So it turns out that a "whale squid" is genetically identical to a "Hideauze", and Ledo's war has come to the Earth. Maybe.
What in hell is a combat mech doing with genetic analysis equipment, anyway? And the comfortable feeling I had with this series just got tossed in a basket. Maybe it'll be back, maybe not.
3
Did I miss the battlefield use of biowar weaponry? It doesn't have analysis gear onboard, but it does have a NBC defensive system built
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 19, 2013 08:50 PM (Axk8h)
4
I got the feeling that Chamber is a mass produced unit, which has scouting capabilities. It seems a little odd, but it's not something that takes too much hand waving to believe. Though it does seem a little strange.
...it DOES have NBC protective systems built in, just in case. Since we don't seem to be facing biowar attacks, and it's not like analysis gear is exactly small to date, the Abrams doesn't need to carry it.
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 19, 2013 08:53 PM (Axk8h)
6
Not totally beyond the pale, really. Can it travel through space? Can it land on a planet? If so, something onboard better be able to tell the pilot if he can breathe the air, drink the water, and metabolize the flora and fauna... and the last one of those three takes a pretty sophisticated sensor suite.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at May 20, 2013 02:42 AM (GJQTS)
7
I haven't seen anything past the first episode yet (except the bountiful cheesecake...), but given the capabilities that Chamber displays there, I'm not surprised he's capable of genetic analysis. It's got to be easier than including a self-contained cold-sleep facility with hypnotic indoctrination capability.
Chamber doesn't make sense as a dedicated combat mech built to fight in a desperate war against an enemy that's well on the way to exterminating humanity. If anything in the propaganda video is true, then he's ridiculously overbuilt for front-line cannon fodder. And yet the carrier ships are specifically designed to deploy large numbers of them, and Ledo's been paired with Chamber for as long as he can remember. (side note: 145,000 hours of service? Is Chamber counting from birth, counting cold-sleep time, or is something even odder going on?)
-j
Posted by: J Greely at May 20, 2013 08:54 AM (+cEg2)
8
I suppose you could hand-wave
some sort of awesome replication technology which can duplicate pretty much anything rapidly and cheaply, and if you have that then there isn't any obvious cost to loading up the mechs with fancy gizmos. If they have that, then the limiting factor on their war is people.
I'm entertaining the possibility that the entire war is a hoax, an excuse for the people on top to maintain a police state. Not that I think there isn't any war, but I think the humans started it, and I think the bosses are deliberately not fighting it to their full ability. I think the bosses want a stalemate.
The problem with the 1984 setup is that Ledo appears to be genetically engineered in the first place, with Spartan-like ruthlessness in child selection. That seems like a strange way to keep a society working without some actual existential threat around.
If they have no problem with genetic engineering, culling "less than effective" humans and sleep-indoctrination systems, I really doubt the humans "in charge" would have much issue keeping their position with that Power already established.
A few people have suggested that Gargantia is, itself, an acclimation program for Avalon. That Ledo actually made it home and this is the system used to become less of a solider and more of a human. The problem with that thinking is that they've spent a lot of time on the side characters and world building, with a massive amount of independent action by characters. The series should be much more focused on Ledo than it is, if that was the case. The Gargantia itself is a bit too much of a character in the show for that to really work, other than for a big twist at the end.
I think, though, that we might have a sign of what the actual problem is with Avalon. The Computers are actually in charge. So they keep fighting against the Hideaze because that's what they're supposed to do. They're a life-like AI, not actually sentient. This is pretty much the "Terra e" construction.
Actually, no, this series almost IS "Terra e", which would imply that Chamber is both a problem and a solution.
Mostly plot exposition this time. And as with the other episodes, I have no urge to rewatch it. (On the other hand, I've rewatched Gargantia about five times. Is it Monday yet?)
3
Amy and her friends, and pretty much the Gargantia in general, feels quite "normal" for people. What a concept, a society filled with mostly decent people, though a bit more colorful for a fictional presentation.
I suddenly realized something last night: Chiaki is the only character in the entire series whose hair is pitch black.
Even in crowd shots, there are other people with very dark hair, but it never goes below a dark gray or a dark brown. None of them are ever as dark as hers.
She also has a hime cut and her uniform is old fashioned. She is very much the class rep / agent of stability there and is the most unambiguously Japanese.
Given who did the show, those things may also be intended as signifying a need to relax and think outside the box just a bit.
Chikaki does not lack in self discipline, but in whimsey and perhaps a bit of initiative. Becoming a fully formed adult for her meand loosening up a tad and not looking at life's choices as a flow chart or something. She and Marika actually compliment each other very well.
************
Boy that's a lot of text based on speculation, inference and cross cultural ignorance...I should go cut the grass.
Generally I don't care for mecha series, which is why Suisei no Gargantia was a pleasant surprise. There have been mecha series I liked, but in general it's not a genre I go for.
