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Wellp, nevermind what I said about hoping they don't explain the circumstances of the couple.  Still, I like that the arbiters can make mistakes and there's someone there to point out that they did indeed gently caress up and there are vaguely consequences for it that even a dunderhead like Decim gets worried.
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Jan 17, 2015 10:22
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Darth Walrus posted:On another note, I wonder what Miss Black's deal is? Her reaction to her new partner accidentally destroying an innocent woman seemed a little too muted for anyone with a strong connection to the human world, so I'm guessing she's not recently dead, but she does still seem more human than the rest of the celestial bureaucracy. That was a pretty unexpected reveal, and I like that even though they shed some more light on the judgement process, it still leaves stuff to the viewer's interpretation.
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Jan 17, 2015 11:59
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HiveCommander posted:I wouldn't say she's entirely innocent, since this episode did confirm she had an affair, even if it was only once and she felt bad about it afterwards. Feeling bad about cheating on your partner doesn't make it ok. She wasn't the gold-digger some people thought she was, but she was still in the wrong more than the guy, who turns out had a legitimate reason to be insecure over his marriage. No the affair happened after she got married, hence the ring being there already. He already mistrusted her and you can assume that it was her reaction to him becoming more distant. The stinger at the end mentions that the guy would have never been happy, he would have eventually found another reason to be angry. Its why Nona, reacts a little when nameless mentions that they would have lived a happy life if he hadn't misinterpreted what he heard and why she retracts her assessment.
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Jan 17, 2015 12:13
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That sort of thing isn't really unnatural in relationships, there's no such thing as a couple that never get into arguments. I get that the guy was insecure, it's just one of the things that healthy couples discuss instead of brooding over it and being suspicious of one another. There's also the Buddhist interpretation of the void being a good thing, as people who have attained enlightenment wish to be freed from the cycle of life and death. The guy wasn't enlightened enough to be fitting of that fate, so perhaps reincarnation in this scenario is better for him to have another shot at life and hopefully be a more trusting person.
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Jan 17, 2015 12:39
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HiveCommander posted:That sort of thing isn't really unnatural in relationships, there's no such thing as a couple that never get into arguments. I get that the guy was insecure, it's just one of the things that healthy couples discuss instead of brooding over it and being suspicious of one another. That completely goes against everything stated in this episode. The guy was dangerously paranoid to the point where proper communication wasn't an option, got himself and his wife killed over it, and accidentally-on-purpose tortured his wife for it after their deaths (which is a much bigger deal than a mere moment of infidelity - I'm pretty sure we abolished the death penalty for that a little while ago). Decim's boss states that his soul was too damaged to benefit from reincarnation, and it's made clear that being voided is indeed a punishment signifying that you're no longer a worthwhile member of the cycle of reincarnation.
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Jan 17, 2015 12:52
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It's also been proven that the staff are fallible too. It's been established that they don't know what Earth is like since they've never been 'alive', so the same could possibly hold true about reincarnation and the void, since they've not personally experienced either. It's only natural to assume that reincarnation is good and the void is bad, because your soul being removed from the lifecycle does sound pretty bad. For all we know, the discovery that the void isn't some kind of empty room of afterlife torture might be a plot point later in the series  Fair point on the 'accidental' dart throws, but they made it obvious that the two weren't communication properly, and when she was being secretive whilst he was already suspecting infidelity understandably makes the dude more suspicious of his wife. I'd doubt the guy will be the same as he is now after reincarnation, since a large portion of personality is derived by conditions of one's upbringing and life experiences. Just because the dude was cripplingly insecure with relationships in this life does not mean he will be in the next one. Next time around, he might not go through whatever life events that turned him into s distrustful person.
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Jan 17, 2015 13:17
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HiveCommander posted:It's also been proven that the staff are fallible too. It's been established that they don't know what Earth is like since they've never been 'alive', so the same could possibly hold true about reincarnation and the void, since they've not personally experienced either. It's only natural to assume that reincarnation is good and the void is bad, because your soul being removed from the lifecycle does sound pretty bad. For all we know, the discovery that the void isn't some kind of empty room of afterlife torture might be a plot point later in the series They explain what the void is. It's simple destruction of the soul. Permadeath. It's the judges of the afterlife saying you're worthless, and cannot be expected to live a productive, fulfilling life if you get reincarnated. On the fallibility of the Quindecim staff, Nona seems to be on the ball. She recognised that Decim has a pattern of fuckups so she brought in an assistant for him, and her diagnosis of the couple, being the most complete, was implied to be the most correct. This is magic, so we cannot trust any preconceived assumptions about nature versus nurture affecting reincarnation - if the boss-lady trying to repair a flawed system says that someone's irredeemable and will remain irredeemable, it seems safest to just assume she's right and speaking from experience. She specifically points out that his error on the names wasn't a reasonable mistake, but a giant leap from a naturally distrustful guy, so if it hadn't been this incident, it would have been another, and there was nothing his wife could do about it.
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Jan 17, 2015 13:36
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Eeeh... I was really looking forward to this but the fact that the arbiters are fuckups kind of ruins the whole thing for me. I guess I went in expecting the kind of series in which you have to piece the puzzle together and figure out who is going where and why but the fact that Decim is unfit to pass judgement invalidates whatever satisfaction I might have gotten from that. It's like a murder mystery in which the wrong person is accused and that's that, even more egregious when you consider things like Decim getting their memories right in his retard brain. Wouldn't he know exactly how many times the woman slept around with anyone else? Whether or not the child was the guy's? I guess you could say the memories don't include that or that he wouldn't know about human impregnation and gestation anyway but it feels a bit like contrived writing regardless. I don't doubt it might get better about it but man, expectations dropped like a brick from episode to episode. That intro has no right to be so drat catchy either.
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Jan 17, 2015 18:50
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Det_no posted:I don't doubt it might get better about it but man, expectations dropped like a brick from episode to episode. That intro has no right to be so drat catchy either. Somebody say catchy intro? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saOq9S8mfSc
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Jan 17, 2015 18:58
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From the way they described it it seems they make judgements based off whatever memories the people remember (hence the whole game to bring them out) and how they react in the game. They don't automagically know everything about their lives. And from the series summary and promotional stuff (and the opening as well) the show was implied to be more about the staff and how they are affected by their experiences with judging the dead.
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Jan 17, 2015 19:01
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This is a very intriguing start. I hope it continues to be interesting.
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Jan 17, 2015 19:16
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Yeah, I get the impression that what we see going forward isn't going to be a question of 'why did they decide that?' but 'will our flawed detectives figure this one out?'. I imagine that in later games, we'll see a lot more of the staff's thought processes as they try to reason out who deserves to go where. We're not dealing with Holmes and Watson, but Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt.
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Jan 17, 2015 19:21
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Also Dexter to a little degree.
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Jan 17, 2015 19:51
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Det_no posted:Eeeh... I was really looking forward to this but the fact that the arbiters are fuckups kind of ruins the whole thing for me. I was already pretty into this but that just made it even more interesting to me. Looks like the new girl is there to humanize Decim somewhat, I wonder if the end credit sequence was alluding to that (or is just a reference to what a creepy fucker he is).
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Jan 17, 2015 20:25
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Everything Burrito posted:I was already pretty into this but that just made it even more interesting to me. Looks like the new girl is there to humanize Decim somewhat, I wonder if the end credit sequence was alluding to that (or is just a reference to what a creepy fucker he is). I dunno if "humanize" is the right word, but at least she offers an alternate optimistic viewpoint.
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Jan 17, 2015 22:12
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Det_no posted:I don't doubt it might get better about it but man, expectations dropped like a brick from episode to episode. We're only on the second episode. Like with the people on the previous pages being disappointed that the show will probably be a monster-of-the-week kind of show it's not worth it to invest too much into baseless speculations. We don't even know what angle will the show choose to present the story.
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Jan 18, 2015 00:57
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I wonder if this show is going to start working on a judgement game --> review of the process cycle, because that's certainly a way to reuse animation and save budget. Also some people on the internet are really loving mad that the show took Machiko's side.
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Jan 18, 2015 05:29
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They're probably just people who've been on the raw end of that sort of relationship before, so it's not a surprising reaction. Although it doesn't matter if Nona they sided with Machiko since her destination doesn't change.
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Jan 18, 2015 06:13
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HiveCommander posted:They're probably just people who've been on the raw end of that sort of relationship before, so it's not a surprising reaction. Although it doesn't matter if Nona they sided with Machiko since her destination doesn't change. lol if you think people who comment on anime shows have relationships instead of just being mysoginistic internet nerds
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Jan 18, 2015 06:43
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Phobophilia posted:I wonder if this show is going to start working on a judgement game --> review of the process cycle, because that's certainly a way to reuse animation and save budget. They're are just as dense as Decim, but refuse to admit they did anything wrong.
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Jan 18, 2015 13:57
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Personally, I don't think either of them deserved the void. hosed up but that's my opinion.
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Jan 18, 2015 14:11
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Honestly that's my biggest problem with the show, there's some really weird puritan morality going on if 'cheating on your husband' is enough for someone to decide that your soul has no worth whatsoever and can be reduced to nothing.
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Jan 18, 2015 14:16
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Sakurazuka posted:Honestly that's my biggest problem with the show, there's some really weird puritan morality going on if 'cheating on your husband' is enough for someone to decide that your soul has no worth whatsoever and can be reduced to nothing. Their actions during the game also decide where they go. Decim was too dense to interprete the memories correctly and her shouting at her husband was what finally made him decide she was the worse one, even though it was fake. If they only need the memories, why play the games? The arbiter already knows them before they even arrive.
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Jan 18, 2015 14:21
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Even so, none of their actions were anywhere close to 'this person is too terrible to exist anymore'.
