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Shelf Life - Road to El Cazador


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Animehermit



Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 964
Location: The Argama
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:06 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
Myaow wrote:
I just wanted to pop in and say to the editorial folks at ANN: you've made it! Congratulations! This is the last Clannad review you'll ever run for the rest of your life. This is the last "everyone pile in and bark out your opinion of Clannad, negative or positive or just plain trollish" forum response thread you'll ever have to put up with! Pat yourselves on the back, have an ice cream sundae and go to bed early tonight. You've earned it.

Whee!


Eh, Spice and Wolf season 2 isn't out yet.


and after Spice and wolf there will be another crappy show for people to complain about.
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Prede



Joined: 17 Sep 2009
Posts: 388
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:40 pm Reply with quote
Good reviews this week. Nice job, keep up the good work. I really like the comparisons you make to live action and other anime. It's something you do really well, and helps me (if I've seen said series/movie lol Razz).

Although I haven't seen the Gunslinger Girl OVAs yet (got it for Christmas along with the second season), I kind of think you may have gone overboard a bit with that. The main point of the franchise seems to be strongly set against such notions, at least from what I've seen( the entire first series and the bit of the second series). spoiler[ It seems to completely ignore anything sexual/sensual, perverted, etc with the girls, and instead focuses on what real young children with guns would be like. It takes a more realistic aproach to the genre, and shows just how "icky" and disturbing this can be. Yes it supposed to be a little "creepy" that some old guy is taking care of a little innocent girl, but it never even for a second does anything which I would ever consider objectional with that. it's mroe there to point out how creepy that could be in real life, by exaggerating things. The girls are very young, they all have very screwed up pasts, and they all have awkward and odd relationships with thier handlers, although each relationship is very different. Are any of the handlers good people? Because some treat the girls ok, good, or at least with some respect. yet at the end of the day, does it matter? Because the "nice guy" and the guy who hits the girl all use their children to kill other HUMAN BEINGS.

It's dissecting the "girls with guns" genre, while still sticking very close to it's roots and being very dark, yet still uplifting. It's either the best girls with guns series out there, or the best deconstruction peice of the genre Wink . Still I don't think it could really be "offensive" . Then again having a beach episode is such an odd choice for the series. Kind of questionable. But that's the kind of content the original series seemed to ignore, or was totally outright against. Still to just outright call certian episodes "wank material"... Them's might strong words. I must disagree with you very strongly on that. of course my opinion may change once I actually see that episode.

This again makes me ask the question. Are deconstruction peices for those who dislike said genre, or actually for the fans of the genre? Laughing Think about it Wink . ]


Anyway glad you liked El Cazador! It's one of my new favorites for sure. And I've said it 100 times, but I guess once more won't hurt. it's not an action show, and it's not plot driven. It's a drama that's very character driven. So if your looking for an exciting, well thought out plot, and non-stop action, this is not the show. But if you want some great character devolpment, and a fun series this is it. The character interactions are the best part of the show. Really Ellis and Nadie play off each other perfectly. And the setting is great. I prefur characters over plot sometimes, and this show handled that very well. And the plot that is there, is hardly poorly written, it's just not the main focus of the show.

DerekTheRed: I'm like 99% sure Nadie is Mexican. Ellis probally isn't though, but for me that remaisn to be seen. Only watched the first boxset so far.
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John Casey



Joined: 31 May 2009
Posts: 1853
Location: In My Angry Center
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:05 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:

Eh, Spice and Wolf season 2 isn't out yet.


I see what you did there.
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:49 pm Reply with quote
Fabe wrote:
By feel sympathy I mean feel sorry for them as in "OH no,these poor girls they had all these horrible things happen to them and now their being turned into weapons by there own government" not "yeah I what thats like". I don' think you need to relate to some one to feel sympathy for them but I can understand what you're saying.


Cheap and exploitative was the accusation, not the defence.

The story is a product of the setting, but the setting is controlled by the writer too: ultimately, you can't justify a scenario with in-universe titbits and setting tricks, because nothing in-universe can explain why you told that particular story. "This is the story I want to tell" is a concept that doesn't exist in-story, only exists at the meta-level, and at the meta-level not only your narrative but your setting is accessible and tractable for analysis.

So. The story derives from the setting and the setting is written to generate the story. "Why this story" and "why this setting" are ultimately the same question, and answering one with the other is tautologous. It's not false, per se, quite the reverse, but it's certainly useless.

