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Endorph posted:What the gently caress was that animation. I don't know, but I was terrified. Let's pretend it didn't happen and only talk about the rest of the episode.
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Jun 8, 2014 15:55
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Jun 8, 2014 17:14
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Endorph posted:What the gently caress was that animation. Between that and the ink sketches the episode was SHAFTy as all get out.
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Jun 8, 2014 17:27
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Ryas posted:I don't know, but I was terrified. Let's pretend it didn't happen and only talk about the rest of the episode.  Think about this for a second. Someone out there signed off on this. Someone, presumably a person with two functioning eyes and a brain, looked at this and said, "Yes, this is good and not bad. This is something we should put our name too and not be ashamed of." Do you think SHAFT gets the drugs delivered in a truck? Like a big eighteen-wheeler. Just sort of dump in it in the car park, big heap of powder, honk the horn? All the animators jerk their way outside, twitching, doggy bags in one hand, trowel in the other. Meanwhile, Shinbo is in his office, slumped in the corner. He's just kinda twisting his nipples, trying to tune into Mars FM. Seriously, though, I think this was one of the best episodes yet. All this build up is finally starting to come together and pay off, and- I think I really like where it's going. A success, eventually. 
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Jun 8, 2014 17:37
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Ryas posted:I don't know, but I was terrified. Let's pretend it didn't happen and only talk about the rest of the episode. The most unnerving part of that whole ordeal was how normal the suburban neighborhood and house looked. Where did you take the real Shaft and what did you do to them, Mekaku?
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Jun 8, 2014 17:56
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Autonomous Monster posted:Seriously, though, I think this was one of the best episodes yet. All this build up is finally starting to come together and pay off, and- I think I really like where it's going. The funniest part about this is that the pre-orders are the highest they've been for weeks. I hope it means the Japanese fanbase enjoyed the rest of the episode and not that they think the CG was acceptable. But then again, Sidonia and Arpeggio were successful and they look almost as horrifying as this. Or maybe they know that they need to throw money at SHAFT in order to get them to put some effort into whatever they're doing.
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Jun 8, 2014 21:54
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Maybe they're pre-ordering the blu-rays so they can get a non-poo poo version of that portion. Because there's no way they'll keep that the same, right?
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Jun 8, 2014 23:36
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Only just watched episode 9. Did they animate the opening in MMD?
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Jun 9, 2014 17:19
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Episode 10 was great. The sequence where Azami demonstrates all of the eye abilities of the Blindfold Gang to defeat the villagers was really neat. I really liked the cover song in this episode as well, wouldn't have expected a male singer to fit the song so well. Soundtrack was superb as always and lots of interesting things happened (like Mamoru Miyano going nuts as the rear end in a top hat snake.) My favorite episode since Headphone Actor.
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Jun 15, 2014 15:17
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I want this show's soundtrack so badly.
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Jun 16, 2014 00:58
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Admoon posted:I want this show's soundtrack so badly. Turns out dubstep makes for nice flashback music
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Jun 16, 2014 14:56
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This could have been so much better, but no, Shaft had to happen. If they'd just gone with a more conventional episode ordering, everything would have been fine and dandy but Shinbo can't have none of that, things need to be jumbled and varied for the sake of flashbacks, y'know? Which is a huge loving shame since the individual episodes have been quite stellar. Sasuga, Shaft. On a more lighthearted note, just stumbled on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3okGOYPHrXY and it just makes me laugh because Maria would have probably actually been in the nico chorus if she hadn't sung the original for it. Futaba Anzu fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 10:17
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I don't know if Shaft is really to blame for that. The guy who wrote the story to begin with seems like a pretty big fan of telling things out of order.
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Jun 17, 2014 10:29
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pandaK posted:This could have been so much better, but no, Shaft had to happen. If they'd just gone with a more conventional episode ordering, everything would have been fine and dandy but Shinbo can't have none of that, things need to be jumbled and varied for the sake of flashbacks, y'know? Which is a huge loving shame since the individual episodes have been quite stellar. Sasuga, Shaft. I dunno man I thought it was good as it is. Flashbacks don't inherently ruin a story, and things like Marry, Ene, and Konoha's identities were clearly meant to be revelations.
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Jun 17, 2014 13:40
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I've really been enjoying the story as told so far. I guess if you really wanted to you could watch this chronologically; I know a lot of people watch Haruhi that way.
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Jun 18, 2014 04:55
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Okay I am pretty good at understanding things like Paranoia Agent, Lain, Boogiepop, etc. But the ending to this one just escapes me.
