Terraformars, Chapter 145: Avatar of Might - Incarnation of Evolution
Man, I've been neglecting poor Terraformars for a couple of weeks, haven't I? Inbetween multiple chapters coming out per week and most of it just being big fight chapters with nothing really much to talk about, well, I decided to just wait and talk about it in one go. So have, uh, six chapters! Yay. These chapters mostly focus on the team with Marcos, Keiji, Ivan and the non-captain characters rushing through the gigantic gauntlet of cockroaches to reach the drop point for the rescue ship.
This one had an awesome narration about how athletes run the best when they are exhausted, while Marcos thinks to himself how they don't have vehicles, cockroach samples or even adequate serums to transform, but they will fucking return alive, at the very least to destroy the cockroaches on Earth. We get a little rundown of how everyone there have lost something -- husbands, sisters, loved ones, companions...
They run as the mysterious spherical ships "Frontier Spirit" touches down.... and then the cockroach with this weird Gandhi-esque robe, who I'm going to call the Prophet Roach, lands in front of poor Nina. Prophet Roach talks and the humans know that he's the leader. Nina tries to attack with her scorpion-tail ponytail, before body-grabbing Prophet Roach's arm and doing some cool sambo spins... but Prophet Roach chokes Nina with her own scorpion tail, tosses her away, and counts down the seconds to the Frontier Spirit ship coming down... and kicks it with his armoured legs, and the escape ship absolutely obliterates Nina's entire upper body.
RIP Nina. :(
Terraformars, Chapter 146: Carnava - the Trampling Feast
I've always liked Nina, being this underused yet competent character with a cool animal changeform. So of course the moment after she died, we get a full chapter dedicated to a flashback between Nina and her already-deceased husband, Aaron. We get to see how he's all like 'marry me' and she's all like 'I'm not interested in weaker men', and how she regrets rejecting him out of formality and acting too much like a chick and generally fussing about how she's overcomplicating their relationship. Aaron has been training so hard, we've got Nina and Aaron going at it, and how they went because they didn't have kids. They're also apparently pretty close to Alexander, too. Man, poor Alexander. His death was sad.
We see a quick glimpse of Nina screaming after Aaron died way back during the pyramid war, ironically having his upper body ripped off his lower body much in the same way that Nina died last chapter.
This is juxtaposed with the image of someone swatting bugs with a newspaper. Man, fuck the cockroaches.
We then have Sergei charging in with his giant mole cricket arms, but Prophet Roach just judo slams him to the ground. We have Hong, the bacteria girl, blowdart her poison into the Prophet Roach's eye, but even Hong's bacteria is ineffective. Apparently Prophet Roach is the cockroach that was born within the Annex I ship that got away from them, and those weird robotic legs are the Anti-Terraformar leg pads 'Carnaval De Paris', and looking it up apparently Rank 13 is Isabella Leon, the Sia ferox cricket, so it was actually foreshadowed somewhat. He's ready to kick some rocks like missiles...
When everyone's attention gets diverted to the skies. Kai's apparently seeding down his Cordyceps fungus spores to take control of a good amount of the cockroaches while just flying around in the Kuzuryuu, so, uh, good on the sexist bastard, I guess.
Terraformars, Chapter 147: The Crest - the Name
Meanwhile, Alex and Yaeko look at the weird spherical pod thing, and it starts speaking through speakers, promising salvation to these poor bastards stranded on Mars for 140+ chapters. Apparently each pod can only take two to three people, though, so some hard choices had to be made. While people like Asimov are suspicious, the Japanese among them immediately knew what the symbol meant, and immediately began the evacuation. Keiji orders Amelia inside, Yaeko wants Alex to get in, Komachi and "Mr. Perfect" Joseph literally push Eva, Michelle and Akari into one of the pods.
Michelle tries to protest, talking about how they'll finish up the cockroaches far more easily if there were seven of them, while Akari's just trying to hold her back. Komachi gives the reasoning that Michelle will be particularly susceptible to the Cordyceps spores from Kai, whereas Asimov just pulls off another 'it'll be embarrassing to not let a girl the age of my daughter return'. Komachi also gives a speech about how Michelle can't move on if she didn't come to Mars, but in the same vein, Komachi can't face Captain Davis if he didn't send the children at least back to Earth.
Liu Yiwu of all people looks back, and notes how strong of an expression they had, and kind of notes how Michelle and Akari instills him with hope as he flashes back to Zhang Ming-Ming in the slums. Liu talks about how he won't apologize for anything, but says something about destiny. Michelle tries to get Joseph to at least come with them, since Joseph is of the same age as them, but Joseph's just playing it cool and all 'please wait for me', telling Akari to not let Michelle die as a promise between men.
Meanwhile, Amelia's gotten into a pod, while Keiji's looking for someone.
On Earth, apparently the person responsible for sending the escape pods (BUGS2 escape pods or something?) is yet another relative of Ichiro. Well.