So. Why did the original creator of Gunslinger Girls think that a story of dying girls who kill people and who are unreasonably... impressed... with their adult male handlers, why did [?]he think that that would be a good story to tell? Where's the attraction there, as it were? Answer that question, and you'll understand the conflict here, too.
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Lemoncookies23



Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 355
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:57 pm Reply with quote
GWOtaku wrote:
JairStout wrote:
In my worthless opinion


Yup. Are you actually going to bother explaining why she's wrong? A prolonged insult isn't an argument.


A most ironic accusation. In my post, you will notice that I came to the very same conclusion about her reviews! But apparently what I said was a prolonged insult. I'm curious, to stave off my coming observation that you are a hypocrite, would you care to explain why my post is a prolonged insult? (Ah, yet another irony!)

Veers wrote:
Mmm, delicious yellow cheerios.


I've always thought they were more golden than yellow.
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jenthehen



Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 835
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:05 pm Reply with quote
nargun wrote:
Fabe wrote:
By feel sympathy I mean feel sorry for them as in "OH no,these poor girls they had all these horrible things happen to them and now their being turned into weapons by there own government" not "yeah I what thats like". I don' think you need to relate to some one to feel sympathy for them but I can understand what you're saying.


Cheap and exploitative was the accusation, not the defence.

The story is a product of the setting, but the setting is controlled by the writer too: ultimately, you can't justify a scenario with in-universe titbits and setting tricks, because nothing in-universe can explain why you told that particular story. "This is the story I want to tell" is a concept that doesn't exist in-story, only exists at the meta-level, and at the meta-level not only your narrative but your setting is accessible and tractable for analysis.

So. The story derives from the setting and the setting is written to generate the story. "Why this story" and "why this setting" are ultimately the same question, and answering one with the other is tautologous. It's not false, per se, quite the reverse, but it's certainly useless.

So. Why did the original creator of Gunslinger Girls think that a story of dying girls who kill people and who are unreasonably... impressed... with their adult male handlers, why did [?]he think that that would be a good story to tell? Where's the attraction there, as it were? Answer that question, and you'll understand the conflict here, too.


Um ... you do realize that in the real world in which we are living - there are child soldiers that are used in order to lure enemy soldiers into a false sense of security, right? You hopefully also realize that horrible things happen to children - they are sometimes assaulted, raped, forced into child prostitution/pornography, have parents who don't care about them, etc. You may even understand that children (even teens) who have been abandoned or have no family will yearn for attention from adults in their lives (basic psychology here, really). And sometimes 11-16 year olds can even develop crushes on adults (been there in my life - of COURSE, nothing comes of it, but ... as a 12 year old, I could still look at people in their 20's and feel attracted to them). And children in such a traumatic situation might even have misplaced and confused feelings of jealousy and love towards the only adult (or even the only real human) presence in their lives.

Oh, but apparently this is just some unrealistic fetishy thing that the creators of GSG made up out of their crazy heads.

I'm actually starting to wonder how YOUR mind works ...
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Veers



Joined: 31 Oct 2008
Posts: 1197
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:13 pm Reply with quote
JairStout wrote:
Veers wrote:
Mmm, delicious yellow cheerios.


I've always thought they were more golden than yellow.
Yes... yes, that is how they start out.
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Koji98



Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Posts: 112
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:49 pm Reply with quote
Otaking09 wrote:
I'm just gonna say this: Clannad was one of the worst animes I've ever seen.

Period.

And yes I'm also including After Story.

I'm not going into reasons, but long story short (hint hint!), Clannad was just TOO disappointing...

I never really liked the characters that mattered, hated the ending of the first series, found the drawn-out nature to be more trouble than it was worth, and, ultimately, it was nothing but wasted time.

The reasons I watched it, was because Air is one of my favorite animes ever, Kanon had a good story, and Clannad had INSANE hype.

I haven't seen any of Bee Train's works, except Phantom, and I haven't seen enough of Gunslinger Girl to warrant an opinion either.


Suffice it to say, Clannad, dubbed or not, will probably never earn a spot on my shelf...


That just means that you weren't the intended audience. There is nothing in the world that is liked by everyone. I too think Air is one of my favorites, but I have Clannad higher ranked in my personal list, mostly due to it being more slice of life and less mystical than Air.

Also, it looks like someone is missing NHK vol 6.
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the Rancorous



Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Posts: 2248
Location: Hunting the Dragon in Gransys
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:16 pm Reply with quote
Koji98 wrote:
I too think Air is one of my favorites, but I have Clannad higher ranked in my personal list, mostly due to it being more slice of life and less mystical than Air.

