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To add to tragedy's comment on the Texh - Fire Punch comparison: the latter is basically a stupidly straightforward version of the former that doesn't hesitate to crumble into its own absurdity. Civilization in FP is depraved, they start using humans with powers as either pets or energy resources to power the city, and that is treated as a matter of fact, at times without "justification" or "ideology"; these people are fucked up because common values are buried under thick snow of eternal winter and you just gotta deal with it.

The comparison starts with how they put their characters through a "nihilistic" world, challenging them to their absolute mental and physical limits; the difference lies in how said is presented: FP is *fun*, drawing lots of inspiration from Western "crappy movies," one-upping itself with every chapter and unashamed to indulge on its vices that makes it progressively more absurd as it goes to the point comedy and tragedy is inseparable -- you know "the" Agni face? That's one of those moments. What's more, it also challenges story structure and conventions, seemingly wanting to break away from itself -- first it was a revenge story, then an introspection, then there's a cult and prophecy -- which I see as a way to reflect Agni's desire to persist where simply existing is painful and harmful (thanks to his fire) -- it's a work that speaks to the viscera instead of cerebral, an antithesis to Texh that, arguably, still carries roughly the same messages.

But of course, the comparison is not the only way to approach both; nor the first that comes to my mind when thinking about them. I saw FP as a hopeful and empowering work at heart because everyone there wants so desperately to *live* that they go through insane (and inane) means for it; I think there's a lot of nuance that can be taken from its point-blank in approaching that impulse. I should get on my Texh rewatch one of these days.

I feel GLT has more detailed background work and better use of filters. Texhnolyze's colors feel more washed out I guess.

I'd still say Doc's arc was among the better (and more understandable) ones. On the other hand, I just didn't get Kano. I also didn't get the significance of Ran besides supporting Ichise.

Yeah, you should definitely check out Fire Punch. It's just so wicked. Pretty much every single character has some strong (and understandable) justification for their actions, and yet each one of them gets a fate worse than death.

You know I thought about it a little and I felt that I didn't like Texhnolyze enough to consider it a favourite. I still very much like it, but there are certain stuff about it that I am not a big fan of. Firstly everything looks so dull. You take the anime adaptation of Girls' Last Tour as an example. Similar setting, yet looks so much better. Secondly there are some characters that I either don't quite relate to or outright don't understand. Yoshii, for instance. I get his philosophy, but at the same time, it's very abstract and I don't expect an average modern day person to think like that. You take Fire Punch as an example. There's this "villain" who burns down the protagonist's village. But when his motivation is revealed, it's so straightforward and obvious that his actions frankly feel very much justified. This simplicity is lacking in Texhnolyze. It's kinda too highbrow for me. Fujimoto on the other hand, is a writer whose characters have ridiculously simple desires and motivations. "I want to cop a feel", "I want to watch the Star Wars sequel", stuff like that. It's so ordinary, which is why I empathize with them and actually feel devasted when something bad happens to them.

Casshern Sins appreciation on friend updates? mandatorily acknowledged.

and hey, i'm planning to rewatch Texhnolyze before i get back to your comment. i wanted to make a blog of it anyway; that, and the continuation of ACCA 13 blog (saw your comment).

Sorry, lately I don't have much time because of college.

Personally the maintaining the career part is good on some parts (the drug abuse for example), but the resolution is very simple and he accepts his destiny a little to early compared to works like Kokkou no Hito and Yanagihara's arc in Sangatsu no Lion (his match against Shimada Kai).

Don't remember too much about the anime because I've seen in the season it aired (and the comparison with Joe is more on the takes in society and how the protagonist's mind works).

Uhm, my English vocab is kinda limited in some fields so I'm afraid it might not be the correct word to precisely describe the case. When you mentioned self-actualization, it reminded me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
For motivation to move to the next level, the previous one has to be fulfilled. My guess is human behavior will begin to collapse when they complete or reach the highest stage of this model. In other words, the more laid-back and carefree your life is, the higher the chance you become corrupt. This situation may happen to anyone but obviously, only in "overdeveloped societies", the extent is noticeable and conspicuous. Some examples I found are America, Japan, China, and many first-world countries where the birth rate continues to decline.

