The author is expressing resentment again, towards the press, the civilian government, and the rest of the world. There's nothing less interesting than watching someone ranting about resentment he's been nursing for 30 years. Which means this episode was full of caricatures.
Snore...
Next episode we get to see Japanese paratroops, though, which might be interesting. (I looked it up in Wikipedia, and the Japanese 1st Parachute Brigade is based at Narashino, which was where Itami served before the Ginza attack.)
UPDATE: "Those who look away from battle and choose humiliation will someday find themselves visited with both battle and humiliation."
Sheesh.
And I find it very difficult to believe that Mochizuki Noriko is acting as a civilian press liason. After what she went through (she's the one they rescued from the palace) it's hard to believe she's recovered in such a short time.
Meanwhile they didn't ignore Itami-tachi quite as much this time, but they still didn't get a lot of camera time. Though we did get to see Itami use a flash-bang.
2
I'm in England right now and I talked to a Japanese guy over breakfast this morning. He said that he's watching Dimension W this season, and it's a "sci-fi horror". Awww. But it looks the season is quite strong for many people. I found Galko surprisingly good, although it's helped by its 8-minute short format.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 03, 2016 07:05 AM (uzayO)
3
I like Dimension W, although the pacing isn't as tight as it should be. There were a couple of side stories that didn't really add to the plot, and I think it's only one cour, meaning it has somewhat squandered its run.
Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased) is fantastic, but it revolves around the protagonist trying to stop the murder of elementary school girls. Plus it deals with child abuse. So it's a hard watch, and definitely not suited for the tastes of this website's proprietor.
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! is silly fun if you're in the mood, and one cour of this show will be plenty.
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is very well done, and has a very specific and limited appeal to a particular audience; i.e. Me.
Posted by: wahsatchmo at March 03, 2016 08:06 AM (VFkGH)
4
Yeah, I sometimes wonder if the anime lately is really as boring (for the most part) as it seems or if I'm just getting too jaded to appreciate it the way I used to. I really, really don't want to become jaded. The first couple of years when I first started getting into anime were so enjoyable, I was discovering a whole new world of entertainment that I didn't really know existed (well, I knew it existed but I never realized it was something that I would like so much).
As for this season, I'll have to see. I'm only watching Gate right now, I generally wait until a show is finished before watching so I can marathon it in case I get into it and there are cliffhangers.
Posted by: argrif at March 03, 2016 06:36 PM (SniOC)
When I first started watching, what I was doing was to order titles from Robert and watch them. Which means I was mostly choosing the best titles of the previous 15 years. Once I exhausted those, and had purchased the best titles of the current era, and eventually began watching fansubs, it means I was watching the normal run-of-the-drek titles instead.
It's not that anime has necessarily gotten any worse, it's just that I'm not sticking exclusively to the best stuff anymore. There have been good titles in the last five years; some truly excellent ones, in fact.
But I'm also watching crap, so the average quality of what I'm seeing now is much worse.
6
That's true, way back when, only the best of the best could make it here. Gems like Ultimate Teacher. I remember watching 4th generation copies of Ranma, trying to figure out the plot without subtitles or any understanding of Japanese.
And most of my old favorites never made the jump from tape to disk. Glad I got the best of the best on laserdisk. Every once in a while I'll dust off my player and binge watch Orange Road, or You're Under Arrest. Pity I couldn't afford the entire run of Urusai Yatsura...
Fortunately, being a married man with a family, I don't have enough time to watch all the anime I'd like, and get jaded.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at March 04, 2016 03:02 AM (l55xw)
7It's not that anime has necessarily gotten any worse, it's just that I'm not sticking exclusively to the best stuff anymore.
It seems my chalice of the acceptable gets filled more and more with a cheaper wine every year. I hate to admit it, but I watch Dragonar and Absolute Duo over and over every year, without actually rewatching an episode.
They have different titles, of course, but I still watch faithfully, if fitfully.
It also seems that a show that approaches the same formula from a different angle will get me to watch it, even if I can see where every part of every plot will go. How does a character survive impossible damage? The latest thibng done to death was the in game action with resawning. Then along comes a show where the characters auto bail out of their current form once they have taken enough damage, and land back at base in their normal bodies. Different.
Posted by: topmaker at March 04, 2016 05:27 PM (6stZH)
8
*thing*, *respawining*
Friday nights are rough here.
Posted by: topmaker at March 04, 2016 05:28 PM (6stZH)
Well, we're two thirds of the way through the series (assuming it's one cour) and we're doing yet another girl-of-the-week episode. This time it was Veronica, the boss of the unit, Yoshichika's superior. An old friend in trouble, and yadayada. Pretty uninteresting, except for the fact that it's the first mission for Yukari and Quetzalcoatl. They had some problems, but they got better as the mission went along. So far it appears that the only power they have when in trance is the ability to fly, but that can be pretty useful when you're fighting on a big oil derrick in the middle of a snow storm.
