• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Summer 2014 Anime |OT| this thread has been outsourced to Toei Phils

Status
Not open for further replies.

duckroll

Member
Did they mention in the presentation who is handling series composition or script?

If they mentioned it, I missed it. I'm just assuming that it'll be like how Ufotable usually adapts stuff these days, where they have a team of writers working on scripts with collaboration with the director. Then again, I also assumed that there wouldn't be a fixed route, and that Kajiura would be returning. Assuming is dangerous!
 

wonzo

Banned
I-i don't think I like you.
go write on your chest about it
yeshrug.png
 

cajunator

Banned
Saber Route : the shortest one, Shiro being sexist etc.

UBW/Rin Route: The most action filled route, containing certain Code Geass-esque twist. Fan's favorite.

Heaven's Feel : The lengthiest route, the darkest and edgiest and all that, maybe one that have most connection to F/Z. And most relevant to Kirei's Characterization at F/Z.

Ohhh so its a Rin route? OHHHHHH
SQUEEEEEEEE
 
Toradora 16 (DUB)

This episode was done justice by the English voice cast. Thank you based NIS!

That one scene at the end with Ami and Minori is still confusing and as cryptic as it was in the original. Felt like that could've been handled/written better. It's my single negative point in the entire show (besides the ending). Still, excellent work NIS!!
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
3UmeaYil.jpg

Nitorin is a terrible character, and Reki Kawahara shows us why.

Critics and fans alike were simply bamboozled by hack author Takako Shimura's abrasively pedantic Wandering Son. 100 chapters of meandering, aimless storytelling culminating in an adaptation that was so bad that anime fans in Japan completely ignored it and American fans were completely allergic to it. In fact, it's telling that masterpieces such as Attack on Titan have been licensed and became smash hits while a terrible, terrible show like Wandering Son remains stuck in a ghetto of licensing limbo. Even more telling is the fact that Crunchyroll thinks so little of Wandering Son that they didn't bother even to release the director's cut episodes of episode 10 and 11, choosing the abridge the series in order to save their bandwidth on much more compelling shows such as the clearly superior Sword At Online.

Crunchyroll clearly made the right decision, since Sword Art Online S2 4 is proof positive that Kawahara is the master of writing insightful LGBT stories, while Shimura is clearly past her prime.

We already have a strong female protagonist with an interesting backstory in Sinon, and now we have a great trans character in Kirito:
ePVy7aSl.jpg


Kawahara has combined Judith Butler's theories on gender performativity with a genuine sympathy of the trans experience that Shimura could never quite reach. One might criticize Kawahara for sensationalizing gender by making the character appear female, but this is clearly a perfect use of allegory to illustrate the fluidity of gender and also offer insight into the complicated issue of gender and sexuality. Indeed, I would put Kawahara up with great masters such as Philip K. Dick and Ursula Le Guin, as he is clearly a master of both the function and form of science fiction.

Indeed, this is a masterfully complicated episode, as it explores the myriad of abuses and sexual assaults that women face every day:
HqmqW1hl.jpg


But we also see Kirito seamlessly slip into his new feminine identity:
yYvc9pjl.jpg

Trapped in a loveless "marriage" heterosexual marriage with Asuna, it's clear that perhaps Kirito has always been closeted and wanted to transition. Although she is clearly afraid to do so in her real life, in the world of GGO, she is able to become who she truly wants to be. Suddenly Sword Art Online becomes as much about the angst of repressed gender identity as it is a treatise on feminism, following on the tradition of campy films such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch and more serious faire such as Transamerica. Here, in this virtual world free from the judgemental eyes of a cis-centric, heteronormative Japan, Kirito is able to transgress into a world that is post-gender and post-sexuality.

Indeed, it is fitting that the episode ends with a clear homage to the feminist, gender-queered film Thelma and Louise:
9lxRuBcl.jpg


We know that acclaimed director Ridley Scott chose to express feminist, Sapphic freedom through destructive nihilism, as both Thelma and Louise choose to commit suicide rather than face the false justice offered by men, members of which attempted to rape and rob them.
LWfc0Z5.jpg


Kirito's cliffjumping, with Sinon embracing her tightly, is a moment of affirmation: not only of their newfound friendship, but also of Kirito's new identity. It's an amazing inversion of the dark, conclusive ending that Scott executed, using the moment of riding off the cliff as a positive image. After the stunning failure that was Prometheus, perhaps Ridley Scott should ask Kawahara to write the sequel! Certainly there is a clear synergy between the two artists that binds them together.

hkpwMc2l.jpg

It also bears mentioning that by giving Kirito a lightsaber, Kawahara has managed to do what George Lucas and JJ Abrams were unable to do - feature a strong female protagonist as a kind of "Jedi Master". This is the 21st century and Kawahara definitively shows that he is a modern man with an understanding of the modern world.

If the first episode showed the strength of Kawahara as a man who examines the post-human world of the cybernetic virtual cyborg, blowing away luminaries such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, then we really understand that Kawahara is more than just a one trick pony that understands the true possibilities of science fiction as a genre.
 

_hekk05

Banned
Also I guess this permutation of "mana transfer" will have less CG dragons, for what it's worth.

Nah. That's magic circuit transfer. Completely different things. For one, it actually takes away the magic prowess of the Master, unlike mana transfer, which is basically just transfer of mana or prana.
 

Chariot

Member
What'cha doing? Fate is 6 hour top, and I read that with auto read.
I dunno. Usually I am a fast reader, but I remember reading this 12 hours without coming to the end of the first route. It was an awful experience.

And auto read is just wrong, how do you occupy your hands in the meantime?
 

Pooya

Member
we're getting bone of my sword crap? I'm out :((((
They ruin the only good characters too here, short of major re writes sooo out. tears
 

Mokoi

Banned
Wait what! They're going to really do Heavens feel route. I need to have some more drinks now. I can't believe what I saw.
 

Blusby

Member
I hear now that UBW itself will be 2 cour and Heavens Feel will come sometime later. So basically two faithful adaptations of two out of the three routes (Fate's meh so I'm glad that they're skipping it).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom