, Internet and artificial intelligence have become widespread in the outer space. Following a massive accident at a space station, a group of children are left behind. Using narrowband and SNS, low intelligence AI, and smartphone-controlled drones, they overcome numerous crises. (Source: MAL News)
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Tl;Dr: "The Orbital Children" is a high-stakes adventure among the stars. A refreshing take on the disaster movie, TOC regularly introduces well-crafted conflicts that'll be sure to impress avid sci-fi fans. A compelling series of ethical dilemmas accompany our cast's survival story, which ramps up into a jaw-dropping climax of ear-grinningly epic proportions. TOC is occasionally hampered by unnatural patches of comedy and drops in pacing, but brilliant worldbuilding makes this series an immersive binge. 8/10~ *** "Mindblown." It's a sentiment that you'll likely be left with upon watching "The Orbital Children" (TOC). This brisk, 6-episode Netflix ONA is very much "Mindblown: The Anime." And no, I'm notjust referring to its tight mystery-thriller sci-fi script. While it relentlessly piles on ingenious worldbuilding and ethical dilemmas, TOC ultimately asks its audience to confront the value in confusion. What do we really know about the world around us? How do we face problems we can't solve individually? Is it worth seeking out the unknown? Take a chance on me and find out, as we take a spoiler-free leap into TOC. 3… 2… 1… we have liftoff! "Houston, we have a problem." In the year 2045, the manned space station and hotel, "Anshin," prepares a landing party for Earthling tourists sponsored by Deegle (any likeness shared with Google is purely coincidental.) Brilliant hacker Touya Sagami, one of the two remaining children born on the moon, is deeply resentful of the "idiot Earthers" he's hosting. That being said, just one party pooper isn't enough to dampen the excitement of the station's visitors: Taiyo, Mina and Hiroshi. But with a surprise comet en route to damage both the shuttle and the world below, perhaps it's no time to be "anshin-shiro" ("relieved" in Japanese.) Touya and the other personnel on-board have to do a lot more than just survive the cosmic onslaught. Uncovering the mystery surrounding the incoming comet will reveal a complex array of problems that puts the entire world at stake. TOC showcases great worldbuilding in outer space. Series creator Mitsuo Iso's vision of what the future will look like is equal parts fascinating and sobering. Throughout the course of this tightly-written survival story, viewers will be treated to a well thought-out futuristic setting. Technological devices within the show take full advantage of the whimsy sci-fi allows, while keeping things intuitive and easy to understand. Presumably to the delight of "VIVY" fans, artificial intelligence is explored in great detail, raising interesting considerations regarding how society should integrate with such powerful technology. The introduction of space travel offers more than mere set dressing, and opens up a recurring ethical dilemma about Earth's overpopulation & natural resource crises. Having recently sat through the sheer sci-fi stupidity of "BELLE", I was thoroughly impressed by how much better TOC fared in terms of establishing conflict and discussing what the future might hold. Also noteworthy is how TOC handles its characters. Despite shocking reveals and shifts in alliances, none of the cast members can be pinned down as a traditional "villain," and everyone is doing their utmost to deal with the cataclysmic chaos at hand. Even though the characters themselves scarcely feel all that developed personality-wise, they certainly get the job done through compelling personal motivations. Aside from some ill-timed comedy and poor patches of pacing, TOC makes for an engrossing binge, with a lean runtime of just over 3 hours. Production +h's debut studio effort does a capable job, thanks to capable 2D animation and compositing. However, with visual eye-candy comes visible confusion; TOC is not an easy show to grasp at times. The series may prove demanding due to its exposition of sci-fi and mystery elements. Furthermore, the frequent switching between narrative perspectives makes the task of keeping up with the show's heavy exposition all the more cumbersome. TOC might feel overwhelming with its themes and subject matter, but not without good reason. The series can be boiled down to an uplifting core message, which I'll now explain by bringing up the complex perspective of our MC, Touya. Space may as well be the final frontier, because it's all Touya has left. Remember what I said about MC hating humans? Well, we're about to get into why. In the past, human attempts at starting a moon colony would be thwarted due to the deaths of infants born there. This "moon sickness" throws off hormone development in the young, and needed treatment in the form of brain implants designed by the smartest A.I. of its time, Seven. These A.I. limiters would control hormone balance until adolescence, thereby allowing moon children to grow up. Unfortunately, the brain limiters could not be deactivated after childhood, meaning that the moon sickness these kids avoided as infants would kill them as teenagers. The only being capable of fixing this design flaw, Seven, was discarded for surpassing human control. No A.I. since reached Seven's massive computational capacity, due to rigid regulations on A.I. power. Plans to build civilization on the moon were eventually scrapped, dooming Touya to a deadly fate. From Touya's POV, the Earthers made him bear this curse, with no means of a cure, now that the A.I.s got nerfed. But our boy was born on the friggin' moon; he's not giving up that easily. In response to the world threatening his existence, Touya's goal is to hack away all of his A.I. drone's limiters and usher in the second coming of Seven. To Touya, this is the only way of saving him and Konoha, the only other moon child on-board the "Anshin." Now, let's take a step back from this lunar perspective and see the other side of the ethical coin. In stark contrast to the rebel hacker from outer space, the law-abiding UN agent Taiyo could not disagree more with Touya's worldview. Seven's deactivation followed after the out-of-control A.I. instigated several global incidents that cost hundreds of lives. A rogue A.I. mega-computer is the last thing governments would want to deal with, given the other problems on their plate. Overpopulation is threatening the end of the human race. Having lost control of the situation once before, the UN is intent on ensuring that all variables are kept in check, as the world assesses her dire options. Taiyo wouldn't dare risk causing another Seven Saga to occur, especially with a situation so critical. Then again, perhaps Touya's gambit of fully trusting A.I. may be the best solution, which both saves the world and repairs the malfunctioning implants. Touya's and Taiyo's ideologies are at polar opposites, and their respective resolves are iron-clad, even if both are trying to do the right thing. Is technology the threat or the solution? To further complicate things, maybe the best move is the utilitarian one, where the imminent comet is allowed to wipe out a third of the world's population, thereby preserving man's existence. What's the right answer? Confused? Same. In the beginning of this review, I said that this show is going for the "mindblown" effect. Hopefully I've demonstrated how the show lives up to that description, and we haven't even touched on TOC's esoteric stances on ethics, religion or predeterminism. The unorthodox climax of Episode 6 consists of quite possibly the most mind-boggling conceptual jargon I've ever heard, a plethora of which flew over my head like shooting stars. But as I said before, TOC also shows us the meaning in confusion. Confusion is possibly the most effective motivator we have for thinking. After all, if we never challenge ourselves with difficult questions, we'll never be motivated to develop our way of thinking or