Chikyuugai Shounen Shoujo

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 on ... such 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.

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 studio ... completely 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.

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 it ... almost 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.

Mina is possibly the most annoying character someone could make, those reviews of her only being interested in stardom were not lying. She’s just so annoying it’s making it hard to watch, the other characters don’t really have that much depth either but at least they’re not annoying. Even when she’s close to dying multiple times she keeps making the same dumb mistakes and making everyone help her out or save her.

The art isn’t bad, I actually really like it but I know some people might not like it. I think it’s good to give it a chance, but after the first two episodes if ... you don’t really like it i’d recommend dropping it.

I was going to start this review with that Arthur C. Clarke quote about science and magic but realized how absolutely pretentious that was. If you really care you can look it up yourself.

Anyway my point in bringing it up is that the "science" on this supposed near-future Earth is such a ludicrous far cry from reality that I would have had a better time just pretending it was a fantasy show set in space. Robots sent beams of "hacking" at each other like they were freaking shounen energy attacks. The only thing worse than the bad attempt at science fiction elements was the horrible ... pseudo-philosophy. It's clear that is was trying very hard to delivery some sort of message about growing up or something but it was so muddled by it's narcissistic tone. It's a show that really loves the smell of it's own farts and tries very hard to let you know how smart it is.

I felt no attachment to any of the characters, the attempt at a gotcha reveal twist villain was worse than modern 3d Disney movies and I honestly would have felt nothing if they had all just died from that meteor. I'm giving it a very generous 6/10. Go shill for Google somewhere else

Pretty entertaining, immature some moments but mature at others, there’s some interesting moments and events that happened, the characters are interesting,
I’m not a fan of the art style though. And this anime is pretty
forgettable and just not memorable or meaningful enough.
There’s some weird and wacky stuff at the end though
that made me go “oh wow that sure is happening right now. How and why is the possible I don’t know I’m lost and just can only hope there’s a good ending for the characters I cared about because I’m not interested in skynet and their 2012 plans.”

Entertaining I suppose but I don’t know if ... I would recommend this.