Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor - Right of Left
I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. Lol.
When people said it was a prequel, I figured it would be a few years back and cover stuff like the previous generation, and the politics which led to some people leaving the island. Instead this "prequel" is a short self-contained story featuring characters who apparently existed but were never mentioned before in the entire series, and the only purpose storywise seems to be... to explain the pilot girl who had like one line before getting rekt'd in the first episode of the TV series? Fucking lol.
I dunno, maybe I'm being too negative here, but I find it laughable that this was apparently important enough to dedicate 55 minutes to. The entire thing seems to be a giant retcon which zero bearing on anything moving forward. We already knew there were pilot programs before this. We already knew many people died paving the way for the illusion of peace on the island. So this really seems rather necessary. It doesn't help that the character art is so infected with same-face-syndrome that I thought it was Kazuki and Maya when they first appeared. The animation was definitely better though, especially in the action scenes. Some sick close ups with machine damage. I love that shit.
I dunno, I just find it so hard to care about what the actual story was about, knowing that they were doomed anyway, otherwise there would have been some mention of it in the previous story. I'm not even sure what the fuck the actual objective of Plan L was. Was it a big joke from a dying man? Did L in fact stand for Lose? Discuss.
I've addressed this in IRC already but I think other's should see my argument too.
- Project L delays the attack on the Island. It's a stalling mechanism.
- I think that the OVA works well as a self-contained story even if the outcome is clear from the beginning. It may appears to be 'pointless' and I agree that's the feeling that you get from the characters struggle, but the writer makes sure to convey to you that the sacrifices of the characters were not entirely in vain. This is very, very important because early on in
Fafner people essentially die like dogs for no reason and no gain. The writer wants to discard this empty nihilism and depict a world that, despite it's bleakness, is not entirely hopeless.
- I feel like the writer wanted to express the grimness of the 1st half of
Fafner S1, but rather than depict it poorly as the original series did, he wants to do it 'right'. That's why it takes the time to develop these characters before they meet their unfortunate fates.
- This OVA sets is designed to mark the lowest moment in the history of Alvis and Fafner. It's about as bleak as it gets. This is then a sharp contrast to the works that follow on from this point. Numerous characters will refer back this event and the sacrifices involved in Project L as a lesson of what
not to do. I feel like this is the writer making a clean break from the tone of the original
Fafner by saying "This empty nihilism serves no purpose, I have a different vision" which you'll see in the subsequent works.