I can't think of any better explanation rather than just accept it as part of the plot lol. Like what we discussed, many elements from Texh are really vague and obscure. If you want to analyze an idea, you have no way besides making axioms and forming your analyses over these assumptions.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's really the author's intention or just the fan's speculation ngl.

Perhaps but to be more precise, I found behavioral sink to happen noticeably among overdeveloped societies. Some prominent behaviors listed as follows.

• Radical feminism
  
• MGTOWs
  
• Prefer personal grooming and introspective pursuits
  
• Neglect and mistreat offsprings
  
• Overt homosexuality
  
• Sporadic acts of violence

That's a great pun ngl

Like the part where I talked about chaos and order. Yoshii is a surface resident who came to the underground. As the above is a lifeless and apathetic place where there's no war or conflict surely, it's reasonable for Yoshii's psychopathic personality and behaviors.

Lain was broadcasted in 1998 when many people still hadn't got a single idea about the Internet. Nowadays, it just feels like some outdated creepypasta stories. At least, the visuals and aesthetics seem intriguing enough.

Ah this, no big deal since it's just a head-up for my later responses. Like the part where I agree with your thought of Texh being vague and unsatisfying in some aspects, or the part where I disagree when you think it missed out on some of Calhoun's points.

Overpopulation happens only within a confined space, like the cage in Universe 25. From what I recall from Texh, there isn't any piece of info showing the above-ground to be a country, a city, a specific area, or anything as such. Of course, considering its vagueness, I suppose Lux isn't overpopulated.

There're various forms of behavioral sink and the extent of them also varies between people. It's safe to speculate that Yoshii and Sakimura belong to the minority from the surface who still retain a bit of motivation. Sakimura broke out in a cold sweat after seeing some of the Shape coming to the above, Yoshii enjoyed observing people in Lux killing each other.

I guess an experiment still is an experiment in the end. Universe 25 doesn't truly reflect our society and so does Texh. It's a matter of persuasion and enjoyment. I also don't think Texh did attempt to be rhetorical or smth.

Welp, Texh is actually a huge leap of writing from Konaka. I recently rewatched Lain and there're many shits that I can't buy. Texh at least did better in many aspects. Anyway, if you have time, feel free to check out Haibane Renmei, its ambition is on a whole nother level compared to Texh and Lain.

When I watched Psycho-Pass, I couldn't help thinking Japan is a dictatorship country that was ruled by an always-right Sibyl System. According to the exposition dump, the system has been introduced and implemented for over 50 years. This interval is certainly sufficient to show people the advantage of it, considering Japan is also the only peaceful country left in the world. And as a result, a society in which your emotions and ideas are being surveilled all the time either befuddles or even more turns people apathetic, except for a few oddities like Makishima or Akane.

As I stated above, we need "chaos" besides "order" to initiate motivation and effort, and that motivation and effort are what push society forward. When I'm looking into chaos-generated factors, there're 2 prominent ones - peer pressure and demise. Of course, it doesn't have to be war or pandemic but they are just the best representative of said factors. Every cloud has a silver lining, as atrocious as they damage us, they on the other hand drive science and technology advancement more than others. I'm not a history nerd so I won't go far here but just drop some primary examples with the help of Google.
- The influenza pandemic in WW1 motivated the US to develop the flu vaccine. It's also in WW1 that cellucotton was developed to use as bandages for soldiers, not so long after they discovered cellucotton could be a great material to make sanitary napkins.
- During WW2, some British code-breakers build a machine to crack German encrypted military communications. This machine is known as Colossus, the world's first electronic digital programmable computer.
- During the Cold War post-WW2, Russia and the US competed to develop technology to claim their upper hand in military superiority, this includes nuclear weapons, satellites, space exploration, etc.
- Beginning in the 60s, the US Department of Defense invested in a project called ARPANET. The purpose was to develop the technologies and protocols necessary to allow multiple computers to connect directly to one another. This is the predecessor of what we refer to as Internet nowadays.
- The recent COVID pandemic probably has a strong impact on the acceleration of digital transformation.

