Terra e... (TV)

Truly beautiful, as far as visuals go. I found that I couldn't look away, everything was just so pretty. If you like pretty boys wearing capes, this is for you. It's obvious that lots of work was put into conveying the aesthetics of the original manga, and it paid off fantastically, both in artwork and music scores.

If you're looking for character depth and great storytelling, give this one a skip. While the plot is very intriguing, it could have been carried out much better. Overall it feels kinda jumbled, with the back and forth between settings, and the time skips. I found myself confused a ... few times. It's 3 or 4 separate stories trying to tie themselves together, and while that has been done successfully many times before, with Terra E it feels very messy. Top it off with lots of laughably over-dramatic scenes, but hey, that's 70s space operas for you I suppose.

The most disappointing thing, to me, is the fact that Terra E holds so much potential. Instead, you get a sudden and rather unfulfilling ending. I would have loved to see it expanded upon into something truly memorable.

Overall though, the story truly is fascinating, and it was enjoyable to watch. Not too strong in characterization and storytelling, but it's definitely not bad. If you want space aesthetics, beautiful artwork, or just some eye candy in general, don't pass this one up.

I really wanted to hate Towards the Terra. Something about its dull color palette rubbed me the wrong way. I've since come to a neutral stance on it, though it took nearly all of its 24 episodes for me to judge that its heart was in the right place.

In my experience with Japanese space operas, they love to use the setting to talk about war, peace, and the general direction of mankind and Towards the Terra is no different. And like its brethren, Towards the Terra steps forward with its heart first and mind second, leading to a message that can feel overly sentimental ... and simplistic.

At the core of the show is the persecution of the telekinetic Mu by the AI-governed humans, a conflict which formed a rocky foundation for the rest of the show.
It's way too exaggerated; the humans and the evil AI that controls them are cartoonishly evil because their reasons for such harsh persecution of the Mu are ill justified and one sided. Even in the X-Men universe the mutants have some space to live even if they do suffer persecution. Though there is discrimination and persecution from humanity, it's a real debate among the humans as to what measures should be taken against the mutants. It's only in alternate realities or future realities that they have mutants being wiped out by the rest of humanity or Sentinels. Furthermore, there's at least better reasons for humanity to fear the mutants because of the various mutant villains and their sometimes monstrous appearances. On the mutant side, Charles Xavier and Magneto present two sides of the debate as to how the mutants should approach dealing with humanity. Of course, the whole thing is still flawed because it's based on the assumption that those with power will automatically be harmful to society and that the best approach is to persecute them rather than to educate them, but at least there's some level of logic there. With Towards the Terra, there are no scenes of the Mu being a threat to society and the humans kill any Mu once they reach adolescence. They don't even try to contain them. Nope, they just wipe their memories and kill them right away. They also continuously initiate attacks on the Mu mothership even though the Mu have never gone on the offensive against them. While doing so, the soldiers and generals are shown delighting in slaughtering the Mu like they were exterminating a pest rather than doing so out of fear, which just makes it look like the humans are evil just to provide a villain for the plot.

Which is fine if this show was just a space adventure about fighting an evil genocidal enemy and you can say my qualms are explained by the humans being brainwashed, but the show actually tries to make a thematic point with this conflict as the foundation. Ultimately, the show is trying to use the Mu as a representation of human feeling while the humans represent logic and control. The reasoning is that the original humans on Earth destroyed themselves and the planet because of their evil human nature and thus needed to be controlled by a supercomputer that would tightly regiment human lives to weed out anything imperfections. And the Mu, descendants of the original humans, are considered imperfections because their feelings are so strong, and feelings make people fallible. It's the old security vs freedom debate, along with the notion that humans are inherently self destructive. Would it be better to be controlled and be safe by homogenizing the population, or is it better to have more freedom, allowing for both greater happiness and greater tragedy? But like its premise, this thematic exploration doesn't work because it provides radical viewpoints that simplify the issues at hand. If there were normal teenagers that suddenly developed dangerous superpowers, it would obviously be too extreme to immediately cull them from the population, especially since the Mu are never shown having any societal problems arising from their powers on a day to day basis. Operating with pure logic while stomping out all emotion is such an extreme, oversimplified reaction to war and a blanket solution to humanity's problems. Anarchy is bad but so is total state control. The question isn't whether or not we should be governed by a super computer but how much we should rely on AI to make decisions because such a future where AI is involved in but not dictating politics is much more realistic. So when the obvious answers to these positions are given--- the Mu shouldn't be persecuted and humanity should leave room for feeling while breaking free of an authoritarian system---the thematic thrust feels insipid.

