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「地の果てまで」 (Chi no Hate Made)
“To the Ends of the Earth”
Episodes like this are what Sci-Fi fans live for. I mean, the gorgeous close-ups of the Theseus submersible and the upgraded Bardanos alone would satisfy quite a few people. But no, this episode doesn’t just stop there. No, they have to top it off with some great combat scenes too; chock full of even more new weaponry and tactics to go with them. And you know what makes these aspects even better? The fact that many of these weapons and tactics are theoretically possible, if not already being used by military institutions around the world. Depth charges? Torpedoes? Active sonar? Submersibles? We got em all already. Lasers? We’re working on it. Heck, we even got railguns. Really, all that’s missing now are giant mechanical sand whales roaming our deserts… (Insert subtle hint here*)
In any case, we also find out a bit more about the past relationship between Bainas and Dick (revealed to be Sam’s older brother), which just adds more icing on top of the Ozuma cake. While the revelations weren’t unexpected, they were still surprisingly good, in the sense that they were incorporated well within the episode’s development. Furthermore, you know a revelation is good when it triggers some emotional sympathy even though you know what’s coming. Maybe it’s just because Bainas’ is just a darn great character. Maybe it’s because the face off at the end of the episode emphasizes the relationship even more. Either way, I can’t help but feel for Bainas this episode. Not only does she face off against someone who looks and sounds exactly the same as someone she loved and lost, but she also gets yelled at by his brother Sam, whose similarities to Dick must remind her of him on a daily basis. Combined with having to command a ship and fight off Theseus on a daily basis, really, how can you not feel for her? And how can you not respect someone who still manages to maintain such a calm and cool exterior?
Moving on… I want to talk a little bit about Sam’s character. I’m not quite sure if it’s only me, but Sam’s childish abandonment of the Bardanos and unjustified outburst at the beginning irked me a bit. I understand being a young kid and being emotional because you failed to save the prettiest girl you’ve ever met, but gosh darn, there’s a point where one should just stop and think about how ridiculous you’re being. I mean in the end, I guess you could chalk it up to him developing as a person, and things do work out after Mimay makes him realize Bainas’ intentions, but something about it just irked me a little bit. Though… I guess the fact that we get to see the development of Mimay’s character from this exchange balances everything out and then some. I mean, she could easily have just let Sam self-destruct and go on his suicide mission, but even though she clearly likes him, and he’s clearly infatuated with Maya, she decides to go and try to support him anyway. It’s not everyday you get a character like that; someone who could have let jealousy cloud her judgment, yet had the maturity not to give in to such emotions.
Now, I’ve spent quite a bit today just talking about the characters and the Sci-Fi elements, but there’s one more element that really made an impact this episode, and that was the background music. Don’t get me wrong though. I don’t mean to say that the music’s been bad up to this point or anything of the sort (it’s been anything but). But, the music this episode definitely upped things a notch and really added extra impact to major scenes, especially the combat toward the ending. Looking at his biography, I can’t say I’ve heard any of Yamashita Kousuke‘s other works, considering that he seems to be somewhat new in the industry, but this episode definitely put him on my radar, and I look forward to seeing more of his works in the future.
Overall, Ozuma is just a pleasure to watch. It’s not necessarily an epic masterpiece, but it’s still something that’s entertaining and worth watching. If the preview’s any indication, the last two episodes’ll be quite the wild ride, and I reckon I’ll be wowed quite a few more times before all’s said and done. Still, in the end, I wonder… Will we be saying that Ozuma was a great series because it was only six episodes? Or will we wondering what heights it could have reached if given more episodes to develop? The answer to that shall be quite interesting indeed.
Preview
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One of the things i didnt quite get:
Why did they attack with empty torpedo tubes?
Isnt it more clever to actually load the tubes before the attack?
Hm, I believe the reasoning is that other armaments are also shot from the same location, so you have to manually/auto load each armament depending on the situation.
haha found the retro series to watch! if you guys like retro check out LUPIN III now they draw womans right some boobies dont watch if youre offended by boobies and nipples lol
Actually I’m not a hundred percent sure if Bainas recognises Gido as Dick. There were some subtle hints that the fighting style of Gido reminds her of Dick back in episode two (well, reminder enough to get her reaching for that old photograph only to hide it in the draw before her drinking mate the ship doctor came in), but her reaction this episode seems to say otherwise.
Well, we will know next week and they might just play the “surprise reunion” card.
That aside, I am a bit confused regarding why the stand off. Was the Theseus vessel hit so hard that it lost power and need help? Or did Gido set up the meeting in order to lure Bainas in as his accomplice in his plot to gain control of Theseus?
Yeah, I’m not quite 100% sure, but I reckon that she’d at least see some slight resemblance or something of the sort. I can swear the mask is going to come off before the series is over though, haha, so if not now, the moment’ll come. XD.
