May 30th, 2010
Anime North! THE END :(
one of the best weekends i have yet to spend so far, great people, great costumes, and great events.
Next year i will most certainly come in less clothes(and nothing leather).... or bring an industrial fan with me.
Next year i will most certainly come in less clothes(and nothing leather).... or bring an industrial fan with me.
Posted by setvenx | May 30, 2010 3:09 PM | 0 comments
February 7th, 2010
Asura Cryin' - The Breakdown of a Failed Anime
Anime Relations: Asura Cryin', Asura Cryin' 2
As the title suggests, I will attempt at breaking down this anime and it Will contain spoilers.
At the beginning, Asura Cryin' is about a boy named Natsume Tomoharu, who is a "ordinary" kid who has a female ghost haunting him named Minakami Misao. We get very attention drawing shots right off the bat which draws us into watching it and guess what, it works. But little do we know how disappointing it will be for these flashbacks teasers to draw us into such a terrible broken unplanned anime.
By the end of the first episodes, we are filled with questions. What happened in the plane crash that almost killed Tomo? Why is Misao a ghost? Why has he been targeted and why the how in the hell did he end up with a giant machine(and what IS that thing!). Quite a lot of questions for a first episode and most of which will not be explained for another good 6 episodes or so(actually even all of the first season wont explain all of those questions).
What does get explained by the end of the first season(some of which was deducted through logic) is that:
Important Facts(which i plan on referring to)
1) Handlers are humans who controls a Asura Machina, which are inside those trunks
2) Asura Machinas require Berial Dolls to work
3) Berial Dolls are human sacrafices(many of which were about to die from physical injuries but this is not a required condition) which power the Asura Machina using their soul. No Asura Machina uses more then 1 at a time
4) when the Asura Machina uses all the energy from the Berial Dolls soul, the Asura Machina will cease to function and turn back into the suitcase
5)Once the Berial Doll is all used up, the sacrafice is dead(rather then just a ghost that was semi-living). The handler will become an Ex-handler indicated by the runes carved into their body
6)Demons who use magic without contracts supposedly start to vanish.
7)Demons use magic and can form contracts with Handlers to form Asura Cryin' as well as having a *Daughter
8)An Asura Cryin' is an endless loop of energy transfer between Asura Machina and Daughter resulting in lots of "power"
9)A stabilizer in conjunction with a Asura Machina will make the Berial Doll visible to "everyone"(for some unexplained reason, Berial Dolls can be seen sometimes even without one by regular humans as well as any handler and demon)
10*)Daughters are summons formed after a handler and a demon form a contract
11*)Ex-Handlers are immune to magic
12*)Demons vanish when their handler uses the Asura Cryin'
*(explained in the second season)
Seems like a pretty good set of facts to run a story on since we are dealing with fictional concepts. This would've made for a great fundamental base for the anime even but what were going to get in the second season is a lot more redefining and contradicting going.
Now If you watched both seasons, what happens is that the concepts of parallel universes kick in. This is going to be the beginning of all that redefining.
When Tomoharu, Misao, Takatsuki, and Nia all get sucked into Hagane's attack, they ended up being sent into the First World. For unexplained reasons(they just tell you it happens), Tomoharu turns into a demon and Takatsuki turns into a human. Basically when they went to the First World, humans -> demons and vice versa. Furthermore, later on Tomoharu not only uses his demon abilities, he summons his Asura Machina.
Now how is that possible when handlers are humans? Oh well maybe its cause he was a handler before he became demon, so I suppose its fair to ignore one inconsistency.
What happens shortly after in the first world arc is that Takasuki comes out of no where, and starts conjuring her demon abilities CLAIMING that she just lied. JUST LIED? Come on now we need a better explanation then that right? Maybe its just another bad inconsistency the anime had and we should ignore that too. After all the first world arc was nothing but ambiguity maybe we should forgive this terrible mistake.
Oh but it keeps coming, because upon sealing the gate that causes the first world to vanish, First World Misao supposedly used her own self as a source of energy for the Asura Cryin' to close the gate. So apparently all the rules are changing as we go now. Fact #3 states that an Asura Machina uses 1 berial doll. I guess the new fact is that an Asura Machina uses 1 berial doll unless the plotline requires otherwise.
