Overgeared ‒ Episode 6
So somehow it seems like Overgeared really is taking on the unenviable task of trying to craft Grid into a more likeable person. We saw a bit of that last week through the show's attempts at giving him a (slightly) more altruistic goal, and this time the show follows that up by taking a closer look at a couple of the relationships he's managed to forge during his time with Satisfy. These moments are little hit or miss, and while the show is still mostly good at comedy, it struggles when it comes to sincerity.
The first of these comes up when Grid learns a little more about his blacksmithing master Kahn. Since it's pretty rare for these kinds of gamer centric fantasies to feature much in the way of supporting male characters (much less an older one), it's been a nice surprise that he's managed to stick around even if he hasn't done much on his own. Having him around has also worked as a way of giving Grid someone to bounce off of that he isn't using as a punching bag, which is so far the closest we've seen the latter have to a positive relationship. When Kahn goes to visit his late son's grave and brag to him about his new apprentice, it's the only time we see Grid drop enough of his usual snark long enough to actually empathize with another person. He even acknowledges Kahn as being his best friend, and promises to his son to look after him. All this should seem like a weird thing for Grid to say about a game NPC, but considering how little regard Grid usually has for others, any level of care he can show is a dramatic improvement no matter who it's aimed at.
That also makes it kind of unfortunate that this vow is immediately followed by Grid meeting the ghosts of Kahn's ancestors and being rewarded with a new job quest. It doesn't outright ruin the moment, but it does kinda turn Grid's rare moment of decency from being mildly sincere to a partial excuse to help him power up. That does make me grateful that whatever hype could be generated from this is instantly negated by Grid having been so terrified by this ghostly visit that he peed his pants halfway through it. Sure, that also undercuts the somber tone the scene in its own way, if the show's going to do that, I'd rather it be at Grid's expense than his benefit and I can't pretend it wasn't a good punchline to close that on.
What was significantly less funny was the second half of the episode. When Grid needs to put together some stealth armor for his new job quest, he ends up reuniting with Huroi, who has decided to anoint himself as Grid's loyal servant despite Grid wanting nothing to do with him. There could have been a fairly decent joke here with Grid earning the undying loyalty of someone who isn't yet aware of how terrible he is, but instead, the show generally defaults to gay panic. This sours a lot of their interactions, and it doesn't help that aside from being too enthusiastic about his new title, Huroi is basically the only decent person we've met among Satisfy's players so far. As such, watching Grid treat him like dirt for largely petty reasons, edges a little past mean spirited humor into just being mean for the sake of it. The same also applies to the bit with the orc tower that Grid ends up farming. It had a pretty decent set up with Grid underestimating how intelligent the orcs are despite having their own language, but that doesn't really amount to much since he mostly ends up plowing through them anyway. While it could have at least been funny to see him portrayed as some kind of unfathomable horror from the orcs' perspective, the scene doesn't lean far enough in that direction, so the joke wears thin a little too quickly. This bit of mass slaughter does at least serve as the trigger for Grid to come around on Huroi, as fighting together and seeing Huroi sacrifice himself makes Grid consider that he might be a good guy after all. However, while that's all well and good as a bit of character development, I haven't quite been convinced that Grid has enough to offer beyond his usual crudeness to make these attempts at personal growth seem worthwhile. Hopefully that pans out in the long run, but if this is the route the show is going to go in, it has quite a bit of proving to do.
Rating:
Overgeared is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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