First Impressions of Akuma No Riddle
Akuma No Riddle starts out following Tokaku, top of her class, 16 year old assassin in training. It seems that there's some sort of Lee Harvey Oswald School for Girls out there and she's rocking socks there. We then find out that she's being transferred to some elite mega school to kill one of her soon to be classmates. Other than the target, the rest of the class is also comprised of Mr. Oswald's little achievers. So it's an anime about a high stakes game of kill the guy with the ball.
Artistically, the anime is above standard. They do a good job using different lighting to capture the mood pretty nicely. The quality is pretty consistent and they manage to properly blend the characters into the scene so there's nothing that strikes you as being jarring or out of place. The only thing that I can honestly say that bothered me was that the irises of the characters seem to come to a point at the bottom making them look hexagonal.
The character designs are about average, the assassin girls have some variations of the standard female character tropes so common to anime but there's already a promise of a bit of depth to them that I'm hoping will be brought out in later episodes. Tokaku, if anyone, is the one most guilty of being a stereotype by having the militant hard-ass personality that is almost standard issue to female assassins in anime. To be fair, it's hard to escape using tropes since there's so many of them. Some of the costuming isn't quite what I would have thought of, particularly since they're all supposed to be wearing the same school uniform, but that doesn't stop a few of the characters from sporting this year's latest in street walker chic.
The plot starts out strongly waving its mind games flag, promising lots of psychological shenanigans and dark secrets to follow. I'm perfectly okay with this, that means that the characters are going to have depth and development and will at least try to feel human instead of everyone simply being a soulless walking weapon rack. Already by episode two there's some nice character growth and exposition being shown and some hints at what makes all of these girls tick. I'm liking where this is heading so far.
I'm giving this one a B+, losing its chance at higher because there's some things that are a bit overused, in particular I don't like the assassin school headmaster cum deathgame master, he just oozes cheese and the character archetype is beginning to become overused and worn. I will keep watching this one and am kind of excited to see where they take it. Watch it, it's pretty good.
Fred Ryan Slawson
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Anime Review #3: Atelier Escha & Logy
First Impressions of Atelier Escha and Logy
I came at this title cold, zero background information whatsoever. First thing I noticed was that it was just oozing kawaii, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it raises my suspicions. We start out with a child getting a bedtime story from a clockwork nanny and then by the time the intro is over she's 15. She probably had a boring childhood, so I can appreciate the fast forward. It's her first day on the job as an alchemist, though! Sounds exciting, eh? She gets tarted up in loli gear and skips off through kawaiiville to the town's R&D workshop.
Artistically, this is a very cutesy world, the girl, Escha is cute, the town is cute, the raccoon-cat-things are cute, and even the male character Logy is cute. Mostly, it's not poorly done, but the art in some places just seems too plain and feels somewhat of a rush-job. It's got a pretty nice looking opening sequence to go with it's theme song, which had me intrigued at first.
The voice acting feels like it's done by the same four people who voice almost every other anime ever since each of their voices are instantly recognizable as at least two other characters from other series. Severe typecasting, is all I'm saying. If it's not the same people then they've worked tirelessly to ensure that their mannerisms and speech patterns match identically with work done in other anime.
Plot-wise, oh boy. I was a little ways in before I had the distinct taste of RPG anime in my mouth. A quick trip to Wikipedia and sure enough this is an anime derived from the 15th game in the Atelier series. From the looks of it, they didn't even try to do anything but have some dude playing the game while somebody was sitting next to him taking fastidious notes to then scamper off and whip up an anime. Perhaps they made this anime by throwing a few scraps of metal, an otaku, and a lolita complex into a vat and waiting thirty minutes, because I kid you not, that seems to be how they do everything else in the show. From sciencing up an apple tart, to sciencing back together a part from a windmill, you just throw crap in the magic vat and, "hey presto!" Everything's hunky dory! For an RPG game, this works, and it's fine because of massive technical restrictions; in an anime, it's just lazy.
I'm giving this anime a D rating. It's just shallow and promises very little, even the floating ruins that they shoehorn in at the end of the episode fail to intrigue. I'd try the RPG, but I won't continue to watch through this anime. If you're a massive fan of the series and just have to consume every bit of media associated with it, watch this. Otherwise, just play the game.
I came at this title cold, zero background information whatsoever. First thing I noticed was that it was just oozing kawaii, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it raises my suspicions. We start out with a child getting a bedtime story from a clockwork nanny and then by the time the intro is over she's 15. She probably had a boring childhood, so I can appreciate the fast forward. It's her first day on the job as an alchemist, though! Sounds exciting, eh? She gets tarted up in loli gear and skips off through kawaiiville to the town's R&D workshop.
Artistically, this is a very cutesy world, the girl, Escha is cute, the town is cute, the raccoon-cat-things are cute, and even the male character Logy is cute. Mostly, it's not poorly done, but the art in some places just seems too plain and feels somewhat of a rush-job. It's got a pretty nice looking opening sequence to go with it's theme song, which had me intrigued at first.
The voice acting feels like it's done by the same four people who voice almost every other anime ever since each of their voices are instantly recognizable as at least two other characters from other series. Severe typecasting, is all I'm saying. If it's not the same people then they've worked tirelessly to ensure that their mannerisms and speech patterns match identically with work done in other anime.
Plot-wise, oh boy. I was a little ways in before I had the distinct taste of RPG anime in my mouth. A quick trip to Wikipedia and sure enough this is an anime derived from the 15th game in the Atelier series. From the looks of it, they didn't even try to do anything but have some dude playing the game while somebody was sitting next to him taking fastidious notes to then scamper off and whip up an anime. Perhaps they made this anime by throwing a few scraps of metal, an otaku, and a lolita complex into a vat and waiting thirty minutes, because I kid you not, that seems to be how they do everything else in the show. From sciencing up an apple tart, to sciencing back together a part from a windmill, you just throw crap in the magic vat and, "hey presto!" Everything's hunky dory! For an RPG game, this works, and it's fine because of massive technical restrictions; in an anime, it's just lazy.
I'm giving this anime a D rating. It's just shallow and promises very little, even the floating ruins that they shoehorn in at the end of the episode fail to intrigue. I'd try the RPG, but I won't continue to watch through this anime. If you're a massive fan of the series and just have to consume every bit of media associated with it, watch this. Otherwise, just play the game.
Short Story #1: Godslayer
Godslayer
Fred Slawson
Jack 3792 was born
to be a soldier. Not that there was anything special about his
physiology that made him a better warrior than your common man. The
difference was, when they decided to pop his embryo into the
incubator, he was part of a batch of cauldron-born that were to be
used for military service.
