If Fafner laid the melodrama on thick enough to build houses with, Macross Plus is a far more restrained and exciting spin on this concept. It’s not just showing a likeable character dying, it’s relishing in Little Match Girl saccharine narrative sludge and becomes laughable.Įxample 2: Goa Bowman Guld (Macross Plus) There are cuts to the frantic base crew forced to watch the crippled girl die – and above all, there are flashbacks to her childhood. We see constant cuts to the timer for the explosives. The series lays it on thick the music swells with strings and piano as we see her mech, now an angelic light flying into the sky, drag the enemy with it. She unloads every weapon her mech has against the enemy to no avail, and in the end in a remarkably overwrought scene sacrifices her mech to destroy the enemy in an episode called Sacrifice. Nevertheless, six episodes in, Shoko drags herself from her bed, limps tragically to the cockpit while her mother screams for her to stop, and takes off half-cocked against a Festum that’s threatening their base. As soon as the viewer sees her, it’s clear things won’t end well for her because even the able-bodied Fafner pilots are on the back foot against the Festum ( Fafner‘s Angel-like enemies). Already the problem is becoming evident she is not so much a character as a collection of cliches that were popularised by Rei Ayanami – just with none of the things that make such a character relatable or interesting. However, these came quite a way into the series and worked because they were well-contextualised especially the latter, where Rei (introduced in the series as a character who is exploited and expected to fight and die no matter the odds) apparently dies while Shinji watches.įafner‘s spin on this is the crippled, socially-inept, reclusive Shoko, a character so pitiful and broken as a human it is a wonder she can put one foot in front of the other. Evangelionhad a couple of hard-hitting scenes of defeat – the episode with the dummy plug-controlled Eva Unit 1 wrecking the possessed Unit 3 with its pilot trapped inside, for one – or Asuka’s last stand and Rei’s self-destructing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |