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Daryl Surat said so. Wink

Yeah, the similarities between GC and Geass are not below the surface. Like you said, the hero and female leads are SO different. I see no Lelouch in GC's lead. Plus, out of what I saw of Geass, there's not idol singers bustin' guns.

Last edited by Zump on Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:22 am; edited 1 time in total

Great podcast! It's always great to hear from Mike and Daryl.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of Wings of Honneamise Blu-Ray for $34.99. Unfortunately, the copies I've found of the Patlabor movie Blu-Rays were about $300.

Toei seems to be just as guilty as Sunrise when it comes to importing poor masters of their productions. They provided poor quality masters for the UK release of Transformers: The Headmasters, and they refused to give Shout! Factory the license for Scramble City.

Licensing the Space Adventure Cobra series might be a huge gamble for Discotek, but they could probably get the license for the movie, which has a English dub (and a fairly decent one at that).

On the subject of re-evaluating anime, I recently re-watched The Animatrix, which I saw around the time when The Matrix was at the height of its popularity. At the time, I was really disappointed with it, but watching it again, I found it to be a solid anthology film. Even the segments that most people consider weak (e.g., Program, World Record, Matriculated) were very entertaining.

YotaruVegeta wrote:

You know who wins in the debate over the originality of Guilty Crown. The answer is WHO CARES, INTERNET!?

Before this discussion gets too out of hand, just...hold on for a second.

A lot of people zeroing in on the part of the podcast where we noted that "One Piece/Fairy Tail and Code Geass/Guilty Crown are cut from the same cloth and are targeting the same audiences" seem to be assuming that if you say something is a derivative work or is copying the premise of something else, then that implies it is inferior. Like we're dealing with photocopies or VHS tapes where the signal degrades or something.

That logic does not apply here.

v1cious wrote:

I don't see the big deal about Guilty Crown being similar to Code Geass. It's by the same writer, What do you expect?

In an of itself, it is totally not a big deal. The only reason we're picking on those two was because of the strong, vehement denial on the parts of the creators of both Fairy Tail and Guilty Crown that their work was in any way influenced by a hit series that immediately preceded their own which was done in the same medium as theirs. (Please don't skip over the qualifiers in that statement. I put those there for a reason.)

As an example: I like Ronin Warriors/Yoroiden Samurai Troopers way more than I like Saint Seiya. But at the same time, Ronin Warriors is TOTALLY targeted towards the exact same audience as Saint Seiya by way of a similar commercial concept: "pretty boys in armor." If anyone were to try and argue "they're not at all similar because Saint Seiya is all about Greek mythology and planets exploding and people resurrecting and [insert detailed specificity regarding plot, characters, etc here]! Ronin Warriors has none of that," I would assume that person was insane...the way I'm doing right now for the people ardently asserting that Guilty Crown/Fairy Tail are completely distinct from Code Geass/One Piece.

v1cious wrote:

As a Moviegoer Green Lantern was mediocre, as a fan it was absolutely offensive. There's no way you could ever convince me that Geoff Johns had anything to do with writing that horrible story.

On the contrary, as I watched the film I thought a lot of the areas in which GL stumbled were precisely the portions that Johns must have insisted be present in the film. But the fact that he did not directly write the film--he's the co-producer--is perhaps why so much of it seems so inconsequential or out-of-place/irrelevant to the story being told in that film. Simultaneously, the parts important to that film's story get glossed over. It's as if there were a laundry list of elements that the writers were handed as "things that need to be in the movie," with no priority assigned to each item, such that the writers just focused on what they thought people would like. Unfortunately, the end result is that we get plenty of time devoted to "Hal doesn't get along so well with his brother and has a strained romance with Carol" and just passing hints of "Sinestro is kind of a jerk," "the Guardians are total jerks," and most importantly "Hal Jordan is a jerk." There are a lot of jerks in space.

You don't need to have any Type Moon experience to enjoy Fate Zero or understand it.

I watched Fate/Zero with no Type Moon experience. Pretty much all I knew about the Fate Stay/Night anime was that there were characters with names like Archer and Berserker and Saber in it for some reason, that the main male lead was someone tons of people hated, that it gave birth to an internet meme ("people die when they are killed"), and that a lot of fans of the original VN considered the anime a pretty poor adaption. Just stuff I've learned from the occasional message board reference I've come across. I didn't really know anything about the story or the world or anything like that.

