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I guess, but I still think if his plan was primarily revenge it would make much more sense to plan George's moment of realization. It also doesn't make sense that he had already tarnished George's reputation by branding him a traitor and then pronounced him dead, so the only one who would know of George's ultimate tarnishing would be William himself. I suppose you can argue that that's enough for William. I can definitely see him letting the power get to his head, but I don't think this is necessarily indicative of self destructive behavior or wanting to see the world burn. In fact, if William is addicted to the power then wouldn't it make more sense that his primary goal was to use George's talents to get that power, rather than make George make a WMD just so he can revel in the irony? Even after George finds out, he still forces George to continue making the WMD. As in, his ambitions overall seem to stretch way bigger than revenge given all he's done and the scale of what he's done.

But anyway, I guess we can just leave it at that if you want. I'm just trying to make sense of it too, and see if I missed something.

Yeah, that is in fact what I was saying, and I fully acknowledge that it's kind of a stretch. It's perfectly reasonable for Jane in her situation to want to hold onto her family and it's not exactly a "flaw". It's not exactly a result of any particular idealism because anyone in her situation would react the same way, but what I was trying to say was that accepting the bad things that happen that she'll have to live with can help a lot with accepting death. Let's just say, it helps her deal with her grief by being able to let go and move forward which is something she had been having trouble with.

I was about to recommend Real Drive, which I'll write a review for soon. I see that you liked the thematic exploration in Gasaraki and the artistic expression of the relationship between man and nature in Arjuna. Real Drive is an episodic show that explores the relationship between man and technology in various aspects and then later relates man, technology, and nature. Other relationships include math and music, mind and body, and the digital web that we surf and the literal ocean. Towards the end it gets similar to Gasarki in that you have people with well realized ideologies fighting for what they believe in, and it's unclear who's right. As usual with Shirow's work, though, the characters and their relationships are not the strongest aspect. You'll have to tolerate the series' choice to focus on a bland schoolgirl rather than the actual people doing the scifi stuff. Her relationship with the old man might come off as creepy too. Since the schoolgirl is the main protagonist, the series is more like a slice of life scifi show rather than Ghost in the Shell style action, so it's slow. Fortunately the visuals and backgrounds are good enough to keep your eyes on the screen. Overall, I feel like it has enough creativity and depth in its ideas to be worth a look.

Well it didn't seem like he wanted George to ever find out, or at least, it didn't seem like he had plans for revealing it to him and then devastating him. All we know up to that point is that he was using George for his skills. It was only when Jane forced George to see the truth that Harry started reveling in his misery.

One of the major reasons why I don't think he wanted self destruction was that again, his primary or secondary goal was to get Jane to live in the city with him. And then there's his line in the final episode about wanting everyone's allegiance.

Yeah the George thing was pretty interesting to me. Because on the one hand, many would argue that he was totally innocent and can't be blamed for being led astray by his own brother. On the other hand, you can argue that George's naive idealism was a fault in itself that allowed him to be easy prey, because anyone who knows a bit about history would realize that when someone says there's a perfect city, that someone is probably a liar. On a tangent, this reminds me a huge debate I had with someone over a similar topic in Twelve Kingdoms, wherein the author blamed a character for being ignorant.

On another level, I think George's death was thematically and characteristically relevant because Jane had to get over his death. Her "idealism" was wanting to save everyone she cared about even when it realistically couldn't be done. I talked about all this in my review.

That's a really interesting thought. I saw it as, oh well, the illusion is destroyed now so might as well totally destroy it. For Harry, it's all or nothing.

The world is not enough, as they say. He wasn't satisfied with just having that group of people admire him but he wanted to make 100% sure he was at the center of everything. Makes sense to me in that it's an extreme way of thinking about it but not a disconnected way. I think if he just wanted revenge he could've done it with a lot less effort, no need to build a city and do all this. You're right in that the hologram of his mother appearing more than once would've been better for the audience to understand his motivations, though. Interestingly, the hologram parallels the illusion of perfection that he creates with Neo City.

Well I used the term utopia, but I don't think they did it in the show. It's not a utopia, but let's just say some type of idealized world according to William's ideals. I think what might solve your hangup is thinking of Neo City as a city of two halves, with the shady underground hidden from plain view. The shiny half is where people walk around in the clean streets, eat good food, and don't suffer from poverty. In this half he doesn't come off as the dictator that does whatever inhumane things he wants but rather the benevolent overseer, or else people wouldn't put up with it. What happens is that he makes a sharp divide between the shiny parts and the ugly parts and chooses to ignore the ugly parts because he's the type of only care about idealizing one part at the expense of everything else. It wasn't exactly a bastardized version--- on the surface it really was like the city of George's dreams and William allowed himself to just enjoy that part. If it was a bastardization or if William simply wanted control I don't think there would've been a need to create such an exterior--- he can rule with an iron fist, and I don't think the exterior was only for deception. It was important for him to feel or at least get the illusion of his perfect world. It seems to me that William was more of a realist/cynist than George but they were both idealistic in a way. William was just willing to do the dirty work necessary to achieve his ideals.

