“Another lecture I suppose.” laments a character in the latest episode of Godzilla: Singular Point as he spots an email pop up on his computer. At this juncture in Toho and Netflix’s animated union, it’s tough not to empathize a little as the only thing that dwarfs the chonky monsters on display thus far is the sheer size of obtuse and obtrusive theory babble when all we really want to see is “big-lizard-knock-things-over”.
Well Singular Point has seemingly reached its tipping point, as the sixth episode not finally offers something approaching an explanation for the constant stream of big-brained jargon, but we finally get our first proper look at Godzilla himself…. sort of…. not really…. It’s complicated.
Once again, its down to the supporting Kaiju to shoulder the burden of making Singular Point watchable and in this episode, they perform it nicely against all odds.
The world is under something of a Kaiju invasion. Another swarm of Rodans have emerged from the sea to blot out the sky over Manhattan and the red mist chokes the atmosphere like a shut-in has decided to beat the dust out of a seat cushion while in India, Salunga, a creature who can seemingly control the dust, languishes in his sealed off cage. However, in Japan, Gorõ is preparing to pilot his robot, Jet Jaguar, in battle against a rampaging Anguirus, a Kaiju with the funky ability to predict attacks with time manipulation – but maybe most worryingly is the three, eel-like Manda who are streaking through the waves as they flee a significantly larger predator as it surges after them toward the coastline.
But while all this is going on, Mei and Pelops II continue their meandering journey for answers as she digs into the research of one Dr. Ashihara, an eccentric scientist whose scrawled ramblings may actual be the key to solving this whole mess. Along with Yukie Konoko, a government agent prone to quoting Walt Whitman, Mei finally figures out that the mysterious Archetypes – that have a connection to the red dust – have the ability to distort and bend the very fabric of space-time and thus may explain where this confederacy of creatures has originated from.
This however isn’t going to help Gorõ, whose attempts to batter the crap out of the resilient Anguirus results in Jet Jaguar losing his head. However, Yun manages to upload his A.I. into the robot in order to continue the fight and tries to find a way past the spikey Kaiju’s time warping defense mechanism in a way that might put him in mortal danger.
But bigger issue lay on the horizon as the huge mystery predator finally makes its presence felt in the most spectacular way.
Before I delve once again into another batch of Kaiju-heavy praise, I suppose it’s high time to discuss the human characters that populate this flawed-but-fun show. The problem with most of these, squishy bipeds is that even after six whole episodes, I haven’t managed to work up a shred of empathy for a single one of them, with only the quietly enigmatic Yun raising above the rest simply because he’s the only character who actively doing anything. He became an MVP in the Rodan heavy episodes thanks to some impressive puzzle solving and once again he gets to flex some of those latent hero muscles once more as he not only gets Jet Jaguar back into the fight, but even acts as the damaged robot’s eyes while clinging to its shoulders. In comparison, Haberu has done sweet fuck-all for three consecutive episodes and I’ve actually lost track of all the reporters, scientists and agent who have wandered in and out of the show since it started. So weirdly, its Mei who actually has been progressing the plot more than anyone else, which is fairly impressive when you realise that a) she’s not met a single Kaiju face to face and b) I honest do not understand more than half of the things she’s babbling on about all of the time. Bottom line, the characters rarely feel like actual characters, but instead are still more like plot ciphers that dispense info when needed without eliciting any sympathy whatsoever.
Thankfully, the monsters do and it’s this episodes treatment of the true stars of the show that elevates it to a higher level than it probably deserves. Need proof? Take the shabby treatment of Anguirus, whose in-cannon, punching-bag nature helps him keep up that impressive unbroken streak of literally losing every on-screen fight he’s ever participated in. Long time Anguirus fans may be pissed that their beloved monster has scored more losses than Pee Wee Herman taking part in ultimate fighting, but there’s something perversely right about a creature that is essentially the Eeyore of the Kaiju world taking yet another loss at the hands of a well placed harpoon.
Elsewhere, we move on from the mournful bellow from Anguirus, to whatever the hell is going on in the ocean, we find another scarcely used Kaiju making something of a come back. While the familiar spines and the tell-tale blast of Ishiro Honda’s awe-inspiring theme tells us that despite the despite the design strongly resembling another aquatic super-lizard, this possibly is our first glimpse of Godzilla as he imminently makes landfall. However, the orange colouring of the aquatic titan strongly implies that the creature’s design is strongly inspired by Titanosaurus, an Showa era beastie that’s only had one on-screen appearance of note and while I appreciate the gesture – I’d rather it had officially been Titanosaurus rather than a proto-zilla form.
However, retroactively saving the day is 2016’s Shin Godzilla, a movie that’s already floated the concept that Godzilla is an ever-mutating lifeform, so the concept of our titular star sneaking into the show under the guise of another creature isn’t exactly new and a prompt metamorphosis is surely on the cards. Still, even though the creature technically isn’t Titanosaurus (much like how Salunga technically isn’t Gabara), he still gets a genuinely impressive hero moment as his immense mass explodes out of the water to perform a spectacular Free Willy moment on a naval vessel.
At this point, I think it’s fairly safe to say that Singular Point’s human troubles are somewhat insurmountable at this point (ramblings of a lost invention called an “Orthogonal Diagonalyzer” prove that we’ve plenty more science chat to come), however, the monster cast seems fully stacked enough to carry it through. However, like most things in life – it all hinges on what happens when Godzilla shows up…
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We've Got (Back) Issues 