The standoff… yeah, I assumed that the Theseus vessel was damaged to the point where at least its field generators were disabled. I reckon it’s not too far fetched to assume its engines were knocked out too. The meeting itself I chalked up to just two Captains respecting each other eh. I thought Bainas’ appearance would be a precursor to a boarding of the Theseus ship though…
It would be quite the disappointment if she just saw him as another “extra-tough Theseus Captain” before.
Regarding the meeting, maybe it’s “Last exile: fam the silver wing” doing it’s toll on me, I just found fully armed and armoured military ship (probably with its own marine force on board) surrendering to pirates just because their engine’s been taken out totally absurd. I also don’t see Gido as someone giving up so easily.
That said, having his engine destroyed does prevent him to pursuit Ozuma further. That’s why I think he might be trying to give Bainas a deal so that he can continue on to the Zone (besides, if he does try to obtain the secret of Ozuma himself he would be going against the whole Theseus military himself. Getting Bainas on his side is a good idea even if he can’t remember who she is).
Yup,really liking this show so far, except for Sam, he’s proving to be more and more annoying every episode :/
Saw this coming way back in the first episode. Something about him just oozees naïveté. Having excessively naïve characters like Sam who grow as a person over the course of the story can be quite fulfilling; when done right, their failings induce sympathy and protectivity in the audience, and their triumphs make us cheer them on like beaming parents.
Having said that, most anime doesn’t tend to get this right, more often than not portraying its dynamic young characters in a manner that induces more irritation than sympathy.
How then does one portray a dynamic young character in a manner that generates a sympathetic audience? Well, there are many viable ways to do this, but one of the simplest and most straightforward techniques is presenting the motivations for their naïve actions in a sympathetic light. What I mean by this is that the author/director focuses on the sympathetic aspects of the character’s motivating emotions rather than unsympathetic ones.
We’ll use Ozuma’s Sam as an example. The motivations for his less-than-wise actions in this episode are portrayed as “he failed to save the prettiest girl he’s ever met”(Zephyr’s words)– which is extremely unsympathetic because it makes it seem like Sam is willing to throw away his life and abandon his family (The Bardonos’ crew) simply for the sake of some crush he’s just met, who he barely even knows.
But what if we did this instead? We portray Sam as a kid who’s loved by the Barnados’ crew, but ever since what happened to his brother, they’ve become overprotective and constantly baby him even though its evident that he growing up. And then he rescues Maya, who isn’t just beautiful, but is also the first person to treat him like a real man, grateful and impressed with how he saved her life. So when she falls into Theseus’ hands, he resolves to rescue her (ignoring the suicidal nature of this mission) because he can’t bear to lose the one person who treats him like an adult; what he perceives as the only person who truly understands him.
As should be evident, this second scenario presents Sam’s rash actions in a far more sympathetic light than did the first. His naïveté is mitigated by the fact that he was driven to do what he did by intense, justifiable emotions rather than the impulsiveness of simply wanting to save some pretty girl who he had a crush on.
Notice that all the elements I used to create the second scenario are already present in Ozuma’s narrative. There are signs that the Bardanos’ does indeed treat him like a kid, especially Bainas- like how in episode 3 she simply ordered him to return to the ship rather than allowing him to partake in her conversation with Maya. And Maya does indeed seem to be very impressed with the way Sam saved her life, never finding his silly antics to be a bother.
The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that more often than not, whenever the naïve actions of a dynamic young character seem more annoying than sympathetic, it reflects a deficiency in the way he/she was portrayed by the author, where focus was unwittingly placed on developing the unsympathetic aspects of his/her motivations rather than the sympathetic ones. Most of the time, it isn’t what an author does with his/her characters, it’s how they present it. Scenario 2 is a plausible interpretation of Sam’s rash actions given the context that the show has given us as a whole thus far, and it is the author’s job to present this more sympathetic interpretation of the character’s motivations to us; it is his job to make us perceive Sam’s actions through this more sympathetic perspective by means of the narrative. Had Ozuma’s writers succeeded in doing this, I have no doubt that the audience (us) would find him to be more sympathetic and significantly less annoying…as it stands, Sam is probably one of the most annoying characters that I’ve seen in awhile…
DISCLAIMER: I am merely criticizing an aspect of Ozuma that could have been done better; it has relatively little bearing on what I think of the show as a whole- it is merely a small part of the overall picture after all, although arguably significant. In fact, for all of it’s faults I do think that Ozuma is a sci-fi show that is a cut above the median (how much is still up in the air), that I am thoroughly enjoying, but (like Zephyr said), perhaps not quite an epic masterpiece…
Well, I suppose the fun thing about coming to Randomc is always that you’d encounter some very prospective fans (some might be in the writing business themselves).
