Pacific Rim: The Black is an anime sequel to the two Pacific Rim films. It takes place in the same universe and tells a different type of story. Interestingly, it is set in Australia, which is rare but basically just shows off a lot of desert landscapes. It assumes you’ve seen the movies and are familiar with the backdrop. Basically, giant monsters known as Kaiju appeared and are bent on destroying humanity. Humans developed giant robots known as Jaegers, piloted simultaneously with two pilots, to battle against them.
The anime starts off strong, with a fierce battle between Jaeger and Kaiju. It does seem off at first, as the Jaeger lacks weight in its actions (even more so than the second movie). It has similar choreography as several key fights from the movies, so it tries to cement itself as a natural extension, but comes off as trying to hard by copying the moves near exactly. The anime’s a darker and bleaker take on the universe, showing what happens when Kaiju succeeds and overruns the continent.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping for some Jaeger vs Kaiju action like the movies, you’d be disappointed. The anime soon discards the Jaegers (or at least not including them in a meaningful way) for a more personal story. The story follows siblings Taylor and Hayley, as they discover the Jaeger Atlas Destroyer, and how they survive in this new world order that they find themselves in.
It’s hard to deny that this is an interesting setting, post-apocalyptic but not quite. Civil human civilisation as the siblings had known does not exist anymore. Now, there are pockets of survivors and settlements, and it’s basically survival of the strongest. Furthermore, Kaiju are prowling everything, it’s a miracle that anyone can survive. Hence why being in possession of Atlas Destroyer is so important, and also why this ends up being overly focused on humans, taking away from what made Pacific Rim so engrossing in the first place.
The anime is animated with 3D CG, which traditionally can be awkward and tough for the eyes. Polygon Pictures has done a great job here, managing to avoid the stiff animations and clashing models against backdrops that plague so many other attempts. Even the Jaeger and Kaiju movements, which can be hard to pull off, is done well (apart from the nimbleness and lack of weight at times for such big heavy objects). Therefore it’s all the more shame that we don’t see much of them, even more so when we consider their other work with mechas like Knights of Sidonia and Transformers : Prime.
Somewhat contentious is what the anime contributes to the lore. We’re used to certain expectations based on the movies, and since this is canon, firstly we now have a place where Kaiju’s have won and what that means. Next are the new different types of Kaiju that we see, and how they supposedly reproduce. Finally, there’s also the mysterious boy that the siblings pick up, who you’d expect to have special powers of his own and you’re not sure how he fits into all of this.
The anime has a cruel and bloody streak. It’s not afraid to show bloody shots and cruel moments to highlight its hard world. There are various tense and dramatic moments, with one scene that has a slight horror tinge to it. This helps it break away from the “kiddie” mentality that a lot of animation gets as this is very much an adult oriented show. It doesn’t go so far as to have complex themes, but it’s dark enough that it never feels like it's trying too hard to cater to the grown audience.
There are several neat references to the movies. They’re infrequent but when they appear and you recognise them, it’s satisfying. Perhaps more surprising are how some of the events of the movies have consequences that the characters in this anime are experiencing. It definitely makes it feel part of the same world, and gives a heavier gravitas to the lighter tone of the movies. The familiar yet not the same orchestral theme music helps.
Being only seven episodes long, with each episode being between 20 mins to 30 mins, there’s not much time to set up a long story arc and resolve it. Thus it leaves a number of unanswered questions as well as teasers for its future. The ending does resolve a few things, so it doesn’t completely leave the viewers in the dark. As expected, the Jaeger vs Kaiju action is mostly in the finale too, but it’s nowhere near as well choreographed as the movies, but the visuals are at least striking and beautiful to watch.
Overall, Pacific Rim: The Black has a lot of potential but doesn’t quite make the transition from movie to anime unscathed. The tone is different, being darker and more serious, so it doesn’t quite gel as well with its source material. The heavy focus on the human aspect rather than the Jaegers or the Kaiju is another thing that would disappoint the people who would be interested in this. That said, it does well enough expanding the lore, even if some of it might be controversial. In the end, this anime still deserves a recommendation as it does enough things right to be enjoyable.
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