With this premise and thematic endpoint as the basis, the show is executed more or less decently. Yes, there are time skips that cause disjointed character development, primarily for Jomy. The time skips also detracts from our sympathy for the Mu, because 8 years of suffering and longing for Terra are conveyed in two sentences and we're dropped at a point when things are finally looking up for them. For as much praise as this show gets for portraying the issues of the Mu, only one or two issues is really addressed and even then, they're addressed partially, and it's the debate between settling on a new planet or continuing to search for Terra. While the time skips are definitely a major flaw, they're also all within the first 10 episodes, so it is possible to ease yourself back into the rest of the narrative after a while. The show also likes to amp up the drama for characters that it barely paid any attention to. There's this one death scene where they pull flashbacks to eek out your tears but all the flashbacks are from 2 minutes of the last episode and half of the flashback consists of the deceased serving coffee. Another one features the deceased picking tomatoes.

So yeah, it's pretty rough in many places, but it also manages to do some things pretty well, at least given the handicapped premise. Most notably, Keith was given nuanced characterization that balanced his cold hearted, logical exterior with a buried soft spot for his friends. While he mostly follows his programming, his persecution of the Mu is also driven by his anger for what he thought the Mu did to his best friend and his decision to take a Mu under his wing is informed by a prior tragedy. In addition, initially, we get a little bit of resonance with his loneliness and existential crisis because of his background. The other lead, Jomy, had his growth cut off by a timeskip but he does grow into a better leader later on in the show. He's actually surprisingly likable as far as space opera/mecha leads are concerned because he's sympathetic and gentle without being preachy, and struggling with leadership without being too angsty. Everyone else's development is mostly rushed or plot-driven, but they're serviceable in their roles, with some being more annoying than others (Shiroe is a jerk and Matsuka is a wimp). No one's personality shines and you'll probably remember them for their angst.

To its credit, the plot can get pretty compelling, especially in the latter half, and the characters are inoffensive for the most part, so I can see a lot of people enjoying this show and getting an "epic" feeling about it. However, I felt that the story and characters were built upon a weak foundation of cartoonish conflicts and themes, undermining most of the merit in those categories. It's impossible for me to feel bad for the Mu because their persecution feels so arbitrary and it's impossible for me to admire the character development when it mostly go towards forming trite attitudes toward war and peace (Oh, maybe I was wrong about the Mu and humanity shouldn't be controlled by a questionable AI/ Oh, people die in war and this makes me want revenge but this turns me into the monster that I'm fighting... etc). My preferences aside, almost everyone can agree that the ending is rushed and sappy.

Now for the technical aspects, which were pretty decent but nondescript:

Music

The emotional pieces do their job well, evoking emotion even if the tragedy revolves around a character I barely knew. I thought some of the piano pieces were somewhat distinctive and I might listen to them on their own. The openings are forgettable. The endings are enticing at first but when the vocals come in they sink into mediocrity.

Visuals

The series is very well rendered and sports character designs that easily lend to emotional expression while remaining restrained. Though I didn't pay that much attention the animation and the battles, I think they were decently animated and had a good amount of tension. My issue with the show that kept me from watching it for so long was that the colors are too dull, but at the same time this fits its somber tone.

English Dub
It's mostly fine. I don't know if this is a problem in the sub but at times the voice actors couldn't pull off the dramatic scenes without sounding cheesy, and in particular Matsuka sounded laughable while they were trying to pull off a wimpy voice.

If I completely missed the nuance in Towards the Terra and its ideas actually make sense, then yeah this is a very good show. If I did, please let me hear about it. But otherwise, no matter how well it went it executed itself, its weak foundation ensures that it would always be skewed. Towards the Terra has many tragedies, but none of them are worth a tear from me.

