Comet Lucifer – 04

Ugh…I think I’ve had about enough of Comet Lucifer. One can’t dispute it’s plucky and full of joie de vivre, but no amount of pleasant roof repair antics or Disney-style vegetable dances are enough to make up for the abject stupidity of both the good and bad guys.

Gus is on the phone most of the episode, pack just wants to cut everything, and Alfried is a no-joke pedophile. I lump Gus in with the other two stooges because he assembled this dream team. Roman shows up to the cafe aboard a giant mecha that looks ready-made to cause more damage to it, brings a cow which is supposedly slaughtered off-camera for a barbeque that night, though we later see the cow still chained to a fence. Is anyone feeding it? At the barbeque, Roman tries to force Kaon to eat meat, causing her to run to her crush Sogo, who isn’t emotionally available.

Then the storm arrives on a day Kaon and Sogo go to school. Really? School? We haven’t seen them go to school once this whole show, and now the show wants us to believe they have to go at all costs? But by far the dumbest blunder by any character is Do Mon going out to help batten down his crush Vee’s house, leaving Felia all alone in the opened Cafe.

Sorry for all the italics this week, but does no one remember the events of the last three episodes? Or that Felia is a child who shouldn’t be left alone under any circumstances? Nope, they leave her alone, and Alfried’s surveillance leads the baddies right to her. Sogo runs away from another awkward moment with Kaon, right past the Hummer she’s in, runs in the cafe, and simply stands there with his mouth hanging open.

And don’t get me started about Telescope Guy.

Comet Lucifer – 03

After plucking their host’s last straw by knocking over his perfect pot of curry, Sogo, Kaon, Felia, and the very irritatingly-voiced Moura are kicked out of the cafe, which thankfully still shows signs of the damage Moura caused. They take Felia downtown and show her the sights, and we get a very pleasant, detailed, yet wordless montage of their fun, and likely expensive, day to keep Felia entertained.

Everything is chipper until in her excitement Felia bumps into a passerby, sending her pigeon-cat cake flying. She tries to use her telekinesis to save it, but Moura startles her, and the cake is dumped on a purple-haired cafe patron, who seemed annoyed but not unreasonably angry with the incident. Turns out he’s a master hacker-terrorist who has been watching Felia for some time, and judging from his expressions and gestures in his dark office, he’s also quite unhinged in the “creepy unhinged villain” kind of way.

In order to induce as many expressions of fear and worry on his “mademoiselle” Felia (which he watches with relish on cameras, which…ew), he throws the entire city’s traffic control system into chaos, thus turning the city into a game board and the kids game pieces he moves around by controlling the ample technology around them. Even Gus and his blonde buddy aren’t immune from the disarray.

But every time the Bad Guy tries to close in on Felia, Sogo and Kaon split up and misdirect and serve as decoys to keep him off balance, until he gets angry and steps up his game, activating a spider-type mecha to pursue Kaon and Felia on a cable car. Sogo gets as high up into the air as possible and Kaon throws Soura to him, activating Soura’s mecha transformation.

Once Soura is in play, it’s Game Over for the bad guy, as his mecha is beaten back and the cable breaks. Felia uses her “force power” to give the cable car a soft landing, while the bad guy falls victim to the cable’s recoil, which gives him a reverse mohawk.

The physics (magic hoverboards and telekinesis aside, of course) were pretty solid, right up until here; such a huge cable would surely have taken off his head, if not more. Instead he gets an old-style anime villain comeuppance, even though he surely put dozens of people in the hospital with his reckless antics…all for his personal entertainment.

Even the most gorgeous sunsets of the Fall season can’t save this episode, or this show, from the inescapable fact that it is artful, attractive, and often thrilling (and thus watchable) but utterly lacking in substance, making it my Fall guilty pleasure. It’s cotton candy; empty calories with no payoff; a bunch of elaborate fun stuff that happens, and then it’s over. Sure, Alfried joins Gus’ dream team, but we just saw Alfried fail miserably to a couple of kids, so it’s not like he’s that much of a threat. He’s just an overwrought creeper.

Comet Lucifer – 02

We return to the caverns where Sogo, Kaon, and the mystery girl who emerged from the giant Giftdium crystal basically stand around trying not to get smushed, incinerated, or riddled with bullets from two dueling mechas: the one that seems to be protecting the girl, and the one piloted by Gus Stewart (who apparently isn’t drunk anymore).

The former ends up winning out, as it has an answer for everything Gus throws at it.  Then the kids fall down another big hole, but this time we’re shown how they survive: the girl’s mecha catches them and cushions their fall. Then Roman and Otto appear literally out of nowhere and call a truce so they can all escape the crumbling caverns.

