DARLING in the FRANXX - A Believing Heart is your Mecha

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What is Trigger's best previous anime
	Kill La Kill
	When Supernatural Battles become commenplace
	Kiznaiver
	Little Witch Academia
	Gurren Lagann*
	Panty and Stocking*
	Space Patrol Luluculo
	Goku

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Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Poltergrift posted:

I think the issue -- mine and other posters' ITT -- is that straightness is being enshrined as the only metaphysically/scientifically correct way to do relationships, via "our robotic metaphors for sex and loving relationships can only be piloted by a man and a woman in a pair, because Positive and Negative Energy need to Combine and gender determines your Energy Type."

It's a very kind of sentiment, in addition to excluding everyone not het from piloting a cool robot.

Also, dear lord, those cockpits.

Eej posted:

The only offense I am taking is the dread I feel that I'm gonna have to sit through a bunch of garbage about the natural state of man and woman just to watch some dinos and robots fight in Trigger animation.

e;fb

We're literally two episodes in. Even Godannar, a show with the exact same premise that was way hornier and had incredibly dumb tits and a second season literally funded by the creators doing hentai doujins, had an entire mid-season arc about two girls piloting together and that kind of thing actually being discussed.

I can understand some concerns, but the show's barely even started and they were so quick to explicitly confirm all of that that I have to imagine they'll do something with it besides just playing it straight (heh) for the entire show. If the show ends and they don't, yeah, feel free to complain, but I don't understand the urge to have a hot take lined up for a story that's barely even started. So many elements of their situation hosed up and weird, I don't know why everyone is immediately assuming this one will never be subverted in the slightest.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 19:53

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 14:35

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

StrixNebulosa posted:

brb watching Godannar instead

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 20:04

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Thor-Stryker posted:

Nothing like activist rage for a cartoon show not displaying the entire spectrum of neo-gender norms.
This show could have the two-girls pilot a mech and someone will get uppity that they didn't use a non-gendered and a shemale to represent the glorious and wonderful diversity of humanity in the post-mordern age.

'a non-gendered and a shemale?' jesus christ dude, gently caress off

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 20:10

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

also if you think agender people are a modern creation i have some bad news

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 20:12

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

skasion posted:

This thread is going places

e: also I seriously hope all those of you who are upset by this show are not actually going to go watch Godannar lol

hey, godannar discussion would also be a place for this thread to go

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 20:23

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

skasion posted:

I�m just saying, if you can�t handle a show about aggressive hetero robots powered by wood, it�s conceivable that you will not like a show in which a twenty something buffman rescues the 12-year-old protagonist from monster, enthralling her heart forever, and then marries her later while she�s in high school, IN THE FIRST EPISODE ALONE. Godannar may be the trashiest show I�ve ever watched all the way through, it is entertaining in a certain sense and not entirely in a train wreck way like, I don�t know, Dragonaut or whatever. But it makes this show look like nuanced and balanced examination of sexual politics.

i never said it'd be a good place

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 20:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

StrixNebulosa posted:

https://twitter.com/radiostarkiller/status/954801907629019136

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 22:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

the best characters in godannar are the guy and girl that pilot the gunner robot, imo

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 23:16

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Cuntellectual posted:

I don't really care about the content of this post but I'm trying to figure out what brought it up and I'm coming up blank.

literally just people mentioning that gay people exist

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 01:33

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

on the other hand utena had its sexual stuff be super blatant while also expressing it in funnier/more interesting ways than a guy humping a realdoll

'dont think youre the only one that can turn into a car'

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 08:06

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Expect My Mom posted:

one of my favorites is there's just one episode where in all of touga's scenes he's holding like a large carrot or a small cactus up to his head

i like that he not only does that, but they specifically have an arrow pointing to the small cactus he's holding and the much larger cactus sitting next to akio

darealkooky posted:

utena was approaching relationships from the completely opposite angle. for one the stuff in this show appears to at least on some level be healthy, whereas literally nothing in utena was healthy for anyone involved also, utena was a show that had to wait almost 30 episodes and most of a recap episode to get any actual sex in, and even then it had to hide that poo poo under a lot of smoke and mirrors.

