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Steambow owns. 
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May 14, 2016 09:54
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You know, philosophically, I'm drawing a fair number of links here with Mahouka. Now, obviously, this one's done by pros, so it doesn't have the same spectacular failures of the writer's craft (Araki and Okouchi at least know how to create tension and provide consistent spectacle), but the stuff like talent going unacknowledged in a rigged system and the simultaneous distaste for treating people as nothing but weapons (Mumei's plight) and for 'weak' and 'useless' people (like the coup faction, and the cowardly, judgmental masses our heroes have to protect) feel very familiar.
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May 14, 2016 09:56
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Kanos posted:Context is really important for understanding why characters act the way they do and I haven't seen any really egregious "the way this character is acting makes no sense" problems. I agree with this as far as it goes. Mumei becoming a loose cannon, in and of itself, makes perfect sense. She's a headstrong youngster defined by her physical prowess. You don't need any further explanations for her to do something stupid. Unfortunately, they built to this by introducing a random uninteresting character we'll probably never see again to monologue about how Mumei will be abandoned by her brother and how associating with people is making her 'weak'. This is so paint-by-the-numbers shounen my eyes rolled into the back of my skull. Before this, we had a clunky scene to show she was getting along with people when they literally applaud her for beating people up; after, we have a clunky scene to show she's not getting along with people because she's a tactless rear end in a top hat. The traits leading to her interactions in those scenes are already clearly part of Mumei's character; I just wish they'd done them in a more subtle way and without introducing No Leg McSpy. It's not that the characters make no sense, it's that the writing is lousy. I was pretty positive on this show prior to this episode but five really fell flat for me. I hope they pick it up in six.
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May 14, 2016 11:55
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Phobophilia posted:basically the government knows the secrets of the zombies, but are unwilling to let their weapons proliferate lest the population become independent and stop paying allegiance Seems like that would be a little short sighted considering a few kabane can wipe out a fortress in a day and the three fortresses we've seen are completely overrun.
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May 14, 2016 13:47
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Dmitri-9 posted:Seems like that would be a little short sighted considering a few kabane can wipe out a fortress in a day and the three fortresses we've seen are completely overrun. Short-sighted, power-hungry politicians working to undermine their noble soldiers? In my zombie anime? Perish the thought.
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May 14, 2016 14:04
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Darth Walrus posted:Short-sighted, power-hungry politicians working to undermine their noble soldiers? In my zombie anime? Perish the thought. The bushi aren't that noble in this story. Maybe the president is secretly the head vampire.
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May 14, 2016 14:41
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Dmitri-9 posted:The bushi aren't that noble in this story. Maybe the president is secretly the head vampire. I dunno, their courage has been valourised pretty heavily. Think about all those big dramatic suicides, and the princess's stick-in-the-mud bodyguard duelling the sword-Kabane. They definitely feel more like admirable people stuck in a bad system than the politicians we've seen. Them having cool weapons and getting involved in cool action scenes helps too - this show absolutely knows we're here for the steampunk zombie violence, and therefore the characters who provide it to us are inherently better than the characters who do not.
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May 14, 2016 14:48
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Lestaki posted:I agree with this as far as it goes. Mumei becoming a loose cannon, in and of itself, makes perfect sense. She's a headstrong youngster defined by her physical prowess. You don't need any further explanations for her to do something stupid. Yeah, I'm definitely not going to contend that the writing is subtle or elegant, because it's not. Most of the characters slot into blatant character archetypes seamlessly and many of the characters' actions and emotional reactions are very exaggerated and, well, cartoonish. Ikoma is the young, selfless male hero who suffered a loss of a loved one early in life and has devoted his life since then to both seeking vengeance and protecting the innocent and has now been granted a special power to achieve his goal. Mumei is the physically unstoppable but emotionally and mentally brittle headstrong young assassin. Ayame is the young noblewoman who is naive and self-conscious about being thrust into a leadership role but ends up displaying incredible savvy and inner strength. All of these characters could have been basically copy-pasted from other shows and stories. That said, the directness of the writing is almost charming to me. It's internally consistent, everyone acts in an exaggerated manner to the extremes of their character archetype. I generally can tell exactly what is going to happen before it happens, but it's usually done in a way that entertains me and the animation and sound work is extremely good. Watching this show very much reminds me of watching a dumb, fun 80s or early 90s gorefest OVA like MD Geist or Ninja Gaiden, where the characters and plot are kind of goofy but you're not really watching for an original story or to do literary analysis. Darth Walrus posted:I dunno, their courage has been valourised pretty heavily. Think about all those big dramatic suicides, and the princess's stick-in-the-mud bodyguard duelling the sword-Kabane. They definitely feel more like admirable people stuck in a bad system than the politicians we've seen. Them having cool weapons and getting involved in cool action scenes helps too - this show absolutely knows we're here for the steampunk zombie violence, and therefore the characters who provide it to us are inherently better than the characters who do not. The portrayal of the Bushi has been a little schizophrenic. Since we've hopped on the train they've been mostly spotless, but in the early episodes there was definitely some messaging about how the Bushi might be corrupt or cowardly; specifically the scene where Ikoma gets the poo poo beaten out of him and imprisoned for the crime of trying to get them to follow the established law and imprison the bitten guy for a couple of days to see if he's actually infected or not rather than simply executing him on the spot out of fear. This might just be part of the setup that paints the society in the show as incredibly hostile and fearful of Kabane to set up why Ikoma and Mumei are outcast at the start, but it seems weird to use the Bushi to do it if you're then planning to pivot to showing them as flawless noble warriors.