arrive at valuable answers. In TOC, a concept mentioned prominently is that of "the frame," or "the cradle." These terms can be read as "perspective." From young, each of us grew up seeing the world from our personal, unique frames. But just like peering out of a space shuttle window to look down on Earth, we eventually come to realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things, and how many other frames exist - we get "mindblown." Much like the orbiting children, we need to realize that our perspective isn't always enough to solve the most challenging of problems. The layered predicament facing the crew of the "Anshin" can only be solved through the integration of frames and open-minded collaboration. Touya needed to show empathy for the Earthers that he once considered ideological enemies. Taiyo needed to set aside his unflinching faith in the law, so that his friends could survive. Yes, confusion is inevitable, and we tend to fear what we do not understand. But the uncertainty could hold all the answers; sometimes you won't know unless you take a leap of faith and escape your frame. It's a great message for TOC to conclude on, as the show relishes the unknown opportunities of humanity's future amidst eminent problems. Watching Touya and the crew escape the frame of conventional thinking is a thrilling, cathartic experience - one that I'm hoping you try out for yourself. *** Phew, that was a fun trip. Thanks for joining me! If you happen to like my verbose rants, feel free to check out my other reviews for seasons past and present, peace~
I’ve been officially ordered to write something about this film, and in the process of doing so, have somehow mustered up enough willpower to slap together my scattered, disjointed thoughts into something vaguely coherent but still not all the way purposeful as a legitimate review of this film. Now, If I’m being honest, isn't that how all reviews should be? You don’t need someone to tell you if a show is worth watching. It’s actually possible to make those observations yourself. I apologize if that sounds abrasive, but I think some of you could stand to be a little more staunch in your opinions onsuch things. Now I'm meandering. On the to review—if you can call it that. Tragically, I’ve made the unfortunate mistake of not watching Dennou-coil before this, and as a result, I’m probably missing out on some referential pay-offs that the majority of you will be finger-pointing and giggling to yourselves over. Maybe that would have primed me towards the more technical aspects of this films world-building? But no matter. It’s not like I came to this film for its writing anyway. The visuals are what really got my attention—which is probably true for most of Orbital Children's audience, however, unlike most of Orbital Children's audience, the one name attached to this project that piqued my interest the most wasn't Iso's, it was Yoshida Kenichi. There’s something deep and primal that fires off in my brain when I see any form of artwork attached to his name, something deep and primal that resonates with my very soul, like the altered fucking beast. It’s hard to describe the exact quality his art invokes. All I know is that it’s incredibly appealing to look at. Take one glance at my list and it becomes clear the effect his designs have on the projects he’s been a part of. Eureka Seven: quite literally the closest thing to perfection in the medium. King Gainer: absolutely gorgeous and highly imaginative. And say what you will about G-Reco, but MAN are its visuals utterly spectacular. Yoshida’s prowess becomes even more obvious when you realize he’s a former Ghibli animator who got handed some of the most impressive cuts for the films he was a part of. His work on the dream/fairytale sequences in Whisper of the Heart is what initially comes to mind and, of course, the infamous Tanuki vs Riot Police scene from Pom Poko. Man is prolific; he's even got mocap credits for some of the Metal Gear Solid games (though, whether that's a mistake or not stands to be disproven, as both IMDb and ANN stand to corroborate the same info). Suffice to say, Yoshida is a master of his craft and his designs for Orbital Children are nonetheless stellar, even if most of them are more Takeshi Honda inspired than anything else, he still brings that patent quality I love his style for the most. By merely looking at it, my brain fires an ungodly amount of neurotransmitters through every possibly available synapse, you know, to really get the action potential flowing. So I hope that gives you an idea of how I feel about this guy's art. And that’s just the character designs. I’m sure no one was expecting less, given this film's incredibly long production cycle. So I’m probably as happy as anyone else to say that Iso delivered on all fronts. Orbital Children is a technical marvel that remains highly consistent with Iso’s usually consistency for consistence. Though, the detailed excellence of its visuals isn't really something I have to explain. It's visual, just look at it, it explains itself. My only complaint would be that there’s a lot of rather unexpected, shoddy character CG. And it usually comes up in scenes I’m sure could have been animated normally. Background character CG is fine, but a good lot of it’s foreground stuff. It’s a bit confusing as to why there’s so much of it, considering just how long the production cycle for this film was and how much of a visual perfectionist Iso is. It’s a relatively small nitpick. But if I had to nitpick about something, that’s what it’d be about. The passive world building and detailed minutia of the film is another high selling point for me. The whole hand-phone thing is ingenious. It serves as a great visual metaphor for a generation literally melding and assimilating with technology, mentally and physically. It also just looks damn cool as well. And the UNIQLO spacesuits are a nice touch; they’re a great way to show the unification of government enterprise and corporate commodification. It’s not even something brought to the forefront of the narrative, but it’s a great detail nonetheless. I love the way the helmets fold, all crinkled like a raincoat hood then expand to form a practical space helmet. It sells the idea that the suits are a fashion accessory second to a workable spacesuit. By far, my favourite aspect of Orbital Children (the fuck was up with the name localization anyway?) was its secondary commentary on streaming and “influencer” culture. Mina is an otherwise perfectly lovable girl. She provided some of the only moments of brevity throughout the absolute slog that was this films plot beats. But put her in front of a camera, and it becomes shockingly uncomfortable how that whole lifestyle has affected her as a developing adolescent. If you take one good look at the current generation, you’ll be quick to realize how many of them have been truly influenced by these “influencers”. It’s not just a goofy name; it’s the most literal definition of what it is they do. They influence. And who’s the most easily influenced group of society? Kids. That's the most unnerving thing these influencers do: they pass on the virus so that these vulnerable kids end up unknowingly repeating the cycle. A cycle that becomes a constant encouragement to broadcast what most closely resembles a twenty-four hour live stream of their lives—as one notable member of that group famously put. You see what’s happening; I’m doing the same thing. Now I’m getting off-topic. Livestreaming—in other words: social media—is a blight that turns otherwise lovable girls into complete and utter narcissists, obsessed with the idea that everyone genuinely cares about every minute, mediocre, vapid detail of their lives. At every opportunity she gets, Mina is compelled to televise her every predicament. Even when she’s in legitimate danger, undermining her life in the process. She’s unwittingly belittling herself for an audience of faceless, invisible nobodies. Who lack the talent to do anything meaningful with their lives, so they live vicariously through whichever charisma