That said, it is always a sad thing that professional writers become less prospective than fans. It might not be relevant with Ozuma as the guy behind this is an industry veteran (and as guys from that generation absorbed a lot from films & literature etc.), but I suspect the shortfall of the current generation of writers was the result of the success of the Japanese animation industry itself: you probably got a whole bunch of writers in Japan who watch anything but animations and read anything but light novels.
And put it a bit bluntly that’s intellectual inbreeding.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The perceptiveness of others is often the stimulus behind the comments that I write; the community here is generally very conducive to discussion. As to whether some of the commentators here are actually in the writing business, I really can’t say, but I’d assume that a number of them are, although I certainly am not…the industry that I’m in is a very practical one, and let’s just say that I write the things I do here to immerse myself in something fictional and get away from all that practicality for an hour or two, I’ll leave it at that…
As for the issue of intellectual inbreeding that you mentioned, I would imagine that it could very well be relevant to Ozuma. Leiji Matsumoto the veteran is only responsible for the original idea, after all- while the screenplay, storyboard and whatnot are handled by others. Heck, the fact that my “Scenario 2” is a plausible interpretation of Sam’s action constitutes circumstantial evidence pointing towards the possibility that something was lost in translation when the screenwriters wrote their script based on Leiji’s original concept; i.e. its possible that Leiji intended Scenario 2, but the “intellectually inbred” screenwriters failed to notice it/didn’t know how to present it…
Valid reasoning, but still doesn’t justify Sam questioning Bainas’ every move while he’s doing nothing but stand there while the crew is putting their life on the line. That’s what annoyed me. Mimay seems to be of similar age, but at least she works as the doctor’s assistant.
It’s all a game of degrees, my friend; even if you pulled Scenario 2 off perfectly, you’d still annoy people if your character did too many stupid, irrational things. Sympathy can only justify so much, after all; it isn’t unlimited. So an author needs to step back and calculate: how powerful is the emotional buffer I have given my character’s motivations; how naive can I afford to make him without having that naivete overwhelm my sympathetic emotional buffer? In the case of Sam, the failings of the writers are a triple cascade; they failed to take advantage of an obvious emotional buffer, not recognizing its importance, which then led to complete neglect of the naivete/sympathy balance component, in turn leading to the over-saturation of Sam’s character with annoying naive fail.
I just used Sam’s case as an example; an illustration, that others may have a better understanding of my point. Notice that in the end I said “…more sympathetic and significantly less annoying…” I did not say that we wouldn’t find him to be annoying- just that he’d be less annoying- because it isn’t clear that Sam definitively wouldn’t be annoying even with Scenario 2’s (relatively) more powerful sympathetic emotional buffer in place, indeed it would sometimes seems like they’ve played up his naivete to a degree at which even this might be insufficient. The only thing that is certain is that if Scenario 2’s sympathetic emotional buffer was in place, it would reduce the magnitude of Sam’s irksomeness significantly; although it is perhaps unlikely to reduce it to zero, or even to tolerable levels, as some seem to think that they’ve gone way over the top with his stupidity here- but we don’t want to preclude this possibility either since there are some very talented writers out there who can do a lot with very little…
still not as exciting as cobra, but its aight. i only wish better subs were out.
lol at the 1980’s (70s?) character designs.
Love how proportions are totally off on some of the side characters.
Anyone else notice how https://randomc.net/image/Ozuma/Ozuma%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2020.jpg shot was flipped?
That was a very exciting episode and it’s great to see Bainas kicking some ass. She’s a great character and very good to look at too 😉
You’re certainly not the only one who was irked by Sam’s childish outburst. Maybe that’s why they always say females are more intelligent?
I’m finding it pretty boring so far, kinda disappointed.
Anyone else find themselves laughing every time the Captain called after, or mentioned Dick? I know it’s immature, but come one, there are other names! Sorry, heh, as a whole I like this show, but some things bug me a little bit, like how everyone was about to pass out at 40c, even up to 45c in episode 2. Surely they also have backup power, running fans should have been possible with batteries.
Dick Tracy?
Whats strange in the name Dick?
They was in Silent Mode. Even running Fans, would great Noise. And besides, they need the Engines Power to run their Air Condition
Just think the Sand is just Water…
To me Bainas is the main character of Ozuma. The duells between the two captains are by far the most enjoyable part of this show.
We are four episodes in and Sam hasn’t really done much noteworthy so far, apart from picking up Maya in episode 1. He’s just being overly rash and a bit stupid, in true shounen male lead fashion. I doubt he really can ‘grow’ much as a character in the few remaining episode.
The Lines for Sam. They should take more care about him. He are become to get annoying and to much obsessed with Maya.
“Why you shoot Torpedoes at the Ship. Maya is there!”.. Hello? Should you they hit you instant and Destroy you?
I wonder if there’s a nod to Moby Dick the whale here.
It’s the second time when i’ve seen your site. I can see lots of hard work has gone in to it. It’s really good.