If you're gonna ask me if utena was better than this show two episodes in, absolutely, but I don't believe you can compare them at all beyond "thre's a lady with pink hair who disregards all the rules of this weirdly enclosed society of teenagers"

i was mostly comparing them in terms of 'very blatant psychosexual imagery'

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 08:33

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Eej posted:

It's been 21 years since Utena and nothing has remotely approached its level so I don't think it's fair to anybody to hold Mecha Anime By Trigger up next to it.

i liked wixoss more than utena in that aspect because all the transitions to the card game were literally just glowing ethereal doors shaped like vaginas and the in-universe term for playing the card game was the exact same term used for homosexual relationships, a direct translation would be like 'same-sex battling'

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 09:30

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

who are the 6 people who voted kiznaiver

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 01:15

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

https://twitter.com/kellyqute/status/955136332073910277

this show is feminist, actually

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 02:44

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

it was not a kyoani project and it had nothing to do with kyoani and kyoani made no shows that were like it, the artstyle just vaguely resembled kyoani.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 06:18

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

AnacondaHL posted:

1) In what way is this twitter person a reliable source?
2) The tweet itself contradicts what you said, regarding design.

Regardless of whether or not that guy is accurate, you can literally pop over to any staff listing site and look at the guy who's both directing the series and wrote the plot outline, atsushi nishigori.

Has he worked on any trigger shows? No.

He wrote The Idolm@ster, did character design for panty and stocking and gurren lagann, and did storyboarding on the first rebuild of evangelion film. None of those are trigger. He's a mid-era Gainax guy who had a huge hand in rounding up the ex-Gainax crew that did Idolm@ster, and has since mostly done storyboarding for OPs.

Another writer on the project who's also credited with the plot outlines, as well as scripts, is Naotaka Hayashi, who wrote the original Steins;Gate VN as well as Plastic Memories. You'll note those also aren't Trigger anime, and he's never had any work involving Trigger in his entire life.

Regardless of the extent of Trigger's involvement, their involvement on the actual writing is literally zero. You don't need inside industry knowledge to know that, you can just look at the credits.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jan 22, 2018

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 21:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

the best girl in klk (nonon) was the one who had the least amount of fanservice relative to all the other female characters. thoughts?

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 21:45

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

dogsicle posted:

i'm certain klk already had takes defending the nudity as empowering/subversive within the first two eps so yeah this show inspiring such strong disgust elsewhere online seems pretty weird to me, and the only thing i can really chalk it up to is the Trigger association bringing that bad blood? or maybe in a short few years the bar of tolerance has drastically dropped to where something like this is incredibly offensive idk

the anime discourse has definitely changed in the intervening 5 years, but also everyone was trying to make themselves like trigger

Darth Walrus posted:

nudist beach

I said relative to all the other female characters.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 22:15

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

i cant believe this is the first anime, ever, to combine hosed up sexual dynamics and mecha

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 03:47

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

the mecha is the protagonist's penis. that's why a lot of mecha anime are really weird about putting girls into mechs, especially the further back you go.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:00

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

skasion posted:

I forget if this is true, but they keep sticking her in comically underpowered mechs over her repeated objections because she can�t handle a manly mech like Mazinger Z. Also her first one has literally no offensive capabilities except tit missile.

I like in Super Robot Wars games when you can just stick Sayaka in the Mazinger and Boss in the Great Mazinger and make Tetsuya and Kouji dink around in the sidekick mechs.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:10

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

at the very least the protagonist is definitely gonna end up in the butthandles with zero-two metaphorically (and literally) pegging him, even if they never do a female female or male male pair, or have the characters break down the mechs into new methods of piloting, or anything.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:12

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I mean, we're two episodes in and we haven't even really been fully introduced to the stakes of the story, it's still mostly been setup. By making it a mecha anime they can have the characters' sexual and romantic foibles have immediate consequences for the people around them and the world around them, rather than just themselves, and by making it a sci-fi anime they can create a setting that is more defined by these foibles. Like, if you made this scum's wish, the teachers all being invested in their sex lives would be super weird, but in this setting all these outside pressures telling them how to have a relationship and what to do can be actualized as characters in the story and the way the world around them works, rather than just implied.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:19

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Personal_Nirvana posted:

