1 I thought, after the last episode, that you were being "emotionally" too harsh (perhaps from disappointment), but your criticisms were spot on.   I'm still somewhat disappointed in the show; good, not great, as I said.

As for your final question, what's not to like is that she's hyper-competent.  If I wanted that, I'd go re-read the Lensman series.   Otherwise, harkening back to the discussion on villainy, it's hard to really shine when your real enemy is the corporate balance sheet.

2 What I meant was "What's not to like for her crew?"

3 Um, I think you messed up the episode numbers somewhere, since you're ending it with 11.

4 Fixed.

5 I agree with something you wrote in an earlier post - a lot of Marika's training and growth has occurred off-camera.  She has been on several cruise ship attacks by now (we caught a glimpse of a later one when she wears much more make-up than she started with), and we know that she has lots of pirate training on those trips.

I did note that after she sent Gruier to be fitted in her spacesuit, Mrika dropped her command presence a bit, and explained her reasoning behind her planned course of action to the bridge crew.  She then paused for a bit, with a slightly unsure expression on her face.  When none of the crew voiced any objections, she then steeled herself and pressed ahead with her plan.

6 "The evidence is pretty strong that Gozaemon was a very charming man."  He convinced Ririka to marry him, even if it didn't last too long.  Schnitzer has mad respect for her, so if Gozaemon wasn't insanely charming, I'd be amazed.  (Or the character wouldn't work)

Also, it's not out of the question that the Bentenmaru would do a lot of work for the smaller governments.  They need things done on the unofficial, as well.

From comments by novel readers, we really missed on a huge chunk of world building.  I guess they didn't quite know how to animate that without wasting a lot of time.

I also think that the "resolution" to the crisis happened too fast and the editing wasn't very good there.  It was hard to see what happened without stopping the video to go frame by frame.  That made the resolution feel a bit cheap.

This pretty much resolved like the episode of Star Trek: TNG where a set of aliens thought humans couldn't communicate effectively.  So they used non-verbal cues to lock them in a stasis field.  But that setup took nearly 2 minutes.  This happened in 15s.  That was the confusing bit.

Yeah, we're going to get a lot of Star Trek references going forward.  This is pretty close to "Trek-like" for an anime.

7 Taking the comment about "enhancing the Bentenmaru's reputation" one step further, I wonder if the rumor is now going to start going around that the Bentenmaru can be in two places at once.  Heh.

8 I suspect that if they bother to tell us, we'll find that Gruier's relationship to Gozaemon is more than just a few days encounter.  Perhaps Marika's mom isn't just some random spacer.  Or perhaps a previous Serenity Princess spent some time as crew on the Bentenmaru when she wasn't "on duty" as the rotating princess.
I have no trouble with the concept of tracing your lineage back 100 generations from that point in time.  I can trace my family tree back over 600 years, and I'm hardly somebody special.  And with the data storage we have now, I see no reason why my nth descendants a thousand years from now wouldn't have access to any of that kind of data we have now.
It's looking like we have a bit of the Banner of the Stars type of thing happening here, where there is an excellent, rich source material in the novels, and only so much of it can come through in the anime.  And with Pirates, they're choosing to skimp on the background to make it more accessible to the general fan than Banner was.  With people complaining about the pacing as it is, it's probably a wise choice, but it obviously causes problems.

9 David: The timeline doesn't work out. Gozaemon was captain of the Bentenmaru when Marika was born, which is before Gruier was born. And he continued to be captain of Bentenmaru right up until he died, a few days before the beginning of the series.

Yet when Gruier first was identified as the stowaway, no one on the bridge knew anything about her except what they had read in newspapers and the like. Misa, in particular, had no idea, and Misa has been a member of the Bentenmaru crew since before Marika was born, back when she was friends with "Blaster" Ririka.

When during that period could Gozaemon have spent time with Gruier without his bridge crew knowing anything about it? It's barely plausible he might have spent a day or two with her, but I can't see it being any longerr than that.

10 Unfortunately, I suspect this is like the assassin: something the writer threw in because it seemed cool, without him really thinking through how it fit into his continuity.

11 What if both princesses were frozen for N years? And maybe they weren't retrieved from the ghost ship at the same time, so Grunhilde is from 17 years ago, and Gruelle from even earlier, so that she knew Gonzaemon 20-some years back, before the rest of the current crew joined. Lots of handwaving needed to explain why they were himesicles in the first place, of course.