It's ok, I don't mind long essays. It's nice to have an in-depth discussion about a subject matter that we are both fond of. I think there're some of your points I'd agree and there're some I can't bring myself to be convinced of.
I'd say yes but actually no. If you did some research on Konaka, you probably are aware that this old geezer loves conspiracy theories a lot, like in SEL ep 9 it's just 5 minutes straight lore drop. So yeah I'd say I'm certainly sure he wrote Texh with the intention of presenting Calhoun's experiment BUT not the conclusion. I'll provide more details later. I also didn't know about BadRespawn's one beforehand, I only read Texh's reviews via blogs but I did check the video after it was mentioned by you.

Konaka most likely just drew inspiration from Calhoun rather than trying to mirror the same thing as in Universe 25. Of course, it's reasonable if it did seem roundabout to you. But it's just Konaka thing lol.

SAC spends more time developing characters and settings while Texh kinda wastes tons of time to depict the atmosphere and progresses at a very slow pace.

Iirc, there's one episode after the Shape debut that explains the Class is a result of breeding through incest. I guess it solves this concern of yours.

The Utopia was intentionally designed to accommodate nearly 4000 rats at its finest but somehow, the population just peaked at 2200. It indeed sounds strange but it actually makes sense than Calhoun's conclusion in which overpopulation is the main cause.

Interesting question. Instead of focusing on the process, Texh only presents the final phase of the experiment. The surface world in Texh is a very odd, peculiar place where there's a mix between outdated technology and cutting-edge ones. My speculation is that those highly advanced technologies just stave off every death threat while those outdated ones simply can't stimulate them enough, this is also my idea when I said "loss of motivation" in my previous comment.
And you know, in fiction, smt like willing suspension of disbelief exists. As long as it doesn't conflict or confuse the theme then I guess it's pretty tolerable. For instance, in Psycho-Pass, it did give a brief history of the Sibil System yet that history is very shoddy and more of a make-believe. Like why the hell would people agree to let some computer shit scan their brainwave pattern to decide whether they're guilty or not, considering only a small amount of stress could possibly amplify your crime coefficient?

Yoshii is sadistic indeed as seen when he murdered a prostitute without changing his voice's tone or when he observed factions killing each other with a smirk on his face. Like Shougo, I suggest Yoshii's method is overly extreme and it might perhaps result from his said sadistic personality. But let's be honest, if you take at the history of our real world, what caused a country or a society to advance is either war or pandemic ironically.

Texh's vagueness also is one of pet peeve with this series. Just another day of Konaka geezer doing conspiracy theory things.

I can't comment much about this one as Texh tried to be a nihilistic show at its core.

Honestly speaking, that conclusion just sprang to my mind when writing a remark for it. And I also already wrote on the above that the series features two grand themes, transhumanism and behavioral sink.

In Texhnolyze, the texhnolyze technology was supposed to help humans attain a perfect form of themselves yet it turned out there’s nothing more after that. The surface people aka Theonormal instead of evolving into a different species reduced to no more than a hollow shell that’s apathetic to everything around them and on the verge of distinction. The answer for that degeneration process boils down to a very basic and simple reason – the loss of motivation. It’s a matter of fact that it needs motivation for a society to thrive and advance. Too much of strife and conflict will lead to annihilation but too much of peace and control will ironically beget self-destruction. There needs to be a factor besides order to maintain the balance and generate motivation. And that factor is none other than chaos.

So let’s go back to Texhnolyze, Yoshii is a person from the surface who came down to the underground city. He has already given up with the upper world and most likely wanted to prevent Lux from falling into the same state. He did that by causing chaos everywhere he went, mercilessly killing people or provocating factions into conflict. Note that he actually has fun while doing that, he also loves observing people. I don’t think Yoshii is initially a bad person but it’s probably just a consequence of behavioral sink that drove him insane at some points.

Talking about Texhnolyze and Yoshii’s actions, I’d like to draw some similarities between them and Makishima Shougo and Psycho-Pass. In Psycho-Pass, Japan has become one of the most advanced countries in the world with highly advanced technology. Like Yoshii, Shougo also thought of the current society under a so-called perfect judging system as dull and stagnant. Obviously, he also tried to initiate conflict and motivate people as he thought death and violence were necessary despite his actions being overly extreme that they just raised more chaos than order sadly.

