Captain Earth

SPOILER FREE REVIEW:

Personally I quite enjoyed it, though it was very up and down. Some episodes were completely boring, while others would be spectacular. It threw around far too much technobabble in my opinion, as it had to devote sooo much time to just talking and explaining it multiple times, which took away from the experience. When they let the characters just interact as themselves, it could be quite fun, and some arcs and episodes were really really good. I felt that the show was dropped by a lot of people, because despite having a strong first episode, after that it goes downhill, and I ... feel the only good episode that comes after that was episode 9.

The Bug Bear arc was spectacular, but kind of wasted. They try to set up this deep background for the villains, and then instantly turn them into copy-paste villain A when they get turned due to lack of focus on them. Particularly during the first maybe 15 episodes this really irked me because I found the villains to be a lot more interesting than the main characters, who really didn't get any development until later on.

Hana stays the damsel in distress for far too long, Teppei stays the "oh I'm so conflicted and I can't be happy" guy for far too long, and Daichi was lacking in much-needed motivation besides "it's the right thing" for quite a while. Akari, in my opinion, was the one character I enjoyed throughout consistently, though her running gag got a little annoying. That said, these problems were fixed to some extent later on, but by then it was a little to late.

On the animation spectrum, it's beautiful. One of the best-looking show's I've seen in a while. In a area mostly dominated by terrible looking CG mechs, Captain Earth brings these brilliant 2D (or at least 2D-looking) mechs. The animation occasionally suffered from consistency issues, but for the most part was really amazing. I did have a minor complaint with the character designs, and that is that pretty much *every girl but Akari* has breasts the size of a dump truck. It was kind of ridiculous.

On the sound spectrum, it's okay. The first OP is amazing and one of my favorites, and was incredibly fitting to the tone and mood of the show, but the second OP wasn't near as good though it was still nice. Both of the EDs are pleasantly calming as well. The OST is pretty up/down. Sometimes it fits well, but other times it gets far too over-the-top and stands out too much, pulling your attention away from the show (which an OST should NEVER do). Other times it sounds great. Even when it's off, the songs themselves generally aren't bad, just a little too predominant or unfitting. That said, an OST's one job is to simply contribute to the experience, but not to take away from it, which this didn't fully succeed in accomplishing.

But the number one thing I'd say I liked the most in this show was the clear-cut romance. I've gotten sick of these ridiculously-sized love triangles and pentagons, the idiotic harems and will-she-will-she-not. This show doesn't have any of that stupidity. The characters have good chemistry, and are not afraid to admit they like each other. They get together in a good way (though I feel one pairing was on the late side, and didn't get enough time together to properly develop their romance), and it was just satisfying. That's what I liked about this show. For all it's many errors, it was satisfying. It left a good taste in my mouth, and for all it's mediocre moments, those sprinkled moments of brilliance made up for it.

While it may not be the show for everyone, the wonderful art let me hold onto it in it's duller moments, and those moments of brilliance made it worth it in my opinion. I don't regret picking it up.

Okay. First of all, I had just finished Captain Earth a minute ago when I started writing this review. Plus to that, I pulled an all-nighter to finished 25 episodes in one go and I must say, I was about 33/67 satisfied. And well, I am going to give my best in order for this review to be spoiler-free.

The feeling of watching Captain Earth is like watching a show that at one scene will make your heart flutter and the next two scenes, will completely crush the enthusiasm.

It's quite fair to give a 6 for the story. Why? First of all, Captain Earth didn't promise ... the watchers a plot that will attract the majority. It's like BONES tried to please at least 2 people out of a 10.

The idea of the story was simple however, the execution was lost after the first 5 episodes. The direction started to get messy and it even felt like the director doesn't even want to direct in the first place. In one case, why waste at least 2 minutes on the same docking sequence? I mean, yeah, it's cool but should he at least make a good use of that 2 minutes?

Art and sound, is feasible. The art was within the 2014 standard. BONES never fail to give a title the appropriate art however, in this case, it's obvious that the art was really a minor factor. The sound is nowhere great but at the very least, I like both of the opening themes.

If Captain Earth had one point they should rue, it is their characters. For a battle-robot series running at 25 episodes, it is understandable that the scale should be vast. However, Captain Earth limited theirs by focusing on little number of characters and mainly giving the limelight to the main protagonists and antagonists.

Their was never a good background involving the characters. It spells like they were never given a chance to appeal or make the audience empathize with them. They were hero just because they were meant to be heroes. They were villains, that's because they were meant to be villains. The feeling of this kind of simple character development is something unforgivable given the budget for 25 episodes. Some characters had to the potential to spark a good run though, the expectations or should I say, my expectations were never been granted given a soft and weak building of characters.

BONES particularly relied on short flashbacks in order to explain the fundamentals surrounding the characters. While it is never enough, they at least gave out a vague idea to intrigue the watcher to watch the next episode in order to enlighten the piling query. In any case, for the character factor, there was something like a roulette in which BONES struggled to decide who's going to be the final boss and when the end was nigh, they just decided, "Oh, okay. This one will be the final boss..." and then it's all over leaving myself wondering "That's it?". That is the case for myself and in the end, I am not really happy yet it was understandable and slightly palatable in my opinion.

The enjoyment was certainly small. I sure had moments when I felt Captain Earth was good. The romance addition was something not up to my flavor however, it is still something cute at the border of innocently cute.

