This Anime’s on a Boat!: Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

Ever heard of the rap song “I’m on a Boat?”  Well, this anime takes it to the extreme.  For this week, I’m reviewing Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, an anime about a boy, his giant fighting robot, a girl, and well, a boat.  So let’s cut to the chase and take a good hard look at the…well you get the idea.

Gargantia is a post-apocalyptic anime that starts out in space-with no cheesy intro about space itself or the entire series [cough, cough.Space Dandy].  Young soldier Ledo is in the midst of a battle against the Hideauze, the enemy of the Gallactic Alliance of Humankind.  After losing the fight, he and his robot-battle suit, Chamber, are sucked into a wormhole.  Ledo wakes up to find himself in some unknown place where he is spotted by, surprising to Ledo, another human- later known as Amy.  After an attempted hostage takeover, Ledo discovers he is a board a fleet of make-shift boats on an ocean covered-planet.  It is then revealed that this ocean-covered planet is Earth.  And that’s all just one episode.  From there, the series follows Ledo and Amy and other friends as Ledo tries to adjust to life on Gargantia-the fleet of ships.

Overall, I give Gargantia a four out of five star rating.  Aside from animation and character development, the story is really good.  Yes, it is definitely the highlight of the series, especially when you go further into it.  Not to give away any spoilers, but there’s stuff about pirates, giant squids, treasure hunting, another Ice Age, and some hybrid squid people.  Yeah, pretty interesting.  But really, and as I said in the synopsis, the plot follows Ledo.  It’s interesting to see how this human reacts to, well, his own kind.  Although, taking into consideration that he’s lived in space all his life, it’s no surprise that Ledo has a bit of a culture shock.  This gives viewers an idea of how vast the rift between the humans of the Galactic Alliance and the ones on Earth is.  It’s also a big component in Earth’s apocalypse in the series.  This culture shock also provides some pretty great comedic moments in the series.  And of course, there’s some kick -butt action.  Chamber is by far one of the neatest robots I’ve ever seen, and is one of the reasons why otakus-not just chicks like myself-dig giant robots.  Still, robots, humans, and the apocalypse aside, the plot for Gargantia is very well done.  However, it’s not perfect.

One downside to Gargantia actually happens in the beginning.  The one thing that almost turned me off about the series was the first episode.  Everything happens all at once and it seems chaotic.  And as far as I can remember, there’s no title sequence or introduction of any kind.  Seriously, I watched this and thought, “what is this?”  This may very well be a big turn off for anime goers.  But then again, I’m a person who wants to know what’s going on.  Things do slow down after that, so even if you get lost in the first episode, don’t be turned away just yet.  It certainly gets better.

Unfortunately I have no other comments to add.  I know that I may be ending this week’s post a little short, but I will give some other info on its release.  As of now, the Japanese dub can be watched online at crunchyroll.com.  It was announced last year that Viz Media bought the rights to the anime and will be releasing an English dub this year.  In fact, Wikipedia already has the English dub cast on Gargantia’s Wikipedia page.  Now I’m not sure if that means it’s already out, and that may take some more research, but I’m say for right now it’s not.  Also, the series is very short; it’s only thirteen episodes.  However, it has been confirmed there will be a two-part OVA released this Fall.  Still, regardless of when it’s getting released, Gargantia  is an anime with one heck of a plot but a crazy pilot episode.   And it’s on a boat! (What else can I say?)

Well, that’s all that I have for this week.  And to those of you who read my blog frequently, my apologies if this post seemed short.  Being a full-time college student is pretty time consuming.  And seeing that I’ve been taking summer courses and also working part time, I’ve been pretty busy.  But fortunately, my last two classes are almost over.  Anyways, that’s all I have for this week.  As always, please stay tuned for more!

-Hanime on Anime