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May 14, 2016 16:48
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It's not that they're corrupt or cowardly, it's that they're proud and Ikoma offended them, even though he's right.
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May 14, 2016 16:51
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's not that they're corrupt or cowardly, it's that they're proud and Ikoma offended them, even though he's right. Their reaction to Ikoma is definitely motivated by him stinging their pride, but they were going to straight up execute the bitten guy before Ikoma intervened at all, which suggests a culture of superstition and fear. Similarly, when the town got hit, Ayame's father's first reaction wasn't "We need to get as many people out as possible", it was "Ayame, stay here while I clear the path to the train and then we're going to get the gently caress out of here". Obviously a big part of that is simple pragmatism, but the message being protected was definitely not one of selfless nobility and bravery.
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May 14, 2016 17:02
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Kanos posted:Their reaction to Ikoma is definitely motivated by him stinging their pride, but they were going to straight up execute the bitten guy before Ikoma intervened at all, which suggests a culture of superstition and fear. I'm not arguing that they're selflessly noble or brave either, I just think one of those scenes speaks to systemic corruption (namely Ayame's father abandoning the town -- keeping in mind he's a noble, not a military leader per se) while the other one is more "exactly what you would expect to happen when you use the military as a police force during a siege by literal monsters." It's wrong to kill that guy, but it speaks more to ignorance and immediate pressures like "if I get this wrong he could infect the entire town," than it does to portraying the Bushi as morally compromised. Maybe that is cowardly in a sense, but it's consistent with them protecting people on the train, while if Ayame's father showed up again and was suddenly "let's get these people safely to the capital" it'd be suspicious and hypocritical. e: Or put it another way, paranoia and cowardice are subtly different, even if they could both fairly be described as "a culture of fear." Paranoia is natural in a soldier, it keeps them and their friends alive; it's also why you don't use soldiers to keep the peace in a civilian setting. Cowardice isn't desirable in any context. Depicting someone as paranoid doesn't carry the same moral disapproval as portraying someone as a coward. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:23 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 17:18
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this show owns
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May 15, 2016 03:17
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Eonwe posted:this show owns it do 
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May 15, 2016 03:23
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People annoyed by this show's supposedly stupid characters *cough* 4 chan *cough* reddit *cough* have not read the insightful or analytical thoughts made by patient men on this thread. Keep it up.
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May 15, 2016 04:27
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Lestaki posted:I was pretty positive on this show prior to this episode but five really fell flat for me. I hope they pick it up in six. I don't know why settings like this need to hit character trope buttons so hard though. Maybe just filling time, but it feels like you don't need to ham up scenes like it did this episode. I'm finding I really like the characters they're not dwelling on, the mechanics are all great.
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May 15, 2016 05:15
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Spiderdrake posted:I felt like it rebounded during the episode and the last couple minutes picked up. Yeah I get a strong feeling that there's a lot of logistics to running a giant train and the mechanics are all essential to that and they're great to dwell on.
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May 15, 2016 06:08
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I hope Johnny Gaijin gets more screen time, if only to hear him talk.
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May 15, 2016 06:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWNbcxXDmt0
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May 15, 2016 09:41
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Command Ant posted:I hope Johnny Gaijin gets more screen time, if only to hear him talk. Fun fact: he's actually being played by an American whose real name is Maxwell Powers.
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May 16, 2016 16:19
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Eonwe posted:this show owns 
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May 16, 2016 16:59
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Mordja posted:Fun fact: he's actually being played by an American whose real name is Maxwell Powers. Thus explains why he has the most authentic-sounding American accent I can recall in anime.
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May 16, 2016 18:09
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A 'guess the official age' game for the Kabaneri cast.
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May 17, 2016 19:18
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carbonara of the iron chef
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May 17, 2016 19:21
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This is easy, everyone trends mid-teen, if a character looks/acts older (and isn't an actual bald or greyhair) then they're later teens. The one I'd expect to throw most people is Mumei, but personality wise if you assume early teens or pre-teen, it makes more sense. Pretty standard anime ages really.