His earliest
memories were of fighting and the abuse used to make him do so. The
cauldron-born were never treated as humans, more of biomechanical
killing machines. They grew up cold and unloved, having no affection
from any save one another.
Humans were never
meant to live in such a way, and Jack was the first to raise his fist
in mutiny against the program managers. In their striving to create
perfect warriors, they created badly damaged people. Once Jack
started fighting, the rest of the cauldron-born in his company joined
him in rebellion.
A brigade of regular
volunteers was routed in the attempt to protect Major General Telwin,
the project lead, from the vengeful cauldron-born. When Jack finally
lynched the general from the main post flagpole, he followed the body
with a white flag; life had no further objective.
Jack and the
surviving cauldron-born were put on trial but their mutiny was
justified by the abuses they had endured. The state could not risk a
potential civil war spurred by action against the cauldron-born,
whose very existence was evidence of crimes against humanity.
They were drummed
out of the military as no commander would have them. They were given
a pension and a discharge, before being sent into the
incomprehensible world of civilians. Unable to integrate with the
rest of society, many took their own lives, others ended up in prison
for subsequent crimes. Others became mercenaries.
Jack and a few
survivors of his company volunteered to join a colonial fleet as
defense advisors. Sixty years frozen in transit and about as many
light years away, Jack was awakened to go fight for the colony on
some god-forsaken hell world for a few thousand tons of uranium.
His contract did not
specify that he was to fight, but the call of battle was a siren’s
song to the cauldron-born. They were used as a special mission team
carrying out all of the jobs that the conscripts and regulars could
not handle. This had been the routine for almost a year when his
team was called up to hunt a walker that had infiltrated behind the
front lines.
His team’s mission
was to kill a walker that everyone had been calling “Banshee.”
The pilot of banshee, not without a sense of the dramatic, had rigged
extremely high powered directional speakers to his machine to play
ancient recordings of what once passed for music among some people in
the 21st century. From recordings Jack heard, it sounded like
screaming, percussion, and harsh static that barely had a melody.
Played at around 200 decibels, it was like being struck by the blast
wave from an artillery round, unprotected personnel died horribly
from internal hemorrhaging. Banshee had been raiding outposts and
supply routes behind their main lines; generally spreading fear and
chaos across a good fifty kilometers of ground.
Using seismic gear,
they’d finally triangulated a fix on the Banshee’s location.
They planned to hit him in a canyon that would provide them plenty of
cover and restrict the walker’s movement. Pictures of the Banshee
told Jack that he was looking for a modified five meter tall class 2
freight loader. The plan was to use a drone convoy as a decoy to
draw the Banshee into their kill zone and then pound it into scrap
with anti-anti armor penetrator charges.
Jack watched the
updates from the seismics on his data feed. Banshee was making for
the decoy. Glancing over at the raw data feed from the seismics,
Jack’s heart nearly stopped.
“Christ kissin’
Krishna... Guys, this thing we got comin’ ain’t Banshee! It’s
huge! Stephen, with me. The rest of you start aiming those charges
to where they’ll hit at about eight and a half meters,” Jack said
as he grabbed his pack and started running.
“Shit! Jack,
you’re still going through with this? If that thing is double the
size of banshee, we don’t have enough charges!” Stephen 2421,
yelled after him as he tried to catch up.
“We don’t have a
choice, if we lose the convoy we’re stranded, by the time we get
back within comms range on foot, a warning will be too late,” Jack
reasoned.
“Even if the
walker doesn’t kill us immediately, it’ll hunt us down and make
sure we can’t report. We can scatter the convoy, load into one of
the trucks and head back.” Stephen said, putting his hand on Jack’s
shoulder.
“That’s just the
animal in you telling me it’s afraid of the dark,” Jack said
harshly.
“After all this
time, you’re still quoting General Telwin” Stephen answered.
“Daddy issues,”
Jack joked without laughing. He was watching the approach to the
rock formation through a pair of binoculars, “There it is. Class
four, maybe five. It’s not a hack job either. This bastard is a
battle strider. Get on the radio and tell them that they need to
reverse the angle on those penetrator charges. We’ll have to hit
it from behind to stand a chance at knocking it out.”
Jack uploaded the
visuals of the battle strider to his data unit and received an
identification match, this one was called ‘Tiamat.’ Jack
wondered if all walker pilots had such delusions of immortality.
They always seem to be named after a spirit or god.
Tabbing over to the
seismics, Jack saw that the convoy would soon be within range of the
walker. He sent one running wide to see if it would follow the bait
and delay the walker to give the rest of the team more time to reset
the charges. If they stopped the walker, they’d still have to ride
back, there was no assurance that the rest of the convoy wouldn’t
be damaged in the fight, so he kept that truck moving away from the
main convoy as a reserve. Seismics confirmed that the walker was
staying on an intercept with the lead vehicle.
Normally, on a
straight shot, a convoy of trucks could outrun even a large walker,
but the path in this area was winding and rough, so the walker had
the advantage. Luckily, a truck convoy is not something to waste
ammunition on, so the walker should be aiming to just stomp them all
into scrap.
Jack and Stephen
headed back to their posts above the kill zone. The others had
already managed to redirect the penetrator charges to strike at the
back of the walker. Jack worried that this attack angle would mostly
hit the arms since they were now striking at a diagonal. Destroying
the arms would remove a great deal of firepower, but just its bulk
and weaponry mounted to its central chassis it would be more than a
match for the rear security elements this far away from the front
line.
The penetrators
operated on a very old design that used an explosive charge to form a
molten metal spike that would zip through metal armor like paper.
The walker was still a very large machine that had composite ceramic
and alloy armor along with multiple redundant systems which could
absorb considerable punishment and remain combat effective.
Jack knew Stephen
was right, the charges they prepared for Banshee would not be enough
to bring down a true battle strider unless somehow a lucky hit
managed to knock out the pilot. It didn’t matter if it it was here
today, or next week when they found Banshee, or even ten years from
now on another rock fighting something else, Jack accepted long ago
that he would someday find his end in combat. There was only one way
to ensure a killing hit on the pilot.
In less than two
minutes their target would be in the kill zone. The charges were set
up so that they would be inert until armed by Jack and his crew.
They were rigged with infrared sensors that were mostly blinded off
so that there was a very narrow corridor in which they could detect
movement, this meant they could aim and fire the charges with a
surprising degree of accuracy. The only worry was being able to land
a killing blow with them.
Stephen watched
silently as Jack removed one of the penetrators from a four charge
array and then hoisted it up to their observation point. Jack pulled
a piezoelectric command detonator out of his pack and wired it to the
blasting cap.
