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Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (with completed index)


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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:59 pm Reply with quote
During the scene with Mari in episode eleven, Mirai mentions that Yuuki's head must have hurt very much. I still think spoiler[he died from the delayed effects of being struck in the head during the Tower collapse.]
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belindabird
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Joined: 23 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:24 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
During the scene with Mari in episode eleven, Mirai mentions that Yuuki's head must have hurt very much. I still think spoiler[he died from the delayed effects of being struck in the head during the Tower collapse]


This. I didn't get a chance to reply until now, but I re-watched episode four with a group of friends yesterday, and not only does spoiler[Yuuki appear to have been knocked out immediately after the collapse of Tokyo Tower (at the time one might think he was playing it up since he sort of grins weakly afterward, but I'm pretty sure he actually did sustain a substantial head injury from the rubble), Mari notes afterward that he has a bump on his head.] So I think it was a combination of heatstroke/exhaustion and this head injury.

Head injuries can be very serious, and I'm sure if he had sustained a similar injury in a less hectic time he would have at least been taken to a hospital for x-rays and observation, but when there are people all over the place with injuries that are much more immediately dire (broken/crushed limbs, bleeding, etc.), someone who is walking around and acting as if they're relatively okay doesn't take as high a priority. Thus something which may have been perfectly treatable if handled promptly turned into something fatal. I'm sure this is one of the hidden dangers of these kinds of disasters. There just aren't enough medical staff to treat everyone and people aren't aware of the severity of their injuries.

In any case, no one ever laid out point-by-point what the exact medical cause was, but it can be pretty clearly pieced together from the evidence. Of course I never thought that it would be such a huge sticking point for so many people, because it never seemed to me that the spoiler[cause of death] was really the point of the matter, just the fact that spoiler[he had died] and the ways in which that affected his sister.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:01 pm Reply with quote
With all due respect belindabird, I think the evidence of spoiler[a head injury is even more obvious. Mirai stated in episode eight - at the 11:55 mark - that she had a "dream" where Yuuki had to undergo surgery. Now, if that dream was true, and he really did have surgery, then the most (if not only) logical part of his body to have surgery on would have been his head. Especially since the rest of him was fine, at least externally. I'm not saying that heat exhaustion didn't play a part - it may have indeed exacerbated the problem - but the main cause of death was his head injury.]

And Dorcas_Aurelia, I don't want to hear anymore your claim that spoiler[he died because of his own stupidity. He's a child for heaven's sake, and they cannot be held responsible for their own welfare. Secondly, he might have believed that his feeling unwell was nothing compared to the tragedy he saw around him, and therefore not worth the time of the doctors who were treating the people who "really" needed it. Thirdly, adults in the real world who have suffered that exact same problem also didn't think it was anything, and many of them died too. It's one thing to berate the kid, but would you have done better in those circumstances, knowing that many adults have died from a similar injury? Lastly, the trauma may have been impairing his judgement, which of course since he was a kid wasn't all that good anyway.]
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:57 pm Reply with quote
Um, dude, last time I mentioned a character's stupidity regarding this series was two weeks ago. Way to be late to the party.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 12:57 am Reply with quote
Dorcas_Aurelia wrote:
Um, dude, last time I mentioned a character's stupidity regarding this series was two weeks ago. Way to be late to the party.


Better late than never, although I'd like to think I'm fashionably late in this instance rather than late late.

I think the lesson here is to refrain from posting such things and then expecting the passage of time to make them any less outrageous. And I may have been away when you posted it, but if you've left it up there then I still can respond to it. There is no statue of limitations on the Internet, after all. So as long as I don't break ANN's in-house rule about necroposting (and a two-week delay ain't a necropost), I don't see why you should be protected from my fanboy wrath just because some meagre amount of time has passed.

And might I add as a final parting shot that you just recently posted here, so it wasn't as if you were done with the thread.
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belindabird
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Joined: 23 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:35 am Reply with quote
I agree, dtm42, that the spoiler[main cause of death was his head injury], I was just elaborating on it - maybe too much since I may have gone off on a tangent. But I'm pretty sure we agree with each-other Smile
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:28 pm Reply with quote
I take more exception to the idea that you seem to be ordering me to stop arguing my beliefs than that I'm wrong. He's a fictional character, it's not like I'm hurting his feelings.

