Season Review: Pacific Rim: The Black Season One

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Pacific Rim: The Black is the newest entry in the Pacific Rim franchise. Pacific Rim mostly focuses on humans piloting giant robots called Jaegers in order to fight giant monsters called Kaiju. This story focuses on siblings Taylor and Hayley Travis. They were left by their parents at a settlement of survivors because it would be unsafe for them to take the children with them. We then flash forward to five years later and it seems the parents haven’t returned. Taylor and Hayley seem to butt heads a lot because of differing ideas on what they should be doing. Hayley wants to head out into the world and search for their parents. While Taylor wants to stay where it’s safe because of his promise to his parents to keep Hayley safe.

Hayley stumbles upon an underground area where a dormant Jaeger lies. Here we are introduced to the AI of the Jaeger Atlas Destroyer. Her name is Loa voiced by Erica Lindbeck, I plan on going into the VA’s a little more later. Loa immediately shows her sassy nature by asking Hayley why she simply didn’t use the front door. Hayley speeds through the “training” by simply saying “next” and skipping each one. Taylor eventually finds Hayley and it becomes clear he trained with Atlas Destroyer before. Since he is already familiar with it and Loa, now that the hanger and Jaeger have woken from their slumber it creates quite a racket. This gets the attention of a Kaiju that was in the area and it attacks the settlement. Setting the stage for sibling’s adventure.

Our Take:

I’m going to spoil a few of my thoughts right off the bat, this show was fantastic. My biggest complaint is it was only seven episodes long. It’s not perfect by any means but whether you already like what Pacific Rim is about or not this is a great show. The first episode starts with a bang and pretty much doesn’t let up from there. If you are wanting non-stop monster-fighting action you might leave a little disappointed but if you like a more character-driven story you won’t be wasting your time. I’m going to get most of the negatives and technical stuff out of the way first.

This is a Netflix Original Anime, which I will admit they have gotten a lot better with. Hits like Violet Evergarden, Japan Sinks 2020, The Great Pretender, Beastars, and Devilman Crybaby showing they are making huge improvements. With Devilman Crybaby even winning Anime of the Year 2018. Netflix has shown they are willing to invest in their anime series and I personally hope Pacific Rim: The Black is one of those.

From a voice acting standpoint, we get a lot of unknowns and by unknowns I mean people who haven’t done much VA work. In fact from the anime dubbing scene, we only have the amazing Erica Lindbeck lending her voice to the series. Two other notable VA’s are Jason Spisak who has a pretty big VA resume with mostly video games and western animation under his belt. Then we have the legendary Nolan North, if you have played any video game at all you will have probably heard his voice. His character has next to no screentime however and this is what gives me hope that a second season is already planned. You don’t hire Nolan North for just a few throwaway lines from a hologram.

One nitpick I have about the voice acting is that this takes place in Australia, but Australian accents are reserved for the villains only it seems. None of the main characters had an accent which I thought was a little weird but not a deal breaker. Having said that I would like to bring attention to Gideon Adlon, Calum Worthy, and Victoria Grace who voiced Hayley Travis, Taylor Travis, and Mei respectively. This is the first I have personally heard of Gideon and Calum in a VA role and they did very well. I have seen some pretty mixed results with using regular actors in anime roles and these two delivered. This isn’t the first anime role for Victoria Grace who played the titular Mirai in the excellent film Mirai. She also did some voices in one of my personal favorites Weathering with You, I hope we get more from her and more Mei in the future. As one of the only typical VA’s for anime Erica Lindbeck stood out to me. She was just voicing an AI but she brought so much snark and personality to it I kind of forget she was an AI. A lot of my favorite lines and delivery were from Loa so I would be remiss if I didn’t mention her awesome performance.

After watching this I feel like Pacific Rim should have always been animated. The subject matter just lends itself so well to the medium that it’s kind of surprising it took this long to get a series. As far as the negatives, this is a CGI anime and I know some people don’t like that style and typically I am one of those. It does really well here and after the first episode, I hardly noticed it. There are, however, some pretty janky animations that crop up here and there. Some of the vocals don’t match the lips when characters are speaking, this only happened a handful of times but it was noticeable. There was also a particular chase scene in episode two that had some pretty glitchy animation, I’ve seen worse but it needed pointing out.