It just now occurred to me that there may be a simple heuristic for sorting the good from the bad: If the name of the mecha appears in the title of the series, then it probably sucks.
My issue is that in the generic crap mecha series, it's the mecha which is the star, the focus, of the story telling. The series is probably wish-fulfilment for young guys who think it would be awesome to be the pilot of a giant war machine. And thus it's likely to dispense with things like "telling a good story about interesting and complex characters".
And if the series title includes the name of the mecha, then that's what they're telling the story about. Myself, I find mechas as such to be silly and boring. I don't mind if they're around, though, as long as they don't get in the way.
UPDATE: As a heuristic it isn't perfect: I did enjoy Vandread. But then, as the old joke goes, if a heuristic was never wrong it would be an algorithm.
1
A fitting example that quickly comes to my mind is Code Geass. It has mecha, but as seasoning, not the entree. Some of the manga adaptations even remove the mecha.
Posted by: gaiaswill at May 16, 2013 04:06 PM (OmaL4)
4
Maybe that's why I tend to like Macross over Gundam series? Haha. Though Macross is a more of a story driven romance with singing and war, oh and some mechas pop up.
We do tend to see this type of thing pop up in other series. When the "selling point" of a series takes over the series, at the cost of story and character. There are shows with good stories and fanservice. There are shows that are very good at fanservice. And there are too many shows that just slap fanservice in to break up the story and annoy everyone.
Mecha series are just more marketable than tits shows, haha.
Posted by: sqa at May 16, 2013 07:35 PM (KuPSx)
5
I'm really not a fan of mecha series either. The only series I've enjoyed in recent memory is Gurren Lagann, which is kind of an odd case in that the titular mecha does appear in the series, but the one from the full series title ("Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann") doesn't show up until the last few episodes. Also, it is a very character-driven story with lots of development. It does run very much on the Rule of Cool with increasingly huge robots doing battle IN SPACE! but it manages to keep a good balance of that and great characterization.
Posted by: MeganeNeko at May 16, 2013 09:37 PM (RXa2b)
On the opposite side, the Mecha name doesn't appear in the title of "MUV-LUV Alternative: Total Eclipse" but on the other hand, it's an utterly horrible show. I wrote up a review of this two-season train wreck, which is currently in my drafts. I'd post it but my computer died so all the pictures are trapped on an inaccessible hard drive.
Although one could make the case that it's a titty show as well. (The reason I'm holding out for the pics.)
Posted by: Mauser at May 17, 2013 01:36 AM (cZPoz)
Suisei no Gargantia -- you can't go wrong with dancing girls
I got curious about this one, so I just now downloaded the first six episodes. I wanted to see if its reputation for fan service was deserved, so I went through ep 6 (in which the above dancing girls can be found).
And, surprisingly enough, I got sucked into the story. So I just watched episode 1, and now I really am interested.
It has a mecha, but it isn't a mecha story. By which I mean, the mecha isn't the star of the story. Chamber is a character, not a gizmo, but it isn't the predominate character of the series. And Ledo, the castaway pilot, is surprisingly interesting.
...and Amy is a sweetie. (She's the one in the middle.)
The battle in the first half of the first episode was surprisingly long, but in narrative terms it was necessary in order to establish the characters of Ledo and Chamber so that we can truly understand how they could be so confused about where they finally end up.
There are a lot of good looking women, most (if not all) of whom are not bimbos, and that too is a pleasant surprise. And there are some men in the show who are not bastards. From ep 6 I see that Ledo is trying to fit in, and the people there understand that he's having a hard time and are willing to cut him some slack. So there's apparently a lot of love, too. And that's nice.
It's obvious that in the end there's going to be some tremendous danger, and Ledo and Chambers will cope with it and be heroes. Will they find their way home again? Unlikely. Prospects are that "home" no longer exists after what happened in episode 1.
UPDATE: End of ep 3, and so far it's great. I should mention that in general the art is very high quality. It's been a while since I've watched a show that looks so good.
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 15, 2013 07:10 PM (Axk8h)
4
The worry is that the end will be, well, Gen the Butcher in action. But, he's doing the composition. This isn't actually his original idea or his project. It's the director's and it's supposed to be a "going into the world" type of story.
And, yes, the girls are very pretty. Which isn't too surprising. It's well regarded Hentai Manga mangaka that's doing the character designs. And the End Cards are becoming something of a running joke, as the Character Designer has apparently enlisted all of his friends to do the End Cards.
This series has a LOT of thought put into it. Pretty much nothing that's been going on has lacked a purpose or been really quite stupid. With the possible exception of something in ep 5.
Two important plot thoughts, that I'll toss into spoilers:
Ep 1 thoughts/possibilities:
Ep 1's opening space battle had some really nice Gunbuster references, and probably a bit of Starship Troopers as well. It's important for two reasons: 1) The main writer is an excellent genre researcher, knowing the different genres he's in really, really well. 2) If it is something of a Gunbuster send-up, then we could easily have a massively displaced Time Line. Ledo could be years in the past or years in the future from when he made the jump.
