Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Radio Controlled]

Alright, just watched the first two episodes of Madoka. Enjoying it so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But I am aware that it gets real depressing somewhere down the line. Just don't kow exactly when.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nah, don't worry, it just gets funnier!

[Flying Dice]

Alright, just watched the first two episodes of Madoka. Enjoying it so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But I am aware that it gets real depressing somewhere down the line. Just don't kow exactly when.

Hehehehehehehehehehehe.

[Neonivek]

Nit Pick of the week

In My Love Story

The female lead can't seem to lift Takeo's ball... which is a 16 pound ball

DEAR GOODNESS do some weights... It is only 16 pounds.

On a side note: WOW!!! a 6 pound ball? I wish my bowling places had lighter balls that I could use.

[Spehss _]

Plastic Memories is bugging me. The plot is basically "Human falls in love with an android", right? "Tsukasa the human falls in love with Isla the android." So it's a romance with a setting more interesting than a cliche japanese high school, that's a good thing, right?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You'd think the primary source of conflict in such a plot of humanXandroid would be the relationship between a human and an android. Like, can the android feel love? Why? How? How is an artificial machine so human-like that it has emotions? Is it ok for a human to fall in love with an android? Why does the human love the android? It's like a human, but not. It thinks differently, has different needs, it may or may not have the parts needed for a -erm- physically intimate relationship. Is it philosophically ok for all this? Or is it like a human falling love with the Golden Gate Bridge except the bridge can speak and think?

But the setting of Plastic Memories never addresses any of this. No one questions how the android can feel love. No one is shocked at the MC taking the android on a date. This seems reasonable, given that the setting portrays androids as a perfectly normal part of life, perfectly assimilated into human lifestyle. So maybe in the setting all the philosophical and ethical questions of artificial life has been addressed.

But then why make the android an android in the first place? She's practically indistinguishable from a human. The only real restriction for androids in the setting is that they live up to 9 years and cannot "improve" themselves through training or learning the same way a human could. So Isla will always be clumsy and sickly, no matter how hard she works to change that. What does this "android-ness" provide to the plot?

It seems the biggest problem is that androids only live 9 years. So Plastic Memories is basically a "short-lived romance" plot with robots thrown in. If the setting was a standard rom-com high school, the same plot could be achieved by making Isla a clumsy, sickly human who dies young from some health complication. Like cancer. Or maybe she gets hit by an 18 wheeler while she's crossing the street and she stops to pick up her dropped keychain. But no, she's a robot that's like a human but not.

Plastic Memories has such an interesting setting with lots of potential but it instead it seems to use the setting as a vehicle for the romance. But the romance feels incomplete. And the setting also feels incomplete, because the setting isn't the focus. How are the androids made? What's their hardware and software? What happens to the terminated android bodies collected by Terminal Service where the main characters work at? None of it gets addressed.

I know there's the complaint that romance or rom-com settings are all becoming cliched and boring. But the settings aren't the focus of the romance plot, the focus is the romance or comedy. Rather than worry about exposition about the setting, it can focus entirely on making the romance good. By making a sci-fi story with a cool setting, it can focus on exposition of the setting by using the plot.

tl:dr; By making a romance with a sci-fi setting, neither the romance or the sci-fi setting feel complete and it just comes out mediocre. I'm enjoying the series nontheless, and it's kept my attention more than any other recent anime I've tried over the last couple months. But it could be so much better, I think.

Maybe I'm being way too critical too early, and the creators will do more with the setting or address my criticism in either the last couple episodes of this season or in a later season.

[Furtuka]

It was inevitable


In other news there's a guy on youtube releasing the Gaia Gear radio drama with english captions. For those unaware, Gaia Gear was a novel written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the original Gundam. It was created before Gundam F91, and so presents an alternate timeline of the late Universal Century, and takes place in the year UC 203. The radio drama has some notable differences in the story from the novel, but the plot goes something like this.

In the year UC 203, the space colony independence movement and the Earth Federation are once again at war, this time with the vehicles known as Man Machines, the advanced successors to the now outdated mobile suits. The Earth Sphere is policed by the corrupt Man Hunter Attachment, who battle with the resistance force Metatron. Out of desperation Metatron attempts to create a Memory Clone of one of the heroes of the Universal Century, one who could become their leader and lead the independence movement to victory. And so we go to our hero, a young man raised on a remote island of the Pacific Ocean who bears the name Affranchi Char...

[Neyvn]

Gotta give credit to the animators that put a ton effort towards details like Reflections and Camera images. Been seeing a ton where a reflection reflects at a beautiful angle and also includes a ton of stuff from the background its reflecting and just now saw a phonecamera show the image that it was recording perfectly as it was when the character did it 'outside' the lens...

[Frumple]

On one hand, char as the main character sounds kinda' awesome.

On the other, I can't help but feel we should warn them to lock away their underage daughters. I mean, it's too late now, but...

[Flying Dice]

On one hand, char as the main character sounds kinda' awesome.

On the other, I can't help but feel we should warn them to lock away their underage daughters. I mean, it's too late now, but...

Hide yo kids, hide yo wi- actually no, just hide your kids.

[Furtuka]

what

[Neonivek]

what

Yeah I have no idea either. The fandom for this has REALLY died off.

[Furtuka]

Whoops wrong thread.

uh here have a chaos dragon pv

[Furtuka]

Yo so I'm caught up with The Heroic Legend of Arslan/Arslan Senki and I am really surprised that Bay12 isn't all over it.

Like seriously it's got great visuals, an epic storyline about a prince reclaiming his throne from foreign invaders is, so low fantasy that it is only a few steps away from historical fiction, medieval Persian setting, nice tactics and cultural/politics stuff, great historical accuracy, and is adapted from a manga by the guy who made Full Metal Alchemist which is in turn an adaptation of a novel series by the same guy who wrote the Legend of Galactic Heroes novels.

It's pretty damn great.

[Andres]

Fullmetal Alchemist was made by a woman, actually.

[Furtuka]

Did not know that. Sorry. I actually haven't seen FMA myself so I don't know much about it.

[Reelya]

I'm watching Arslan Senki, and I also watched the old OVAs for the series first. Actually, I'd recommend to skip those, watch the new show and only go back and check the old OVAs out afterwards to see an alternate version of some scenes later. The new TV version does it much better, and it sort of spoils it to know little bits of the plot from the OVAs.