“You’ll never
hit it. It moves too much,” Stephen said, assuming Jack was going
to try to score the lucky shot by himself. Then Stephen saw that
there was only about a meter of wire from the charge to the
detonator, “Suicide? It’s just one walker, we can evade it and
go report. They’ll bring in the air support and pound it into the
ground.”
“With its defenses
they’d never get close. We have to stop this thing here. We were
born to die in battle, might as well be today,” Jack explained, he
knew that the natural borns in the militia forces would be
slaughtered if they ever came into contact with a battle strider. He
looked on natural born soldiers almost as children, which triggered a
strong protective urge in him. A part of his mind knew that the
enemy were all natural born soldiers too, but he stuffed that
awareness down to keep it from interfering with his job of killing
them. Jack had been told all of his life that natural borns would
only fight under duress and that a cauldron-born was the only
organism that belonged on the battlefield.
“You’re wrong,
Jack--,” Stephen started to argue before looking back towards the
canyon approach, “It’s almost here.”
The trembling in the
ground meant that the walker was upon them. The convoy was in a cul
de sac that they could not escape from. This also meant that the
walker would have to somehow manage to turn around to escape as well.
The walker began his
charge on the convoy and tripped the sensors on the charges spraying
it with molten copper spikes travelling at nearly 6000 meters per
second. The charges had torn up the arms pretty badly but because of
the approach angle, none of them had managed to hit the main torso.
The pilot was
panicked by the attack and had no idea what had hit him. He started
thrashing about in the narrow canyon trying to get some sort of
visibility on the threat that had nearly crippled his arms. Raymond
7895 charged out from the cul de sac and started spraying rifle fire
at the walker, he was trying his best to aim for the pilot’s
canopy. Moving like it was, there was no chance for just one man to
punch through the several centimeters of crystalline steel alloy, but
with enough hits he could make it nearly impossible for the pilot to
see through.
Stanley 3245 started
filling the area with smoke canisters and then laid into the damaged
walker with his heavy machine gun. Stanley’s weapon was basically
the big brother to the M238 rifle that Raymond carried and fired a
round that was three times the grain weight. It still wasn’t quite
enough to take down a battle strider of this size, but it could do
severe damage given enough time on target.
Through the smoke,
Jack saw the rocket pod on the walker’s shoulder begin to track.
He sent out a call over the radio for Raymond and Stanley to take
cover. A rippling salvo flew out and carpeted the entire cul de sac
with clusters of airbursting submunitions. There was no answer from
Raymond or Stanley. The convoy vehicles were armored against anti
personnel weapons, there may be slight damage, but Jack figured they
should still be functional.
Jack turned to pick
up his charge only to see Stephen running with it towards the edge of
the cliff overlooking the wounded walker. Jack cursed him and yelled
for him to come back.
“You saved us all
once,” Stephen yelled as he leapt onto the walker and planted his
feet on either side of the cockpit canopy, “You deserve to be a
happy old man some day!” Stephen held the charge to his chest with
one arm and aimed it at the pilot’s canopy with his body before
detonating it with his free hand. He couldn’t just put the charge
down and set it off, it needed space between the penetrator and the
target for the spike to properly form.
Jack knew better
than to watch the charge detonate at this range and took refuge
behind a formation of rocks. When he came out there were only a few
grisly traces of Stephen scattered about. The walker was still and
pouring black smoke. Jack grabbed his rifle and ran over to where
Stephen had last stood. The canopy had not been punched through, but
it looked like the impact from the charge had caused some of the
inside of the canopy to spall shards into the cockpit. There was
movement inside. The ejection alarm rang and Jack dove back to the
cliff edge to get away from the propulsion wash from the rockets on
the ejection pod.
He watched the pod
fly up and then the explosive bolts popped to free the heavier parts
of the ejection system. What would come down would be the pilot’s
seat and a parachute. Jack estimated where the pilot would land and
ran to intercept.
When Jack reached
the landing site the pilot was barely standing. Jack suddenly felt a
rage come over him for the loss of his team which sent him charging
wildly at the wobbly-legged pilot. He tackled the pilot to the
ground and after an extremely feeble attempt to resist Jack was
mounted on top of the pilot who was pinned in a supine position.
Jack raised his rifle and brought the butt down into the pilot’s
visor, breaking it open. It was then that Jack saw the pilot. He
looked like a teenager, he had a shaved head and a delicate face.
Jack was suddenly ashamed, the better part of his soul knew that this
kid was in no condition to keep fighting. The pilot was passed out
and his jumpsuit was soaked through with blood.
Jack began to strip
the pilot out of his clothing to get to his wounds when he discovered
that the pilot was female. He pulled out a can of aerosol stitches
and began to seal her wounds before giving her an IV pack to combat
the blood loss. Thinking about the nature of her wounds, it was
likely that there were still shards of crystalline steel alloy in her
body which would require a hospital to remove lest they continue to
slice up her insides any time she moved.
He brought as many
of the drone vehicles that were still operational over to him and
loaded her pilot’s chair into one of the trucks. He securely
strapped it in after disabling the emergency rescue beacon. He then
gently placed her in the chair and using cord from her parachute tied
her securely to the chair to immobilize her as much as possible. He
loaded the route home into the trucks and rode in the back with her.
She awoke after dark
moaning in pain, there was no lighting other than a few status LEDs
on the equipment. There is a topical anesthetic in the aerosol
stitch foam that would help some, but the internal wounds and some of
the bruising caused during her capture would be hurting her. She
realized she couldn’t move and started to panic, bawling that she
could not move or see.
“Stop! You’re
making it worse!” Jack yelled over her terrified wailing. He
continued calmly once she stopped, “I tied you down to keep you
still. If you fight, the shards inside you are going to move around
and cut up your insides until they nick a major blood vessel or your
intestines. If that happens, I can’t do shit for you.”
“Why?” She asked
with tears in her eyes.
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you
kill me back there?”
“It’s
complicated,” Jack answered, in truth he was tired of killing kids,
but he was not about to bear his soul to an enemy soldier.
“What are you
going to do with me?”
“You’re a
prisoner. I’m turning you in,” Jack explained.
“They’ll hang
me,” She said despondently.
“Who’ll hang
you?”
“We’ve never had
a pilot come back,” the girl replied.
“Bullshit, you’re
too valuable for intel and prisoner exchanges,” Jack argued. Being
back in contact with the strategic network, Jack accessed the records
to check out her claim. Six walker pilots had been captured
throughout the war, and as she said, six were hanged for war crimes.
