Notes of Coppelion Episode 10-11

Why am I not surprised at this show pulling out a GIANT STEEL SPIDER out of nowhere?

• In the last episode, Ibara thought up a plan that will allow them to escape before the contamination reaches the team’s hideout.

• Summary of Coppelion Episode 10-11: Ibara, Haruto and the girls lure away the enemy while Ibuki is going into labor. Haruto developed a booby trap that will confuse the sisters, but they soon get fed up with the hide-and seek. While they are confronting the enemy, the wind picks up, shortening the time available for repairs of the downed power line. One of the sisters (not Kanon) finds where Aoi is hiding, and terminates the robot protecting her, sending Aoi into rage mode.
  The 1st Division soldiers find a radio and witness the radio exchange between Taeko and Ayame. Ibara tries to convince the soldier, Ibuki’s husband, to come with them, but this only leads to her becoming hostage of Kanon. The soldier eventually knocks out Kanon so Haruto and Ibara can escape. Meanwhile the repair team manages to fix the power lines, but still there’s no power. The 1st Division has no other choice to call in their secret weapon, a giant spider robot, thus begins a chase through the city, which ends in a showdown between the escapees and the 1st Division and the giant robot being destroyed. The repair team eventually manages to fix all problems and after a confrontation with the general of 1st Division, they finally get the train going.

• My impressions: Maybe owing it to previous episodes disappointing me, these two episodes were better then I expected, but not without flaws.

• The plan that Ibara lays out seems rather straightforward; however, when they set off the white smoke, won’t the baddies notice that something fishy is going on? Contrary to what I imagined (blasting a smoke grenade high in the air) they masquerade the white smoke as damage oozing from the tank when the enemy fires on them. I can’t really imagine how anyone will be spotting that from one kilometer away, but let’s imagine the repair team has exceptionally good eyesight despite their advanced age. On the other hand it is quite a logical choice as it doesn’t instantly give away the existence of the repair team.

• Of course there is no plan that goes without hiccups and the same holds in Coppelion: the repair team may have fixed the power lines but that doesn’t mean that the power is on. Gojirou (Ibuki’s father) takes on going to the power plant to sort out the issue because… he used to be an engineer, presumably at the power plant that blew up and caused the disaster in the Old Capital. I sort of understand why he is not proud of his past, but I would’ve thought that he had revealed his past to his companions while they were stuck in their hideout. Apparently I thought wrong and his confession comes as a surprise to all of them.

• When the bombs developed by Haruto overnight fail to incite the Ozu sisters to attack, Ibara is not afraid to use her teammate to bait the enemy. And apparently Aoi can fly when she is in peril… talk about unexpected abilities. This comes as surprise not even to the enemies, but even to her own teammates as well. What else do you have up your sleeve, Aoi?

• When Haruto talks about the catastrophes humankind has caused again and again, I kinda get the war scene, but why is the sinking of Titanic shown?

  It wasn’t even the largest maritime disaster, albeit it’s one of the most easily recognizable ones.

• The chase scene in the swan-shaped plastic boats is just hilarious.

  Just like two kids quarreling – well that’s what they are.

• The robot (named NoSense by its creators, which is a non-sense yet hilarious name) apparently has its own volition and saves Aoi multiple times.

  And so begins a forbidden love between a modified human and a robot…

  Unfortunately we don’t know what happens to it afterwards. Speaking of which, the military commander of the Coppelions didn’t have a single second of airtime. I hope he’s well and will be back soon.

• When the 1st Divison realizes they have no other options to capture the escapees, they bring out…wait for it…a giant mecha having a spider form. I was like “what?!” – why would they build something like that? It makes no sense. It doesn’t help with their plan of transporting containers of waste material to the sarcophagus of the exploded power plant, and they had no enemies in the Old Capital before the Coppelion showed up. And as the eventual fight between Ibara’s team and the mecha shows, it is rather an easy opponent to take out. It felt like the writers ran out of ideas to spice up the series, so they thought, “Why not add a giant mecha? This show has thrown too many unbelievable things at the viewers, so it’s not like they will be turned off by this development.” or something like that. I can’t think of any reason why there should be a giant spider robot other than for the sake of having a giant spider robot in this episode.

  That would’ve been too easy, now wouldn’t it.