Finalizing, for a normal space-robot genre, Captain Earth magnificently fulfill it's position. However, as one of the blandest title. The potential was scrambled and was forever lost due to the fact that Captain Earth never knew the direction it should take. This should explain as to why there's never a solid consistency on who's really going to be the main adversary. Another unfitting factor was also the addition of supernatural and magical events. It felt too much misplaced for a title such as Captain Earth. The pacing was also horrible however I felt like the story has never been cut at every episode. While the plot-threading seemed terrible, it still ended with a pretty decent closure however, even with the decent tag, Captain Earth left a wholesome of hanging queries unanswered and that what makes it justified mediocre. Should they at least have another episode to explain some questions, I think Captain Earth would've placed itself a meter higher than the bottom they're in right now.

For my last comment, Captain Earth certainly started like a title capable of reaching a 9/10 grade. But instead, it slipped and never managed to catch up the lost potential.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

You can have all the budget and production value that you want, but NOTHING makes up for incoherent and nonsensical story-telling. This well-understood fact has never been more evident in the anime industry then in this season's harrowing mecha series known as Captain Earth. Studio Bones sure as hell knows how to animate, but they are developing a reputation for writing convoluted and nonsensical plots that make no sense what so ever, and this anime is no exception. When 90% of your show consists of characters spewing exposition and you still fail to convey what the hell is going on, then your show ... is a failure. Period. End of story. Captain Earth completely failed to set up a foundation for its plot, making everything that happened afterwards a lost cause.

The show opens with our protagonist, Daichi Manatsu, discovering that he is the only one who can pilot a mecha called "Earth Engine". Why is he the only one who can pilot it? Don't know. Never explained. Anyway, he then proceeds to instantly hop into the mecha and begin fighting the evil "Kiltgang", who are seeking to destroy the Earth. Why do they want to destroy the Earth? Don't know. Never explained. How does Daichi instantly know how to pilot Earth Engine? Don't know. Never explained. So after ignoring those TOTALLY unimportant details, we see Daichi taken back to the headquarters where he is reunited with our two other major characters: Hana and Teppei. Daichi hasn't seen Teppei in a decade and he met Hana literally once, but apparently, they are already close friends! So close, that Daichi magically discovers his ability to summon a gun called the Deus ex Machi-... er, I mean the Livlaster, and proceeds to destroy an entire section of the building in order to bust his two "friends" out. Why? So they can throw a boomerang on the beach together and then return to the organization willingly! Because that makes sense! So you may be asking yourself: What is the Livlaster? Well, I don't know. Never Explained. Why can Daichi do this but nobody else can? I don't know. Never explained.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Captain Earth's storyline is all over the place, unfathomably shallow, paced sporadically, and most of all: incompetent. The writers for this show are just completely, 100% incompetent, and that is by far the biggest problem with the show. The fact that they managed to turn such a simple premise into a complete and total MESS laced with plotholes and ambiguity is so laughable that it is almost an accomplishment. You would need more than just your fingers and toes to count how many plot points are introduced that never connect to anything. The characters ramble and ramble on and on about "Orgone energy" and "Libido" and other such meaningless bullshit, but they tried so hard to give depth to the scientific aspect of the plot that they forgot to make an actual plot in the first place! And, y'know, that's kind of important!

The characters, unfortunately, provide no saving grace from the plot's onslaught of stupidity. They have nothing that even resembles development and have no depth what so ever. Daichi is an oblivious moron and the other characters either have annoying personalities or none at all. Worst of all, they have no chemistry with each other! We are very clearly supposed to get the impression that the characters are close friends, but NEVER, not even once, do we see them engaging in any form of comradery what so ever. The romance between Daichi and Hana, for example, is one of the worst I've ever seen for a variety of reasons. One: It's CREEPY. This is NOT how people in love with each other behave. It's literally Twilight levels of bad. Two: Hana has no personality what so ever. The only development she is given is nonsensical, comes completely out of nowhere for no apparent reason, and then fades just as suddenly as it began. Three: Daichi and Hana have no chemistry with each other and there is no gradual build-up. The extent of their meaningful interactions can be summed up with that creepy scene in episode 12, cause, y'know, that's totally normal.

Another thing that makes me a lot more angry then it probably should is the downright idiotic slogan that the show flashes in our face whenever it possibly can; I'm talking during the OP, when it goes to commercial, when it comes back from commercial, and during the ED. They REALLY want you to remember the following slogan for some reason:
"When I opened the door called Truth, my childhood ended. It was a summer I could never forget."
Based on this quotation, it is strongly implied that Captain Earth is some sort of coming-of-age parable. That is annoying because this anime is NOTHING of the sort. There is not a single solitary element in any of the episodes that would even slightly suggest that this is a story about becoming an adult. In fact, Daichi is arguably the most kiddish and immature character in the show even in the face of this world-scale threat he is supposed to be facing! I mean my god! Could this show's plot get any more stupid?

Captain Earth isn't totally unredeemable though; the animation, for example is absolutely stellar. The first episode blinded me with stunning, movie-quality art. Unfortunately, even went downhill. The animation seemed to get slightly worse as the show went on, but it was still great. The sound is also well-executed; I love first OP and ED, but the 2nd ones were shockingly bad in comparison. The OST isn't half bad though. Despite these things, as I've mentioned earlier, production value does not make up for awful writing and it never will. With that fact in mind, Captain Earth is an undisputed and unbridled disaster that I do not recommend watching at all to anyone.