Because of Jack’s position as a defense advisor, the had full
access to the entire strategic network. He said nothing to her about
what he found. The thought brought back memories of an old friend
who was murdered under orders after being injured in a training
accident. Jack continued to do research in silence.
“What’s your
name?” The pilot asked.
“Jack Numbers,”
He replied, ‘Numbers’ was the common surname that cauldron-born
gave to the natural born. Normally, it would be a bad idea to tell
an enemy prisoner one’s name, but Jack was in an odd place inside
his own mind at the moment.
“I’m Lydia,”
She replied weakly, “Lydia Corwell.”
“How old are you?”
Jack asked, he wasn’t sure if he was prompted by boredom or
curiosity.
“Seventeen.”
“Christ. Really?
What are they doing putting kids into a goddamn battle strider?”
“I’ve ran a
loader suit in the freight yards since I was fifteen. They asked for
anyone who could pilot a walker to volunteer.”
“Why the hell
would you do that?” Jack asked in total disbelief. He always
believed that he was created because people were afraid to fight and
unwilling to send their family members to war. He did not understand
those who were natural born ever choosing to fight voluntarily.
“My little
brother, he got drafted to be in the infantry. I thought I could
protect him if I joined.”
“Jesus, How old is
your brother?”
“Fifteen,” Lydia
started to cry, “I’m scared for him. I want to see him again.”
Jack, for the first
time in his life had met a natural born that he understood. The
other cauldron-born were his brothers, he knew what she was going
through. He would fight as long as any of his brothers were still in
danger.
“What’s his
name?”
“Matthew,” she
said with a snuffle.
Jack accessed the
data link again and searched the records for a Matthew Corwell. Her
brother was listed among those killed in an engagement three weeks
ago. He kept this to himself as well, she was not in any condition
to receive such news.
“I’m sure he’s
fine, the lines have been pretty quiet lately. There’s talk of an
armistice coming soon,” Jack said, it was a lie, but if they were
resorting to arming the kids, the conflict would soon be coming to a
close.
“Jack, you didn’t
kill me, will you let them do it?” she asked.
“Godammit, just go
to sleep. You’re a prisoner, it’s none of my business,” Jack
growled. She had him where he was weakest. No matter the
conditioning he had gone through, Jack’s instincts were those of
protector, not a killer.
“I can’t sleep.
I… um… have to--,” she started to say.
“Not stopping. Go
in your suit. The uniform is trashed anyhow,” Jack interrupted.
He didn’t want to say that, but he would not allow her to get into
his head. If he was an ass she’d stop trying to be friendly with
him. It would be easier on his own nerves if she’d stop talking.
“You really are a
cauldron-born,” She replied almost inaudibly.
“What was that?”
“You’re
heartless,” Lydia answered louder.
“Yep. Cold and
dead inside.” Jack said dispassionately, she was tearing him
apart.
The rest of the trip
passed in silence. Jack had already issued his report across the
data link once they had come into range of the network. When they
arrived at the gate Jack’s convoy and prisoner were expected.
Normally, he would have dropped a prisoner off with the security
forces and let them deal with it. This time he guided the truck to
the combat support hospital. He cut Lydia free from her chair and
picked her up. She started to speak but he made a shushing sound.
The orderly at the
front desk saw he was carrying a wounded enemy soldier, “Sir, you
need to have a security element and we’ll need the authori--.”
Jack had placed her
on a gurney and had his rifle hefted at the low ready instead of
leaving it to rest at his side on it’s sling, it was an authorized
carry, but still a clear threat. “Corporal. You’re going to shut
your goddamn mouth and ready a trauma pod,” Jack said cutting him
off.
“Down that hall,
take a right third door on the left, pod number seven,” The
orderly rattled off with a shaking voice.
“Good, thank you.
I’ll be back to fill out all the paperwork once the bot starts to
work on her. Sorry, I’ve had a rough day, I lost some guys out
there,” Jack said trying to smooth over the situation. He was
technically doing something that could get him in a lot of trouble,
but having just lost teammates nobody would dare say anything to him.
It was understood that you give somebody space and stayed out of
their way when they were decompressing from a mission.
Jack followed the
other medics with her and watched as she was loaded into the trauma
pod. It was a self contained full function trauma suite with a
robotic surgeon. It was a miraculous life saver with almost double
the success rate of a human surgical team under similar conditions.
There was no better care on-world than a trauma pod. He returned to
the front desk and filled out the paperwork. The orderly was quiet
and sullen the entire time, he probably felt bad that he had
obstructed Jack in the first place, a lot of the rear echelon types
feel a mixture of awe and shame when around those who do the actual
fighting.
After filling out
the paperwork, Jack returned to the room where the trauma pod was
working on Lydia. The orderly started to say something but swallowed
his words after opening his mouth. Jack knew that he wasn’t
supposed to be back there, let alone with a weapon, but it just
didn’t matter right now.
The pod was doing
fast and thorough work. The technical team managing the pod room
gave Jack a wide berth. One of them approached him, “Sir, Colonel
Wynar is looking for you up front.”
Colonel Wynar was
the executive officer for the base commander, General Skallard. Jack
knew the Colonel was going to be questioning his abstractions of
protocol. He went to the front to meet the colonel.
“Mister Numbers,
this isn’t like you. Why are you taking such personal interest in
your prisoner?” The colonel asked.
“I want to make
sure things are done correctly, Sir,” Jack replied.
“Have there been
problems before? The security have always handled prisoners, you are
expected to debrief the battle control officer on duty when you
return.”
“I would have made
it there,” Jack answered as he yawned, it was not a purposeful
slight, he was really exhausted.
“I’m going to
let this slide this time, you’re tired and you’ve just had a hell
of a mission. That pilot had better go to security right after the
hospital clears her for the cage,” The colonel demanded.
“Tell me, what do
you plan to do with her?” Jack asked.
“What right do you
have to ask?”
“The other pilots
we’ve captured have all been executed. I didn’t bring a prisoner
back to be lynched,” Jack replied.
“It’s none of
your concern, you’re a soldier, you do your duty,” the colonel
answered.
“I’m a defense
adviser in my contract, I’m actually more of a mercenary. I’m
not technically under you. In fact, I have the right to choose the
replacements for my lost team members. I’ll be taking the pilot.”
“Enlisted or not,
I’ll have you shot for treason, nobody gives a damn about a corpse
with a contract.”
“Colonel, I’m
going to forward an excerpt of my military service record from the
North American Commonwealth to your data link,” Jack said,
uploading the details of his mutiny.
