Spaced out
(This review contains
spoilers!)
Normally when I’m reviewing the first
episode of an anime, I start off by detailing my history with similar shows,
past productions of the studio, maybe a quick overview of the anime itself, but
for this one I’ve got nothing. I sincerely have no idea what to say about elDLIVE. I can say that it’s a 23 minute
long piece of animation originating from Japan, but that’s really it.
Within the first episode, all elDLIVE
manages to do is discourage the viewer from continuing from watching the show.
It’s not offensively terrible like Drifters
or Flip Flappers were, but it
certainly isn’t good either. It’s just a flat, boring piece of nothingness.
The story is the most bog-standard
anime sci-fi storyline you can imagine. Our lead is a boy named Chuta, who goes
to a high school where apparently the uniform consists of red checkered pants
for everybody. It hilariously looks like everyone is walking around in their
pajamas. Chuta’s quirk that’s supposed to make him unique is that he has a
voice in his head that talks to him. When he responds it looks like he’s
talking to himself, and that leads to him becoming estranged from his
classmates. The source of the voice is revealed by the end of the episode, but
whereas the show thinks it’s an
interesting character trait, it becomes more like Chuta’s annoying animal
sidekick. It spends most of the episode shouting the obvious, and several times
breaks the primary rule of storytelling, that being telling instead of showing.
After a normal day at anime high
school, consisting of staring off into space in his seat in the back corner of
the room and getting burned by the female character who’s absolutely going to
have an important role later on, Chuta finds himself kidnapped by alien police
and drafted into their ranks. Why does this happen? You tell me, because the
anime sure doesn’t. I hope it gets explained later on, because Space Patrol Luluco had a better reason
for having the lead join the corps.
In order to join the police, he is
sent back to Earth on a mission to capture an alien criminal. He uncovers the
alien’s identity, teams up with the voice in his head, and saves the day
through a literal Care Bear Stare. Then, the episode just ends with a “plot
twist”, one that can be given away by just reading the show’s synopsis on
MyAnimeList.com.
So, yeah, this isn’t a very good
episode. The characters are all one dimensional and boring, especially Chuta.
He doesn’t have any traits whatsoever, aside from “he’s estranged from his
classmates” and “he has a mysterious past”. The others get only a few minutes
of screentime, and while the designs on some of the aliens are pretty creative,
none of them are given any depth or personality that makes you want to see more
of them past the first episode.
But the most alarmingly awful part of
this episode is, bizarrely enough, the way everything is formatted. For some
reason, elDLIVE is in love with
creating wacky transitions between scenes, primarily one that’s just a pair of
those ugly checkered pants walking across the screen. It’s like something out
of a grade schooler’s Windows Movie Maker project, and it’s not doing the show
any favours. Also, everything feels like it can’t stay still for 5 seconds.
Even when two characters are standing in one place talking to each other, the
camera zooms in and out, the background changes to wacky colours, other
characters pop in and out, and so on. It’s so blatant that the show is trying
to keep your attention with bright colours and fast movement to cover up the
lackluster plot and characters that it almost makes you feel bad for the show.
elDLIVE
is unique in how little it tries to stand out. Everything from the story to
the characters to even the animation design feels like it was poorly lifted
from somewhere else. At least a show like Flip
Flappers had really creative worlds going for it. This is just an anime
stripped down to the bare minimum and shoved out the door, hoping it finds an
audience somewhere. I can’t say that I was interested in what was going on at
any point, and at this point it’s hard to say whether I’ll be back next week or
not. Until then, I’d say you should rocket away from elDLIVE as fast as you can.
FINAL SCORE
2/10
Awful
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