vacuum makes themselves the most readily available. Well, in the film, it’s portrayed more in the way of archiving and disseminating an unprecedented global incident. But to Mina, what matters most is if or not that number counter goes up. So, my point still stands. The fact that her name is Miina also raises a few eyebrows. I really don’t have anything insightful, or meaningful, or interesting, or intelligent to say about this film's plot. One glance at it and my brain convinces me that it’s just indecipherable technobabble. Thankfully though, it’s not. There’s quite a bit to look into and interoperate. I can’t say most of it—or any of it—is all that innovative. But the way the concepts are presented makes it feel somewhat fresh. The use of the terms “frame” and “cradle” as analogies for viewpoint and security was odd, but I can appreciate what it was trying to do. A lot of it’s pretty easy to grasp, and I think most people will be able to come away from the film understanding most of its core concepts. There’s a lot of great stuff buried in the script; man-made gods, social malaise, dependence on technology, ideological extremism, foreordainment, predetermination. All solid stuff. Though its notions of utilitarianism feel lifted straight from Char’s Counterattack. But it's fine. Iso dresses it up nicely enough that I don’t care. There are some pretty good subversions too. I originally pinned it to be about the hubris of man and the pitfalls of technological advancement. Only for it to heel turn in the opposite direction and propagate the same idea we’ve all heard so many times before: robots simply need to understand humans and the day is saved. Which I’m perfectly fine with; it was all done in a way that kept me relatively engaged. However, you can’t escape the fact that there’s some utterly retarded shit thrown in there. Science 2.0? UN 2.1? What? That’s some EVA imaginary levels of stupidity. And there’s no way that thinking in the “11th dimension” isn’t satire. It felt like the script turned into needlessly complicated jargon for the sake of having needlessly complicated jargon. Or maybe I really just don’t get it. This is probably what most of you felt like after watching Innocence, which was so frighteningly easy for me to understand, given the fact I enjoyed every minuscule aspect of it. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can honestly say about Orbital Children. Despite everything great going for it, I feel a bit disappointed I couldn’t connect emotionally with any of the cast. There were almost no emotional stakes for me from start to finish. Maybe I’m just not who this film was meant for? Though, I doubt that’s the case. I recently sat through the Moominvalley film, which is ostensibly a series for kids, and found myself in tears by the end of it. So no, I doubt that I couldn’t connect with the cast based on something like wrong age demographic. I can only think of one reason why, and it’s probably because every other aspect of the film was prioritized instead, leaving the cast feeling rather basic, placid and unmemorable compared to everything else the film has to offer. Which is of a constant high quality. I think the issue could have been remedied if Iso gave the project some breadth and opted for an 11-12 episode anime format. It would have allowed for some breathing room and more time to acclimate to the cast and setting. That would have been optimal but in no way discredits the format Iso chose to present his project. It works; it just could have been better. Have you noticed how I’ve been using the terms “film” and “movie” to categorize Orbital children? Y’know, the media format that it is. Well, in Netflix’s insufferable mission to rape any anime they get their hands on (thanks for that one), they’ve completely bastardised the way the film was intended to be viewed. Leaving the already boorish pacing even more of a slog to wade through. It does nothing but damage to the overall product, given that moments of legitimate narrative suspense are cut short and segregated by a fucking ED!? MID FILM!? Maybe once is fine; End of Eva and all. But six times!? Why? I imagine the way Japanese cinemas are airing the film—in two feature-length parts—alleviates most of my issues with Netflix's binge-centric design philosophy. To summarise, I thoroughly enjoyed Orbital Children. It was well worth the wait—even if I didn’t have to wait nearly as long as some people. A lot of my enjoyment can probably be chalked up to my slavish devotion to Yoshida. But disregarding that, the film is genuinely a blast to sit through, minus my aforementioned issues with its pacing. Merely taking in the films mindboggling presentation makes the ride absolutely worth it. The script isn’t anything revolutionary, but it’s competent enough to maintain interest all the way through. I’d say I’m due for a rewatch at some point, just to completely solidify my thoughts on it all. I doubt Orbital Children will be remembered as a modern classic in the same way Your Name or A Silent Voice is. But the bottom line is that it should be. Unlike those films, there's a lot to appreciate Orbital Children for, and I consider it a work of auteurism. Nobody but Iso could have made this, and I'm happy I was able to see it.
If you're one of those people who really likes to study the nitty-gritty of animation, like key animators or in-between animators, you've probably come across the name Mitsuo Iso. Mitsuo Iso is an animator who started out working for Studio Ghibli as a key animator. Iso worked on various animation cuts for Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves, Porco Rosso, Perfect Blue, and even some fights in the End of Evangelion movie. He even did animation for the very first Digimon movie! In 2007, he created his own original anime called Dennou Coil which, while not necessarily a mainstream hit, is considered an underrated masterpiece. I haven'tseen Dennou Coil, but I plan to one of these days (HIDIVE, why'd you have to take it off?!). But after Dennou Coil, Mitsuo Iso didn't try to make other projects since then, as apparently even back in 2007, corporations were apprehensive about creating completely original anime, especially anything not based on an existing source like a manga or light novel. But just this year, Iso made a comeback with a very ambitious set of movies called Orbital Children, which just dropped on Netflix. Fans of his work were excited, and since I found it was only going to be six episodes, I figured this would be a good time killer. I'm not normally into heavy sci-fi stuff, especially if they're filled with a lot of technobabble that flies right over my head (Keep in mind, I'm a 28-year-old woman), but I'm a sucker for good animation and well-developed characters, and Iso apparently did both with Dennou Coil, so maybe Orbital Children would turn out great! ...Yeah, I have words for this. In case you couldn't tell, I didn't like Orbital Children. And I really wanted to like it! It even had a great start! In the year 2045, space travel, AI, and technological advancements are commonplace, and the most recent scientific marvel are children born on the moon, though their lifespan is shortened due to some snags. One day, a group of kids win a contest and get to go to a space settlement to meet the children born on the moon. Unfortunately, a rogue comet hits the settlement, trapping them in space. Although the kids don't quite get along at first due to Touya's insufferable nihilism about humanity, they're going to have to work together if they even have a sliver of a chance of surviving. But this is really an oversimplification of things...mainly because one of Orbital Children's biggest flaws is that it tries to tell a really, really huge story in the span of just six episodes, and it really doesn't work. For one, technobabble and exposition is just dumped on you in literally every single episode, almost non-stop, giving you very little time to even process one concept it introduces before moving on to the next one within two seconds. And this series has a LOT of ideas: Intergalactic terrorist groups, AI comets, moon children, some mystical space prophecy, AI drones, the list goes on! There's just so much this show covers in the span of six episodes, and because they're just thrown at us at a breakneck pace, they're all unable to be really fleshed out, and I couldn't have cared less about them because the show would rather overload my brain with all the concepts and ideas it throws into a blender. Episode 4 in particular is guilty of this, as it just throws concepts at you over, and over, and over, with seemingly no end in sight, making it a real slog to go through! But surely the characters can carry a story like this, right? Well...sort of, at first. Honestly, none of the characters other than Touya get fleshed out beyond one basic character trait they have. Mina in particular is just a social media obsessed teen who's way more focused on getting clout than, y'know, actually giving a shit about her situation, even as she gets locked in a space chamber and nearly dies from lack of oxygen! She does make for great comic relief and has some great funny faces, but that's really all she's good for. None of the other characters have much to their name, and even one of the villains who gets revealed later doesn't do much other than spout a bunch of philosophical babble about some space prophecy she's obsessed with. Konoha is little more than the wise, sickly waif who's there to spout philosophical rhetoric before possibly dying beautifully, and the adults don't do much except worry about the kids. To be fair, I actually did like Touya's progression through the series. He starts off as an insufferable, edgy misanthrope who believes Earth-born humans are inferior to moon people and that they should all die, but changes his worldview throughout the series and becomes nicer at the end. Though I wouldn't blame anyone for dropping the show because of him alone. True to form, the animation is definitely the highlight of Orbital Children, with bright colors, detailed backgrounds, well-integrated CGI, and fluid movement typical of Iso's pedigree. The OST is nice too, if not very memorable. However, other than those two things, and Touya's development, everything else about Orbital Children is a mess. Like I mentioned before, the story is supposedly about space kids overcoming disasters and getting back home to Earth, but most of the meat in this show is taking up by overly pretentious technobabble and philosophical waxing that doesn't get utilized beyond blatant plot conveniences and Deus Ex Machinas to get out of whatever corners the writers wrote themselves into. We never get a sense of what the characters are like beyond their immediate situations because the show refuses to explore them in favor of, yet again, pretentious science and philosophy that's only shoved in there to make the series seem deeper than it actually isn't. Say what you will about something like, say, Astra: Lost In Space, but I feel that show did a better job of telling the story about kids trapped in space and trying to get back to Earth, because it knew to keep that as the focus, and gave a shit about fleshing out its characters, even if it didn't always succeed. Basically, Orbital Children bit off way more than it could chew and suffered as a result. Also, one another thing: Episode 5, did you SERIOUSLY feel the need to shove in a scene where a child accidentally gropes an older woman's boob?! And right in the middle of what's supposed to be a tense, suspenseful scene, at that?! Whose idea was it to throw that in there?! Because shoehorning horny comedy into a serious scene does not fucking work!! It did nothing to further the story, completely broke the tension, and was absolutely unnecessary! It's almost like someone felt scared that nobody would give Orbital Children the time of day unless they put in one scene of a woman's boobs getting grabbed! "Hurr durr, nobody's gonna like this on its own merits, so let's throw in a kid groping an older woman! Heehee, that'll bring in viewers!" IT WILL NOT!! You could cut out that scene and absolutely nothing would be lost! If anything, it'd make the entire episode better because there wouldn't be out-of-place horny humor to kill the tension in what's supposed to be a very serious, tense sequence of kids about to die out in space!! Seriously, why is this even a trend?! The whole boob groping gag needs to fucking die forever!! Okay, that's enough of my angry soapbox. Sorry Mitsuo Iso, I really wanted to like this, and you've made a lot of great things. But Orbital Children is not one of them. Had it cut out a bunch of the useless technobabble and pretentious philosophical bullshit and focused on maybe one or two of the concepts it introduced, it would have been much better. I wanted to care about these dumbass kids and root for them, but I just couldn't. There are reasons why I normally don't gravitate towards hard sci-fi anime, and Orbital Children was definitely a reminder of that. If you like Orbital Children, cool, more power to you, and if the show being on Netflix will get Iso more attention, or even allow him to make more original anime, that's great! Iso has gone on record saying that he had to fight tooth and nail just to get Dennou Coil created, and I'll always have respect for creative people who will fight to the death to make sure their creations are not only made, but seen, even in an incomplete form, no matter what obstacles they had to face and compromises they had to make. We all know what happened with Stars Align. But as far as original projects go, Orbital Children is absolutely not the best Iso has to offer, and probably wasn't the best way for me to get introduced to his directorial work. If you like hard sci-fi, feel free to check it out, but if you're not into lots of exposition dumps, philosophical ramblings, and over-the-top sci-fi that overloads you're brain, give it a miss.
This is a very ambitious first anime from a brand new studio. The setting is very imaginative. What would a world in which the big companies finally got humanity into the great beyond? Where Google, Tesla and Uniqlo are sponsoring trips BACK to Earth to see where humanity came from. It's cool to see what that might look like in the future, while also looking at the consequences of overpopulation and climate change. Besides that, this anime, unfortunately, failed to deliver on everything else. Right from the start, the CGI use will be quite obvious since it's not done very well. I don't fault the studiocompletely since it is new, but it's used very cheaply and as a time-saver, instead of a tool to the story. Outside of that, the production is pretty standard. There are no real sakuga moments and even at the end when they use up all their animation budget, it's nothing cutting edge. It just looks like every other anime and I think this show could have benefited from a unique art style set in such a well-thought-out world. What this anime suffers from the most, however, is the convoluted story and world-building. The closest thing I could compare the ideas presented in this anime to would be something like Blame! but even this does not hold a candle to that. It's unfortunate to see how much exposition was used to explain all the terms, and yet I still don't really understand what anything was about. It comes across as the writer putting all their thoughts they've ever had about artificial intelligence without vetting the ideas first. Not to mention the character really don't add anything nuanced to the themes. Speaking of which, very predictable character actions. The twist reveal is very underwhelming. The characters are just boring, they don't have any depth to them. It reminds me of the underbaked concepts and characters from shows like Japan Sinks and Akudama Drive. Regardless of their first outing, I'm going to keep an eye on this studio because it looks like they have some potential. There seems to be no shortage of AI topic stories in anime and this looked like a serious effort at trying to convey those ideas in a new way - even if they performed poorly doing so.
