Tokyo ESP – 01

With Tokyo ESP it looks like we have a rare case of me agreeing with a lot of Franklin’s assessment: this wasn’t the worst-looking show (though it did seem like they were proud of their floating Diet building), but the visuals weren’t what I’d call stand-to-attention impressive.

ESP’s more irksome flaws were in its simple good-vs.-evil milieu and overabundance of characters. It didn’t help that I’ve recently seen X-Men: Days of Future Past, which also featured bands of mutants on a rampage and city landmarks floating around. Call ’em espers, call ’em mutants; it’s much the same thing, and feels a bit stale.

As Franklin also said, the Good Guys are really just generic good guys, and even say “not all espers are bad” to a surprisingly receptive crowd. They may be good, but the espers who are bad are having a field day with the city. You’d think there’d be a lot more panic among the masses than we see here.

I also wasn’t at all pleased with the random insertion of the Little Girl+Speeding Truck™ trope, drawn out to a torturous, molasses-slow pace. For a loud enormous truck that looks like its moving at 120mph, it sure takes its time getting to that girl, who’d you’d think was deaf and blind, judging from her reaction to it.

For an episode that mostly eschewed plot and character in order to serve up some chaotic “in the thick of it” action, some odd choices were made, and there was so much going on around the city it seemed the episode itself had trouble deciding who and what to show us.

Finally, the person who’s hyped as the savior of the city, who only shows up in the final moments, is the umpteenth Special White-Haired Girl™ (well, sandy blonde). Will she mosh across the masses as they chant “Mhysa”? I think I’ll leave it to Franklin to find out.