“Killing me won’t
get you what you want, and before, you had an entire company of
cauldron-born on your side.”
Jack pulled his
sidearm and fired it next to the colonel’s head. It was an old
style cordite automatic chambered in 10mm. The colonel cupped his
hand over his ear and winced in pain. Jack had likely ruptured his
eardrum.
“Jesus Christ,
Jack you’ve lost your goddamned mind!”
“There was a
sniper. Allow me to deploy the security drones and set the facility
to defensive stations,” Jack said, the sirens blared and a sortie
of VTOL strike drones took to the air a few hundred meters away.
This was a raw show of power. Jack had been given full access to the
drone command server while preparing the convoy and left himself an
accessway for the sake of future convenience. There wasn’t so much
as a coffee maker on the entire base that he couldn’t directly
control. “I’m invoking my rights to equip my team from salvage
and will be commandeering Tiamat and inducting Lydia Corwell into my
advisory team. Furthermore, I will fulfill my contractual duties
from orbit aboard the command ship,” Jack declared as if it were a
spell and saying it would make it so. He had no intention of putting
Lydia back into the battle strider, but such a piece of hardware is
worth a small fortune.
“What makes you
think it’s going to be so simple?”
“Because you’re
going to sign the authorizations and keep your mouth shut or you’re
going to die for a stupid reason,” Jack growled.
“Sir! Combat
stations have been ordered! We need to get you inside, we heard
shooting close by!” The orderly called out from the doorway.
The colonel looked
at Jack, then the gun, then the orderly, and finally back to Jack,
“I’m coming,” he said with resignation in his voice.
Jack uploaded the
authorization orders he needed to the printer in the orderly office
and printed off the appropriate number of copies. The colonel
muttered under his breath as he signed them and handed them back.
Jack uploaded a copy to the strategic network and disseminated it to
all necessary stations.
“Why Jack? Why
this one? Why now?” The colonel asked.
“It’s
complicated, just let it go,” Jack answered. He gave the all
clear command to the drone server and walked back into the trauma
pods to check on Lydia.
She was resting from
her surgery. Jack settled down to go to sleep in one of the chairs
in Lydia’s room. He told the colonel if the data feed from his unit
went dead the drones would rampage. It was mostly a bluff, the
drones would only kill the colonel.
The colonel’s
questions still rang in his head as he waited for sleep to overtake
him, he didn’t know why he’d done it, perhaps it was instinct, or
maybe because she was the only link he had left to all of humanity.
He dreamt of General Telwin, it was a nightly thing, so many years
ago and he still re-lived it in his dreams. He killed the man, but
would never be free of his ghost.
“Jack, is that
you?” Lydia asked from her bed, waking him up. There was daylight
coming in from the skylights. Jack realized Lydia had not been able
to really see him until now.
“Yeah.”
“You look younger
than I thought you would. Why are you here?”
“It’s
complicated,” Jack answered.
“You use that a
lot, don’t you?”
“Only recently.
Usually, what I do makes sense.”
“The staff have
all been really cautious around me, and really nice. What did you
do?”
“I hired you.”
“You did what?”
“I hired you onto
my team. I don’t expect you to fight, or even follow me, but they
can’t touch you as long as you’re on my crew.”
“Why?”
“I told you, it’s
complicated,” Jack said. He stood up and found a tray of food laid
out, there was another one at her bedside that she apparently had
been working on. He picked up the “fruit” paste packet and bit
off the end.
“So what happens
now?”
“We go to the
command ship and wait out the end of the war. I’ll do my job
advising and you’ll make coffee or something. After the war, I’ll
sell Tiamat and split the profits with you, then you do what you
want,” Jack answered, it was one of the few things from the past
several hours that he had figured out.
“Will that work?
Will they just let you do that?” She asked.
“I have
insurance,” Jack replied.
“I don’t
understand, why you’re doing this for an enemy?” Lydia wondered
aloud.
“Did you join to
kill me or to protect someone?” Jack asked her as he massaged a
bit of fruit flavored paste out of the packet.
“I did it to
protect somebody,” She replied thoughtfully.
“Me too, but
they’re all gone,” Jack said through his food.
“I’m sorry,”
she said quietly.
“War is hell,”
Jack said after a few moments of thought. He tossed the half eaten
packet onto the tray. There was a lot more he could have said, but
philosophy lectures were not his way. He kept his feelings on the
matter to himself. In a way, she had freed them, they were going to
keep fighting until they died in battle, regardless of when it
happened. Because of her, they had finally found the peace they had
always deserved. Jack’s eyes watered and a tear rolled down his
cheek, he turned his back to Lydia and stared out the window. He
didn’t believe in gods, but he said a prayer to Stephen and the
rest, “Wherever you are, I hope it’s not too dark.”
Games to Play in the Dirt #2: RPG
Games to Play in the Dirt #2: RPG
A role playing game (RPG) is basically a collaborative story with each player being assigned to dictate the actions of a character. One of the players serves as a narrator to tell the story and arbitrate the rules. Generally, these games are played on a tabletop and require a few hours of initial setup and somewhat intense record keeping. This is a quick and dirty RPG system that can be used when short on supplies or lacking the collection of books that most RPGs require. This can be played at home or anywhere the mood to play a game happens to strike. Expect to play for several hours as resolving an entire story can take some time.
-1: The target is disrupted, meaning their next unopposed action will require an additional degree of success, or if an opposed check, the first degree of success for the next action will not count.
A role playing game (RPG) is basically a collaborative story with each player being assigned to dictate the actions of a character. One of the players serves as a narrator to tell the story and arbitrate the rules. Generally, these games are played on a tabletop and require a few hours of initial setup and somewhat intense record keeping. This is a quick and dirty RPG system that can be used when short on supplies or lacking the collection of books that most RPGs require. This can be played at home or anywhere the mood to play a game happens to strike. Expect to play for several hours as resolving an entire story can take some time.
Ages: 8+
Players: 3-6
(may be played with more, but some players may feel left out if the
group gets too large.)
Materials
-Writing materials, one sheet of paper and one pencil/pen at the very
least.
-Dice one to five, the more the better. In lieu of dice, a hexagonal
pencil with numbers written on the sides may be used. For a
dice-less variant see below.
The Narrator
Among the playgroup, first see who is willing to narrate. The
narrator should have a basic idea of a setting, an antagonist, and an
objective for the players to interact with. If no one player has an
idea, then vote amongst the group for these elements of the plot.
