Snowball Earth ‒ Episode 4

© Yuhiro Tsujitsugu /Shogakukan/ 'SNOWBALL EARTH' Project

The good news about this week's episode is that the animation is not as awash in CG as it was in the previous episode. True, the CG still makes up a good half of this episode, and the 2D animation we do get is mostly utilized in flashbacks, which...weird? It's odd to see the memories of the past being filtered through such a lens, but I'll take what I can get. There's a scene where an adult is being held down by his peers who are preventing him from risking his life to save someone from being attacked by kaiji. It's not much, but the animation is more detailed this time around, and easier on the eyes than any fight scene from the first batch of episodes. Unfortunately, it's better than the fight scene we get in this episode's final moments. More on that in a bit.

The episode decides to properly introduce the girl Ao, one of the survivors from last episode. She didn't come filled to the brim with personality at that time, so I expected the anime to wait an episode or two before letting the audience get to know her a bit. And we do, with hit-or-miss results. Ao is a kaiju tamer. And she might have a thing for Tetsuo. Ao gives Tetsuo a pineapple to share, and since Tetsuo has communication issues, his response is full of stuttering anxiety. That's okay, though. It turns out that Ao can't communicate either. Their social awkwardness makes them Like Two Peas in a Pod, and I like how the anime uses this moment to ignite a chemistry between the two of them. It's adorkable.

Where the episode makes its misses, however, is within the flashback detailing Ao's backstory. It starts out good enough, showing how a kaiju rose from underneath the ocean ten years ago to freeze the Earth. Wait, I thought they all came from space? Maybe one fell from space and then into the ocean. Whatever, I can suspend my disbelief for this. Eleven months after the freeze begins, Ao and her group of survivors are left to fend for themselves, surviving on dead kaiju meat for food that kills half of them. Ao eats some of it, and later when two kaiju appear in the middle of a frozen field, her group accidentally leaves her stranded and woozy between the two mastodons. Great! So we're finally going to get a kaiju fight that's all 2D animation, right?

Wrong! Ao has a Power of Love and Friendship moment that energizes her so much that one of the kaiju swift-kicks the other one in the head, and KO's it just like *snaps fingers* that before the fight begins. And then said kaiju gives Ao magical powers, which leads Ao's gang of survivors to believe that Ao stopped the fight all by herself. Did I mention this kaiju is a fiery chicken monster? And it gets CG'd at the last minute because...reasons, I guess? It's all anti-climactic, to say the least.

I'm giving this episode a mixed-to-negative score, although there are a few things I'm looking forward to despite everything. In the present, Tetsuo and the survivors are escorted to a mall that hides away other survivors from the kaiju. And I kinda like it. This is already "What if The Day After Tomorrow was a kaiju anime," so I'm hoping that the mall being a survivor's hideout allows Snowball Earth to channel some Dawn of the Dead-isms as well. One can be hopeful. So long as it's not too compromised by CG. Which my inner cynic tells me it probably will.

Rating:

Snowball Earth is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.