Now lets back to right before they enter the First World because we missed out on an even greater inconsistency. At this point, we see First World Tomoharu get killed by Tokiya and the berial doll leaving Hagune was... not Misao? It was in fact Takasuki. What the F*** is going on now?!? Wasn't Takasuki a demon? That would mean that the Asura Machina apparently accepts demon sacrifices... unless Takasuki isnt a demon. But doesn't that mean First World Tomoharu never attained a Asura Cryin'? Well I guess that makes sense then... but wait, I thought you needed the power of an Asura Cryin' to achieve something like travelling between worlds.... okay now this is just getting too contradicting.
Another inconsistency with this First World arc, its Nia. She travels to the First World, but unlike how the rest of the 3 travelled 1 year into the future, she travels 4 years back and as a result, is 5 years older then before she entered First World. Okay maybe thats possible because were talking about time traveling here and shit happens. But upon returning to Second World, she remains 5 years older then she was before she left. NOW we got time paradox.
Now if you think thats as bad as its gets, not quite. Upon returning to the Second World, we finally get the casualty report. Here we find out that Susugihara's berial doll died(from speculation in the 7th episode, it gave off the impression but it was confirmed when they returned). Susugihara's Berial Doll Yukari had its own backstory in season 1 where they explained that Shuri is the twin sister of Yukari and that in a plane crash, Yukari was severely injured and was also life threatening. With no assistance to save her life, Susugihara used her as a Berial Doll to preserve her life, but reuniting with Shuri when they returned to Second World, it is then said that Shuri switched places with Yukari in terms of the berial doll sacrafice and that the person who we all assumed to be Shuri... was in fact Yukari. NOW HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE cuz this shit isn't funny. In the first season, we were all confused as shit when it came to determining who was Shuri and who was Yukari because IT JUST SO HAPPENS, that they LOVED to pretend they were the other twin(flashback to Season 1 when they had the Susugihara and Shuri backstory). Just when we established that Yukari was the berial doll, they tell us it was Shuri. But doesn't that mean that Yukari would've died from her life threatening injuries from the plane crash? Wait, Yukari also mentioned something about returning the body back to Shuri. Okay so that means that Yukari was indeed the berial doll, but nothing explains how they managed to switch places or how that was even possible. With no good or detailed explaination, this would be the best solution to settle this monstrosity of a inconsistency.
Moving on towards the end of the series(thank god) we go to Tokiya. At this point in the story, he steals 3 trunks with Asura Machinas, each had consumed the previous owners berial dolls and were now ready for use. Tokiya out of sheer desire to have Aki alive again, uses any means necessary to create a Third World, one with Aki in it. This is where the haymaker of all contractions occur. When he creates the gate, he opens all 3 trunks containing the Asura Machinas, and simultaneously controls ALL 3 of them, AND his own Asura Cryin' Hagane. Now your telling me... that not only can you control more then one, you don't need a berial doll to use them??!?!?!? By this point of the anime, nothing was desired more but the end(regardless of the conclusion).
So after the final battle, we get the fairy tale ending, BUT not before one final brow rising incident. Apparently there was a way to remove berial dolls from Asura Machinas and in doing so, they released Misao from the Asura Machina Kurogane. Now here is where it gets confusing. Misao turned into a berial doll to save Tomoharu prior to the beginning of Season 1 episode 1. Way back when we saw those flashbacks(the ones that got us to watch even the first season at all). Now nothing was explained about HOW this was even possible, but the fact that Misao saved Tomoharu and then turns into a berial doll only to get her body back in the end of the series, is really a load of bs. So Misao managed to grant a life and keep her own because she wasn't fatally wounded, it was Tomoharu and he was saved without any explanations on how through having Misao turning into a berial doll. Actually, the term berial doll wouldn't be correct either because they didn't have a Asura Machina at the time so what the F did happen?? Who knows. Who cares. The story is finally over and we can just consider that the last loophole of this dreaded series.
To recap, lets look at fundamental facts from Season 1.
1) Handlers are humans who controls a Asura Machina, which are inside those trunks Contradicted when Tomoharu was in the First World sealing the gate
2) Asura Machinas require Berial Dolls to work Contradicted by Tokiya near the final episodes of the series
3) Berial Dolls are human sacrafices(many of which were about to die from physical injuries but these are not required conditions) which power the Asura Machina using their soul. No Asura Machina uses more then 1 at a time first part contradicted by First World Tomoharu since his berial doll was a demon(Takatsuki), second part when both Misao from First and Second World sealed the gate in the First World.
