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I think the show probably could've benefitted from just one more episode to give things room to breathe. The whole thing with the system being iteratively updated was kind of confusing and felt rushed. Overall though, the show was awesome and I loved every moment of it.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:47
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Yeah that was probably the weakest part. It's not really clear whether the system decided to just commit suicide there because Kaburagi asked it to or what. (And I couldn't stop thinking about how it was almost exactly the Architect scene from Matrix Reloaded.)
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Sep 24, 2020 00:05
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Shocked there was never a proper showdown with Huginn. I was unsure of what his and Muninn's fates even were.
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Sep 24, 2020 00:55
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MonsterEnvy posted:Shocked there was never a proper showdown with Huginn. I was unsure of what his and Muninn's fates even were. Sudoku because this cycle was a 'failure' under their watch, but they're probably just software instead of post-humans anyway. It's a nice character beat that Jill so casually hoards data she forgot about backing up Kaburagi.
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Sep 24, 2020 02:02
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Good show, good ending. My only gripe is a thematic one where The System just kind of decides to let the humans do what they want after they beat the kaiju and then turns Deca-Dence into a theme park. It makes sense for The System as a character but as an allegory for anything related to the real world it kind of falls apart because authoritarian regimes will generally cling to power until their dying breath (and the dying breaths of everybody else on the planet). In this sense Gurren Lagan did basically the same thing much better. Still, it was a fun ride and a show I'd strongly recommend. Definitely glad I watched it. RIP Pipe
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Sep 24, 2020 02:15
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Ending was a cop out You make a series criticizing both the crushing despair of capitalism and how it's a faceless inhuman system and poking fun at Freemium MMO's. Then theres just a singular King of Capitalism who just says "I give up lol" and humans are still used as scenery in a video game but now it's farmville so that means it's moral. Once again a series chickens out on following through on it's themes. "Oh it's okay we staged this bg uprising against our corporate masters but no let's just keep doing capitalism but it will be okay this time pinky promise".
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Sep 24, 2020 03:19
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As Kaburagi points out, the System largely runs on 'lol, yeah, I meant to do that'. It's fundamentally cowardly and reactionary and relies as much on the illusion of control as actual control, as evidenced by the fact that it claims bugs as part of its plan. Once the direct threat to its existence was gone, it simply needed to allow a restructure of society that would let it pretend it still had control, much like a royal family going from an actual ruling class to a tourist attraction.
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Sep 24, 2020 03:29
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Darth Walrus posted:As Kaburagi points out, the System largely runs on 'lol, yeah, I meant to do that'. It's fundamentally cowardly and reactionary and relies as much on the illusion of control as actual control, as evidenced by the fact that it claims bugs as part of its plan. Once the direct threat to its existence was gone, it simply needed to allow a restructure of society that would let it pretend it still had control, much like a royal family going from an actual ruling class to a tourist attraction. That all contradicts the portrayal for the entire rest of the show, hence it being a cop-out. Plus systems like that, especially cowardly and reactionary ones, never just peacefully concede power. All the Royal Families that became tourist attractions did so at gunpoint, and always reneged on the deal when they saw an opening to do so. That and literally making it just some "bad apple" leader who can be gotten rid of without upending society instead of a "system" that has to be changed is always reeks of the writers being scared to ruffle any feathers in real life.
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Sep 24, 2020 03:47
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galagazombie posted:That all contradicts the portrayal for the entire rest of the show, hence it being a cop-out. Plus systems like that, especially cowardly and reactionary ones, never just peacefully concede power. All the Royal Families that became tourist attractions did so at gunpoint, and always reneged on the deal when they saw an opening to do so. That and literally making it just some "bad apple" leader who can be gotten rid of without upending society instead of a "system" that has to be changed is always reeks of the writers being scared to ruffle any feathers in real life. It hasn't always been directly at gunpoint - a good scare is often enough to trigger a slow, peaceful transition. In this case, that was the rogue Gadoll's beam cannon almost obliterating their mothership after a human/cyborg uprising destroyed or crippled most of the mechanisms they were using to control their subjects. They could have annihilated Deca-Dence even after the beast was dead, but that would have done nothing apart from leaving them stuck with a bunch of bored, angry cyborgs with no positive incentive to listen to them now their deep-immersion MMO has been taken away. Historically, that's been enough for more than a few rulers to go 'poo poo, we're in over our heads' and flee, surrender, or negotiate away their power.