Not saying it isn't possible, but i will be really surprised if in a medium so resistant to changes the show runners pulled off a literal submissive male protagonist, in a genre defined by the male power fantasy. Yeah, the text the show gave us so far implies that he can only "function" with the alpha 02, but to say he will be the handles is a bit much i think. Not because it doesn't make sense, but because it would be far too much of a departure from the traditional.

uhhh, is your point here literally 'the japanese are incapable of making art that strays from the norms of the medium or genre the art exists in' because, jesus.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 05:42

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Endorph posted:

uhhh, is your point here literally 'the japanese are incapable of making art that strays from the norms of the medium or genre the art exists in' because, jesus.

Like maybe this is an uncharitable take on your point but there's tons of mecha anime that have subverted the 'male power fantasy' aspect of the genre, either by just having nothing but female pilots or by having actual discourse on gender (simoun is only half-mecha but, uh, yeah.)

the latest gundam series ended with all of the manly men mecha pilots getting themselves killed in stupid ways and a lesbian couple resolving the conflict by talking. Turn-A Gundam had a villain who was obsessed with power, dominance, and proving himself the strongest contrasted with the protagonist, a fairly effeminate guy who spends like 1/3rd of the series crossdressing and hates fighting and mostly uses his mech for washing clothes and carrying cows. And it's from the year 2000.

Code Geass had a male protagonist who was a pretty lovely pilot and spent 90% of the first season in a grunt mech and had to rely on a girl to do all the fighting for him because all his other troops were the worst pilots in Japan, and while that take gets muddled a bit in the second season the second season still has that same girl firmly established as the best pilot in the series by a mile.

I don't think 'a guy has to be the copilot for a cool girl' would be that odd of a direction for a mecha series to take in this, the year of our lord 2018. Heck, I've mentioned Godannar before in this thread and that had multiple pairs that functioned in that manner.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 05:58

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

skasion posted:

How All My Problems Were Brought On By My Immense Schlong, a light novel by Hiro-016

galaxy brain take: the numbers represent dick size

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 05:59

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

DisDisDis posted:

Loran only crossdressed for like 2 episodes iirc which is extremely hosed up

maybe he did it again on the moon?

it was at LEAST three and also multiple characters constantly reference how sexy he is in a dress

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 06:07

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

chiasaur11 posted:

I don't think the show's a bad example, but I'd say you're taking it further than it goes to support the point.

Just right off the bat, the two "manliest" mech pilots have deaths that, in contrast to a lot of the earlier fatalities, are presented as heroic. They're making a last stand to protect their family, giving their lives to keep others safe. More than that, Akihiro's last stand ends with him getting the only heroic and successful example of revenge in the series. He dies taking out someone the viewer probably hates, and who caused more grief than pretty much anyone else in the show.

The resolution isn't just talking either. It's a point reached because the massive pile of bodies Tekkadan left behind, and the primary mover for the resolution among the living is Rustal Elion, a pretty classical military father figure type. (And a bastard's bastard, of course). Tekkadan's attack dog methods get most of them killed, and Kudelia's diplomacy leaves her successful and in a happy marriage with Atra, but I don't think it lines up quite as neat as you're implying.

im exaggerating a little to make a point, yeah, but it still definitely doesnt fall into standard 'male power fantasy stuff'

and a lot of that is just how you read certain characters more than anything really in the text itself

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 07:04

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Why would the tie-in manga's artist be relevant at all to the story? That'd be something picked by the producers, not really the staff. And he's got no involvement in the writing of the show. "Hey, this show has sexy girls," "Cool, get the guy who draws sexy girls to draw the manga" is the extent of the thought that went into it.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 07:52

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Understanding posted:

The series is so far being a really dumb kind of sexy and they picked an illustrator perfect for that role.

The writers did not pick the illustrator. The illustrator of the manga has negative to do with the anime or how its plot will unfold.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 14:46

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

tsob posted:

The show ends with Kallen and Suzaku dueling to what could be seen as a stand still, and even if you want to argue there's a winner it's only just barely and after an extended fight. Saying she's better than him by a mile is some gross exaggeration.

due to the curse of geass suzaku is pushing himself to the brink of his capabilities of piloting a mech, an advantage Kallen doesn't have. Obviously she's pushing herself to her limit too but her brain hasn't been literally rewritten to force her to do that. It's the difference between a high-end computer and one that's being overclocked - if the one that isn't being overclocked is still performing slightly faster/can run more programs at once/whatever than it's safe to assume that it's a fair bit more powerful. Note that this is a terrible metaphor but I hope you can see the spirit of the point rather than getting stuck on the specifics of how computers work.

