Watching 'Cannon Busters' Episode 5

The crew is riding along in a forest type of setting, and Philly is getting more and more annoyed by the way everyone is behaving in the car, 9ine in particular. During a heated exchange, 9ine calls out Philly on the type of person that he is: someone who lacks respect for anyone, and anything, someone who lacks any respect or kindness to those that are in the car with him, and the car itself. This being pointed out hits Philly right in his sore spot, and as a result of being distracted by this argument, he ends up crashing.

Even though he tries to deflect the blame over to 9ine when explaining the events leading upto the crash, even Sam points out that it was in fact Philly’s fault. In his hungry state, this annoys him all the more. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that 9ine had drunk all of Philly’s beer, and Sam had eaten all of his food. In his rage, he abandons them in the forest and goes off on his own. I can see both sides of the conflict here, and the justifications of both sets of characters. Philly is annoyed the others had latched onto him without permission and has gone so far as to go through his supplies without telling him, while Philly was, as pointed out by the crew, quite grouchy.

What I did not particularly like about this segment is the idea that the show tried to lay most of the blame on Philly instead of sharing the blame across the group. This is incredibly evident when, after he leaves with the car and looks back to see the state of it, he is surprised to see just how clean and organized everything is. Though I would argue that was more because of Casey’s efforts rather than the collective efforts of Casey, Sam, and 9ine, as the show tries to portray. I admire the lesson the show is trying to put across, that selfishness can lead to destructive tendencies.

Driven by pure hunger, he comes across a plant in the forest, and so he stops the car ready to eat it, only for the plant to eat him instead. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew has found themselves in a town in the midst of a festival of some sort. How they got there? Who knows. Why was this town not visible from the forest if it was so close? It is celebrating a festival where the city is covered in light, and clearly it is only moments after Philly left them. This. Makes. No. Sense.

Throughout this episode, 9ine had been paying attention to the fireflies that had been following them, which actually turn out to be small robots, and so he decided to head into a club. This is where the message of the episode falls apart. Philly is being punished for his selfishness by being digested alive by a plant, while the rest of the group are rewarded by a good time, full of food, and drink.

During the pub quiz drinking spree that the crew are going through, Sam decides to ask 9ine why humans eat, something she had not wondered about 'til that moment, or even known about, which seems to be an out for her character’s selfish actions, THAT MAKES NO SENSE. She is a highly advanced robot in a futuristic setting that is populated by humans, not the post-apocalyptic world that the robots in Love, Death, and Robots inhabit in episode two; that is not believable in the setting the show is taking place in.

During their stay at the club they are approached by a group of women, who has some really interesting designs to them. Once more, I must commend this show on the effort taken in order to make each character stand out, even if they are minor ones.

One of 9ine's former partners attacks them in the club; she is the one that had been controlling the fireflies behind the scenes. She is a warrior just as 9ine is, and because the rest of her group wants 9ine to either return or die, she starts attacking the crew. During this battle, while 9ine is fighting 12, who actually has a great character design of her own, Sam is going around the club collecting food so that they could take it Philly. While we get a fair amount of backstory towards 9ine as a character, the most shocking revelation is the fact that he is only thirty years old.

After the fight is over, 9ine spares 12 and they come to an understanding. The group returns to find Philly who had, in this amount of time, been killed, resurrected, and still stuck in the plant. 9ine frees him, and Sam offers him the food. Despite having just been introduced, just like in Final Fantasy XV, 9ine goes off on his own adventure; thankfully 9ine’s side story is not being offered to us via DLC. While Casey is maintaining the car, Sam offers her condolences for the fact that Philly had died in between, and with a little food inside of him, he softens up himself.