It's a huge stretch and I'm sure I'm going to be disappointed, but I didn't want to be the only left drowning in my despair, so here you have it. You're welcome.
I already know how people guessed it was something completely different.
As I've mentioned before, a common way to criticise this OVA series is to compare it to the original Gunbuster and explain how Diebuster isn't like the original work or how the original handled this thing or that thing better. This is rather lazy criticism because they are two fairly different works. As such, I won't really be looking at Diebuster through the lens of another. Instead I will be tackling it solely on it's own merits, for the most part - I can't resist making some small comparison between the two titles but I'll hold back until the end of my critique.
Characters
Just to get this out of the way upfront - I don't really care about the characters in this series. I don't really know how they could have been written to make me care for them more but I know how I feel on this matter. Nono is your simple, but determined girl and Lal'C is the cool, competent hero whose really good at job. This also makes it rather hard for me to care about their relationship which is quite a series problem as it makes up the emotional core of the entire story. Perhaps it's because the relationship seems to stem from Nono really admiring Lal'C for being a Topless and a pilot while the show doesn't really demonstrate that Lal'C works particularly hard to get good at what she does. As such some of her accomplishments feel a little bit empty. Of course, later on their relationship strengthens as it's based on a shared intimacy and respect but I still find myself detached from the proceedings.
There's also a whole host of side characters, one of whom gets practically an entire episode to herself, but I'll touch on them later. Suffice to say that I'm not particularly thrilled by them either but perhaps they (besides Tycho) could have been developed further if the show had given them some room to breathe.
Structure
The easiest complaint to level against this series is that it takes far too long to get going. The first half of the series is devoted to introductions and the main plot doesn't actually kick of till half way through the famous fourth episode. This is a problem when you only have six episodes of time to work with. I don't really think they make the best use of their time and I believe that's partly due to the different directions the series is going in.
The series is not about dealing with the Space Monsters, even though they feature in a number of episodes, because there not a clear threat to mankind. This isn't a story where the main threat or drive is introduced at the start and every subsequent episode is about how the characters will tackle this problem. Instead it seems to be something of a space adventure series where characters with crazy powers pilot cool robots and sometimes fight stuff. As such it's feel like it's meandering at times.
Consider the third episode of the series which is devoted almost exclusively to Tycho Science and her backstory. In a regular 13 or 26 episode show this is the kind of thing which we come across fairly often - a side character gets her own episode to flesh her out and make her feel more real. Here, in a much shorter work, the decision to spend all this time on her feels extremely odd especially as her relationship with the main characters isn't particularly important and she isn't instrumental to the finale at all.
I might actually have preferred Diebuster to be a much longer series that was actually about the Topless, the fraternity, all the interesting and unique buster machines and all the people that pilot them. Instead half the episodes seem to be about that and the other half are about dealing with the big bad threat that makes a number of the previous stories rather irrelevant. I feel like they tried to make the show about these two very different kind of stories and it doesn't really work as a whole.
The Buster Machine in your heart
At the climax of episode four
Nono reveals her true form, Buster Machine No. 7, and gives a rousing emotional speech. On the surface the speech is designed to explain that, it doesn't mater whether or not you have power (in the form of a buster machine that you've been given) as long as your determined then you can accomplish your goals. This is a pretty normal speech for an anime character to give. However it rings hollow on several fronts and is completely in contradiction to the events of the series.
As we witness throughout the series, it doesn't matter if you're a human that tries really hard, your conventional weaponry and your determination is actually useless. Having a buster machine within your heart is useless. The only people who can do anything or worth to stop the enemy are the Topless with their Buster Machines. Nono doesn't need to have a buster machine or even have a buster machine in her heart because she IS a buster machine. Lal'C can only do what she does because she is a Topless, something which is just an innate ability. Later on she saves the day without her Topless powers but she still needs the strength of a Buster Machine to do it! So Nono's speech doesn't make any sense!
Minor complaints
I don't think the series earned the ability to have this kind of
molestation scene, especially with how casually the show treated Nono's abuse way back in the first episode. I really feel like most works shouldn't attempt to deal with this kind of thing if they're not going to treat it with the impact that it deserves. Although the whole thing is really weird considering that Nono is a robot.
. Moreover, Lal'c's response was more than a little odd.
Why did they do that? It was all under control until they did that! It doesn't make any sense! Dumb!
