天下制覇

  

At least there wasn’t sexual tension with the giraffe too.

Impressions:

I rarely find it’s a good thing when the premise blurb and promos cover more plot ground than the first episode. There’s a slow boil, and then there’s holding a bic under a soup pot. Unless you’re going to do something wacky that is in some way its own hook, like killing the entire supposed cast, I expect you to at least establish the main character and give a vague idea of which way the story is going to head, neither of which they really did here, which is kind of weird since there’s a very good argument for ‘something happens’ in this episode what with the kidnapping and chase through the city, and the main character being involved in it. The problem is that the chase itself is dull, and it loves to exposit itself absolutely silly like the main character has amnesia and needs to be reminded of current affairs every day. 

Speaking of which, the lead is about 15 out of 10 on the Blithe Scale. He spends the whole thing with a stoned grin on his face, happily providing random trivia about giraffes, the city, etc. There’s a very good argument to be made that he’s high as the moon. His reaction to being threatened with a sword and told that he’s less than a dog and should be murdered is to giggle about how silly that is. But we’re clearly supposed to feel for Ars-L4N, robotic wikipedia interface, and not because he has his world view cut out from under him, like, say, Ange. It probably also doesn’t help that his ‘spoiled kid who thinks slaves are okay’ is juxtaposed against ‘child soldier whose cultural dogma is the extinction of all other races,‘ and Ars-L4N smiles as he’s told about the eventual mass murder of his people. I’m sure they’re going for two different, both obviously bad-off civilizations, but slaves vs murdered for not being the master race aren’t exactly different but equal shades of grey. He also protects the little genocider and then gets sad about slaves being killed, trying to have their cake and eat it too. He’s already halfway to Jesus, feeling love for all mankind, and all he did was be dragged around and get a religious lesson from a zealot.

 

Next Episode:

Close ups of eyes.