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[PanH]

So finally got around to watch ep 24 KLK (2 days late ! ikr). Really awesome, especially Gamagori. And, I can't see them doing a sequel (nor a prequel). It was fun while it lasted, I guess.

[Reelya]

I started looking at the April season now. Other than a few sequels (Mushishi), and Ping Pong by Yuasa Masaki, , not many new shows stand out. I've settled my hopes on this anime original one:

M3: Sono Kuroki Hagane

Directed by Junichi Sato (Sailor Moon, Aria, Princess Tutu anime and manga), script by Mari Okada (Canaan, Anohana, Toradora, Hanasaku Iroha, Hourou Musuko, Nagi no Asukara etc).

[Tack]

Senyu........ No questions......

Was going to check this out but it was too much effort.
Maybe if I'd gotten more information...

[Reelya]

5 minute episodes, can't hurt to check it out.

[Sirus]

A week or two ago I remember there being some discussion in one of the emotion threads about this VOTOMS anime, about mecha soldiers and people were talking about it like it was so awesome but also realistic (as far as mecha goes).

Well, I checked it out. And it's pretty crap IMO. In the two 10-minute episodes I saw there were maybe 5 minutes of mecha action, most of which consisted of mecha being shot to shit without resistance by unseen, faceless enemies in bunkers. Out of the dozens - if not hundreds - of mecha, maybe two actually fired their weapons. It was a very effective weapon, which makes me wonder why the rest weren't at least trying to shoot back instead of marching in a straight line directly into the enemy's line of fire. One mecha would move forward, get shot to bits and fall down, another would move into the exact same spot and get blown up, etc etc to the point of ridiculousness. And as far as I can tell, these were supposed to be the protagonists! I assume this because they had the only speaking roles during the mecha section. I don't know how the studio managed to make a D-Day reenactment boring and pointless, but they did. The battle ends in utter failure on the mecha's part with maybe 2 soldiers alive.

The rest of the 15 minutes were taken up by politicians(?) talking about stuff, presumably how badly these VOTOMS were screwing up. Of course, I couldn't actually tell because all the dialogue was in Japanese and there were no subtitles. I didn't decide to watch this to listen to a bunch of old people ramble on in a language I don't understand, I decided to watch because I heard this show was pretty awesome! Talk about false advertising.

[Furtuka]

Check out the original one from the 80s, I've heard many great things about it, and its the famous one.

[Sirus]

Does the one from the 80s display the same level of tactics? Because if so, no thank you.

I mean, the one I linked had potential. There were quite a few moments (the zip-line thing comes to mind) where I was thinking "Okay, this is pretty cool!". But then they squandered it all away.

[Furtuka]

*shrug* I haven't seen it for myself yet, but people talk about it a lot so I figured it was worth mentioning.

[Reelya]

Does the one from the 80s display the same level of tactics? Because if so, no thank you.

I mean, the one I linked had potential. There were quite a few moments (the zip-line thing comes to mind) where I was thinking "Okay, this is pretty cool!". But then they squandered it all away.

I doubt you can rate a series based on a direct-to-video OVA made 25 years later. As for the shitty tactics, that's episode one and perhaps the plot is about how the military command cocked things up in a landing, sort of looks like Omaha beach in WWII or Gallipolli in WWI. What's shooting at them which can't be seen would be static gun emplacements on-shore. Machine gunners and snipers in the real world don't stand out in the open, in plain sight.

It's also hard to tell what's going on with no subtitles. Personally my gripe would be that the CGI doesn't look very polished.

[Furtuka]

And it seems that /m/ has a rather low opinion of the OVA's compared to the original show if that counts for anything.

[Parsely]

A week or two ago I remember there being some discussion in one of the emotion threads about this VOTOMS anime, about mecha soldiers and people were talking about it like it was so awesome but also realistic (as far as mecha goes).

Well, I checked it out. And it's pretty crap IMO. In the two 10-minute episodes I saw there were maybe 5 minutes of mecha action, most of which consisted of mecha being shot to shit without resistance by unseen, faceless enemies in bunkers. Out of the dozens - if not hundreds - of mecha, maybe two actually fired their weapons. It was a very effective weapon, which makes me wonder why the rest weren't at least trying to shoot back instead of marching in a straight line directly into the enemy's line of fire. One mecha would move forward, get shot to bits and fall down, another would move into the exact same spot and get blown up, etc etc to the point of ridiculousness. And as far as I can tell, these were supposed to be the protagonists! I assume this because they had the only speaking roles during the mecha section. I don't know how the studio managed to make a D-Day reenactment boring and pointless, but they did. The battle ends in utter failure on the mecha's part with maybe 2 soldiers alive.

