Darling in the FRANXX is taking a nosedive and its not stopping

Throughout its current broadcast period, Darling in the FRANXX has received various criticisms – both good and bad. However, in its later episodes, it has sparked conversation and salt in the community on its romantic developments. Now, it went for a full-speed nosedive and it’s not showing any signs of stopping.

The things being discussed in this article will focus mainly on the developments taking place within the 19th and 20th episodes of the anime series. All of which presented some story-altering facts and confusing takes on the show’s world building. Essentially, this would be somewhat considered as a condensed reaction and analysis for these episodes.

Ever since its first episode, this anime series never took much effort when it came to the world building and kept us in speculation with multiple theories on the processes at play within this new world we are being introduced to. Throughout its course, this feeling of suspense kept interest for the show at high levels within the community.

But after episode 19 and 20, the show takes an unexpected nosedive with absolutely no telling where its gonna end up.

Before this, the show started off with an introduction of a few things – humans have reached to a point where the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to the presence of alien beings called “Klaxosaurs.” People now live in dome-like structures called “plantations” and are divided into two different classes: “children” and “adults.” The children are tasked with the duty of protecting these “plantations” using machines called “FRANXX” which require both male and female pilots to operate – something that is only possible with children due to their gender hormones.

The main characters are presented in a way that, out of all children, they have been given special status and unlike other groups of children paired together, they are capable of showing human emotion and socialization. This is very evident as they regularly question their actions, the course of their missions and similar matters.

Then we also have “best girl” in the form of Zero Two which is part-human and klaxosaur thus granting her “overpowered” status as being shown in the series where every partner she had would die due to incompatibility.

After a few revelations, we understand that Zero Two and the main male character, Hiro, are compatible and throughout the course of the show, they will continually go against the wishes of the “adults” in favor of their romance.

This was the main charm of the show – it kept everyone in suspense and theorizing on the whys, hows, wheres, and so on. A method used similarly to mainstream film series like Star Wars where no one understood everything in full detail and all facts were generalized. This knowledge kept the films entertaining and had the audience craving for what would happen next.

In episode 19, this entertainment is taken away when we are given an incomprehensible and poorly structured dump of facts. I think if this episode was dedicated to something else entirely, the show wouldn’t be at a risk of actually flopping due to the writing staff realizing that the world building may not be enough.

Take for example, Kill la Kill‘s absurdity and action-heavy plot. There was no logical explanation for everything that was going on and we had groundbreaking developments every episode which seems to somehow work in an entertaining way. We didn’t need to know the nit-and-grit of every single detail possible within the show.

Episode 20 furthers this by giving us a sudden drop of new information with the establishment that aliens are actually manipulating mankind and the main characters were doing the doings of the bad guys.

The absurdity of that development is similar to Guilty Crown‘s revival of a previously dead character. No one knows why the hell is he still alive, what purpose does he play and the like. It doesn’t make sense especially when the show builds up to that fact and suddenly, boom, y’all thought wrong.

This happens in Darling in the FRANXX when suddenly, boom, aliens.

Although there are still a few episodes left to miraculously save this show which started off as a interesting and entertaining concept for a mech anime. I was really sold on the necessity of the teenage drama and how it factored to the operation of their mechs. All of the facts were generalized to the point where it didn’t make me cynical enough, as a viewer, to constantly question the logic of the show.

Now that we fully know what klaxosaurs are, the motivations within mankind’s leadership, why children are mech pilots and so many other fact dumps – it seems the main charm and interest of the show has been lost to us forever.

Darling in the FRANXX is taking an unprecedented nosedive and we don’t know where this aircraft is going to crash.

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Thanks for reading!