The main thing I loved about this series was the characters, especially Mei. The familial bond between Taylor and Hayley has some bumps but it’s them dealing with these issues that give the series its heart. Their search for their missing parents is instantly relatable, though it is a bit disappointing that it takes a Kaiju attack to spurn Taylor on. To be fair he does think they are dead which I can understand after five years. They successfully fight off the Kaiju that attacks their settlement but at a huge cost. There were no survivors from the attack, this leads to some pretty big survivor’s guilt from Hayley. This is where the “drifting” mechanic Pacific Rim is known for has a pretty cool new angle.

Drifting is necessary to pilot Jaegers because one person cannot take the mental strain of piloting for very long. So drifting helps two people sync their thoughts, emotions, and memories. So while drifting after the Kaiju attack Hayley gets a taste of Taylor’s thoughts blaming her for the attack and everyone they knew dying. It’s hard to control your thoughts, after all, it was a little disappointing that this potential problem was pretty much never addressed again. They had bigger issues but still, I think it could have had a bigger impact.

Their Jaeger needs a power cell to keep going so they search a nearby city. Here they are attacked by dog-like Kaiju which to my knowledge is the first appearance of smaller Kaiju. They eventually find a power cell in a government building that is keeping a boy alive in a tube. Hayley wants to get him out which makes a lot of noise leading the Kaiju to them. They escape with the boy but in the escape, they broke the power cell. The mystery of what is going on with the boy whom they ironically name “Boy” is a big part of the series.

They are alerted by Loa that there is a group of humans nearby so they go to investigate. We find a group of people taking Kaiju eggs for some reason. The Kaiju that recently laid the eggs gets a scent from Boy and turns around and attacks. Almost all of the people are killed except for a woman in the group. Her name is Mei and she took the monster down by herself which was an awesome moment. They then get taken to the camp of this group called The Black, where we are introduced to the antagonist Shane. You will come to hate Shane believe me, I would like to mention Andy McPhee does a great job of voicing him.

Here we get to see another new use of drifting technology, interrogation. Using Taylor’s memories Shane finds out they have a Jaeger and it’s not hard to see why a crime boss would want one of those. Turns out there is an expert on drifting technology in the camp named Joel and he was a pretty funny well-written character. Pretty one note and tropey but enjoyable nonetheless. Joel has drifting experience but every soldier Shane sends to be his co-pilot can’t handle it. Too many unsuccessful drifts does some damage to Joel’s mental faculties. Mei steps up to be one pilot and enlists Taylor to join her (this is when my romance senses started tingling). After activating the Jaeger that alerts the Kaiju from the first episode to their position, Mei is ordered by Shane to run from it.

This actually leads to one of my favorite parts because I love the symbolism. Taylor wants to stay and fight the Kaiju he says to Mei “We have to stand up to monsters. Don’t we?”. I feel like he was suggesting to Mei to stand-up to Shane. Mei was without a doubt my favorite character. A badass, gun-toting waifu? What’s not to love? Her humanity does eventually win-out when she helps Taylor, Hayley, and Boy escape with the Jaeger.

They eventually follow another Jaeger signal to a nearby city, turns out that the Jaeger signal was their parent’s machine. The final episode was really good because we got a lot of payoff from all the mysteries and fights with the same Kaiju. I don’t want to go into too much detail with the way things get resolved because I really do think this deserves a watch. At only seven episodes it’s not a huge time sink either.

Nothing is perfect and neither was this. I will say this was way better than I expected, with only minor things holding it back. Some jarring animation here and there and a pretty big cliffhanger make it a bit frustrating. It sounds like Netflix ordered two seasons for this show so that is good news to at least hope for some resolution. I honestly can’t recommend this enough because I really feel Netflix knocked it out of the park with this one. I hope it follows in Castlevania’s shoes and gets a longer second season.