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Post by Jay on Apr 7, 2017 14:32:58 GMT -8
I'm into One-Punch Man and I think that it's a pretty accessible anime even if it does subvert a lot of the tropes. I think anyone familiar with "superheroes" from popular culture would be able to get what's going on and see some of the comedy that results of that. All that said, I've only made it a few episodes into the anime adaptation and have spent more time on the manga, which has been getting quite a bit darker of late. I definitely like it and look forward to keeping up with it, but it's not really my favorite or anything.
Since we were just talking about it, I just finished up with the first episode of AoT's second season. The production value seems to be a lot higher now, which isn't really surprising given the popularity of the property, but the animation is high quality and ambitiously rendered and they appear to be making a stronger effort with the soundtrack and ambient music to make it as unsettling as possible. I knew what was coming at each stage of it, and while it's been a little while since I read those chapters, it still was able to get some fresh horror in me. So things are looking up. I probably won't have the same sentiment when I start watching the new season of Berserk later because oh no oh god no oh that CGI why was that CGI so bad.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 7, 2017 17:25:09 GMT -8
I'm into One-Punch Man and I think that it's a pretty accessible anime even if it does subvert a lot of the tropes. I think anyone familiar with "superheroes" from popular culture would be able to get what's going on and see some of the comedy that results of that. Practically every time I've heard anyone here at CT talk about whether or not Superman is a sub-par character due to being overpowered, I instantly think of One-Punch Man, because it's practically the living embodiment of that whole debate. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it now... when I heard it was coming out I imagined it would be released all at once like a Netflix original, then I realized that it's following a standard TV schedule. I might just wait until it's all out and binge it, I'm not in a rush since I already know what's going to happen. I like that it's apparently only going to be twelve episodes, though. The show seems pretty dedicated to following behind the manga rather than overtaking it Fullmetal Alchemist style, and I figure if they make twelve episodes a year, they'll be able to release it on a more regular schedule provided the manga comes to a close relatively soon. I'm not necessarily against an anime adaptation being different from the manga per se, but I don't like the idea of following one author's vision extremely closely only to veer in a completely different direction midway through just for business reasons, and I think that would be especially bothersome for a franchise as mythology-heavy as AOT. If an adaptation is going to diverge wildly at some point, I'd rather it just follow the beat of its own drum from the get-go.
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Post by Jay on Apr 7, 2017 21:58:43 GMT -8
But part of the fun of Saitama, overpowered abilities aside, is that he simultaneously acts in the name of justice (mostly out of boredom and a desire to find purpose in life) and is largely an idiot. It's probably just my reflections on the current arc of the manga, but one of the recurring themes is that no one seems capable of properly assessing threats, not even the reader. Saitama is dismissed because he doesn't look the part. King is regarded as the strongest living man largely on accident. Watchdogman looks utterly ridiculous and is aloof most of the time and remains one of the most powerful S-class heroes. Even monsters routinely are more or less than they seem, although the fact that Saitama can KO any of them effortlessly makes it impossible to judge how strong they ought to be since we have a very limited frame of reference. So, yeah, it is riffing off Superman, but I'd say it's also heavily playing with the influences of Dragonball Z and the like, except more explicitly rendering power levels meaningless.
As for AoT and its pace, for lack of a better word, the first ep of the second season adapted three manga chapters, from the middle of vol. 8 to the beginning of vol. 9. That takes us up to chapter 35 and we're currently on chapter 92 in the manga. I could see this season getting maybe as far as 70, but the intro song leads me to believe I should temper my expectations (while puzzling over what the intro is doing with the Beast Titan?). Roughly 50 seems more in the ballpark as there's more of a natural pause after that. I'm glad that they're pacing themselves and all, but when a manga releases on a monthly schedule, you'd better be in for the long haul.
