Pacific Rim Takes Over Television
New Netflix original series' first season lays good groundwork for its future.
By Saya Fujii
New Netflix original series' first season lays good groundwork for its future.
By Saya Fujii
In a new Netflix original anime series, “Pacific Rim: The Black,” two siblings, voiced by Calum Worthy and Gideon Adlon, fight Kaiju monsters using giant robots called Jaegers in post-apocalyptic Australia. The show is a spinoff of two movies, “Pacific Rim” and “Pacific Rim: Uprising. The dystopian setting and unique style of this show got me interested, and though this story didn’t start off promising, the tone shifts and with some new characters it gets more exciting. It’s worth a watch for fans of sci-fi or animation.
The first couple episodes didn’t interest me because of the slow plot and robotic animation style, but soon it picked up pace with a few new characters and more revelations. It was also a more gritty and gruesome story than I thought, with a relatively unexpected character death and a theme of survival present throughout. Taylor and Hayley Travis are trying to find their parents and aren’t sure if they are alive, which creates a good mystery to add to the tone. By the end of the first season, many questions like this aren’t answered, and the season even leaves us with a cliffhanger ending. Season 1 seems like a good start to a greater series, setting up questions and situations for later. The plot is pretty simple but it expands in depth slowly with the final scene of the season paying off nicely, creating big expectations for the next season to cover.
The storyline is pretty good, even though it’s nothing super special and the setting is familiar. It’s heavily sci-fi with the main villain being Kaiju, which are giant monster-like creatures that are trying to take over Australia, though there isn’t much explanation on them yet. Although the Kaiju seem like the enemy, the main characters are being targeted by a human antagonist, which makes things a bit more complicated. One of the characters, Mei, and her past with a villain also adds to the plot and creates questions. Mei along with Taylor and Hayley have complicated pasts that we don’t know much of yet, which leaves the audience to think about it. Boy is another character that we don’t know much about, and even though it’s clear that he’s important to the story, there’s seemingly more about him we haven’t seen. It leaves a good amount of information in the dark but not too much to become unsatisfying.
Although the action, plot, and characters are great, some of the lines are a little cheesy and I wasn’t a big fan of it combined with the animation style. It sometimes seems a bit awkward and out of place, though it doesn’t happen too often. There is quite a bit of dialogue, especially in the earlier episodes, and some of it seems a bit unnecessary as it takes up some time without action, but it does also develop the characters. Still, it’s not a huge setback and the suspense is still there so if you stick around for each episode, it pays off in the end and it’s definitely worth it.
Season 1 of “Pacific Rim: The Black” is available to watch on Netflix now.
The first couple episodes didn’t interest me because of the slow plot and robotic animation style, but soon it picked up pace with a few new characters and more revelations. It was also a more gritty and gruesome story than I thought, with a relatively unexpected character death and a theme of survival present throughout. Taylor and Hayley Travis are trying to find their parents and aren’t sure if they are alive, which creates a good mystery to add to the tone. By the end of the first season, many questions like this aren’t answered, and the season even leaves us with a cliffhanger ending. Season 1 seems like a good start to a greater series, setting up questions and situations for later. The plot is pretty simple but it expands in depth slowly with the final scene of the season paying off nicely, creating big expectations for the next season to cover.
The storyline is pretty good, even though it’s nothing super special and the setting is familiar. It’s heavily sci-fi with the main villain being Kaiju, which are giant monster-like creatures that are trying to take over Australia, though there isn’t much explanation on them yet. Although the Kaiju seem like the enemy, the main characters are being targeted by a human antagonist, which makes things a bit more complicated. One of the characters, Mei, and her past with a villain also adds to the plot and creates questions. Mei along with Taylor and Hayley have complicated pasts that we don’t know much of yet, which leaves the audience to think about it. Boy is another character that we don’t know much about, and even though it’s clear that he’s important to the story, there’s seemingly more about him we haven’t seen. It leaves a good amount of information in the dark but not too much to become unsatisfying.
Although the action, plot, and characters are great, some of the lines are a little cheesy and I wasn’t a big fan of it combined with the animation style. It sometimes seems a bit awkward and out of place, though it doesn’t happen too often. There is quite a bit of dialogue, especially in the earlier episodes, and some of it seems a bit unnecessary as it takes up some time without action, but it does also develop the characters. Still, it’s not a huge setback and the suspense is still there so if you stick around for each episode, it pays off in the end and it’s definitely worth it.
Season 1 of “Pacific Rim: The Black” is available to watch on Netflix now.