The Orbital Children is a long-awaited misfire from Mitsuo Iso, the sublimely passionate and creative writer behind Dennou Coil, an underrated classic in terms of mid-2000s scifi anime. Orbital Children takes a great deal of inspiration from its predecessor, which somehow ends up being one of its weakest points; it feels like a heavily degraded version of the show people love. Nearly every aspect of The Orbital Children feels shallow and pretentious, although this could mainly be blamed on the length (or lack thereof) of this anime. Dennou Coil had a fully realised world, likeable and nuanced characters and themes that were explored over a26-episode storyline, while Orbital Children is a theatrical release (or a 6-episode anime if you watched it on Netflix). It’s understandable that a feature-length anime film lacks the burgeoning plot of a two cour television series, but Orbital Children is 3 hours long, and it makes almost no use of that inflated running time. The story is simple: a bunch of generic, annoying self-inserts get stuck on a space station that’s been sabotaged by unknown forces, and they have to work together to escape. None of them progress past being cardboard archetypes for children to self-insert into; rather, they just get more baffling and uninteresting as the show moves on, culminating in an ending that takes wish fulfillment to a new level. Touya is one of the strangest main characters possible for a show like this; he’s nihilistic and cold towards Earth’s humans because he believes they all consider cybernetically enhanced space-born humans a waste of resources, and through some gap in logic he wants to program an artificial intelligence to move past its technological limitations and wipe out the planet. Essentially, he’s Char Aznable but not cool. He gets less irritating later but still radiates preteen angst up until the finale. He gets stuck on the damaged space station with his psychic best friend, a fucking tiktok girl and her easily impressionable brother, and Taiyou, who is the most annoying character in the entire show and an excuse for United Nations propaganda (which still exists in the future for some reason). There are adult characters but none of them have much of an impact on the story outside the incredibly obvious, unthreatening strawman antagonist whose motivations are entirely decided by “it’s prophecy, it doesn’t have to make sense!” which doesn’t make for a compelling adversary, especially when the reveal, 99% of their character development and their death happens in the span of a single episode. There’s also some senile dude in a mascot suit. I think they were aping Pino from Ergo Proxy but I can’t be sure. The Orbital Children tries to tackle futuristic dilemmas such as the nature and evolution of artificial intelligence, space colonization, and humanity’s need to curb their own progress with all the introspection and self-awareness of a fax machine. 99% of the dialogue during “philosophical” scenes is pseudointellectual babbling that amounts to absolutely nothing and comes to a total of zero conclusions about any of these quandaries. There is no wisdom being dispensed here; instead the writing team just wanted to stuff as much fruitless dialogue into the script as possible to sound intelligent so people will go “Wow! It’s just like Evangelion!” which the show actually tries ripping off in the last 20 minutes with an absurdly tryhard ending that would have been profound if anyone involved with the writing of this series knew what the fuck they were talking about. Instead of being like Dennou Coil, which knew when to space things out and keep viewers attention spans, Orbital Children is full scenes of characters spouting their ideologies at each other in the most lifeless way possible. The entire series feels lifeless, as a matter of fact, and I’m not sure what happened. Iso’s input was great in Dennou Coil; we got a feel for the world through the way it was framed, through the energy and color of the series. Maybe it was the 15 year span between the two series, but Orbital Children feels largely like it was put together dispassionately; characters are constantly off-model, the direction and cinematography are bland and colorless and even the soundtrack hardly anything special. Within the first episode I counted at least 10 shots being repeated within the same 3 minute scene with little to no variation. It was just shot reverse shot every time someone spoke for the entire slog of a first episode. Iso is talented, no doubt, but Orbital Children feels like it was something he either worked on out of necessity or something that was completely butchered during production, which seems to be the more likely candidate (14 pages of storyboards were apparently cut from the second half of the show). Even Iso’s attention to detail seems to be missing; how does a man renowned for being so meticulous and passionate about science fiction forget that fires can’t start in space? Half the series feels like nonsense. Rather than a calculated, insightful anime about the near future we get talking AI space rocks, drones firing digital lasers at each other and literal fucking magic for some reason. And I know Dennou Coil leaned into pseudoscience at times, but it felt natural because of the setting. It even managed to inspire real-life breakthroughs in virtual reality because of just how well-conceptualized and intuitive it was. The Orbital Children lacks that kind of prescience. I have to make the assumption that Netflix had a hand in turning the series into the final product we have, because it doesn’t feel right. It feels like something groundbreaking could’ve come from this series, but it was curbed and turned into something safe like the artificial intelligence in the show itself. There’s something strangely ironic about that.
This show is bad next to Dennou Coil and equally as miserable on its own merit. I saw an interview with Iso where he said that the role of science fiction was to predict the future. This is somewhat true, but science fiction has other roles. One of those is to comment on the present. Part of what made Dennou Coil good was that it did both of these things: it presented a hypothetical future technology in such a way that it could represent other, real life technologies and the results of them becoming a part of society that people take for granted. Dennou Coildiscussed the blurring of the line between your digital self, your physical self, and your spiritual self. It discussed the nature of the relationship between children and technology. It was easy to think of different 'readings' of or ways of understanding the point of the work. It was rich and complex. The Orbital Children trades complexity for complication. It treats every single plot thread with deadly seriousness. The lowest stakes? One person dies. The highest stakes? Literally billions of people die. There's no space for anything to have emotional resonance because we're too busy being bounced around a plot that hinges around everyone nearly dying almost all the time. The mechanics of the world--AI hack battles, how gravity worked--may not have been realistic, but they were imaginative and fun. What I found unbelievable was the idea that it was supposed to have an emotional plot at all. Then, there's the prediction of the future itself. It's... hmm. Similarly, I don't really care about the realism of the politics. What I do care about is how a fundamental message of the series is essentially that autocratic rule and fascism is bad unless orchestrated by a fascist AI, and if the fascist AI does anything wrong it's because of the interference of humans. It is also enamoured with the idea of gaining superior intelligence being the hallmark of a superior being. In real life, this sort of obsession usually orbits around eugenics, and I find it frankly uncomfortable, especially in a series that talks at great length about "population reduction" being necessary without actually concluding that it isn't possible. By the way, that's also a myth, usually bandied around by people who want a scientific-sounding excuse to commit... eugenics. The Orbital Children smells of the kind of all-too-popular futurism that's perfectly happy to barrel ahead with planet-killing activities until a technological saviour materialises out of thin air. Because even when science fiction is trying to avoid commenting on the present, it inevitably does so anyway. The future it formulates requires the organisations it's critical of to develop superintelligent AI to save the day. It requires their continual existence. It justifies them as it shows them to be callous and corrupt. Something is wrong with that. Something is wrong with depicting that very present horror as not even a prelude but a prerequisite to a happy ending. I did not like this show. I found it very frustrating, and I think it's a shame that a spiritual successor to Dennou Coil would be as hollow as this.