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Jun 28, 2014 23:07
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No Outer Heaven cover, this anime is dead to me.
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Jun 28, 2014 23:10
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Neeksy posted:Okay I am pretty good at understanding things like Paranoia Agent, Lain, Boogiepop, etc. But the ending to this one just escapes me. Explanation! The group gathers and confronts the evil snake basically the same way every time, except that Shintaro is there with them. This usually results in everyone being brutally murdered, followed by Marry flipping out and resetting everything... Except that Shintaro and Marry survived one time, so she gave him a power which gets transferred along every time she resets the world. Shintaro remembers everything that has ever happened to him in every single lifetime since. (Which is also why he's a "genius." He's done everything a hundred times by now, so he has a lot of practice.) Apparently this brain infodump includes a way to leave the other world without leaving someone behind, so he kills himself to enter the other world and then brings Ayano back out with him. (When he's talking to Ayano in the other world in previous episodes, he's really talking to the snake that gives him that power. Yes, this is needlessly confusing.) Ayano being there collects all of the powers in one room, allowing Marry to gain full control of the powers and become the Queen. Marry takes them to the other world, where the teacher's wife is, so his wish is granted and the snake can't take control any longer. Then she absorbs the snake. Either 1) dying still funnels them to the other world and Marry brings them back out afterward (because the powers are what are keeping them alive), or 2) the summer scene afterward was a daydream and everyone except Marry is trapped in the other world or very, very dead (as implied by the final dialogue). Both are equally plausible!
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Jun 28, 2014 23:52
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pandaK posted:No Outer Heaven cover, this anime is dead to me. not an emptyquote Also it's Outer Science but you knew that Go listen to Mafumafu's cover, it's my personal favorite
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Jun 29, 2014 01:00
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Einander posted:Explanation!
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Jun 29, 2014 02:27
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Sindai posted:Thanks. But who was the tall white-haired guy? I never figured that out. Tall white-haired guy is Konoha. Haruka's snake-granted power is Awakening Eyes, which allowed him to make a new "ideal" body, hence the ridiculous physical abilities: Konoha is literally a video game character. Somehow this process wiped Konoha's memory, but the scene with Shintaro in the last episode suggests that it was actually a loophole for the usual "one stays, one leaves" rule for the other world: Haruka stayed, Konoha left. So the Konoha we know is actually Awakening Eyes, the snake. This loophole also probably applied to Ene: Ene left, Takane stayed. Except Ene is Takane, since her power transfers her actual consciousness. Her body got left behind instead. So how did it appear in the lab? Dunno! It would have made more sense if Shintaro carried it out instead.
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Jun 29, 2014 03:06
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Re: Ene. I was under the impression that the body was just a leftover trophy from previous timelines like the other stuff he had floating in the jars.
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Jun 29, 2014 03:16
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Eej posted:Re: Ene. I was under the impression that the body was just a leftover trophy from previous timelines like the other stuff he had floating in the jars. I just interpreted that as a Shaft thing--I mean, if Ayano is throwing herself off a roof in every timeline, then it's pretty unlikely he'd have her scarf. Shaft is pretty big on visual metaphor. Which made them sort of a mixed bag for this series, really, because the Heat Haze (where Hibiki and Hiyori were looping, where Ayano was) is supposed to make you go "what?" instead of "oh, right, it's Shaft."
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Jun 29, 2014 06:51
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But it still doesn't explain what the hell happened to Hiyori. The show had the bones of a good story in there. A snake spirit trapping the dead in a thunderdome and reanimating the one who leaves with magic powers is not a bad concept, and the gradual reveal of just how it works was well done, even if the pacing was deliberate. But the series really needed more episodes to breathe, somehow the entire ensemble of Cool Teens(tm) gets assembled out of nowhere, stomps a bunch of clowns the show deliberately didn't even colour in, and defeat the big bad. That was too quick and tidy a resolution. And did the show really need a time-loop plot concept? It feels like the writer made it so just because timelooping is trendy right now.
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Jun 29, 2014 12:52
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This show was less than the sum of its parts. There were a lot of great parts, sure, but they put all the parts together to make half a car instead of one motorcycle or some other applicable analogy. If they gave it more time or were less ambitious this could have been something really good. The show was also very SHAFT, which made the abstractions that the show was trying to present not really stand out. With the Hibiya and Hiyori sacrifice loop thing it's not even apparent that there's anything wrong or unusual until after the deaths start, it just looks like typical SHAFT.