( Confused + Shocked )^2
But Clannad features spoiler[the entire world time-line taking a huge leap backwards after an apparent other dimension offered the protagonist a magical wish.] And even though that alone was more drastic than anything I saw in Kanon or Air, we also had spoiler[a dead kid coming back as a cat and a comatose girl pulling off astral-projection before being completely wiped from everyone's memory.] So yeah, Clannad was, at the very least, just as mystical as the other two.
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Otaking09



Joined: 24 Feb 2009
Posts: 637
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:46 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
That just means that you weren't the intended audience. There is nothing in the world that is liked by everyone. I too think Air is one of my favorites, but I have Clannad higher ranked in my personal list, mostly due to it being more slice of life and less mystical than Air.


Nice try!

Like I just said: Air, to me, was phenomenal!!! Kanon did it right, but cheapened the ending's power by spoiler[doing what nearly every single professional anime critic HATED about Clannad: After Story's ending...].

But Clannad... just plain disappointed me... I liked the first character arc Fuko, she had a great situation and her resolution, if you wanna call it that, was probably the only thing that brought tears naturally to my eyes.

After that, the story spiraled down and down... Crying or Very sad I thought that After Story could redeem it all, but those initial 8(!!!) episodes really didn't help.

And, no offense, but Clannad being more slice-of-life and less mystic?!
You can get away calling After Story an "attempt" of slice-of-life, but the first series was nothing more than a fan-service-less moe show...

I've seen casual slice-of-life shows being more emotional than After Story without it being predictible too.

Look, I can see how people can get fascinated over After Story, but what it has in execution, it ultimately fails in direction and finality. Air was only 13 eps long!!! You don't need further proof that a great story can be told in that length.
Want another example? Watch Now and Then, Here and There.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:48 pm Reply with quote
I don't know why Bored_Ming's post got deleted, but I'll reply to it nonetheless.

Bored_Ming wrote:
An interesting position. However, one of the points of the series is to get you emotionally tied to the characters to create a greater feeling of tragedy. A persons reaction to a boy in similar situations is usually "toughen up buddy". A boy acting the way the girls do in some emotional scenes would be called and wimp or whiner. This would create a reaction that would destroy a scene. But, when its a girl a more nurturing or caring reaction occurs. The desire to protect is greater. Gender plays a large role in our reactions and perceptions and they are not always sexual.


I see what you're saying. That the girls are girls in the first place not to appeal to a fetish but to appeal to the nurturing side programmed into people.

So - at the risk of setting off a bomb - it is, essentially, Moe.

Well, isn't Moe a fetish? So wasn't I right all along? Well, okay, it isn't "wank-material", but that was Erin's terminology anyway (regarding the OVA's second episode), and I was just latching onto that.


Last edited by dtm42 on Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:18 am; edited 1 time in total
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jenthehen



Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 835
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:54 pm Reply with quote
Otaking09 wrote:
Quote:
That just means that you weren't the intended audience. There is nothing in the world that is liked by everyone. I too think Air is one of my favorites, but I have Clannad higher ranked in my personal list, mostly due to it being more slice of life and less mystical than Air.


Nice try!

Like I just said: Air, to me, was phenomenal!!! Kanon did it right, but cheapened the ending's power by spoiler[doing what nearly every single professional anime critic HATED about Clannad: After Story's ending...].

But Clannad... just plain disappointed me... I liked the first character arc Fuko, she had a great situation and her resolution, if you wanna call it that, was probably the only thing that brought tears naturally to my eyes.

After that, the story spiraled down and down... Crying or Very sad I thought that After Story could redeem it all, but those initial 8(!!!) episodes really didn't help.

And, no offense, but Clannad being more slice-of-life and less mystic?!
You can get away calling After Story an "attempt" of slice-of-life, but the first series was nothing more than a fan-service-less moe show...

I've seen casual slice-of-life shows being more emotional than After Story without it being predictible too.

Look, I can see how people can get fascinated over After Story, but what it has in execution, it ultimately fails in direction and finality. Air was only 13 eps long!!! You don't need further proof that a great story can be told in that length.
Want another example? Watch Now and Then, Here and There.