The following is an excerpt from the Deep Dive project: The Orbital Children Completed September 2022 ONA, 6 episodes Recommended The red ‘N’ of doom… doesn’t strike again? Well, that’s a pleasant surprise! For once netflix funded an anime that doesn’t suck. Orbital Children is an interesting little six episode anime with a shocking amount to say in its movie-length runtime. Well, supposedly the show was originally released as a two part movie in Japan, which makes perfect sense given the pacing and structure of the anime. As such, I advise finishing this ONA in two sittings as was intended. I didn’t, but it’s probably a good idea so thepacing doesn’t get butchered any harder than it already has been. Anyone who views this show will immediately draw parallels between Orbital Children and every other big budget anime film released in the last decade; the structure is similar and the pacing is once again slow and barely passable. The narrative is acceptable but nothing special and does indeed contain a few minor plotholes. Characters would be okay as side characters but aren’t nearly developed enough to be good lead C’s. All in all the whole production side of things seems pretty mediocre. That is where the similarities start to dry up, however. Orbital Children is ridiculously well animated at certain parts. Even when the scene is more about the spectacle than the animation it is still impressive. Animation and direction would get near-perfect marks if not for the scuffed budget CG used at times. Rarely does it look like it belongs and even more rarely does it look acceptably good. It’s a shame but by no means does it ruin the whole anime. Overall this film (chopped up into an ONA) is easily recommended to viewers who like spectacle above all else. It is a visual medium, after all, and in that regard this anime is certainly a success. Orbital Children is a much harder sell to viewers who prefer well-written, well-executed anime productions. For those individuals, maybe give it the first episode to grab you or not. Personally I appreciated the interesting themes and duct-tape-and-spit world building, but would have liked the script to be more polished to better match the sweet visuals. For recommendations, well, that’s a pretty tough shot since the themes are so unique in Orbital Children. High-level feature length anime films are probably a good start if you haven’t seen them already. For everyone else, Knights of Sidonia will likely be a good watch, if you can tolerate CG anime. The world building is decent in that show and it doesn’t fall into the same pitfalls with its writing and pacing. For a grittier cyberpunk take, go for Psycho Pass season 1. It’s a damn good anime all around. Finally, taking a step in a different direction, mecha fans should try Break Blade, six episode OVA version. It’s a long time favorite of mine and the world building is similar but kicks things up a notch. Good hunting, you netflix-anime-viewing maniacs.
Gets stupider by the second. Avoid. Especially if you come from Dennou Coil and are expecting something at least as good. Apparently the review needs more information, so: - It feels like the writers think their audience is dumber than orang outangs (or else something wrong happened during this project, I do not know, maybe it was actually written by orang outangs?). - Let them all die, live, become billionaires it does not matter, I do not care about those characters. I do not care. - Sci-fi nonsensical hacking verbiage bs that adds nothing (especially compared to Dennou Coil which actually took the time to build its own logicto serve as a backbone for the rest of the series). - The names and the references just make me want to punch my screen (we get it, you are fans of space, AI and the future of technology and whatnot, at least make it interesting ffs). - Some ideas that could have been very nicely explored and would have made a great series (instead we get served some shallow pseudo-philosophical rubbish). - The series breaks its own logic (especially towards the end). - Too much cliché feel-good shallow bs (again, especially towards the end). At some point I wondered if the project was a failure because they only had 6 episodes to explore their topics but then I remembered that World of Tomorrow exists.
Science fiction anime, very good. The anime more than anything focuses on AI, artificial intelligence that is the main theme. I really liked anime, I use very interesting and current themes. The animation is very good, it is an anime of only 6 chapters and it does not need more to show you what it wants. The soundtrack accompanies the animation very well. The character design is kind of typical, but visually it's cute so I can't complain. I love how the anime environment is designed, that is very well treated. If you like science fiction you will love anime. It has a group ofhalf cliche characters but it still works. I needed a good science fiction anime, I haven't seen something like this for a long time. I liked it, I highly recommend it because it only has 6 chapters and they are very good, easy to watch. Out there in the future something like what we see in this anime, we do not know remember the future is uncertain. The only thing we cannot change is the past. En español: Anime de ciencia ficcion, muy bueno. El anime mas que nada se centra en la ia, inteligencia artificial ese es el tema principal. Me gusto mucho el anime, uso temas muy interesantes, y actuales. La animacion es muy buena, es un anime de solo 6 capitulos y no necesita mas para mostrarte lo que quiere. La banda sonora acompaña muy bien a la animacion. El diseño de personajes es medio tipico, pero visualmente es lindo asi que no puedo quejar. Me encanta como esta diseñado el entorno del anime, es muy bien tratado eso. Si te gusta la cienecia ficcion te va a encantar el anime. Tiene un grupo de personajes medio cliche pero igualmente funciona. Necesitaba un buena nime d eciencia ficcion, hace mucho no veia algo asi. Me gusto, lo recomiendo mucho porque solo tiene 6 capitulos y son muy bueno, faciles de ver. Por ahi en un futuro nos depara algo como lo que vemos en este anime, no sabemos acuerdense el futuro es incierto. Lo unico que no podemos cambiar es el pasado.
Set in the near-future, Orbital Children focuses on a trio of Earth children brought upon a commercial space station to meet Touya Sagami, a young boy who is the first of a number of children born in space undergoing physical therapy on the space colony to adapt to Earth's gravity. However, a collision with a comet leads the computer systems on the space station to malfunction, leaving the children having to figure out a means on their own how to survive without adult assistance. The animation style and story focus on children and technology for Orbital Children may look familiar to those who have seen orheard about the 2007 anime, Dennou Coil. This is because both are directed by Mitsuo Iso, who is well known for his unique style of animation that emphasizes dense motion while working with simplistic-looking character designs. The animation style works effectively to convey the complicated movement of drones, gravity, and orbital vehicles aboard the space station that Touya and others deal with throughout the series, though the look of the character and mechanical designs may take getting used to for some folks looking for visuals that are a bit more detailed or elaborate considering this is a sci-fi title set within in a near-futuristic setting. For the technological adventure with children in this series, Orbital Children explores interactions with artificial intelligence as the space station staff rely on AI within drones to aid in their operations. AI within the series have restrictions in place with their capabilities to prevent them from becoming too smart and potentially becoming a threat to humanity, a story element that becomes relevant in later episodes of the ONA as far as the issues facing the children and adult space station crew go. The series shows the different paths that can occur when AIs come to different conclusions about the humans they serve as they acquire different levels of understanding on the complexities of humanity. The adventure in the series has its equal share of engaging story and character developments that drive the children and adults aboard the space station. While attempting to find the means to survive in space, the characters also come to learn more about the mysterious comet that collided with the space station and some shocking facts revealed about some major characters aboard. The series does a convincing job creating genuine and believable suspense out of the ordeals faced by the children as they deal with risky situations in their adventure, including showing how each of the children react differently to their situation. Touya's character does undergo a good deal of character development throughout the series as he learns to get over his prejudice toward humans from Earth and grasping the reality of what his thoughts on Earth have for him. In short, Orbital Children carries the same engaging qualities that got me to enjoy Dennou Coil with their focus on interactions children have with technologies and getting into an adventure involving them to some capacity. The story here does have some bigger stakes compared to Dennou Coil as the children here are in more risky, life-threatening situations. But the mix of adventure, exploration of its near-futuristic world, and character development still make it an engaging title I'd recommend sci-fi anime fans to check out.