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Sep 24, 2020 04:10
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I don't think this was ever meant to be a story about revolution. It seems more like a story about how things are better if we all take each other into account. The exciting world of Deca-Dence was a big lark for the cyborgs but hell for humans. The farming sim amusement park thing it turned into was mutually beneficial. The cyborgs never even really thought about humans except as petting zoo specimens until Kaburagi sacrificed himself to save them. They'd gotten so concerned about "bugs" and maintaining the System that they lost sight of the big picture. But in the end, cyborg society didn't change at all; they still lived on the ship and used Deca-Dence for fun. This time, though, humans get to live meaningful lives.
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Sep 24, 2020 04:52
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Mirage posted:I don't think this was ever meant to be a story about revolution. It seems more like a story about how things are better if we all take each other into account. The exciting world of Deca-Dence was a big lark for the cyborgs but hell for humans. The farming sim amusement park thing it turned into was mutually beneficial. The cyborgs never even really thought about humans except as petting zoo specimens until Kaburagi sacrificed himself to save them. They'd gotten so concerned about "bugs" and maintaining the System that they lost sight of the big picture. Cyborg society did change. No Hugin, no Munin, no prison camps, and generally a much broader, more flexible range of lifestyles available to them. Just a (mostly) post-scarcity laissez-faire paradise rather than a terrifying capitalist rat-race.
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Sep 24, 2020 05:09
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Mirage posted:I don't think this was ever meant to be a story about revolution. It seems more like a story about how things are better if we all take each other into account. The exciting world of Deca-Dence was a big lark for the cyborgs but hell for humans. The farming sim amusement park thing it turned into was mutually beneficial. The cyborgs never even really thought about humans except as petting zoo specimens until Kaburagi sacrificed himself to save them. They'd gotten so concerned about "bugs" and maintaining the System that they lost sight of the big picture. I think this is a more accurate interpretation than anyone else's attempts to try and pull anti-capitalist or anti-authoritarian messages out of this. And it's not as though cyborg society has changed really. It's really just this little square of the universe that's a little different and rather than the nominal zoo animals continually being abused and slaughtered as the sideshow they were considered to be, they're now treated with respect and humanity.
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Sep 24, 2020 06:18
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Actually, I'll walk back the "cyborg society didn't change" bit. Nobody's buggin' about bugs, and they don't have poo poo farms anymore. But the rest stands. Plus when Kaburagi released Deca-Dence's limiter I laughed and hooted out loud. So anime of the season for me.
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Sep 24, 2020 06:34
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Is this where I talk about Iron Blooded Orphans again? It strikes me as a show that had much better handling of some of the same themes in its endgame. (Being much longer helped, I'm sure, but it's not just being longer that gave it the edge.) So, Tekkadan, Our Heroes, take on the system. And unlike here, Tekkadan eats poo poo. They lose somewhere around three quarters of their personnel, their base, and most of their command staff. Every Gundam pilot is dead, the commander is dead, and the only one of the mains left alive is Eugene. But in getting their asses kicked, they gave the system (Gjallarhorn) a helluva black eye, leaving an opening for reformers, internal and external, to start pushing their agendas on the grounds that another few victories like that will be the end of them. Rustal Elion, the enemy commander, revises the system to keep his position while reducing the chances any future opponents will feel desperate enough to oppose Gjallarhorn. Meanwhile, the power vacuum lets the external reformer Kudelia Aina Bernstein take control on Mars as an acceptable compromise between the power blocs. The loss of control is much clearer than in Deca-dence, where it basically is just "the bad guys give up because the heroes punched a monster", leaving any deeper layers to the viewer's discretion. At the same time, we see why people endorse the system in the