Toward the Terra

The Rugged ROSSMAN

Oh my GOD! I would absolutely LOVE to tell you that Toward the Terra is the greatest space opera since the original Macross! (And if you can't see where I'm going with this, you're an idiot.) Buuuuuuuuuut, it's not even the greatest anything since ever. I don't understand it... Toward the Terra had all the right ingredients: Epic, multigenerational storyline; huge cast of distinguished characters (with designs by the half-god known as Nobuteru Yuki); space; lots of 'splosions; cool mutant powers; and an operatic sense of woe and loss at times... But in the end it just fizzled. It's like the writers and the director gathered all of the aforementioned parts together, smiled at their genius, and then let Retard Tsukitami (the mongo intern) organize the whole storyline while they all went on vacation thinking "everything's perfect! How can somebody even as fucked up as Retard Tsukitami screw this bad boy up?!"

Retard Tsukitami did his damndest.

Now to explain (with SPOILERS!). Toward the Terra starts out a bit like The Matrix, except Jomy (the lead) is about 5Xs the douche that Keanu ever was at the beginning of the Walchowskis' movie. Jomy is raised in a universe where humans are conceived and born in test tubes, and raised on a planet that was created just to bring them up with the right frame of mind (meaning they are taught to never question authority, and their memories are mostly wiped when they reach 14 years of age in order to do away with such sentimental drivel as reminiscing about their loving parents, trips to amusement parks, and awkward attempts at feeling up their girlfriends in the movie theater and the slaps that followed). Jomy, just like all the other mindless little automatons, goes along with this whole predetermined path, but during his adult mental test (that the state is wont to give its fatuous lemmings in order to weed out the weak and mutated) he's offered to be shown "the truth" by a powerful and mysterious mystic stranger (Soldier Blue). Jomy chooses to take the red pill and wakes up from the nightmare he was forced to live his young life in up till then... Actually, his life wasn't all that bad, and it really only became shitty when Soldier Blue showed up in the middle of his adult test/mind-wipe and woke up Jomy's latent Mu powers (think Dark Phoenix). Only then did the system try to kill him (with good fucking reason!), and Jomy was forced to escape his utopian existence with Blue and live with the rest of the Mu rejects (who only have slight telepathic abilities at their disposal — though nothing as kick ass as Blue and Jomy — and long life spans, but who are all slightly physically fucked up in some way, shape, or form, and who apparently REALLY liked the uniforms in LotGH).

Then we jump to Jomy's old friends (who got their minds wiped... really, really shittily, seeing as they practically remember EVERYTHING about their childhoods) as they go on to the military school set up in an orbiting space station. Dan and Swena (the friends in question) meet again and become good buddies with the fucking robot-boy Keith. No, Keith isn't made of metal rods and wires, but he's got a GIANT rod up his ass. Keith is a genetics experiment created by the federation in order to be the perfect soldier/leader... Apparently that means he has to be an unemotional asshole. Anyway, we hang out with these guys for a while and see how the teenagers and adults in this military society function. At this point I was still very into the whole thing. Hell, when they then jumped 4 years into the future at around episode 7 I was REALLY loving what I was seeing... But then things started to turn a little rough with the 2nd or 3rd time jump after that.