Thank you for the kind words!! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the videos despite being unfamiliar with the topics. Since both videos are about relatively niche topics, part of the creation process was trying to make these videos accessible and easy to understand for those who don’t know what they’re about!

Thanks, man. Appreciated.

Well, there are ups and downs when it comes to safety in relation to bare knuckle boxing versus gloved boxing. A lot of the criticisms are not too dissimilar from gloved boxing versus MMA. In gloved boxing, the head becomes a greater target and while the hands are "padded," they're more so for protecting the hands. The gloves keep the hands safe, so you can throw much harder and regular punches at the head without breaking knuckles or other parts of the hand. In bare knuckle, the head is less desirable a target because it's so bony, leading to a preference for soft-body targets. You might throw the occasional hard punch in bare knuckle if there's the opportunity, but there would be more jabs and body blows. To protect their hands, they don't hit the head as hard or as often. The criticism when it comes to MMA is that boxing bouts can be LONG, each fighter accumulating a lot of blows. Both MMA and bare knuckle don't go nearly as long. The trade off is that the gloves spread the contact out and so you're less likely to get deep lacerations and certain kind of breaks/fractures, yet it's worse for the brain. Maybe gloved boxers do last longer, but they probably end up "punch drunk" more often. Gloved boxing did get a bit safer over time compared to early gloved boxing, though, for they tend to fight fewer matches and rounds now. Basically, more visible facial damage versus brain damage, though each type of boxing has the risk of both.

I don't see an issue with his ambition in S1. Of course, he falls into despair after the fight with Liu and a severing of ties with Sachio and co. There isn't any glory in it by that point, but he's seeking to recapture it with Mac. Even outside of boxing, there are a lot of occupations that confer a much higher risk to livelihood, though they offer other rewards and often something like glory. I mean, it kind of feels like you have to value what you're doing more than your life in some sense when it comes to a number of occupations. Fire fighter, war journalism, soldier, etc. Either way, a much different mindset than, say, a desk job.

I remember at least two people made videos like that who were into sword fighting. One was Skallagrim. Shadiversity doesn't look like the other one I remember.

It's hard to balance over-the-top shonen powers like this in a semi-realistic series about vikings. It's not as outlandish as most of them when you look at what the OP characters are capable of. No magic. Just great physical feats and Bjorn's mushrooms. It seems like it's meant to be realistic for almost everyone, but a handful of characters are insanely OP for seemingly no special reason. Makes it seem much hokier than a series with magic or a special discipline (like ninjitsu or something). I feel Vinland Saga needed some extra mythic component for me to more easily suspend disbelief or have the world feel well balanced...

Soma must have been Frictional's best game. The later ones that I didn't play don't look nearly as good to me, though at least the Bunker seems to be taking survival horror a bit further with its item management that is far more strenuous than popular ones like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, etc.

Dunno. I'll probably have to get back to you on Texh in the future. It's been a long time since I've seen it.

I agree that it would have been beneficial to have more details like that in relation to Sachio. Especially the being in Joe's shoes part from when Sachio is boxing and understanding Joe better, even if he still thinks what he did was bad. Would have been a nice way of softening him up a little before getting his ass kicked.

I'm curious what a boxing fan (the more knowledgeable or enthusiastic, the better) who isn't into anime would think of the concept and fight scenes. I used to watch a few medieval and weapon-oriented channels (like sword duels and gear), and I remember plenty of them would occasionally review films or anime, and a lot of them skewered Vinland Saga, for example. VS has some superhuman abilities, and they cut through chainmail and plate with swords, so... Though MB is much more plausible, I think. When you consider bare knuckle boxing versus the shift to the formal boxing of today, the comparison is possibly a bit smoother.

Is your change of opinion mostly because of themes and Ichise as a character when it comes to Texh? You're not even halfway on the rewatch, but I'm guessing your memory of what comes later is the main thing along with a fresh watch of early parts.

That's an informative write up, and I better understand your appreciation for it now. Have you considered writing a review for Nomad (or an extended note)? I don't think there's anything I disagree with when it comes to how the story was written and your interpretation. Self-harm? Yeah, in many ways it's as self-destructive as what Joe was doing, so they're strongly paralleled in some respects. They've both taken quite painful paths before eventual reconciliation.

Speaking of Ichise, I see you've soured on Texh. :O