Snowball Earth

Episode 10

On this week's episode of “Everything Would Be Fine If It Weren't for the CG,” the bad guy finally honed in on the mall that actually isn't a mall! Are our hero Tetsuo and his robot buddy Yukio going to stop his evil plans? Let's be real: probably. I mean, Sagami does have the wind kicked out of him by the episode's end. I'm assuming there's more to his devious plan here, since we have two more episodes left. Still, I have to admit that despite all of the obvious flaws, this is the best episode of Snowball Earth so far. At least by default.

With Tetsuo and Sagami's second or so round of fighting, we're treated to a bunch of ridiculous slow-mo shots, explosions, sword-and-axe fights, and, of course, more shots of slack-jawed characters. Despite the massive limitations of the CG, there is a genuine attempt to up the intensity via absurdity with this fight. You can tell it's on when you have Sagami's kaiju squeezing Ao in the palm of his head like he's King Kong holding on to Ann. The momentum starts from there and doesn't stop, being the most fluid and action-packed fight the anime has served up thus far. There's nothing to interrupt the action either. No flashbacks, no elongated scenes of characters commenting on the fight from a distance, none of that.

The ridiculous side of Snowball Earth is also being put to proper use here. It's mostly been used for aesthetic purposes; just think of Sagami's mascot assistant, or every single goofy-looking kaiju (seriously, last episode's shot of the bat kaiju tap dancing over the mall's barrier to break it is still living rent-free in my mind, and not in a good way). Now we have a couple of moments here that are so ridiculous and stupid that they spin around and become… maybe ‘awesome’ is too strong a word here. They definitely are something, though.

The first comes with Tetsuo and Yukio slicing the top of Sagami's kaiju's head. For one, it's fitting that Yukio would get to do that; the top of Yukio's dome got sliced off a few episodes ago, and now he's getting his revenge. For all I keep on saying “Dawn of the Dead this, Dawn of the Dead that,” I'm surprised that I'm getting… a Hannibal reference? I mean, I'm seeing the top of a kaiju's head being ripped off and then having his brain revealed like he was Ray Liotta. I'm fan-fic'ing here, but given how absurdity has taken the reins here, why not? It's just as absurd as it was in Hannibal, but that was supposed to be a serious horror film, which Snowball Earth is not. Long story short, it works.

Now comes the second ridiculousness. Like a lot of fights aiming to be as over-the-top as possible, the villain here, Sagami's kaiju, has a second form. And it comes in the form of a dinosaur head emerging from its chest that swallows Sagami so he can control it from the inside like a mech. Great, so we have a metaphorical mech fighting a literal one! This is some Imaishi level of absurdity I can appreciate. Except. Why did we have to strip down Sagami for this? We see Sagami control his beast while bare-ass naked. I'm assuming this moment is meant to be a visual metaphor since a fully clothed Sagami can also be seen perched inside the kaiju's mouth. I guess the shots of naked Sagami controlling the kaiju from within are supposed to highlight his vulnerability or something? Either way you want to look at it, it's just weird.

And now we have to talk about the animation. Believe it or not, I didn't hate it this time around. Not entirely. Yes, a lot of the battle scenes I just described are awash in CG, and yes, it switches to 2D at the most random times once again—once again, did we really need shots of Sagami's ass? Plus, the episode's opening shots are rendered in 2D, almost to feel like a tease before the onslaught of CG. What makes it for me are the few 2D shots of Sagami getting owned right at the end of the episode. His kaiju vomits up blood after getting headbutted by Yukio, and the blood flows with a dark velvet red so disgusting and so brutal that it ends up leaving an impact. Not much of one; this is just one scene that I'm giving faint praise to. However, the sudden swell of cheesy, triumphant music that comes with Tetsuo and Yukio besting Sagami makes the scene feel like more than it really is. It makes me wish the final shot of this episode was rendered in 2D. To quote a man whose later work would become awash in CG no differently than Snowball Earth, it'd be like poetry, they'd rhyme.

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Snowball Earth is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.