Well, I'm actually getting a little bit ahead of myself here, as the first half of Rideback's sixth episode gives us nothing in the way of action - We get to see that Fuego hasn't been dismantled as claimed, here about GGP's plans to arm the police with advanced Ridebacks in the fight against troublemakers and terrorism, and see Rin tending to her mother's grave - No sign of her brother Kenji though, but boys will be boys... Meanwhile, the journalists who have been sniffing around in the wrong direction looking for the "mysterious Rideback girl" who appeared during the terrorist attack seem to have finally found someone to look at the photo from the incident that isn't completely colour blind, noticed the girl in question has dark hair, and finally narrowed it down to Rin.
Rin herself has more important things to worry about though, as by chance she spots Kenji out and about with a gang of troublemakers with some seriously nice Rideback hardware to do their dastardly deeds with. Before they know it however, they're dragged into an experiment, testing the white Ridebacks used by the police with violent and devastating consequences. Before we know it, and as per that terrorist attack and Rin's subsequent rescue of Shouko, her adrenaline has run away with her and she's beating seven bells out of the white Ridebacks in an attempt to save her brother. Surely she can't escape this time though, especially now she's been spotted as clear as day by the authorities?
If ever an episode of Rideback proved that this series is better sticking to "the cool stuff" and leaving the emotion and much of the politics at the door it's this one. After looking like it was going to be a pretty slow and dull episode all in all, it only took a few fancy moves with a Rideback for Rin to put a big grin on my face once again. Yes, the way she's dragged into all these incidents is pretty clichéd, but it's hard to get too upset about it when Rin is looking pretty and using robot bikes to roundhouse kick other robot bikes. Despite ripping off Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex's Tachikoma, the white Rideback designs continue the trend of good-looking machines in this series, and as long as you don't take the plot as a whole too seriously then this continues to be a fun series to watch as long as it keeps its focus on the action and Rin being awesome. Whenever it manages to do that, I love every second of, and even beyond that I'm still a little curious as to where the show is heading next.
The White Rideback reminds me of Patlabor. It’s probably the ‘Police’ marking I think.
ReplyDeleteDid she really did a roundhouse kick?? I watched that portion a few times over and still could not tell what she did other than to seemingly put out the robot arm.
The biggest criticism I have of this show is how illogical Rin’s actions seem to be at times. I may understand her anxiety at saving her brother but her decision to mount a Rideback she is not familiar with and confront the White Rideback Unit is still quite bewildering to say the least. Maybe it was done just to create some cool Rideback moments.
So I agree with your assessment that perhaps we should not try to take it too seriously. But still I really wish that an intelligent girl like Rin (she is an undergrad after all) knows better than to do half the things she did.
I can understand the runaway Fuego in ep 1 and the saving of Shouko in ep 4. But this one is probably a bit too ridiculous.
Well, I guess trying to save her brother isn't *completely* illogical, but I know what you mean. I can't help but get the feeling that even Rin doesn't know why she does this stuff, but I suppose we should just be grateful that she didn't stick with ballet as that would have been far less cool. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if it was quite a roundhouse kick either, but I thought she used the Rideback's "leg" to take down the police Rideback (which does have a bit of a Patlabor-esque feel to it, good call!).