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Fall Anime 2014 lOTl Unlimited Tomino Works

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I would argue though that in Butterfly Effect
Her being better off without him no matter what
IS the predetermined outcome because he cannot change it no matter what he does. Similar to how
Okabe cannot save Mayuri in those timelines no matter what he does either
In both shows, the overall outcome is the same but may have different ways of happening. But
his GF still has a terrible life and Mayuri still dies in every single instance
So really they are pretty similar.

They don't seem so similar to me. In Butterfly Effect it was merely coincidental that she always got shafted. Or well, recalling the movie to the best of my abilities, she doesn't even get shafted all the times. Sometimes it's actually the main character who draws the short stick. It's true that the MC realizes that one way to circumvent a lot of the issues he does encounter is by not becoming her friend in the first place. It however never felt like she's predetermined to be screwed as long as they are together.

Meanwhile in S;G that predetermination within certain timelines is kinda considered fact.
 

mankoto

Member
Donten ni Warau 1
Interesting setting along with a trio of characters. Can't really say I'm excited for the next one, but my interest has certainly piqued.
 

cajunator

Banned
They don't seem so similar to me. In Butterfly Effect it was merely coincidental that she always got shafted. Or well, recalling the movie to the best of my abilities, she doesn't even get shafted all the times. Sometimes it's actually the main character who draws the short stick. It's true that the MC realizes that one way to circumvent a lot of the issues he does encounter is by not becoming her friend in the first place. It however never felt like she's predetermined to be screwed as long as they are together.

Meanwhile in S;G that predetermination within certain timelines is kinda considered fact.

Either way, we dont really know how time behaves in time travel or what would happen or how things would change. Its all speculation. I can see your point, but theres no real evidence based on experiences to hold it up against, so basically anything goes.
 
Does Primer even do time travel well without creating paradoxes? Its been a while since I saw it and I never cared to look for any inconsistencies.

I wouldn't say there are inconsistencies, but it definitely does as little as possible to explain it to the viewer. This very spoilery image explains the basis of the system though.
 
The only time travel stories that come close to making sense are the ones where trying to change the past is futile. And even then, you can still end up with grandfather paradoxes.
Once in the past I was thinking about how to do a time travel story, and I came up with every timeline being a separate universe to avoid the usual paradox problems. It's by no means a perfect model if you extrapolate and look at the logical conclusions but good enough for simple time travel stories.
 

cajunator

Banned
Celestial Method 01


HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
 
That image seems extremely simplified from what I recall.

On another note, im going to finish Steins;Gate tonight, episode 22-24.

The issue wasn't that the time travel system was complicated. It was that the explanation of the usage and the method of it was left almost completely blank. The things happening on screen at one point seemed out of order and the viewer was left confused. Reading what happened and discussing it helped. It may have gotten more complicated later, but it wasn't the system as much as the actions taken by the characters and the explanation of it by the movie.

But then again I'm like you, I haven't watched it in like 2 years.
 
Love, Election and Chocolate 11

eXzX9YV.jpg

At least they try to explain why the MC has problems choosing anybody in this one :p

Everything gets explained and solved and it looks like the characters will live happily ever after, but then... unexpected twist. School life sure is dangerous.
 
Donten ni Warau - 01

I'm not really sure what this is supposed to be. But I enjoyed it. These brothers act like some sort of pseudo batman in a samurai fading land. First scene suggests some sort of magic is going to be involved, and ED have some villain looking guys in which I guess a revolution is in order?

Big bro is a pretty lovable character, very caring peacocky behaivour (and hairstyle like one). I'll keep giving this one a few more epsiodes.
 

Erigu

Member
[Steins;Gate]
I would argue though that in Butterfly Effect
Her being better off without him no matter what
IS the predetermined outcome because he cannot change it no matter what he does.
Hey, but he does change it, in the end!
As for the fact
his very presence by itself seems somehow linked to bad things happening down the road to the people he care about
, I'd give The Butterfly Effect more of a pass because:
1) those "bad things" are far less specific and arbitrary than "
Mayuri will die on that summer and at that precise hour no matter what, be it heart attack, traffic accident, freak experiment, etc, it's like magic or some shit
", and
2) the main character
has to deal with all that stuff alone and doesn't really have the luxury of time (his attempts at changing history are killing him)
, which leaves more leeway as to whether or not the solution he ultimately comes up with really was the only possible answer.


Does Primer even do time travel well without creating paradoxes? Its been a while since I saw it and I never cared to look for any inconsistencies.
There's
the Granger part
which is... well.
Although I kinda respect the idea that,
yes, you can't quite make sense of what's happening anymore by then, but that's actually the point: the characters simply can't know, so they have lost control and need to "reset"
.
Overall, Primer is still way up there, as far as movie time travel plots go.
 

