Classroom ☆ Crisis – 07
How I felt watching this episode…
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::sigh:: I know that the show bills itself as School Life and Drama, but when you put some science fiction in that, I will be watching and I will be critical! It’s the little details that mean quite a lot…But all is not entirely lost this time around… |
Well, even though we start off in a location we’ve yet to see much of, actual outer space, most of the interesting, or at least, grounded if you will, bits happened on the much more familiar Earth-like Mars. So, if you cannot tell by my tone so far, much of this episode left me feeling unimpressed. Having said that, I’m glad the students of A-TEC have their eyes on the prize, and are performing in the ways they set out to once they really had to put shoulder to wheel. I feel that the writing and direction have that part very well under control and it’s perhaps the best reason to watch the show.
I like…engines…
The team has been realizing their goals, bit by piece, nook and cranny, streamlined part and process. The new engine has been rebuilt under their new lean and mean outlook, and it has great promise…but for a power source. The Stellar Wind Generator really does sound like a final piece to the puzzle, doesn’t it? At 1.5 billion yen, it doesn’t come cheap, and it’s well outside what they can procure, even when you give Yuna’s creative budgeting the props she deserves. Saito is set back by that, but not down. I wonder if he has any tricks up his sleeve? He would have used them by now, surely. But it seems that screwing management might be part and parcel to his goals. And I love how envious he was for Iris being at a test pilot conference without him, it was a nice jab at his character development.
Pictured: Being Screwed With
They just didn’t care….
Now we get to The Test Pilot and the Ninja Accountant in SPAAAAAAACE! part of the story. Well, it looks like Angelina-sensei doesn’t know when to say when, and her corporate per diem has tons of room for vino. Put those two together and you have one heck of a plot contrivance. In short, she and Iris foolishly missed their space-plane flight back home to Mars. But, one quick call to Nagisa, and we can have plot coincidence line right up; cause if you think Professor Jason Li is a one off character, think again! With those connections to Saito’s past, and the over-arching episode plot of getting him as far away from Mars as possible, he’s gonna come up on the A-TEC side as the show progresses. But still that was one hell of a coincidence. Especially given how taken Li is with A-TEC.
She kicks ass, but no special space shoes
I wish the greasy plot points just stopped there, but they don’t. For the following, I’m sure there could be a lot of fridge logic type explanations for what I will be, in a very short manner, ranting about. But my point is that the writing didn’t address it up-front. So first. Gravity. Is it on or is it off? Artificial to some degree or not? Do they wear special shoes? No, they don’t! Why do they float sometimes and not others then! Just a bit of thought would have made these sequences breathe a little easier.
She kicks ass, but why a gun pointed at obvious weak window?
Next is Guns ::facepalms:: I don’t see why any security force, much more the freaking PILOTS, would even carry them on board a space-plane, much less anyone allowing them anywhere near a space-station. “Uh, no sir, we won’t be taking .45s with us. Why? Well, they are mass murder, ourselves included, in a single bullet, sir. I think standard issue stun guns and our training with these obvious space-born limitations will work out well for this detail. Oh, we have to be mookish and both obviously and obliviously stupid? Well for that I do recommend faster than sound solid projectiles, sir. Nothing else says stupider.” ::double facepalms::
She kicks ass, but cliched vent is cliched
…and finally, the air vent. Thank you, writers! Thank you for this dull as light beer, common as mud in a pig waller’ cliche…and that’s just the start of it. Why is there an air-duct that big on an interplanetary ship that has space at a premium to begin with? It doesn’t even look like it should fit the plane, much less a person. Then, the cold air. What? You don’t have to worry about cold air up there, you have to worry about extracting heat in space, man! That’s a point I may be reading the science wrong on, however. So I’ll happily take a correction…But not on it being a cliche, cause that will stick no matter what!