-j

12 J, the problem is when they were frozen, they were babies. Once they got thawed, they started growing normally.

Irrespective of how far back she may have been conceived, Gruier was "born" (i.e. thawed) 13 years ago, and her memories only go back the last ten years. It must have been during that time that she knew Gozaemon, and he was captain of the Bentenmaru that entire time.

13 I was thinking along the lines of infant Gruelle retrieved 30 years ago, lived to age 9 and got to know Gonzaemon, got frozen for unknown reasons, then thawed out 3 years ago. Adjust numbers to taste, wave hands vigorously to distract skeptics.

-j

14 No sale.

1

GRUMBLE

So what was the significance of Grunhilde wearing an admiral's uniform?

Who was it that Gruier thought was manipulating Grunhilde?

If the Golden Ghost Ship is hundreds of years old, what was making it dip into subspace? And how did it do that?

If automatic systems made it light up on the outside, why didn't they also turn on the inside?

If, apparently, the ship has been found many times in the past -- once per princess birth -- then why didn't they just take it home again the first time. Why leave it out there?

What has any of this got to do with Serenity maintaining its independence from the Galactic Empire?

2 MAYBE this will be OK, if the story about Serenity isn't over. If there's more to tell, then PERHAPS I'll forgive them for omitting some critical exposition.

But even so, it'll be grudging. I'm having a hard time accepting that certain characters (i.e. Marika) aren't curious about certain events (i.e. two attempts to kill her before she became captain).[/spoiler

3

Siergen forgot to put spoiler tags around this:

Yeah, if Marika is as sharp and quick-thinking as she seems, why not ask any of these questions? I can understand her initially not being curious about a father she never knew, since she seemed to be well-raised and loved by her mother, but once people start talking about much you're like him?

And I agree about Yotof - even if the sham story about delivering a dress was believable enough to avoid official sanction, how did he and the woman get onto any of the ships in that fleet, yet alone be assigned to her personal guard?

4

sqa posted this without spoiler tags:

A few things, though I haven't read the novels (which might fill in the details).

Gruier & Grunhilde were both picked up the last time the fleet went to find the ship. They were just kept in stasis until they the Royal Family was ready to add another set of princesses. At least, that's the implication.

From what some of the novel readers were hinting at, the princesses are, effectively, clones with some rotation in who leads the family. So you don't want two copies of the same person around. Maybe the previous Gruier (called something else) ended up living longer than they expected.  That's the hints I've gotten from people trying to give subtle spoilers about their relationship.

Grunhilde's military uniform likely just means she pulled "Royal Rank" and took part of the fleet out.

We also now know why the Golden Ghost ship does what it does. It's the Serenity royal vault. Good way to hide everything, really. You're not just going to stumble onto that. Also explains why they kept upgrading it.

At least, that's my take. I think Marika isn't asking about her father for the same reason she really hasn't before: at some level, it isn't too important to her. She doesn't seem one to go on a quest for self-discovery. But, I get the feeling we'll get a bit more information.

Oh, and Grunhilde + Gruier around is going to be interesting, lol.

5 Maybe Marika isn't curious about her father but you'd think she'd be curious about who is trying to kill her, and why.

6 USE THE DAMNED SPOILER TAGS, EVERYONE! For crying out loud...

7 Sorry about forgetting the spoiler tags.

Schnitzer was so awesome.  I hope we get to know a lot more about him, over time.  (We've also gotten hints he's really not good with women, lol)  I loved the way the actually pointed out what the audience was thinking: you know a cyborg wouldn't actually need a space suit, but in a series that prides itself on the little details being correct, it does stand out. 

8

Another thing is that Marika is out of character. Others started complaining about this last episode. She isn't acting like a 16 year old captain on her first really serious job. She's acting like a 20 year veteran.

Sato had two series this season. I wonder whether he was paying primary attention to the other one? Anyway, Lagrange was only one cour, and it's over now.

9

OK, something I couldn't really do with Crunchyroll but can now do with a downloaded MKV: step through the critical scene.

The action was confusing at speed. Here's what happened:

1. Marika tossed a flash-bang grenade. But she didn't arm it.
2. Yotof tossed a coin at it, striking it and setting it off.
3. Hyakume threw a smoke bomb. (It looks like the Kero ball.)
4. Catherine, standing behind Grunhilde, opened up the hole in her air system. When Marika pushed Gruier down, she opened a similar one.
5. Marika charged through the smoke and put the anesthetic gas cannister into that hole, knocking Grunhilde out.
6. Misa put a similar cannister into Gruier's suit, likewise knocking her out.

