Metropolis

nathandouglasdavis Jun 25, 2021

2

The way the story progresses from one plot point to the next is shitty and contrived. Obviously, all stories are constructed to arrive at certain scenes (and thus are, in some manner, "contrived"), but good stories will make it feel like it's natural for events to progress in the way that they're progressing and great stories will make it feel like certain progressions were inevitable. In contrast, none of the progressions in this story felt natural and it instead relied upon coincidences and on characters having sudden drastic shifts in motivations and personality to move the story along. You could probably go through every single scene change and find bad transitions and/or characters acting in inexplicable ways. Characters will also randomly get access to items that help to cleverly get out of sticky situations (e.g. the magnet, the sleeping medicine).  In addition to that, the primary antagonist--the Red Duke, leader of the Red Party--has extremely stupid reasons behind feir actions. If I'm understanding this correctly, everything fe's doing is for the goal of setting up headquarters on an un-iced Antarctica (with perhaps the implication that fe would rule over the world from there?), but why does fe need to set up shop in Antarctica specifically? And why go through all these convoluted schemes and disguises that don't do anything to aid in feir ultimate goal? It's just a shitty premise to allow for the idea of unintentional side effects coming from the Red Duke's actions. The entire plot of having Emmy try to lure Michi away was also just completely unnecessary and made the villains look like idiots who waste money and time for zero upside. And Michi's lack of self-awareness also makes fem look like a complete idiot--fe wouldn't have memories of anything beyond a couple months ago (something that should've made fem wonder what was going on) and then fe also flies around and has an appearance that changes from boy to girl (things that should've immediately indicated that fe wasn't human). The way that morality is dealt with--and specifically Michi's understanding of what makes something right or wrong--is extremely shallow and disappointing. The artwork is alright enough, but I find it a bit too simplistic and exaggerated for my tastes. They do a lot of effects, like trails of smoke showing where people have walked or sweat sprinkling off of people, that are definitely moreso from that time period. There are several scenes with large crowds that take up the entire page, where many people will be talking over each other and there will be more a sense of scattershot thoughts than conversation. Random jokes are thrown in, both in the dialogue and in the artwork. There's at least one instance where the fourth wall was sorta half-broken, where the characters were drawn leaning up against the edge of the panels, and that can be kinda cute. Also, there's a moment when Detective Mustachio guts out "Mickey Mouse" and then wears feir skin. Definitely a moment worth noting.