Overall
I still enjoyed watching this series because it sure looks great and there's lots of pretty colours, neat designs, interesting directing and beautiful animation. However that, on it's own, is not enough to carry a show. I didn't feel like the work had a strong emotional core (I know many will disagree with me on that) and the only part which really moved my heart was the ending and even then that was only residue from how great the ending to Gunbuster was. The show itself didn't create those feelings inside me, they just borrowed them from a stronger series.
Topless
This is more of an observation. When I first watched the series I don't think I paid particularly close attention to the concept of being a 'Topless' but the more I think about that it the more I believe the concept may also serve as a metaphor. This argument is extremely wonky because I can't even decide what it represents - the passion required to be an animator? A director? Simply the energy required to be an artist? Some combination of the above? Whatever. I'll decide at some further venture.
My reasons for feeling this way are because of the way the concept is handled in the show. For example, being a Topless is something that we all experience when we're young but most people lose it along the way. Some have incredible amounts of it and they can do seemingly impossible things if they put their minds to it. They should seek to be a good example to others. However, all are doomed to eventually loose their power as they grow older and they cannot perform as they once could when they were young. Some, selfishly, try to cling onto the power that should be going to the next generation. Consider
the twins. They are so desperate to never loose their abilities that they'll do anything, including eating other Topless creatures to survive. The end result is disaster anyway and they were only delaying the inevitable.
. Of course I could be wrong and it might just be a coincidence how neatly all these things line up. I don't particularly feel that I am over thinking it but then again I am fairly biased.
Still catching up with the thread but it's good to see you feeling better and posting here again. I liked reading your episode impressions and comments.
I'm pretty sure the entire OP phenomena revolves around how "awesome" and "crazy" the song is. That's not the say the anime isn't actually popular, but the popularity of the show itself isn't really much of a surprise at all considering how the manga is without a doubt the most popular thing in Japan out of any source material or franchise in any other anime which started this season. An average volume of the Shingeki manga in Japan sells over 800k copies.
As someone who doesn't follow the manga or light novel or visual novel scene in any capacity I really have no conception over what's currently popular in Japan and the West. Are most of the really popular manga in Japan also really popular outside Japan? How often does that directly contribute to the popularity of the adaptations of said works?
I'm sure there's a fairly large correlation, I just don't know how strict the relationship is. Obviously, stuff like Persona 4 were so popular that the anime achieved a high degree of viability regardless of the quality of the series.
So, Ryouga Saotome posted this on Twitter and I didn't see you guys talking about it (probably because there's no point!):
It's a huge stretch and I'm sure I'm going to be disappointed, but I didn't want to be the only left drowning in my despair, so here you have it. You're welcome.
I already know how people guessed it was something completely different.
As someone who doesn't follow the manga or light novel or visual novel scene in any capacity I really have no conception over what's currently popular in Japan and the West. Are most of the really popular manga in Japan also really popular outside Japan? How often does that directly contribute to the popularity of the adaptations of said works?
I'm sure there's a fairly large correlation, I just don't know how strict the relationship is. Obviously, stuff like Persona 4 were so popular that the anime achieved a high degree of viability regardless of the quality of the series.
Depends on the series really. There are things which can be extremely popular in Japan but have almost no visibility outside of it for a variety of reasons. But an action shounen manga about medieval soldiers using Spiderman gear to fight giants filled with "mysteries" and "twists" is definitely not one of those type of things. Also, I should add that before the anime was even announced, the manga was already released in the US by the publisher - in English. That definitely helps a lot in popularity too.
As I've mentioned before, a common way to criticise this OVA series is to compare it to the original Gunbuster and explain how Diebuster isn't like the original work or how the original handled this thing or that thing better. This is rather lazy criticism because they are two fairly different works. As such, I won't really be looking at Diebuster through the lens of another. Instead I will be tackling it solely on it's own merits, for the most part - I can't resist making some small comparison between the two titles but I'll hold back until the end of my critique.
This is what I tried to do while watching Diebuster, but it is ultimately very hard to not compare the two, while Diebuster does enough to be seen as a seperate work you can also see that it followed the structure of Gunbuster on a skeletal level and it ties into it storywise at the end.
Well no limiter release. The episode did do a good job of showing how intelligent Kyousuke is by making the Babel guys do all the work for him (love the game part) and using his hypnosis to fool the Anti-Esper guys.
Yugiri's and the princess little outing was adorable, kind of reminded me of an older sister having fun with her younger sibling. Seems like Yugiri has more power than just mind reading, that I'm pretty positive will be revealed in full later on.
Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Episode 3 The Villainous Empress
I hope we can leave Gargantia fast as well this whole "battle" was a bit on the dull side, even more so considering that Ledo honestly looked as bored as I did during the whole episode (has he ever even smiled or enjoyed things). Oh well, at least whenever Chamber, his unit is on screen, or Ledo's given moments it is still worth watching.
I think it just needs way more explosions, and particles, and high speed action, like Valvrave/MJPR gives us and less Amy and Bellows :/
Lukkage and her units were kind of dull and just the normal units response to everything felt so clunky and boring, they were over run so easily and everything just blasted easily too. Naval warfare so dull as well. Anyway I wonder what Ledo's daily life will be on the ship now, as well since he is starting to say phrases.
This show is seriously amazing. I absolutely loved the battle, it strikes a chord along the lines of older Gundam series like 08th MS Team where the combat is visceral and small in nature. It is so much more enjoyable than stupid rainbow colored space beams and dots that you had going on with the larger scale battle to start the series.
The writing in this is really good.
They explain why they don't to escalate this to a full sized war and obviously how they don't want massive genocide against the pirates because thats fucking stupid even if its obviously feasible.
On a completely unrelated note, I just finished Wings of Rean, that I had decided to watch because it appears in the latest SRW and is pretty short. And to be honest... I liked it. It was every bit as stupid and non-sensical that I heard, but it was somehow very entertaining, and I absolutely loved the art and music. Then again, I also liked Brain Powerd quite a bit!
Only thing that REALLY soured my experience was the last scene. Why would you do that?! T_T
I'm a sucker for love stories a happy endings, you can imagine how well I took it...
In true Tomino fashion, it felt fucking weird too. And to end the entire series like that is... Eh.
I might just go watch Dunbine now, always heard it was good.
OP:
Best Song - Niwaka Ame ni mo Makezu by Nico touches the Wall
Best Direction - Attack on Titan
Best Animation - Naruto Shippuuden
Best Representation of the Show - Oreimo
ED:
Best Song - zzzzzzzzzzz
Best Direction - zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Best Animation - zzzzzzzzzzzz
Gargantia 03
This is dumb. Like seriously dumb. It throws all positive remarks I've made about the series kind of dumb.
Hey these people were about to rape and murder us but you were wrong to kill them! They are going for revenge now! It's not like we have an invulnerable mech with us or anything! It's all his fault he shouldn't have saved us so hard!
Fucking disgusting angst and drama.
The way they built tension on the fight was seriously lame too. "Hey our show has a totally OP mech so it's going to get boring, I know we'll sorta ban the use of it to needlessly extend this fight and make it more dramatic with some moron logic!" not only is this reasoning bad but I think it doesn't work since we can still see the mech is overpowered and that the pirates don't seem like a legitimate threat either way it just sorta drags, while still playing out in a similar fashion to the last episode while having a substantially less satisfying pay off and some fairly stupid angst piled on top.
Edit: On a positive note,
the pirate empress and her slavegirls are kinda hot I guess?
On a completely unrelated note, I just finished Wings of Rean, that I had decided to watch because it appears in the latest SRW and is pretty short. And to be honest... I liked it. It was every bit as stupid and non-sensical that I heard, but it was somehow very entertaining, and I absolutely loved the art and music. Then again, I also liked Brain Powerd quite a bit!
Only thing that REALLY soured my experience was the last scene. Why would you do that?! T_T
I'm a sucker for love stories a happy endings, you can imagine how well I took it...
In true Tomino fashion, it felt fucking weird too. And to end the entire series like that is... Eh.
I might just go watch Dunbine now, always heard it was good.
Gargantia 03
This is dumb. Like seriously dumb. It throws all positive remarks I've made about the series kind of dumb.
Hey these people were about to rape and murder us but you were wrong to kill them! They are going for revenge now! It's not like we have an invulnerable mech with us or anything! It's all his fault he shouldn't have saved us so hard!
Fucking disgusting angst and drama.
The way they built tension on the fight was seriously lame too. "Hey our show has a totally OP mech so it's going to get boring, I know we'll sorta ban the use of it to needlessly extend this fight and make it more dramatic with some moron logic!" not only is this reasoning bad but I think it doesn't work since we can still see the mech is overpowered and that the pirates don't seem like a legitimate threat either way it just sorta drags, while still playing out in a similar fashion to the last episode while having a substantially less satisfying pay off and some fairly stupid angst piled on top.
Are you serious? Like do you realize what you're advocating?
You're calling for the mass genocide of a bunch of pirates. And then more pirates will come. And then more genocide. The cycle doesn't end until every single pirate is dead.
