Active Raid – 02
Calm down, kid. Anime eyes ain’t THAT big.
 |
Yo! I figured I’d go with some more light-on-plot, action series to blog. My school/research workload doubled from the last anime season so I felt like I needed some more “light” shows to keep me from burning out. Active Raid is pretty much exactly what I need – lots of flashiness and therefore not direly in need of me writing in-depth analytical posts. |
Active Raid seems to be allergic to creating a story that flows. Instead of following up on last week and explaining more about those hectic events, we’re just flung into a brand new scenario. It’s hard for me to get a grasp on anything when we’re whizzing along at lightspeed with no breaks. Episode 2 didn’t do much to change my “it’s kinda good” opinion on the show because it didn’t really do much different from episode 1. It also opened up with a girl getting dressed, which is not exactly what I want this show to prioritize.
Hmm, I don’t recall the guys having this detailed close-up…
Messiness aside, I’m still a big fan of the cynical approach to police enforcement. Kagari goes into the fray all buoyant with pride from her unique sense of justice and discipline (especially when compared to the other members of her team). She’s so pumped to show everyone her skills! However, she ends up not apprehending the criminal properly because of…pop-up ads. An overbearing tutorial throws widgets at her until it covers her entire screen, in what is described as an attempt to market these extremely dangerous suits to regular joe consumers. Who even needs these kinds of suits marketed towards them!? Anyways, that scene was a highlight for me in the series of face-palmingly stupid ways Unit 8 gets restricted during fights. I love it.
Unit 8 has be flexible due to these unforseen circumstances that can occur at any time. Most of the members are pretty relaxed, and tend to take things as they come, which is probably a result of being in this kind of job for x amount of time. So I don’t think Kagari is really tackling this from the right angle. She’s so rigid that she not only refuses to follow the structure of Unit 8’s orders, but almost everything she does is directly from a handbook or a preprogrammed software. It’s stifling. However, she has a bit of a funny tick to her that makes her strictness end up being her downfall instead of what keeps her in line. Her rigidity is really just a flimsy cover for her SEETHING RAGE.
Kagari is a vicious creature who will blow a blood vessel just from seeing co-workers arrive late, so it’s no wonder she gets so pissed off she roundhouse kicks someone so hard it demolishes an entire building. She is so desperate to follow everything by the books that when things don’t go her way, she goes berserk. It’s like when you slightly move the pen on a neat freak’s desk too many times – at some point they just go crazy and throw everything off their desk before stabbing you in the eye with said pen. Probably.
After all that chaos, Kagari gets a light scolding by Rin. She tells Kagari something interesting “don’t bring your personal sense of justice to the workplace.” She just wants Kagari to do as the laws say and not really worry about anything else. I’m…not sure that’s the best of advice because then we’re basically on the road to Psycho-Pass here. Anyways, I think what she meant to tell Kagari is that she needs to fucking chill and not impose her strict regime on every little thing. If she were to be more lax like the rest of Unit 8, she wouldn’t have panicked and destroyed another building. Ideally, you need a balance of Kagari and Unit 8 in one convenient package. Afterall, Kagari’s approach isn’t totally wasteful. She has a lot of skills and she was the one to insist on another method that would save Hinata.
Speaking of Hinata, I don’t think that side story about the sisters really did anything for me. First of all, I had so much trouble telling them apart for the longest time that I thought they were actually working at the same job and just taking turns visiting people to cover more ground. Then we see Hinata in danger and I found myself not caring at all. I mean…even Rin didn’t seem to care too much based on how quickly she was like “Well, guess we have to blow everything up!”. I just didn’t feel a connection between them. All we saw was Hinata giving french toast to Rin on the couch, which doesn’t give me a good picture of their relationship. I think this story should have happened a little further along the road, after some relationships had already been established.
AHOGE MERGING COMPLETE
On the plus side, Active Raid is fun. It has a weird dude find a firefighter suit, get high, and then start attacking students with a chainsaw…because I guess firemen have chainsaws???? Clearly we will get back to why these suits are being distributed to people in order to incite criminal activities (I’m looking at you, weird dude who spouts monologues while a tiny child looks bored in the background!). There’s a deeper reason here, but I feel like it will take a while for any of that to come into the light. Until then, it’s a bad guy of the week thing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re here for fun fights and silly wrenches being thrown into the mix. One week it’s rubberneckers, the next it’s pop-up ads…what will it be next?
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I think what Rin was trying to say is, “Don’t overstep the laws by enforcing your own brand of justice.” And it is good advice. Kagari seems to be the by-the-book type, but it’s clear she also has her own strong sense of how things should be. In trying to make things be the way she thinks they should be she’s in danger of overstepping the bounds that police must follow while enforcing the law.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Maybe it’s the subs, but the way she phrased it was odd. You need to use your own discretion when deciding, say, whether to kill or bargain with a criminal who has hostages. Not everything is laid out in the job description.
But in general, Kagari needs to calm down and not get too gungho in her own ideas for how Unit 8 should run. And how much power she needs to put in a giant kick…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That one was all on her for the arrogance of assuming a machine’s power without testing it out. Those start pop-ups she neglected were added fuel to the fire.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I also thought the choice of subs may have been responsible for Rin’s odd phrasing. Perhaps her intent is more clear in the original Japanese. I know Japanese is often an indirect language and meaning is implied, but whatever she said may have been more clear in intent to Japanese audiences and whoever did the subtitles chose the nearest English equivalent to her actual words but missed their implication.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Instead of following up on last week and explaining more about those hectic events, we’re just flung into a brand new scenario.
I think Raid’s emulating the plot structure of the cheesy sentai police series popular in the 80s. I hear they only had the barest of continuity too.
The important bit is whether Season 1 will try resolve the mystery of the weird boy mastermind and the little girl, or if the plot will keep this running for Season 2 as well.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Yeah, I wasn’t really expecting that approach. If they’re going for cheesy, I actually want them to be MORE cheesy!
If they’re going for more form than substance, they may not tackle the issue of the mastermind dude. But since I kind of doubt this is getting another season, I think they’ll cram it in now and just introduce another villain later if they get a second season. We’ll see!
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Active Raid’s a split 2-cour series, so there’ll be a Part 2 airing this Summer 2016.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Ahhhh ok, I didn’t know that
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
LOL. Though it seems you’d favor writing in-depth analytical posts regardless if the opportunity ever came up. Depending if the show is to your liking. I do wonder if the “light” feel so far will be kept towards the very end since Active Raid is a confirmed split cour. It might be like Asterisk and do just that or not and be more constructed.
I like how Kagari was called out on her excessive idealism. She’s not a one woman army, there are others beside her and ways of doing things. Karma is a bitchy prospect to deal with, too. Last time she scolded the guys for the reckless destruction in the attempt of catching the two criminals and here, she unconsciously did the same.
Maybe on the road but not there yet. So there’s still some leeway. At least not everything about this world appears to be under a microscope.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Haha, usually I can’t help myself even if it’s a silly show. So far it seems to be pretty fun and easy to blog.
Kagari will learn to trust her comrades eventually. Hopefully soon, because trying to do it all alone is not working out.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
I’m still not sure about this series. I am interested in this guy in the shadows from Logos, but I’m still not sold. I guess it was because we were watching the girls, most of whom I don’t really care for. But I’m going to try it out again and see if it can get me next time.