And I had no problems following the Fate Zero anime. Oh, that's not to say I instantly understood every tiny detail of what was going on. But when is that the case with ANY anime? Don't most anime series (at least those with heavy fantasy and/or sci-fi elements) gradually introduce you to the world and it's concepts?

Yes, the first episode does introduce a lot of characters (the focus narrows in the following episodes some), and grasping some of the family relationships between a few of the characters took a bit of time. And there were of course some concepts and terms that weren't completely explained in extreme detail right off the bat. But as I said, isn't that normal?

I mean, consider Baccano!, an anime that had a far, far, far more confusing beginning. Even if you ignore the disjointed timeline of Baccano!, the first episode of it still introduces more major characters than Fate Zero (in half the time) with more complicated and unknown backstories and connections, with just as many unexplained concepts. I was still able to enjoy Baccano!, and as the series went on, things began to make sense.

So yes, I don't know what the Holy Grail in Fate Zero is, just that it can apparently grant wishes and it is a different object than the Holy Grail that is associated with Christ. I don't need to know what the Holy Grail is right now in order to enjoy the series, just like I didn't need to know why some of the characters in Baccano! were immortal at the start of that series either.

I think part of the problems with Fate Zero is expectations. In another anime, if a character with a mysterious backstory and motives is introduced, people assume that said character is supposed to be a mystery, and that things will be revealed later. If a character like that is introduced in Fate Zero, people assume they should already know every detail of said character's life history and that his past and motives won't be revealed. That's not the case.

Sorry for this long winded post, but Zac, if you are reading this, watch Fate Zero. There's no need to open a wiki or look things up. I can't be sure you'll like the series of course, but I'm fairly certain that if you don't, it won't be because you can't understand what is happening.

I wish I had the time to listen again, because then I would transcribe what was said, word for word.

I'm not getting "out of hand." People do us the "this looks like this" statement to imply inferiority. I do not recall myself saying that this podcast made that statement. Are you precogging me or something?

Mad_Scientist wrote:

Sorry for this long winded post, but Zac, if you are reading this, watch Fate Zero. There's no need to open a wiki or look things up. I can't be sure you'll like the series of course, but I'm fairly certain that if you don't, it won't be because you can't understand what is happening.

You make a good post, and there are probably others in your situation, but I just wanna point out that there are some people who consider "the whole story" (or at least important backstory or setup elements) so important that the problem is not that they can't follow what's going on in something like Fate/Zero, but rather the knowledge that they are simultaneously spoiling themselves (in a way) on other aspects of the story (right off the bat, FZ covers many things that are spoilers for the FSN story) and not getting the "full experience" is in itself enough to undermine what might otherwise be an enjoyable experience to someone such as yourself. I don't know if Zac is such a person, but I know I am about most things.

I was in the middle of finishing the FSN VN when FZ started airing, and the 10th episode was already out before I finished the VN and got caught up, and while I can't really sing praises for FSN, I am very glad I finished it before starting FZ. I think the characterization is more meaningful having FSN's background than what it would be without, and it's actually an unusual and fun experience watching a show like Fate/Zero knowing how it ends (from FSN) without actually knowing what all happens at the end (having not read FZ in book form).

Breaking Bad better than the Wire.....definitely not.

I love The Wire many times moreso than Daryhl ever will, but Breaking Bad is a magnificent show. I don't care to put one over the other, because they're both so great that I don't feel that I'm slighting one.

Veers wrote:

(paraphrased) Watching Fate/Zero first spoils Fate/Stay Night.

And the reverse is just as true. There are plenty of upcoming twists (including the final battle) in Fate/Zero that were already explained or spoiled in Fate/Stay Night. If a person watches Zero without any knowledge of SN, those events will remain as new twists to enjoy.

Basically, whether you go "F/Z to F/SN" or "F/SN to F/Z", the second series will have a bunch of things "spoiled." But from my perspective, I could easily see someone being just as fulfilled going from Zero first to Stay Night after. (Well, aside from the fact that so far, for me, Fate/Zero is a lot better, so it could feel like a downgrade.)