The sombre storytelling and lack of modern anime tropes kept me invested for the first half of Toward the Terra. The lack of bouncing boobs, sex jokes, and flashy action scenes kept it grounded and more believable. But as it went on, the mysteries started falling into typical cliche, and things got more and more less grounded and increasingly farfetched, especially with the abuse of bad plot devices. The characters are all one-dimensional and act more accordingly to the plot than anything else. And the simplistic dialogue and repetitive philosophical questions, frequently lacking any depth or nuance, feels dated. It's like watching an old 1950's ... black and white TV series, how stiff the characters act, how much it looks like robotic pantomime, and how surface level and crude their conversations are, even for weighty subjects. In other words, it feels old, and not in a good way. This oldness translates into the plot, which was probably novel and fresh some 40 years ago in the manga, but just comes off cheesy, sappy, overdone, and poorly supported in 2020.

The main protagonist, Jomy, is a mutant with supernatural psychic powers, trying to coexist with the lesser evolved but dominant humans. He escapes persecution by going into space and joins up with other mutants, collectively known as the Mu. They travel the galaxy in search of a place to belong, frequently coming into conflict with humans, and eventually yearn to return to Terra, the birthplace of humanity and the Mu.

But this journey is littered with inconsistencies and bad plot devices, especially in the latter half of the show. The Mu frequently use their powers on a plot-driven basis. If their ship is attacked, they slow-walk to safety instead of levitating. If a beam comes crashing down from above, they forget they have telekinetic powers. They can form shields to protect against projectiles, but only when it's convenient for the story. There's even one scene where a group of Mu lock themselves in a fortified bunker, the ground collapsing around them as another Mu outside pleads with them to come out. They all subsequently die inside as the place collapses. You know what would have been a great power to have at this moment? The power to instantly teleport out, even as far as outer space. After this incident, the other Mu miraculously gain this power, without mentioning a single word, simply for plot reasons.

Jomy eximplifies the misuse of this plot device. He is considered the most powerful Mu to ever be born, but mostly acts weak and unremarkable unless necessary for the plot. They lavish him with praise, how fast he flies, how strong his psion blasts are, how much his thought waves hit like a truck. But during any serious encounter, he's either using a massless thought projection instead of teleporting there, or using a squirt gun instead of a fire hose. Mu children also gain the ability to grow up really quickly, in a blink of an eye in fact.

Not to be outdone, the humans also gain the amazing ability to advance their technology in a blink of an eye, for the convenience of the plot of course. It use to require a whole bunch of mental torture or empirical evidence to rout out a Mu. But in the final few episodes, they deviously bring out quick and easy body scanners that can detect Mu DNA factors, as easy as walking through a metal detector at an airport. In conjunction to this, soldiers are suddenly equipped with psion-negating battle suits that turn the Mu into powerless ragdolls, when the opposite was true only an episode earlier. And we can't forget the red fighter jets, which also go from mere cannon fodder against supersaiyan space-flying Mu to instant death machines.

Things blow up for the sake of the plot. People change personalities for the sake of the plot. Technology and human evolution fly fowards at the whim of the plot. And that plot is ultimately trite and unrewarding, with peace and prosperity on both sides that feels forced instead of earned.

As a space saga fan, I had good hopes for this anime (It was recomended from the Heroic age entry).

The story had potential but as with much else of this anime it is poorly executed and to be fair it would need atleast +70 episodes to cover all the aspects that I look for when reading a story. The story is too hastly executed and dosn't give justice to the potential and vision that the authors have had. A 7 for story 3 for execution.

The art is really good, although I personally dislike this style of drawing.
A 7 for art

Some music pices are irritating sometimes ... but unnoticable. Voice acting was ok.

Now I come to the part I really disliked so bear with me.
Character relations are among the worst I've seen in an anime, I guess it's because the episode limit the authors had, they characters arn't allowed to grow and their relations pop up from non existance. The one character that gave some room and grov were Swena Dalton. The characters dosn't have any space for development, they were limited to followers and leaders an atribute that isn't necessarily bad but in this magnitude it was annoying. Small-Kawai-Oni chan-girls/boys also recives a death sentece from me. And ghasping characters is something I can't stand.
2 for characters and their interaction.

I enjoyed watching this anime sometimes, great potential but the characters and how they are potraied really sank this anime down for me.
+3 for enjoyment

Overall a 4. It could be better, much better if they weren't confined to 24 episodes and better character development. A good story with good art and sound.