I like the setting of a desert world where deliverymen are trained to fight off criminals, and the CGI does its work in realizing it. The first few episodes were good, I was even rooting for 5-8 which is surprising. Usually I dislike overpowered characters for being Mary Sues, but 5-8 seemed not like a Mary Sue and more just a badass.
The only thing I disliked is Sa-wol (the refugee boy) and his comic relief friends, who really annoyed me to no end with their behavior. However, as the show progresses Sa-wol starts to actually reach for his goals and given how dedicated and talented he is, you want to see him win.
Unfortunately, as the show progresses issues arise as well. The main theme and conflict turns out as shallow as it seems at first glance. Evil corporation wants refugees dead because it saves money. Or maybe just because they see them as subhuman. To ensure that you know they're the bad guys we get multiple scenes where they explicitly order everyone killed, and started off the show with a pyramid explaining an absurd class system, with no explanation given to its argument for justification. 5-8 and his friends are refugees-turned-deliverymen who want to end the ludicrously bad class system. It's the same virtue signalling theme of classism half of dystopian or death game plots have, as poorly executed as most of them do.
And because the theme/conflict is shallow, so are the characters. The villain is just irredeemably evil, this is made clear from the start and there's nothing about him that isn't cliche. And it ultimately does turn 5-8 into a Mary Sue as he heroically leads his little team of deliverymen to victory for the noble cause of the refugees, with no interesting traits, flaws or other motivations to add depth or nuance.
What makes this all the more ironic is that it gives this show that clearly panders to left-wing sentiments implications that strongly contradict progressive thinking. 5-8 explicitly denies involving the refugees (proletariat) into their own class struggle and instead succeeds with just a dozen of genetically superior deliverymen to overthrow the elite core city. The refugees, at least those that didn't succeed becoming deliverymen, are portrayed as helpless unskilled victims with no agency. Sure refugees ask for help from the host authorities, but that doesn't mean they don't have any personality left. They want to work, they have family structures, they can be tough, strong, rude etc.
Wanna see a good show with similar themes? Watch 3%, also Netflix. That show acknowledges that it is a dystopia, while not making the authorities irrationally cruel for the sake of it and having an actual reason for society to be structured the way it is, one that was actually sympathetic in intent and not just 'lower class are inferior lmao'. Nuance is too novel a concept apparently because in Black Knight, the villain explicitly states he does it because he just hates refugees in the end. What a well-written villain rite.
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