The narrator will then define what types of characters will fit into
the story being played out. The player with the most experience in
RPGs or storytelling would normally be a good choice to be the
narrator, but the desire to perform as a narrator is often more
important than experience. The narrator should be ready to answer a
player's questions about the setting and current scene. If asked
something that is not part of the predetermined plot, the narrator
can arbitrate immediately or assign responses to a die roll and leave
it to chance.
Character Setup
Characters will have three governing statistics, a job, and a hobby
to determine that character's strengths. The statistics are mental,
physical, and social. The job may be any money making activity that
the narrator permits given the setting. The hobby may be any special
area of interest the character has that the narrator permits.
Normally a hobby is much more specific than a job.
Statistics
Players will write the letters M, P, and S on their paper standing
for mental, physical, and social, respectively. After each letter,
the player will assign a number between one and five to each
statistic, the total of all three added together cannot be more than
ten. These numbers represent the number of dice that are rolled by
the player in order to determine success or failure, so it's unwise
to have lower than a two in any of the statistics and a three
provides a good chance of success.
Job
The job is whatever a character primarily does for a living. This
job will give a bonus to the character whenever it attempts to
perform an action using skills associated with that job.
Hobby
The hobby is something that a character does frequently, often for
entertainment, but not as a primary means of making money. The hobby
will give a lesser bonus than a job to a character whenever it
attempts to perform an action using a skill associated with the
hobby.
Items and Equipment
A standard feature of many RPGs collecting items and equipment that
will aid the character throughout its adventures. It is up to the
narrator to dictate the effects of any items or equipment that are
collected by the characters. The players should write down any items
they find that they wish to keep. Depending on the type of storyline
for the game, the narrator may allow the players to freely equip
themselves during character creation, or the narrator may require the
players to roll an unopposed mental check for some equipment that
does not seem like the character would normally have. The difficulty
for an item check is dependent upon how unlikely the character is to
have such an item.
Play
The narrator will introduce the story and explain how the characters
have come together. Using non player characters, the narrator can
interact with the players to give them objectives, hints, or
assistance on their way. The narrator will go first by describing
the location and then dictating the actions of the non player
characters involved of the scene. Turns will proceed clockwise from
the narrator's position giving each player a turn to act. When every
player has taken a turn a new round begins with the narrator.
Time
Just as in a novel, the flow of time is dependent upon the amount of
action taking place at that point in the story. If the group is in a
situation where they will be safe for a relatively long period then
they may perform actions that take advantage of that extended period
of safety. If there is a lot of action going on, then each turn is
what can be done within a few seconds. In combat a turn is generally
a short move and a single attack. All actions in a round are
considered to be performed simultaneously, therefore if a character
is attacked and incapacitated that character may still perform its
action for the round.
Holding an Action
If a character is not ready to act on its player's turn then the
player may declare hold. If hold is declared then the player may
wait until the end of the round to choose an action for the
character. This is valuable in allowing a character to better react
to a developing situation.
Resolving Actions
Whenever a player elects for his or her character perform an action
for which there is a reasonable chance of failure, the player will
roll a check. There are two types of checks, opposed, and unopposed.
With either type of check players will roll a number of dice equal to
the acting character's stat value for the stat that the narrator
judges is most appropriate to the action. Under normal circumstances
a result of five or greater on a die counts as one degree of success.
Sixes are counted as a degree of success and get to re-roll, this is
repeated so long as sixes continue to be rolled. If the action is in
line with the character's hobby, fours are also counted towards
degrees of success. If the action is in line with the character's
job, threes or better are counted as a degree of success. When the
roll is completely resolved the player will report the total degrees
of success to the narrator.
Opposed Check
An opposed check is any time a character is attempting to perform an
action while another character is actively trying to interfere with
their chance to succeed. Most often this kind of check is seen in
combat, however it is not limited to physical contests or even
contests using the same stats. Each character will roll a check
based on the narrator's judgment of which stat is most appropriate to
the action. If one character has more degrees of success than the
other, then that character's action is resolved if there were enough
degrees of success to complete that action as an unopposed check. If
both characters have equal degrees of success neither action is
completed. A character can only oppose one other character's action
per round as all actions are considered to be simultaneous unless
they use their primary action as well to oppose.
Unopposed Check
An unopposed check is made against the inherent difficulty of a task.
The narrator will classify the difficulty of an action requiring a
check as simple, average, difficult, hard, or nearly impossible. The
narrator is free to arbitrate differing difficulty levels for the
same task depending on the circumstances surrounding the performance
of the task. A simple action requires one degree of success, two for
average, three for difficult, four for hard, and five degrees of
success for nearly impossible.
Combat
Fighting between characters is resolved as a variant of an opposed
check. As all actions are simultaneous which character goes first
does not normally matter. The exception is the very first round in
which combat happens. If a character is not capable of detecting an
attacker before the attack is declared then the attacker may strike
with impunity on that first round.
Damage
As a character fails to protect itself from hostile actions there
will of course be negative effects on that character. Damage is
dependent on the difference in the degrees of success between the
hostile actor and the target.
-1: The target is disrupted, meaning their next unopposed action will require an additional degree of success, or if an opposed check, the first degree of success for the next action will not count.
-2: Target character is controlled, meaning that the character is
both disrupted and may only act in reaction to attackers in the next
round.
-3: The character is hurt, not only suffering disruption and
control, but also the narrator will roll a die to determine which
stat is reduced by the injury, that stat will remain reduced by one
point until the end of the combat.
-4: The character is injured, the effects are similar to being hurt,
however the narrator rolls twice to assign stat reductions. Also an
injury persists until the end of the scene instead of the particular
combat session in which it occurred.
-5 or more: The character is wounded. This has the same effects of
being hurt, however the narrator rolls three times plus one for each
degree of success difference beyond five in order to assign stat
reductions. Wounds do not heal until the end of the game session.
If one of a character's stats is reduced to zero that character is
incapacitated, meaning it is either unconscious, crippled, or in such
pain that further resistance is impossible. Until the damage that
caused the stat loss is healed, an incapacitated character may not
declare an action or oppose an action. If all of a character's stats
are reduced to zero, that character is dead.
Dice-less Variant
If dice or a hexagonal pencil cannot be acquired an alternative is
for the player and the narrator to each to write down a number
between one and six for each die that would be rolled for the check,
including those to be rolled by another character attempting to
oppose the check. The player and narrator should do this in secret
from one another and make sure to be clear as to which set of numbers
is for which player's roll. The numbers written by the narrator and
the player are then added together. The sum of the two numbers is
divided by six and the remainder plus one is the result of that
particular die roll. As before sixes will continue to re-roll.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Cyberpunk Plot and Setting Concept
A Tower to the Heavens
In the early 2010's
carbon nanotubes opened up a new chapter in materials research which
stood to rewrite the books on engineering and what feats of
construction were possible. One of the most ambitious projects, and
one considered necessary to the long term survival of our species was the space
elevator.