4) when the Asura Machina uses all the energy from the Berial Dolls soul, the Asura Machina will cease to function and turn back into the suitcase
5)Once the Berial Doll is all used up, the sacrafice is dead(rather then just a ghost that was semi-living). The handler will become an Ex-handler indicated by the runes carved into their body
6)Demons who use magic without contracts supposedly start to vanish.
7)Demons use magic and can form contracts with Handlers to form Asura Cryin' as well as having a *Daughter
8)An Asura Cryin' is an endless loop of energy transfer between Asura Machina and Daughter resulting in lots of "power"
9)A stabilizer in conjunction with a Asura Machina will make the Berial Doll visible to "everyone"(for some unexplained reason, Berial Dolls can be seen sometimes even without one by regular humans as well as any handler and demon)
10)Daughters are summons formed after a handler and a demon form a contract
11)Ex-Handlers are immune to magic
12)Demons vanish when their handler uses the Asura Cryin'
In the end, the most important fundamentals this whole story builds on, were contradicted and ruined the anime. Such contradictions ruined what could've been a decent anime given that during the course of the second season, they used those fundamentals and built the story on it as well as clearing up all of the questions left behind from season 1. What about the plane crash? Well I suppose that was just a plot device which disappears from the series after its been used as well as majority of the possibly significant characters or events in the course of this anime.
My verdict? It was garbage. The fact that this anime was build upon an adaptation of a novel and manga disappoints me further. I mean if the novel and manga followed the same story, you could've changed its key flaws and turn it into a worthy anime.
Did KEY use the adaptation of the H-Game Kannon and turn it into a hentai? I believe not. They used their characters, built a story around it, AND GUESS WHAT? It was popular. Very popular. Why couldn't Asura Cryin' do the same? Could've been they were lazy, or they just assume it was popular enough so they couldn't give a damn. In the end, it was a major disappointment for me and nothing I say will change what has been set in stone.
At the beginning, Asura Cryin' is about a boy named Natsume Tomoharu, who is a "ordinary" kid who has a female ghost haunting him named Minakami Misao. We get very attention drawing shots right off the bat which draws us into watching it and guess what, it works. But little do we know how disappointing it will be for these flashbacks teasers to draw us into such a terrible broken unplanned anime.
By the end of the first episodes, we are filled with questions. What happened in the plane crash that almost killed Tomo? Why is Misao a ghost? Why has he been targeted and why the how in the hell did he end up with a giant machine(and what IS that thing!). Quite a lot of questions for a first episode and most of which will not be explained for another good 6 episodes or so(actually even all of the first season wont explain all of those questions).
What does get explained by the end of the first season(some of which was deducted through logic) is that:
Important Facts(which i plan on referring to)
1) Handlers are humans who controls a Asura Machina, which are inside those trunks
2) Asura Machinas require Berial Dolls to work
3) Berial Dolls are human sacrafices(many of which were about to die from physical injuries but this is not a required condition) which power the Asura Machina using their soul. No Asura Machina uses more then 1 at a time
4) when the Asura Machina uses all the energy from the Berial Dolls soul, the Asura Machina will cease to function and turn back into the suitcase
5)Once the Berial Doll is all used up, the sacrafice is dead(rather then just a ghost that was semi-living). The handler will become an Ex-handler indicated by the runes carved into their body
6)Demons who use magic without contracts supposedly start to vanish.
7)Demons use magic and can form contracts with Handlers to form Asura Cryin' as well as having a *Daughter
8)An Asura Cryin' is an endless loop of energy transfer between Asura Machina and Daughter resulting in lots of "power"
9)A stabilizer in conjunction with a Asura Machina will make the Berial Doll visible to "everyone"(for some unexplained reason, Berial Dolls can be seen sometimes even without one by regular humans as well as any handler and demon)
10*)Daughters are summons formed after a handler and a demon form a contract
11*)Ex-Handlers are immune to magic
12*)Demons vanish when their handler uses the Asura Cryin'
*(explained in the second season)
Seems like a pretty good set of facts to run a story on since we are dealing with fictional concepts. This would've made for a great fundamental base for the anime even but what were going to get in the second season is a lot more redefining and contradicting going.
Now If you watched both seasons, what happens is that the concepts of parallel universes kick in. This is going to be the beginning of all that redefining.
When Tomoharu, Misao, Takatsuki, and Nia all get sucked into Hagane's attack, they ended up being sent into the First World. For unexplained reasons(they just tell you it happens), Tomoharu turns into a demon and Takatsuki turns into a human. Basically when they went to the First World, humans -> demons and vice versa. Furthermore, later on Tomoharu not only uses his demon abilities, he summons his Asura Machina.