first place. While Deca-dence's system existed as something to rebel against, only showing us the damage it did, Gjallarhorn (while corrupt and villainous) filled a necessary role, with the second season showing chaos and war derived from Gjallarhorn's weakness being exposed by the protagonists at the end of season one. Even bad systems provide some apparent benefits, and removing the system without addressing the problems that made people endorse it risks blowback. It's possible to see (although some viewers still got mad) why Gjallarhorn's survival wasn't all bad. But since Deca-dence's system was purely villainous, there's nothing satisfying about it getting to stay in power with no fundamental change. Management is nice now, which is good, but is the next quarter is bad, the next guy in charge might decide human extinction would drive those sub numbers right up, and there's nothing anyone can do in the show as presented. But that's a side note. For the show overall... It wasn't bad, but in a more crowded season, I'd probably have dropped it. To start with something minor... what was Pipe for? He's a cute animal to establish that Galdoll can be nice (which only matters in the epilogue) then he dies, and... that's it. There's no major influence on anyone's arc, there's no reveals gained from his death, there's no plans hinging on his presence or absence. He's just a cute mascot animal who dies and the story moves on. In a show that's so reluctant to kill named characters otherwise, it stands out that the cute pet dies, but not in a good way. More in a "what was even the point of that?" way. Meanwhile Kaburagi just keeps dying and coming back. It's like the story isn't sure if he's the lead or the mentor figure, so it offs him to inspire Natsume... then it remembers it needs him to advance the plot, so his death is sidestepped. It's not even played for comedy. Instead, every death is expected to carry enough weight to work as a cliffhanger or an emotional peak. His arc is similarly weak, with the big developments coming early, and the later beats mostly being repeats. Once Natsume's inspired him, he's in. Which would be less of a problem if Natsume pulled her weight. By screentime, she's the co-lead, or even the lead, but she's basically the same in episode one as she is in episode 12. Sure, she picks up combat skills (ridiculously quickly, going from being a rookie to one of humanity's greatest soldiers in, what, a couple weeks? I know the Attack on Titan comparisons are much less fitting by episode 2, but the protagonists there had a lot more training and some unfair advantages before they were treated like vets), and she gets briefly shaken with a couple of reveals, but she just returns to baseline after instead of growing. She also never makes choices that shape the narrative, at most inspiring people who do. She never manages to be the main character, basically, which makes her focus feel like it doesn't pay off. I never felt like this was going to be a great show, but I did think there'd be... more. Instead, what you saw in episode 2 was basically how the show played out, with the rushing around just getting to the same place as a show with more "normal" pacing would. I guess it's in the same place as Planet With for me. Some people love it, good for them, but for my part, it doesn't feel like anything special. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 09:19
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chiasaur11 posted:
What was up with Kaburagi coming back at the end there? If backups are a thing you can do, why isn't it being done more often? Like...before going to do something that will probably kill you? If it's super illegal/unethical, why did Jill just casually do it and then forget about it until it's relevant?
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Sep 24, 2020 09:32
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after sleeping on it: i did enjoy this but i wish it had kept a stronger focus on the gamification / exploitative entertainment angle. the first 5 eps were really good about this and were the strongest part of the show and then it kinda shifted into a more rote dystopian story for the 2nd half after kabu goes to poop jail and never really pulled it back until the final resolution. i think there ought to have been a better way to develop the story while sticking closer to those initial themes.
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Sep 24, 2020 13:51
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galagazombie posted:Ending was a cop out The show was never really about capitalism. It was a MMO run by a corporation because corporations are the entities that run MMOs. The MMO was a means of control, and its pretty clear that the end priority of the system was not running a business or its profits.
