So what’s up with the rest of the Friday shows?
The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten S2 Ep. 1
When I finished the first season, I remember coming away from it thinking that the relationship at the heart of the show was rather cloying. Well, the second season sure hasn’t betrayed that thought. The two kids start the sequel off by talking about their relationship. Then they wake up in the morning and talk about their relationship. They walk to school and talk about their relationship. They meet their friend, who of course has to congratulate them on their relationship. They sit in class and talk about their relationship. At lunch, they eat with their classmates and talk about their relationship. On their way home from school, they talk about their relationship. They go shopping for dinner and talk about their relationship. The next day, they still talk about their relationship. From the very first second of the episode to the very last second of the episode, they talk about their relationship. Holy shit, give it a fucking rest. You can still have lovey-dovey moments, but jeez, tone it back a little. You can enjoy each other’s company without constantly talking about yourselves.
Before the season started, I considered making one of the shows I would regularly post about. But nah, I don’t think there’s enough substance here. It’ll just go in the “Everything else” pile instead.
Snowball Earth Ep. 1
Once again, kids are our only hope against utter extinction from the hands of kaiju. Just one kid, actually — one kid and his goofy-looking robot Yukio. The latter was meant to go on a suicide mission, but on a spur of the moment, Tetsuo decides to become its pilot instead. I don’t really understand why you would give a robot the ability to think for itself if you just want it to blow up, but whatever. Just accept it. Tetsuo’s dad’s a weirdo. Our boy hero proceeds to become humanity’s savior, battling the kaiju over and over. They even take the battle into space.
One day, however, a mission goes terribly wrong when everything on the supporting battleship shuts down, leaving Tetsuo’s crew completely defenseless. Moments later, everyone but the kid is dead. Welp, that’s a kick in the balls. How can such a catastrophic failure even be allowed to happen? Proper engineering should have equipped the ship with redundancies upon redundancies. You always gotta plan for the worst possible outcome. For the entire system to fail so completely makes me think they were sabotaged. But by whom? And for what reason? The thing is, I’m just going off of a hunch. Maybe it wasn’t sabotage. Maybe humanity just fucked up and sent a faulty spaceship into battle. But I want there to be a traitor, because then I would be a little more invested. Right now, Tetsuo ain’t doing it for me. He’s basically just another shy, socially anxious anime protagonist whose robot is his only friend. Meh.
After Yukio heroically sacrifices itself for Tetsuo’s sake — as anime robots are often wont to do — our shy boy wakes up eight years later back on Earth to find the planet completely covered in ice, hence the anime’s title. The theory posits natural causes, though. I get the feeling that this Snowball Earth is somehow manmade. Anyway, I’m sure Yukio will come back somehow. In the meantime, Tetsuo needs to find survivors and figure out what happened. Maybe dad is a bad guy. And what’s up with this evil Zora-looking freak? The ending credits maybe spoil a bit too much, but that’s par for the course.
I’m not thrilled with the 3D visuals, and the first episode leaves me a bit cold (pun intended). It’s all setup. We only got to the actual premise of the show at the very end. Maybe Snowball Earth could’ve benefitted from having an hour-long first episode or a two-episode release. Either way, the kaiju design looks uninspired, and Tetsuo’s personality will likely grate on me as time goes on. It already kinda does. Having said that, this show is probably still good for the “Everything else” pile just to see what happens next.