TUSR

Banned
The issue wasn't that the time travel system was complicated. It was that the explanation of the usage and the method of it was left almost completely blank. The things happening on screen at one point seemed out of order and the viewer was left confused. Reading what happened and discussing it helped. It may have gotten more complicated later, but it wasn't the system as much as the actions taken by the characters and the explanation of it by the movie.

But then again I'm like you, I haven't watched it in like 2 years.

The last time travel movie I saw was Looper and that one seemed to lose track of itself. I can't remember the specifics, but it was towards the end that it seemed to stop trying to make sense.

I should give Primer another watch because I went in expecting to be confused, instead of trying to make sense of it for myself.

Though, after Steins;Gate I might need a time travel break.
 

JCG

Member
The second coming of the first season? Not a chance. If it's not the second coming of R2, it'll only be because it's too lewd, mark my words.

I'd bet against that. There are more differences than parallels in Cross Ange so far, thus any comparison is superficial. S1+ R2 were also intrinsically linked, and not only in a "bad" sense.

Yes, there is overlapping subject matter and "crazy" things happen in Cross Ange, but the content is less interesting and the directorial approach feels too different. Fukuda, while not the director per se, never struck me as being as self-aware as Taniguchi. Nor as talented, but that's another topic. Also, Ange is no Lelouch or even a Suzaku. There's no manic energy at work here, just incompetence.

Wanted to try this at one time but I hear it gets bad after a while.+ The character designs are Clannad level of atrocious.

It sounds like you're unfamiliar with CLAMP character designs and those of other artists who use similar proportions. I don't particularly love or hate them, but then again I'm used to a wide range of anime aesthetics going from extremely cartoony and stylized to almost human in their realism. That said, visual designs in general aren't really too important for me. There's been more than enough series with great character designs that are very disappointing.

Code Geass is the best kind of "bad" you can possibly ever imagine. Its delicious junkfood. So bad for you, but so GOOD.

I'd call it a slice of pizza with a side dish of fruit. Something that's a mix of unhealthy and nutritious.

You eat only the pizza and find it tasty but may feel bad about it later, or you can eat the fruit too and realize the meal was okay.
 

cajunator

Banned
The last time travel movie I saw was Looper and that one seemed to lose track of itself. I can't remember the specifics, but it was towards the end that it seemed to stop trying to make sense.

I should give Primer another watch because I went in expecting to be confused, instead of trying to make sense of it for myself.

Though, after Steins;Gate I might need a time travel break.

Looper was a much worse time travel plot than Steins;Gate.
Really, just about any time travel story has a ton of leeway due to the unproven nature of time travel in general. Its like high fantasy where pretty much anything goes if it fits within that universe.
 
The last time travel movie I saw was Looper and that one seemed to lose track of itself. I can't remember the specifics, but it was towards the end that it seemed to stop trying to make sense.

I should give Primer another watch because I went in expecting to be confused, instead of trying to make sense of it for myself.

Though, after Steins;Gate I might need a time travel break.

To be fair Rian Johnson said multiple times that he did come up with rules but that paradoxes were a bit too complicated and didn't want to explain them to the viewer. Also that his biggest goal was to tell a story that used time travel as a basis.

RJ: It's a sticky wicket. My strategy was that time travel doesn't exist in the present that the movie takes place in. It all exists in the future. It's the same way that the first "Terminator" handles time travel. It's so elegant that it's easier to forget that it's a time travel movie. That made a lot of sense to me so not only do our characters not have to actually use time travel but they don't even know how it works. They're just dealing with the ramifications of it. That doesn't mean that I can get away with not knowing how it works. I came up with the whole elaborate set of rules for how the paradoxes work and everything but I didn't want to explain those rules to the audience. I wanted them to just see the effects of it and see these characters dealing with it step by step.

Even though it's a time-travel movie, the pleasure of it doesn't come from the mass of time travel. It's not a film like Primer, for instance, where the big part of the enjoyment is kind of working out all the intricacies of it. For Looper, I very much wanted it to be a more character-based movie that is more about how these characters dealt with the situation time travel has brought about. So the biggest challenge was figuring out how to not spend the whole movie explaining the rules and figure out how to put it out there in a way that made sense on some intuitive level for the audience; then get past it and deal with the real meat of the story
 
Once in the past I was thinking about how to do a time travel story, and I came up with every timeline being a separate universe to avoid the usual paradox problems. It's by no means a perfect model if you extrapolate and look at the logical conclusions but good enough for simple time travel stories.

It's a very common system in time traveling stories. See also "many worlds theory".
 

cajunator

Banned
To be fair Rian Johnson said multiple times that he did come up with rules but that paradoxes were a bit too complicated and didn't want to explain them to the viewer. Also that his biggest goal was to tell a story that used time travel as a basis.