Yeah I too wonder if my criticism is based on personal nitpicks so I'm always afraid of being in my own little bubble.

Hmm, I never thought that the utopia was set up just for George's benefit. Harry's sister substitute was fooled as well, and as I said before, I don't know how much the other citizens knew. I don't think Harry's perfect world is based on the more practical side of things--- economy and machinery--- but rather his mommy issues. It's a pristine bubble where he controls everything and everyone likes him. That's why in the finale he says that he's going to create a world where everyone's allegiance is to him, so his motivation isn't to watch the world burn. The machinery producing machinery aspect is relevant to him only so far as the machinery helps him achieve that control. His need for control and perfection stems from his childhood longing to be the sole recipient of his mother's love and the lack of control he felt when he moved in with the Buxtons. Thus, I think William did truly want a utopia in a way, but it's just that he didn't care about those who suffered for it just like he didn't care about his mother's love being distributed to other people. Neo City was a way for this desire to be realized and for him to live in the world as he wanted--- that's why he had a girl substitute for Jane and that's why he wanted to bring Jane to the city in order to complete his vision.

He probably got the workers the same way he got Morilene--- he's one of those sick bastards that happen to be gifted with incredible leadership and manipulation skills, not so different from Hitler.

Sorry about being a bit argumentative lol. Don't get me wrong, I thought your perspective on it was interesting so I wanted to see if I was misinterpreting things. It's important to me that I recognize where my biases might be.

THAT's what I'm talking about man. I mentioned in my review how well it sets up the action-adventure journey so that you actually care about the characters and their goal, as opposed to Nadia where it's just introduce two characters with no background and thin motivations. It's pretty much just "m'Lady" .

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll keep it in mind.

Yeah, these long running anime force me to drop them for a while and jump around. As for me, as I said before I personally have a soft spot for kids' superhero series even if they have no ongoing storyline/depth/character development lol.

Duuudeee I was thinking about The Hatchet the entire time lol.

Yeah one of the reasons why I like kid's anime is precisely because I don't like otaku tropes so they feel more authentic. That is, if they somehow manage not to be big robot/fighting pets/magical girl etc. I suppose Patapata and Survive are kid's anime, but they're the Ghibli-esque subset of kid's anime, the type that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults.

It seems like Swiss Family Robinson is a World Masterpiece Theater production or something like that. I'll have to see if it has enough fantasy elements/action to keep me interested because while I have nothing against the WMT productions I just get really bored by mundanity. I was thinking of watching Porphy no Nagai Tabi because it had nice looking backgrounds though, and I know you've seen that one.

Idk what you're referring to when you say Papillon, because the only anime named that is rated 4.66 and it doesn't look like a survival anime.

Yeah maybe it's because I'm the type that likes reading Robinson Crusoe, but I thought the first half of the series was pretty well done. The characters are archetypal and the worldbuilding for a foreign world isn't as creative as you'd like it to be, but the series has an authenticity and earnestness to it. For once, when they promote power of friendship in anime, I actually believe them.

If you're rewatching the series, you can save yourself from watching the horrible second half, as my ending cuts it at episode 33. The edit starts at episode 32.

About Patapata, I hope you enjoy it too. Hopefully I didn't raise your expectations too much. Just like Survive it's a kid's adventure show.

Hey there, I know you watched Uninhabited Planet Surive four years ago, but if you still care/remember anything I'd like to get your opinion on the alternate ending I posted: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1923207&show=0#post1

Since I'm the one who did it, it's impossible for me to evaluate it objectively so I need another pair of eyes.

Yo

ssup

I remember that you were looking for an around the world action adventure story. Try Patapata Hikousen no Bouken if you're still interested.

The manga for Narutaru is a whole other animal. I remember thinking the anime was adapting an entirely different series compared to what all happens and how things play out in the manga. So if you still have any interest for the series, even after watching the anime, I'd highly recommend checking out the manga.

It only popped up for me recently. I fell for YnS with season 3 so I'm far more excited than I thought I'd be. Hinata has shaped up into one of my favorite anime girls so any excuse to see her get more screentime is fine by me.