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Jan 18, 2015 14:26
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Sakurazuka posted:Honestly that's my biggest problem with the show, there's some really weird puritan morality going on if 'cheating on your husband' is enough for someone to decide that your soul has no worth whatsoever and can be reduced to nothing. It's already been shown that the system is supremely hosed. I'm not sure it's so much the show's morality as the morality of the weird, hosed-up people it's depicting as they try in vain to understand and categorise these strange creatures called hyoo-mans. Mind you, if you assume a personality is carried through reincarnation (which seems to be the basic premise - voiding would serve no purpose otherwise), having huge enough trust issues that you're always moments away from killing/torturing your loved ones is kind of a big deal. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 14:27
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As has been said a few times already and I find myself agreeing with that notion, what happened before death is probably largely irrelevant when it comes to deciding who goes where. I think it only serves to kickstart the tension between people so they show their true colors and THAT pigeonholes them into either the reincarnation or void lift. I speculate the whole setup is to sort out people who aren't black-and-white good/evil by tossing their whole resume (so to speak) out of the window because it would be too much hassle/impossible, and just decide by how they behave on the spot.
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Jan 18, 2015 14:28
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Maybe it's something like "normally both of your souls would get tossed straight into the void, but we'll give one of you a chance for reincarnation?" I'm also still betting the void is somehow not as bad as it sounds.
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Jan 18, 2015 18:54
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Sakurazuka posted:Honestly that's my biggest problem with the show, there's some really weird puritan morality going on if 'cheating on your husband' is enough for someone to decide that your soul has no worth whatsoever and can be reduced to nothing. I would agree, but as others have said the show itself seems to acknowledge that the system is both fallible and messed up. Decim is emotionally stunted and judgemental but there's no objective rightness to his actions, nor necessarily to the system itself.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:11
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I'm surprised that the arbiters are both fallible and apparently not privy to all the information, that's interesting. What I want to know now, in that case, is why they do what they do and who/what put them up to it. I mean, it doesn't really seem like the sorting is much of a reward/punishment. Unless you retain sentience in the void I guess, but that's counter to every void/reincarnation paradigm I know of. Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 20:23
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I like the show.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:45
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Rodyle posted:I'm surprised that the arbiters are both fallible and apparently not privy to all the information, that's interesting. I don't think it's about rewards and punishments. It's about worthiness, sorting out which souls are valuable to the world and which can be discarded. That certainly fits with how detached and impersonal the whole thing is, too - this is jazzed-up resource management, and the human element is neglected because it just isn't a big concern. You don't punish a tool for being useless, you just bin it.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:46
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Who knows what system they used before. Maybe all souls were sent to the void? Once the old guy shows up, we should get some more information, what with the lotus motif.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:52
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Lurking Haro posted:Who knows what system they used before. Maybe all souls were sent to the void? I would assume that if there is a previous system, it involved reincarnating everyone instead. This seems like a filtration system designed to either reduce soul overcrowding or improve overall soul quality... except, of course, that it's busted to hell and needs a plumber brought in.
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Jan 18, 2015 21:06
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I liked the episode mostly but I hope they don't end up doing this for every single game played, it'd suck a lot of my enthusiasm out if they end up going over everything with a fine-tooth comb and explaining every last detail. Although I did like Decim not understanding people at all since he was never alive. The same thing is mentioned in Billiards but he seemed to have a better understanding of it, while here it's just totally alien to him. Also I am hells of hyped for Death Bowling next week
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Jan 18, 2015 21:42
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Personally, I don't think either of them deserved the void. hosed up but that's my opinion. I'm inclined to agree as well, they were both flawed people, and what Takashi did was an accident. It's not like he committed a murder-suicide with a shotgun.
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Jan 18, 2015 21:49
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I think we still don't really know enough about both the Void and reincarnation within the context of the series to say whether one is really great and the other is really terrible, although they're definitely a much different experience than the Western view of Heaven and Hell. But from what we know so far, reincarnation seems more so like a reward than being Voided seems a punishment.
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Jan 19, 2015 00:54
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Neither sounds like a good thing at all really.
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Jan 19, 2015 00:56
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And, well, if being voided was an OK thing to happen, Decim wouldn't have been chewed out so bad for letting it happen to an innocent woman, and wouldn't have a handler brought in to reduce his fuckups. Really, it's not that ambiguous. Nona does spell out which option does what in fairly clear terms.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:18
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Rodyle posted:Neither sounds like a good thing at all really. it's almost as if dying sucks
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Jan 19, 2015 01:21
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Darth Walrus posted:And, well, if being voided was an OK thing to happen, Decim wouldn't have been chewed out so bad for letting it happen to an innocent woman, and wouldn't have a handler brought in to reduce his fuckups. Even screwing up on relatively unimportant decisions will get you chewed out in most work places; I wouldn't necessarily take that as an indication that being Voided is some really terrible punishment. And right now we don't really know why some souls need to be Voided. Or what happens to everyone else who dies in this universe. Do they automatically get reincarnated, or is there some other process to make that determination?
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Jan 19, 2015 05:12
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