Fractale 8 – I Can’t Believe I’m Saying This, But …

. . . more Nessa, please?! Or, to be more exact, more Nessa blowing shit up. I still don’t care about bouncy, happy-go-lucky retard Nessa.

I think Digiboy is basically spot on with his post about the episode. How is the audience supposed to care about what is happening when there are three episodes remaining, and we have but the vaguest idea of what is going on right now? There’s a lot of stuff thrown out there: The Fractale system, Lost Millennium, technology vs. nature, the key to the world, clones, virgin detectors, and so on and so forth. But that’s the problem right there — a lot of what’s used to cobble together the plot feels as if it’s just thrown out there with no regard to forming a coherent, cohesive narrative.

I’m sure come episode 11 all will be explained. There will be some bullshit about how Phryne unlocks the path to a higher power, and that the Fractale system is God or some shit like that. Maybe Phryne will grow to gigantic proportions like a certain character from a certain series that Fractale certainly steals from for shock value. But maybe it will be interesting. Let’s assume that. So what? Will it have made the journey worthwhile? Fractale is a series that is all ideas and disconnected set pieces. Have any of the episodes actually come as if they go with the others in the series? I honestly think you could jumble the episodes Haruhi Suzumiya style and it would not make much difference.

Because Fractale lacks any sort of coherence (in either plot or character), it’s difficult for me to care much about what happens. When the guns were pulled out and old ladies were blasted, that was a shocking moment . . . that wasn’t capitalized on at all. Instead there was more “Clain’s a pervert and I hate him except I like him now because that’s how all romance progresses in anime tee hee!” and standalone episodes that inch the plot forward and are carried by being interesting enough to think about, but require the viewer to do all the work and are not really engaging at all.

And then this asswipe shows up and his Lost Millennium group are a bunch of jerks, but their dumbassery comes to nothing because we barely see them except when the show needs this prick to show up and be an asswipe. The sole purpose of their existence in the story is, “Well, other parts of Lost Millennium are bigger jerks than the one we’re following, so that means these guys are cool!” Can any of you think of another decent explanation for their existence?

Then Clain’s shot at the end of the previous episode, except that means jack diddly shit, too, because he’s all healed up the next time we see him. So the only point of Clain being shot is to provide a “shocking” cliffhanger that is rendered utterly meaningless in the first couple of minutes of the next episode. (By the way, I absolutely expect the same of the explosion that ends this episode. Whether watching a good show or a bad one, I would know that Clain and Phryne are going to survive, but a good show would at least raise doubts in the back of my mind. Fractale? Not a doubt in my mind.)

Unfortunately, Fractale is one of those trap anime that has me in its evil snares. You know the ones I mean: The ones you keep rationalizing to yourself each week, “This will get better, I know it!” and then it never does, and you’re pissed off that you wasted so much time on it. With just three episodes remaining, I am caught in Fractale‘s tractor beams. I honestly don’t think it will get any better at this point (that ship sailed a while ago), but I may as well stick around to see if it ends in a trainwreck. Not like I’m watching much else this season.