  I don’t know why Ibara didn’t aim for the joints connecting the legs to the main body (which seems like a natural weak point), but it doesn’t even matter. The robot has a not-so-secret button at the top of its body that unlocks the big red hatch. Again, it doesn’t make sense for a weapon exposing its backdoor like this, but this is Coppelion and one should stop looking for logic and realism here. I’m not even mentioning the Ozu sisters acquiring a racecar out of thin air.

• Aoi mans up in these two episodes after the previous episodes’ shutting herself in, and takes on the giant steel spider. She whips out some kind of force field which protects her from Kanon’s attack and blocks even the missile fired at her from the robot spider. Unlike the previous episode, this time it seems she’s consciously using her newly awakened powers to save the day. Meanwhile Ibara, putting the best sharp-shooters to shame, fires a single bullet and one-handedly destroys the steel robot.

  Bullet time! This looks way better in animation, though.

  Of course there HAS to be an explosion (just like when someone fires a bullet at a car in Western movies, there’s always an explosion), and Coppelion apparently doesn’t disappoint when it comes to explosions.

• The repair team is slowly running out of time, as Ibara realizes when she and Aoi regain consciousness after the explosion. Seeing the injuries of Ibara, Haruto offers to go and help the repair team.

  It’s not like this is their last goodbye, right? Because it felt so…

  I don’t really get why they are taking their time saying goodbye from each other, when time is of the essence. Especially when Haruto reaches the repair team and declares that they only have forty minutes to escape. I kind of expected a ticking clock to appear on screen, like it did back in episode four, but fortunately it didn’t. And what’s with the “let’s split up and look for the problem [of power stoppage] separately” ? I don’t think anyone beside an electric engineer can spot the problem, and even Gojirou had said so before. Meanwhile we get a sad story of raising cost-effectiveness, deteriorating work conditions, slackening safety standards, and so on. I couldn’t help but feel the explanation given by Gojirou was so cliché. On the other hand, he had the moral backbone to remain on the scene of the disaster, which Haruto acknowledges as well.

  

  And that is one HUGE power cord.

  They fix the problem and all seems to be well until the poles supporting the overhead catenaries start to fall and the general leading the 1st Division turns up (after he mysteriously escaped the exploding giant spider robot) and shoots Haruto. Cue another flashback and sad story number two, this time from the viewpoint of said general. He goes on rambling and rambling until Kurobe shoots him in the back. It was high time if I may say. Still they are arguing about who should go where, like the forty minute time limit they were so afraid of stopped being existing. I understand the show is trying to be emotional and gather the viewers’ support for these characters as they face the insurmountable, however, the practice of ignoring what previously had been estabilished (the time limit) evokes exactly the opposite reaction from me – no sympathy, but plenty of anger at the show.

• Finally all the men arrive back at the station, ready to board the train and be on their way, but fate has another cruel twist awaiting them – the batteries of the train are depleted and need time to recharge. I have never heard of a train whose control systems run solely on batteries, but I’m willing to turn a blind eye here. And the wind is approaching fast… wait, didn’t it already hit Gennai and Kurobe just a minute ago? That’s why Gennai is coughing blood, right? Let’s pretend it was just a gust of wind that died down soon after that and they were allowed to walk off relatively unscathed.But as the train starts to roll off, the drivers realize one of the catenary poles is about to break and fall on the tracks. Haruto promptly jumps out the window and runs toward the pole, trying to hold it upright while the train passes. He almost doesn’t make it, but suddenly the general of 1st Division pops up and lends his fleeting strength, and everything is suddenly all right.

  Where on earth did you come from?!

  The last we saw him was when Kurobe shot him in the back and they left him in the rain. So how does he pop up in this crucial moment? How does he even know that one of the poles is about to break? Again, it just doesn’t make sense. It reeks so much of deus ex machina. I can hardly believe it even with the general’s explanation of his seemingly turncoat behavior.

• While I think the animation quality has been going downhill for a while now, the backgrounds are still as awe-inspiring as ever.

  I quite like the feeling of destruction and abandonment that is just oozing out of this image.

  I also liked how the rain and the gray skies underlined the mood of the second half of episode eleven, creating a desolate atmosphere.

• Despite a few things that caused my eyebrows to twitch, these two episodes were action-packed and I would say they kept me glued to my seat. I’m curious how the story will continue from here and whether we’ll see Haruto again.