Comet Lucifer / First Impressions

「嵐」 (Arashi)
“Storm”

Dancing vegetables. We have dancing, flying, bowling, strafing vegetables. This is getting surreal.

Let The Criticism Train Keep Rolling

Or not. I’m going to be serious (briefly)—if Comet Lucifer doesn’t get better soon, these posts are going to start getting shorter and shorter. And I don’t mean better when grading on a curve, like trying to pick out the best least bad recent Adam Sandler movie. I’m talking about legitimately good, because I could spend an entire post detailing what’s still being done badly, but I don’t like to dwell on the negative, nor do I like to repeat myself. So I’m going to point out a few especially cringeworthy moments in this section, and get to what was actually better about this episode in the following ones. And if Comet Lucifer doesn’t shape up going forward, and negative is all I’ve got … well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, and Felia inexplicably levitates something past it.

Felia keeps using TK for mundane things. The dancing vegetables were surreal. Her powers are also ill-defined, since she can apparently turn a grill into fireworks. The mood was strangely light for a typhoon being on the way. The mood was strangely light throughout, and the tension was nonexistent when Felia was captured. The typhoon served no plot purpose other than to make them fix the roof, but who cares about that? And Roman’s mech was extra pointless, since they fixed the mishap off-screen during the commercial break. The antagonists say they need time to track down the Lima’s location even after they can see her on surveillance footage, but still arrive during this episode, so they didn’t need to make excuses. Roman is comically unlikable (he’s both arrogant and chauvinistic … yahtzee!), the wine is too purple, the sages mumbo jumbo was still incomprehensible and, more importantly, boring, and Sougo’s motivation (to find a red crystal) still leaves him with less personality than, literally, a rock. They also suddenly went to school for the first time in four episodes, and they all left Felia alone, though in Do Mon’s defense, he doesn’t know that Sougo & co have gotten mixed up in something dangerous—something he only remembers to ask Sougo this episode. Also, Felia’s limiter crystal came out of nowhere, and Roman brought a cow.

To be fair, some of those, like Sougo’s motivation and the wine, are elements I might allow if the rest of the show had been good. But it isn’t, so I’m not. That’s on Comet Lucifer—you have to earn your good will, or at least, not squander that which you’re given.

The Slice-of-Life Does Work

The part of the episode I started to genuinely enjoy was during the party, and to some extent, the Amish communal roof fixing scenes before it. The characters aren’t entirely unlikable—except for Roman (asshole) and Sougo (void of personality)—and the more screen time we get for marginally interesting characters like Do Mon and Vee, the better this show would be off. Which goes to show that the slice-of-life elements can work, if they’re given time to breath.

The problem is the type of slice-of-life they were trying to use. For the purposes of my point, let’s say there are three types of slice-of-life: Pure SOL, partial SOL, and no SOL. For pure SOL, think of shows like this season’s GochiUsa. For partial SOL, think of something like Hanayamata, where there is a plot (in this case, a yosakoi sports anime), but a lot of it focuses on everyday happenings of a lot of cute girls (who do cute things). No SOL is self-explanatory.

The roof fixing, restaurant serving, and partying scenes were pure SOL scenes shoved into a story which cannot support pure SOL. Pure SOL scenes require no relevance to the plot whatsoever, because there is no plot. That means you can basically show whatever the hell you want, as long as you make it funny/calming/cute/whatever your show’s schtick is. But with partial SOL stories, of which this is a wobbly example, many of the slice-of-life scenes are going to need to in some way further, or at least remain relevant to, the plot. In Hanayamata, that meant preparing for a yosakoi performance in some manner or another, even if they took huuuuuge detours in doing so. In this episode of Comet Lucifer, most of the scenes felt like a giant waste of the audience’s time.

Looking Ahead – So I Guess The Antagonists Attacked

Truth be told, I think this episode was better than last week’s, though that’s more of a symptom of last week’s being really weird than this one being good. But when the antagonists came in and took Felia, I had no feelings about the event. There was no tension, not when we don’t know the stakes the stakes, since still don’t know why the heck they want Felia (other than maybe something from that opaque old cult mumbo jumbo, but no one should be expected to pay attention to that drivel). So, uh, good luck getting her back, Sougo. Or someone else. It doesn’t matter.

