The entertainment world moves fast, and Thunder 3 ‒ Episode 12 is the latest development catching everyone's eye. From fans to industry insiders, the reaction has been immediate.
The Story So Far
For any other poor souls who endured this first run with me to the end, I'm sure they're just as dissatisfied with the lack of an actual conclusion. Nothing is resolved, and most of the funny-cartoon-kid-on-alien-violence in this installment is just reused footage from the penultimate installment, which headlines a ridiculously overlong 6-minute pre-credits recap.
I know this installment was delayed by a week, but the amount of padding here is unforgivable. The show's pacing has been whacked since almost the beginning, but seriously, almost nothing happens with any urgency here. The supposedly climactic events we witness should have occurred no later than the fifth or sixth installment.
Honestly, it's agonizing having to endure endless reaction shots and very little actual action. The enormous mech things with the Cylon-esque red light eye-visors hinted at in the opening sequence? One has a tiny part right at the end of the installment.
The viewers demand a enormous, destructive mech fight! Poor little Futaba is still wandering around the alien ship. Her narrative threatens to move along ever so slightly when her brother Pyontaro, incensed at the apparent demise of his friend to an Alien Death Ray, launches himself aboard the mothership and commences running around at random.
They almost reunite when the aforementioned mech thing gets in the way. It's an impediment, a prop rather than a kaiju-sized monstrosity to fight. I'm also pretty sure Pyontaro's friend isn't dead, but we'll need to wait for the second run to confirm his fate.
Some crusty-looking bad guy is hinted at too, but who knows what his deal is? So, I guess if anyone out there actually enjoyed this terribly-paced exercise in narrative frustration and aesthetic atrocity, then the announcement of a second run is good news. It does come across as somewhat cynical that the week that the show's finale streams is when Gantz manga creator Hiroya Oku unmasks himself as the true creator of Thunder 3, under a pen name.
It doesn't surprise me, or anyone else who's been paying attention, but it feels like a last-ditch effort to get anyone interested in the show. What's really sad is that, if handled correctly, Thunder 3 could have been a great little cult successful. I should have realized at the beginning, when Thunder 3's animation production house was disclosed to be the “artisans” behind the universally derided KamiErabi GOD.app, that I needn't have bothered getting my hopes up.
What frustrates me most is that even in this final installment, there are sparks of what could have been. The mech design is great. The backgrounds are often atmospheric and cool.
Whenever the funny cartoon characters are on major screen, the janky CG doesn't matter so much because it fits the silly presentation. Many moments would work really well… at half the duration. Cut down the entire series' runtime by half, surgically remove most appearances of the terminally boring human characters who add almost nothi…
As the story continues to develop, TeraMovies will keep you updated with every new detail. Until then, this remains one of the most closely watched entertainment stories of the week — and the conversation is only getting started.
