[25th Anniversary Rewatch] Mugen no Ryvius Series Discussion

**Final Discussion (rewatcher)**

*“Infinite Ryvius is an anime that I can’t believe is as good as it is. And I can’t believe is as bad as it is.”*~me in episode 1.

When I first watched Ryvius, I loved one part of the show and hated another, but the part I loved outweighed the part I hated. This has not changed and the part I loved has stayed the same. The part I hated has switched however.

Just like the first time round, I absolutely love the political aspect of Infinite Ryvius. There are very few anime that take the social part of politics seriously. That is, they take politics to be more than just a game of a few big heads interacting with each other. Ryvius is one of these anime. While the idea is stolen from Lord of the Flies, I adore what they are doing with the leadership struggles on board. This is not a band of heroes fighting against external enemies. This is a group of confused, scared teenagers, who have no idea to organize themselves and who run through bad and worse forms of government. Stein is one of the best take-downs of the *cold-hearted utilitarian* I know (most media takes the easy way out by just showing they have no empathy and *therefore bad*, but that is not the point. The point is that he just pretends to be a utilitarian, but in fact is as selfish and damaging as the others, if not more, for denying his empathy).

The part I hated initially, but am ok with now are the background characters. Diapers man was the bane of my first watch through. This time, I am much more accepting. Maybe I have grown more liberal with how people clad themselves, but I think the rewatch helped me appreciate the background characters more in general. They are our window into those 400+ non-special students on board. Those short montages of them we occasionally get are the equivalent of getting a feel of how the ordinary people on board view the current situation.

So, what replaced the side characters as my hated part? Not Kouji and Yuki. I never cared for their relationship drama in the first place, but it did not annoy me enough to keep me from enjoying the politics. What the rewatch showed me is how terrible the Earth plot of the show is. They literally dropped the ball so hard here that I think the show would be better off just not telling the viewer anything about Earth. The entire *two factions* setup went nowhere and in the end, all of the attacks hinged on a crackpot theory of a vice-minister. Hardly great writing.

Overall, there is plenty of light and darkness in this show, but the good parts are so perfectly centered on my interests that I still give it a high rating, despite the parts I hate.

> Is the show really Lord of the Flies? Or did it start there and become something else? Or did it become something else, and just circle back to Lord of the Flies?

It shares the same basic setup with Lord of the Flies, but goes in completely different directions with the plot. The *theme* of “teenagers form society after being without adults” comes through strongly, though.

> Early in the show we had viewers who loved the ship drama and cared nothing for the attacks on the Ryvius, and others who were bored by the drama but wanted to find out more about the attackers. And some that were bored by it all. Which group were you? How did you opinion change in the second half?

Always loved the ship drama (not the relationship drama, though).

> Speaking of the second half, almost all the mecha content was in the second half. As a mecha show, it was pretty unique in not focusing on the mecha. How did that work out?

As somebody who dislikes the bipedal mecha in mecha shows, very well.

> BGM (by Hattori) and Hip-Hop (by M.I.D.) — how did the OST work for you? Is this the birth of anime and lo-fi? Adding in tracks to your playlist?

Absolutely not my thing, but I respect that they tried something new.

First timer

Sub

Welp…that mostly sucked. Which is impressive considering the machine spirit is my kind of Cthonian deity. But not only did the show fail to offer her sacrficies, we didn’t even manage a blood orgy. NieR managed one so how could this fail so deeply? Anyways, as always, fuck Sunrise. Fuck them with a concrete dildo.

As to the rest…yeah, this was bad. Characters I barely care about, the ones I do like being constantly off screen, the one’s on screen being forced to break character so the plot happens, and finally the mob mentality is never quite right. This is a general failure with the occasional interesting bit that relied on setting information the viewer couldn’t really deduce from what was on screen.

QotD: 1 It was deconstructed Lord of the Flies, like one of those deconstructed meals, let’s say a cheeseburger. Meaning, of course, that it is both pretentious and vulgar

2 Bored constantly

3 Wrong audience so not sure

4 Fairly well but it wasn’t quite consistent to itself yet.

5 Cursed. This show is cursed. Let us exorcize it.

6 The machine spirit vs literally everyone else. All of the arcs are bad, as is the production

7 Someone wanted to try

8 Rewatch was fine, the material was just too…that.

*A Mecha Fan’s Final Thoughts on Infinite Ryvius:*

Honestly, talking about this series is going to be a bit harder for me, since there’s honestly some pretty promising and interesting stuff in this show, but the execution is wonky at best, and then outright bad in specific cases. I guess one way I can frame my feelings for Infinite Ryvius is how I was feeling at the end of the Martian Successor Nadesico rewatch a while ago: they had me at the beginning, but by the time the series ended, I was just disappointed at how rushed and half-baked a lot of things ended up being. But let’s get into it with more detail, shall we?