I would not be surprised in the absolute least if that ends up being the case.
Ep 6 information drop:
Before the OP, Chamber said the "sea galaxy" effects were actually nanomachines. That was a huge chunk of information dropped there. It means a big chunk of nano-tech is still active on "Earth". It's hard to say where that goes, but it gives us massive amount of possibilities.
One of the big draws, early in, was actually the fact the series takes itself seriously in the proper way. Characters, even ones we see for just a scene and really only are there to serve 1 purpose, don't seem out of place plot movers. They seem like they should actually be there and we're just dropping in for one of their meetings. It shows a lot of thought was put into the writing and world building, especially for an anime original series.
Posted by: sqa at May 15, 2013 07:15 PM (rAozM)
5
The stated aim of this show is to encourage Japanese NEET on how to integrate themselves back into society. Ledo isn't a NEET, but he came from a society that's geared towards one and only one thing, the defeat of the alien threat. He has to serve in the war for a period of time to ear his citizenship, his limited right to procreate, and taking shore leave. Hell, all of that is kind of foreign to him.
Now take him out of that environment and throw him into a more civilized one where everything isn't actively trying to kill him and trying his best to fit in. He want to be useful to the fleet that has taken him in. He's also getting some basic economic lesson from Amy (the Alliance is so low on resource that if you're not of use to the war, you're recycled).
Posted by: BigFire at May 16, 2013 11:06 AM (PzKK9)
6
If that's true, it suggests it isn't going to have a disastrous ending. I guess we'll see.
Sorry, I haven't had a lot to say recently. But today I got motivated to write about politics. I sent it to Gabriel Malor to post on Ace of Spades, but I'm feeling guilty about neglecting you all, so I thought I'd post it here, too.
1
She asks him to touch her. Looks like Photokano is going the Amagami route. The main girls story was six episodes and looks like the rest of the girls will get one episode each.
1
Crow, turtle, dog, or snake come to mind. Snake is least likely, since MomGoose would probably beat the crap out it.
When I was a child, we had a hen that only saved two of her chicks from some threat that took the other chicks one night. We deduced that when the hen jumped up to run away from where they were sleeping, she had clamped her wings to her sides an managed to carry a couple of chicks with her.
You'd be surprised what a turtle can pull under.
Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 11, 2013 04:23 PM (66bg3)
I've seen raccoons around here, and that's my bet.
A couple of days ago one of the neighborhood cats was looking very interested, but one of the adult geese chased it away. I doubt the cat was responsible.
As far as snakes go, the only ones we have around here are garter snakes, so far as I know, and for them grasshoppers are more their speed.
There are no rattlesnakes on this side of the Cascades.
3
I grew up in Tennessee and the chicken-eating snakes around there were the so-called chicken snakes. (From a quick Google search and looking at the images, I'd say they were black rat snakes. You guys in the west don't appear to have them.)
We pulled one out of our barn that was around 6 feet long. That particular snake had attempted to eat a hen that had made a nest near where that snake was living between the stalls (which is why we were looking for it). It hadn't been able to dis-articulate its jaws enough to swallow the hen, but it managed to open its mouth sufficiently to make it up to where the wing connects to the breast (going headfirst, of course).
I've seen a crow snatch a baby rabbit from the ground, so I'd think that a gosling would be small enough to nab.
Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 12, 2013 08:51 PM (66bg3)
I don't think we have any snake that big here in the Willamette valley.
There are crows around here, but they're thoroughly cowed by the ducks and geese. Sometimes when I toss bread out, the ducks and geese come in readily and start gobbling it. Crows sometimes fly down and land, but they stay outside the area where my bread is. They won't come in and compete directly; they hope to dance in and seize a piece and then fly away. Sometimes they do; mostly they don't. The crows act like they're afraid of the ducks, not to mention the geese.
I can't see any of them trying to do that with a gosling, given how afraid they seem to be of the geese.
My vote is for something furry. There are opossums all over the place around here, and I mentioned that I've seen a raccoon. I wouldn't be surprised if there were skunks around here, too.
And at least once I've seen a coyote here in the yard. (The poor thing was badly hurt, probably hit by a car.)
5
I've seen eagles, skunks, and racoons in plenty just a couple miles south of you. Just the other week I saw a pair of coyotes hanging out near the Fanno creek trail, which goes through your area. A few years back we had multiple sightings of a mountain lion (or maybe it was a bobcat) in my neighborhood. Any of those critters would happily make a meal of a gosling. And of course I'm sure there are plenty of cats or stray dogs that would happily snatch a gosling if the parents let it stray far enough away.
(From a quick Google search and looking at the images, I'd say they were black rat snakes. You guys in the west don't appear to have them.)