And she did pretty well, all told, and made a pretty good contribution. (And I won't be surprised if she eventually has some sort of attack.)
I think the only girl left we haven't done an of-the-week for is Athena, and I bet that's next. And then they'll be forced to tell their main story, since they won't have any more sidetracks left. I hope.
UPDATE: Actually, they've been dropping hints about something called "over-trance" all through the series and this episode was another. Ominously, in the first episode we learn that Yoshichika has done over-trance and didn't lose his mind, though he did lose his power. He asked Athena why she sought him out to be his partner and she said it was because she believed he'd be willing to sacrifice everything he was in overtrance. And we've been seeing hints all along about what this might mean. I suspect that the climax of the series is going to require Yoshichika to do an overtrance, again.
Sweet as she seems to be, it looks like Athena chose him because she expects to sacrifice him. And that's really pretty evil, you know that?
A couple of episodes ago there was a confrontation between Athena and Lucifer and what they said suggested that it was a conflict between the two of them which started the war. It makes me wonder if maybe Athena was the bad guy in all this.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I watch an episode of GATE, what I want to see is Itami and his ladies.
This episode gave us about 30 seconds of them, and the rest of it was about Zorzal establishing his power in the capitol via a reign of terror. The upshot of it all was:
it looks like Tyuule is getting her way. There's every reason to believe that all out war will be beginning soon.
It never occurred to me that this show was intended to be a comedy, but that's how it's turning out. It isn't a huge surprise, on the other hand, that there's at least some fan service. Less, in fact, than I originally expected considering the teaser poster released before the series began. Anyway, this episode makes up some of that deficit.
It's an onsen episode. Yup.
A phantom creates a hotspring right in the middle of the school. It's heating up the place, not to mention making the humidity rise like mad, and classes can't continue until it gets dispelled. So we get to see some of the other teams try to beat it, and no one can. Like these three:
Back in the classroom, licking their wounds.
Haruhiko's plan is to paint Mai's butt red to try to seduce the giant monkey that's causing all this.
And she gets captured by the monkey, who is about to give her a lick job. Haruhiko demonstrates a new power:
Believe it or not, he summons Cthulhu, and he doesn't need his sketchbook to do it. (I thought Cthulhu was more impressive than that...)
This whole episode is complete silliness, but it's fun, and it's an excuse to get the girls into swimsuits. So it's not a total loss.
UPDATE: After last week's episode I was expecting a flood of Neko-Mai pictures, but it didn't happen. I wonder if this episode will inspire Mai swimsuit pictures? Maybe the fan artists have lost interest in this show...
UPDATE: One problem is simply that Mai hasn't been getting a lot of screen time.
Aside from that, and a lot of angst, a waste of time. Sheesh.
Olga keeps varying between sympathetic character and total asshole. It's obvious to even the most casual of observers that
he's eventually going to partner with Lucifer and I wish they'd get on with it. But I guess they can't, because that's also obviously going to be the final plot arc.
UPDATE: Athena is turning out to be major league angsty. I guess it's in the rules: if you get a magical girlfriend, she's either going to be tsundere or angsty. Frankly, I don't like either of those but at least tsundere gets you better fan service.
1
"I guess it's in the rules: if you get a magical girlfriend, she's either going to be tsundere or angsty." Would Belldandy be an exception? I don't think she was too angsty in the anime.
Posted by: muon at February 22, 2016 04:34 AM (IUHrD)
2
Beldandy was totally angsty, and let's not get sidetracked by her please.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 22, 2016 07:20 AM (+rSRq)
3
Here's a question: Would Ruby and Yukari from Rosario to Vampire count as magical girlfriend characters?
Posted by: topmaker at February 22, 2016 02:29 PM (6stZH)
Yes, magical girlfriend is a narrative trope, not a character trope. The girlfriend doesn't even have to be a magic-user; Chobits is a magical girlfriend show with a robot girl, and FLCL with an alien, for examples. You just need a putzy everydude completely outkicking his coverage with some sort of supernatural female.
Rosario is just a harem with two witches in it; it head-faked being a magical-girlfriend story (with Moka as the magical girlfriend), until Tsukune powered up.
So if Potato-kun in Luck and Logic gets his mojo back, it could take the same track, I suppose.
Posted by: Mikeski at February 22, 2016 04:05 PM (LIUK5)
6
I just want to say that I love the "outkicking his coverage" metaphor you just used. That's the first time I've seen that particular sports term used in that way, and I applaud it.
Posted by: Boviate at February 22, 2016 04:44 PM (XRvFv)
A lot of interesting things in this episode but one in particular: some back story on the gate itself.