Why was it Marika doing that to Grunhilde? Because if anyone from Serenity had done it, it would have been treason. Catherine and Yotof could cooperate in setting up the situation, but they themselves couldn't carry through. It had to be someone from Bentenmaru.

Which is all well and good, but I can see why Gruier wondered whether there was telepathy involved. It's possible that it was Marika's contingency plan for the case of Gruier and Grunhilde confronting each other. It's plausible that she found a chance to brief Hyakume and Misa (and likely also Schnitzer). But she was wagering a hell of a lot on Yotof being willing to cooperate.

The thing that helps me on that was Yotof and Catherine taking off their helmets. They didn't need to do that, and it suggests that they were sending a signal -- to Marika. And the reaction to the flash-bang is a further handshake, I guess.

It all really comes down to what was in that message that Marika sent -- and we haven't been shown that, and won't be. A ripoff.

10 Maybe it wasn't all that much of a wager. Maybe Marika could have pulled it off even without cooperation by Yotof and Catherine.

First, with the smoke going, no one from Serenity could risk firing towards the folks from Bentenmaru, for risk of hitting Gruier.

Second, if Catherine hadn't opened that port in Grunhilde's suit, Marika herself could have done it before putting in the gas cannister.

The real risk was that Catherine would have gotten in the way and prevented Marika from reaching Grunhilde -- but between confusion and the smoke, Marika might still have done it. But that was the fallback for the contingency plan. What she really hoped was that Yotof and Catherine would rather have had a situation that didn't involve both Grunhilde and Gruier getting shot.

Which still doesn't explain what the hell the two of them were even doing there in the first place, instead of wearing prison greens back home.

11 Maybe if I type the spoiler tags first, I won't forget... Yeah,when I first saw the pirates and Yotof nodding at each other back and forth, I thought of the Family Guy Star Wars spoof.  There was so much nodding going on, I lost track of who was nodding to who.

12 Something just occurred to me that might explain why Yotof and Catherine weren't in jail and were with Grunhilde's boarding party.  As Marika said later, if the soldiers fired on a princess, it would be treason, which probably none of them wanted.  Maybe when Marika sent her signal earlier, it was to the Serenity fleet commander (not Yotof) offering a way to resolve things peacefully if both sides should happen to meet on the Ghost Ship. 

If the fleet commander seemed willing, Marika would ask to speak with Yotof (who may well have been in the battleship brig at this point).  As Grand Chamberlain of the Privy Council, he probably has the respect of the Serenity officers, and Marika would trust him not to betray Gruier based on his earlier actions.

Grunhilde doesn't seem the type to care much about the troops under her command, and probably didn't pay attention to the people inside the spacesuits alongside her.  She may not have even known that Yotof and Catherine were not only out of the brig, but had joined her party. 

13 Grunhilde knew. She called out to both Catherine and Yotof while the smoke was going, while Marika was running.

14 This is one of those things that probably works a little better when it's written.

Yotof also happens to be pretty much the one in charge of much of the Royal household.  Given the politics going on, that we don't know all of the details, he probably could get away with the joyride. 

It's a slight stretch, but we also don't know all of the in-fighting details.   Also, hasn't it been several weeks since that incident?  Could have been worked out in the time frame.  They used a communication box among the Royal Family, so it's also possible that Gruier wasn't the only one supportive.

Also, he's pretty much the guy that should know where all of the bodies are buried.  That counts for a bit. 

Still, taking the view from the military uniform that Grunhilde was wearing, he was "acting under orders" from Gruier and could get out of the situation that way.  Plus, I'm pretty sure the military was none too happy about Grunhilde's joy ride, either. 

But, we also got to avoid a really nasty ideological issue that could have popped up.  Artificial wombs... if that ain't an ugly topic to discuss, I'm not sure what is.

15 What is it that Schnitzer says at 06:14? It sounds like makasete morao. The first part of that I know; it's the imperative of makaseru. What's the rest of it?

16 Moraou is the volitional of morau "to receive", Vte+morau is "I receive your doing V", and makaseru is "to entrust to", making his statement literally "I intend to receive your entrusting the task to me", stronger than just saying makasete.

Te-form has a lot of different uses, and as an imperative, it's basically Vte+kudasai "give me your doing V" with the kudasai dropped, making it sound less like a request and more like an order. (chotto matte kudasai "please wait a moment" versus matte!)

-j

17 Maybe we should just assume everyone reading this has seen it? Nevertheless I wasn't 100% accurate, but I think I did hit a few of the points right in my prediction.  On thing that struck me odd was that the baby was introduced as Gruier's OLDER(?) sister?  Maybe that was just a fault with the WhyNot translation.