The show is completely realistic. They are human beings, not massive killing machines. They don't want a massive sized war because they know the consequences that come with that shit.
Ah, understandable. Unfortunately the only reason to watch Garzey is because it's regarded as having the worst (aka best) English dub of all time; otherwise it's utterly unremarkable.
Also, I don't really think the series needed to go here:
considering how relatively grounded it was. She looks like the villain out of a mecha series. I guess they had a breast quota to meet and Billows wasn't enough.
Are you serious? Like do you realize what you're advocating?
You're calling for the mass genocide of a bunch of pirates. And then more pirates will come. And then more genocide. The cycle doesn't end until every single pirate is dead.
The show is completely realistic. They are human beings, not massive killing machines. They don't want a massive sized war because they know the consequences that come with that shit.
Would you realistically tie your entire communities fortunes and lives to the allegiance of a boy and his robot from outer space which can wipe them out in seconds? Because thats essentially what you're saying they should do and its pretty damn insane.
Right which is exactly why this episode made sense.
They want the pirates to recognize their military prowess and to simply back off. You don't do that by actively killing a bunch of them just because you easily can.
If they escalate this any further then they have no choice but to completely depend on some foreign kid who is going to leave them eventually.
Right which is exactly why this episode made sense.
They want the pirates to recognize their military prowess and to simply back off. You don't do that by actively killing a bunch of them just because you easily can.
If they escalate this any further then they have no choice but to completely depend on some foreign kid who is going to leave them eventually.
Which is why they want to wipe out the pirates. Humiliating them does nothing but anger them further. The way they let the pirates heavily damage their fleet did not make for a good show of force either.
Would you realistically tie your entire communities fortunes and lives to the allegiance of a boy and his robot from outer space which can wipe them out in seconds? Because thats essentially what you're saying they should do and its pretty damn insane.
You're essentially presenting the same either do A or B argument as the series but I actually think that it's a false dilemma. There's a spectrum of possible responses that they could have explored up to and including the complete annihilation of their enemies.
Now, wiping out the entire fleet with space lazers would have been a bad idea but the Gargantia fleet suffered an entirely unnecessary loss of life because they held Ledo back from using his full potential. If they'd wanted to go with a show of force they could have had him disable all their guns from a distance, but instead they let themselves suffer severe damage and injury for no good reason.
You're essentially presenting the same either do A or B argument as the series but I actually think that it's a false dilemma. There's a spectrum of possible responses that they could have explored up to and including the complete annihilation of their enemies.
Throughout history societies have had to put up with pirates and other groups that leech off their resources and pay nothing back to the collective pot and whenever we had the ability to destroy these groups we have done because it makes the world a safer place.
Now, wiping out the entire fleet with space lazers would have been a bad idea but the Gargantia fleet suffered an entirely unnecessary loss of life because they held Ledo back from using his full potential. If they'd wanted to go with a show of force they could have had him disable all their guns from a distance, but instead they let themselves suffer severe damage and injury for no good reason.
they could also have easily incapacitated the enemy fleet they wanted but opted for the solution that ultimately meant for a ton of unnecessary loss of life on their side, while claiming to spare the pirates, while simultaneously they bombed the pirates with live shells. They didn't hold back on killing pirates at all. And they seem pretty OK with a warring state with the pirates to begin with.
You're essentially presenting the same either do A or B argument as the series but I actually think that it's a false dilemma. There's a spectrum of possible responses that they could have explored up to and including the complete annihilation of their enemies.
Now, wiping out the entire fleet with space lazers would have been a bad idea but the Gargantia fleet suffered an entirely unnecessary loss of life because they held Ledo back from using his full potential. If they'd wanted to go with a show of force they could have had him disable all their guns from a distance, but instead they let themselves suffer severe damage and injury for no good reason.
The guns weren't even the threat in this episode. Ledo was totally clueless to the concept of underwater combat probably because he's never seen in it his life.
The show actually presents a scenario in where Ledo is not invincible and theres not much he can do to stop this.
they could also have easily incapacitated the enemy fleet they wanted but opted for the solution that ultimately meant for a ton of unnecessary loss of life on their side, while claiming to spare the pirates, while simultaneously they bombed the pirates with live shells. They didn't hold back on killing pirates at all. And they seem pretty OK with a warring state with the pirates to begin with.
They mention it in the episode that they defend themselves when they are provoked but they aren't going to resort to actions that are more despicable than what the pirates do.
Turning all of them into space pixie dust would qualify.
