(Where Wraithstrike Watches) The Toku Thread

[Wraithstrike]

Jetman Episodes 13 and 14: Maze of Love and Love's Deadly Bazooka


Yeah! What an awesome arc! Good to see Red Hawk's dune buggy is useful for something.

 

[cypsiman2]

It was very good, and it is nice to see Gai drop the "tough guy" act, but given that his way of trying to win Kaori over was to force himself onto her, I'm still kind of glad he got his ass kicked.

 

[Wraithstrike]

And the scene at the end was Gai doing self-flagellation. He dropped his helmet near the others and crashed his bike intentionally.

 

[cypsiman2]

Oh yeah, Gai was just being so ridiculously over dramatic about the whole thing, I can't help shaking my head sadly at him.

 

[Wraithstrike]

Episode 15: High School Warrior


Ok, primarily, this is an Ako episode, and it's well done.

However, if this were an rpg, the other players would probably ask Raita's player "When are Sport:Mudracing and Perform: Female Impersonation going to come into play?" and he'd respond: "Trust me. This GM uses everything on your sheet." and he gets proven right.
The same player comes back two years later as Kameo in the Dairanger campaign.

 

[cypsiman2]

Though that was of course after the Kameo's original player couldn't show up anymore.

 

[Wraithstrike]

Jetman Episode 16 and 17: Paper Revolution and Return of the Empress


Thoughts on Both Episodes:
16: I thought the concept for Tran's plan was stupid, but it led to some amazing storytelling. The artist who lost his daughter in a freak accident gets to hold her hand one more time. The love he had for her brings her back to life, so she can save his life. This was a poignant episode, and my only regret in seeing it is that I devoted so little space in the review to it. But it really was very simply put.

17: New villain, who can easily curbstomp heroes and villains alike. Absolutely terrifying method of causing suffering to empower her Semimaru. Radiguet laying aside his own pettiness for a moment to try, and fail to prevent this crisis from falling. Radiguet becoming human. These are all good story elements.
The bad story element here is the stopped elevator bit.
Kaori has told Gai multiple times that she's not interested in him. And yet he keeps pushing the issue. In a modern mall, if people see a man dragging a woman by the wrist into the elevator, they call security.

Meanwhile, in the other elevator, Raita confessing he's got a crush on Kaori as well.
This is not a love triangle. This shape is decidedly non-euclidean, and every time it comes up, it just mires down the real story.

 

[cypsiman2]

Oh god, the elevator scene...that scene is why I can't like Gai. You see the look in Kaori's eyes as Gai is invading her personal space, trapped, alone, no idea if anyone will get there in time. She is terrified. This is the sort of thing that could cause Kaori to freeze up in the middle of battle at a crucial moment. What Gai does is absolutely unforgivable to me, there is no excuse or justification for him to do something like that and the fact that he takes the bullet for her later on is not redemptive, it is karmic.

And it really is such a shame that this ugly, ugly scene is in the episode, since everything else about 17 is really good. Also, 16 was good too.

 

[Wraithstrike]

Now, I'm not normally an advocate for personality alteration...
But at the end of Dangerous Game, the Jetmen joked about how Ako probably shouldn't have been returned to normal...When Gai's boyscout personality was probably the most interesting thing about him. I wish they had found a way to keep him like that.

Seriously. How many more times are we going to see this? How many more times does Kaori have to outright reject, slap and kick Gai before he gets the idea? She slapped a man and kicked him in the nuts for considering himself above others. And aside from that, her groom-to-be was just a man.

Gai is not a good guy, unless the script calls for it. It adds drama, yes, but they're dancing on the line between "frowned upon" and "criminal," with all the many ways Gai tries to force himself on Kaori. It was meh in the episode where Grey chased them, and after that it got old and increasingly disturbing. That is not cool, Jetman.

 

[cypsiman2]

The most bizarre thing about how awful Gai gets is that while everyone else largely resembles their Gatchaman counterparts, Gai is nothing at all like Joe aside from filling the same "second-in-command who contrasts with the leader" slot. It's just something that really puzzles me and I'm not sure what to make of it.