rinne

Setsuna continues to try to figure out the secret of the island in episode 3, “The Right Way To Spin Dreams”. However, no matter which way you look at it, this episode is a mess.

Hands up who wants to watch dreams sequences without a context in the opening, followed by the story openly acknowledging it’s own trope by attempting to subvert it in a sequence that if executed correctly might have at least drawn a chuckle but here just fills up screen time? Setsuna’s ploy to get Rinne outside is childish at best (let’s pretend to have fun on the beach and she’ll join us) and the transparent excuse for beach fan-service as Rinne dreams of a far more adventurous romp on the beach for Setsuna, Karen and Sara than they could possibly have really just falls horrendously flat, as does Rinne when she finally venture out into the sand.

Of course, we could still gain something from this overly long sequence if they had then done something with Rinne. She claimed to believe she had Soot Blight Syndrome and was apparently at risk of death from sunlight. And yet immediately after her fall on the beach she’s sitting under the umbrella with Setsuna and just kind of shrugs it all aside with an, ‘I kind of knew’ line. However, with one potential plot line (the mysterious illness Rinne might be suffering from) shot in the foot, the girls stumble upon a shack and when they go to open it Rinne freaks out and collapses.

This is not how a story should develop. If we then follow this up with a hot springs sequence where Rinne once again decides to sing, for no apparent reason, and then we get her singing over a whole bunch of still scenes that I guess are meant to be the group getting closer together or something but its so boring I kind of zoned out. Then we get more drama with Karen and her father before a quiet heart to heart with Sara who pretty much calls Karen on her childish behaviour and lack of planning, only to Setsuna and not Karen.

There’s not one interesting sequence in this entire mess and while there are ideas that link all of this together, it really doesn’t feel worth the effort to think about. Honestly, in a season where I had more on my watch list, I’d drop this at this point, and even without a replacement show, I might still drop this. It is just not particularly interesting.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Amnesiac Protagonist Alert

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Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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What makes for a better mystery than a guy washing up on an island without a memory and then finding himself caught up in some ancient island legend? Probably lots of things but here we go for island.

I’m really glad I watched both episodes of this together. The first episode is intriguing enough but really doesn’t do much other than have ‘Setsuna’ walk around and meet the various characters who will probably be important later. He thinks he’s from the future but doesn’t really remember and even the name Setsuna is a name he remembers but he isn’t sure if it is him. Of course all the people he’s meeting are cute girls who live on the island and belong to the three great families or whatever and there’s a bunch of legends and folklore surrounding them.

Part of me really wants to enjoy this story and the other part of me is calling this show out on its extreme lack of originality. Amnesia, time travel, a harem of girls, ancient legends, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been employed before and while I’d like to think this anime was going to do something original with the cocktail it actually executes it all fairly by the numbers. possibly worse because it seems to be laying out a lot of explanations early on so unless we’re just getting mis-information I’m not sure how much mystery there’s going to be. Then again, MAL doesn’t list this as a mystery but as a drama/sci-fi and I haven’t seen much sci-fi yet so who knows what this will do going forward.

Despite my misgivings, these first two episodes have made me interested in finding out what is actually going on here so I guess they served their purpose. That said, the characters are so far pretty ordinary and while it is visually quite pretty that isn’t going to be enough unless the plot really steps up its game.

What did you think of Island?

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Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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