Sometimes it’s really hard being a fangirl and to me watching Planet With is one of those times. I really feel like I want next week to get here faster because I need the next episode now! It seems not a lot of people shares my enthusiasm, from what I’ve seen around online or talked to other people, but it’s okay! I’m still hopeful people will get behind this show at some point and in the meantime I’ll enthusiastically watch it and excitedly blog about it.
In episode 2 we get a closer look at the characters on the faction opposite to Soya and we get a bit more information about what’s going on. The episode starts with a meeting of the Grand Paladin faction. These are the bearers of the psychokinetic mega God photo armor. The leader of the meeting is a stern-looking man whose name I don’t remember if we got or not, but I’m sure it’ll be mentioned later on. His assistant is also the one that aids the heroes over radio while they’re fighting the weapons.
During this meeting and later on while Soya talks to the maid girl we learn that the enemy is called Nebula as a whole, but there are different sides within them. Paladin calls the Soya faction ‘Nebula Fighters’, but Ginko says they’re the ‘Pacifist’ faction as they only really want to confiscate the power from humans. The Nebula weapons are sent by the ‘Sealing’ faction. Their goal is to keep humanity from evolving their power. Overall it’s quite a bit to remember, but I enjoy that these kind of things are given names as it makes it easier to discuss them.
At the meeting it’s decided that from now they will go in pairs in case they have to fight. Haru and Miu, the two young girls, pair together. Benika and Yosuke pair together and finally, Nezuya and Takezo pair together. Besides following Soya’s mission of defeating these seven warriors, this episode also focus on Miu during the weapon fight and afterwards.
After the meeting we see Soya at home eating the tonkatsu he was promised, but it’s still not beef! I’m extremely curious as to why Ginko only cooks vegetarian stuff, but I’m assuming it’ll be disclosed later on. During mealtime Soya and his housemates get into a big argument. Afterwards he refuses to go to school, so instead he goes running with some iron clogs on, which made me think they really look like they could mess up your feet! He vows again that he will avenge some people, but we don’t really know the details of what he remembered at the end of episode one.
Just then, Torai appears carrying a konbini bag and sits down to eat next to him. In the meeting it was mentioned that Torai doesn’t remember who attacked him and he was tasked with investigating that, so he’s just asking around about it. He asks Soya if he’s seen a masked boy and also asks about his personal situation. Soya is tight-lipped about his situation, but accepts a bun from Torai, excited about the idea of eating a meat bun.
This part was really cool because it was a nice transition from a tense mood to a more comedic one, even in the face of the urgency of another Nebula weapon appearing in the sky. It turns out the one he got was not a meat bun, but a bean jelly one! Poor Soya. Will he ever get to eat meat again, I wonder?
Anyway, the six remaining warriors assemble and go fight the new weapon, which has an even more ridiculous design than before, but boy if that isn’t eye-catching! This time Miu takes the lead and ends up finding the weak spot in the weapon to enter the core. I suppose these parts of the episode are always a little rushed, but it might be better that they focus less on the fighting aspect and more on the characters.
Miu keeps repeating she’s strong as she goes inside and soon we see that the illusion the weapon shows her is one in which she fights against Haru and beats her. Miu was both held back and encouraged by her thought of being strong like Haru, but now she realizes it’s okay to be weak. These words even appear on the screen as she destroys the illusion and I found that touching.
After the fight, the Pacifist faction attacks the one who destroyed the weapon. I assume this might become a pattern from now on, but we’ll see. If I may predict something, I think that Soya is now trying to fight with the Pacifists who are a part of Nebula, but eventually he might rebel against them as well and go for a more personal goal. Although I suppose right now his plans of revenge are as personal as it gets.
The fight between Soya, Haru and Miu felt kind of clunky in terms of visuals, but although I didn’t feel as turned off by the mecha CGI this time around, I still think the movements left something to be desired. Still, the last part looked cool, as Miu fell in slow motion and Ginko flew to steal her power. I definitely want to learn more about the powers too, but for now I like the pace it has, quite a nice balance for me.
The cliffhanger at the end with all the other four warriors arriving and surrounding Soya was pretty exciting too, though I kind of imagine next episode won’t start from there. We’ll see though, I’d rather be wrong in this case, but at the same time it seems kind of early for an all-out battle.
Knowing these kinds of shows, likely that eating meat might somehow affect Souya negatively. Like maybe it’ll drive him berserk or something.
Or I’m overthinking things, and Ginko and Sensei are just really committed vegans. :p
Haha, I’m also leaning towards the idea that meat will affect him in a way that would be negative for his housemates… maybe in the way of messing up the synchronizing with the cat, but we’ll have to wait an see. I still feel for him though, it must be hard!