Freezing: Ender’s Game with Tits

My what an attractive pair of glasses.

A lot of people have become turned off because of Freezing failing to capitalize on the intrigue that was set up in the first episode. Now, we all knew this was more of a fanservice anime but the first episode set up false hope for a decent overarching plot. However, since the episodes have progressed I have felt the tone shift to inter-pandora rivalry has not been entirely bereft of merit. For one the recent episodes have led me to draw a parallel between Freezing and one of my favorite books.

Like many of you I was sucked into Freezing’s initial episode for its potential Evangelion-esque plot. I witnessed super-powered teenagers going up an alien and faceless threat that took a high toll in deaths in order to be defeated. That’s what we all wanted to see, a war, an explanation, mystery, intrigue, and maybe some tits. Instead we’ve gotten another season of Ikkitousen. (Digitalboy would say Tenjou Tenge but I’ve never seen the show and I’ve seen at least 3 episodes of Ikkitousen) (Digiboy Note: Ikkitousen, Tenjou Tenge, Real Bout High School=same damn thing.)

The characters have had to fight off an increasing hierarchy of fellow students and upperclassmen who believe the proper order of the school is being disrupted. Mamiko Noto’s character, Satellizer L. Bridget (jesus what a name) is known as “The Untouchable Queen” and is clearly the most powerful girl in her 2nd year class and maybe the school. Upperclassmen watching her progress have become upset at how she “bears her fangs” at the 3rd years, the self-proclaimed rulers of the school. Generally the actual faculty takes a hands-off approach. Though they establish rules that the girls aren’t supposed to actually fight outside of mock battles, they either don’t have the resources or the desire to strictly enforce this rule. Here’s the thing though, that above description, and some other similarities, have begun to remind me pretty heavily of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game…with tits.

This took me three hours.

So lets play out the metaphor a bit. The relationship that Sattelizer has with the other girls fits her Untouchable Queen moniker well. She gives off the impression that she cannot be beaten, and the jealousy is even stronger because many of them know it’s probably true. She’s the strongest, super-powerfully gifted girl in a school of other strong super-powerfully gifted girls. In this respect she is like Ender Wiggin. Everyone in the school knows Ender is the best. He’s the most competent, inspiring, and courageous. When Ender is in command, you know you are in good hands. Yet because of this, and because he is younger, he inspires hatred in those less skilled than he is. In both Satellizer and Ender their high aptitudes alienate them and paint targets on their backs.

So that’s how the series is going. Everyone is bitching and whining because Satelizer is better than them and so they are trying to take her down and even kill her. In the most recent episode one of the third years proposed to rip out the source of her powers, her stigma, an event that could potentially send her into an irreversible state of shock and would force her to retire from the school. The scene is much like the moment when Ender, now a commander of a Battle School army, is confronted in the showers by his insanely jealous former commander Bonzo Madrid. Ender unknowingly sends Bonzo home in a body bag.

The circumstances that made the conflict in Battle School so difficult to read without being at least marginally upset, and the circumstances that upset the viewers of Freezing’s 2nd episode are similar. Both sets of viewers watch the events unfold and say: “Hold on, wasn’t somebody fighting a war?”. Battle School highlights and distorts the vicious competition inherent in grade school and high school. The teachers enable the competition despite the very real possibility that these people will one day have to command armies together sometimes even subordinate to one another. The same viciousness is present in Freezing and is a tragic loss of focus on the overarching plot.

It isn’t till Ender’s Shadow, the parallax story to Ender’s Game about the genetically altered Bean, that we learn of Bean’s efforts to promote Ender in the eyes of Battle School students. To set aside their differences for the common cause of defeating buggers. To throw the teacher’s carefully crafted modes of competition out the window. To work together and share strategies. Actions that contribute to the pool of common knowledge and will lead toward greater understanding of the elements of warfare for each individual student of Battle School.

Unfortunately so far in Freezing there is no parallel to Bean yet. There is potential in many characters such as Rana Linchen (playfully voiced by Hanazawa Kana) who takes the powers of the Pandora to a near spiritual level and who could help elucidate where the Pandora’s powers come from.

Satellizer and Rana showing off their "character traits".

There is also Aoi Kazuya, the protagonist, who certainly seems to be the type that would rather settle differences without bloodshed, but he has yet to show any perspective of the overarching plot; and he has the charisma of a creamsicle. Perhaps Chiffon Fairchild, the student council president has a trace of Bean but she also a trace of Colonel Graff in her generally hands-off approach to the conflicts. The teachers practically don’t exist. No one is bringing the story back into perspective and it creates growing tension in the viewer who’d hoped for more than “haters gonna hate” as a major plot point. Hopefully it will be resolved when someone stands up and says “We are all on the same team dammit! Let’s not be jealous of Satellizer for her prowess, let’s be jealous of her bust size!”. That’s the way proper fanservice anime do it.