You know, there must be something seriously wrong with me. One of the most pleasant surprises among my recent purchases has been Kirameki Project, which has become a regular rewatch.

That's not the problem; it's a good show and I'm not ashamed to say that I like it. But it's a fluffy fan service show from the studio that gave us Aika R-16 and Najica Blitz Tactics.

The problem is that I've started noticing things and saying, "That makes sense. It's how it would really be." Like the fact that Junerin's eyes glow when she receives an order from Kana via her cell phone. It makes sense that Kana would include something to indicate that the order had been received and processed, don't you think? Especially since Junerin's face doesn't change and she doesn't have a voice?

Or when Junerin is under attack by electronic warfare, the way she recovers rapidly after the attack is lifted. Kana must have implemented a watchdog, and for a while there Junerin was stuck in a reset loop because the electronic attack was preventing her neural net from operating properly. Once the attack was lifted, she was able to reboot and proceed with the battle.

Another thing is to see the way that Junerin's AI develops over the course of the show, so that at a critical point she spontaneously makes an important decision without receiving orders from Kana. It surprised Kana, but it probably shouldn't have; it means Junerin's neural net was developing. (It took Rincle to explain it to Kana, which is rather nice.) It would seem that the kind of AI that Kana used in Rincle and again in Junerin develops slowly as it's exposed to people and experiences -- which makes sense.

Junerin has 360 degree awareness; she isn't limited to her eyes, which is why she could dodge an attack coming from here rear. Why? Among other things, I bet the top of her head is a radome.

...I'm just too much of a geek, I guess.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:28 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 340 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Nah, this isn't Engineer's Disease.  Engineer's Disease is when technical competency *hurts* your ability to enjoy fiction.  When you make cool realizations like that, thats the bennies for being an engineer.

In a slightly related matter, its also always nice when you look at a possible plot hole in a show, and then realize there's a totally sensical and appropriate explanation that closes the hole entirely, that could entirely have been what the writers intended.  They just didn't make it a part of the plot.  Sort of the mirror side of Fridge Logic.

Posted by: metaphysician at June 19, 2008 07:07 AM (9Lztf)

2 I ran into that in the Alastair Reynold's new novel House of Suns recently.  The story proposes an interesting loophole for wormholes that doesn't contravene causality, and then suggests that alien civilisations had been use the technique for countless millennia.

But, I thought, that doesn't work because as the story set is up, this would mean there would be all this missing mass in the Universe...

Oh.  Yeah.  Right.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 19, 2008 07:23 PM (PiXy!)

3 I love it when something that seems fluffy and superficial turns out to have depth.  I've been thinking a lot about the process of rewatching things lately, and I think this is one of the reasons rewatching movies/shows is rewarding.  You get to experience something you enjoyed again, but then you start to pick up on new things and you gain a better appreciation for the movie/show.  I don't think this is a bad thing, except in rare instances (I've rewatched some films entirely too many times.)

Posted by: Mark at June 19, 2008 08:32 PM (2cMUJ)

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