A recurring appraisal of Arknights’ TV series circulating online is the sense of dread and despair following the protagonists throughout, something which is at its peak in the newest episode. It also marks the end of the Chernobog chapter of this story, offering some rest before tossing the characters into a new mess.

Last week, the powerful fire-wielding Talulah cornered the members of Rhodes Island and saw fit to incinerate the lot of them. As Episode 3 opens, Amiya demonstrates her own power in shielding her allies, though only so far as to hold off what seems like an inevitably bloody battle.

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The Catastrophe

The pace and flow with which the world’s many concepts are expanded is commendable, starting first and foremost with the reveal of what the catastrophe truly is: a fiery meteor shower. And for how violent it is, it’s also the only reason the heroes manage to escape, even if it meant Ace and his team staying behind to hold off Talulah.

Speaking of Ace, his seeming death was perhaps the show’s first misstep from a directing standpoint, if only because it is so poorly edited. We are shown him, alone, facing down Reunion at supposedly full strength, and then in the next scene, only he and one member of his unit remain.

From the last guard’s reaction, Ace apparently lost his arm, but there is no shot of the other arm, making it honestly hard to be certain if that is what happened. That is to say nothing of how confusing it is if Ace survived the previous implied scene between him and Reunion. Structurally, the sequence is all over the place.

Ace’s death should serve as some catalyst for character growth; a tragedy that pushes the characters forward, but it feels like it just happens, which is unfortunate. This episode also leads one to worry about how fleshed-out the characters will be in this series, given a clearly large cast, but only limited time to show them.

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Perhaps it’s another caveat of being a mobile game adaptation; with so many characters whose chief goal is to have a striking character design, characterizations become simpler. Through a game medium, that can be effective, with lore as a supplementary resource to flesh out characters. In a show, however, it can lead to characters feeling somewhat pointless at the moment.

The appearance of W in this episode encapsulates this perfectly. Once again, a character with a cool design pops up and corners the heroes with a retinue of Reunion henchmen. But all they do is ask for the Doctor to be handed over, get turned down, and then just walk away ominously. They may as well have said, “see you in a few episodes when I matter.”

It doesn’t help that some characters don’t feel like they were conceived as real characters, such as generically named “Guard” which is hardly an effective codename among an army of lookalikes. All the characters are named such that they feel like code names rather than true identities, and it really emphasizes that this is all based on a mobile game. It can take one out of the experience.

A Safe Haven

Thankfully, as the characters make their escape and return home, there is more good than bad, starting with the aforementioned elaboration on the catastrophe. Not only is there raining fire, but the meteors themselves contain Originium, thus creating large crystalline fields full of the mineral. It’s a mineral that grows, meaning there isn’t much scarcity.

Unfortunately, the only way it appears on the planet is through catastrophes. This obviously makes living in one place for too long a big risk, and as the episode explains, the cities in the world of Terra are mobile, a surprise revelation that makes a lot of sense. As the characters themselves point out, the mystery is why Chernobog didn’t move.

In Episode 2, there was a line about how the Ursus Empire was using fake news to quell worries about the riots, by claiming that Chernobog’s unrest was already contained. The idea that there might be a larger conspiracy at play is compelling, and as the writers have adeptly expanded on the world with each new episode, so too has the conspiracy evolved.

In one last display of the mobile game formula translated into a narrative, Doctor and Rhodes Island’s mobile base is introduced: a large moving settlement. Doctor’s phone AI introduces them to all the amenities and explains the community that has formed within, just as a tutorial might explain a game’s interface with a dash of dietetic narrative flair.

Arknights’ TV series is already almost half over, and thus far the world is compelling and yearning to be shown off through the beautiful artwork more, but the story and characters themselves are mixed. Amiya is a far more interesting protagonist than she was in the first episode, but the cast at large hasn’t yet truly impressed yet.

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