Look everybody, it’s our favorite earthquake disaster anime!

In this lovely episode, Mirai feels like shit for ditching her brother so she recklessly endangers not only her own life but Mari’s. If you don’t remember who Mari is, it’s that motorcycle courier lady they met at the souvenir stand in episode one. Mari doesn’t push Mirai out of the way of falling debris just once but twice!

Now falling debris landing exactly on you once is uncommon but not all that strange.

I heard that this series is only gonna be eleven episodes long, but that still sounds pretty lengthy to me. How much can you really stretch out the “earth smashes puny humans” angle? It’s not looking good when Mirai faces the same danger twice in a single episode because they couldn’t think of anything else.

Now I don’t doubt that a young girl and a 7 year old boy can’t push free from a big wooden shelf. Where I squint my eyes with bemusement is when the two escape none the worse for wear.

I’m not gonna play armchair psychiatrist and assess Mirai’s character or why she’s acting like a real pain in the ass. I just know she’s a pain in the ass and I’ll leave it at that. Here’s the real question we should be asking: out of all the possible choices to carry the lead for this show, why two children at the forefront? Why always a child? Am I supposed to care more because there are children in danger? Why make Mirai so petulant? I’ll grant that she may have reasons to be petulant, but why use a petulant character for the lead?

I’m not asking these questions because I don’t know the answer. I’m asking these questions so you can consider why you like such an anime. Writers and creators are all about manipulating the audience’s feelings and I just find it amusing when people get pulled in along by the show, either defending Mirai at all costs or hating her to the core. Yeah, I think she acts like a bitch, but I’m more concerned that Bones felt this was the best direction for a disaster series.

Now it may seem like I’m picking on Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, but what else would you have me write about? For a disaster anime, it’s pretty slow. Maybe to others, Mirai’s desperate search for Yuuki was gripping or something, but I never thought for a moment that Yuuki would be in any real danger.

When I saw these dead bodies, I was even more confident that Yuuki was gonna be alright. I don’t know why I thought Tokyo might have gone down the same route as other anime, which might have pulled the “Yuuki dies early” card for shock value; Bones never struck me as that kind of company (after all, Eureka Seven was sickeningly sweet).

I’ll admit it… I’m not exactly F5’ing AnimeSuki for the latest subbed episode of Tokyo to appear. The anime isn’t bad–the animation is fine (although I still don’t care for the art direction) and it’s not resorting to any lame shounen devices or moe girls–but I just don’t care. It’s just not pulling me in. Whether or not you agree with me, feel free to comment. I’d like a good discussion on what you think of Tokyo because at least we won’t be talking about Aoi Hana or Kanamemo.