In the year 2039, the combined naval
forces of humanity suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of a
military force with weapons technology that far surpasses their own.
The fearsome assailants? A group of heavy warships, termed “The
Fleet of Fog,” who are commanded by “mental models,” robot-like
representations of the minds of the battleships that take the
physical form of little girls dressed in frilly clothing.
Fast-forward seventeen years, and one of these mental models, named
Iona, approaches a human naval cadet named Gunzou out of the blue,
offering herself (and, by extension, the advanced Fog submarine she
represents) to Gunzou to command. Gunzou accepts the offer, and
embarks on a mission, piloting the Fog submarine to defend humanity
using the very weapons that almost brought about its end. Meanwhile,
Iona and several of the other Fog mental models appear to be warming
up to Gunzou and developing emotions, which mental models are not
supposed to possess. It's almost impossible to not note that this
entire premise seems like a very elaborate way of creating a scenario
in which scantily-clad girls say things along the lines of “you're
my captain, please pilot me.” Judging a book by its cover is, of
course, wrong, but having thought about Arpeggio of Blue Steel for
longer than I ever really wanted to, I don't feel too bad about
saying that that initial impression was ultimately pretty close to
the money.
Perhaps fitting for a story that's
partially about machines coming to terms with life, the world of
Arpeggio seems to be constructed from the ground up using pure CGI.
Everything about it, from characters to ships, bears the obvious
stamp of computer generation, and this, unfortunately, is CG of a
cheap-looking and ugly breed. If there's one thing the show
consistently gets right, it's light—explosions, lasers, computer
displays and the like look good more often than not, but that's about
the only visual aspect that I can genuinely compliment, and I'm
reaching pretty far for that one. Backgrounds and other such niceties
don't look so nice, with the ocean in particular often being rendered
as a noxious purple-black cloud which bears shockingly little
resemblance to a body of water. The design and color choices are
poor—the characters all have the same pale, waxy complexion and
widely spaced eyes. Add some otherworldly hair and wardrobe
malfunctions, and everyone starts to look pretty ridiculous. Add some
extraordinarily stiff animation (all characters move with an awkward,
jerking hobble, all ships move at a stuttering crawl), and, frankly,
you'd be hard-pressed to tell who is supposed to be a human and who
is supposed to be a member of the more robotic Fog; they all look
equally like paste-colored marionettes. This condition is only
worsened by the show's repeated attempts to force its decidedly
mechanical characters to do something sexy; it's like watching aliens
awkwardly attempt to imitate aspects of human sex appeal, and
something about it is strangely disquieting. The core of the show's
aesthetic is thoroughly repulsive to no real artistic or thematic
end.
The music, mostly a mix of cheesy
techno and uninspired string/horn compositions that seem tailored to
fit the seafaring nature of the series, soars to mediocre heights.
Okay, cheesy techno aside, some of it actually isn't too bad, but
variety is an issue; this is one of those shows that have two or
three songs for battle, two or three songs for dramatic moments, and
a few minutes' worth of atmospheric noises that get recycled over and
over again. The music direction is sub-par, with tracks often
starting too late to have any impact on a given scene, or starting
too early and overriding dialogue. Sound certainly isn't the show's
worst department—actually, by simple process of elimination, it
might be the best—but suffice to say it doesn't excel or help cover
the show's weaknesses, as good music sometimes can.
Looking at Arpeggio's story in a “big
picture” light reveals interesting results in that, at the end of
the day, there's really no detail to it whatsoever. The
world-building is virtually nonexistent, to the point where I'd
venture to say there's little that you couldn't learn about the world
of Arpeggio from reading a three-sentence plot synopsis. The show
proffers a fairly elaborate premise, but it stubbornly refuses to
answer any questions about its overarching plot or setting—not the
ones that will naturally occur to you, and, perhaps worse, not even
the ones that it explicitly raises. Among the former will be
perfectly logical ponderings, the answers to which would be required
to achieve a minimum amount of richness in the setting, like: In a
war where both sides have advanced futuristic technology, why aren't
there any airplanes? If the Fog mental models are nearly
indestructible and visually indistinguishable from human beings, why
don't the Fog just send them ashore to covertly destroy vital
targets? And so on. Among the latter will be vital,
should-really-be-answered queries along the lines of “what are the
Fog?”