18 I think Gruelle's motive was that the royal family is what prevents Serenity from breaking free from the Galactic Empire. They don't rule, but they're revered, and Grunhilde is only the latest member to be manipulated by pro-Empire forces to maintain the status quo, something like the relationship between the shoguns and emperors of Japan at various points.

The adaptation of book 2 definitely seems less polished than the first arc, and leaning a bit more in the direction of fan-service, with moments like "hey, Marika's got quite the pair in that suit" and "cute little ass there, Gruelle". I'm still enjoying it, but I think I'd be enjoying it a little more if Marika hadn't seamlessly transitioned from idol-pirate to Captain Kirk.

-j

19 @ J Greely:


Fan Service in this series would be a full on space battle with 3D action and multiple fleet movements.  lol

I think more of the problem is they were a tad too subtle on important details.  Stuff you'd catch if you read the book, but if you haven't, you're a tad confused.

It basically works down to being important but both sisters were kind of blowing it out of proportion.  They were willing to use weapons to solve the problem, while no one else really was.  Marika figured most of that out during the Grunhilde vs Gruier pissing contest after the Ghost Ship showed up.  (I'd just hate to see the bill they're going to charge Gruier.  I hope they take credit)

I also thought it was obvious that Marika was going to be James T Kirk in a skirt by episode 4?  Maybe I'm the only one? It's a lot of the appeal of the series.

20 Mauser, when Misa sais Here's your onee-sama, she was speaking to the baby, rhetorically, I think.

21 Sqa, I don't object to Marika becoming an extremely competent pirate captain, it's just that it happened off-screen. One minute she's putting on a show for a cruise ship, and the next she's taking out warships and diving into the middle of a firefight. We presume that she's continued training in the simulator and with Schnitzer, but we haven't seen any of it, so the transition seems sudden. As presented, it's more "in her blood" than "hard-won experience", and I'd prefer it lean the other way a bit.

-j

22 Mauser, to correct myself, actually Misa was speaking to the baby, rhetorically. As translated, "Say hello to your big sister." The onee-sama referred to was Gruier, not the infant.

23 Okay, I can see that.  It was just staged awkwardly.  I also note that gravity works when convenient, as they float into the room then walk around in it.  (Okay, they probably have magnetic boots or something, but still....)

Some of the translations though have bugged me, like when I can distinctly hear "Bentenmaru" in a line, but it's not in the subtitle.

1

I have spend more friggin' money on books since getting my Kindle...

I mean, it's nice to have access immediately, but like you said, it's easy to pile up books.

I've also noticed it's changed by expectations for book buying.  If it's not available immediately, I'll usually forgo purchasing it.  I guess I'm used to the "instant gratification" aspect of the e-books.

How's the battery life on the Kindle Fire?  I have one of the Kindle DXs, and it doesn't last as long as I was led to believe.  If it sits on the table for a week (even with the wireless off), it'll run dry.

2 Someone threw a "gravure" at Amazon this month (search for "Risa Yoshiki"). Pictures come out ok, but large margins hurt. And no nudity - what kind of gravure is it?

3

Battery life has been excellent. I charged it when it was new. Since then I've only charged it twice, the second time just a couple of days ago.

That was enough to allow me to read all six of those Rex Stout books.

The Fire is actually quite heavy, and I think they put a really big battery into it.

4 I thought a lot of the weight comes from the thick front glass. The manual warns that actual glass is used, and not polycarbonate (ostensibly the did it to improve durability and make it easy to clean).

5 Yeah, that too. It's something called "Gorilla Glass".

6 ...a glass designed for touch-screen use named "gorilla glass"?  Nice to see someone has a sense of humor.

7 Kindle definitely change my book buying habit.  If it's not on Kindle, I'm not buying (other than Schlock Mercenary).

8 Hmmm, a Magritte collection for the Kindle.  Perhaps the title should be "Ceci n'est pas un livre".

1 Wow.  Reading all those comments, it's interesting how much negativity is expressed towards Yoshika's character.  I'm still a Miyafuji fan boy, myself.  The only thing that really troubles me a little is they don't seem to give a rationale for Yoshika getting her powers back.  That's a little weak.  Hopefully there will be a 3rd season and they'll get into it then.  Maybe in the context of Mio getting her powers back!  I can't see them simply letting her character fade into the background.

2 There's always a lot of negativity going around, it seems. For example, I would rather see a K-ON movie. It's just how it is.

