If there are fans of Star Driver reading my posts then you will understand when I say this that you will love this series.  It’s exactly like it, the awakening of giant robots by singing, Daichi following his destiny of becoming a captain is just as similar to Takuto’s claim to Ginga Bishonen [Galactic Pretty Boy].   Even the Kill-T-Gang  are ripped straight from the the Glittering Crux Brigade!  Even the bond that Akari, Teppei, Daichi and Hana share remind me so much of Takuto, Wako, and Sugata!  It’s not just in the style of animation BONES chose to use here but the soundtrack remains relatively similar as well!

I may enjoy a series a ton but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some objections to how they might be designed.

Satoru Kosaki helms the soundtrack to Captain Earth.  This guy’s a member of MONACA, which was founded in 2004 by Haruhi Suzumiya’s Keiichi Okabe and is the main source of music in Star Driver as well.  I have a problem with this guy.  Both he and Hiroyuki Sawano do not have a very creative edge when it comes to writing up scores– I’ve said this before and I will say it again Sawano is productive with his musical tastes and so is Kosaki.  Could definitely mix some of the tracks we had in here with Shingeki no Kyojin, Kill la Kill, hell even some older shows like Outlaw Star or Mobile Suit Gundam Wing!  Just goes to show not much has changed since 2010 with Kosaki’s music.  I absolutely love it when anime deliver very different productions but here is where this is just recycled material.  One that is fun and highly enjoyable on the outside but very dry and repetitive on the inside.

So the story is that Daichi’s father dies from saving Earth from the attacks of the Kill-T-Gang, and upon learning this he takes it upon himself to become a captain.  When he was a kid he stumbled across a mysterious facility where he met Teppei and Hana– both have unique abilities one that can summon a giant ship the Blume and the other has an Ego Block.  A digitalized box that holds all the power that that person possess and it’s also said that is is what makes the Kill-T-Gang live forever. Captain Earth sure loves to throw in terminology left and right throughout the series without ever explaining it previously.  Can’t say I like it when it does this but it does move the story along, just as Star Driver did.

2-cour series like this one have the luxury of evolving its characters very well without ever worrying about pacing, and that’s exactly what Yoji Enokido did!  The Midsummer’s Knights went in a solid direction, and with Igarashi’s previous works he’s known for having a formulaic character of the week be introduced for 5 or 6 episodes straight.  It wasn’t boring because those Kill-T-Gang members lead normal lives outside of their main mission– Amara and Moco work at a crepe truck,  Zin a dealer at a casino, Lin a competitive motorcycle racer, Ai is an idol singer, Baku the boxing champion, and Setsuna a somewhat normal girl.  This is the one part of the show I really loved even more than the main plot, because even the side-cast that weren’t even a part of the overall story arc were there to establish the world these alien-beings live in, and what they would be missing if it ends up getting wiped out by them.

Igarashi is a director that sure knows how to  lay a foundation of strong characters but where this series falls flat on its face is predictability with the main story.  Hana grows to have feelings for Daichi and this only gets rejected once when she decides to leave the team, Teppei questions his place in the world after he’s destroyed his Ego Block, and the adults including Nishikubo hold on to such strong regrets about leaving behind a mess for the children of the future to clean up.

All in all it’s a coming-of-age drama where the teenagers in this show must realize that to save everything that they hold dear they need to stand up for what they believe in and fight!  Even if it is with Livlaster guns, Engine Impactors and the power of friendship!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 82/100

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If you like this you might also enjoy:

–  STAR DRIVER

–  Aquarion EVOL

– Sacred Seven

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