I thought everyone in Kyousuke's group were professional but they certainly didn't look the part when those three girls kicked their ass. Really happy to know they actually have their own personality's instead of the redundant emotionless girls with dangerous powers. Babel is a really interesting group and I don't mind if I see more of them later on.
Kyousuke fight scene with the red head was the definite highlight of the episode and so was when he battled all three of them over the ship. Andy revealing what his second power is in his fight with the director was disappointing, since I was hoping it would be something different than canceling out their powers again. Still he performed well in the fight but he once again is proving about how bad an agent he is when he got discovered sneaking around and his fighting style recognized by Minamoto.
The guns weren't even the threat in this episode. Ledo was totally clueless to the concept of underwater combat probably because he's never seen in it his life.
The show actually presents a scenario in where Ledo is not invincible and theres not much he can do to stop this.
I would say it's poor planning on their part which result a loss of life on their side.
And they're right in holding Ledo back, just because you have something powerful doesn't mean you have to go full force and commit mass genocide. Like Nukes
That had to have been one of the most entertaining conversations about breasts in anime that I have seen. Not that I've seen many conversations about breasts in anime. Still, funny show.
Diebuster
I don't think the series earned the ability to have this kind of
molestation scene, especially with how casually the show treated Nono's abuse way back in the first episode. I really feel like most works shouldn't attempt to deal with this kind of thing if they're not going to treat it with the impact that it deserves. Although the whole thing is really weird considering that Nono is a robot.
. Moreover, Lal'c's response was more than a little odd.
You know, I was fine with that. The Topless have zero idea how to act outside of their ivory tower so whenever they expire, it's going to be handled differently. All Nicola had going for him was his Buster machine and when he lost that, he immediately tried to do the only thing he knew how: domineer another one. Lal'C's response, I thought, was her not grasping the implications of what was going on. He wasn't after the sexual comfort she'd gladly provide but instead wanted a Buster machine of his own again.
I would say it's poor planning on their part which result a loss of life on their side.
And they're right in holding Ledo back, just because you have something powerful doesn't mean you have to go full force and commit mass genocide. Like Nukes
They weren't expecting the entire fleet and then the hawt booby pirate empress to go all Eureka 7 surfboarding PAST THE ENTIRE FLEET to get to the base.
And it really bothers me how people are totally cool with
the concept of massive genocide. The characters in this show are somehow more human than the people watching it.
They weren't expecting the entire fleet and then the hawt booby pirate empress to go all Eureka 7 surfboarding PAST THE ENTIRE FLEET to get to the base.
And it really bothers me how people are totally cool with
the concept of massive genocide. The characters in this show are somehow more human than the people watching it.
They weren't expecting the entire fleet and then the hawt booby pirate empress to go all Eureka 7 surfboarding PAST THE ENTIRE FLEET to get to the base.
And it really bothers me how people are totally cool with
the concept of massive genocide. The characters in this show are somehow more human than the people watching it.
Pirates aren't a race. They're pirates. How else have we dealt with pirates throughout history? Locked them away or killed them. We didn't hold back and play nice with them. This holds doubly true in some kind of post-apocalyptic situation where resources are scarce.
I really don't buy the argument that it would lead to a mass retaliation either. The assumption that escalation will be met with more escalation just doesn't make sense either, rational actors would back down. Ledo can kill people so effectively there'd be no one alive to tell the tale of his precision slaughter!
More over, everyone in the fleet seems to be like a parody of a pacifist shounen character.
They scold Ledo for killing people, but then when they're attacked they kill a bunch of pirates. What's the difference? He was just defending people from a pirate attack earlier, accept that he's much better at it.
This episode proves the gargantian commanders are dumb, they suggested to give Ledo up to the pirates without thinking what would happen if the pirates uses Ledo weapon against them. No surprise they would plan so poorly to defend themselves
This episode proves the gargantian commanders are dumb, they suggested to give Ledo up to the pirates without thinking what would happen if the pirates uses Ledo weapon against them. No surprise they would plan so poorly to defend themselves
give the boy to the pirates and to keep the robot, they are still working under the assumption that the thing is somewhat similar to the robots they have and they can find somebody else to pilot it. And the boy himself is worthless without the robot
So, Ryouga Saotome posted this on Twitter and I didn't see you guys talking about it (probably because there's no point!):
It's a huge stretch and I'm sure I'm going to be disappointed, but I didn't want to be the only left drowning in my despair, so here you have it. You're welcome.
I already know how people guessed it was something completely different.