3 The author of the linked post can't seem to decide whether it's 40 million or 400 million... original Tweet says 4043万 (man), with man being the character for 10,000, so the actual total is 40 million.

4 I guess I don't get Japanese notation, because 4043 followed by 5 zeroes would be 404,300,000.  If you meant "character for 1,000" then it makes sense...but that seems like an awful lot.

OMG.  while I was looking for more information on that, I saw that there's a third Queens' Blade series on the way.  So much for civilization.

5

Ubu, traditionally the Japanese did orders of magnitude in 4's, not in 3's. That can lead to translation issues.

In Dog Days, at one point Cinque is talking to Eclair and describes why he's willing to do something really scary and risky. And he says that he's scared, and he's in pain. But letting someone (i.e. Millefiore) down is oku more painful.

He's using it the way that one of us would use "million" or "billion" to just mean "a really huge amount". But oku means "hundred million", 10^8. One circle really used that, but the result was clunky. Another understood that it wasn't to be taken literally, and used "billion" instead -- and that was better.

There's a simple word for "hundred" 百 hyaku and a character for "thousand" 千 sen and as mentioned a character for ten thousand. But beyond that they do it by steps of 10^4.

6 It's the character for 10,000, but with the way that Japanese numerical notation works in this sense, it's effectively 4043*10,000 - as in 40,430,000.

Strike Witches was never likely to make anywhere near as much as the K-On!! movie. Bear in mind that most otaku centric anime movies in Japan don't get a very wide release - some of them can play in as few as a single theatre in Tokyo, but they make their money back in those cases by virtue of the fact that they can sell out every single screening.

Strike Witches, as far as I can gather, is only playing on 24 screens across the whole of Japan. K-On!!, on the other hand, opened on over 100, and did pretty well at most of them.

7 Well, I can sort of see that.  Cute girls doing cute things always sells better than a war.  Even a war on pants.

1 That's odd...I would have thought the ladder would have left more widely-spaced tracks.  Maybe it was an African ladder...

2 It took a couple more hours than I expected, but it's all melted now.

1 I think I'll have to watch one episode of Nyarlathotep-chan.

-j

2 I guess it's just me, the one show that jump right at me is Sakamichi no Apollon, with  Shinichiro Watanabe directing and Yoko Kanno doing music.  Another one is Uchuu Kyoudai, which hopefully, they're doing as much research on physics as Planets.

3 Medaka Box is an accurate translation per the manga.  The fanservice is mainly cleavage and skimpy clothing, except for a few scenes. No topless shots, unless they introduce them for the anime.  It's basically lots of fighting, with a little less clothes shredding. The macguffin is that multiple secret experiments are underway, along with some of the students just having (often silly) powers on their own, melodramatically classified as "minus" or "plus zero" or other silly names.   I got bored with it after about thirty issues and then just started skipping.   Medaka herself was the only reason to read it, and she just got too one-dimensional after a while.  I suspect the voice will be a hyper-energetic version of Keena..

4 I just watched one of the trailers, and Medaka's voice doesn't sound like any of Uiharu, Keena, or Melwin. Closer to Melwin than either of the other two, though.

5 We should not give ANN too much credence. As I understand, all the AKB48 members are long dead by the time of the setting, and undoubtedly all the big-name seiyuu do the main voices. It could be that the cast transforms for performances, taking identities of their forebears, or channels their spirits, and AKB48 talent takes up the singing. Best of both worlds, actually. Or, it may be a massive flashback cameo, that was credited to attract fans, and ANN just cannot tell who's the main character and who's not.

6 I might have to watch Nyarlathotep-Chan, myself.  It reminds me too much of the anime premise I envisioned, of a magical girl gaining powers over time after she accidentally wanders into Yog-Sothoth's office, and he gets distracted by the schoolgirl ( yes, of course tentacles are pervy, albeit in a all-ages sense ).  She wanders out with an artifact, and starts doing crazy stuff across time, staying ahead of two "collection agent" tentacle monsters in nice suits. . .

1 Admittedly, I watch and read different fiction than you, but I would say that the most common failure for heroes these days is the Superiority/Virtue element ( I think they are closely related, and if I were doing the list myself I'd combine them ).  In a misguided attempt to make the hero "identifiable", the writer accidentally strips away all virtue from the character.  At best, you get an anti-hero, at worst, you get a monster you are supposed to cheer for.

Probably the worst such example is from the TV show Buffy, where the titular heroine ceased to have any discernable virtues after season 5.

