Gargantia!
So, last week I learned for the first time that Urobuchi is in fact only scripting the first and last episodes of this show… and suddenly everything made sense. The weird storytelling ticks, the massive shifts in tone, the unwelcome sudden homophobia… it’s all different writers. Of course.
With that in mind, I’m gonna try to keep my expectations in check going forward, and just try to enjoy this show for whatever it happens to be week-to-week. It’s created a beautiful world, and I like the tone and characters, and if itfeels like discussing its societal themes some more, I’d certainly love to hear it – but I’m also fine with it being a warmhearted adventure story, since it’s also quite good at that.
Just… no more transvestite molesters, okay? Please?
Episode 6
0:46 – Butt
More importantly, I really like how the immediate implication here (“I only worked one day, and can buy over a hundred meals? I must have been overpaid…”) is both a great articulation of Ledo’s narrow value system, as well as a fantastic indication that to the Gargantians, basic necessities such as food are pretty much a given, and not something you have to expend all your effort in earning – the amount of work you do should not earn you the right to live, it should earn you the right to decide what actual pursuit you funnel your effort into
2:09 – “Objection repeated: Inefficient.” Chamber can’t comprehend the desire to be useful and gain pride as a valued member of this community.
See, I love this stuff. It’s only because I’m so fascinated in this show’s articulation of a utopian society that I get antsy when it does something else – there just aren’t other shows I can go to that have ideas as smart as this one
4:52 – “We don’t got that. Use your own eyes to make decisions.” I wonder if we’re gonna reach a point where Ledo just turns off that Chamber analysis screen
8:57 – “Want to go home?” “But I have no map” Sadly life is a little more complicated than that, Ledo
9:52 – Butt
13:11 – Huh. That scene was… very interesting. It set a very strange mood between the chanting, the dancing, and Pinion/Bellows bartering for Ledo’s support. It built in a sort of hazy, ominous way towards that reveal of the octopus, and Ledo’s increasing distraction, as well as Pinion and Bellows getting increasingly personal in their bargaining, worked really well. It actually makes perfect sense to me that it would take something as blatant as that for a person like Ledo to realize, “hey, Amy’s a woman.” The sex stuff, I dunno – I mean, it was their dance, it’s intended even from an in-universe perspective to be voyeuristic, but it was also just so obviously sexualized that it came across as not necessarily true to the characters. I think it could have been handled differently… but then again, this scene seemed very intended to put the viewer strictly in Ledo’s very claustrophobic headspace, and the dance was a key element of that
But yeah, interesting scene overall
15:20 – Neat little arc in this episode – Ledo going from eating strict seaweed since it’s most efficient, to simultaneously realizing the enjoyment he can get out of more elaborate food and watching Amy dance, to fully understanding how Chamber failed and resolving the issue. Now we just need a scene applying that growth to the Amy side…
15:32 – Bingo
19:10 – Wow. Gargantia, you have some beautiful moments
And Done
Damn squid!
I really, really liked that episode. In fact, I think it pretty much struck the absolute perfect balance for this show – some nice dashes of their philosophy illustrated through the natural turns of the story, some more exploration of their world, and some beautiful moments between the characters. I think overall I actually really liked that central bar scene, mainly because it was both interesting structurally and definitely intended to really trap the viewer with Ledo’s point of view emotionally in a way the show hasn’t really done before. And then later on… well, I’m obviously a sucker for the romance stuff, but that night scene was almost certainly my favorite one yet