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Jun 29, 2014 13:31
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Phobophilia posted:But it still doesn't explain what the hell happened to Hiyori.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:28
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http://pastebin.com/hacjYVnH I think this explanation should make things a bit more clear. Not that it excuses how rushed this episode was, but it might provide a little bit more closure than going "Huh?"
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Jul 1, 2014 16:23
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now if only they could portray that in a comprehensible way using an audio-visual medium!
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Jul 2, 2014 02:02
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I can't help but compare this unfavorably to Mawaru Penguindrum, what with the constant revelations, a universe with crazy rules, skipping all over, and generally being artsy. I don't know whether the author or the director is to blame, but it was just hard to get in to. Probably would be better if I rewatched it all at once so I wouldn't have to remember everything week-to-week.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:22
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Penguindrum ultimately converged on several core themes: family even without shared blood, individuality, ultimate sacrifice, etc. MKCA has, what, let's all dress up in our trendy clothes and show off how cool we are.
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Jul 2, 2014 13:27
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Phobophilia posted:Penguindrum ultimately converged on several core themes: family even without shared blood, individuality, ultimate sacrifice, etc. MKCA has, what, let's all dress up in our trendy clothes and show off how cool we are. I don't think Mekaku City Actors was great or anything but it has a clear theme about loss, grief, and moving on. Most of the core cast are haunted by the death of Ayano (Haruka for Ene, Hiyori for the stupid kid), the 'monster' backstory revolves around her unwillingness to accept that her family will die and her desire to create an eternal, undying world for them, the antagonist is driven by the fact one man is consumed by his wish to be reunited with his dead wife, and the ultimate reason for the loop plot is that Marry is unwilling to accept the death of her friends and instead uses her powers as the queen to forcibly reset the world and be with them again. I don't think the resolution to the plot really exploited this theme properly but it is coherent and the series is built around it.
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Jul 2, 2014 14:42
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Right, moving past grief and facing forward is a recurring theme in the songs as well. Speaking of which, the bonus CD track that was bundled with the volume 1 of the BD/DVD release is out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihuiAuZ1u3Y The other theme it always pushes is uniting together. This ragtag group of teenagers takes on armed terrorists, washed out generic goons, and a superpowered videogame villain, and they accomplish this by combining their powers together to achieve something that would be impossible individually. So, I don't think bringing Ayano and Hiyori back cheapens the message of moving on. Ayano was able to achieve her own happiness by fighting together with her friends instead of being a martyr alone.
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Jul 2, 2014 15:57
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Phobophilia posted:But it still doesn't explain what the hell happened to Hiyori. This is basically my thoughts on the show. It's a great story that just wasn't presented as well as it should, and so a lot of it felt like a mess. Still enjoyable to watch for the most part. But why is Hiyori in particular able to be saved? Or is it that anyone can be saved, but only if the wish-granting snake is asked to grand that wish for someone, which coincidentally can only happen once?
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Jul 2, 2014 18:42
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One rather neat thing I think the adaptation pulled off was its in-universe canonical tie-in to the idea that it's made for people already familiar with the source material. We know from the show that Marry continually resets the world after the deaths of her friends (and from the songs as well, cf. Outer Science)--and as it turns out, this time loop comes after the loops shown in the original song series and in the manga. I haven't read the LNs, but I assume the same holds for those. Look back at episode 8, Lost Time Memory. When the song interlude happens, it begins with a basically shot-for-shot recreation of the original song MV, before cutting to some scenes from earlier episodes in the show among more of Shintaro's memories. Interspersed with those are panels from the manga--Hibiya and Hiyori shopping with Shintaro and Momo, Kano and Kido on a rollercoaster, among others. Towards the end of the manga section, we see Kuroha murder them all. Somewhere in here are probably LN illustrations and text, but I don't recognize them. Immediately after that we go to some scenes from the actual MVs, not recreations: Lost Time Memory, (maybe) Ayano's Theory of Happiness, Children Record, and Outer Science. Knowing now that Shintaro's power is to retain his memories of the previous worlds, it's clear that this scene is him remembering all of these previous events. What's interesting to me about this is how the Lost Time Memory MV story differs from the anime's. The MV depicts two separate realities (likely themselves individual time loops), the creatively-named Route 1 and Route XX. In Route 1, Shintaro (wearing his red jacket) meets the Mekakushi-dan and becomes friends with them. Konoha, possessed by the antagonist snake, tries to shoot himself in the head to prevent its influence, but Shintaro pulls the gun away and ends up being shot and killed himself. In Route XX, Shintaro (without his jacket) never meets the Mekakushi-dan, and unable to get past his depression and guilt at Ayano's death, stabs himself in the neck. Shintaro's death happens at the same time in each reality. And so, Shintaro enters the Daze with himself, and is brought to a recreation of the time when Ayano died. Route 1 Shintaro, bolstered by his newfound friends and happiness, manages to accept her death and turns away from it, while Route XX Shintaro fruitlessly tries to save her. The Route 1 version thus manages to find the real Ayano in the Daze, where she bequeaths her scarf to him and disappears, while his eyes turn red as he inherits his power. There's also the actual Kagerou Days song, which is largely the same as the episode named for it. Hibiya and Hiyori are in a park, Hiyori gets hit by a truck, Hibiya wakes up in a Groundhog Day loop, she keeps dying, eventually he throws himself in front of the truck to save her. But the song includes one extra bit after that's important. I recommend watching/listening to it but if you want: After Hibiya sacrifices himself, Hiyori wakes up stating that she failed to save him again--meaning they're both in a reciprocal loop. That the song presents it as the beginning of another verse is really clever.