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Sep 24, 2020 14:17
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I binged the series in last two days because I felt for a while now that the weekly format is maybe not the best approach. It was pretty good, it felt like watching a movie. No unnecessary scenes, even animation quality. It really shows that the staff had a lot of time to polish all the details. A very enjoyable watch. As for the plot, I can't help but be just a bit disappointed by this 3 years later everything is awesome from the last episode. I was expecting the "takedown" of the System to be more than just an afterthought but the series ended up being more about how to find the strength to deal with seemingly impossible odds, at least that's how I see it. In hindsight it's pretty thematically coherent, but I had some problems distilling what's it about until the end. I really liked the characters, too. This story wouldn't work at all if they weren't so endearing. And shame about Pipe
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Sep 24, 2020 14:27
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I don't think it's right to say that the show was never about capitalism. It was about a doomed and horrific attempt to keep capitalism going once humanity had largely become a post-scarcity species with functional immortality and massive resources. The old regime was an attempt to impose competition through artificial scarcity led by a woefully outdated system (a corporation) that needed to pretend it was in control even when the world repeatedly collapsed around it. The transition was gentle because Solid Quake had lost all its persuasive power (it couldn't do anything further with Deca-Dence, its main form of entertainment for its citizenry, except delete it) and all of its coercive power (its prison was gone, its monster production facility was gone, its police force had been massacred when both of the former blew up, and deleting Deca-Dence would just bring a bunch of bored, angry cyborgs back home). All that was left was for it to become a largely powerless symbol of order and stability in a more 'natural' gamified anarchist, post-scarcity state where everything runs reasonably smoothly on a local, decentralised level (due to the society's huge natural resources now that the Gadoll had been converted into cuddly, domesticated solar reactors - making oxyone difficult and dangerous to obtain was a wholly artificial problem) and where the only people in a position of authority are laid-back, incompetent, and largely powerless immortals.
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Sep 24, 2020 14:42
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I'm still mulling over the overall story so the most I can say is the characters are excellent even if Natsume kinda got shafted and if they can bring back Kaburagi they could have found a way to bring back Pipe. The animation is excellent the entire way though. NUT is a new studio, right?
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Sep 24, 2020 15:28
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NUT is a fairly new studio, yes, though it was started by a madhouse higher-up who brought along some talent. tanya was their first anime and this is their second.
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Sep 24, 2020 15:47
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It's also not like brand new, it's been around a few years. Tanya was also done by Studio NUT.
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Sep 24, 2020 16:15
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I just love how we can talk about a "poop jail" because I am a friggin child
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Sep 24, 2020 16:21
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I'm annoyed that Natsumi had next to nothing to do in the finale besides yell "KUMICHOU" a lot
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Sep 24, 2020 19:14
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This really should've been a full season. I dunno when we started going from 26 episodes to 13 and then 12 but a lot of series have really suffered for it.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:39
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that happened back in the 00s, i think the age of 2-cour anime originals is long gone unless one of the big streaming platforms like netflix is paying for it
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Sep 25, 2020 02:07
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:This really should've been a full season. So many good shows are just falling flat in the final stretch because there isn't enough screen time to pace things properly.
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Sep 25, 2020 02:40
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:This really should've been a full season. And a lot of series have thrived, both original and adaptation. A Place Further than the Universe, Gridman, O Maidens in your Savage Season, Rascal does not Dream of Bunnygirl Senpai, Paranoia Agent, Baccano!, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tatami Galaxy, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, Devilman Crybaby, and so many more shows had thirteen episodes or less (barring OVAs and films), and they nailed their target. (Heck, some of the same staff did Mob Psycho season 1, and that works fine as a standalone with twelve episodes.) There are concepts than need more breathing room, yes. But a lot can be managed in a cour if the show focuses. I'm sure there are shows that would be better with more breathing space, and there are also shows (Macross Seven) that would benefit from being sliced down considerably. Most of the time, though, a show that doesn't know what to do with twelve episodes won't sort itself out with another fourteen. Deca-dence, for example, gives Natsume plenty enough screentime to be a full character, but it doesn't use that time well. More time would just mean more faffing about, more not developing, more static. Pipe's subplot is long enough to make people care, but it doesn't pay off. The annoying youtubers from episode 4 of Gridman have more emotional impact from their deaths, and they aren't even brought up again after that episode. As the Man said, those who can be trusted with little can be trusted with much. If a show doesn't make twelve episodes work, then the flaw is generally in the show, not the episode number.
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Sep 25, 2020 03:12
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i don't think it's an episode count issue, i really don't think this show had more than 12-13 episodes of story to tell. there were some slower episodes in the middle that could easily have been rewritten to get to the end a bit faster if they wanted to spend more time on the endgame it's just a pacing issue and pacing a tv series that has to cut the viewer off at a satisfying point every 20 minutes is hard as it turns out. but there's plenty of great examples of well paced 11-13 episode series, it just requires good, economical writing.