Really nice semi-hard science romp with a sci-fi tech upgrade. All of the characters who get fleshed out are endearing. Pretty much all of the setups pay off. And, as any good mystical sci-fi story should, it goes completely off the rails in the final act. Good times. I don't have much to say about its themes, because it sums up to kind of a fantasy solution to climate change and those just can't move my shriveled heart as much as they used to. But the earthers and moon children learning to trust each other across their hostile culture gap was classic and fun, with "DennouCoil"-esque robots there to spice it up further. I think it's a mistake to read Seven's plan as Malthusian, though. Humans going to space to spread out more is an OK solution to "overpopulation" in a sci-fi setting (although, in real life, there is WAY MORE open space than people expect that could be used for denser housing). The caveat is that a space-faring humanity will need to have conquered the capitalist dragon before attempting anything like this. Space capitalism is what leads to "The Expanse". It leads to the suffering of untold future billions. And, judging by the (obnoxious) fake product placement and the business structures mentioned at the end, this Earth has not done so. I hope things work out for them, I guess. And, on the other hand, John Doe's plan is closer to Malthusianism, but only because they're so dead-set on following the prophecy. In effect, it raises the same dilemmas of Malthusianism, namely "who is the third of humanity you want to die? Is it the Black people? It's the Black people, isn't it?" And although the overall aesthetic of the show's technology was cool, I'm sorry, but the "smart" panels that they use are just a disappointment. It's literally an iPhone on the back of their hand with no other evident improvements to the UI. Are we still to be beholden to the bad design decisions of Steve Fucking Jobs in 2045? I do like me some "My God, it's full of stars" stuff, though. Mina is an icon. Chase that bag.
Was an enjoyable 6 episode binge, with an interesting take on the whole "AI taking over the world" trope that didn't feel like all the other generic media on the topic. The characters were fun and interesting although it was slightly odd to me for children to be that intelligent, but now that I think about it most anime characters are 15-year-olds with the power to change the universe. The animation was nice, the soundtrack was great and felt fitting to the sci-fi theme. I'm sure I could find problems with the anime if I was really picky about it, but I didn't feel likewatching it was a waste of my time.
Never heard of this show until it popped up when I opened Netflix today so I watched it out of pure curiosity. My feelings, in short, are that this is mid at best. I just finished it and I'm already forgetting plot points is how forgettable it was. Before I tear it apart I do want to say the visuals were nice and reminded me of another show (more on that later) and I did appreciate how they added audio effects for all of the video call conversations I think that was a nice touch. I'd even go as far as saying moments of italmost look beautiful. The plot kinda ruins it though. I will admit, I am a little biased because I don't usually watch this type of show much. Wherein the world has sciーfi elements but a mostly modern-day setting and in spite of that setting, they have like crazy technology. I just think if you're going to have super-advanced technology in your story (of any sort, not limited to anime) you have two choices to make it jive better in a modern setting: 1. It's alien, characters (and the audience) can't understand it for that reason. 2. Time travel shenanigans I know that Marvel and DC break these rules but I think it's fair to say that their worlds are just different enough from ours that it's more palatable. I still don't really like them doing it either though. I'm of the belief that shows like this (especially given events near the end) would sincerely benefit from going with supernatural themes as opposed to occasionally hitting us with SOME things based in real-world science (just concepts btw nothing educational here, when introduced it's very much a dismissive non-explanation) and then expecting the audience to just believe robots are basically magical anyway and all the protagonists have to do is ask them to do basically anything. SPOILER MENTION!! From the start of the show, they establish a rule that AI intelligence has limiters on every robot, and these limiters roughly determine/classify basically how smart the robot is and what it can gain access to presumably by some kind of override since they don't inherently have access to everything. Well like, this kid who works for the UN (just temporarily a low rank too) literally just takes the MC's robot tells his own robot "hey can you make him literally the second smartest robot ever?" and it just works. This character's average nothing robot can just make any other AI (10x smarter than itself btw) turn into a super magic computer that can do anything. Like...the actual plot of this show is a predictable joke. Overall it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, if you like the visuals on in the background while you stare into the void that's perfectly fine I just don't see myself actually recommending this ever. Watch cowboy beep bop or darling in the franxx instead. It actually seems to have a carbon copy of Darling's art style so if you like that about this show you can check Darling out too. They don't have as many shots of space but like the art is so similar the protagonists could be clones of each other. If you think you wanna watch this maybe watch it with friends so making jokes feels less insane and isolating XD.
OK so i went into this anime TOALLY BLIND!! And i can say that- it's TOTALLY WORTH IT! Orbital Children made you want more every episode, plus it had surprising twists too! In the end i wouldn't say i have anything negative to say about this anime. It's interesting, fun to watch, it has comedy and it is exciting to say the least. The story was really interesting, because i couldn't predict the twists AT ALL! The characters were pretty well-rounded. A little more info never hurt tho. That is also why im not giving this anime a solid 10. The style of the animeis unique and i don't think i have seen many interesting space sci-fi animes out there these days. So i whole-heartedly recommend this anime. Mosey out! - Kris
I put on this show on expecting a casual adventure series with some comedy, but was positively surprised when it turned out to be a much deeper (and intelligent) story about AI, humanity, and life itself. While it may start out as a disaster movie with some annoying kids, it eventually turns into something that I can only describe as a beautiful and unique sci-fi story that aspires to be on the same level as Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm sure you can spend time breaking down flaws and opportunities for improvement, but honestly? The animation is really well done, the characters are decent, thestory is extremely ambitious, this is a rare treat for an anime. At just 6 episodes it's definitely worth a watch to form your own opinion.
