Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet (Suisei no Gargantia) First Impressions--Toto, I Don't Think We're In Deep Space Anymore

Well, here's a big ball of potential.

 
I don't have much to say about Gargantia beyond that, even though this was an extremely compelling and beautiful first episode. It sets up a lot of possible threads to explore in its characters and its world, and while it's not completely clear what direction this show wants to go in tone-wise, all those little tidbits of information completely sold me on this show.

 
So far, we've got a kid who does nothing but fight against Reapers (I'm mentally substituting in Mass Effect terminology until I'm proven otherwise) to protect what allegedly remains of humanity, until he ends up being thrown into a wormhole after a failed mission to win the war against the aliens. Six months later is fished up by a group of people living on a ship. The end of the episode has robot butler A.I. that lives in his giant robot suit (I told you this world was cool) saying that they are on Earth, but at the moment I'm more willing to believe that he's landed on an Earth-like planet, since we don't really know if he's even in the same time period from where he came from. We've already got a ton of fun implications for the plot to explore--where is the main character (really), is it possible for him to get back, where did humanity split off (they speak different languages), and so on.

 
But probably my favorite part about the episode was how so much was said about the characters while presenting very little. For example, early on in the episode we hear how long the main character has been in combat, which, if his looks are anything to go by, is most of his life. We see a propaganda video. We see the main character's "what the hell" face when he sees the ocean for the first time. This says so much yet none of it was deliberately pointed out. That's how you do character development. That's how you sell people on a world.


The current question on everyone's minds regarding this series is "how is Urobuchi going to grimdark this premise," but for now I'm going to ignore the tendancies of the writer and take Gargantia for what it is. I sincerely hope that this attention to detail in worldbuilding and characters doesn't suddenly drop off (I've been burned in a similar way before), but as of right now, this is probably one of the best premires of the season.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.