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[Andres]

Just finished the fourth episode of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. I think I've watched enough to say that I don't like it. The action scenes have way too much flipping for what's supposed to be "hard" fantasy and it doesn't have the unique movement system of AoT to justify it. The characters have no subtlety or depth to them and the dialogue sounds like it comes from a play.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The girl kabaneri is the worst. Her personality's annoying, she's needlessly abrasive, and she doesn't explain anything. Out of nowhere she tells a bunch of people "I really want to drink your blood" instead of doing something more sane like going to the leadership and saying "I need blood to be in optimal condition. I don't need to bite people or anything, just putting some in a cup will do." She also doesn't tell the new kabaneri this and the noble girl nearly gets bitten as a result. Then when she stabs that pregnant woman and people are saying "Why did she do that? She's such a bloodthirsty kabane!", all she does is basically mumble "The baby was tainted too."

The main character is boring. His sister died, he ran away, and now he's utterly fearless. That about sums up his character. Boring.

Even though the kabaneri are very clearly sane and not in danger of going full kabane, the mob just keeps going "They're kanabe! Let's murder them!" I mean CHRIST they're stupid! For people who've seen actual kabane up close and personal so often, you'd think they'd be able to tell that these are far from your ordinary mindless zombies.

Why did that guy who sacrificed himself have a suicide bag so powerful it blew up the side of the car and damaged the roof? It made no sense besides giving that random dude a dramatic and meaningful death.

tl;dr: Attack on Titan did it better.

[BFEL]

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT CRUNCHYROLL. UNLOCK THE 5TH EPISODE OF LULUCO! ITS THE GODDAMN 6TH. I WANT TO SEE THIS BEFORE DENTISTRY HAPPENS GODDAMMIT.

[Orange Wizard]

tl;dr: Attack on Titan did it better.

The action scenes have way too much flipping for what's supposed to be "hard" fantasy and it doesn't have the unique movement system of AoT to justify it.

Note that the samurai and steam gun randos don't flip around, it's just Mumei who's a superhumanly strong professional zombie killer. It's justified flipping.

The characters have no subtlety or depth to them and the dialogue sounds like it comes from a play.

The main character is boring. His sister died, he ran away, and now he's utterly fearless. That about sums up his character. Boring.

This is probably my biggest criticism as well, but it's not really the point of the show. It's a story of (presumably) mankind as a whole fighting their way back from the brink, the MCs themselves are mostly just there to facilitate that. They've got roughly the same level of nuance as AoT, except Ikoma here is actually smart and able to do stuff. Eren mostly just did epic scream face and got his butt kicked around.

The girl kabaneri is the worst. Her personality's annoying, she's needlessly abrasive, and she doesn't explain anything.

Not-wearing-bell-sandals-any-more girl is supposed to be abrasive; she's like 12 and doesn't have much in the way of social skills.

Even though the kabaneri are very clearly sane and not in danger of going full kabane

Except they're not:

She also doesn't tell the new kabaneri this and the noble girl nearly gets bitten as a result.

Mob mentality is a thing. The peasants are shitting themselves and want to remove any potential threat. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be distrustful.

Why did that guy who sacrificed himself have a suicide bag so powerful it blew up the side of the car and damaged the roof? It made no sense besides giving that random dude a dramatic and meaningful death.

The barrels behind him were gunpowder (used in the steam guns). Probably should have done more damage inside the car but vov.

TL;DR: KnK>AoT, but you're entitled to your wrong opinion

[Neonivek]

They've got roughly the same level of nuance as AoT

Now... with my understanding of AoT that is an insult.

But with my understanding of the AoT fanbase... that is a compliment.

!Confused!

[Orange Wizard]

It's meant to be a criticism.

[Andres]

This is probably my biggest criticism as well, but it's not really the point of the show. It's a story of (presumably) mankind as a whole fighting their way back from the brink, the MCs themselves are mostly just there to facilitate that.

The show does not do this theme well, assuming that's what it's going for. Right now we only have this one group of dudes on a train trailing bodies the whole way. Nothing about mankind as a whole doing anything.

They've got roughly the same level of nuance as AoT, except Ikoma here is actually smart and able to do stuff. Eren mostly just did epic scream face and got his butt kicked around.

Eren is fucked up. He killed two guys when he was ten, watched his mother get eaten by a titan, went through three years of military training starting at twelve years old, all but one of his entire team got eaten by titans on their first mission, and then there's the whole "stripping away one's humanity to fight monsters" theme that pervades the show. His extreme hatred and determination was very built up, he didn't just have them by default for being the main character.

Not-wearing-bell-sandals-any-more girl is supposed to be abrasive; she's like 12 and doesn't have much in the way of social skills.

Pretty sure she's older than 12. Aside from that, there's a difference between lacking social skills and just being an ass. She's the latter. Also, just because she's supposed to be abrasive doesn't make her character any less annoying to watch.

Even though the kabaneri are very clearly sane and not in danger of going full kabane

Except they're not:

She also doesn't tell the new kabaneri this and the noble girl nearly gets bitten as a result.

But they judged them as the same as any other kabaneri even before that incident, even after they both helped get them into the train and out of the city. The girl's abrasiveness might've made them think bad, but Main Character was right there with her telling her to not be such a massive asshole so it kinda gets cancelled out.

Mob mentality is a thing. The peasants are shitting themselves and want to remove any potential threat. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be distrustful.

