Mid-Season Review – Clockwork Planet
Gears? Check. Bloodthirsty loli robot? Check.
 |
I was hoping things were going to get better after the first episode, and they actually kind of did. |
The political intrigue they attempted to establish over the first few episodes was kind of weak, despite the army trying to get rid of Kyoto (which I guess the rest of Japan would just accept…?) being a fairly interesting plot point. I was hoping that they would actually have some kind of reason for the army being irredeemable bad guys here, which was kind of explained away with some of the political intrigue of the other family wanting Marie out of the way… And then they just went right back to square one of the army (with the government along for the ride this time) being pretty corrupt and doing illegal things for the power and money and whatnot. Luckily by this point, the plot became much more interesting anyways with the questions about Marie’s justice competing with the “well she made us look bad so let’s do even worse things to improve our image” retaliation. Normally this would be a ridiculous idea, but Persona 5 made an entire game out of this concept, so they can probably make this work.
Marie actually turned out to be a interesting character so far. At first she was just your average spunky loli genius (that is an anime archetype by now, right?). They added some interest to her character by having Kyoto’s Purge being kind of her fault, and thus, her tenacity was welcome in that situation since she got done what she needed to with minimal moping. Then episode 6 happened, and she kidnapped a guy and threatened his family for information. Yeah, that came out of nowhere, but at least she seems like the kind of character who gets things done when she needs to. It also seems like it will be really interesting to watch her struggle with the political intrigue aspects, since her actions have already spiralled all the way to making the government an enemy of sorts. She’s already had to deal with team sacrifices (sort of) along the way as well, so it will be interesting to see what she does when something really happens to someone. Though unfortunately, her cool, ossan sidekick happens to have the thinnest plot armour thus far.
Clearly RyuZU is waifu material since she comes with her own wedding dress look
As for Naoto and RyuZU, it’s kind of interesting how the plot of the anime right now doesn’t exclusively revolve around them. I’m sure it will eventually with the connections to Y and whatnot, but at the moment they just seem to be pulled around by Marie’s drama. They’re interesting enough characters alone I guess, though thankfully there are other characters pulling the plot along since when left to their own devices, the main couple’s interactions have included a beach scene, and ignoring the fate of the city to try and figure out their relationship status. Romantic comedy is fine, but it seems far more interesting when the characters are all together (and more often than not, arguing). Individually, their powers are pretty interesting too, if you can even call them powers. I’m sure the novel explained why Naoto wasn’t able to fix anything before RyuZU, because he certainly has moved past whatever was holding him back now. RyuZU is pretty OP too (and the sharp tongue is amusing), even if the animation doesn’t seem to be doing the fight scenes justice. It should be interesting to see what relationship dynamics AnchoR brings to the group overall. Though from the looks of it, for now she’s just going to play the loli character who thinks the protagonist is her dad. And also she can destroy the concept of time and space, but that’s no big deal or anything.
I guess this was only co-written by the No Game No Life author (or something to that effect; MAL isn’t really specific about the details), which may explain why it’s not nearly as good as NGNL. Another factor is probably that Clockwork Planet isn’t animated by Madhouse, and the character design style seems kind of dated. Not the designs themselves (I like the designs of the Y-series, but maybe just because they remind me a lot of Rozen Maiden), but the way they’re drawn. I quite like the ED song (but a lot of that is probably Soraru and Mafumafu love) That ED animation looks like it was done in Flash (really, they would have been fine with just having all of those gears in the background being the only moving things), but at least it’s marginally more creative than the OP, which reuses a bunch of animation from the anime itself. Fortunately for Clockwork Planet, since Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai is airing now, it amazingly doesn’t have the laziest opening animation of the season (though we all know that the budget for Sin is exclusively for the PLOT anyways, even if they added a few still shots to make the OP a little better).
The series is alright. I wasn’t blown away or anything, and there are cliches aplenty, but it’s not unwatchable. My main problem with the series is just about the lack of explanations. It’s mostly just small details that kind of can be overlooked, like the lack of explanation over whether these characters were human or androids (which was indirectly addressed already), but I do have a lot of questions. Why is there a need for the whole school setting/ RyuZu’s transfer? Especially if they’re just going to ditch it right away for far more interesting things? How does this world work in the first place? How destroyed was this world, and if it was really that bad, how did they get the ocean back? Though I guess those last few ones could just be answered with a tongue-in-cheek “because Y is a genius and nobody knows”. Overall, my questions don’t really have a negative impact on my enjoyment of this anime, since this seems like one of those ones that you just turn your brain off for. However, I do hold a little hope that my questions are addressed in the novels, since anime rarely has time to cover every little detail in a LN adaptation and I might actually read the LNs someday. I imagine a lot of this comes across way better on paper.
About Karakuri
University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Another factor is probably that Clockwork Planet(‘s)character design style seems kind of dated.
Clockwork’s original designer is Shino, illustrator of the Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi LNs.
Their design has that pretty old-fashioned moe look.
I was hoping things were going to get better after the first episode, and they actually kind of did.
Proving you can’t really judge an episode by its first episode alone. Take how animes like Akashic Records have been quite fun to watch , not to mention the popularity and rise in LN sales in Japan.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
My biggest complaint! Holy cow on a cracker writers, ask for help if you find yourself in that much of a corner. I know she was getting desperate and all, but she lives on a magical clock planet! We accept that! She doesn’t have to go all thug life! She’s a gizmo girl, use that!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Color me surprised. I’d have sooner pegged Fosh to do the helming if Clockwork Planet ever got any coverage. Didn’t know you’d give a show like this a tryout, Kara.
Not a show one would give a word of mouth about but sufficient enough to burn some extra time on hand. From start until recently, I just go with the flow of whatever it does for the sake of it. It isn’t bad nor great. Indeed, no need to turn your brain on for this.
If there’s one thing I’d have to point out is how the protagonist Naoto has a skewered sense of morality and priority. Something Fosh and I were discussing in our comments from the last Mechanorn post.