Plot is, in essence, a very obvious attempt at trying to cash in on the EVA train. Every episode, we're introduced to a new alien , the mechas take care of him, episode ends. Sound familiar, right? It's called the monster-of-the-week formula, and corresponds to 70% of the show. Very unoriginal, boring, slow-paced (probably because they were stretching it out tbh). But the truth is, no one talks about those episodes, because they mean (mostly) nothing to the plot, apart from the fact that all aliens' paths converge to the same point (familiar right?). Almost all the discourse around Argento Soma rests on the beggining and ending of the show, which infuriates me. MOST episodes are boring and unoriginal, and I do not recommend it to anyone who values their time.
I will be discussing the ending next, so there will be spoilers. I do encourage you to read it because this is all the show has to offer and you'll have to sit through 18 horrendous episodes to get to it. So, SPOILER ALERT.
Let's begin the spoiler section:
I'll individually dissect each part of the twist : first, the pilgrimage point (as in, the point where all aliens were trying to get to), is the house of the first austronaut to ever leave the solar system, Yuri Leonov. First of all, it boggles me that this was a mystery in the first place. Does no one in Funeral know his address before? Did no one do any basic research? I don't understand why, in 2059, simple information like this is not available. Also, why didn't they go there? The place isn't guarded by the military at all.
Second, and this is by far the coolest par of the entire show, Frank is Yuri Leonov, the same astronaut from before. Yuri Leonov, after staying adrift in space, encountered the land of the fairies, a place where beings that transcend our notion live. After encountering those fairies and becoming one of them, he returns to earth somehow (isn't explained) as Frank, the big robot that helps Funeral fight aliens. And the fairies (aliens they were fighting) are the ones trying to rescue him to return to the land of the fairies. This is super cool but is very sloppy as a lot of things weren't explained and may well be my interpretation, since it leaves so much unclear. How did he come back to earth? How did the fairies know where he lived when he was still human? If he is an astronaut, why did he behave so irrationaly at the beggining of the series? Such points are left uncleared and unanswered, probably because this twist was thought after the fact.
Third, Mr.X, the unknown man that helped our protagonist to change identities and join Funeral. Oh boy, I have never ever in the history of anime encountered such a gigantic plot hole my entire life. They were setting him up as a mysterious character that was CLEARLY intended to only exist in soma's head. He teleports and disappears, leaves cryptic messages and has a lot of religious imagery attached to him to represent a devil. That Mr. X turns out to be Leonov's friend called David Lawrence, who should've been house arrested. So, you're trying to tell me that he was never caught in any cameras, no one else saw him ever, nor checked his house to see if he was actually confined? No explaination given at all in any of this points. This exposed exactly what this show is: a quick, uninspired, pretentious, sloppy attempt of storytelling. This makes me believe that this entire "twist" planned afterwards, which is dissapointing as most of the show is a slow paced and boring generic mecha garbage. Final rating is 3/10 and it is in parts due to this, as the generic mecha garbage deserve around a 5/10 for me.
Minor Nitpicks that stack up to lower the grade:
- episode 14: Harriet escapes a military facility and they struggle an entire episode to find her, despite having cameras everywhere.
- episode 2, strange focus given to Harriet's pingent, only to never be brought up again
- animation gets pretty sloppy at times (inconsistency of faces), OST sometimes fails to meet the tone of what's on screen.
- conveniently Soma's girlfriend (Maki) looks the same as Harriet and as Leonov's wife, which is essential for the plot to work. Also Harriet and Maki sing the same song (?). Kinda cringe tbh, as most scenes of Maki usually are.
- The Aliens all look the same (to save budget lol) as also does the mechas, dissapointing considering the character designs look so unique.
- Deus-ex Machina in the form of the excalibur to kill one of the aliens, there are others but that one stood out to me the most.
- Why does Soma think Frank killed maki? He was trying to save her, even in his memory it is pretty clear that Frank didn't even get to touch her, she died because of the base collapsing, not Frank.
END OF SPOILERS
TL;DR:
This show is, at heart, a boring monster-of-the-week generic mecha anime with edgyness. The ending is dumb and pretentious people will try to tell you otherwise.
