Overview

After the first cour of Darling in the FranXX I had the series rated at an 8/10 and hoped it would continue on with the same quality. Unfortunately, the second cour was the most disappointing second cour I’ve ever seen.

The series dropped the original plot and world building, went off on a tangent nobody cared about, came back with an info dump episode about the world, then realized there was no clear ending in sight, and so ripped of the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I truly believe that the second cour of this series was written week to week with no clear conclusion laid out beforehand.

Disappointment in the FranXX

Somewhere around the end of the first cour is when we get our first glimpse at the true power of the Klaxosaurs when they destroy multiple human colonies. However, we then ignore this and take a detour for half of the second cour.

In this time, it appears the author decided to write his own fan fiction about two of the characters, Mitsuru and Kokoro. This side story even included a wedding between the two characters on the same weekend as the royal wedding in the UK, coincidence? Probably not. More likely the author was jumping on the bandwagon.

For multiple weeks the viewers had to sit through this B-plot which doesn’t really have any implications for the wider story, until I can only assume someone reminded the author of the original storyline. Unfortunately, the damage was done.

In an attempt to quickly remedy this, an info dump episode was released about the world before the beginning of the series. Normally this information would be spread throughout the series through visuals and hints, but there was no longer time to do it the right way, multiple episodes had been wasted.

We then come out the other side and get back to where the story had been left off roughly six weeks earlier. There’s a blue girl known as the Klaxosaur Princess, and with her introduction we can finally put a face to the enemy the kids have been fighting against for so long.

However, it’s at this point that I believe the author ran out of ideas for his series and resorted to stealing the ending of another, more well-known anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Originally this series paid homage to Eva, like many mecha anime since its release, but this ending is a bit too similar.

Turns out there’s an alien hive mind which has actually been the antagonist the whole time behind the scenes and the Klaxosaurs are actually the good guys, whoops. This alien hive mind, known as VIRM, wants the humans to give up their physical bodies and join them, exactly like in Eva.

Then, Zero Two becomes a giant woman for no apparent reason, and begins to fight off VIRM, just like Rei in Eva. However, since Hiro only has Zero Two, and not two girls all to himself like Shinji did, Zero Two also has to play the part of Asuka and be stuck with Hiro alone for eternity until all the souls of everyone are reincarnated (much like in Eva).

Now, let’s pretend the ending wasn’t stolen from Eva. What else could have happened instead?

For one, we could have actually flushed out more of the characters and their relationships with each other, but not in the way that was done for Mitsuru and Kokoro (who were probably the least important characters by the way).

You may recall that Zorome once got lost in the adult city and had an interesting conversation with an old woman about each of their partners. Zorome said the woman felt familiar, and the woman already knew who Zorome was. At the time I thought that Zorome and Miku were clones of these two, but unfortunately it was never flushed out.

There were so many interesting questions to be answered and directions to be taken from the first cour of the series, but none of it panned out. Aside from Mitsuru and Kokoro’s fan fiction arc, the rest of the character plot lines ended in the first cour as well, leaving the second to be pretty dry.

Even our protagonists, Hiro and Zero Two, didn’t really have any more growth. They learned that they met each other as children, and then they went back to being in love with each other unconditionally. No new developments there.

Conclusion

In the end, Darling in the FranXX is a 5/10. The beginning of the series was great, but the ending was so poorly written and disappointing that it was probably a 3. Hopefully the mass score on MAL will go down over time, because this series doesn’t deserve the rating it has on there right now.

Rather than watching this anime, I highly recommend everyone go watch Neon Genesis Evangelion instead. It’s the anime this one copies and it’s actually better in every way. The animation is higher quality, the story is written better, and it has some of the best written characters I’ve seen.

The second OP for Darling in the FranXX is available here, but it features the same song as the first so it’s not too interesting.

Overview

Darling in the FranXX is the newest Trigger original anime and started airing back in Winter 2018 along with Record of Grancrest War. This anime may be what the mecha genre needs in order to be revived after 3D animation killed it for the past few years.

Like with Record of Grancrest War yesterday, this post will be about the first 15 episodes and there will be another post about the series as a whole once it completes.

This series takes place in a future where humans no longer live directly on the surface of Earth, but rather in giant mobile “plantations” which are the only places safe from monsters known as Klaxosaurs. To defend the plantation from Klaxosaur attacks, children are raised to pilot mechs known as FranXX in male-female pairs.

The children grow up with numbers instead of names; the lower the number, the more potential one has as a pilot. However, one child 016, decided to name himself and his squadmates based on their numbers.

While everything was going pretty smoothly for this squad, a girl with horns, 002, shows up and forces her way onto the team. Despite what anyone else says, this is really a story about 002.

Characters

Hiro, 016, is the protagonist of the series. He was a failed FranXX pilot despite having exceptional potential until the arrival of Zero Two. He’s basically just another version of main character-kun.

Ichigo, 015, is the leader of Squad 13. She’s one of Hiro’s childhood friends and has strong feelings of affection towards him. Unfortunately for her, she isn’t paired up with him as her partner.

Goro, 056, is another childhood friend of Hiro and Ichigo. He’s Ichigo’s partner and likes her even though he knows she likes Hiro. Goro is probably the best male character in the series simply because he doesn’t annoy me in some way as the others do.

Miku and Zorome, 390 and 666 respectively, are another pair. These two act the most childish and could be considered tsundere like many childish characters seem to be. While they constantly argue, they wouldn’t trade partners given the chance.

Kokoro and Futoshi, 556 and 214, are a pair who seem to be able to get along well with everyone. These two tend not to get into arguments like the others, but instead, try to stop everyone else from fighting with each other.

Ikuno and Mitsuru, 196 and 326, are the opposite of Kokoro and Futoshi in many ways. While Kokoro and Futoshi tend to want everyone to get along, Ikuno and Mitsuru seem like they don’t really want to be bothered by the rest of their squadmates.

Finally, we have Zero Two, 002. As we learn later on in the series, she doesn’t have a real name because the name Hiro came up with for her was Oni and he didn’t think that was a good name for her despite her appearance.

Zero Two is the best character of the series and the only one I really care about when it comes down to it. I mean, she has pink hair, what more could you ask for? Honestly, if anything bad happens to Zero Two at the end of this series it will be a failure for the human race because she’s the closest we’ve ever come to achieving perfection.

Conclusion

For now, Darling in the FranXX is on track to become an 8/10 as well as my favorite Trigger anime, surpassing Space Patrol Luluco. That said, there are still plenty of episodes left for the series to either drop or rise in the ratings so we’ll see how I feel about it again once it’s complete.

Despite how the series concludes, I don’t feel like there’s any way for Zero Two to not end up as the #1 girl in my heart.

My review of the trainwreck that is the second cour of Darling in the FranXX is now available here.