And by now I have come to accept that my earlier argument is pretty much pointless as spoiler[I was basing it on an incorrect cause of death.] That leads me to something else that I'm not really thrilled with about the show. spoiler[I wasn't expecting the show to suddenly decide it wanted to turn the lead character into an unreliable narrator, requiring me to take on the roll of on of Dr. House's assistants trying to figure out what the problem with Yuki had been in the first place, or that there even was one. The symptoms he was showing just prior to his collapse were mostly unrelated to his actual cause of death, which was the result of events two or three episodes prior, by an event that the characters and myself dismissed as insignificant at the time.
I didn't even initially believe Yuki to be dead because why the hell would everyone have left Mirai alone in an dimly-lit hospital hallway with no one else around but his corpse? It seemed to be a repeat of Mari's minor illness and recovery when she returned to find him cheerfully playing. ]


I didn't start watching this show because I wanted to play detective, I started watching because I wanted to see what a researched disaster would look like, and possibly some minor drama associated with it. spoiler[I realize misleading the audience into believing Mirai's delusion wouldn't have worked had if they had explained how Yuki died right then, but was it even necessary?]

I'm also annoyed that the series justified Mirai's reckless behavior in the second episode (and possibly on other occasions that I can't recall) when she went back inside a structurally damaged building to look for her brother. The line between heroism and stupidity is success. There was even an authority figure that advised her (and Mari) not to continue looking in the building because it wasn't safe, and that was the job of professionals (firefighters, EMTs, whatever). However, unless Mirai and Mari had gone in, Yuki would have remained trapped in the building.

A similar event happened later when the robot nerd nearly died trying to save a robot. I was nearly screaming at my monitor in frustration. That's exactly why they made the robots! They're expendable so people don't get killed! At least he got lectured for that.
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12skippy21



Joined: 25 Nov 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 3:19 am Reply with quote
Dorcas_Aurelia wrote:
I'm also annoyed that the series justified Mirai's reckless behavior in the second episode (and possibly on other occasions that I can't recall) when she went back inside a structurally damaged building to look for her brother. The line between heroism and stupidity is success. There was even an authority figure that advised her (and Mari) not to continue looking in the building because it wasn't safe, and that was the job of professionals (firefighters, EMTs, whatever). However, unless Mirai and Mari had gone in, Yuki would have remained trapped in the building.

A similar event happened later when the robot nerd nearly died trying to save a robot. I was nearly screaming at my monitor in frustration. That's exactly why they made the robots! They're expendable so people don't get killed! At least he got lectured for that.



Reckless it may have been, but that is what happens when a natural diaster strikes, people tend to gather together and help each other out in such circumstances regardless of whether it is classified as risky or not. Rather than justify her actions I think it just represents certain forms of heroism people show, discouting their own safety for someone elses.
As for the more general arguement,spoiler[ I do not think it matters how Yuki died, but more the consequences of such]. Personally for me, though I may be called cynical, what made this a good anime into a great anime was spoiler[Yuki's death]. That scenario achieved a greater depth than if everyone returned happily, it represented what loss natural diasters can create and so represented a more reality based conclusion and the story played of this suffering very well.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 3:59 am Reply with quote
12skippy21 wrote:
As for the more general arguement,spoiler[ I do not think it matters how Yuki died, but more the consequences of such]. Personally for me, though I may be called cynical, what made this a good anime into a great anime was spoiler[Yuki's death]. That scenario achieved a greater depth than if everyone returned happily, it represented what loss natural diasters can create and so represented a more reality based conclusion and the story played of this suffering very well.


