Preview: Ozuma

Sorry for the delay on getting this out, I had a ridiculously huge paper due earlier today and had to spend the weekend working on it. But now we’re moving back into motion!

Of course, by rule of inclusion, this also means I am very, very sleep deprived. I’m going to go pass out after I finish typing this. I’m not even going to immediately check for retarded grammar and spelling errors like I usually do. That’s also kind of a bad thing because I tend to type worse when I’m really tired (shocker). Also, I was planning on getting another sneak peek segment out today but I’ll probably end up passing out for days so lets just assume it won’t be out until tomorrow.

So, Ozuma. What’s there to say? Well, I guess I should mention the show has gotten progressively better, for one. The first episode was pretty standard in pretty much everything it did, so it was pretty underwhelming. The two episodes after that got more tense, although they’re still following the standard adventure formula of “find random girl who’s incredibly significant, hang out with her just long enough to get emotionally attached, then she runs away because it “saves everyone” but nobody else agrees”.

Even though it’s a standard formula, it doesn’t make it any less entertaining. This is pretty much the plot structure that defines the adventure genre, so getting anything else would be a surprise, not an expectation. Though I was impressed that another trope of the adventure genre turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected. I figured Gido was Sam’s brother (judging by the picture, I thought he was his dad at first, actually) who had disappeared, but it turns out there’s more to the story than meets the eye. I’m really curious how they’re going to handle it.

Of course, where would we ever be without some criticism?

I completely get what they’re going for with the character designs, considering how old this script is, but the problem is that they don’t look so much like old design as they do sloppy design. I guess that’s one way to try and emulate the past, since computers weren’t used for help back then and relied purely on drawing everything, but the problem is that the backgrounds look really fucking good. That may not sound like a complaint, but the problem is that having the sloppy character design with the gorgeous backgrounds creates this almost disorientating look to the show. It’s probably also why the characters look a lot worse than they probably actually do.

Another, more minor complaint, is that in the third episode, Maya ran deep into the cave to steal one of those flying scooters. Once Sam (why the hell do I keep typing Max before checking and realizing I’m wrong every time?) came out and saw her flying off, he proceeds to move to the side of the ship he just exited, where a flying scooter is happily waiting for him so he can pursue Maya.

Why didn’t she just take that one?

Speaking of those two, I can’t see their chemistry at all. All I can see is Max Sam liking her because she’s so perty, and she likes him because he saved her. Yeah, sounds like a real long-lasting relationship can be built off of that. If they’re planning on using their feelings for each other in future plot points (like they sort of already did once at the end of the third episode), they better build on it.

But the show is still a fun watch. The subterranean battle of the second episode was pretty cool, despite not much actually happening. Needless to say, if something can be engaging without having to really do much, that’s impressive.

At the end of the day, if you don’t mind the standard adventure story shtick, I’d say to give the show a go. It’s only going to be six episodes, with four of them already out (I have yet to watch the fourth). So far there’s nothing exceptional here, but there’s still plenty of potential for the second half.

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