Distrustful I can understand, but they were all witness to the fact that they're the only reason they're all still alive. Being scared and distrustful of them I can understand, but outright discarding them when they've still got a long way to go and thus have more kabane to fight? It would've been much more interesting to see them struggle with their fears: the fear of the kabane versus the fear of the kabaneri.

[Orange Wizard]

The show does not do this theme well, assuming that's what it's going for. Right now we only have this one group of dudes on a train trailing bodies the whole way. Nothing about mankind as a whole doing anything.

I'm just assuming that the scope will broaden in the next few episodes. They should be arriving at the capital next episode; we might get an infodump on the state of the world or something. Dunno yet, I'm making predictions.

Eren is fucked up... His extreme hatred and determination was very built up, he didn't just have them by default for being the main character.

Fair. But Ikoma's stance is less "rah kill kabane" and more "ohshit save peope", and is narratively justified by him losing his family to the things. It is less emphasized than AoT.

Pretty sure she's older than 12. Aside from that, there's a difference between lacking social skills and just being an ass. She's the latter. Also, just because she's supposed to be abrasive doesn't make her character any less annoying to watch.

The official website says she's 12 AFAIK. If you find her annoying then whatever, I guess.

But they judged them as the same as any other kabaneri even before that incident, even after they both helped get them into the train and out of the city.

Yeah because they've had it drilled into them that people who get bitten will turn into kabane and murder shit. They all carry around seppuku-grenades for that exact reason. The peasants don't know about stopping the curse before it gets to your head to prevent murder-shit-itis, unlike the MCs and audience. So all they really have to go on is that the kabaneri aren't kabane yet. They could turn on everyone at any moment, for all they know.

It would've been much more interesting to see them struggle with their fears: the fear of the kabane versus the fear of the kabaneri.

Honestly this theme alone could have a whole series built around it. KnK definitely touches on it with the mob's approach of "be rid of those we cannot trust" and the princess/samurai dude's "they seem mostly safe and can help us". It's not a psychological show so I don't expect there to much development here though.

[Cruxador]

In favor of Habanero though: It sure is pretty.

And although I agree that it's the kind of bland shonen-target stuff that comes out fairly often if you aren't just looking at the animation/aesthetic, I don't think that's bad enough to make it unwatchable. I also wonder what y'all were expecting, because this is pretty much what I expected from the first episode.

Pretty sure she's older than 12.

While she's officially twelve, it does seem like all the characters ought to have ~5 years added to their official age.

[Zangi]

He acted that way before the spoiler happened though.

Yea, I'm mostly mentioning that because that is some really thick icing on his hateon cake.  But the first part is probably the biggest contributor, small fish playing hero to save big fish.  Big fish's worldly view is cracked and it just continues to pile on as the series goes on...  and...
The academy(also villains) knows that he has a personality/attitude problem, but what can they really do about it without fucking it up(with someone who is very hostile to attempted communication) or getting into moral/ethical shit?  There is no evidence that he would become a villain, he is just a very aggressive asshole at this point. Demonizing/expelling him for it is probably a guarantee of him actually becoming a villain-type in the future.

I'm pretty interested in where that'll go at the least, especially considering the current events of the latest manga chapters.  ... Come to think of it, this manga is at least decent on the character stuff.  Obviously by anime/manga standards, the childhood 'rival' should have committed some morally reprehensible act, showing their true future calling as petty evil-doer/smallfry lackey.

[BFEL]

Well finally got to watch 5th episode of Luluco. OVER JUSTICE! JUSTICE IS OVER!!!! FIRE FROM FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I'm again cursing Crunchyroll's waiting period for free peeps.

[Cthulufaic]

Fuck you Jojo.  I was having a nice day and then 30 seconds in you do this to me.  God.  Fucking.  Damnit.

EDIT: GODAMNIT THE FEELS WERE FOR NOTHING

[Andres]

But Ikoma's stance is less "rah kill kabane" and more "ohshit save peope", and is narratively justified by him losing his family to the things.

He then proceeds to make said people stupid, annoying, and unlikeable. AoT was "Titans are responsible for all the bad things in my life! I'm going to kill them!" KotIF is "These people are stupid and blame me for everything despite me doing everything possible to keep them alive! I must protect them!" It really could've been done better.

The official website says she's 12 AFAIK.

She looks older, at least 14 years old and looking closer to 15 or 16.

It would've been much more interesting to see them struggle with their fears: the fear of the kabane versus the fear of the kabaneri.

Honestly this theme alone could have a whole series built around it. KnK definitely touches on it with the mob's approach of "be rid of those we cannot trust" and the princess/samurai dude's "they seem mostly safe and can help us". It's not a psychological show so I don't expect there to much development here though.

The show is honestly worse for not building on this theme further. It's so simple right now that it's basically "The good, smart, attractive people trust the Kabaneri while the selfish, stupid plebs don't." It's not very compelling.

[BFEL]

The official website says she's 12 AFAIK.

She looks older, at least 14 years old and looking closer to 15 or 16.

And as everyone knows, its not how old she actually IS that matters its how old she LOOKS. This is the mindset that will keep you out of prison. For reals guys. So seriously.

[Orange Wizard]

It's anime, what do you expect?

[peasant cretin]

It's anime, what do you expect?

Apparently, Skallagrim has high hopes...from a different series of course.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is like the summer blockbuster anime that came out in the spring. It's, you know, what it is. Vaguely like AoT, but right now, better on the big damn heroes moments that blockbusters are known for imo. Mileage and all that.