The rest of the 15 minutes were taken up by politicians(?) talking about stuff, presumably how badly these VOTOMS were screwing up. Of course, I couldn't actually tell because all the dialogue was in Japanese and there were no subtitles. I didn't decide to watch this to listen to a bunch of old people ramble on in a language I don't understand, I decided to watch because I heard this show was pretty awesome! Talk about false advertising.

That was me for sure.

Well the protags aren't invincible, which is something that appeals to me.
The mechs could only ascend the muddy, sheer cliffs one at a time because they're heavy. They had to use special equipment to get on the beach, as well as up those hills. They could only move up one at a time because they were wading through several meters of seawater, on sand, over destroyed mechs and around fallen grapple-towers (which are gigantic). You might call that realism, so I'd say its precisely as advertised.
What's more D-Day than bad guys firing from bunkers down cliffs, slaughtering dudes as they crawl up towards them? In the end the good guys lose and the beach is choked with burnt out mechs.
The first bunker was destroyed by mechs at super-close range that scored a lucky hit and blew something up inside it.

What could the invaders have done different with regard to tactics?

I only recommended it for the part with the beach, which I am utterly stunned that you did not enjoy.

[Sirus]

Does the one from the 80s display the same level of tactics? Because if so, no thank you.

I mean, the one I linked had potential. There were quite a few moments (the zip-line thing comes to mind) where I was thinking "Okay, this is pretty cool!". But then they squandered it all away.

I doubt you can rate a series based on a direct-to-video OVA made 25 years later. As for the shitty tactics, that's episode one and perhaps the plot is about how the military command cocked things up in a landing, sort of looks like Omaha beach in WWII or Gallipolli in WWI. What's shooting at them which can't be seen would be static gun emplacements on-shore. Machine gunners and snipers in the real world don't stand out in the open, in plain sight.

It's also hard to tell what's going on with no subtitles. Personally my gripe would be that the CGI doesn't look very polished.

Okay, until Furtuka mentioned it I had no idea that this was some remake of an older show. Someone mentioned and linked to the video I linked earlier and several people mentioned how awesome it was.

I realize that the enemy gunners were stationary emplacements and not just single guys standing around. Problem is that these mecha guns are apparently capable of blowing up bunkers with just a few shots. There is absolutely no reason for the mechs to not shoot back unless they have stupidly limited ammunition supplies; even pointing in the general direction of where the bullets are coming from and firing a few shots might at least throw off the enemy gunner's aim, if not explode another bunker.

And yes, it was hard to understand what was going on with no subtitles. I believe that was one of my main gripes.

And it seems that /m/ has a rather low opinion of the OVA's compared to the original show if that counts for anything.

At least I'm not the only one.

@ GUNINANRUNIN (to avoid quote pyramid):
The "protags aren't invincible" argument might hold water if people with a speaking role were actually killed. The only two pilots with voices and faces survived; everyone else was a mook and they don't count.

I guess it wasn't the fact that they had to ascend one at a time that bugged me, but the sheer dumb way they kept doing it when it was obvious it would never work. The gunners clearly knew exactly where each mech would appear at the top of the cliff, they had the range and the target area down pat. At that point it would be smart to either pull down those track-things and set them up somewhere else, or find an area of the beach without such sheer cliffs. Instead they just kept marching up one by one to get massacred. I can't even call it human wave tactics, because this was more like sticking a bunch of cows on a slaughterhouse conveyer belt and shooting a bolt into their brains one at a time.

Yes, but in D-Day the good guys prevailed. Lots of soldiers were lost (mostly at Omaha, the other beaches fared much better in comparison), but they used their brains, material, and sheer manpower to pull it off. These anime guys lost craptons of material and soldiers (at least two of those giant airships, all those massive pylons, every one of those mechs and their pilots) for no gain whatsoever.

Personally, I would have airdropped mechs. They had the giant airships, they have those cable lines, and I'm sure they have parachutes. Drop some mechs behind the machine gun emplacements in whichever way you wish while the beach invasion progresses. That's what the allies did at D-Day, and those airdropped soldiers contributed a great deal towards harassing and delaying German reinforcements.

Like I said: there were bits I enjoyed, but the sheer bloody pointlessness of it all combined with the vast majority of the OVA being taken up by politicians chatting ruined the overall experience.

</wall o' text>

[Parsely]

The "protags aren't invincible" argument might hold water if people with a speaking role were actually killed. The only two pilots with voices and faces survived; everyone else was a mook and they don't count.

