コッペリオン Ep. 07 Review
Coppelion

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Aoi freaks out as Haruto has to get her to get him the emergency medical equipment he needs. With Ibara’s heart not beating, Haruto does CPR, then attempts to restart her heart with a defibrillator, Aoi finally helping out. With her heart going again, the group returns to Planet, taking the 1st Division general with them as he’s still alive, dropping him off at a police station cell. Haruto has to provide a blood transfusion for Ibara, who quickly recovers. Aoi is sulking in a locked room, so Ibara tries to get her out with reverse psychology, but that fails. Meanwhile, at the prison, Kurobe and Gennai can’t get the general to talk, but Haruto does, learning that 1st Division are collecting nuclear waste to get it to the sarcophagus around the failed nuclear reactor, where they then intend to blow it up. However, they need Coppelion members to get into the radiation zone.

Ibuki is going into labor, but Ibara’s attempt to get a helicopter sent fails since the Japanese government wants to put on a show for the world and not lose face.  Ibara decides to transport Ibuki to the hospital downtown that the JASA folks were going to originally. She tells Haruto about their plans, then they take a shelter tractor-trailer rig to the hospital, Kurobe and Gennai at the helm. Haruto tries to raise the other members of his team, but fails to do so. Meanwhile, Kurobe discovers that every route they attempt to take to get them downtown runs into a high radiation zone.  However, their route is deliberately being sabotaged as each one has a single, open container of high level, radioactive waste. Their next attempt to make it downtown is blocked when two unprotected high school girls stand at another waste container, blocking their path.

Thoughts/Review:

The problem with a series like this starts with the fact that the anime adaptation whacks off large amounts from the manga source, which would have provided a better story. The problems are exacerbated by the fact that the architects of the story (ultimately manga-ka Inoue-sensei) have done just enough research on nuclear energy to seem credible, but alas, the story gets injected with a lot of elements that are not true in order to push an anti-nuclear theme. I mean, if a sarcophagus was constructed over the reactor in this series, then why is it shown as being exposed to the elements?  I could go on and on, but I won’t bore you.  I’ll save that ranting for the final review.

As to the episode, Aoi continues to prove herself completely worthless. Sadly, I was spoiled about the character to a degree when I was looking over Crunchyroll’s manga site, so my usual rants on her won’t continue as I’ll wait to see how that spoiler element I discovered plays out.

Again, the whole idea that a single helicopter can’t be dispatched to help the Medical Unit is insane. Seriously, it is impossible to have 100% of helicopter assets to be in the air to impress the visiting gaijin.

Then there’s the threat from 1st Division, which while stupid, is supposed to be real within the context of this story. Ah, but nothing can get in the way of showing the gaijin that Japan is still awesome.  *_*  I realize the whole Japanese element of not losing face is at play here, but still, if Mishima broke the rules to get a member of the Cleaning Unit to help the Medical Unit, then he could dispatch a helicopter and ask for forgiveness later. Stupidity.

Finally, there are the two girls at the end, whom I was spoiled a bit on from Crunchyroll (not their fault, mind you). What kind of stupidity awaits us with them?

I was going to write more, but in reality, I’m weary of all the stupidity.  I guess I’m stupid as well, but there is a part of me that wants to see where this shambling mess ends up. So I’m in for the rest of the series, failed comparisons to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster not withstanding.