2 Re: Buffy and Heroes - indeed, I think Spike came off as the hero in the end - which is odd, as Whedon's whole point was to posit the strengths of women.  Or something.

I think Whedon is a talented smart guy in search of a framework, and I don't think he 'gets' what makes a hero.  He has unique and memorable characters for sure, but it gets tough trying to figure out who the hero is from one point to the next.

One of his enduring characters is Malcolm Reynolds - and I can never decide whether Mal is a true hero -- albeit highly flawed -- or an antihero who ends up doing the right thing.

So...  is an antihero who ends up winning anyway, for all the right reasons, also a hero?  Or does that very concept preclude the character from being anti-heroic in the first place?

3 Actually, I don't think it was really Whedon's intent, he just burned out and lost interest.  Hence, sloppy writing and overseeing.

Anyway, I would argue that if an "anti-hero" starts doing the right thing, for the right reasons, and wins?  He's a hero, and probably was in the first place.  Just a reluctant or lost one.  I think anti-hero gets tossed around more often than it should be.

4 I think the best villain I've seen in anime is Joker from the ROD series. He is rather unique in that he treats his minions with respect and gets impressive results from them. He also has no superpower other than an iron will that actually intimidates the heroes who do have superpowers. He might also be considered an 'anti-villain' given his motives and actions.

5 So out of the three, Kirika, Mireille, and Chloe, which are villains, and which are heroes?  Can we say that K&M are heroes because they won, and conversely, C is a villain because she lost?

6 I classify Mireille and Kirika as "protagonists", not as "heroes".

7 Actually, to me, Marika approaches Marty Stu territory.  Just too much awesomeness and composure in a a sixteen year-old package.  Whether it's fighting off armed pirate ships from an unarmed passenger ship, or advising young princesses on keeping their nerve, she just doesn't get rattled, and is always even with her challenges, if not a step ahead of them.

The flip side of the perfect hero, is the incompetent hero.  Take Shana herself, for instance.  She's a great Flame Haze, but so totally impossible in interpersonal relationships. After a while, it just gets tedious, and I ceased empathizing with her.  On the other hand, Marjorie Daw from the same series, is a truly flawed hero -- a drunk, uncaring about the harm she does (at first), lonely and self-isolated. Yet she becomes the best rounded of the heroes in all her flaws and virtues. 

8 Well, Marika is smart enough, and has had enough support during her life, that she's never had to deal with failure -- yet.  (She IS only 16, after all.  Most healthy teenagers her age consider themselves infallible.  And it's a self-reinforcing attitude.  To a point.)  It'll be interesting to see if the show paints her into a corner at some point that it doesn't look like she can get out of...and how she'll deal with that.

9 Your villain definition really it on the head for me.  One of the things that ruins many stories first for me is the lack of believable motivation for the bad-guy.  If I begin to suspect that the villain has no real motivation, or that his "evil plot" is not advancing towards his goal (if he has one), then I lose my suspension of disbelief.  After that, I don't really care who wins anymore.

As for heroes, I am a little more forgiving for lack of obvious motivation (cue the mysterious drifter), but the hero will need to make up for it in other areas.  In my opinion, the "rule of cool" can help a poorly-motivated hero more than it can a poorly-motivated villain.

10

Too many villains are depicted as doing bad things just because they're bad people, or doing bad things because they're insane.

Both of those are cop outs by the author.

11

And regards heroes, a very common mistake is to think that making the audience envy the hero is the same as making the audience admire him. It ain't true.

This is particularly common in harem shows, where they assume that having a bunch of girls throw themselves at the protagonist is enough to make us want to watch. That, for instance, is the biggest mistake that Kanokon made. Even if that sorry loser has gorgeous women chasing him, I still don't like the guy.

And in such a case, where the guy being chased has no obvious redeeming characteristics and it's obvious that real girls would not be chasing him, it can bring about disbelief. And envy can turn into resentment.

I think this is one of the big mistakes that mecha shows in general, and Infinite Stratos in particular, made. Ichika is being set up as a target of audience envy, not audience admiration. There is a degree to which he is admirable, but not enough, and the way all those girls throw themselves at him just isn't plausible to me, even with a degree of suspension-of-disbelief.

Fantasy wish-fulfilment also isn't the same as admiration.

12 By the way, Yamato Bouichiro in Daimaou is also a pretty good villain. He is arrogant. He does eventually meet nemesis. We do understand what he is after, and to at least a small extent we do sympathize (or at least I did). And he is attractive. But he's also genuinely frightening (at least to me).