To start, Infinite Ryvius certainly does have some good stuff going for it. For one, like I’ve said a few times across the rewatch, the animation style and quality remained consistently good across the show overall. This was Sunrise at their 1990s cell animation peak, and it really shows. The animation combined with some very strong mechanical designs for the ships and Vital Guarders as well as some surprisingly actually solid Hisashi Hirai character designs all came together to make a very visually pleasing product. And speaking of characters, I will say that one of the best strengths of this show is the development of the side characters. It was fun to keep an eye out for Kikki and her mascot costume every episode, and I will say that for as pathetic or unlikable as people like Charlie, Criff, and Lucson started out as, they had some pretty solid character arcs that left me feeling pretty satisfied where they ended off. Like, I certainly wasn’t expecting the sheer turn around that Lucson eventually got in character, but I won’t complain at him managing to get his shit together once he hit rock bottom.

Unfortunately, those things alone can’t really totally overcome some of the rather bad or confusing plot and character decisions made by Infinite Ryvius made either. For one, pretty much the entire conspiracy with the Vaia Ships and the Orbital Security Bureau and Berkovich’s plan for them was lame at best, and just outright bad at worst. They ultimately served only as a function to send ships at the Ryvius to get our fights of the week. Berkovich’s plan was also incredibly flimsy and ruthless, being willing to sacrifice so much for a vague goal to the point where it doesn’t feel sensical for him to waste a dozen ships and hundreds of lives over doing some kind of vague “awakening” of the Ryvius. And then you get Captain Conrad, who serves as the main external antagonist, but ultimately falls flat in that role and ultimately meets his end in a pretty rushed and unsatisfying way. I’d say that it really does feel like the writers weren’t interested in setting up the Earth conspiracy plot aside from just a way to get some ships and Vital Guarders to fight the Ryvius. The show wanted it both ways, to have drama aboard the Ryvius and a series of powerful foes to attack it, and unfortunately the show wasn’t able to strike a workable balance.

Speaking of, the internal conflict between the Ryvius’ crew did attempt to present some real moral and psychological challenges to the story, but I don’t think their big attempts paid off either. For one, although I noticed rewatchers say that this show would attempt to explore politics aboard the ship, what we really got was just increasing degrees of authoritarianism thanks to Stein’s manipulations and the various defects or incompetencies of the captains. Not to mention that by the time the third different revolution happened but nothing changed, I was just starting to be a bit bored with all these big actions didn’t result in any meaningful changes aside from more people being victimized than before. And aside from that leadership drama, I also feel that the various reveals about some of the characters’ true natures only semi-worked. With Stein it’s fine, since in hindsight the signs were there from the start. But with Fina being a double murderer on top of being a cult leader and manipulator, it just felt like they just really wanted a dark twist in there for the sake of it. And that goes even more so for Ikumi being revealed to have been in an incestuous relationship with his dead sister in the second to last episode. That’s just a dark twist for the sake of having a dark twist. It’s too late of a reveal to actually change much about his character. And on top of *those* things, ultimately I found that Yuki’s relationship with Kouji didn’t get a very satisfying conclusion, since it just feels like it suddenly had the breaks slammed on an arc that had gone on a bit too long. All of these things combined in addition to all the various petty and evil things the Zwei and Team Blue did just make it so that a lot of there scenes are getting insufferable to watch just due to their presence alone.

(Continued in below comment.)

**Last Timer**

Well time for the final discussion. In the end, I did enjoy Ryvius, it’s a messy show but I was still entertained with it throughout. I would def say my favorite character by the end was Juli or Yuki, the former for being one of the few characters that tried to keep order of what’s going on (even if she started faltering) and the latter because he was absolutely hilarious. I also could not find the subbed versions of the specials lol.

One of the main aspects I enjoyed of Ryvius is that you really slowly grow into that sense of desperation the cast grows into as their hopes of being saved are slowly diminished. Plus, how the leadership keeps changing and changing into what’s honestly worse versions of the previous one, they never really created a society that didn’t lead to issues later down the line, instead just creating stricter and harsher protocols. I also really enjoyed the wide cast, it made the Ryvius feel like an actual place and that people’s lives were going on outside of the main cast’s, which again in turn helped with showing what happens when a bunch of teenagers with no direction are essentially left to fend for themselves.

Kouji as a main character, I did enjoy. While yes it was a bit much to watch him constantly hesitate on making changes and confronting things, I think it came together in the end that we actually *see* him doing so, no longer hesitating and not speaking his mind like he was called out for several times in the past. His confrontation with Ikumi I felt exemplified this perfectly, as early series Kouji would’ve most likely sat around and waited for something to happen and grumbled to himself while here, even at the threat of death, he still confronted Ikumi and didn’t hesitate to make what he thought clear.

Yuki, I really liked as well. Despite not having as deep a character arc as Kouji, by the ending I feel it was clear that these two do care for each other, the problem just being that they need some serious therapy to help them. When Kouji was shot, I feel why Yuki didn’t react at the time was the shock of it all, to see Ikumi actually to go as far as to try to shoot Kouji, which is why later when he tried again, Yuki was the one to grab his arm to prevent it.