It’s a well worn case of Critical Research Failure. But for all that ranting, I do like how they advanced both Angelina’s and Iris’s relationship and characters. When the chips were down, the ninja accountant really does care a great deal about people in general. She put herself at risk to keep Iris out of harms way…Big Damn Hero style. We also caught one more glimpse of Iris’s past and the exploration of her possible true identity. The Shirasaki name is going to come up again; and I hope they explore it in a more interesting way, cause Iris wearing clothes marked with the name is just a little to threadbare to be proof of anything. A connection to Nagisa’s past is fine, however. But I think a simple person caught up in the corporate warfare would be much more interesting than her being part of a family of retainers.
We also got a bit deeper, but not deep enough, into the Kirishima corporate dog eat dog world. It looks like Yuji has finally made a big mistake, one that he couldn’t bully Nagisa into taking the fall for, or cleaning up for him. So his ass is left eating crow, and that look on his face suggests he won’t take it in stride. But Big Brother Kiryuu is still watching and plotting as well. I don’t know what Jason Li’s character will be doing for the show, but a rocket specialist coming to a company moving away from rockets is a big enough herring to look after. Oh, and that mysterious rescue craft just showing up? Color us and Nagisa curious. All in all, I think they continued and built upon a great many good plot and character points this episodes, I just wish they would have put more thought in the meat of it. I would love some good science in my science fiction bits….
Next Time
It’s a school life show, so you got to have a festival!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Carrying a gun in space… you might as well pray a giant asteroid like Ceres slams into you instead.
I miss the main orbiter engines. 🙁 They were fantastic pieces of engineering. What sort of vehicle uses the fuel to cool their engines?! It was awesome. Imagine a Ferrari using petrol to cool their engine…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…orbiter engines?
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Sorry, my bad. Orbiter Main engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle#Orbiter_vehicle
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…ah, real life reference. I was scratching my head over what anime you could have been referring to…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
“What sort of vehicle uses the fuel to cool their engines?”
Nuclear rocket designs, both fission and fusion, use hydrogen to cool both the fusion reaction chamber (or fission pile) and nozzle and to pre-heat the hydrogen before it is further heated by the fission or fusion process and ejected as reaction mass.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Crisis’ writing should be in good hands. The story composition is written by Maruto Fumiaki, who wrote the White Album 2 game and LN series How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend/Saenai Heroine.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It’s not the composition I had issues with. That’s all well and good, as scenes, dialog, and advancements played very well. But the research this episode was sloppy and just aggravating. To me, there was no excuse for it…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
It was like the extent of their space research extended to watching a Sunrise mecha anime like Valvrave.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh, goodness, but you might be giving them way to much credit. But kidding aside, it might simply be a case of them deciding that it’s better to present the cases in as much a least common denominator as possible; or just completely remove the blinders from my euphemistic language, either way…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Guns in a space craft or airplane are a bad idea. At least their space craft had a metal shutter come down over the window once it was breached, no doubt intended as a safety device to protect against debris, not bullets. But encountering debris would be a one-off event, while a gun fight aboard a spacecraft could send a number of bullets flying into critical components which if not quickly fatal could leave you facing a slow and ugly death.
I’ve always thought souped-up electric cattle prods or if you have a more deadly intent a short sword similar to a Roman gladius would make for good weapons aboard a spacecraft.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…and it’s not like research was even needed to correct that idea, just common sense! But they wrote themselves into a corner…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Well, this whole thing felt like a big random occurrence. Imagine how things would’ve went if Hanako hadn’t miss the flight. What felt too convenient was that professor who was also planning to go to the company. A little too coincidental or maybe the feeling is influenced by the current mood I’m in.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh, this was How to Write with Coincidence 101, moods notwithstanding…
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Great episode, though there was quite a bit of plot contrivance for me. The action was good, though the bullets going through the ship had me rolling my eyes.
I am more interested however in the story that is unfolding involving both Iris’ past and the Kiryuu brothers. It seems big brother has finally shown up, and he’s already taking up the villain reigns from the idiot Yuji.