I actually thought that Kanon had the best ending, because it tied all the themes together. spoiler[The fact that Ayu's last wish was for Yuichi to be happy was what saved everyone. I think of it as the power of an unselfish wish Smile ... if she had JUST wished for herself, then the other girls could not have been saved. So, basically, Ayu's and Yuichi's selflessness were what made the ending what it was. ] Also, I just liked how all the characters in Kanon intertwined so it never felt like "arcs" or a "harem" show (like Clannad does at many times...) ... The overarching theme of a Canon (repeating melody that becomes more complex as imitative melodies follow) really worked well for the story - each character worked into the "melody of Yuichi's memories" if you will. I just thought out of the three Key-Kyoto series, Kanon was the most well-rounded and complete feeling.
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jenthehen



Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 835
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:00 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
I don't know why Bored_Ming's post got deleted, but I'll reply to it nonetheless.

Bored_Ming wrote:
An interesting position. However, one of the points of the series is to get you emotionally tied to the characters to create a greater feeling of tragedy. A persons reaction to a boy in similar situations is usually "toughen up buddy". A boy acting the way the girls do in some emotional scenes would be called and wimp or whiner. This would create a reaction that would destroy a scene. But, when its a girl a more nurturing or caring reaction occurs. The desire to protect is greater. Gender plays a large role in our reactions and perceptions and they are not always sexual.


I see what you're saying. That the girls are girls in the first place not to appeal to a fetish but to appeal to the nurturing side programmed into people.

So - at the risk of setting off a bomb - it is, essentially Moe.

Well, isn't Moe a fetish? So wasn't I right all along? Well, okay, it isn't "wank-material", but that was Erin's terminology anyway (regarding the OVA's second episode), and I was just latching onto that.


No ... just no. GSG is not a "moe show" - and I LOOOOVE moe. But it's not moe. Moe implies a sort of cutesy innocence and naiveness that is not present in GSG at all. Have you even watched the TRAILER for this show?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL9DQXrwmF4

It's pretty decent, but depicts WAY more violence than is representative of the show as a whole.

At it's root, GSG is a more serious psychological study almost on par with Now and Then, Here and There (as I mentioned before) - although it IS less intense.

Girls can be "cute" and you can pity them without it being moe, fetishy, or anything like that ... maybe step back from the anime world/fandom for awhile and think about how real humans react to broken little girls/children in bad situations.

Not to mention that this is a show with no fanservice (except for perhaps violence?) The show is heartbreaking and realistic. (First season, at least - I can't speak for all of Teatrino or the OVA).
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bglassbrook



Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 1243
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:10 am Reply with quote
Prede wrote:
The girls are very young, they all have very screwed up pasts, and they all have awkward and odd relationships with thier handlers, although each relationship is very different.

Ture, but contrarily, even though they discuss & handle the drugs' side-effects on the level, some may find Henrietta's affection a step or two above the comfort level.

I hope they are sticking the OVA on either of the Blu sets. It would be kinda annoying to have to swing back around for just two episodes, particularly if they aren't very strong.

Quote:
description of how EPenguin keep his shelves

Whose turn is it to wear the evil-twin beard this week?
Quote:
Samurai 7 is on the floor aside the shelves because of the over-sized boxes.

Yeah, it's a pain that they only fit upright on shelves 1/4/5/8 (without pushing the shelf above,) but luckily putting them on edge works.

PetrifiedJello wrote:
And to EPPenguin, I need to ask where you got those shelves! I've been looking for something similar, but all I can find are the small versions. Those look perfect for what I'd like to set up.

Best Buy has them on sale this week.
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Bored_Ming



Joined: 17 Jun 2009
Posts: 242
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:16 am Reply with quote
The feeling that the GSG OVA goes nowhere is valid. The OVA's are from chapters 28 & 29 of the manga. It sits right between the ending of the Pinocchio story arc and the beginning of the Petrushka story arc. It only expands on the brothers and their relationships with Rico and Henrietta. I'm not 100% sure but I thought in Japan these were packaged as episodes 14 & 15 of season 2 and not stand alone OVA's.

Arguing over some sort of logic that girls can't do "x" job because only men can is silly. Um, unless I'm mistaken I was watching an ANIME show not a documentary on Discovery or History Channel. Reminds me of my days playing D&D and the dudes arguing over proper spellcasting. "Dude, you can't cause in real life you would never do that way!"

Oh and GSG is pretty much an anti-wank show. You really have to be committed to the cause if you are doing that while watching this series.


Last edited by Bored_Ming on Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:19 am; edited 1 time in total
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