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Sep 25, 2020 03:13
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Tales of Woe posted:that happened back in the 00s, i think the age of 2-cour anime originals is long gone unless one of the big streaming platforms like netflix is paying for it I've started watching older stuff from when I was out of the game for a bit and it's definitely got me looking for more 24-26 episode shows to follow since they seem so rare these days. Just finished Toradora and Hanasaku Iroha, and I really like having the extra time to get to know the characters and watch them grow. On topic, I can't believe Pipe is loving dead. I agree that there should have been at least another Pipe in the gadoll petting zoo, which is where I plan to work full-time in the post-post-apocalypse.
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Sep 25, 2020 05:08
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Yeah I don't think the show needed more time, I think it could've used the time it had better. I thought the arc with Snidely Bugman and Beerface going traitor was mostly a waste, for example. Regardless, plenty of shows do just fine with a single cour.
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Sep 25, 2020 06:13
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Coxswain Balls posted:On topic, I can't believe Pipe is loving dead. I agree that there should have been at least another Pipe in the gadoll petting zoo, which is where I plan to work full-time in the post-post-apocalypse. Or Natsume chilling with a Pipe 2 at the end. Either would've been nice. But overall I think Pipe just deserved better and they could've easily not had him die because he was a bug. I know they were going for some minor pathos with his death but it just didn't land.
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Sep 25, 2020 09:12
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Honestly it wouldn't have made sense if Pipe didn't die. They killed all the Gadoll. Pipe is a Gadoll. I'm glad they didn't pull the "well he can't die because he's the cute adorable mascot!" card. I gotta give the show props for that, if nothing else.
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Sep 25, 2020 15:37
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:Honestly it wouldn't have made sense if Pipe didn't die. They killed all the Gadoll. Pipe is a Gadoll. I'm glad they didn't pull the "well he can't die because he's the cute adorable mascot!" card. I gotta give the show props for that, if nothing else. I'm imagining a version of the show where rather than having a random Gadoll impregnating a technician, pipe (a known bug) goes berserk following the shutdown initiation and becomes the giant boss instead. Alternatively: Pipe goes berserk in a good way, but turns into a giant friendly Gadoll and teams up with Kabu-dence to hold off/take out the boss. There Bias Two fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Sep 25, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 16:01
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There Bias Two posted:I'm imagining a version of the show where rather than having a random Gadoll impregnating a technician, pipe (a known bug) goes berserk following the shutdown initiation and becomes the giant boss instead. This...would have been a lot better and I'm now disappointed they didn't go with it.
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Sep 25, 2020 16:31
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:This...would have been a lot better and I'm now disappointed they didn't go with it. I have a baseless hunch they might have planned it to go that way at some point, but backed out during production because he was too lovable.
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Sep 25, 2020 16:42
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galagazombie posted:Ending was a cop out
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Sep 25, 2020 21:02
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Bugs were an accounted-for part of the system. Who's to say Farmville isn't.
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Sep 26, 2020 01:00
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The system could just as well have figured that it was all getting black hole bombed if he failed anyway, so why not see what happens. Kabu wasn't wresting control nor was The System giving up. The whole speech about "we account for bugs" was basically an admission that things were indeed flexible in the end. I definitely doubt it just up and disappeared. It's a decent example of moderate-level AI not having human motives. It's just there to maintain indefinite operation and iteration and there is no winning or losing in how it achieves it. Edit: Just the fact that the game-over scenario stopped the moment the kaiju threat was gone should be enough of an indication that The System hadn't given up as much as gotten on board. Ranzear fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Sep 26, 2020 |
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Sep 26, 2020 01:49
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:Bugs were an accounted-for part of the system. Who's to say Farmville isn't. Kaburagi immediately calls the System out for trying a puppetmaster defence in order to convince itself it's completely in charge. It's like a real-world capitalist claiming crashes are just part of a functional society. Don't mistake ego for competence.
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Sep 26, 2020 01:54
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