What's new, Kaiju?

 

It's no secret that I fucking loved Pacific Rim. LOVED it. That movie was basically what you'd get if you opened up 10-year-old Thrashbrowns' head and made a movie based on what you found inside. Humans in giant mechs punching giant monsters in the face? What's not to love about that?

Ok. So, the sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising, wasn't exactly worth loving. Although it had one really cool scene (you know, the one where they attach a missile or something like that to the Jaeger so they could get to the volcano really fast?), it was mostly forgettable and lacked the quirky vibe that made the first movie so cool.

Well, a team of American creatives has joined forces with Japanese animators to create Pacific Rim: The Black, an anime take on the property that, at times, nearly equals Guillermo del Toro's film in terms of pure awesome spectacle. While it lacks the goofy humor that helped make the first film so watchable, The Black gets the battle sequences right and throws in a few compelling curveballs.

The Black opens with Taylor and Hayley Travis's parents leaving them, along with a bus full of their classmates, in a safe place and departing on a mission to Sidney, Australia. Fast forward five years and the kids have grown up and created their own community but there's been no sign of Taylor and Hayley's parents. 

When Hayley stumbles across an abandoned Jaeger, she unwittingly attracts a kaiju which destroys their village and sends Taylor and Hayley on a trek across the wilderness known as The Black to find their parents. Along the way, they cross paths with a mysterious mute boy, get captured by a crew of desert thugs led by an asshole named Shane, and try to survive attacks from multiple giant beasts looking to end them.

This show isn't perfect but it's quite a bit more entertaining than PR: Uprising. First off, the kids are given enough development that they feel like actual people even though they're drawings. It's not too hard to put yourself in their shoes and imagine the fear and stress they feel as they go from the frying pan to the fire. Boy, the mysterious kid they bring with them, helps give them someone to looks after and makes the trio feel like a real family.

Badass Mei also gets a compelling arc that helps to explain why she makes the decisions she makes. The season ends with enough space to further explore her character, so I hope we get more.

Another thing I loved about The Black is the animation and look of the kaiju. They're captured in a way that makes them look completely alien and really helps set them apart from the rest of the elements on screen. They don't fit in, like they aren't supposed to be there, which totally works since they aren't supposed to be there.

The action scenes are slick and bring back some of the feeling of scope and mass that were lost in Uprising. Sure, the Jaegers and Kaiju fling each other around, but they still feel heavy and there's no giant robots doing ninja flips or any bullshit like that. The movement seems plausible.

If I have to nitpick, I guess I'd say the scenes with Shane and his gang didn't hold my interest too well. He's just a standard dickbag villain and the fact that he has a cool accent doesn't help too much. I still enjoyed watching him get his comeuppance, so I guess he worked well enough on some level.

Overall, there's a sense of discovery and wonder in Pacific Rim: The Black that the series hasn't had since the first flick. The main characters, for the most part, hold your interest and the show has a few surprises I don't wanna spoil here. If you're a fan of the movies you should find something in The Black to dig on. And if you haven't seen any of the movies, The Black just might hook you.