Speaking of long hauls, watched a new episode of Berserk (is it a season? is it not a season?). They got my hopes up by opening and closing sans CGI but then they used it for the bulk of the story within. On the plus side, it seems less jarring and they appear to have made an effort to sync animation with voice tracks this time around. I still regard the CGI as an arbitrary flourish, but having the audio and visuals match goes a long way towards making it tolerable. There was also a neat underlying bass track of muttering whenever one of the God Hands is speaking, which adds to the unsettling atmosphere surrounding them and is something that you might miss if you didn't have headphones on. Nevertheless, I'd have to see a few more episodes before I'd so much as consider recommending it.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 8, 2017 6:34:02 GMT -8
So, yeah, it is riffing off Superman, but I'd say it's also heavily playing with the influences of Dragonball Z and the like, except more explicitly rendering power levels meaningless. I don't think that the story is specifically riffing off of Superman as such, just that it's an obvious comparison. I don't actually know a lot about Superman, but classically, he seems to be aware of how much power he wields and has a strong sense of ethics and responsibility as a result of that. By contrast, Saitama is totally oblivious to the implications of his power, his only concern being that it's a nuisance because it makes all of his fights too boring. Anyway, I burned through volumes 13 through 15 of AOT last night, encompassing most of the coup arc, and I actually liked it a lot. It dives head-on into the whole government corruption and lack of preparedness thing I was talking about earlier, of course, but it also cashes in on a lot of ideas and themes that were hinted at early on, but not fully developed at the time. Moments like Dot Pixis at Trost saying that in times of extreme crisis humans will be their own worst enemy rather than banding together, or Armin saying in Stohess that you need to become a monster to fight monsters, which never became fully true for our protagonists until they needed to fight humans instead of titans. The arc also confronts us with the consequences of many previous events in the story, particularly the fallout from the attack on Trost. The sealing of the wall is proclaimed a proud victory for humanity by the soldiers and much of the public, but that overlooks the fact that many people had to continue living there after both the infrastructure and economy was destroyed, and they've been suffering ever since. I also liked that when all is said and done, practically everyone involved has reservations about what they've had to do to get Historia in power. I'd expect this from the cadets, but even Erwin and Pixis and Zackly wonder if they've done the right thing or if humanity is better off because of it. I get the impression that a lot of readers didn't like it because it took the focus away from the titans and because it was so dark and morally grey, but I think it was a fitting continuation of what had been layed down already. I will say that I read it in a single day, while anyone reading it as it came out read it over several months, making it all the more grueling.
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Post by Jay on Apr 8, 2017 11:17:59 GMT -8
So, I'll just throw in a disclaimer now, but what Zarnium and I are talking about here outpaces what's going on in the anime and while I think there's a shot we'll get there this season, I don't know. I'm going to avoid spoilers for him but otherwise, be forewarned, lurkers.
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I think what you perform here is a good reading of the successes of the arc and I don't have much to disagree with you on. Pixis' meditation felt like it had been properly earned and I cheered a little when Historia ascended because I felt as if it played well off the old political trope of "the great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one." I'm also in firm agreement that the feeling of distraction from the action of the plot probably turned many off. My complaints about it are a little bit different.
What I didn't like about the arc overall was the feeling of foreclosure, with interesting plot elements raised and then seemingly cut off without any clear direction of where to continue onward. The idea of the Reiss family and their paramilitary secret service was an interesting idea, particularly with the references to the first king and how a despair about the world had led to a laissez faire governance. But at the end of the arc, all of those people are dead and there's no sense that much of a narrative could be recovered from what was blown up. Ditto Kenny Ackerman and the still mysterious history of his clan. Neither Mikasa nor Levi are much informed about it and he appeared to be one of the last who knew, but off he goes into the sunset and that's that. Even that underground city where Levi was raised, it seems like a potential treasure trove of narrative and it adds very little, at least at present moment in the manga. It's not a stretch to predict that Levi receiving the titan injection kit will develop into a major plot point, but it's really the only thing that does. So what does that leave us with? Similar storytelling tools to those which will come up in that blasted basement: If we find anything out, we'll find it via a record and not from a person, which diminishes the capacity for narrative tension seeing as how the relevant parties lose their agency and it becomes an ex post facto reckoning of events doomed to history.
