Gaizok definitely knows how to put the 'unusual' into 'cruel and unusual punishment'. This episode was a strange mixture of slightly farcical comedy and the standard Zambot destruction and death, but they mixed reasonably well. Not impressed by the Jin family's rescue efforts, though. It was a bit Operation Eagle Claw.
So the war's over, and if it stays over this'll be the point where Simoun dumps its limited military aviation elements. But of course it was never primarily about the war in the first place (which brings G Gundam to mind: G pulls a similar trick with its final arc, as it was never primariliy about the Fight in the first place).
- Agent Aika
One of those rare titles (Najica from the same studio comes to mind, as well as Strike Witches) that devalues the pantyshot through overexposure. Though the process is quite comic. Strike Witches made an effort to give each female character distinctive underwear, but Aika's cast, without exception, wear white panties. Does this mean anything?
The story, such as it is, is the wrong way round: it begins with a climax which finishes in space and features a wonderful transforming battleship/submarine/spaceship/deathsatelliteofdoom and then meanders on for a few inconsequential episodes until someone mercifully takes it behind the woodshed and shoots it.
Simoun's battles don't last that long, but they're often well handled, and this one was an example of that. Guragief's 'veteran returning to the cockpit' thing was good, and you can never go terribly far wrong animating a dogfight in which the climactic moment is a sky battleship diving out of the sun.
Those who wish to are invited to draw the available parallels between the situation of the sybillae and various historical Dolchstoßlegenden.
I can't say if the idiosyncratic animation is better -- I wouldn't know -- but it's a nice change, and surprisingly easy on the eyes. What surprised me in this episode was the neat sense of humour it displayed. The final couple of scenes in particular were rather funny, in a dark way.
'You know how when you were a kid Digimon was intresting? The main reason it was cool was that you had a bunch a kids, who don't even know each other, pulled from their normal lives and thrust into a completely different and altogether unfriendly place and they have to grow up and pull together to survive. About the same general idea here, except the kids don't have cheery friendly monsters to help, their parents have been abducted, and by about episode 12 everyone they cared for,
the Professor, Kate, the people from their home towns
, have all died horrible deaths before their very eyes, and, by the way, the enemy wants them dead and intends to rub them out in a manner that would probably kind of messy. Oh, and one of them was... well I'll let you find that out...'
I'm not actually going to watch Eden of the East, at least not while it's airing. But I watched the opening because I was curious about the use of Oasis, and then today Owen and I wound up picking through some of the stuff that crops up there.
'The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorese [sic] from power' (around 0:34) is (though slightly mispelt, and missing a comma and indication of a line-break) from Julius Caesar, Act II, Scn 1, ll. 18-19. It's spoken by Brutus. A rough familiarity with the plot of the play suggests why it might appear wrapped around the scales and sword from the personification of Justice (0:59). 'Juiz', which appears in the background there, means (apparently, among other things) 'judge'. 'selecao', meanwhile, is apparently Portuguese for (among other things) selection, and (I'm told) this might come up fairly overtly in the anime itself.
Most of the lines of text that appear scattered throughout the OP sound like Christian praise. They're gathered together into two groups (poems?) at 0:24 and in the final shot from about 1:10. Googling them only turns up the AnimeSuki thread where people are discussing the show, so they're either something EotE's writers came up with in isolation, a quotation from a text that's ungooglable or a translation of a text that isn't in English. The slightly Engrishy air about them suggests to me that they're not a quotation. Some lines feel Psalmic, but mention of Eden (which doesn't -- I don't think -- appear in the Psalms, but is definitely related(!) to the show) and 'the light on earth', which is, I think, a Christian, not an Old Testament, idea suggests that that's not their source, if they have a source.
I was giggling like a loon and punching the air by halfway through the episode, even if my limited knowledge of the Nagai universe/multiverse/manyverse (mostly gleaned from Mazinkaiser and odd blog posts) was being put to a severe test. Perhaps in a normal show putting (what seems to be) the build-up to the final battle in the first episode would be a brave move, but I suppose with something like the Mazinger franchise it might be a safer bet, as it's already established.
Something irritated me about the short argument between Sumeragi and Billy in the 24th episode of Gundam 00's second season. The question being discussed (admittedly in simple terms) is an interesting one, but in a sense the show has already fixed the outcome: Billy's operating with false data, as the Innovators aren't enlightened philosopher-kings, but a bunch of backstabbing fakes. It's a necessary cop-out, I suppose, because this is Gundam, not a textbook. But its an interesting example of storytelling's approach to Real Life Questions.
LoGH would do — well, did do — this better, but there you go. LoGH didn't have giant robots.
Of all people, I think it's Jason Miao who prompted my interest in older anime - indirectly, of course. One of his posts persuaded me to watch Gundam SEED, which in turn persuaded me to watch The 08th MS Team, which persuaded me to watch the original MSG. Of course, most of the older stuff I watch involves robots, so maybe it's not age I'm interested in so much as tradition within one genre.
