Common Name: Uchuu Senkan Tiramisù
Alternative Names: Space Battleship Tiramisu
Score: 5/10, 3/5
Overall Score: 5/10, 4/5
Length: 13 Episodes
Overall Length: 26 Episodes, 7 OVAs
Genre: Short-form, Comedy, Sci-fi, Mecha, Slice of Life, Military, Shounen
Summary: As the prowess of the Tiramisu grows with Subaru's steady mastery of his Universal Sense, so too does the might of Metus. But, let's be honest, none of that really matters. Subaru has to gain total mastery over his new cockpit in the Neo Durandal. Even if Earth is threatened by the charismatic and overwhelmingly powerful leader, Cadillac Escalade, I'm sure things will work out in the end.
Review: If ever there was an indication that this show just wasn't for me, it's the fact that I'm still forced to sit on my hands and give it a 5/10 simply because I just don't get the jokes. Slowly but surely, I've grown more and more familiar with the mecha genre that Tiramisu lampoons but that really hasn't helped me learn to appreciate what this show is going for. The aburdism of it all I can key into easily enough but since it's paired with references and concepts in the industry I'm not familiar with--those that likely originate from Gundam, Zoids, and Escaflowne which I haven't seen--I have nothing to really work with. Yet, I'm not entirely sure anymore if my score is born solely from my not getting it. Particularly in this second season, I felt like the show itself was just falling flat and not even trying to make something worth watching anymore. Rather, it felt like it has simply reduced itself to mocking the whole of anime absurdity, rather than the concepts solely grounded in the mecha genre, functionally dulling what barbs the original season possessed.
Honestly, I'm sure if this show even wants an audience anymore.
Throughout this season, there were a few good comedic moments but not much actually happened in the underlying story of this parody. We, more or less, still have all the characters from the original show along with a few new ones to throw into the works but they aren't really even used beyond one-off jokes. If anything, this season was less about Subaru and more about his brother's faction in Metus growing more and more insane. Sure, he gets a good amount of screen time and some of the season's best gags, but it isn't really his show anymore. Rather, our attention is frequently diverted to no fewer than four other characters whose gags aren't nearly as tired as the running joke of Subaru dicking around in his cockpit. The reason I say that the show is primarily focused on the insanity of the ill-defined Metus faction, though, is because three of those four perspectives belong to members of that faction. For example, Isuzu is actually given a considerable amount of screentime as he is forced to play a balancing act of being a semi-decent brother to Subaru and his duties as one of Metus' ace pilots. What's more he's even given a few solid bits of characterization that at least mildly touch on why he's on the enemy's side in the first place.
To be fair, his "characterization" is mostly just a reference to every "I will convert
the enemy from within" antihero character that anime loves so much.
Yet, Isuzu isn't even really the star of the season on his side. That role is fairly evenly split between the viewpoints of Subaru's psychotic clone, Subaru BEYOND, who has developed a ridiculous god complex since the end of the first season. Throughout the season, he hounds Subaru in the hopes to wipe him out and prove to be the better of the two but falls into much the same pitfalls as the original. While he might boast of his "incredible power" and call himself a god, he still fails at communicating with others and gets distracted by the silliest things while he sits around in the comedically massive cockpit of Hades Durandal. So, in other words, he's just as useless as the original but has the added bonus of being the most obnoxious chuunibyou character I've ever seen.
Though that's all just to characterize him as the insane "let everything burn" antagonist.
Lastly, as far as Metus' role in the show is concerned, attention is turned also toward the season's actual big bad, the leader of Metus, Cadillac Escalade (I shit you not, that is his name). Characterized to resemble your standard military dictator, aka "Space Hitler," Cadillac basically undergoes the exact same treatment as the rest of the cast. Powerful and imposing as he might be, given that he possesses "Omega Universe Sense," he's still portrayed as an utter moron. From writing his speeches on his hand in marker to abusing the lottery with his Omega Universe Sense, he's ultimately turned into the show's biggest joke as well as its biggest reference to Gundam yet--given that he and his mech, Hekatonkheires, are a direct parody of Dozle Zabi and Big Zam from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series.
Christ, if that weren't pathetic enough, his entire addition to the story is him trying
to destroy Earth just to stop his estranged wife from divorcing his sorry ass.
Apart from the power level antics of Subaru gaining "Neo Universe Sense" and duking it out with Subaru BEYOND, there really isn't much to note from Team Tiramisu. While they get a new character in the form of the ace wing pilot, Alfa Romeo, there really isn't much to his character beyond him being one of the show's only serious characters. Unlike Subaru and the rest of the cast, he actively cares about fighting the war and being the best pilot he can be--a fact that might make his existence the saddest joke of this entire show. Apart from that depressing bit of characterization, however, he does also play the role of Subaru's second. Meaning, while Subaru get's to pilot the cool mech, Romeo gets to pilot a ship along the lines of a Star Fox Arwing and supports the overgrown child when things get tough.
Or, at least, that is the case up until Romeo gets swept up
in Subaru's nonsense and is used for a cheap yaoi joke.
There are a few good jokes to be found in this season, much like there were in the first one, but most of them are far more general in nature than those specific to the mecha genre. On the one hand, this fact makes the show's brand of comedy slightly more accessible than before. On the other, it also makes it's comedy far more iterative and unoriginal. So, in the end, I'm left with something of a lose-lose situation in spite of the fact that I actually liked this season much more than the first. I was finally able to get some really good laughs out of this nonsense but it came at the cost of what made this show different from every other irreverent parody anime out there. So, like before, I'm forced to recommend this title only to people who might really get a laugh out of a mecha show that openly mocks the fandom it was built on. Perhaps in a few years I'll have finally gotten around to watching the old mecha titles that inspired this mess, thus giving me the perspective necessary to really appreciate it, but I wouldn't hold out hope that I'll ever come back to this series.