All that said, the basement stuff was pretty darned good, so there may be hope yet.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 8, 2017 20:10:47 GMT -8
I've gotten through volume 20, the most recent release in the States. More spoilers for late in the manga, due to be adapted to television god knows when! What I didn't like about the arc overall was the feeling of foreclosure, with interesting plot elements raised and then seemingly cut off without any clear direction of where to continue onward. The idea of the Reiss family and their paramilitary secret service was an interesting idea, particularly with the references to the first king and how a despair about the world had led to a laissez faire governance. But at the end of the arc, all of those people are dead and there's no sense that much of a narrative could be recovered from what was blown up. Ditto Kenny Ackerman and the still mysterious history of his clan. Neither Mikasa nor Levi are much informed about it and he appeared to be one of the last who knew, but off he goes into the sunset and that's that. Even that underground city where Levi was raised, it seems like a potential treasure trove of narrative and it adds very little, at least at present moment in the manga. It's not a stretch to predict that Levi receiving the titan injection kit will develop into a major plot point, but it's really the only thing that does. So what does that leave us with? Similar storytelling tools to those which will come up in that blasted basement: If we find anything out, we'll find it via a record and not from a person, which diminishes the capacity for narrative tension seeing as how the relevant parties lose their agency and it becomes an ex post facto reckoning of events doomed to history. The fact that the Reiss family is dead does put a bit of a hamper on how that story can move forward other than having it simply being revealed through a record of past events, but there's still a lot we don't know. Reiner and Bertolt's mission likely has a lot to do with whatever mysteries the Reiss family was up to, and there may yet be more actors involved than we know about. As for Levi's past, I would have really liked to see that expanded upon more, and yeah, I'm not sure where that can really go now that his only family is dead. That said, if we want to get pedantic, I would say that most of that is unrelated to the coup and develops after it, so the coup arc from 13 to 15 is still very solid. Moving up to volume 20, I'm real curious what the situation is going to be come 21. It seems that half the cast is dead, presumed dead, or doomed to die very shortly, but there's been a lack of bodies and the titan injection kit can supposedly bring the dead back to life, so anything goes!
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Post by Jay on Apr 8, 2017 20:29:21 GMT -8
... but there's still a lot we don't know. Reiner and Bertolt's mission likely has a lot to do with whatever mysteries the Reiss family was up to, and there may yet be more actors involved than we know about. As for Levi's past, I would have really liked to see that expanded upon more, and yeah, I'm not sure where that can really go now that his only family is dead. That said, if we want to get pedantic, I would say that most of that is unrelated to the coup and develops after it, so the coup arc from 13 to 15 is still very solid. I don't feel like it's spoiling much to say it, but Reiner/Bertolt and their group have zero to do with the Reiss family and their aims, whatever they are or were. Rod seemed like such a serial bungler that the thought never occurred to me that he could be involved in that large-scale level of planning.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 8, 2017 21:22:47 GMT -8
I don't feel like it's spoiling much to say it, but Reiner/Bertolt and their group have zero to do with the Reiss family and their aims, whatever they are or were. Rod seemed like such a serial bungler that the thought never occurred to me that he could be involved in that large-scale level of planning. Oh? Have you read further than chapter 82 somehow? I figured that the reason the shifters outside the walls hate the humans so much is because of whatever it is the Reiss family did 107 years ago that they wiped from the populace's memory, thus tying the two story threads together. I could be wrong, though.
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Post by Jay on Apr 8, 2017 21:32:30 GMT -8
I follow along with the fan translations as they come out so I just read chapter 92 a couple of days ago. The ire that the shifters have towards those inside the walls has almost nothing to do with the memory wipe, and I'll leave it at that.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 9, 2017 8:20:33 GMT -8
Ah. Well, that's disappointing, though it wouldn't be the first time that the story has developed a plot thread only to cap it off too succinctly or to put it on the back burner for a very long time. My memory of the post-anime chapters are a bit fuzzy, but I recall that after it was discovered that there were titans in the walls, Minister Nick claimed that the Wall Cult knew all about the wall's secrets, but refused to tell anyone except Historia about it. This lead them on a four volume chase to get answers out of the Cult using her, but then other crises occur, Nick is killed by the MPs, everyone forgets about the wall titans, and then Historia becomes important to the plot for a completely different reason with her story seemingly concluded without the Wall Cult being involved at all, or their connection to the Reiss family being revealed. So, that was a bust. I suppose this means that the last remaining vestige and knowledge of the Reiss conspiracy lies with the Cult and something could come of that, but they've been absent for so long I wouldn't count on it. The wall titans will surely be relevant at some point again, if only as an explanation of how the walls came to be or why Bertolt and Reiner only attack the gates, but it's been a looooooong time since they've been acknowledged in the story other than a brief mention from Rod Reiss.
I think Hajime Isayama is really good at coming up with interesting mythology and lore, but he's not as good at relaying it to the audience in a compelling way or working it into his narrative seamlessly, resulting in a lot of infodumps without many narrative stakes. The fact that a lot of plot developments since the beginning are brought on by Eren just happening to remember something at convenient times is related to this.
