Concrete Revolutio 02-04

That’ll buff right out.

I feel ashamed with how long it took me to realize that Jiro’s outfit is different in the time skips. You’d think that would be the first thing someone notices but alas, I am not privy to noticing things like scarves, dress suit changes, and additional watches. Of course, then later I notice everyone has a dissimilar wardrobe, but that’s a good thing. I’d be a little worried if everyone was wearing the same outfits years later. On that note, let’s go over what’s happened so far even though current developments aren’t as hectic as the premiere was.

Fuurouta frees a bug and then jailed, attacked by a woman riding a giant bug later during a time skip. The capitol building is encompassed by a black fog. Jiro picks Kikko up before heading to the police station to take in Fuurouta. Fuurouta tells the Bureau about the Tartaros bugmen that hide in the fog and later meets and befriends a small girl named Campe. Fuurouta stalks Jiro’s home where the Professor gives Akita a virus he created after the one he found at a bugmen gravesite. Another time skip to where Jiro saves Fuurouta from an attack from the woman who ends up being Campe. Fuurouta enters the black fog to use the virus and ends up saving the same bug a second time. The bug was really Campe and the virus Fuurouta used killed off the remaining members of her species. Fuurouta joins the Superhuman Bureau.

Giant sphere of darkness? Not even fazed.

A veteran comes back to Japan after 28 years. Bombs start going off in public places. Shiba tries to investigate the bombings but is halted at every turn by countermeasures from the Bureau. Shiba finds a girl later while searching for Yatsuka Heavy Industries who the Bureau seems to be after. The girl turns out to be a robot who is looking for someone and tied to the bombings. Shiba becomes injured while trying to stop the robot from fleeing. In the future, Shiba rescues the veteran and declares that he’s now a criminal. Magotake tells Akita that the robot is part of a male-female pair that had disappeared but apparently reactivated. Shiba was taken to Jiro’s house to get repaired by Magotake. The robots were developed with the potential to be spies and/or a weapon of some kind. Emi tracks Shiba who ends up meeting the female robot again because of how similar his model is to the male robot she’s looking for. Jiro tries to stop Shiba from destroying the female robot, but Shiba shoves him into a lake. Shiba tells the robot that when she finds the male she’d likely become a bomb and in hearing this, she appears to jump into the lake and self-destruct. After a time skip, Shiba takes the veteran to the place where the female robot supposedly was destroyed, but really wasn’t; she hid herself underneath. The veteran is really the male robot she was looking for all along, and Shiba brought them together to use their power as a weapon. Jiro appears to stop Shiba and reactivates the female robot, who then combines with the male robot to create a merged robot and not a bomb like Shiba had thought. The newly formed robot plans to fight Shiba since it views his cause as unjust. Shiba fights the robot and Jiro, and we don’t know who won, but can most likely assume Jiro because reasons.

In the past, Magotake fulfills an order on an island to investigate a beast (I think). The military sends superhumans to fight a giant GaGon. After a beast attacks the city, Magotake finds Jiro collapsed on a bridge (who I’m assuming was temporarily the beast) with Emi standing over him. Jiro and Emi go to stop a beast, but Grosse Augen makes his first appearance and fights it instead. Back in present time, the Bureau gets a call about another beast, but it gets taken care of by another superhuman named Earth-chan. The Bureau manages information about superhumans in order to protect them. The number of beasts rises, but they are brought down by other superhumans. One of the superhumans is Grosse Augen, hence his reputation. Jiro goes with Fuurouta and Kikko to see check out another beast which is a little GaGon. The group is brought to Radio Wave by Ukyo, a radio station that broadcasts about beasts and are the owners of the GaGon. As Jiro ponders what to do with the GaGon, Shiba shows up investigating where the beasts are being manufactured from considering they share the same cells. Jiro decides to keep GaGon a secret out of spite for Shiba. Akita meets with some partners who do some spirit spinning thing to discuss Akita’s plan to use the beasts to put superhumans in a good light. It’s found out that the distributor that’s selling the beasts is in fact Radio Wave. Jiro rushes back to Radio Wave and encounters Ukyo along the way who tells him that they created the beasts from GaGon and gives him a key to enter the secret basement where they’re created. Matsumoto transformed GaGon into a giant beast and sets him on Jiro. Jiro, in trouble, releases his locks and destroys the building through sheer destructive force. Kikko tried to calm an out of control Jiro, but doesn’t know how to help, while Emi walks over to him and reseals the locks. Emi was undercover as Ukyo.

These other superhumans are more interesting in two seconds than some of the main cast.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to keep up with the dates. They’re way too brief for me to remember what one was by the time the next appears; let’s not even mention a weekly basis. You can generally figure out the timeline without paying too much attention to them anyway. But, I should still write them down to have a concrete (I never do this on purpose, I swear) chronological record. Hmm. The time skips seem to be getting less jarring though with each appearance and after realizing some of the details that’ll tip you off that it is indeed a different time. It seems that narrative style will be sticking around, which is a rather unorthodox method, but it works pretty well most of the time. What I’m left wondering though is where the series will head into. As we approach the finale, is the conclusion going to be Jiro inevitably leaving the Superhuman Bureau, or will we reach that point sooner and get some more clarification on the events that’ve been shown to happen in the future? Jiro’s conflicting opinions with the Bureau show up now and then, but there hasn’t been anything close to resembling a strong enough reason for him to even consider leaving, let alone committing to it. I personally would rather see the latter (because closure), but I wouldn’t be surprised if Bones decided they don’t want to devote so much time to make a second pass at the material already introduced, and the story could conclude very well without delving much deeper. There’s only a few little things left that nag me, like if Campe is the last Tartaros bugman then what is she riding, just your typical giant flying bug? Or did the reporter not tell the cops Fuurouta was a superhuman, or do they just throw them in a normal jail cell anyway. I’m assuming the former but that seems like it’d be a pretty important thing to let them know. And who is this Maria woman that changed into a bug thing and then was never acknowledged again? Why can’t Earth-chan be a main character? A good portion of content doesn’t need much of an explanation (like powers; robots do robot things, magic does what you’d expect magic to do), but these little occurrences stick out a bit, because you can’t assume what occurs with the same quality of backing evidence. It’s a very small issue though. The bug thing kind of bugs me though…oh.

I like this Emi better.

Bonus Kikko

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I almost feel like Concrete Revolutio is a mystery series that isn’t actually a mystery series. The way the episodes play out you’re only given so much information for each story to begin with before they end up resolving themselves towards the end, but they also end up funneling into future segments without much explanation. I say not quite, because it’s not so much a series of mysteries as it is the structure that lends to that nature and how many unknowns litter the entirety. I’m sure on a basic level it could be classified as such, but I consider it mainly on a weekly basis. The episodic nature is reminiscent of Space Dandy (but more conspicuous). Every episode resets itself with only the loose continuity that events happen one day, and others a certain amount of years later (usually five) or before, and are interwoven into a larger narrative. We see Shiba and Jiro start to fight for example, but it’s cut short and completely disregarded afterwards even though we know there’s so much more. Why is Jiro later an enemy to the Bureau? What happened to Shiba that turned his hair blonde…I mean, also become a villain? Is this really a supervillain showdown? Well, it’s probably not and Jiro isn’t a villain to begin with, because he’s secretly a righteous hero who has personal differences with the Bureau. I’m all for an evil Jiro though. Hopefully when all these separate threads converge, the payoff will be worth it.