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Jul 2, 2014 19:14
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ViggyNash posted:But why is Hiyori in particular able to be saved? Or is it that anyone can be saved, but only if the wish-granting snake is asked to grand that wish for someone, which coincidentally can only happen once? You can only be brought back to life if you have a snake living inside your body, acting as your lifeline. There were only a limited number of snakes, the ten created by the first monster (belonging to the Gang + Kenjirou) and the extra that Shintaro was given by Marry. Since Kenjirou chose to stay behind in the never-ending world with his wife, his evil snake was freed up, and Konoha's final wish to save Hiyori forced it to become her unwilling lifeline, restoring her to life. Since there are no more snakes to go around, they couldn't save anyone else. You can blame CrunchySubs for flubbing that line, it was a lot more clear in the original language. As for the time loop thing, that's probably just to keep up with the overall snake theme. Ryas fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 21:33
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Ryas posted:You can only be brought back to life if you have a snake living inside your body, acting as your lifeline. There were only a limited number of snakes, the ten created by the first monster (belonging to the Gang + Kenjirou) and the extra that Shintaro was given by Marry. Since Kenjirou chose to stay behind in the never-ending world with his wife, his evil snake was freed up, and Konoha's final wish to save Hiyori forced it to become her unwilling lifeline, restoring her to life. Since there are no more snakes to go around, they couldn't save anyone else. Thanks for the explanation. So presumably anyone could be brought back if there was a "snake" available, and it was Aug. 15th. But no one who died on that date is truly dead, just trapped in the timeless world, right? Or is that just the place where dead people go (was this explained?)?
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Jul 2, 2014 21:44
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ViggyNash posted:Thanks for the explanation. So presumably anyone could be brought back if there was a "snake" available, and it was Aug. 15th. But no one who died on that date is truly dead, just trapped in the timeless world, right? Or is that just the place where dead people go (was this explained?)? I believe the other world snatches them away right as they're dying, but because of the metaphysical nature of the endless world it keeps them at the verge. It's mentioned several times that if the revived people's snakes are completely removed from them, they'll drop dead on the spot (like Kenjirou did when his snake jumped over to Konoha) so they're probably actually dead, and only alive because of the snakes acting as their life force. If they had more snakes to go around, they could rescue the other people, but creating a new snake probably isn't very simple considering Marry only managed to give birth to just one after who knows how many iterations of the world.
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Jul 2, 2014 21:51
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The whole series was up on Hulu, so I helped myself. My complaints about the ending were already discussed, so I'll skip over that, but my favorite part of this anime were when the present and future members of the And since this is a SHAFT-animated anime, what kind of huge changes were made between the broadcast and the BD versions?
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Oct 11, 2014 06:25
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I debated whether or not to watch this series just for the experimental animation but otherwise I have no idea  the entire backstory is for everything. Is it episodic or is there a overall plot arc going on? Are there 50+ minor characters to keep track of?
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Oct 11, 2014 18:54
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You can think of this show like a (very) poor man's Baccano! There is an overall plot, or more specifically, a mystery, but it is slowly explored through different, initially disconnected, perspectives. The following is a spoiler about how the anime relates to the source material, so you're probably okay to read it, but for the benefit of others: The interesting thing is that the source material, and all of its adaptations, including the anime, are in the same canon. They themselves are part of the "different perspectives" through which the mystery is revealed. And because of that, I think the show would be very difficult to appreciate without being familiar with the source. A lot felt like it assumed the viewer already knew the plot, and the hook was just to see it animated in motion. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't already a Kagerou Project fan, and fans should only see it because seeing it animated is pretty fun.
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Oct 11, 2014 19:07
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