After a few episodes a dozen or so years have passed and things start to slow down. The Mu — led by Jomy, who's now known as Soldier Shin — choose to forget their initial quest (of finding the Earth [which is supposedly in the middle of global cleansing due to mankind polluting the shit out of it for centuries]), and settle down on a secret planet all their own after fighting the federation for so many years. Then the idealistic (read retarded) youth start making decisions (the dumbest, beatnik, hippie decisions one could possibly make in a time of war and survival), and a shitload of people die, and things escalate to well beyond the heinous point that they were at before. Let me set you straight: Yes, I love it when unexpected twists occur in storylines that drive them in directions that I never thought were possible; but NO, I DO NOT LIKE when these twists are caused by utter stupidity. And booooy howdy are plot points pushed forward by stupid (hippie) choices and mentalities. I mean, beyond the small fuck ups like DISOBEYING a direct order from the supreme commander of your armed forces and NOT FIRING UPON enemy combatants who might reveal your secret base of operations to their HQ at any second (because you feel sorry for them), there's the whole major story twist of the retarded Mulian youth camp choosing to stay on a planet that is about to be ANNIHILATED by a Christian Death Star. I think we were meant to feel sympathy for the 'tards, but I was just pissed that Soldier Shin never got the chance to slap the shit out of all the dumbasses who not only put their own lives in jeopardy, but who almost caused the extinction of their ENTIRE RACE. Yeah, they essentially tried to put a flower in the gun barrel of the well-trained military nutcase who aimed his piece at their heads. Goddamn hippies...

From there things become desperate and decent again (plot-wise), but then EVERY character that we've known up to this point suddenly becomes a gigantic dickhead. From throwing a dagger into a small child's heart, to siding with the enemy because they're "confused," to having a bunch of surrendered (and unarmed) enemies killed "just because"... Everybody with whom we've felt the slightest bit of connection with up until this point pretty much started bathing in douche. Oh, then the over-goddamn-emotional shit started flying... Both the humans and the Mu began getting so goddamn melodramatic. People don't fucking ACT this way, Retard Tsukitami! Real people do not overreact to every tiny stimulus that comes their way. Unless you're a chick on the rag. Are you, Retard Tsukitami? Are you constantly on the rag?!

It was around episode 21 (out of 24) that I started thinking to myself, "Hey, Rossman... Remember the title of this show you're stuck in? Isn't it called Toward the Terra? Well?..... When the fuck are they going to try to GET to the fucking Terra?!" It seemed as if they had completely forgotten what the show was supposed to be about. But then, as if it was an afterthought, the final three episodes did bring this certain mission point back to the forefront, and the final confrontation between the humans and the Mu took place. And I actually began liking this show again. Yes, it was a little too little, a little too late to get a great rating from me, but I did really like the ending (especially the short clip after the final credit roll).

So, what did I think about Toward the Terra? When all is said and done I find that I have to give this series a 574 out of 678 Operatic Stars of Spaciness. It was not a bad show, but it was far from what it could have been. Huge potential that was just wasted in the end. And I still have one more question: How the fuck-a-doodle does anybody create body armor that's "psy-attack" proof? That's like saying "I developed a Hollywood actor who ISN'T stuck up and full of himself and who DOESN'T try to fuck his mirror every night." It's just impossible.

CAAAAAAAARRRRRLLLL

Just one question... How the hell are we as viewers supposed to give a shit about a bunch of characters, nevermind the entire show that they're in, if they're all a bunch of assholes? Whose side do we take? Do we just pick whichever side fucking pisses us off the least? Yes, I absolutely love death and destruction and dismemberment as much as the next guy, but it's hard to celebrate it when you just want to take a big dump in the face of the douchebag who's side the violence was just perpetrated on.

It was like, "Oh man! That's just fucking horrible, yet awesome! All those fuckers were just turned to chunks of flesh and bits of bone thanks to those asshole humans!.... But really, they had it coming. They're all just a bunch of faggots."

This was just a waste of fucking time for me... Like everything else the Rossman ever talks me into doing.

The Down MEGAPLAYBOY

Eanie, meanie, minie, MOE; I HATE this anime and that shit be fo' sho'! Everybody in it sucked; and in my opinion that be fucked. The plot went funky and wandered 'round; worse than that old Bob Denver sound. The hippie kids proved that beatniks should die; I'd love to push them out a window to see if they's can fly. In the end they ALL become friends; proving the writers should just stick to wearin Depends. That's alls I's gots, I can't talk no mo'; it's time to fuck yo momma up her back door.... See, she's a ho.

And to that I just warn you to say no. This show does fuckin' blow. Ya goddamn homo.