Spoilers Ahead
Seriously, Don’t keep reading if you don’t want to have the movie spoiled!
Just so we’re clear, you are about to read my thoughts that contains a great deal of spoilers concerning “Expelled From Paradise” which is a 2014 Japanese Animation (Anime) Movie, if this is correct, thanks for being here and read on! TL;DR is near the bottom.
The animation/art style is “computerized,” if you’ve ever watched RWBY you know what I’m talking about but not as noticeable as RWBY. Often as I was watching I imagined it as a Visual Novel, which is a game usually based around conversation choices and sometimes combat or puzzle gameplay in added in.
Within the first three minutes we hit the action, the hacker who calls himself, Frontier Setter, is introduced and our assumed hero, Security System 3rd Officer Angela Balzac, jumps into action even though some rando was hitting on her for having such an upscale avatar. Angela loads up a system dialysis and quickly find a source to attack, she gets pixelated up and sucked into the system to fight, which she does with multiple copies of herself, all different colors, all naked! Unfortunately, the hacker gets away.
We soon learn, Frontier Setter has made 184 hacking attempts, each one carried out over data links from “The Surface” aka Earth, they believed him to be someone who was denied access to the DEVA program. So they decide to send security system agents to the surface in actual bodies. Angela’s Earthly body is of a 16 year old girl with large chest balloons … *Knock, Knock* Is that FBI at my door?
For some reason, when she gets to the surface she attempts to eat dirt… for someone of her intelligence, this seems really out of character, even if she doesn’t know much about Earth, one would think she wouldn’t assume the ground was edible, she didn’t go to the virtual beach and taste the sand. MECHS! MECHS! She hops into a MECH, known as AHN Units, to fight these huge sand worms when trying to catch up with her Earth contact who is meant to help her do her job, Dingo. Dingo starts off wasting 7 mins and 20 seconds of Angela’s time, she mentions this when she starts acting like an attention seeking teen wanting to find Frontier Setter before any of the other agents coming along after her so she can get all the credit instead of working as a team to protect DEVA. Yeah I know, she’s in a 16 year old body, but her mind isn’t 16 so she shouldn’t be acting like a teen. We later learn her reason for wanting all the credit, so she can move up the ladder in DEVA.
OH BOO, the mech is taken out, only to be used once, can you say disappointed. I still searched for a Angela Balzac & Unit Model Kit, which by the way, I couldn’t find, though I did find a Frontier Setter model kit! Dingo and Angela choose to go on without connection to the DEVA system so that they may use Angela’s colleagues as decoys for Frontier Setter’s hacking. I’ll admit, she’s a dedicated woman, even when sick, she chooses to get better the human way instead of linking back up with DEVA to get access to the perfect medicine to heal her.
By the way, her shoes make no sense, it’s like she’s prancing around in stiff ballerina slippers.
Frontier Setter uses other robots, both new and old to collect material for him. It is soon revealed Frontier Setter is an Artificial Intelligence who became self aware and he continued work on the Genesis Ark project alone. He did the project in secret due to other competition. The reason Frontier Setter hacked into DEVA was to find others to act as Crew members for the Genesis Ark so that humans could explore space and find new lands. He chose to hack instead of requesting assistance from DEVA due to DEVAs inability to see the value in the expedition and would turn him away and possible destroy what he worked so long and hard on, around 110 years.
Frontier and Dingo get along very well off the bat, Frontier even created his own version of some music, which Dingo loved, makes him pretty awesome in my book too! Frontier has decided to stop hacking DEVA and attempt to leave Earth on his own. Thinking about his name, Frontier Setter is quit fitting, I wonder if he gave it to himself or was he programmed with it.
Angela’s character did grow a bit, she realizes Dingo was a big help in her finding Frontier Setter and shows hope that he’ll join her back at DEVA, but Dingo explains why he would rather live on Earth. DEVA is the type of society that caters only to those that can provide the best to DEVA, where you’re evaluated and judged around the clock, but on Earth, everyone gets sick, everyone has ups and downs but it all depends on how you keep going. Be judged as not important in DEVA, and you’re put into cold storage. Yes, that’s right DEVA is the enemy! What did you expect, it’s a program that judges you and raises you basically.
The higher ups are these huge statues. These statue’s became upset with Angela for allowing Frontier Setter to go free and did not want to listen to reason, that Frontier is a good robot and not at all dangerous. After standing up for what she believes and refusing to destroy Frontier, they designated Angela as a security risk and sentenced her to imprisonment and no longer an officer nor a citizen of DEVA.
Why is it when Angela goes back she isn’t placed into her original body? Probably due to her mission not being complete.
It’s so weird seeing her become blocky when she and Frontier are escaping DEVA.
YES, FINALLY MORE ACTION! This movie had a lot less action than I expected. Angela’s intelligence takes over a Mech and launches several weapons that can connect to her currently Unit body, she freaking uploaded herself into a MECH! I have to say, that battle was pretty enjoyable!
Admittedly I teared up when Dingo told Frontier Setter to tell those he meets on his travels that he is a “child of humanity.” Yes you are little bot, yes you are!
To give us something nice to listen to I suppose, Dingo sings a song, it still in Japanese if you’re watching dubbed so put on subtitles, it’s was inspirational! Frontier Setter launches off into space and Angela and Dingo start a journey on Earth together, I wonder what’s in the future for those two.
I wish I couldn’t seen more from inside DEVA, like how life works and just the day to day dealings.
TL;DR
This story takes place in a very far away future where most of humanity is looked after and living within a program known as DEVA. These humans start off as flesh and blood but eventually are transferred into data and however they choose to live and serve DEVA is how good their life is going to be. DEVA begins having trouble with a hacker who seems to be very capable of eluding all security systems and could possibly destroy DEVA if he wanted to but he ends up being a good guy, an artificial intelligence even, who became self aware and would not like to see humans come to harm, instead he wants humans to journey with him on a project known as Genesis Ark, which was his purpose for hacking DEVA in the first place. In the end, a huge battle occurs between Angel, who became imprisoned for taking up for Frontier and then saved by Frontier, and other DEVA agents as they are on a mission to destroy Frontier Setter. He escapes alone on his space expedition and Angela along with her new colleague, Dingo, begin a Earthly journey of their own.
PS. There is a small amount of nudity and some Mech experience.
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