Also, Lelei is awesome and she seems to think she's married to Itami. Maybe. Via a local form of common-law marriage. (I don't think she's serious about it; she's just preempting her sister.)
The nice thing about this series is that most of the characters seem to have their heads screwed on straight. We'll see if Itami continues that trend and reports this up ASAP. Also, if he makes an effort to pick Rory's and the older mage's (can't remember her name) brain for what they know about it.
If the gate opens and closes like that, the biggest issue is not having a brigade on the wrong side when it closes. Figuring out what everyone else knows about that and getting it to decisionmakers should be a priority.
Posted by: CatCube at February 19, 2016 10:41 PM (fa4fh)
2
Japan will need to make some major decisions soon.
Do they pull everyone back (unlikely).
Do they poll the soldiers to see if they want to be possibly trapped for a lifetime? If so, do they bring families over?
Do they build factories to be able to maintain a military advantage? There's going to be an awful lot of folks looking for payback.
Posted by: topmaker at February 20, 2016 12:46 PM (6stZH)
3
I suspect it will be a major evacuation, except that Itami will stay. But for the moment the government of Japan doesn't know there's going to be such a crisis. Itami will be including it in his next report and it will go from there.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 20, 2016 01:01 PM (+rSRq)
4
I think that is what people in the other world think is going on - but I am not convince that is necessarily so or at the very least, what they know does not represent the whole story. I think the standard reply to hearing that would be "More data needed."
Posted by: cxt217 at February 20, 2016 02:24 PM (Z3BHy)
When a series is based on light novels, sometimes the wiki has information from the novels that doesn't appear in the anime. The wiki for Mondaijitachi is like that and has loads of info that never made it on screen.
I was kind of hoping the wiki for GATE would be like that, in as much as the story in the light novels is finished, and that's what both the manga and anime are based on.
But it doesn't have; it's entirely based on the anime. It acknowledges the existence of the novels but has no material derived from them. Alas.
What I do know is that
the final novel is named "The Gate Closes".
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 20, 2016 05:17 PM (+rSRq)
6
I also have a pretty good idea of how the plot of light novel series goes - and it does not appear to be what people are speculating.
Posted by: cxt217 at February 20, 2016 05:48 PM (Z3BHy)
7
Building factories to maintain that military advantage would be a rather difficult undertaking; Modern munitions rest on a large industrial ecology, steel making, chemistry, semiconductors, plastics. I don't think it's been established what the smallest self-sufficient industrial society would be, but I'm guessing it would be in the 100k+ range.
So you're talking a major colonization effort. Just shipping a century of munitions use through the gate would probably be easier.
Lelei has demonstrated that a knowledge of science considerably increases the power of a mage. We also saw that magic works on both sides of the gate. The obvious conclusion is that Japan should prioritize learning everything it can about magic. And they've got something to trade: Knowledge of physics.
Might ultimately let them reopen the gate if it closes. But even if it does close, magic is probably a bigger win for Japan than the oil and mineral resources they've been looking for.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at February 21, 2016 05:47 AM (l55xw)
8
OK, CXT, that's why Pixy gave us spoiler tags. Let her rip!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 21, 2016 09:55 AM (+rSRq)
9
Ah...well.
If there are people who are willing to risk staying, they need to be left at least the equivalent of a victorian workshop. As Brett Bellmore points out, modern nitrocellulose propellants require an extensive (and toxic) physical plant. Black powder on the other hand, is quite doable and Giridonis have a number of advantages and should be adequate given that the enemy has medieval tech level.
Things like water filtration systems, steam engines....steam engines coupled with mages. Airships...hot air airships heated by mages with fire spells...with gattling guns to deal with the fiery but not "fire" dragons...these would still give the Alnus settlement a considerable trade surplus while the powers that be try to get their Murata's and Maxims cranked out in large enough numbers to take the place of the more effective earth built ordinance.
Of course the reason to risk this is, the science. Brett Bellmore mentioned magic. These mages are channeling something that was disproven by the Higgs Boson...so somebody would be wrong and there is some energy that is not interacting with our technology that they can harness. I'm sure that a lot of mages are going to be given tours of the far side of the gate...and the inside of MRI machines...and spend a lot of time touring the inside of hospitals while this is being examined. Physics aside...WHERE is this place.? Is it another planet, or another dimension? A telescope needs to be built and an expedition sent to the antipodes to set up another one there to map the sky of this world. A Lambda rocket would certainly fit through the gate (one tractor trailer could bring two dozen) and could be used for sounding and possibly sending a small micro-satellite into a polar orbit to give a rough map of the planet. the biology of FLYING. FIREBREATHING. DRAGONS. needs to be studied. There are plants and animals that might have medicinal properties or commercial applications (Dragon....Steaks..and a side industry of dragon scales. ) so you have a huge set of things that can reproduce, and KNOWLEDGE of immense importance that will be available for a limited, but uncertain amount of time. the rewards are immense and will accrue with every day you have teams in the field, but the end may come with little or no warning so there is a very real reason to keep an ability for anyone left behind to take care of themselves.