Now how is that possible when handlers are humans? Oh well maybe its cause he was a handler before he became demon, so I suppose its fair to ignore one inconsistency.
What happens shortly after in the first world arc is that Takasuki comes out of no where, and starts conjuring her demon abilities CLAIMING that she just lied. JUST LIED? Come on now we need a better explanation then that right? Maybe its just another bad inconsistency the anime had and we should ignore that too. After all the first world arc was nothing but ambiguity maybe we should forgive this terrible mistake.
Oh but it keeps coming, because upon sealing the gate that causes the first world to vanish, First World Misao supposedly used her own self as a source of energy for the Asura Cryin' to close the gate. So apparently all the rules are changing as we go now. Fact #3 states that an Asura Machina uses 1 berial doll. I guess the new fact is that an Asura Machina uses 1 berial doll unless the plotline requires otherwise.
Now lets back to right before they enter the First World because we missed out on an even greater inconsistency. At this point, we see First World Tomoharu get killed by Tokiya and the berial doll leaving Hagune was... not Misao? It was in fact Takasuki. What the F*** is going on now?!? Wasn't Takasuki a demon? That would mean that the Asura Machina apparently accepts demon sacrifices... unless Takasuki isnt a demon. But doesn't that mean First World Tomoharu never attained a Asura Cryin'? Well I guess that makes sense then... but wait, I thought you needed the power of an Asura Cryin' to achieve something like travelling between worlds.... okay now this is just getting too contradicting.
Another inconsistency with this First World arc, its Nia. She travels to the First World, but unlike how the rest of the 3 travelled 1 year into the future, she travels 4 years back and as a result, is 5 years older then before she entered First World. Okay maybe thats possible because were talking about time traveling here and shit happens. But upon returning to Second World, she remains 5 years older then she was before she left. NOW we got time paradox.
Now if you think thats as bad as its gets, not quite. Upon returning to the Second World, we finally get the casualty report. Here we find out that Susugihara's berial doll died(from speculation in the 7th episode, it gave off the impression but it was confirmed when they returned). Susugihara's Berial Doll Yukari had its own backstory in season 1 where they explained that Shuri is the twin sister of Yukari and that in a plane crash, Yukari was severely injured and was also life threatening. With no assistance to save her life, Susugihara used her as a Berial Doll to preserve her life, but reuniting with Shuri when they returned to Second World, it is then said that Shuri switched places with Yukari in terms of the berial doll sacrafice and that the person who we all assumed to be Shuri... was in fact Yukari. NOW HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE cuz this shit isn't funny. In the first season, we were all confused as shit when it came to determining who was Shuri and who was Yukari because IT JUST SO HAPPENS, that they LOVED to pretend they were the other twin(flashback to Season 1 when they had the Susugihara and Shuri backstory). Just when we established that Yukari was the berial doll, they tell us it was Shuri. But doesn't that mean that Yukari would've died from her life threatening injuries from the plane crash? Wait, Yukari also mentioned something about returning the body back to Shuri. Okay so that means that Yukari was indeed the berial doll, but nothing explains how they managed to switch places or how that was even possible. With no good or detailed explaination, this would be the best solution to settle this monstrosity of a inconsistency.
Moving on towards the end of the series(thank god) we go to Tokiya. At this point in the story, he steals 3 trunks with Asura Machinas, each had consumed the previous owners berial dolls and were now ready for use. Tokiya out of sheer desire to have Aki alive again, uses any means necessary to create a Third World, one with Aki in it. This is where the haymaker of all contractions occur. When he creates the gate, he opens all 3 trunks containing the Asura Machinas, and simultaneously controls ALL 3 of them, AND his own Asura Cryin' Hagane. Now your telling me... that not only can you control more then one, you don't need a berial doll to use them??!?!?!? By this point of the anime, nothing was desired more but the end(regardless of the conclusion).
So after the final battle, we get the fairy tale ending, BUT not before one final brow rising incident. Apparently there was a way to remove berial dolls from Asura Machinas and in doing so, they released Misao from the Asura Machina Kurogane. Now here is where it gets confusing. Misao turned into a berial doll to save Tomoharu prior to the beginning of Season 1 episode 1. Way back when we saw those flashbacks(the ones that got us to watch even the first season at all). Now nothing was explained about HOW this was even possible, but the fact that Misao saved Tomoharu and then turns into a berial doll only to get her body back in the end of the series, is really a load of bs. So Misao managed to grant a life and keep her own because she wasn't fatally wounded, it was Tomoharu and he was saved without any explanations on how through having Misao turning into a berial doll. Actually, the term berial doll wouldn't be correct either because they didn't have a Asura Machina at the time so what the F did happen?? Who knows. Who cares. The story is finally over and we can just consider that the last loophole of this dreaded series.