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Post by Jay on Apr 9, 2017 9:05:10 GMT -8
I always figured that the gates were the target because they were likely to be structurally weaker and the main goal was carnage. I suppose breaching other portions of the wall and letting the titans do as the would is another plausible route, but it lacks the drama of direct conflict. As for some non-spoiler spoilers, the Wall Cult hasn't been mentioned since Nick bit it and I suppose that they're conflating the Wall Cult with the former Royal Government and hoping no one presses too hard on that, but the Wall Titans were brought up again fairly recently and they haven't been wholly forgotten.
I was just reading that Isayama had originally intended to finish off the whole story in twenty volumes, but that's plainly not happening, so the newly revised plan as of almost a year ago was to have it go through 2018. To be honest, I'm not even sure how viable that is considering all that's going on at present. But I'm with you on the assessment, good on mythology, good on the atmospherics and overall tone, weak when it comes to integrating larger plot points into a coherent and seamless whole, which was another implied complaint about the coup arc, in that Kenny and the Reiss family didn't matter much before then and they don't seem to matter much after it either.
The good news is that you'll start to find out what's in the basement in the next volume and that will be coming out in about a week and a half.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 9, 2017 19:40:23 GMT -8
I always figured that the gates were the target because they were likely to be structurally weaker and the main goal was carnage. I suppose breaching other portions of the wall and letting the titans do as the would is another plausible route, but it lacks the drama of direct conflict. My assumption has been that if one of the wall titans gets exposed to sunlight, it would escape and break more of the wall in the process, causing a domino effect that would destroy the entire wall. I've assumed that the outsiders don't want that for whatever reason. That's my theory, anyway. On another tack, reading the manga reminded me of something regarding Hange's character. While she's portrayed as a woman in the anime and I tend to refer to her as a woman for the sake of consistency, her gender is never stated or implied in the manga, and her appearance is considerably more androgynous than her rendering in the show. Apparently, the English translators were told to either use masculine and feminine pronouns in equal measure or not use them at all, so this seems deliberate. I'm getting conflicting information about what verbiage is used in the original Japanese, since some sources say that gender-neutral language is used for most characters and it therefore doesn't mean anything, while others say that Hange is specifically referred to with masculine and feminine terms in equal measure, so it is significant. I just think that's interesting.
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Post by Jay on Apr 10, 2017 9:26:23 GMT -8
I hadn't really considered the possibility of using the Wall Titans against the internal populace, but then again one of the subtexts of the shifters attacking the walls is that they don't actually know whether or not the people inside have access to or could use the Coordinate, but they assume so. If they break out the wall titans and then the Coordinate is used to rally those titans against the shifters, the shifters are screwed, whereas if you leave those titans sheltered from the sunlight, they can't activate. It's safer then to attack the gates since if those inside have the coordinate, odds are the shifters could fend off the lesser titans. This is just me extrapolating some details, but the wall titans do get additional mention as a threat in the coming volumes, more to those outside than within.
As for Hange's gender, I did notice in the new season of the anime that Hange was visually more ambiguous than in S1, closer to the manga, from the looks of it. The only other thing I would have to say on the subject is that once I learned of the character (which I think was before I'd heard the voice actor), I figured it to be a job for Romi Park, who usually does the voices for young males or tough females, Edward in FMA and Hitsugaya in Bleach. Sure enough...
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 10, 2017 10:05:38 GMT -8
It's worth noting that Isayama's character designs in general are often both somewhat androgynous and similar to each other, to the extent that I've occasionally gotten Historia and Armin confused. Looking back, the most obvious visual marker of gender is that every woman I could find has long, visible eyelashes, while none of the men do. Hange does have visible eyelashes in close-up shots... but they're about half the length of most of the confirmed women's eyelashes. Is that significant, or am I overanalyzing things too much? You be the judge.
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Post by Jay on Apr 11, 2017 12:28:51 GMT -8
I had similar issues with the whole Armin/Historia thing. Then again, it seems as if Isayama is deliberately going for an aesthetic where there are few outlandish or distinctive features, no anime hair, if you will. I get the reasons why one would do that under the circumstances, but it also makes me feel like casting aspersions for the less workmanlike nature of his plotting. The more I think about it, the more pressure I feel like applying because it's not like his art style is known for its detail and he only releases on a monthly schedule :\
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