Also catgirls and elf chicks.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at February 21, 2016 04:56 PM (AaBUm)
10
Speaking of the Lamda rocket, why hasn't Japan launched a reconnaissance satellite yet? Heck, are we even certain that the "special region" is even on a spheroid planet? Have we confirmed that it isn't a flat disk resting on the backs of elephants, who in turn are standing on a turtle?
Posted by: Siergen at February 21, 2016 06:09 PM (De/yN)
11
They don't know anything like enough about the planet on the other side.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 21, 2016 06:23 PM (+rSRq)
If you're obsessive like I am, you've noticed that nyaatorrents has been up and down. Yesterday I got curious so I left a copy of pingplotter running monitoring it.
It's interesting. The route comes up and down a lot, but the point that's breaking isn't the last step, not even close. It's a step named "staminus.net", about 7 steps before nyaa.se (a synonym).
Anyway, all last night, the pattern was that this link would be down for 20 minutes or half an hour, then come up for a few seconds (typically half a minute but sometimes up to 4 minutes) and then go down again. I suspect someone there is working on a fix for something; they bring it up briefly for a test, which has always failed, so they bring it down again and work on it some more.
The web site for staminus.net says it's all about protecting customers from DDOS's. I wonder if someone has been trying to attack Nyaatorrents, and the guys at Staminus are trying to find an adequate block rule?
The site came up again this morning about 9 (my time) and just went down again at 2 (my time) so I guess they're making another try. Unless they find an answer, probably it's going to be up-and-down all night again, mostly down.
UPDATE: I assume that the global routing announcement for "nyaatorrents.org" and "nyaa.se" is to send it to staminus.net, which is rerouting it to the actual server farm that hosts nyaa.se, located in Montreal.
That's pretty elaborate for what is basically a hobby site. Did nyaatorrents get attacked by a DDOS before, forcing them to take this kind of action?
If I remember correctly, they have been DDOS'd before, but it wasn't recently... more like months ago. If this is a reaction to that, it's awfully delayed.
Posted by: Wonderduck at February 18, 2016 04:05 PM (KiM/Y)
I'm thinking that this is a new one, but that they started using Staminus because of the last one.
There are criminal gangs in eastern Europe who use DDOS threats as part of protection rackets "pay us or we bring your server down" and this may be another such attack like the last one.
Nyaatorrents is a business, albeit not a very big one. The only advertiser I've ever noticed is JList, though my ad blocking may have stopped all the others so I might be wrong. Anyway, it's possible their cash flow is a couple thousand a month, and they may be viewed as being worth shaking down.
It's been down for about three hours now and it's come up briefly five times. I'm pretty sure that this is some sort of testing.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 18, 2016 04:46 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: muon at February 19, 2016 09:44 PM (eSlVg)
6
They've been working on it since before 6 this morning, actually.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 19, 2016 09:49 PM (+rSRq)
7
They worked on it all night, took a half hour break this morning, and have been working on it ever since. Whatever problem they're trying to solve must really be a difficult one.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 20, 2016 12:28 PM (+rSRq)
But I do wonder whether at some point the cure is worse than the disease. The doctors have brought the site down more thorougly than anything the hostiles ever did.
Perhaps the problem wasn't so much outright killing the server as it was drastically increasing its bandwidth usage, resulting in huge monthly bills from the hosting service?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 20, 2016 12:42 PM (+rSRq)
9
I must have been able to download a tracker during the break. Did BakaBT have DOS attack a while back?
Posted by: muon at February 22, 2016 04:54 AM (IUHrD)
It's the birth of a new meme: Nekomimi Mai! I expect to see fan art beginning any day now.
This series just keeps getting stranger and stranger. But what was nice about this one was that they won it by getting along with the phantom, not by destroying it. It was actually a rather nice one; the problem was just that it turned almost everyone in the school into cat people.
Another rewatch. The frustrating thing about that series it that it's only 10+1 episodes and only covers two major plot arcs. I know there's a lot more story than that, so I decided to see if someone had done a Wikia on it which covered some of the light novels, and there it was.
I almost wish I hadn't bothered. The story becomes a major mishmash, with the "problem children" constantly climbing the "sorting algorithm of evil". (The power-up rate seems to rival DBZ.) But what really disturbed me was: Laius didn't die. Algol didn't die. Black Percher didn't die. (She actually joins the No Names!) Sorry, it's just too strange.