To recap, lets look at fundamental facts from Season 1.
1) Handlers are humans who controls a Asura Machina, which are inside those trunks Contradicted when Tomoharu was in the First World sealing the gate
2) Asura Machinas require Berial Dolls to work Contradicted by Tokiya near the final episodes of the series
3) Berial Dolls are human sacrafices(many of which were about to die from physical injuries but these are not required conditions) which power the Asura Machina using their soul. No Asura Machina uses more then 1 at a time first part contradicted by First World Tomoharu since his berial doll was a demon(Takatsuki), second part when both Misao from First and Second World sealed the gate in the First World.
4) when the Asura Machina uses all the energy from the Berial Dolls soul, the Asura Machina will cease to function and turn back into the suitcase
5)Once the Berial Doll is all used up, the sacrafice is dead(rather then just a ghost that was semi-living). The handler will become an Ex-handler indicated by the runes carved into their body
6)Demons who use magic without contracts supposedly start to vanish.
7)Demons use magic and can form contracts with Handlers to form Asura Cryin' as well as having a *Daughter
8)An Asura Cryin' is an endless loop of energy transfer between Asura Machina and Daughter resulting in lots of "power"
9)A stabilizer in conjunction with a Asura Machina will make the Berial Doll visible to "everyone"(for some unexplained reason, Berial Dolls can be seen sometimes even without one by regular humans as well as any handler and demon)
10)Daughters are summons formed after a handler and a demon form a contract
11)Ex-Handlers are immune to magic
12)Demons vanish when their handler uses the Asura Cryin'
In the end, the most important fundamentals this whole story builds on, were contradicted and ruined the anime. Such contradictions ruined what could've been a decent anime given that during the course of the second season, they used those fundamentals and built the story on it as well as clearing up all of the questions left behind from season 1. What about the plane crash? Well I suppose that was just a plot device which disappears from the series after its been used as well as majority of the possibly significant characters or events in the course of this anime.
My verdict? It was garbage. The fact that this anime was build upon an adaptation of a novel and manga disappoints me further. I mean if the novel and manga followed the same story, you could've changed its key flaws and turn it into a worthy anime.
Did KEY use the adaptation of the H-Game Kannon and turn it into a hentai? I believe not. They used their characters, built a story around it, AND GUESS WHAT? It was popular. Very popular. Why couldn't Asura Cryin' do the same? Could've been they were lazy, or they just assume it was popular enough so they couldn't give a damn. In the end, it was a major disappointment for me and nothing I say will change what has been set in stone.
Posted by setvenx | Feb 7, 2010 1:36 AM | 1 comments
Private Entry
April 4th, 2009
Whats your take on Anime?
I havent really thought about it much but ever since i got super ridiculously addicted to anime(to the point where i actually quit Dota.. although there were also other reasons why i stopped) i was always pondering on why it has become this way.
To me i suppose, anime is my gateway to escape reality completely and into a place where i wish that my life was ideally the same as some of the many animes i have watched. I guess since life isnt so perfect i was drawn to anime to seek this so called "perfection" without getting too unrealistic i suppose. Maybe thats why i like school-life/drama/romance (i mean who doesnt want a perfect high school life... not that i hated mine, i just didnt feel fully content with what i managed to do in the 4 biggest years of my life up until the present). Or maybe i really am just a fanatic over love but i was also wondering what gets other people so addicted to anime...
To me i suppose, anime is my gateway to escape reality completely and into a place where i wish that my life was ideally the same as some of the many animes i have watched. I guess since life isnt so perfect i was drawn to anime to seek this so called "perfection" without getting too unrealistic i suppose. Maybe thats why i like school-life/drama/romance (i mean who doesnt want a perfect high school life... not that i hated mine, i just didnt feel fully content with what i managed to do in the 4 biggest years of my life up until the present). Or maybe i really am just a fanatic over love but i was also wondering what gets other people so addicted to anime...
Posted by setvenx | Apr 4, 2009 9:58 PM | 2 comments