Aoi, I also really enjoyed too, but I wish that she had a bit more to her than just her character mainly revolving around the fact that she’s close to Kouji and Yuki. I can see they wanted to do more with her, esp with her wanting to speak with Kozue, but we never really get to go into that aspect. Which actually leads me into my criticisms.

The 2nd half of the show, while I still enjoyed, is pretty messy. The government sending ships after the Ryvius is not well done in my opinion and to be honest it took me a bit to realize the fact they also had their own Vaia’s ala Neya cause I just assumed they were like prototypes or something. Most of those scenes don’t really have much to do in the end and we’re pretty much given the resolution that it was dealt with off screen and such. The characters arcs as well I felt became messy too. Aside from the ones I mentioned above, I feel that Ikumi, Kozue, Juli, Faina, and Blue got hit severely with this.

Ikumi’s reveal at the end that he was being groomed by sister feels more like a last minute twist if anything, it’s never really gone into how that psychologically fucked him up as they don’t have enough time to focus on it. Kozue essentially disappears after she’s attacked and doesn’t really get to have any type of character arc aside from being a motivator for Ikumi to completely crash out. Blue just disappears from the plot as a whole and we never learn more about his backstory and feelings on his home being destroyed right in front of him. Faina we know is a religious nut case, but what was the sin her boyfriend witnessed? Was it that they had sex outside of marriage? Did she do something even worse? We don’t even know how that resolves as the story wraps itself up and we don’t know much outside of she’s currently back home. Finally, Juli ends up not being able to receive as much screentime to herself and what she does get is her mostly crying over blue. Which on that subject, the female cast I noticed were never really allowed to have arcs that weren’t relating to their relationships with the male characters. Aoi with Kouji and Yuki, Kozue with Ikumi, Faina with Kouji, Juli with Blue, like it all came back to their feelings.

Plus, the three recap episodes towards the end makes me think there was something going on behind the scenes. Esp for a 26 episode anime and for the last two to essentially happen right after the other, maybe the budget ran into issues or something of the sort. Truthfully, I think if maybe the show had like 36-40 episode range, these aspects would’ve been able to properly be spread out and addressed from both the character side of things and the government plot side of things.

But again, all in all I had a good time with the show ending it off with an 8/10. Sure it had its issues and wasn’t exactly perfect, but it was an entertaining watch to spend my September going through. Esp. a good distractor from a minor corneal ulcer I got last week (that’s thankfully healing quickly with no issue).

I should read Lord of the Flies finally.

**Questions**

> Is the show really Lord of the Flies? Or did it start there and become something else? Or did it become something else, and just circle back to Lord of the Flies?

I need to read LotF lol. I think I read it in middle school but I don’t have much memory of it.

> Early in the show we had viewers who loved the ship drama and cared nothing for the attacks on the Ryvius, and others who were bored by the drama but wanted to find out more about the attackers. And some that were bored by it all. Which group were you? How did you opinion change in the second half?

In the middle, I mostly liked the ship drama and didn’t mind the attacks. Though I feel in the 2nd half esp with the rushed character arcs we should’ve focused more on the ship drama.

> Speaking of the second half, almost all the mecha content was in the second half. As a mecha show, it was pretty unique in not focusing on the mecha. How did that work out?

I think that was fine because the show was a slow reveal into everything behind the Ryvius.

> BGM (by Hattori) and Hip-Hop (by M.I.D.) — how did the OST work for you? Is this the birth of anime and lo-fi? Adding in tracks to your playlist?

I loved the BGM, in fact when I would occasionally see how they did scenes on the 5.1 version, I was shocked to see how many tracks were outright changed or replaced with more generic music. The show’s BGM is a product of it’s time in the best way possible and really makes it stand out from other shows that came out at the same time.

> Flawed diamond or worthless coal that never should have seen the light of day? Something in between?

I’d go with Flawed Diamond to be honest. Rough around the edges, but still a diamond in the end.

> Best and worst characters? Best and worst arcs? Best and worst production aspects?

**Best Character** – Juli and Yuki

**Worst Character** – Johnson. Charlotte is absolutely gonna end up on some true crime podcast.

**Best Arc** – Kouji

**Worst Arc** – Blue

**Best Aspects** – BGM and Setting

**Worst Aspects** – Recap episodes

> How do you interpret the eyecatches after watching?

Mainly that they reflected characters that the episode focused on or had themes relating to.

> What do you think of the OP animation?

I love it honestly. This was one I never skipped as I watched. The ED song though, eh.

The eyecatches were fun. I enjoyed the music more than the rest of the show. The OP was great, and I was very into the visuals…back when I thought they’d mean something. ED was alright.

Yeah, I hated this show. I’m usually a fan of shows that aim high and fail, but I don’t think that’s what happened here. Their goals were never as lofty as I was giving them credit for. They wanted to be a dumb teen soap opera all along, and the space/mecha/politics/suspense aspects were just stapled on to get Sunrise and their animators interested. It was consistently itself from start to finish, and it’s my fault for thinking there was something more hidden under the surface.

If they’d either had cool robot battles, fun characters, or wild twists, I could’ve cut them some slack on the other 2/3 being subpar. But this just disappointed on every level besides the music.