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.
