Let us imagine an imaginary organization that gives actual awards for anime, and this organization gave awards to individual episodes from the aforementioned anime, and one category of awards was for the best info dump episode, then this episode of C would most assuredly, in all likelihood not win the aforementioned award. That said, it didn’t do a bad job of info dumping either, for the four following reasons, which I hereby refer to as the Rules of Info Dumping (feel free to add more).
Rule of Info Dumping Number 1: Put some effort into masking the info dump nature of the episode
Let’s face it, any info dumping episode you realize is an info dumping episode is a bad episode. Could we all realize that having Jennifer monologue for half this episode was a ploy to flesh out the plot? You betcha. Still, I appreciated that we as an audience were given enough respect, so that creators wouldn’t think about throwing out some bad guy explains his motives for no apparent reason speech. I’m looking at you, Fractale.
JUDGEMENT: B-
Rule of Info Dumping Number 2: Earlier Info Dumps are better than later Info Dumps
Once again, let’s face it, all info dumps are bad. In a perfect world we wouldn’t even realize we were getting info dumped on until that aha moment, as a lot of people reading this likely had with Madoka. Sadly this isn’t a perfect world. So, when it comes to info dumps its best to have them at the beginning of a series rather than in the middle or end. In short, its good to get them out of the way so the viewer doesn’t have as many questions later on. FMA and FMA:B both did a good job of this. Explaining Alchemy could have been a long a drawn out process, but both of these series, especially the first, did a good job of getting their key setting info dump episode out of the way early.
C did this to some extent. At this point, we more or less understand the battling system and how the entres are able to attack. Sure, there are some questions left unanswered, but everything that needed to be revealed was. To put another way, a good info dump is like a woman worth your time. She teases you, giving up information about herself over time. We wouldn’t want C to put out so early, would we?
JUDGEMENT: B+
Rule of Info Dumping Number 3: Introduce characters and/or issues prior to when they become useful, so that their introduction doesn’t seem too out of place.
While I mentioned in my episode 1 post that the father may eventual play some role in the show, the way this was too clunky, at best. I mean, find your dad’s old journal; that is something that should only be used at the beginning of a series. The episode tried to have the Mikuni/Yoga conversation lead into this, which built character, but it didn’t work as a transition. However, the introduction of the information broker in the last episode meant that his sudden appearance in this episode went down a bit better than other plot devices, but it was still noticeable.
JUDGEMENT: C+
Rule of Info Dumping Number 4: Make the Info Dump Matter
Too many shows utilize info dumps that about events that have already happened (cough, BLEACH, cough), or they explain things that will never actually be useful. What I loved about this episode of C was that the info dump, while not always interesting did do some character building, with the Mikuni/Yoga interaction and the interacting Assets. However, the lynchpin that made this episode work as a whole was that we now have a rather clear idea of some of the players within this series, mainly the IMF vs. Mikuni. What role Yoga plays in this fight is unclear, and I suppose the story still has a few twist and turns, but at the moment the next eight episodes look like they might feature more than one showdown I’d like to watch.
JUDGEMENT: A-
1 Response to “C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 3 – The Rules of the Info Dump”