Etrien wrote:

(Well, aside from the fact that so far, for me, Fate/Zero is a lot better, so it could feel like a downgrade.)

That's actually the one thing that's got me kind of bummed. Most of what I've heard about the Fate/Stay Night anime, both from those who are familiar with the VN and those who aren't, is that the anime is okay at best. And I know that once Fate Zero is all over, I'm going to want to know what happens next, considering how much I'm loving Fate Zero.

Maybe I can try tracking down a translation patch for the VN. Was there ever a non-explicit version of it released?

Etrien wrote:

Veers wrote:

(paraphrased) Watching Fate/Zero first spoils Fate/Stay Night.

And the reverse is just as true. There are plenty of upcoming twists (including the final battle) in Fate/Zero that were already explained or spoiled in Fate/Stay Night. If a person watches Zero without any knowledge of SN, those events will remain as new twists to enjoy.

Very true. The reason I didn't bring that up in my previous post, though, was because F/SN was released before F/Z, which takes us back to my point that someone who knows of the stories' release order and direct relationship may experience some distracting/detracting cognitive dissonance if they attempted to go through things "out of order." You're quite right, though, in a sense F/SN spoils a lot of F/Z. Again, I'm not saying no one can enjoy them "out of order," just that some people, such as myself, would be constantly bothered by the knowledge that they weren't experiencing things in the "correct" order. (And in my case in particular, that feeling was especially amplified because I was had just started the final route of the F/SN VN when F/Z started airing.)

Quote:

(Well, aside from the fact that so far, for me, Fate/Zero is a lot better, so it could feel like a downgrade.)

Going from F/Z!Rider to Shirou is going to feel like a downgrade, yes... Going from anyone to Shirou is going to feel like a downgrade at first, really, as for most of the F/SN route you want nothing more than to choke him yourself :D!

Mad_Scientist wrote:

That's actually the one thing that's got me kind of bummed. Most of what I've heard about the Fate/Stay Night anime, both from those who are familiar with the VN and those who aren't, is that the anime is okay at best. And I know that once Fate Zero is all over, I'm going to want to know what happens next, considering how much I'm loving Fate Zero.

I'll say the same thing I said to the last person who I talked to about interest in F/SN: It's overrated, but...! If you are interested in the F/SN story, for the love of everything do not watch the anime first because it is just... bad. Is the VN some kind of perfect mana from heaven? No way, but if you are interested in the story, it is the way to go because it's overall it's a fun read and way better than the anime. Against all advice I watched the anime first and I wish I hadn't... I'll never read or watch F/SN again because it wasn't good enough for me to revisit (playing the different routes doesn't count as "revisiting"), but it was worth going through once, both on its own merits and just to see what the fuss was all about. F/SN is one of those titles that I won't really make any effort to recommend, but at the same time I can't really hate on it, either... it's the kind of thing there for those interested to explore; if you're interested then I definitely encourage you to try it out... if you're not interested, then I couldn't in good conscience try to talk you into it.

And if you're willing to spend the time to read the story, then actually read the VN and don't read some wiki/let's play/synopsis. The F/SN VN is padded with way too much filler, drags out its plot points way longer than it needs to, the eroge scenes in the first two arc are frankly downright... well, I don't know if there's a single word to describe it, but they're so gratuitous that they make you feel nasty (at least you can fast forward through them), and will certainly send you down the path of facepalms many times, but when it's good, it's good, and part of that goodness is a result of the timing and presentation of the text and music (and, to a lesser extent, the artwork) and character development that the anime or some alternate text medium just flat-out cannot or does not convey.

Quote:

Maybe I can try tracking down a translation patch for the VN. Was there ever a non-explicit version of it released?

The PS2 version was family friendly I believe, and it had the voiceovers. There is a PC version which uses the PS2 version voiceovers, but still includes the h-scenes (unvoiced). The MM translation patch is a full translation for the PC version, including the h-scenes. You can fast-forward through these scenes, as I did, if you don't wish to read them (you will still be subjected to several seconds of background art as the text flies by) or you can find save files that have game completion flagged so that you can skip entire chapters at a time with a single click. I have such save files if you want them.