I just dont like it when the solution seems to be
killing oneself
Seems like a complete copout in time travel. I dont mind a whole bunch of methods being employed that somehow leads to a positive conclusion. At least thats creative and interesting. But THAT kind of ending is like "fuck it"
 

Erigu

Member
Really, just about any time travel story has a ton of leeway due to the unproven nature of time travel in general.
I don't think the "proven" or "unproven" aspect matters. Be it for time travel or sorcery, a writer can bother to come up with a working set of rules and then stick to it... or he can decide to just play it fast and loose, which may well result in inconsistencies and plot holes.


Rian Johnson said:
I came up with the whole elaborate set of rules for how the paradoxes work and everything but I didn't want to explain those rules to the audience.
Suuure...
 
Looper...I really liked how the entire reason for sending people back in the past is because you can't just kill (or get rid of) them without getting tracked or s.th. and then the bad guys come to abduct Bruce Willis and nonchalantly shoot and kill his wife. Like fucking really?
 
Speaking of Steins;Gate...was the movie any good after all?

It's good for the characters and particularly if you care about the Okabe x Kurisu romance. It doesn't feel tacked on as much as an extra chapter. I love the show and I also really enjoyed the film. It also has more than decent ratings from fans so take that as you will.
 
Garo - 01

Yes! I was pumped throughout the episode, I loved it! First of all what a beautiful OP
Dark and gruesome setting, just my cup of tea. Felt a little bit like 'metal' Souls universe with the designs (Ornstein duo fighting demons!)

Nice to see its got some funny dialogue and characters despite of its dark setting.
One of my favorite episodes I've seen this season so far along with Bahamut.
 

cajunator

Banned
Looper...I really liked how the entire reason for sending people back in the past is because you can't just kill (or get rid of) them without getting tracked or s.th. and then the bad guys come to abduct Bruce Willis and nonchalantly shoot and kill his wife. Like fucking really?

Yeah that bit made me kind of iffy too and it has really nothing to do with the time travel aspects, so thats a good point to make.
 

JCG

Member
Nope!

(Well, some liked it, clearly, but I'm not one of them.)

It was somewhat enjoyable, but largely felt unnecessary.

It's good for the characters and particularly if you care about the Okabe x Kurisu romance. It doesn't feel tacked on as much as an extra chapter. I love the show and I also really enjoyed the film. It also has more than decent ratings from fans so take that as you will.

Thanks for the impressions. I'll try to find the time to check it out.
 
It's good for the characters and particularly if you care about the Okabe x Kurisu romance. It doesn't feel tacked on as much as an extra chapter. I love the show and I also really enjoyed the film. It also has more than decent ratings from fans so take that as you will.

I consider it just that actually ;P
 
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was an original idea.

I always liked myself (in real life, and in fiction!) the theory where every possible permutation of universes exists, all of them, up to infinite variations, so it's a version of the Many Worlds theory except the universes aren't created each times someone "flips a coin", all of them exists at the same time, from the start, as a tree with infinitely dense branches and our current timeline it's just a specific path from that 0 start point to the present.

I remember disliking Bioshock Infinite ending because it uses the many worlds theory, except without understanding concepts like "infinity". Pretty silly, given the title of the name.
 

Andrew J.

Member
Amagi Brilliant Park 01

Looks like another inoffensive Kyoani school dramedy. The premise could go to some genuinely interesting places, but I bet it won't.

Butts.
 
To each his own. I felt it was less unnecessary and more of a conclusion than the OVA.

I just felt like
having Okabe disappear was rather contrived as nothing about the timetravel mechanics so far have foreshadowed or pointed at that possibility. Their implementation of déjà vus was also rather cliché.

And I don't know, I just don't remember it being very interesting after the early bits. But yeh, to each his own.
 

sonicmj1

Member
It was so brief you have to literally pause it at that exact moment to see it. It wasnt male gaze at all. Just a quick glimpse and then nothing more. did it have to be there? Of course not, but taking a screenshot of the moment is putting more effort into seeing it than Kyoani wanted people to see anyway.
It almost seemed to be there to fill a fanservice quota and like Kyoani really didnt care about the scene otherwise.

I agree that it isn't meant to be titillating when viewed as an unbroken episode, but KyoAni must have known that people would screencap that moment and post it online before they even drew it.
 

cajunator

Banned
so anyway, now that I have gotten some bounciness out of my system, I really liked Celestial Method too. Theres an undercurrent of melancholy and mystery, with the huge UFO and the atmospheric music, and Im certain this show will contain lots of cuties crying, but it still made me feel pretty happy to see the two friends together. Noel is SUUUUUUUUUUPER adorable as I expected and Shard was right. Im gonna squee so hard at this show. Sorry shardy.
 

Erigu

Member
[Steins;Gate movie]
I consider it just that actually ;P
Yep, same here. A series of nonsensical asspulls just to make one more story and give Kurisu some hollow "personal journey".
And Suzuha is back because she has fans.


Both the medicore ova and the more decent movie are exactly that, tacked on. Just unneeded.
At least, the OVA has no weird time travel asspulls (although
Suzuha's cameo appearance as her own future mother
was pretty bad). There's that.
 

cajunator

Banned
I agree that it isn't meant to be titillating when viewed as an unbroken episode, but KyoAni must have known that people would screencap that moment and post it online before they even drew it.

KyoAni simply knows who butters their bread. Hint, it aint the critics.
 
I agree that it isn't meant to be titillating when viewed as an unbroken episode, but KyoAni must have known that people would screencap that moment and post it online before they even drew it.

To be fair, if there's one specifically stupid reason to exclude such scenes its this.

I mean people will do that with any kind of displayed nudity, no matter how appropriate it is.

ed:
Watching Utena - 12 right now and man, the audio quality of the voices can be quite grating at times. Utena's Yuri friend is yelling right now and it's rather unpleasant. So, I just grew a bit more appreciative of better technology!
 

cajunator

Banned
To be fair, if there's one specifically stupid reason to exclude such scenes its this.

I mean people will do that with any kind of displayed nudity, no matter how appropriate it is.

thats true. Im sure they stuck it in there with the knowledge it would be screen capped but they paid so little attention to it that it just seemed like they were forced to put it there.
KyoAni is rarely so blatant with fanservice, though they are not above it and never have been.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Honestly it's not a big deal unless you want it to be a big deal. The scene is used mostly for narration/characterization purposes, to establish that Sento is at his house and that again she's emotionless for the most part.

It's really unneeded in anime form as the voice actor had previously stated all of her lines in a deadpan manner. I could see something like that more necessary in the light novels as the audience/reader doesn't have the visual/auditory cues. A scene like that in the books would firmly establish how 'off' she was.

It's not the most subtle of ways to do characterization but Gatoh was never exactly subtle anyway.

All of that said, seemingly nobody in the show cares so there's no reason for the audience to either. Well unless you want to beat your dick into a sock when you see bare 2D ass. In which case, let me recommend Fumoffu's bath house episode.
 

striferser

Huge Nickleback Fan
My favorite time travel story is probably "All you zombies..." because of that ridiculous premise.

Amagi Brilliant Park 1

This is well directed, and i like there a clear goal at the end of episode. Being Kyoani production, this is gorgeously animated. The soundtrack is nice, the editing is good. Story, i kinda like it.
Also, Prison school chairman approve this episode.
 
Anohana - Episode 1

First episode of my watchbet with MikeHattsu and it seems like I've got a great show out of it!

I actually know this show beforehand as someone requested that I made a cover of the ED last year (I'm not sharing it though as I'm not too pleased with how it came out in the end, maybe I'll go back and freshen it up a bit who knows). I absolutely love the song because of it so I was really pleased when it started playing near the end of the episode. The OP isn't too bad either actually.

As for the episode itself, I quite like it.
The way they hinted through the episode that Menma had passed away beforehand was nicely done. In perticular, the scene near the end when her mum put a bowl of curry out to remember her by was sweet yet sombre.

Looking forward to getting through the whole thing, it's looking great so far.
 

cajunator

Banned
Honestly it's not a big deal unless you want it to be a big deal. The scene is used mostly for narration/characterization purposes, to establish that Sento is at his house and that again she's emotionless for the most part.

It's really unneeded in anime form as the voice actor had previously stated all of her lines in a deadpan manner. I could see something like that more necessary in the light novels as the audience/reader doesn't have the visual/auditory cues. A scene like that in the books would firmly establish how 'off' she was.

It's not the most subtle of ways to do characterization but Gatoh was never exactly subtle anyway.

All of that said, seemingly nobody in the show cares so there's no reason for the audience to either. Well unless you want to beat your dick into a sock when you see bare 2D ass. In which case, let me recommend Fumoffu's bath house episode.

Lol. Well said all of it.

Anohana - Episode 1

First episode of my watchbet with MikeHattsu and it seems like I've got a great show out of it!

I actually know this show beforehand as someone requested that I made a cover of the ED last year (I'm not sharing it though as I'm not too pleased with how it came out in the end, maybe I'll go back and freshen it up a bit who knows). I absolutely love the song because of it so I was really pleased when it started playing near the end of the episode. The OP isn't too bad either actually.

As for the episode itself, I quite like it.
The way they hinted through the episode that Menma had passed away beforehand was nicely done. In perticular, the scene near the end when her mum put a bowl of curry out to remember her by was sweet yet sombre.

Looking forward to getting through the whole thing, it's looking great so far.

AnoHana is...clumsy but it does have a big heart. Overall its a good show with one of THOSE endings. I think youll like it.
 
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