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R1 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Sunday, 20 January 2008 16:00 |
 Divergence Eve continues to confuse, even as it tries to explain what's going on. With Misaki back in the fold, will she be able to shed some light on the Ghoul and their desire to take over our universe? Or was she the one who released them in the first place..?
6 - 2305: Allied Forces Naval Base
The base is carrying out early testing on a new sort of armour, but the testing process appears to be cursed - pretty much everything that can go wrong, has. One of the test pilots is Misaki's father - and so far he's counting himself lucky that he hasn't actually had to take any test missions in the new armour. We know of it as Rampart Armour. But this isn't the "real" 2305, as Ertiana arrives on the base to carry on her investigations into the anomaly Misaki's created. This time around, it seems that Misaki's trying to prevent the mission to Watcher's Nest ever taking place - but she's about to find out that playing with time can have unexpected results...
7 - The Two Watcher's Nests
Ertiana and Kiri see Earth disappear from below them as the temporal distortion changes, and leaves them back above the Quantum Core, where a ghostly vision of Prim appears to Ertiana and explains that Misaki's the key to the situation - she's opened a path between two universes, and is now calling to them. Back on Watcher's Nest, the situation's as confused as Ertiana is - their scientists are doing their best to explain the anomaly, and not really succeeding. To learn more, a visit down to the Core - and possibly through to the universe it's connecting to - is required, and so Ertiana, Kiri, and Suzanna are sent to investigate. Once there, they find a mirror image of their own Watcher's Nest - except this one appears to be abandoned...
8 - The Soldier's Return
Kotoko's use of the laser posts has led to the end of the Specular response signal, for now - and the others are still unaware that the Ghoul they'd been fighting may have been Misaki herself. Until, that is, her image appears on all the computer screens thoughout the station. She's got a simple request: "I'm in the Quantum Core. Please come quickly." The rest of the Ghoul are there with her - and they're preparing to destroy our world. While Ertiana and the others are planning to reach Misaki, a ghost in the machine reveals himself as leBlanc appears on the ststion's screens - just for once, he appears to be trying to be helpful, but can he be trusted..? Meanwhile, Suzanna finds the computer records detailing her memory wipe...
9 - Secret of the Ruins
The Ghoul have begun to cross over into our Solar System - and according to leBlanc, they don't plan on stopping here. On Watcher's Nest, Misaki's recovering from her ordeal and enjoying both the break from battle, and being able to spend time with her friends again. She's also filling Ertiana in on her true nature - her human self, and her Ghoul self, separate but the same, that is currently holding back the Ghoul who are trying to invade. But her Ghoul self is failing, and won't hold out much longer. They need another way of sealing the Ghoul away in their own universe - and Watcher's Nest may be just the tool they need to do that. First, though, Misaki has to return to the Quantum Core and confront the ghosts that are living there...
I remember watching the first season of Divergence Eve, and wondering around the half-way point when it would start making sense. By the end of volume three, it did, but there was a certain amount of frustration while you tried to figure things out yourself and failed miserably. Misaki Chronicles is at that stage now, too - they're just starting to explain things (although not so much that you actually realise what's going on yet), and the frustration is beginning to set in. That's affected my enjoyment of this volume quite a bit, as I don't like being left in the dark, and it's only the knowledge that the first season did things this way that kept me going - this season can work out okay if it follows the same formula.
The worry is that it won't work out okay in the end, but I'll have to watch the final volume to be sure. The problem here is that so little of what's happening really makes sense - just what is Misaki, under the human surface? Where does she get the power to bend time? How is someone who's only half-Ghoul able to hold off the Ghoul hordes on her own, even only for a while? There's no logical reason for any of this - we just have to accept that it's happening, and reply on leBlanc's cryptic mutterings to try and fill in the blanks, and that's no way to tell a story, really.
And yet I keep watching. While it's an exercise in frustration, there's really nothing like Divergence Eve at the moment, in terms of hard science fiction, and that's enough to keep me interested. Outside the main event regarding the Ghoul incursions, there are little sidestories dealing with Prim and Suzanna to deal with, along with Misaki's return from whatever in-between state she's been occupying up to now, while leBlanc's appearance does at least begin the process of filling in the blanks, no pun intended. He always was the one who really knew what was going on, and now he's once again the fount of knowledge - even if that fount's just running at a trickle.
Okay, I'm done rambling. Let's just say that, like its predecessor, Misaki Chronicles is in the id-season doldrums, but I'm confident that the final volume will pull the show out and give us a proper conclusion. I just hope I'm right...
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