Veers wrote:

The F/SN VN is padded with way too much filler, drags out its plot points way longer than it needs to, the eroge scenes in the first two arc are frankly downright... well

Welcome, to Nasu's writing style. He's good at making up ideas and characters, but when it comes to writing, he's waay to wordy. Although the idea with the filler I guess is to better identify with the character as he goes through his day, including doing some mundane things (which in this case would be lots of cooking and eating). Concerning the h-scenes, what I've read in interviews, Nasu is far from enthusiastic about them, he writes them simply because it's a VN.

jl07045 wrote:

Welcome, to Nasu's writing style. He's good at making up ideas and characters, but when it comes to writing, he's waay to wordy. Although the idea with the filler I guess is to better identify with the character as he goes through his day, including doing some mundane things (which in this case would be lots of cooking and eating). Concerning the h-scenes, what I've read in interviews, Nasu is far from enthusiastic about them, he writes them simply because it's a VN.

The "every day life" filler is fine to an extent, and some of it was well placed in F/SN either as, like you say, contrasting the mundane with the magical, or as a time for some humor or necessary exposition. F/SN really gets carried away with it, though. I really don't need a dozen chapters of Shirou & Co. eating dinner to make the contrast effective. It's not even that his style is overly wordy on a sentence-to-sentence level, it's just that sooo much of F/SN felt like the exact same thing from the chapter/pages before, just with different words... even the fights got that way, and I don't think the blame can be placed at the translators' feet. Things lose meaning when they're repeated so many times in a story unless they're repeated for the express purpose of building up some kind of reversal, and while F/SN has several interesting twists, the bulk of what the story constantly repeats and reminds you of has little or nothing to do with the twists.

And yeah, that was kinda the feeling I got about the h-scenes in F/SN... like they were tacked on because there was some expectation for them to be there in a VN.

Veers wrote:

F/SN really gets carried away with it, though. I really don't need a dozen chapters of Shirou & Co. eating dinner to make the contrast effective. It's not even that his style is overly wordy on a sentence-to-sentence level, it's just that sooo much of F/SN felt like the exact same thing from the chapter/pages before, just with different words... even the fights got that way, and I don't think the blame can be placed at the translators' feet.

I think one of the main problems is the way the novel (and lots of other visual novels) is structured. Since it takes place over 14 or so consecutive days in the same environment, it feels like the writer is going for some quota of text for each day including repetitive things people do every day.

I mostly agree with you on this. I personally like the world and characters but reading through it sometimes felt like a chore. Same with Tsukihime (I think the manga version is superior).

Mad_Scientist wrote:

Etrien wrote:

(Well, aside from the fact that so far, for me, Fate/Zero is a lot better, so it could feel like a downgrade.)

That's actually the one thing that's got me kind of bummed. Most of what I've heard about the Fate/Stay Night anime, both from those who are familiar with the VN and those who aren't, is that the anime is okay at best. And I know that once Fate Zero is all over, I'm going to want to know what happens next, considering how much I'm loving Fate Zero.

Maybe I can try tracking down a translation patch for the VN. Was there ever a non-explicit version of it released?

Your question was more or less already answered (yes, an all-ages version of the visual novel exists, but I'm not sure if that version can be found in English), but regarding enjoyment of F/SN after F/Z... Honestly, I thought F/SN was decent...and that's the anime. But decent is all it was. (I gave it a "B", versus Zero's current "A+".) It was a mixture of good ideas with a few head slapping annoyances, which is pretty par for course with anime, by my standards. Zero omits everything that annoyed me in Stay Night, and really enhances the things I already liked. I also really like the sober, adult atmosphere it has going for it, in contrast to the high-schooler vaguely harem-esque setting of F/SN.

BUT. If you come away loving F/Z (and it's looking tough not to! Very Happy

), that will probably enhance your enjoyment of F/SN as well, should you follow onto that. (You'll already have an established rapport with the setting and characters, maybe letting some of the flaws slide by.)

Personally, I'm loving F/Z enough that I'll probably be tracking down the F/SN visual novel myself when it finishes.

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