Comet Lucifer

Episode 5

I'm still not sure if I genuinely believe my ears, but it seems as though Felia finally managed to string together some complete sentences. It took five weeks, but Comet Lucifer finally gave its female lead coherent dialogue. Forget all the action sequences, that brief conversation in the final scene is easily the most thrilling part of this episode. I wish Felia could have used her newfound eloquence to tell Moura to stop being such a pain in the neck, but I suppose I shouldn't get too greedy here.

After finding the house empty, Sogo and Moura rush off into the rain to rescue Felia. The rescue mission takes them to an abandoned mine, where Gus and his unit are waiting to hand Felia off to their superiors. Even after Moura transforms into a monster-mech again, the direct approach proves to be a bad choice. Sogo is captured, and Gus beats the stuffing out of Moura using his shiny new mech. Escaping from within the giant land transport proves to be a more viable plan, thanks largely to Sogo and Felia accidentally triggering an even more powerful transformation for Moura. Felia breaks out some mysterious magic of her own to help the group fly to safety, but not without some unusual side effects: she goes from an inarticulate child to a well-spoken teenager in the blink of an eye.

Comet Lucifer has a lot of ground to cover in this episode, and the pacing is a tad rushed as a result. The script hops abruptly from one event to another without giving the audience much of an opportunity to process any of new developments. While the story is simple enough that it's still easy to follow what's going on, this episode struggles to really immerse the viewer in the action. The rough transitions between events make it feel like we're watching a recap episode that edits out all but the most important moments. The most obvious symptom of this issue is the laughably short repair time for Gus' mech; it apparently takes the mechanics all of five minutes to get it ready between his two fights with Moura.

The good news is that many of these disjointed plot points happen to be action scenes. Sogo dodges gunfire on his flying scooter, Gus and Moura face off with impressive results, and the show even throws in a one-sided fistfight when Sogo gets his butt kicked on board the transport. As we've seen in the past, Comet Lucifer is pretty good at blowing stuff up. Characters move swiftly and smoothly when necessary, giant CG robots blend fairly well with the 2-D backgrounds, and everything unfolds in a kinetic and entertaining manner. This series can't quite compete with the visual spectacle of A-list action titles, but it's pretty darn close.

Gus gets a chance to cut loose and play the bad guy here, and the results are mixed. He has a clear craving for the adrenaline rush of combat, which gives the series a chance to develop him as a veteran soldier who can't adapt to peacetime. The only issue is that the presentation lacks subtlety at this point; some of his lines about enjoying the fight with Moura are more laughable than intense. The bigger news is that Felia's sudden age jump gives her a chance to start acting more like a character and less like a mascot. We can finally get her perspective on everything that's happened so far and find out how she feels about having an arsenal of mysterious powers. As much as I enjoy griping about Moura's cartoonish sassiness, even the obnoxious rock worm is starting to become more tolerable. It's a rough process, but the character development in this show appears to be turning in the right direction.

Comet Lucifer needed to get this confrontation right in order to give the audience a convincing reason to stick around, and the results are generally positive this time. The storytelling is tolerable, the action is enjoyable, and the characters are showing signs of life. With a little more work, this series could easily evolve into the adventurous romp that we were promised in the first few episodes.

Rating: B

Comet Lucifer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.