13 On consideration, I think you can probably apply the same set of criterion to measuring anti-heroes, with the proviso that they use a different definition of "virtue", a more morally neutral one.  In a grey and grey story, there may be no good guys. . . but somebody who decides what is important to them, and then sticks to it in defiance of the world around them has a virtue of their own.

14 Telestina did have better motivation, as you pointed out: she was doing what the system in Academy City is set up to do. She'd have been rewarded if she had succeeded. It wasn't so much insanity as going along with her grandfather's values.

As for Ichika, he did demonstrate bravery in saving his comrades like Laura and even protected poachers at risk to himself. The other main reason for his attracting girls is hypergamy. Like Cecilia's story in the novels, (Her father was a spoiled and timid man who had little influence both inside and outside the Alcott family which made her swore to never marry a weak man {A difficulty due to the shift in social status}), it will be almost impossible for the girls to meet men of equal status to themselves. Ichika's their best shot.

Can a series be good even without a good villain?

15 Of course it can. In Dog Days there is no villain at all.

16 Haibane Renmei had neither heroes nor villains, and is the best I've seen.

17

"Can a series be good even without a good villain?"

The above two...  Many stories are "man vs environment" or "man vs himself" or "man vs god/fate" etc. rather than "man vs man".  Dog Days and Haibane Renmei being good examples of type 1 and 2, respectively.

"Can a series [that has a villain] be good even without a good villian?"

Harder to do, but if the real story is, say, the love story between Hero A and Hero B (example: Buffy and Angel) and not the conflict with the villain, then it can still work, even if the villain is a bland destroy-the-world nihilist.

18

Generally speaking, there isn't any villain in a good sports story. There aren't any in Saki, for example. Lots of competitors, but no villains.

Generally, including a villain in a sports story is a descent into melodrama, and usually ruins it.

Coming-of-age stories often don't need a villain. There wasn't any villain in Someday's Dreamers.

19

"Can a series [that has a villain] be good even without a good villian?"

It's tough. The villain in Divergence Eve wasn't very good. As usual, the problem was that his motivation was mostly opaque. He was motivated by a combination of megalomania, and resentment against those who had genetically engineered him. Which is just another form of "He's evil because he's insane."

The series managed to surmount that challenge and achieve greatness anyway, mostly because he wasn't the biggest challenge Misaki had to win against.

The ghoul aren't villains as such. Their motivation was never remotely clear, but that worked in context. They were profoundly alien, and it appeared to be the case that understanding between the two races was impossible.

20 Campanella was basically villainless, too. Didn't stop it from ramping the fighting up though.

21 One could argue that Nanoha season 2 doesn't really have a villain, either.


Depending on if you count the Admiral.  I, personally, don't, but its a matter for debate.

22 I do count him, as it turns out.

23 ubu - totally agree with you regarding Shana and Marjorie Daw.  I just watched the end of Shakugan no Shana 3, and the third series had to be one of the most damnedly (is that a word??) confusing train wrecks I have ever tried to decipher.  Shana and Yuji's actions and motivations made absolutely no sense.  But Marjorie Daw; now there is a woman who knows what the hell she wants, and communicates it very effectively!!

24 Will Pirates have a good villain (presumably the person trying to kill Marika), and if not, will that lack detract from it?

25 I don't think Mouretsu Pirates is going to have a villain. And I suspect we're never again going to hear about those who tried to kill her.

26 Pirates is looking like another victim of the "light novel syndrome,"  same as Haruhi, Shana, Bakemonogatari and FMP.  Publishers will rarely commit to a multi-volume story arc to start out, so the first arc is pretty much self-contained, or no longer than three light novels (maybe 9-12 anime episodes) long.  The first story is good, maybe even great, so it becomes a hit.  Then the author, who hasn't worked out all the depth necessary or laid the groundwork to support a longer story, has to capture lightning in a bottle again. 

The author of Crest of the Stars was able to beat that jinx, because it took him ten years to find a publisher, during which he refined his story and universe.

It's becoming apparent that Pirates is not such a case. It may still be a good series, but not a great one.

27

 I think that's exactly right.

Marika was attacked in the first episode because that was exciting. The Odette II was attacked later, because that was even more exciting. And that was pretty much the only reason why it happened.

I am not sure I believe that the author really thought through who did the attacking and why. In fact, I think it likely he did not do so. And either it'll get retconned later, probably badly, or they'll just drop it entirely and never mention it again.

