dmrotstein

There can be little doubt that this series is in need of some major rewriting. Perhaps the worst part here is the character development, or, rather, lack thereof. Almost every character represents a one-dimensional stereotype that can be described by very few words. Dan is a raging idiot, Sela is a crazy girl with multiple sexual deviations, Iceman is a nice and kind lunatic, Haruka is obsessed with profeet (that is profit and feet), and so on. I don't even want to talk about Bel and some other silly comic reliefs. Coco is the one character who has great potential for development... which never comes. And almost everyone seems to be suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder, which, honestly, gets old after a while.

As for the plot, it does have great potential, but realization is poor. To say the least. In fact, most of the times the storyline is advanced simply by one of the characters stepping up to a microphone (often literally) and advancing it "manually" by revealing yet another "big secret", of which we, the viewers, weren't exactly aware until that point, so why should we even care? One good example of this is the identity of the mysterious Ultimate Bystander, who seems to know everything about main characters' movements. But only a few lines of dialog suggest that Bystander's identity should interest us and that it will have some future importance, and then we're simply told that it was Coco all along, which explains nothing and so useless that it's not even a spoiler to reveal this here. Also, many story lines get abandoned in the middle or left hanging in the end, most notably the one about moon giants - they get just a few seconds worth of screen time, no lines, and no explanation behind them (or that stupid defense system which keeps them a secret for some unknown reason), even though the plot is screaming for one. I would also like to have a story for those sentient, shape-shifting pets with supernatural abilities, which only five of the characters have. There is no explanation for these pets, even though certain scenes hint at their connection to this whole legend thing. And by the way, whatever happened to Dan's and Coco's parents? Actually, most of the young characters appear to be orphans. Is Earth-Dash really such a bad place that people drop dead all around? Holding short the romantic story lines was a big disappointment. Although, with three girls clumsily competing for Dan's attention, maybe it became too complicated and the writers decided to tune it all down to foggy hints, which do persist until the end, however. The setting is also poorly developed. In particular, we never get to see the Mooneyes, even though part of the story apparently occurs there. And Earth-Dash is represented by a fragmented description of a few cities, with no idea as to the global picture, the government, the interconnection between Earth-Dash and the Moon, and so on. The setting feels more like a cardboard stage, and falls far short of a typical fictional universe. And finally, even such an artificial storyline is uneven. The first eight or so episodes are outright boring, until it finally becomes apparent that there is some kind of a story behind all those mindless ball games. After that it does become interesting, but the last two episodes are bland and simplistic, which, after all the tension buildup in the preceding episodes, is very disappointing. So why 6 out of 10? Despite all the flaws, the series does manage to evoke strong emotions in most of the "interesting" episodes between eighth and 24th. Of course, another big attraction, if not the biggest, are all those cute, half-naked girls (and also boys, if that's your preference). I mean, looking at Rouge, how often can you see a girl with cleavage on the rear part of her pants? That's something, all right, perhaps even more incredible than Haruka's breasts that rival her head in terms of size. Interestingly though, there is no explicit nudity in the series, but with so many borderline teasers you wouldn't know it. And what finally puts it all together is the excellent musical score. So I guess this series isn't about legends or storytelling of any kind - it's just a heap of visual and auditory stimulus. And that has to count for something too, doesn't it?