It was well into
the 2040's before many of the central technologies came to a maturity
to be implemented on the industrial scale which would be required for
a space elevator. By 2050 the groundwork had begun near Manokwari,
Indonesia. Almost immediately, the problems caused by a snarled and
convoluted language barrier dragged the project to a near halt.
There were some thirty languages local to Manokwari, and another
dozen tongues imported by the various engineers and scientists from
around the globe. It was rare that more than two or three people on
a work team could understand each other.
To overcome this
obstacle, a system was developed that could interpret the desired
meaning of a speaker and then transmit that data to the listener to
be translated into the listener's own language. It was not a perfect
system, as some idioms and other abstractions used in language did not
translate very well. However, for the simple giving and receiving of
instructions, the system saved the project. Soon those equipped with
the devices changed their speech patterns to purge out any of the
untranslatable phrases and concepts.
Within twenty years,
progress on the project moved forward at a fantastic pace and the
entire region had been equipped with the translation system from the
age of four. There were some, however, who despised the loss of
culture from language and were fearful of the results of a critical
failure in the space elevator system. They started with protests and
eventually there was violence.
Fifty years into
the project and the space elevator was well into its final stages.
Around its base had grown an international community of people who
had three or four generations living together inside a militarized
exclusion zone to protect the project from terrorist attacks. Due to
political pressures and their estrangement from their native peoples,
Indonesia was forced to declare the new city to be an autonomous
protectorate in order to ensure continued benefits from the project.
The feared
terrorist attack finally came, but was aimed at an unforeseen target not within the city.
The corporation that had been administering the translation system
was the target. A swarm of economic, physical, and
electronic attacks crippled the company and finally a virus pushed a forced update to the
firmware of every single implant. The virus scrambled the translation system into undecipherable
gibberish.
The population had
become so dependent upon the system that every single person had
their own dialect of what was once a common language among their
people. As there was no need to correct the linguistic errors of
children equipped with the system, nobody ever had. Everyone assumed
that their children were speaking as they were, but instead, each
individual spoke in a severely mutated form of their mother tongue.
The terrorist attacks destroyed the equipment already implanted and
lacking the specifications for the system, it was nearly impossible
to replicate without the research documentation that was destroyed by the attacks on the
defunct corporation.
With the breakdown
of communication, so too came the break down of logistics, people went
hungry, many starved. Riots broke out, and gangs formed from people
who could somewhat understand one another in order to protect
themselves and secure vital resources for their families.
The
security forces in the autonomous zone were some of the
absolute best trained and equipped in the world since there was so much at stake in the project. They refused to allow any international intervention into the
situation as they feared to lose their stake in the profits of the completed elevator. Not only were they fully ready to defend the autonomous
zone, they also held the world economy hostage with the fate of the
space elevator. Were the project to fall into catastrophe, the
quadrillions of dollars, yen, yuan, rubles, and euros that had been
invested would vanish overnight, bankrupting every single first world
country, which would then cascade across the globe.
Intelligence
agencies and mercenaries from around the world began flocking to
the area in order to cash in and protect the interests of their home
nations. The stakes are the world and the future of mankind. In the autonomous zone, life
has lost its value and bitter turf wars are fought without media coverage on the streets every night. The problem has spilled out from the autonomous zone with the fires of war and insurrection being lit across the planet. Civil order has decayed due to the uncertainty over the project which has already started to send world markets into a sharp decline.
The cynics laugh bitterly at the
hubris of those who named this project. It is called Babel.
Anime Review #2 Knights of Sidonia
Knights of Sidonia: First Impressions
I'll have to admit, I was a little dubious of this one when I first saw that it had an anime. I'd tried the manga and found the pacing and action nearly impossible to follow. What I got from the anime was a massive improvement. While it seems to keep with the story told in the first issue of the manga, it does so in a much more cohesive way and I found it pretty enjoyable.
The art style is sort of a flattened 3D animation for the characters in full 3D environments, the visuals at times seem like they may be a bit dated, but it seems to work for this project. There wasn't a massive amount of showing off the animators did in the first episode, but there were some well composed sequences that were visually appealing.
Story-wise, it's a deep space mecha vs. tentaclebeast setup with the Sidonia from the title being the supermassive ship that the characters live on. The main character seems to be a bit of a stereotypical chosen one from a strange land, but they seem to make it fit into their story somewhat comfortably.
Character design does leave a little bit to be desired, there's the shy, quiet type main character, then there's the privileged fancy boy with the long hair that seems like he will be the rival, a couple of hermaphrodites with bowl cuts, and about thirty girls with pink hair. It's actually a bit difficult to differentiate them at this point.
Overall, I'm actually interested in going forward with this series, I found it much easier to follow than the manga and it managed to leave me wanting to see more. Hopefully the pink hairs and the bowl cuts will grow personalities that set them apart, or I'll get used to the minor differences in how they're drawn. Time will tell whether this one is going to be an enduring entry into the mecha genre, but I'll give it a watch for awhile.
I give this anime a C+ ranking, but that could change as the series develops. There were points where the story seemed to rush by too quickly, he's discovered and then thrown into one of the most revered mecha on the ship within the span of a day. So far, character development hasn't been much of a consideration, it's only the first episode, but I'm having difficulty feeling anything for the main character. Finally the series has little to appeal to non mecha fans, this was the key element that lowered it from a B- to the C+ it has. We'll soon see how well this one holds up. Watch it if you're into mecha and space battles, otherwise, you'll have difficulty connecting with this one.
I'll have to admit, I was a little dubious of this one when I first saw that it had an anime. I'd tried the manga and found the pacing and action nearly impossible to follow. What I got from the anime was a massive improvement. While it seems to keep with the story told in the first issue of the manga, it does so in a much more cohesive way and I found it pretty enjoyable.
The art style is sort of a flattened 3D animation for the characters in full 3D environments, the visuals at times seem like they may be a bit dated, but it seems to work for this project. There wasn't a massive amount of showing off the animators did in the first episode, but there were some well composed sequences that were visually appealing.
Story-wise, it's a deep space mecha vs. tentaclebeast setup with the Sidonia from the title being the supermassive ship that the characters live on. The main character seems to be a bit of a stereotypical chosen one from a strange land, but they seem to make it fit into their story somewhat comfortably.