I was half expecting Mari's mother and daughter to die, and Mirai and Yuuki's parents to die, and then Mari would adopt the kids. I'm glad it didn't turn out like that though. Not only would it have been too sad, it would have been cheesy and predictable. No, the events we got were drastically more powerful than that scenario could have ever been.
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Greg Aubry



Joined: 10 Feb 2006
Posts: 224
Location: Detroit, MI
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:21 am Reply with quote
I also very much enjoyed this show. For the last episode, I'd sort of hoped to see spoiler[a flash-forward to a grown-up Mirai coming across her paper about the future, giving us a glimpse of what she might have written.]
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:55 am Reply with quote
So I just finished this wonderful show and I'm pretty much a mess. Episode 10's title, "Mirai, You Know..." may very well be the most heart-breaking and poignant title I've ever come across. I'm still torn over the question of whether the premise was one that may have been better served by a movie-length adaptation as opposed to 11 episodes. There were definitely times that I felt the show stretched its material. However, by the same token, the additional time gave more space for character development and almost certainly gave the ending more impact than may have been possible in a shorter length.

Regardless, this series will stay with me for a very long time. Geez, I think I'm running out of tissues, here...

eta: The seiyuu who did Yuuki (Yumiko Kobayashi) was excellent. I was surprised to discover Yuuki's voice was done by an adult female, because it really did sound (to my admittedly unpracticed ears) like a Japanese boy. Although I'm normally a dub fan, I cringe a bit when I imagine somebody doing the Yuuki role in English. Non-irritating boy voices tend to be hard to pull off. God, what if the Yuuki role sounded something like Ion Fortuna from Trinity Blood?

*shudders*
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:34 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
Regardless, this series will stay with me for a very long time. Geez, I think I'm running out of tissues, here...


I don't consider this show to be the best this year for nothing. Deserves nothing but a Masterpiece in my eyes. Usually I delete fansubs once I finish the series, but I recently bought a half-terabyte hard-drive, and this was the first show to go on it. It is just too good to delete, at least until the DVDs come out (if they ever do; they had better). And besides, I need to re-watch the series, especially those episodes (eight to ten). Haven't gotten around to it yet, partly because of time constraints, partly because I have to prepare myself. There aren't many Anime that I can say that about, Grave of the Fireflies being the most notable.

Also, who would have thought we'd get a twist ending in a show like this one? Quite funny in a way that it is eligible to join the ranks of Fight Club and The Sixth Sense in that one respect. Anyway, kudos to the user (I forget who exactly) who realised what had happened way back in episode eight. I only figured it out about seven or so minutes before the big reveal.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:21 am Reply with quote
This all sounds very laudatory. I'll bear this show in mind if ever a DVD licence comes to be.

In past works which employ dramatic devices to depict historic or plausible future disasters, I have been quick to question whether the directorial intention was to educate, persuade or criticise instead of to entertain. (By 'entertain', I mean in this context to convey notions of tragedy and emotionally cleansing affects.)
Though I apologise for asking such a commonplace question, might anybody be so kind as to inform me of whether Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 uses a probable real-world scenario as anything more than a setting for a character drama?
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23813
PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:30 am Reply with quote
Zin5ki, I'm not entirely sure I understand your question, but I'll give it a shot. With respect to your "educate, persuade or criticise" point, I suppose it could be argued that the creators of the show put their research to good use in terms of "educating" viewers about what kind of structural damage and casualties figures might arise from an earthquake of that magnitude hitting Tokyo. They took some liberties for the purposes of dramatic intensity, but I think in the main they stuck to a fairly realistic framework. If they were trying to persuade or criticise, that stuff went over my head.

So, in conclusion, I guess by your definition, the "real-world scenario" was primarily a setting for character drama.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:57 am Reply with quote
The disaster was definitely present just to give a way to develop the characters. Which isn't a bad thing by the way.

The show never pictured a full break-down in society (no riots or looting). The citizens were not shown to be completely bereft of government help (the civil-defence/disaster relief personnel and equipment were deployed amazingly fast). Therefore, I have to say that no attempt was made to persuade the viewer that the real-life authorities are unprepared, and there was no social commentary that claimed civilisation is but a façade.

As for entertainment value, there was almost none in terms of either typical comedy or "let's munch on popcorn while watching people die".

All in all, a very character-focused show. Well, that and watching buildings getting torn down by unusually strong aftershocks. I really could have done without Tokyo Tower being felled, but such a relatively minor complaint cannot shift my overall opinion of this series.
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