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May 18, 2016 04:09
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At the end of episode 6 was that core of the colony Kabane a former Kabaneri? It...may explain what happens to starved out Kabaneri, maybe.
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May 20, 2016 01:11
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holy gently caress this ep totally owned i also totally called the heart being something special as soon as mumei bought it up
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May 20, 2016 01:38
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also im glad that people will stop saying that mumei is ikoma's sister when the whole point of that transition scene in the OP was to draw thematic parallels between the two
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May 20, 2016 01:52
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Phobophilia posted:also im glad that people will stop saying that mumei is ikoma's sister when the whole point of that transition scene in the OP was to draw thematic parallels between the two no dude you dont understand theyre totally gonna be the same and then holy poo poo things will get awkward and ill be like "WHOA THIS SHOW WENT SOMEWHERE WEIRD" and secretly keep watching it
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May 20, 2016 02:10
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Phobophilia posted:holy gently caress this ep totally owned The fused colony fuckin owned and reminded me a lot of the corrupted boar god at the beginning of Princess Mononoke.
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May 20, 2016 04:58
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Also:
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May 20, 2016 05:23
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a kitten posted:Also: I really wanna see if there's any new chapters for Teppu now.
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May 20, 2016 05:47
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a kitten posted:Also: step aside ayame new best girl
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May 20, 2016 05:47
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That episode did own, though.
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May 20, 2016 06:40
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Shinjobi posted:That episode did own, though. It did. I still think the Fused Colony is the lamest but it was pretty great that our cool half-human protagonists got bailed out by the normies doing the right thing and everyone had to pull together to kill the boss. The whole 'run to the right to avoid derailment' was absurd but a perfect capstone to the episode.
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May 20, 2016 13:20
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I enjoyed the episode well enough, but I would love to ask the person in charge of worldbuilding why they decided to suspend the railway precariously over the middle of the gorge, rather than across either of the perfectly flat pieces of land to either side.
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May 20, 2016 14:38
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Lestaki posted:It did. I still think the Fused Colony is the lamest but it was pretty great that our cool half-human protagonists got bailed out by the normies doing the right thing and everyone had to pull together to kill the boss. The whole 'run to the right to avoid derailment' was absurd but a perfect capstone to the episode. Running to the right was sensible and a good thing, but the fact that they thought pushing would help anything was lol The resolution to Mumei's problems ended up not being a resolution at all, instead she magically got better out of confusion apparently. Come on, when she's on about her "strong vs weak" shtick, just challenge her views with different kinds of strength, or maybe how you're weaker the less supporting people you have, anything. Instead you say "No you're not strong, just weak like me, also i massacre a hundred Kabane solo now" like it makes any kind of point. I can't be mad about Ikoma though, because WOW why do you just carry around a bottle of blood that's creepy.... Oh right. That's because you're kinda smart and practical unlike Mumei. 
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May 20, 2016 14:42
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"Everyone is actually strong in different ways" doesn't cut to the core of the problem; "it's okay to be weak," while it suggests something objectively similar, challenges the idea that weak means worthless. Mumei vs. Ikoma is basically naive vs. classical cynicism and that's cool.
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May 20, 2016 17:25
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my understanding is that the shogunate has been building up a corps of half-kabane supersoldiers, and mumei is being torn between that expectation of being a cool badass who flips off the squares, vs someone who cares for the team. its a super condensed character arc, but alot of people in this show have these condensed arcs and that minimised the amount of time i spent annoyed at mumei (80% of last episode) i expect the shogunate to not care about ikoma's steam gun, but they will be very interested in how someone can become immune to kabane bites, so they're not forced to evade tank everything and mass produce kabaneri soldiers like if there's a theme to this show, it's about the importance of human dignity even in the face of the zombie apocalypse, so i suspect the show is going to climax with ikoma and mumei trying to stop the shogunate from creating an army of kabaneri that would be used to suppress other humans
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May 20, 2016 17:43
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Kytrarewn posted:I enjoyed the episode well enough, but I would love to ask the person in charge of worldbuilding why they decided to suspend the railway precariously over the middle of the gorge, rather than across either of the perfectly flat pieces of land to either side. I'd assumed it was a quarry/mine and they'd just kept digging down under the tracks.
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May 20, 2016 20:03
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Phobophilia posted:my understanding is that the shogunate has been building up a corps of half-kabane supersoldiers, and mumei is being torn between that expectation of being a cool badass who flips off the squares, vs someone who cares for the team. its a super condensed character arc, but alot of people in this show have these condensed arcs and that minimised the amount of time i spent annoyed at mumei (80% of last episode) from what i saw lately, it looks like the shogunate is either underestimating the kabeneri and are planning for human war again, or are about to withdraw into an even more impenetrable shelter and keep the rest of the world out like the original walled cities did. in either case it was made clear that they are stockpiling weapons for use on humans, not kabaneri atm.
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May 20, 2016 20:11
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