No, seriously, they never even attempt
to address that. The Fog battleships repeatedly refer to themselves
as “just weapons” that are “programmed to obey the Admirality
Code” (the Admirality Code being an ill-defined set of rules, first
mentioned three-quarters of the way into the show, that governs the
actions of the battleships). This leads to the assumption that the
Fleet of Fog are just tools, and the true masterminds behind the Fog
invasion lie elsewhere; weapons require weapons designers, and
programs require programmers. The show hints at human interactions
with the Fog—it's suggested that the main character's father
defected to the side of the Fog—but the idea lies abandoned and
utterly unexplored. The mysteries are never solved. Much of the show
is spent fighting a shadow enemy whose nature, origin, and
motivations remain completely veiled. Several episodes of the series
even have the audacity to end with a taunting overlay of text which
reads (presumably referring to the Fog): “Where do we come from?
What are we? Where are we going?” Even after the credits rolled at
the end of the final episode, I could still only answer all three
with “I don't know,” which spells trouble.
All of that might be forgivable if the
setting and war were only a backdrop used to stimulate some excellent
characterization—such tactics have been known to work . And,
honestly, that might be what the series is going for. Whatever else
might be wrong with it, it does expend a fair bit of effort (largely
wasted effort, but genuine effort nonetheless) trying to explore its
characters. Sometimes it comes within arm's reach of the right notes.
Like Haruna, an especially cold and vicious Fog mental model, forming
a bond with a perceptive young girl who emotionally disarms her, or
Iona's struggle to obey Gunzou's orders while knowing that obeying
could potentially cause his death. Those aren't bad ideas at all. The
show wants, desperately, to have characters who change, and change
they do. It's telegraphed at us, and not very subtle, but it's there.
The problem is that the impetus for
change is missing. The series has flawed internal logic—it presents
the Fog mental models as thoughtless machines, explicitly stating
that they are governed by programs that cannot learn from past
mistakes, adapt, or feel. There is never a convincing reason given
regarding why they suddenly adopt emotions and human values. And
that's kind of a big deal. I don't care how heartwarming the story of
a little girl is, or how charismatic a sailor is—if you put robots
who have no capacity for emotion next to them, the robots will not
suddenly be moved to tears and love. No amount of emotion can
overwhelm something that is literally incapable of feeling emotion.
Talk to a wall for a little while and you're likely to notice that,
no matter how much and how loud you talk, the wall does not respond.
This is because your voice's volume does not alter the complete and
utter inability of the wall to comprehend and reproduce your language
of choice. Same difference here; the presence of emotion in the
outside world can't simply inspire emotion in the void of a computer.
That's deeply flawed thinking which would require a workaround within
the context of the series. If there were some sort of external
explanation provided, even a cheap one like “turns out there was a
hidden emotion switch in the Fog after all,” some sense might be
made of the situation, but, predictably, there's nothing. Which
sucks, because that means that half of the equation is missing. If a
character changes, I'd like to know why it's happening, or it's just
as bad as having a character who is static and unmoving. If you
present characters as machines, and then they suddenly sprout the
mindset of normal human beings for no real reason, it defeats the
entire narrative purpose of presenting them as machines in the first
place. It essentially strips the characters of their distinguishing
features, and adds a big tint of insincerity to everything that they
go through.
The last thing that might have saved
Arpeggio would be the battles. It sounds next to impossible to screw
up “giant sentient battleships blow each other to hell,” and
while good execution of that concept would not necessarily result in
a good series, it would at least provide an audience with one reason,
lacking any others, to watch it. But even this somehow manages to go
awry. Never has large-scale warfare been so boring. The battles,
though sometimes as long as ten or fifteen minutes, are dreadfully
uneventful, usually consisting of a lot of technobabble about force
fields and gravitron cannons and the like. The more strategy-focused
crowd will be glad to know that our fearless captain, Gunzou, is the
proud creator of such novel naval warfare tactics as “wait for the
enemy to fire a bunch of torpedoes at us, then dodge them, then fire
back and hope it works.” Battles are regularly concluded with
routine and anticlimactic solutions, such as the above, or solutions
that appear out of nowhere, such as Gunzou realizing that he can just
use some weapon or defensive feature of the submarine that the
audience didn't even know existed. Even when things do get dire for
all of those aboard, the lack of emotional resonance in the writing
assures that the tension level remains at zero.
What I'm getting at is that this show
consists of misstep after misstep, and they often work together to
form seamless spans of pointlessness which would be a waste of time
for anyone to endure of their own free will. The lack of
world-building and knowledge about the Fog coincides nicely with the
characterization issues to form a gaping hole where the compelling
internals should be. The dreadful animation and boring battles sync
up all too well, affording the audience a chance to stare at a
low-stakes game of chicken that isn't even produced well enough to
serve as an eye-candy distraction. When all was said and done, I came
away with the impression that I had basically watched a show about
things who look like girls that do stuff for some reason. And I
wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.
Score: 3/10; exceedingly poor.
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