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Comments
Meanwhile there's this:
it seems there are two mangas but no anime yet
It's a mecha series largely set in and off the coast of the city of Kamogawa. For many years I'd just watched the first season. The second season is supposed to start after a timeskip of one summer break, or something like that. At first, I wanted to start it but held off because I hadn't waited a summer yet. Then, a year later, I was like, maybe I should go watch it. But I didn't. Well, at some point (I forget when), I watched the fist episode of the second season. Didn't go on though.
And, at some point, I remember I got into arguments with fourteenwings about this series. From what I recall, he ended up hating it, including the first season, based on watching the whole thing, while I loved it, based on watching just the first season.
I have no idea what my opinion will be by the end of the second season of Lag-Rin, but I do find it a little ironic that this echoes some arguments I've had with folks elsewhere (mainly on Heapers' Hangout) about Madoka Magica. (And here the comparison ends, because the rest of the thing isn't similar at all.)
I watched only the TV series of Madoka Magica, while many of them watched quite a bit more. And the thing that we got into very intense arguments (at least twice) over whether the relationship between Madoka and Homura could be interpreted as friendship rather than romance. While I personally felt it as friendship based on what I'd seen, and interpreted it as such in part because of my longstanding annoyance with people shoehorning/"over-reading" romance into character interactions (usually opposite-gender ones), others argued that it was unambiguously romance, drawing upon subsequent material and creator's statements that indicated this, and even saying that I was committing an act of queer erasure by denying this. (Someone informed me that their relationship is a particularly iconic one for the LGBTQ anime fandom community, stressing the social significance of the matter.)
No, we never settled that. And, since we eventually had a falling-out, it's not like it'll ever be settled, heh.
I still have an intense antipathy for the show itself, but for reasons unrelated to this. Heck, if they're in love, that would ironically be an even stronger reason for me to hate the show, because my opinion has to do with the plot screwing over Homura.
Sidenote: I do remember the "queer erasure" angle generating citations of a few other lesbian pairings elsewhere in the course of said arguments. I don't know if they actually think I just deny all lesbian pairings (someone argued this, but I don't know whether they actually believe it or whether it was just said for the sake of argument), but for the record, I don't; I remember them mentioning Nanoha and Fate, for example, who I think are pretty clearly a couple. (I think at one point one of them mentioned Anthy and Utena (I think I got those names right?), whom I just have no take on because I've never watched Revolutionary Girl Utena.) Meanwhile I remember thinking of Mireille and Kirika from Noir as another counterexample to their claim, since I watched that years ago, but I don't remember mentioning them. Amusingly, I ran across another counterexample very recently, when I watched The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady (good gosh that title is a mouthful).
And yes, I know that LGBTQ relationships (and representation, more generally) in anime is a thorny subject, especially (though not only) because of the use of female characters as fanservice. Though, I really don't have much to say about this, as I'm not gay, nor well-read about the topic, nor am I particularly interested in romance aspects in plots, very much including straight ones.
(No, I will probably not be issuing a ruling on whether Madoka (Kyouno) and/or Lan and/or Muginami are romantically involved. Don't bother waiting.)
I was conflicted as to whether I wanted the first season fresh on my mind going into the second.
A decade is a bit longer than a summer, so eventually I got interested enough in rewatch that I'm doing it now.
Sidenote: I'm also noticing various details I missed originally. Dunno whether I'm paying more attention or doing so differently nowadays, or whether this is solely because I've watched it before. But I hope my emotional perspective hasn't changed that much.
lagrange is apparently the name of a flower, canonically
so the title basically means "the [flower] of reincarnation" (since rin-ne basically means that)
also, this is a pretty interesting story in how it's like you have grand space war politics and they just end up colliding in a very small town slice-of-life atmosphere in the weirdest and most informal of ways
and the characters have quite a bit more depth to them, which i kinda forgot about and/or didn't pay attention to the first time around
Euphyllia is like a pinnacle of noble elegance, and navigates her duties with grace and elegance even under fire. Which is something she often does out of necessity, being caught up in the complex web of nobles' intrigue. She is quite capable, but kinda trapped by social expectations. Spectacularly intelligent, she has enough charisma to navigate said intrigue, but not particularly effectively on her own.
Laffinty, on the other hand, while feeling similarly duty-bound and being quite serious about her missions, ends up proving herself as quite a dork outside of them. She is loyal to her side of a social conflict, but has trouble navigating social situations that involve reaching beyond allies. Though she is occasionally willing -- whether for duty or envy -- to try things that end up embarrassing herself.
Well, there's one more thing in common, at least, which is that to varying extents their lives are buffeted by the social forces and organizations around them making big moves.
And I guess there's one more thing which is that they're both contrasted to lead characters who are more socially bold and comfortable with being so despite being socially isolated in some ways. Though said foil characters are also pretty different -- Madoka Kyouno is socially respected and admired, and it's just that she doesn't really have a close circle of friends of her own, while Anisphia Wynn Palettia is essentially a social outcast seen as a total weirdo by everyone except those close to her.
Instead I thought of the white-haired girl from Seirei Gensouki, Celia Claire.
I might go watch season 2 of that next, rather than jumping straight into Lagrange season 2, in order to put some distance between the two seasons.
Though I was suddenly reminded that I randomly started watching Blue Archive. And I've been meaning to watch the first recap movie of Crest of the Stars. too many choices, too little time...
I can't believe Yukari Tamura played the same character on Mai-Otome and Nanoha Strikers, but got different results.
meanwhile, here's my recent toots about anime, which i don't think i properly posted here
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114579600296041377
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114579609498260535
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114592696151195740
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114643406650366400
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114770896338505566
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114789069345938298
https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey/114789113603056552
yeah this franchise really is a giant shitpost
what I've watched: the first 8 episodes of Classroom Crisis
what I expected: ...honestly, I'm not really sure what I expected. I guess I expected Iris Shirasaki, because she's literally the only reason this series got on my radar. I found her through Mudae. I would have guessed some sort of sports anime maybe?
what I got: corporate politics, electoral politics, labor law, and gratuitous school shenanigans
possible spoilers incoming; I haven't checked how far into the show each piece of info is dropped
So the story is about this company. It's famous for its rockets, I think. This is a sci-fi setting where interplanetary travel is commonplace and Mars has been colonized, so rockets are a big deal, and "Fourth Tokyo" on Mars is where this company is. They have a star rocket scientist genius guy who's in his 20s and is basically the company's most famous employee. He is the public face of the company's rocket engine R&D, and he also runs what is basically a special high school or something that has kids who join the company and study high school in his classroom, and his students *love* him. He's also got a loud personality and spends money like a maniac. What's a few million in repairs? Just bill it to the company.
The company wants to shut down his division and get into other unrelated industries, like other manufacturing, and insurance, and other stuff. They want to cut off his R&D funding and basically starve him out.
So they appoint a new guy to run the R&D division. He's an exec of some sort, not the top dog but still in the exec ranks. And this guy is tasked by the company with basically making the division disappear within a month. Also, for some reason, he's assigned to be a student in famous rocket scientist dude's class.
But this is no ordinary guy. The company also happens to fucking hate this guy, for reasons.
lesser spoilers:
Also I have no idea how this is even a school. It's like a direct-to-company talent pipeline magnet school or something, I guess? All the students are also employees.
Bigger spoilers that I know are from beyond the first episode:
(Later on, this decision does turn out to have incidental benefits like him getting more funding access.)
Also, rocket scientist dude is also famous enough that political parties want to get him to speak at their events. This is relevant because the company supposedly has some incredible local social clout or something. But the political party that's their ally has been reduced to like 25% in the polls while a rival party's challenger is at like 48%, and that rival party wants rocket scientist dude to endorse them or something. Also, rival party is allied with the labor union.
Also, the "transfer student" third son guy turns out to be the illegitimate son of the current exec. Current exec (a guy, to be clear) had an affair with a woman...who turns out to be a descendant of the other founder, whose family got gradually pushed out of the business or something I think. So that's probably why the company execs really fucking hate him but also can't get rid of him and want him to accidentally get himself killed or fuck something up so royally that they have "no choice" but to fire him. And he also proves to be extremely business-savvy so he keeps on succeeding at the crazy shit they throw at him. He of course is entirely aware that they hate him, and he in turn hates them back, plotting to take over the company at some point.
Also at some point they're joined by crazy ninja bookkeeper lady.
She sure gets the best lines.
Here's one that I'm choosing not to post because I really shouldn't get carried away.
Edit: oh fuck it, i'm posting it anyway
Here are my thoughts.
Content warning: spoilers for SAO season 1 (the first 25 episodes), of course.
I guess Kayaba basically gave out the source code to Sword Art Online at the end. I know they called it the "world seed", but yeah.
Overall a pretty okay show; I don't see how it's hateworthy the way people have hated on it over the years. To be fair, I am pretty sure some of it is just hype backlash due to SAO getting crazy popular.
Honestly, I don't think SAO is that *great* of a show either. For example, given how integral the idea of a balanced party is RPGs in general, I'm honestly surprised that Kirito is so frequently portrayed as such a strong solo player. You'd naturally expect (well, I certainly did) him to have to eventually learn some hard lessons about this, but he...never really does, and the show continues to reward him in spite of that.
Oh, also I felt like the first few episodes went by really fast compared to in-game time. I kinda felt like I wanted more time there. But maybe this was my fault for watching the show more quickly than one episode per week.
And then there's the way he just sorta seems to build up a harem. Best way I can perhaps understand some characters like Sachi becoming attracted to him is like, this is probably a game where there's a majority male playerbase (and we already saw a bunch of characters on the first day unexpectedly transforming from a female to a male character to match their real-life gender) and the guys in general might be broadly such dickwads that encountering a nicer guy seems like nice exception. Still, though, like half the highlighted side characters -- far beyond just Asuna -- are somehow the relatively few female players that exist in the game. And they become very disproportionately prominent in the story.
But the story is reasonably engaging. The plot is understandable and makes sense, within a reasonable level of suspension of disbelief. I do have to remember to treat technology like magic, but that's pretty much a given in this sort of show, same way as it was in .hack//. Once I got over my objection to the initial premise (the reason that kept me from watching the show for all these years), I did feel like I want to keep watching. The animation was good. The music was great, apart from maybe the theme songs which sound a bit generic to me (I'm still not much of a fan of OP1), but I can't actually object to them since they're of decent qualtiy.
Fun fact: before watching this first season, I totally thought that Sachi was Suguha's in-game character. Checking now after watching the show, it seems they *do* have not just a similar hairstyle but also a simliar eye color. I totally did NOT connect Leafa to Suguha at all.
I also was surprised when the show abruptly stopped its seemingly main plotline around episode...18 or so? I mean the "trapped in a death game" premise. I totally expected them to go all the way to the top and defeat the final boss there. But the second plotline was certainly well-paced and well-played.
I did expect Kirito to have to learn the value of teamwork more so than he did. Sure, he stumbled against the intentionally-difficult final boss, and Recon did a brilliant (but sadly wasted) kamikaze attack just for Kirito, and then backup arrived and shepherded him through for just long enough. But Kirito still went up there alone.
Kayaba still being present in a data-spirit form really reminds me of .hack// -- this show takes a lot of inspiration from that.
Also I can see why some people don't like the show's treatment of Asuka. TBH the show was kinda weirdly fanservicey, in *those* ways, in previous episodes already -- see how Silica was treated during her arc. And heck, the same thing happened to Asuna when she infiltrated the lab. There were also various other gratuitous shots of female characters' cleavage, underwear, etc. -- "male gaze" was definitely a thing in this show, and this persisted even when it clearly wasn't Kirito's perspective but just an omnipresent viewer's perspective. So, what happened to Asuna was not unexpected, just simply distasteful.
And I'm surprised people (in-universe) are still enthused about Aincrad after everything that happened. Maybe it's a sense of perspective, though; two years is a damn long time to be stuck in a game, and people have a weird sense of fondness -- Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps -- for that world. Plus, the way it played out, it was more so the creator who was ultimately evil, rather than the world itself; the world itself was designed to be really freaking pretty and surprisingly comprehensive.
Also, for anyone who cares for "best girl" designations? Leafa. But ironically not Suguha. The show's portrayal of Suguha is mainly "weird feelings for her adoptive brother", but its portrayal of Leafa is "cool female protag who is powerful and does neat things". Also incidentally never involved in a gratuitously awkward "weirdly-fanservicey" scene, but even if the show put her through that that wouldn't change my opinion of the character. She's confident and capable and that's what makes her best girl.
Yeah, that's kinda the point of SAO Progressive - Kawahara's follow-up series that zoomed into each floor of Aincrad, floor by floor. Basically, book 1 (the Aincrad arc - the first 14 episodes of Season 1) was intended to be a standalone entry for the Dengeki Novel Prize that had no plans for a sequel at the time, hence why it compressed so much of SAO the game (that and Dengeki had a page limit that Kawahara apparently exceeded slightly, so there was a limit to how much details of the game he could fit in and describe).
In other words, it's not just you and how you watched. Aincrad in SAO is massively compressed compared to in-game time.
In fact, Season 1 was actually better at the pacing because it added in short stories from book 2 (Aincrad sidestories that includes the Sachi, Silica and Lisbeth stories). The light novel book 1 managed to skip from floor 1 to floor 74 - the start of all the Asuna and Knights of the Blood Oath plotline.
Also, huh. I wonder if I'm just desensitized to this kind of stuff or it was subtle enough that I don't really recall it. I mean, there was the tentacle bits around the dev drones and the less said about every Sugoh scene with Asuna, the better... Hmm, yeah, I think that's enough for a general mental-blanking of Fairy Dance, ahahaha