Back at the cafe above which Sogo lives, the group determines their next moves. Roman postpones the arranged wedding until further notice, and they wait for the girl to wake up. When she does, she seems to parrot everything Kaon says and beam with glee at every new word, object, or piece of tarte tatin placed in front of her.

In other words, she’s a sponge for information, and seems to be experiencing everything for the first time. She’s also a very cute little kid. While Kaon and the girl are in the shower (amazingly, Sogo doesn’t walk in on them) he finds a curious green rock on the floor. When he tries to saw into it, it reveals itself as some kind of bizarre creature that can talk.

Meanwhile, Gus Stewart wallows in his failure, but is presented with an even more sophisticated “assault bipetal armor” code-named Efreet, which he agrees to use…well, I’m a little fuzzy on his exact goals…furthering the prosperity and greatness of the entity he serves? Restoring a bit of his old lustre from back in the days of the “Great War?” The city we saw seems like a gorgeous and wonderful place to live; I’m wondering why all these military types are so keen to shake things up when they already have a nice thing going.

And in a rather harsh contrast to the cute, hyper little girl flitting about laughing and naming things, Gus breaks an old comrade out of jail: a killing machine of a kid named “Pack” who makes Gus’ plans even more nebulous. Does he need a co-pilot for Efreet? Will Pack be piloting his own beside him? If capturing Felia (the girl) is his goal, is there really a need for this homicidal maniac?

Disjointed narratives and clashing tones aside, it was fairly obvious after the mecha protecting Felia vanished without a trace, and a small green ball fell out of Roman’s car, that that green ball was the mecha in miniaturized form, and that one way or another, it was going to activate while inside the cafe, causing a huge amount of damage.

That is indeed what happens when Felia messes up her telekinetic powers and drops hot curry on Sogo. This occurance, along with a crest on Sogo’s hand, show that this mecha, which Felia calls Moura once it appears, isn’t just protecting her, but Sogo as well. Who can say when this bunch of kids will cross paths with Gus again (or other government officials/evil dudes), but I imagine they’ll be able to hold their own with Moura on their side.

Comet Lucifer – 01 (First Impressions)

Well, I know one thing: We’ve got ourselves the first real breaktaking looker of the Fall so far in Comet Lucifer. From lush cityscapes to solid mechanicals and bright, attractive character design, there’s plenty to look at, and there’s shades of both Castle in the Sky and Eureka Seven in the futuristic-fantasy setting, as well as the premise: young crystal miner Sogo finds the rock of his life, along with all the accompanying baggage that comes with it.

Sogo is so excited by his new find, he takes to speeding through the streets of Garden Indigo well above the recommended speed. As a result, he nearly hits a little girl and a dog, but does hit his friend/love interest Kaon (Takahashi Rie), who as it turns out doesn’t mind, because she needs to get away in a hurry.

A victim of family tradition, Kaon is being pursued by her betrothed, Roman Valov, a man she has no intention of marrying (and accompanied by his henchman Otto), and gets Sogo mixed up in the chase, to the near-death of both of them. Fortunately for them, gravity and hydrodynamics apparently work different in this world, so despite falling perhaps a thousand feet into a yawning chasm, both survive the landing without a scratch.

Down there in the deep, a newt startles Kaon, who gloms onto Sogo before remembering herself, and the two just sit in awkward, blushing silence. I liked this little scene, because like her suddenly employing him to aid her escape, it says a lot about their relationship without the need for words, while also serving as a resting spot between big action set pieces.

That second set piece comes when Sogo’s story and the parallel story of a government salvage team working to activate and retrieve the same rock he ended up with in the beginning come together in the caverns. Just as Kaon got Sogo mixed up in her marital crisis, so too has the crystal he found (or rather, found him) gotten Sogo and Kaon mixed up in something even bigger.

The crystal in his pocket reacts to the larger one in the caverns, and an unconscious ethereal girl in a feathery dress literally falls into his arms, to his and Kaon’s shock. This isn’t just reminiscent of when Sheeta fell into Pazu’s arms, but also the Hollywood film Stardust in which a beautiful maiden falls from the sky as a shooting star.

Just when the girl appears, however, the salvage team bears down on the kids, with strict orders to secure the “Lima” at all costs. One of the amphibious salvage mechas is about to snatch up the girl when an even bigger, tougher, more ornate mecha, apparently summoned to protect the girl, materializes and beats the salvage mecha to a pulp.

With the most immediate threat dealt with, Kaon asks Sogo “What now?” What, indeed. As indicated by the references I made, there’s a lot of stuff derived from previous works in play here, but Comet Lucifer is nevertheless a well-executed and above all attractive and fun addition to my Fall watchlist that I’ll be sticking with…for now.