Terraformars, Chapter 148: Human Society - Grave of the Bears
After all that distraction about evacuating the women and children, we get a narration about how there are two types of societies: those that respect nature, and those who do not. How some people in Canada and Russia and whatnot respect nature and returned what they took back to nature, showing respect to the animals they killed and some belief about how animals are gods who wore animal skins, and respecting them ensures that the gods will return. Meanwhile, modern day Japan just looks down on nature, and animals are just something that they can naturally steal from, and if they took too much all they had to do was 'protect' them. And all this arrogance apparently stemmed from technology and iron weapons, how with the advent of swords, they can easily kill bears.
All this is juxtaposed with Prophet Roach being born within Annex I and learning to use the space motorbikes and the Anti-Terraformar soccer leg pad things. How the other roaches gave the prophet cloak to the Annex I Roach, how the weapon that 'god' (here meaning the humans) gave is able to kill 'god'. In the present, Prophet Roach kicks a rock up and knocks down one of the hoverbikes withWolf and Erika.
Keiji is next to engage Prophet Roach with a flurry of awesome boxing moves -- Keiji punching scenes are always a treat to read -- but Prophet Roach manages to avoid most of Keiji's punches and is about to stab Keiji with a knee-dagger thing if Marcos hadn't pulled Keiji back with a spider string.
Suddenly great explosions of flame! And very likely killed Wolf and Erika! (They survived, thankfully) Dammit, Kai, you were just cool two chapters ago. Also, at the very least Ryuji Robson (one of the ogre-faced spider brothers) gets burnt alive as his brother Ryuchi watches. Fuck you, Kai.
We have some more narration about how the word technology stems from the Greek word 'Techne', meaning to artificially draw out the blessings that an object is hiding, such as heating a rock to gain iron. And there's another narration about how the science and technology that the cockroaches stole from 'god' will give him power that 'god' will fear. And the cockroaches are the type of society that won't give back to nature, but will burn everything and invade everything.
Terraformars, Chapter 149: Call Out My Name - The Men of Flames
This chapter opens up with Erika and Wolf surviving their fall, which is nice -- the hacking team are all decent people, Wolf most of all, and it's great to see them survive. Wolf and Erika get into Amelia's pod, and they escape. Ditto for Michelle's pod. We see a bit of what remained of Annex I, with the roaches swarming it and the words 'WE ARE THE COSMOS' on a screen... what's that all about?
Keiji and the others react a bit and realize the cockroaches are boxing them in, and in between the flaming inferno and the roach wall, they're trapped. The remaining people there -- Keiji, Marcos, Ivan, Sergei... are all kind of losing hope because the roaches' target is to not let anyone return to Earth. Prophet Roach hides in a trapdoor underground, while the Kuzuryu's missiles fall down on Team Keiji, while the fodder roaches box them in.
And it seems like a partial-downer ending as a good amount of the secondary characters die, but at least some of them survive, right? Prophet Roach comes out of his trapdoor, all swaggering and shit...
BOOM!
That is an awesome panel of Marcos and the rest bursting out of the ground. And Prophet Roach is just confused, but everyone moves in, and Sergei gets this absolutely wonderful rape-smile on his face as he burrows out of the ground and grabs Prophet Roach's leg, introducing his full name to the roach. "I am Sergei Seleznyov". Strings tie up Prophet Roach, and Ryuichi Robson and Anastasia Andreevna Politkovskaya introduce themselves. Ivan Perepelkin introduces himself, injecting some painkiller into Keiji, while Marcos Eringrad Garcia uses his staff to help rest Keiji's broken leg. And finally, Keiji Onizuka introduces them as the Annex-I Crew, before delivering yet another mighty blow onto Prophet Roach's chest.
Man, how can just saying your names be so awesome?
Terraformars, Chapter 150: Breaking Point - Threshold
As Keiji's punch connects, we get a bit of a montage of all the faces of people as 'vengeance for their X' runs in the narration. There's some rather cheesy narration about burning their souls, but Prophet Roach breaks free of the strings and delivers a painful-looking punch straight into Keiji's gut. Though the dude's taken a ruptured testicle in stride, I'm sure he's fine.
He falls, though, only for Marcos to rise behind him all cool-like with that staff. Marcos mocks Prophet Roach for trying to fight and buy time before the next bomb drops (fuck you, Kai), but suddenly Marcos swings and blows a hole straight through Prophet Roach's chest... apparently motherfucking Alex threw a rock his way, and Marcos does this nice boast about being able to shoot bullets accurately.
We get a short flashback of Marcos, Alex and Sheila playing baseball as kids, which is cool. Prophet Roach is down, and the fodder cockroaches are confused. Marcos picks Keiji up and orders the rest of them to run, even as the Kuzuryu's missile erupts behind them. Marcos, carrying Keiji, is the last of the team... but before the fireball catches up, he gets knocked away to safety by Kanako...
Who is bleeding as a shard impales her abdomen. Fuck, man! I really liked Kanako. She's cool, but have yet to done anything really awesome. She does this dying declaration of love to Marcos, for all the good it does her, before dying. Man, Kanako. Why didn't you at least participate in fighting Prophet Roach? Damn.
Oh and another rescue ship comes in who the fuck cares how many rescue ships are there?
RIP Kanako. RIP Nina. RIP Ryuji. Also fuck Kai.
No comments:
Post a Comment