Heavy Object

Episode 11

I realize that it's a little late in the game to start complaining about this, but the shoulder pads on Qwenthur and Havia's uniforms look really stupid. They may be fighting against enemies with enough firepower to level a city, but they'll be perfectly safe thanks to those ridiculous rigid plates they have to stuff their arms through! I'm also looking forward to the day when they finally use up all the practical camouflage schemes and have to sneak around in bright orange jumpsuits. The enemy will never see them coming.

While the Mass Driver Conglomerate's mysterious Object has yet to actually appear in the show, the camera-shy antagonist still manages to make its mark on this episode through a devastating artillery strike. The Bright Hopper, which appeared poised to act as a new rival for Milinda and her Baby Magnum, is taken out of commission with a single shot. It's a similar story for the team's supply base, leaving the good guys scattered and in need of a plan to deal with the overwhelming firepower being dropped onto their heads. Havia and Milinda work to get the Baby Magnum back into the fight, Qwenthur and Frolaytia go looking for their elusive foes, and the Bright Hopper crew ruins everything by trying to blow up a dam. In the midst of all the chaos, Qwenthur gets a chance to talk with Frolaytia about why she joined the military instead of cashing in on her aristocratic heritage.

A long-range fight against an unseen enemy could easily feel boring and impersonal, but Heavy Object does a remarkable job of keeping up the tension in this episode. The impacts from the artillery strikes are so massive that the show is essentially forced to retreat to a safe distance in order to let the audience see the explosions in their entirety. These long shots create the impression that the main characters are up against some unstoppable force of nature that can drop a meteor out of the sky without warning. For the first time in a while, it genuinely seems like Qwenthur and friends are in over their heads. That's not always an easy thing to do in a mecha series where the audience already knows how things are likely to play out, and a significant amount of credit goes to Heavy Object's animation and direction.

Sadly, the same can't be said for this week's effort at character development. While I'm on board with the idea of Frolaytia giving up the luxury of nobility for the relative independence of a military career, there are some issues with the way the series presents that backstory. The obsession with detail that serves Heavy Object well in other areas proves to be a weakness here, as the reasoning behind Frolaytia's long list of suitors is too bizarre and specific to come across as anything but a work of fiction. As she spins the needlessly complex yarn of her family's mythical boy-producing genetics, the show continues to dig its own grave by employing some pretty shameless camera angles. If you're going to put a strong-willed character in charge of your fictional military unit, that's fine. If you're going to have a character talk about having children while showing off her butt in a tight skirt, then go for it. However, you shouldn't combine these two things and expect it all to work in harmony. Instead of balancing one another out, the character development and fanservice just clash awkwardly and leave the audience lost at sea.

Somewhere between the explosive visual spectacle and the messy emotional appeal sits the meat of the story, and as usual it's a “love it or hate it” affair. Feasible or not, I like the idea of the bad guys creating their own cloud cover to hide their Object from satellites and then targeting their opponents by bouncing signals off those same clouds. I find the strengths and weaknesses of their specialized weapons interesting, and I'm curious to see how the main characters will turn the tide of battle. On the other hand, I acknowledge that the price of all this detail is a very slow episode full of clunky exposition. If you're not here for the physics and engineering lectures, then you'll be bored to death. Just as sports shows sometimes interrupt the action to explain new formations and techniques, Heavy Object interrupts the action to discuss the aerodynamics of ballistic projectiles. At least it has the benefit of being the only game in town for viewers interested in its specialty focus.

It's safe to say we've been here before. We're halfway through a story arc, and Heavy Object has managed to do some things really well and some things really poorly. Separating the dynamic duo of Qwenthur and Havia could liven things up a bit, and the threat of a friendly unit blowing up a nearby dam presents an added challenge for the team to overcome. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next episode, but I'm willing to bet that it'll be pretty exciting even if the writing is still too damn complicated.

Rating: B-

Heavy Object is currently streaming on Funimation.

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