All I can say is, at least Kaon hasn’t been relegated to an unlucky childhood friend yet. That’s one of the lonely positive elements on this sinking ship we’re on.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – The slice-of-life scenes were okay, even if the plot is still drivel. The dancing vegetables, though… *shakes my head* #cometlucifer 04

Random thoughts:

  • Do Mon is running my kind of bar. Can we nix this whole Sougo story and focus on him and Vee?
  • I do like that they’re pushing how Felia is an irresponsible kid who keeps using her powers despite being told not too. At least that’s getting less aggravating, since it’s in character by this point.

My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: It depends, Momentum & mental space, The best content is in email, and My morning routine

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27 Comments

    2. I agree: I’m passing on this one, but will follow the blog. And if I see any hint of redemption from the posts, I may do a marathon catch up.. I’ll need to divert my time elsewhere for the time being..

      Howdoyoulikeyoureggs
      Reply

  2. Yep pretty. The vegetable show was fun although how does the girl know about that type of art especially as it’s mainly confined to very all cartoons and movies.
    Dumb boy finds red crystal and has it go in his hand and does not think he found it or the huge red crystal the very special girl came out of, Face palm on my part.
    No thinking on questioning their new mysterious girl further. And the government going special team for what seams like a way more simple pick up job. Oh well.
    At least Heavy Object is doing the B movie right to enjoy.

    RedRocket
    Reply

  3. and here i thought vee would be this dull nice-woman archetype character, well i was wrong; she’s actually fun in a down to earth kind of way so that was a surprise; i really dig that. I too would like to see more of do mon and vee, seeing as do mon has a thing for vee and she seems to actually return his interest in her (thank goodness or that would have been kind of frustrating if it became some sort of lame, ongoing joke). In ep 2, i said that comet lucifer wasnt as mediocre as heavy object and even defended some of it’s supposed story miffs (which i was right about most) but as of these last two eps, i can smell the essence of poo lifting from the screenplay. Take the Kaonxsogo scenes; this was the perfect time to flesh the two out yet because Sogo has the personality of outer space, it always seemed like their interactions were being cut permaturely. It’s almost as if Kaon was breaking the fourth wall and being like “hey sogo, im here to flesh you out as a character; let’s talk so that the audience learns more about you”, only for sogo to respond blandly and not let any of their conversations go nowhere.

    If i had to mention positives besides do mon and vee, i would say that i still appreciate the levity to which their are handling the romantic attraction between Kaon and Sogo. Yea, Sogo has the personality of a brick but at least they havent made it seem like there’s going to be some romance between him and felia (shudders). As for the school thing, I didnt think that was an issue because if you think about it, only two days have passed since these four eps. If these kids start school on monday, it would mean that the events of ep 1 started on a saturday afternoon, which would mean no school and no organic way to imply they go to school. Well technically they could but the show didnt have the opportunity.

    sonicsenryaku
    Reply

    1. It’s almost as if Kaon was breaking the fourth wall and being like “hey sogo, im here to flesh you out as a character; let’s talk so that the audience learns more about you”, only for sogo to respond blandly and not let any of their conversations go nowhere.

      That. Such that. Reminds me of a review I read on Terminator Genisys by a fellow SFF author. To quote from that (maybe spoilers, but I didn’t see Genisys ’cause it sounded like shit, so I read it anyway):

      So Genisys is bogged with a ton of exposition, with characters explaining stuff to each other instead of interacting with each other. They have scenes that look, to an untrained eye, like two characters interacting, but in truth what Kyle Reese is doing is telling Sarah Connor a story about how awesome John Connor is. Or Sarah is telling Kyle about how the Terminator first visited her.

      The reason it’s subtly wrong is because yes, in the first movie, Kyle tells Sarah about John Connor. But in that case, it’s not because John Connor is important – it’s because Kyle is trying to share his motivations for being here, and in this sense the revelation is a form of intimacy they’re finally sharing with each other. The backstory is merely a clever way of doing two things in one scene.

      In that scene, they were clearly saying, “We need to mention Sougo’s motivation,” so they had something happen that would trigger that. There was no real connection between Kaon and Sougo. Kaon’s questions were just vehicles for character exposition, which is as boring as world exposition. Done well, the two should be wrapped together. Here, they’re not.

      Stilts
      Reply

      1. yea and because of that my immersion was completely broken. And yes, genisys was shit, dont waste your time. It was a buttcrack left open in the sun for days as it built up-…..ok even that was getting way to vivid for me to handle

        sonicsenryaku
        Reply

  4. Agreed on all points.

    Throughout this whole episode, all that was going through my mind as I watched was, “What the hell is going on here?” and/or “Why the hell should I care about what’s happening?”

    Doesn’t help that it looks like we’re going to get more Mr. Creeper next episode…

    HalfDemonInuyasha
    Reply

  5. Agreed with you here Stilts. The SoL for me is ironically the best part of the show. Felia for example is one of the better moe constructs (in the traditional endearing, protective manner) of late and the situations that she is in help to reinforce the archetype for the audience (ex. the party, the typhoon “preparation”). If the serious plot line was dropped Comet Lucifer would function fine as a fantasy-based SoL show. Not fantastic by any stretch, but better than it is currently.

    As well described however, it’s the other side of the story where the problems lie. I really want to know what the point of all these extra story threads and characters are. We have three–three–separate threads at the moment, Sougo and the red crystal, the kidnappers, and the recurring leadership who have received even less development than the kidnappers. All are tied together by Felia, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the story has been delivered so far. Sougo’s thread for example was brought up for only a few seconds this episode as though the screen writers suddenly realized movement needs to transpire on that front before the rise into the main act. Each part of the conflict is isolated and superficial, there is no connection, no attempt at pathos, no building of suspense. The audience is left to wallow while the show struts out rigid developments at prearranged times, all but ignoring the development needed to link things together.

    As mentioned last episode, Comet Lucifer has too much meat and not enough time. By trying to include everything the show struggles at everything. IMO we are likely looking at this season’s train wreck here.

    Pancakes
    Reply

  6. One thing to add to the list of bad things:

    Roman brought a cow

    And they decided to leave it out during a typhoon!? Poor Alexanda III. I doubt she would have messed up the house any worse than rest of the cast already has.
    It’s almost as if the cow was only brought in to be a random, unused comedy element. Unless next episode starts with Sogo chasing after the Villainmobile riding Alexandra III.

    As for the roof fixing and the following party, as fine as they were to watch, there were two thoughts that kept me from enjoying them. Those were:
    – “So why didn’t you get the roof fixed before? It’s not like a typhoon that apparently happens very rarely is the only reason to have one.”
    – “So after all that typhoon panic Do Mon had, he decided to party instead of going to fix Vee’s place?”

    On a more positive note, I like what we’ve seen of Vee. And her spinning across the screen was almost hypnotic.

    Erimaki
    Reply

    1. To be fair, the typhoon was supposed to get there in 3-4 days, I think? (I don’t care enough to go check.) And the episode only covered a day and a half, so the rain was probably just the precursor to the typhoon, not the big show itself. Otherwise they wouldn’t even have tried to go to school.

      Not sure if Sougo riding Alexanda III would be the worst thing ever, or the best. Conflicted…

      Stilts
      Reply

  7. Dropped this show after this episode. I can’t give a shit about any of the characters. If they removed psychopath killer kid, creepy stalker and “too cool for you” military dude and just focused on the slice of life parts this might have turned out to be slightly more tolerable.
    The main cast never bothers asking Moura what the hell he and Felia are, I hate infodumps sure but we literally know nothing about the main cast at all. Instead every episode we get some old farts spewing pretentious shit while looking at stars.

    SnooSnoo
    Reply

    1. Which would leave an SoL about the link between geology and astronomy with a few aliens thrown in? I’m game. Can’t be worse. Actually sounds kinda fun! Felia can be the new President Aria. XD

      Aex
      Reply

  11. They’re certainly having trouble mixing the stories together properly. The SOL is good, but the conspiracy/mech/military stuff seems sprinkled in unevenly, and it’s still very vague, and results in it being less interesting and fleshed out than the SOL. Sort of reminds me of Nadia and the Secret of the Blue Water, but like that was far more intriguing.

    Bamboo Blade Cat
    Reply

  13. I kind of liked the dancing veggies but I agree this show is for sure rough around the edges. I thought it looked so great on episode 1 too. I’m going to probably hang in there though (I think)

    Rick Anime
    Reply

  15. I think, and to find a Red string of Storyline, Felia could be the “Planet Spirit” like Cocoon from FF 13. Yes a Human made Moon Satellite. Perhaps this Army guys, know that and want her Powers to gear the Moon out of danger….

    Hey, that is my deeply last conclusion, in how far this could fit into my Gist…

    You have an better idea? 🙂

    WorldwideDepp
    Reply

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