And the order Lelouch gave to Suzaku is pretty clearly active during that scene, he has no reason to think Kallen would show him any mercy and his eyes are doing the red thing when it cuts to shots of his face.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 18:15

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

sincx posted:

Jokes aside, I really hope this show doesn't take itself too seriously and start killing off main characters like Gurren Lagann.

But given it's the same creators, I have a bad feeling about this. Can't get too attached to any specific character.

its not the same creators as gurren lagann. or at least, its not the same writers.

the director of franxx did the character designs for gurren lagann and some key animation on it. he did not write it or direct it. he didnt even direct a single episode of it.
the director of gurren lagann did some designs for franxx and is assisting with some of the action scenes. he did not write or direct any part of franxx.
the character designer of franxx did some key animation and eyecatch illustrations for gurren lagann. he had no writing involvement on either show.
the writer of franxx has literally zero involvement on gurren lagann. he wrote steins;gate. the original vn. thats what hes famous for.
the writer of gurren lagann has literally zero involvement on franxx.
They share approximately 5 key animators, outside of the roles I just listed.

There is no reason for the writing of Gurren Lagann to be a continuing trend into Franxx. It'd be like saying that Shape of Water is going to have to be an action movie because it has the same production company as some of the X-Men movies. Frankly, it makes even less sense than that, considering that the staff that made Gurren Lagann is currently split between three studios and only two of them are involved in this show, and for the most part the people that are making this show had mid-level roles on Gurren Lagann, not high-level creative ones. And only a few of the people making this show are that connected to Gurren Lagann anyway.

To give you a point of comparison, the staff of Franxx shares about as much staff with Your Name as it does with Gurren Lagann.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jan 25, 2018

# ¿ Jan 25, 2018 09:36

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I mean, it's 26 episodes, it can afford to take the first few episodes to build some mood and curiosity. I think leaping too fast into explanations would ruin some of the mystery.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 03:15

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Sarcophallus posted:

Do you enjoy putting your face up to an anus and inhaling deeply?

yes, ive read your posts

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 03:33

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

having opinions is illegal

anyway my take: i doubt this show is going to have a committed gay relationship and lol at the posters who thought the scene with ichigo and that one girl was gay but they'll probably at least play around with the idea just because 'oh no, two girls/two guys have to pilot a mech together' is an easy thing to base an episode around.

also focusing on a-1 as if it's some monolith is weird, why not focus on the actual staff of the actual show instead of some vague corporate entity. both the director and the writer have worked on stuff with at least gay undertones before even if it wasnt exectued in the wokest way ever so idk why you'd say it's some heretofore unfound land for the creators of the show. not that that means its going to happen but its a weird stance to take.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 00:36

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

i think this thread would have much more compelling discussion if people actually focused on staff and individual shows as the basis for their opinions on the production of this show, instead of acting like a-1 is a giant printing press where mr. a-1 wakes up in the morning and pulls the lever and episode 5 of darling in the franxx pops out, only oh no, mean old mr. trigger spilled some TriggerSauce in the ink and now this show has boob jiggle! its like a childs view of how art is made.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 00:39

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Caphi posted:

Which Shirobako ending theme was this?

im pretty sure this is the metaphor aoi envisions when the president is talking about how they made anime before computers

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 00:42

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

skasion posted:

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 00:50

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Kashuno posted:

This show is good also there will be no homosexual relationships in this anime

these two statements contradict each other

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 16:16

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 14:35

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

betting odds:

gay male couple - 5/1
gay female couple: 8/1
crossdressing character that people have discourse about whether or not they're trans: 1/2
trans character: 40/1
agender character: 38/1
scene where the girls kiss without them being a couple: 3/1
scene where the guys kiss without them being a couple: 6/1
bernie sanders: 12/1

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 16:38

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