Review Statistics

Times Read

909

Comments

6

Reviews

Tv

Plot Synopsis

No plot synopsis or other information available for Infinite Ryvius

Story & Characters

**Please note, the review score in my review is somewhat normally distributed, meaning an anime with score of 5 is average (NOT 6 as it is scaled on final verdict!), 7 is very good, and 10 means "cannot be improved any further". I'm doing this to accurately reflect truly great works (and crap*y work too ^^;). Please add around 2 points to the overall rating to convert it to the scale most of other people use. Also, anime are reviewed within the scope of anime, anime-movie are viewed within the scope of anime-movie... and so on. Please remember that anime is often given 10 times more time to present story compared to anime-movie!**

*Informal Commentary*
This anime will be most enjoyed by those of you who are a college undergrad/grad and have taken courses in world history, politics, sociology and psychology, or a high school student with strong interest in the above-mentioned courses. Also, it will be much more enjoyable if you have extensive knowledge in astronomy and physics. If you clear the first criteria and can associate Schwarzschild radius with theory of general relativity, love to think, and most of all love anime, you are the most suited viewer of this anime, like me. (am I setting the standard too high? ^^;;;) However, please note that most of the technical terms that appear in this anime are fictional, and unnecessary un-scientific settings do exist.

This anime is like Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) put into anime. Young people contained in a closed space waiting for rescue but the uncertainly of the future leads the community into destruction. If you have read the book, the development and ending are quite similar.

The year is AD 2225, humans has spread from Earth to inhabit in nearly all the planets and their satellites. The solar system is covered with Geduld, the sea of plasma that stretched from the sun after the first "neutrino burst", the spread of solar flare caused by sunspots' unusual activity, happened in happened in AD2137. The incident, commonly known as "Geduld phenomenon" had a huge impact on the mankind that the southern hemisphere was covered with Geduld that people on the northern sphere could barely survive by creating an artificially strong Van Allen radiation belt around the earth. Consequently, the incident accelerated the humankind's space exploration as people developed extensive space technology to defend themselves from the solar flare.

The main character, Kouji Aiba, is a 16-year-old student at astronaut training school orbiting around the earth known as Liebe Delta. He is there to obtain his Level 2 space pilot license, but his childhood friend Aoi Housen, who apparently came to Liebe Delta only to be with Kouji, accompanies him. To his regret as their brotherhood is not going well, he finds from Aoi that his younger brother Yuki Aiba also in his class.

When the vacation period known as the Dive Break, the time when Liebe Delta "submerge" into the Sea of Geduld for periodical maintenance, approaches, half of the student leaves for their home. The dive begins but the spies of Earth's Orbital Guard disguised as teachers altered the route of the dive intentionally. The Space cadet team Zwei finds the irregularity of the route. With the help of the teachers in Liebe Delta, who sacrificed their lives to slow down the falling speed of Liebe Delta, Zwei tries to save the other students' lives from collapsing and evaporating in the extreme gravity and heat of the Sea of Geduld by guiding the other students into Liber, a training spaceship attached to Liebe Delta. However, they all suddenly emerge from the Sea of Geduld by the activation of a mysterious space ship Ryvius.

Finding no hope of survival in the training ship, Zwei orders all the students to evacuate to Ryvius, and they all start to live in the ship until the rescue comes. Zwei, taking the chance of their access to public announcement and knowledge in controlling spaceship, starts to control the ship and act as the officers. As they unwind the secrets hidden in Ryvius, they receive no rescues but instead face attacks from the orbital guard and space fleets. Having given hope for rescue but only fear and uncertainty, the students in Ryvius build up anger and agitation. To "rectify" the unfairness of Zwei, who laid out the rules and act as a governing body of the community in Ryvius, a coup d'etat occurs. People distrust each other violence arises. Zwei imposes even stricter rules, imposes information restriction, and uses power to control the society. Fear and uncertainly puts the students into extreme condition, where they reveal the uncontrolled nature of humankind. The Ryvius society breaks down. The people will do anything to survive and the Zwei do anything to control people. Will the rescue come, or will there be a massacre before that? What is the secret of Ryvius...?

The story of Lord of the Flies should receive 10/10 as it is so great that many schools use it as a compulsory reading in English class and also because it made its way into classics category even though it's quite new. However, I must lower the score a bit because the producer failed to put anything original into it. At least the world setting is well-definited.

Rating

7 (above average)

Art

This artwork is done by Sunrise, which is quite known to make an anime a rather good one whenever they take part in its production. Generally it is good but sometimes the art is inconsistent. I've spotted in several scenes that characters' faces are disfigured. In addition, drawings of details are often omitted. You should expect the drawing of this anime to be roughly equal to Gundam Seed, well, it's from the same production Sunrise anyway ^^;; Many backgrounds are used over and over. At least, it's not the same pictures that are used over and over like low-budgeted anime. Yet, I must say that the drawing by Sunrise is still of decent quality for a weekly anime.

Rating

7 (above average)

Sound

The music is very unique. Who have ever thought of using RAP as an anime BGM? ^^;; Surprisingly, the consistent use of unique music actually contributed to creating the world of Infinite Ryvius. That's definitely a part I should give 10, for its quality and for venturing to use rap music. However, the terrible part is the sound effect. They sound they are directly from the archive. In addition, the loudness of the sound, such as footstep is inconsistent with the picture. That's definitely a 2 or 1 for sound effect. The last comprising factor is the music with lyrics. The songs, especially the OP is very nice. Again, there is a rap part in it ^^;; Please remember that if you are watching it in English, the voice actors are terrible. I'm afraid it's better to watch the sub instead of watching the English version.

