Real Drive - Episode 2

Real Drive's opening episode was really very hard to 'Blog about, because to be honest there was very little in the way of clues as to where it would be going story-wise. Normally, the second episode of a series begins to clear things up but in this case, I'm not too sure that it has.

The episode begins with a rather confusing montage of flashbacks and flash-forwards from Minamo's point of view, taking us between her childhood, her arrival on the island and subsequent meeting with Haru, and the power outage where we left off last episode. As Minamo sets out to try and restore power to the island village, so Haru takes his own route to save the day by way of diving into the Metal. It is this particular section which gives us some visually beautiful animation that mixes the stylised view of cyberspace previously seen in Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex with some of the more psychedelic moments of 2001: A Space Odyssey to rather impressive effect.

Indeed, if there's one thing that stands out about Real Drive it's the production values - From the orchestral soundtrack through to the stunning look of the show, it's obvious that this is a big budget production.

That aside, there is much to be left explained before we can even begin to hope to get to grips with the plot, especially with so little truly explained about the Metal and the technology seen in the show. Of course, I'm sure all will be described in thorough and well thought-out detail as time goes on - This is a Shirow production after all. So, for now I just have to be content with the fact that Real Drive looks gorgeous, and that this second episode flew by so quickly that I must have enjoyed it more than I realised.