I guess it wasn't the fact that they had to ascend one at a time that bugged me, but the sheer dumb way they kept doing it when it was obvious it would never work. The gunners clearly knew exactly where each mech would appear at the top of the cliff, they had the range and the target area down pat. At that point it would be smart to either pull down those track-things and set them up somewhere else, or find an area of the beach without such sheer cliffs. Instead they just kept marching up one by one to get massacred. I can't even call it human wave tactics, because this was more like sticking a bunch of cows on a slaughterhouse conveyer belt and shooting a bolt into their brains one at a time.

Yes, but in D-Day the good guys prevailed. Lots of soldiers were lost (mostly at Omaha, the other beaches fared much better in comparison), but they used their brains, material, and sheer manpower to pull it off. These anime guys lost craptons of material and soldiers (at least two of those giant airships, all those massive pylons, every one of those mechs and their pilots) for no gain whatsoever.

Personally, I would have airdropped mechs. They had the giant airships, they have those cable lines, and I'm sure they have parachutes. Drop some mechs behind the machine gun emplacements in whichever way you wish while the beach invasion progresses. That's what the allies did at D-Day, and those airdropped soldiers contributed a great deal towards harassing and delaying German reinforcements.

Like I said: there were bits I enjoyed, but the sheer bloody pointlessness of it all combined with the vast majority of the OVA being taken up by politicians chatting ruined the overall experience.

That's true. But not having seen the entire OVA or knowing what they were actually talking about I'm not even sure if those guys were even actually protags.

VOTOMS universe is very dark and even the "good guys" leadership is despotic, so that's easily chalked up to the generals being assholes. You did see the part where the generals were sitting in their bathrobes drinking way back at the capitol happily talking about the battle while they watched it unfold on their PC after all. The soldiers had no choice.

The good guys don't always win. Stuff happens for no reason or gain all the time.

Airdropped? Well you saw the airships get absolutely wrecked by AA right? Pretty sure airdropping anything wouldn't have gotten them any further.

Well there's your theme: pointless loss of life for no gain, because politicians. That's definitely not an uncommon idea.

[Sirus]

I'm assuming they are protags on the basis of having faces and voices while we don't even see who they are invading. You don't usually give more characterization to the antagonists, or else they become the protagonists simply by virtue of being recognizable.

So instead of just being incompetent, the leadership is evil and incompetent. You're not making a convincing argument in favor of continuing the series here.

Some of the airships got wrecked. At least half of them survived to drop those pylons, and they wouldn't have had far to go to drop the mechs on top of the cliff. And even the ones that did get wrecked could still drop the pylons. Sure, many of the mechs probably would have died in the landing, but the survivors could rejoin the battle.

Honestly, the big problem I have with the OVA is the same one I had with Snow Crash; awesome stuff is promised (intense mecha combat/insanely cool car and Reason, respectively). Awesome stuff is delivered, to degrees of satisfaction. And then the awesome stuff goes away and the rest is rather boring.

[Parsely]

I'm assuming they are protags on the basis of having faces and voices while we don't even see who they are invading. You don't usually give more characterization to the antagonists, or else they become the protagonists simply by virtue of being recognizable.

So instead of just being incompetent, the leadership is evil and incompetent. You're not making a convincing argument in favor of continuing the series here.

Some of the airships got wrecked. At least half of them survived to drop those pylons, and they wouldn't have had far to go to drop the mechs on top of the cliff. And even the ones that did get wrecked could still drop the pylons. Sure, many of the mechs probably would have died in the landing, but the survivors could rejoin the battle.

Honestly, the big problem I have with the OVA is the same one I had with Snow Crash; awesome stuff is promised (intense mecha combat/insanely cool car and Reason, respectively). Awesome stuff is delivered, to degrees of satisfaction. And then the awesome stuff goes away and the rest is rather boring.

I guess. Like I said, its only one part of an OVA, so those characters could simply be there to affirm the perspective of the conflict, which is that of the poor expendable soldiers ordered to go get killed for no good reason by people they've never met.

I'm just trying to rationalize the bad tactics in the context of the narrative. You're not accounting for the motives of the other characters. Perhaps the generals don't care about these forces, or those two we saw that survived (I thought one died actually?) were political rivals, maybe this operation is a costly (and jerkass) distraction for something else they have planned.

No, all of them were shot down over the water, causing the pylons to fall in the water. I think they were intended to be dropped further up the beach or something. Obviously the operation was either poorly planned or there was more resistance than expected, which does happen in real-life. Often. And parachutes are used in VOTOMS, but what do you think is going to happen to a bunch of slowly dropping metal tanks when the AA spot them?

Not familiar with Snow Crash.

Wait, who promised, and what exactly did they promise? Because if they promised you that the entire OVA would be wall-to-wall with action well.. And if political drama isn't your thing that's fine, but a lot of mecha tends to have that kind of thing (FLAG, Code Geass, Patlabor, Gundam, Robotech (okay maybe not Robotech), VOTOMS)