Character design does leave a little bit to be desired, there's the shy, quiet type main character, then there's the privileged fancy boy with the long hair that seems like he will be the rival, a couple of hermaphrodites with bowl cuts, and about thirty girls with pink hair. It's actually a bit difficult to differentiate them at this point.
Overall, I'm actually interested in going forward with this series, I found it much easier to follow than the manga and it managed to leave me wanting to see more. Hopefully the pink hairs and the bowl cuts will grow personalities that set them apart, or I'll get used to the minor differences in how they're drawn. Time will tell whether this one is going to be an enduring entry into the mecha genre, but I'll give it a watch for awhile.
I give this anime a C+ ranking, but that could change as the series develops. There were points where the story seemed to rush by too quickly, he's discovered and then thrown into one of the most revered mecha on the ship within the span of a day. So far, character development hasn't been much of a consideration, it's only the first episode, but I'm having difficulty feeling anything for the main character. Finally the series has little to appeal to non mecha fans, this was the key element that lowered it from a B- to the C+ it has. We'll soon see how well this one holds up. Watch it if you're into mecha and space battles, otherwise, you'll have difficulty connecting with this one.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Anime Review #1: Blade and Soul
Blade and Soul
This is a new anime that is only on its second episode so far. It's based on Korean game developer NCsoft's MMORPG that shares its title. There is no need to be acquainted with the game in order to follow the anime.
The show follows Alka, a Sword Clan assassin who is, curiously, not armed with a sword. She does have daggers, and she's pretty slick with them. The combat sequences are nicely done and though they avoid lobbing entrails at the screen, the animators aren't afraid of a little red spray. There's much ado made by the other characters about her always slashing throats as it seems this is a technique only known to the sword clan. Eh, sure fine okay, we'll go with it.
The art style is quite competent and there is a good degree of detail put into the world and the character designs. I immediately felt that the world tastes very Final Fantasy in that there's a blend of industrial age weapons with a mostly medieval technology base. The voice acting is well done and the voices do seem to fit the characters decently.
Back to the character designs, they do feature heavily in the fan-service department on the costume designs for the female characters. One of the mercenaries Alka meets is rocking a skimpy bikini top. The merc seems to know she's doing, so it's certainly being worn for its top of the line protective qualities. There's several minutes of the first episode dedicated to shots of Alka's tush under somewhat dubious pretenses. Eventually, another lady sees to it that she is properly attired in a bustier and thong, thus Alka is ready for action. The battle lingerie seems adequate until she gets to the desert, whereupon she is sold a napkin on credit to cover her shoulders. Sunburn don't play, y'all. I get it, it's aimed at young men, 'nuff said there.
The writing for the characters does make them feel like they're all pigeonholed into standard anime archetypes. Alka, the laconic militant is the worst offender in this and her character comes off as being extremely flat. Laconic is a great word, look it up. Other characters follow suite by being the cruel and cold imperial lady, or the boisterous scamp of a mercenary who is down on her luck, etc...
Plot-wise, it's been okay so far, we're still too early in the season to really get a feel for it, but we've got the standard expansionist empire thing going on and they are pretty adamant about killing or capturing Alka, for some naughtiness or other. The animators are not afraid to show bad people doing bad things, as most of the characters from the first episode don't seem to have survived disappointing their local empire. I'm a gloomy type of fellow, I suppose, because I do like my villains to be villainous.
Overall, I think this one could be interesting, sure the costume design for the ladies is a little over the top and the characters are all stereotypes, but that's a hard to escape in the genre. The plot flows well enough to stay interesting and I'll probably keep watching, if I can remember to check back as more episodes come out. The production quality is up to standard, minus some visual continuity issues, such as when a 2D character is suddenly switched out with a paper-ized 3D figure.
I'm taking points away for potty jokes, a thoroughly recycled world, slathered on fan-service, and various other wholly arbitrary reasons such as the number of beers I've had while writing this. It still comes away with a 'B-' average so far. Watch it, it won't hurt you.
This is a new anime that is only on its second episode so far. It's based on Korean game developer NCsoft's MMORPG that shares its title. There is no need to be acquainted with the game in order to follow the anime.
The show follows Alka, a Sword Clan assassin who is, curiously, not armed with a sword. She does have daggers, and she's pretty slick with them. The combat sequences are nicely done and though they avoid lobbing entrails at the screen, the animators aren't afraid of a little red spray. There's much ado made by the other characters about her always slashing throats as it seems this is a technique only known to the sword clan. Eh, sure fine okay, we'll go with it.
The art style is quite competent and there is a good degree of detail put into the world and the character designs. I immediately felt that the world tastes very Final Fantasy in that there's a blend of industrial age weapons with a mostly medieval technology base. The voice acting is well done and the voices do seem to fit the characters decently.
Back to the character designs, they do feature heavily in the fan-service department on the costume designs for the female characters. One of the mercenaries Alka meets is rocking a skimpy bikini top. The merc seems to know she's doing, so it's certainly being worn for its top of the line protective qualities. There's several minutes of the first episode dedicated to shots of Alka's tush under somewhat dubious pretenses. Eventually, another lady sees to it that she is properly attired in a bustier and thong, thus Alka is ready for action. The battle lingerie seems adequate until she gets to the desert, whereupon she is sold a napkin on credit to cover her shoulders. Sunburn don't play, y'all. I get it, it's aimed at young men, 'nuff said there.
The writing for the characters does make them feel like they're all pigeonholed into standard anime archetypes. Alka, the laconic militant is the worst offender in this and her character comes off as being extremely flat. Laconic is a great word, look it up. Other characters follow suite by being the cruel and cold imperial lady, or the boisterous scamp of a mercenary who is down on her luck, etc...
Plot-wise, it's been okay so far, we're still too early in the season to really get a feel for it, but we've got the standard expansionist empire thing going on and they are pretty adamant about killing or capturing Alka, for some naughtiness or other. The animators are not afraid to show bad people doing bad things, as most of the characters from the first episode don't seem to have survived disappointing their local empire. I'm a gloomy type of fellow, I suppose, because I do like my villains to be villainous.
Overall, I think this one could be interesting, sure the costume design for the ladies is a little over the top and the characters are all stereotypes, but that's a hard to escape in the genre. The plot flows well enough to stay interesting and I'll probably keep watching, if I can remember to check back as more episodes come out. The production quality is up to standard, minus some visual continuity issues, such as when a 2D character is suddenly switched out with a paper-ized 3D figure.
I'm taking points away for potty jokes, a thoroughly recycled world, slathered on fan-service, and various other wholly arbitrary reasons such as the number of beers I've had while writing this. It still comes away with a 'B-' average so far. Watch it, it won't hurt you.
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