There's been a whole lot of Rule of Cool going on, and I don't expect that to end. The ending of the Golden Ghost Ship arc was totally Rule of Cool. And I have to admit, that if you aren't too concerned about things making sense, it really was cool. But in other ways, it was more than a bit underwhelming, even disappointing.

I expected better of Sato. But I guess he's been distracted by Lagrange, and decided to make these books straight instead of fixing the problems.

28 Meanwhile Lagrange gets a reasonably positive receiption, and it was only 1 cour.

29

I'm certainly going to keep watching. And I do hope they decide to do the "Cosplay Pirates" story, just because it sounds like it would be a kick, and it would be an opportunity to spend more time with the Yacht Club.

But I don't think there's any series-level plot line. And I think we're never going to get the full story behind some of the things we've seen, for the simple reason that there isn't one.

1

China, right? Nope, it was made in Taiwan.

Good to know; Chinese desk chairs have a reputation for being... volatile.

2 Then again, Taiwan is the Republic of China, so it's all the same, really.

3 Looks like a pretty decent chair.  And I used to assemble them for a living for 4 years.  (I could have probably knocked that out in less than ten minutes....)

4  It only took me about ten minutes. Really a very nice, clean, design with all the tough stuff preassembled.

5 Looks good, though I prefer a high back for my personal chair.  Need to get a new one soon too; I currently have an afghan folded a few times on the seat to provide some padding.  The chair is right around six or seven years old, and it feels like the foam has been replaced by plywood... which is probably the case, in effect.

6 Hard to beat an Aeron chair.  I'm sitting in one now; best chair that I've ever had.

7 How about an "action shot" of your new chair?  Maybe with one of your figurines sitting in it (just to show the scale, of course)...

8

It is high-back; the back is adjustable and at its highest setting it comes up to my shoulders. (Or by "high back" you mean "above the head"?)

And there's not really a lot to see. It's just a chair. But for whatever it's worth, here it is:

9 By high-backed, I mean a chair like this one.

10 That's an excellent chair, Wonderduck; looks very comfy! (always prefer armrests too)

11 Oh, that one has no arms like the one in the picture (or did you leave them off?).

My ten minutes includes unboxing and cleaning up the trash.  I think my record was 10 chairs of varying types in 1:15.

12 I left the arms off.

13 I never put the arms on chairs... they're never at the right height for me.  Just a waste of time.

14

They also keep me from scooting the chair close enough to the table, and they keep me from being able to swivel the chair, because in both cases they collide with the table.

15 They're must-haves for painting at the computer desk, though!

1 Well, it's not an African ladder, then.
African ladders are non-migratory.

I suppose it could have been carried...

2 I can see where this thread is going...

3

In case you're wondering what it was doing out there:

One reason I like this apartment complex is that the owner is willing to spend money to keep it nice. Last year they tore out one of the sidewalks and poured new concrete because the old one was getting worn and cracked. And they repaved part of the parking lot two years ago. Three years ago they replaced everyone's front doors because the old ones were getting gross.

Also, every couple three years they bring in a crew that sprays down all the buildings with high pressure hot soapy water, to wash off accumulated grime, moss, bird droppings and anything else unsightly. Today was the second time they've done it since I moved in.

The ladder belonged to them.

4 Plum tree knows best.

5 There was a big stink about the white polar bear cans.  People complained that they thought it was Diet Coke.  The red ones are the replacement.

1 Are you sure you meant "Space Ghost?"  I remember that as being acceptably animated (for its time).  There was another space-themed show from around that time (or maybe a little earlier) that was basically just still frames with the character's mouths moving, but I don't recall the name of that.  (Or did it share the same title?)

2 I only watched "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast", which mostly consisted of recycled shots.

3 You're thinking "Space Angel" (And the other series from the same studio, "Clutch Cargo") which featured the "Syncro-Vox" technique of optically printing real mouths over the still animation frames.

Space Angel actually had some neat art, but very, very little of it, and even less plot.

4 Mauser, that was it!  Thanks.  "Clutch cargo!"  Arrggghhhh!  A name that will live in infamy!

5 Psst: Marie & Galli 31.

6 Clutch Cargo was weird.  Disturbingly so.  Like there was something seriously wrong with the producers.

7 You're right. It was "Space Angel". It was eerie. Nothing moved except the mouths, and those looked like they were film of real mouths.

8 They were. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchro-Vox)

Space Angel's art was done by Alex Toth, so at least the static images were good ones.

Looking up Synchro-Vox informed me that there was a third series by the same studio, Captain Fathom.  I had never heard of it.