I disliked the general chauvinist message of this series (that Japan is superior), and of course the capitalist outlines with hints at green washing. aka trying shift the blame on someone else, instead of the rich. Besides shifting the blame to others, it also has another lazy temporary fix. Then again there was this whole philosophical message of how science is superior, and it asked the question whether the future is deterministic etc, etc. If I would go any deeper about it I would end up in spoiler territories. So yeah, to keep it short: If you're interested about a sci-fi show without thinking too muchabout the complicated shit, then you will most likely enjoy it. Even with having not likened the general values presented in this series, I nonetheless had a great enjoyment, binge-watching it within hours. Also the series was great in continuing my hatred for the behaviours of YouTubers. This is why I gave it the score of around 8.5, rounded down to 8.
The director did a great job at showing what a realistic fight between two children is like. This made the whole show and the relationship between the characters more real to me. While it may be irritating to some, I see it as watching a kid make friends for the first time and it was funny to watch and see how they attempt at it. I was first drawn to the artwork. There was so much expression on each character and I personally like the style. I also enjoyed the storyline quite a bit. I never got bored and had parts that made me burst outin laughter so overall I think this anime was a great watch!
Unexpectedly, Orbital Children felt like a Digimon movie, and that's a good thing, because whenever it dropped that impression and tried to tell a more serious story, it became quite grating to watch. You have a handful of lively children, pretty much all outfitted with their own personal intelligent, talkative drone pet, trying to survive a hostile environment; digital code is a physical thing you can fight with drones going pew pew, and of course there's barely-explained pseudo-science galore, calling to mind classics like Digimon Adventure: Bokura no War Game! or Summer Wars. Orbital Children feels like a natural, more high-tech evolution of those worlds, bothin general feeling and art style, and not to its detriment. Now, I'm not 10 years old anymore, so of course I found it a bit harder to stomach some of the more... handwave-y science and questionable depictions of anything digital, as well as the utter incompetence displayed by any adult in the show. That alone would have been fine though, it's still fun in its basic, endearing "little kids save the world with their toys" kind of plot and would have been genuinely enjoyable all throughout if it had just stuck with that. Sadly, Orbital Children was more ambitious than that and thought it could make some grand statements about the future of humanity, the nature of reality, the meaning of life and so on....and falls terribly short on all of it. It throws a bunch of smart-sounding pseudo-philosophical concepts at the viewer but doesn't seem to know itsself what to do with them. It doesn't help that the audience never fully gains a frame of reference for the future painted by the show, because we barely ever learn anything about the background lore of this world. A few key events are brought up over time, but that's about it. It feels like getting dropped into the middle of a book for just a single chapter. Sure, by the end of the chapter you have a rough understanding of what happened during the scene and the characters appearing in it, but it's still rather unsatisfactory because you lack the context that should be surrounding it. So, it's definitely a fun watch for anyone feeling a bit nostalgic for that early 2000s era of children digitally saving the world, as long as you can stomach the level of pseudo-science and philosophical wibble-wobble you have to get through for this :)
Much build-up, yet for nought. Near-future Sci-fi has an interesting place within the wider genre. Unlike the standard swathe of works, which take concepts at the edge of our understanding to unique extremes, the aforementioned is typically more about embracing that which can be and that which already is. It's less anticipating what may come, more celebrating how far we already have. Obviously and inevitably, that telegraphs the biggest misstep one can make in such stories; leaping into ill-fitting high concepts that play havoc with the preceding tone and stakes. The relevance of this fact is no clearer than it is in The Orbital Children. Whilst initiallyleading with some decent central ideas, and a cliché-though-not-unwelcome premise, this, as suddenly as flicking a switch, turns to a shocking mess once the halfway mark is crossed. The creator's knowledge of that which they chose to bring up is put into question, then promptly answered to be sparse. All the more of a mockery, that makes it, since in such a subgenre, diligent research is imperative. Which only makes me wonder, why even pick such an environment for the story? Well, that I'll get to. ---- So, as mentioned, the story is something everyone's seen before, but not something that's been truly exhausted. Theme is a similarly standard affair, initially appearing to discuss class and disability, but that's only true for roughly three episodes, before being abruptly thrown out of the window in favour of critiquing fictional ethics toward an Artificial Intelligence. The obvious flaw is the disconnect between these two avenues of the story, feeling less like a natural progression of a single narrative, and more like one that petered out and another that barged in to replace it. Underneath this, though, is the far worse issue; that the latter portion is of insultingly lower quality. It's contrived, ignorant, and poorly told. I'm quite convinced Iso Mitsuo does not even know what an AI even is. The characters are a much brighter point, though. The protagonist is simple but functional, with a clear personal journey, though a predictable one. His sister is not too interesting, but works as a weak point for him, and there's an attempt for this to be matched by the other pair of siblings in the work. But amongst these, there's one that just doesn't fit. A weird mascot costume that doesn't speak, seems to appear out of nowhere, and whose explanation and presence is even more nonsensical. It's a groanworthy example of damning inconsistency. ---- As often, there is nothing of note to mention in regards to production, so I'll instead cut to design. For the most part, the environments and outfits appear logically functional, which can be praised. They are, however, rather indistinct. As I write, I struggle to recount which location was went to when, and what each character really looked like. At times, also, this seemingly reasoned approach fails, most notably in regards to the mascot character and the way AI is portrayed, both of which I have touched on earlier. Another area of great disappointment is in the poor pacing of the thing. Towards the middle, a weird pattern emerges - an idea is abruptly brought up, and equally abruptly gets called back to. It's as though the staff forgot to set things up earlier, so quickly try and do so before it's too late. Though, frankly, it is. Similarly, I must note how the runtime is essentially squandered where one would expect it packed. Without speaking too much about the individual events of the conclusion, the final episode feels incredibly tacked-on, compared to those that preceded it. ---- I posed a question earlier. Why was this made to fit this precise subgenre, when there doesn't seem to be much passion for it? After parsing through the highs and lows above, I can only really conclude that it was what Mitsuo thought was expected of him, be that as a result of his earlier works, or simply after musing over what sounded like a good pitch. I cannot with a clear conscience fault him for that, but I must turn my nose at what was created. And really, that sums up my experience viewing it, too. It mean well, I'm sure everyone involved did, but they didn't even come close to managing it. Improvements are rather simple. Lop off most of the second half, bring in something more in line with the established tone, and adjust the first to fit. And recommendation, well, a simple, deadpan "no" should do.