Rating

7 (above average)

Presentation

The part that I want to emphasize in this anime is that it is very realistic and character development is absolutely amazing. It is not the scientific side that is realistic. (I assume from the appearance of non-existent scientific terms that the producer didn't even intend to make it realistic) You see the people psychologically breaking down, which the phenomenon, according to NASA, would happen if there is not enough number of people whom you don't recognize are in a closed space. The estimated required number of people in a community for it to sustain for a year is 1000 people, which is not reached in Ryvius's case. What must be noted is the slow development of the story that actually contributes to the character development. You hardly notice that the character development took place until something dramatic happens. Then you ponder about why all of sudden things turned around like that, and find out that the character's development was undertaking for such a long time. In addition, the mass psychology and extreme nervousness drives people into frenzy. Watch how the individual personality, and the sum of the personalities i.e. the community breakdowns.

The second part I want to emphasize after psychology and sociology is the implications in politics and world history. When Zwei self-decided to be in charge of the control and governance of Ryvius, they face difficulties as their decision making system is not clearly defined (the state of pre-historic community where people in a community made decisions through direct democracy.) However, taking advantage of the lack of governance stability measures (i.e defensive power), a coup d'etat occurs, and the ruler with the most power (i.e. with weapon) is placed at the power. People are strictly controlled and forced to be productive (the state of authoritarianism). When the authoritarian was deposed in a revolution, a more defined democracy is put into place. However, the defined decision-making system proves to be useless and the society in Ryvius goes out of balance as the freedom is on the same side of the balance as chaos. The chosen leader is deposed. Zwei finds that despotic rule drove people more productive but they do not wish another despot, so they choose to install communism in hope that people might work together to meet their norms... or else receive no food. Zwei becomes the supreme governing body and they hold special rights, such as unlimited access to food and water. There's an obvious similarity between the members of Zwei and the Soviet Communist Party member. As the system fails just as the Soviet Union failed in fall of productivity, another political framework, technocracy, is installed. Zwei and elite combating pilots become de facto leader because they are the ones with skills, the ones who control Ryvius and save it from numerous attacks. Eventually Zwei becomes a group of elite-class tyrants who falsely believe that they are doing the right thing for the good of the whole society.

Look back into history and name the people who misused their power and didn't admit it, and those who didn't misuse the power. The former significantly outnumbers the latter. It's very helpful that Fina keeps mentioning "cut off the past" since it remind viewers of history, which helps us to make a connection between this series and historical implications. As a sidethought, think about what effect weapon had in this anime. Weapon, the power, had significant impact to the development of the story of Ryvius, as they did in history. In many aspects, Ryvius is a microcosm of our soceity.

The third part that I want to emphasize is also of politics, but partly with religion and philosophy. The naming of RYVIUS is actually significant. There are 2 main theories (not clearly stated by the production team) of where the word Ryvius came from. One theory is that its a play on several English phrases: "Revive Us", "Redeem Us", "Reveal Us", "Revise Us", "Ravenous", "Revolt Us", "Revert to us", "Reverie of Us", and "Reawake Us," the words which are shown at the end of each episodes. Another theory is that the world came from the combination of Thomas Hobb's "Leviathan," the monster underneath the sea and the symbol of necessary evil in a government, and Earth. Clearly, Zwei have done many "evils" in order to control the society as one of the Zwei character explicitly says, "I believe that was a necessary evil." Earth is there as the Ryvius was constructed to be Noah's ark of the Earth when the solar activity goes beyond the control of the humans. The term combines to "Levi-Earth" to show "Noah's ark with Leviathan." Spell that in Japanese as the original work was in Japanese, then transliterate into English, the word will be spelled "Ryvius" The second theory seems too far-fetched as to refer to a religion and spelling, but it has an extremely strong backup to support. In the final episode, you see Ryvius is named diacritic A-r-a-7. It's a word used to refer to the time when, according to the Jewish calendar, the world started, which is Oct. 7 in our calendar. The obvious evidence shows that attribution to religion cannot be denied. In addition, under the Sea of Geduld there is actually a monster that attacks Ryvius, just like Leviathan. As the monster signifying Leviathan attacks Ryvius, it further drives Zwei to impose stricter rules and exercise more "necessary evils" in order to control the panicked people. To this extent, I support the second theory.

To a much lesser extent, I personally believe Liebe Delta has some sigfinicance. Interpreting it in German, as German is used as the 2nd common language in Ryvius, it means "love delta" or "The change in Love." Could it mean the change from the ordinary love that took place at the school to the twisted form of love as they took place in Ryvius?

Keep your eyes on Kouji's tie. The way he wears it changes as his character develops.

I've never seen an anime that has such a distant and complex, but yet obvious allusions with politics, philosophy, psychology, religion and world history. In fact, upon writing this review I had to mobilize all the sections of my knowledge to analyze. This is absolutely a fantastic series for a person like me (the viewer who can enjoy the series the most, as stated in the beginning of this review.) In fact, this anime is THE all-time favorite one for me, and I was grad to find such a minor anime in the list of "favorite anime" when I signed up for Mini Tokyo ^^;;;

However, obviously being my most favorite anime and scoring 10 has no correlation ^^;; Despite the amazing underlying concepts and character development, I must point out that the number of characters went beyond control, and some characters aren't utilized enough in the plot. Also,

*VERY Important note*
While this anime is strongly favored by a viewer like me, it might be REPULSIVE to some of you. The story is very dark and the complexity might overwhelm you if you aren't equipped with enough knowledge in the already stated fields. This anime is great if you focus on characters', but if you watch this for the storyline, you might get bored as it's same as Lord of the Flies and the story development is slow.

Thanks for reading through my longest-ever anime review ^^

Rating

9 (very good)

Final Verdict

7.67 (good)

Reviewed by yuizaki, 2y 18wk ago