Forum - View topicANNCast - Wayward Sons
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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[quote="PCDOS"]
There is a problem with the way the Zero was designed, though... It was based on real shortcoming in Japan's aviation industry at the time as well as the bushido code that military officers and aviators were expected to follow. 1) Materials in the Japanese aviation industry were more restrictive and generally less exotic than what was available in the West. That impacted the power of the engines that could be developed in Japan which affected the size of the aircraft they could produce. The Zero couldn't be armored with the horsepower of engines they could produce in Japan at the point because they couldn't reliably produce an engine in the performance zones of either the Rolls Royce Merlin engine (Spitfire, P-51 Mustang) or the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp that powered at least 3 major American designs (P-47 Thunderbolt, F4U Corsair, F6F Hellcat) the latter two of which by Japanese admissions chewed up the Zero in the latter half of World War II. 2) There was an adversion to armoring Japanese fighterplanes towards the beginning of the war because it was felt that it would hurt the spirit of the pilots and also was against the bushido code -- ie, there was a certain amount of macho B.S. in play there that ended with the deaths of most of the experienced and great Japanese fighter pilots well before the war ended. One of the principal Japanese aircraft designers (don't remember his name) said that he regretted that they didn't incorporate more armor protection because of all the deaths of ace pilots! Japan's highest-ranking SURVIVING ace, Saburo Sakai, noted in his autobiography how much he respected the ability of American designs to absorb damage. A near-empty Zero fighter could still catch on fire just by fuel vapor ignition from a stray bullet. In addition to no practical armoring, the Zero lacked built-in firefighting foam tanks that became more common on Western designs towards the end of the war. 3) The only performance zone that the Zeroes bettered American and British designs at by the middle of the war was low-speed turning performance but it's a very stupid game to slow down and fight at that speed at any rate. In all other matters -- climb rate, dive, top speeds, armament, and range in at least two cases -- the major Allied fighters were better. By that point, there were better Japanese designs available but the existing issues with engine powerplant output and lack of reliable metals for said-powerplants meant that those designs were never going to be available in numbers to replace the Zero which was obsolete and a death trap for less-experienced Imperial Navy aviators. In actuality, at higher speeds, the American designs DID have maneuvering advantages over the Zero. At high speeds, the Zero's controls didn't respond well to control inputs. The Zero also didn't dive particularly well and it was easier for Allied to break off combat or resume it at their leisure with the higher--performance capabilities of the P-38, P-51, F4U, and F6F types. Presumably this was the case with the British fighters used in the Pacific, too. None of the major Allied types could out-turn the Zero at lower airspeeds but they DIDN'T have to when they could literally outmuscle the Zero in most other performance aspects. Dogfights are NOT dead, btw... It's how people employ technology that evolves. The basics stay the same. The tech rarely lives up to the hype. It's very, very dangerous to remove basic back-ups and controls and rely entirely on missiles and computers even today. Those basic lessons have to be relearned every twenty years. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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You mean the same statement that you and other vocal hardcore anime fans on the internet over exaggerate the amount of people who actually say that these days? |
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GATSU
Posts: 15309 |
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Zac: Miyazaki had a reason to not spend more time with his family, which is that he was working for a living.
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Bingal
Posts: 95 |
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How many people said that? One, two, five? Get over yourself. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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I have a suggestion for The Stream, Zac.
What if instead of covering 40+ shows each season, the new Stream only focused on 20 shows. After the first 2 episodes of each new series were out, ANN could have poll for us to choose what we want to see in The Stream. The 15 new shows with the most votes would be covered. The other 5 shows would be sequels or series with multiple cours continuing from the previous season. Choosing which of these 5 shows are covered would be up to ANN staff's discretion. Some people would be unhappy that only 20 shows are being covered, but they at least would get the chance to vote for what they want covered. |
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law240
 Posts: 77 Location: El Paso, TX |
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Like a draft? sounds kind of fun |
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Lavnovice9
Posts: 276 |
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I think we found two right here. Happens all the time in any thread about "anime should appeal to the west because Japan's market is dying" or "anime needs to be more mainstream and less otaku pandering garbage because otherwise it'll die!" Every year we get that, every year anime does fine, every year they push their doomsday prediction to the next year hoping a broken clock will be right once a day. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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That was Just the normal internet exaggeration and gross oversimplication of every complex story into a simple emotional "credo". I'm confident that the growing number of productions at the present will now be crafted into an equally exaggerated and grossly oversimplified credo from another quarter about the robust financial health of the industry. Though I don't know where you got the idea that that particular credo sprung up suddenly last year ... the main domestic anime industry in Japan was under substantially greater financial stress three or four years ago, and all of the current-industry ANNcast interviews of the past year have indicated US market conditions are stable to moderately improving. |
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Mudkips
Posts: 9 |
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Justin's comments about The Wind Rises actually now make me want to get to that film. Eventually. I still have way too much of a Miyazaki backlog to get to it any time soon, though. It would be easier if I could get out of my "Yes, that was nice, but it wasn't nearly as good as Princess Mononoke" mindset that seems to be slowing the whole endeavor to a crawl. I really shouldn't have made that my first Miyazaki movie.
Joseph Joestar is not on that list. Explain yourself. Depending on your answer, I may have to kick your ass. Quoting memes aside, I would say, Zac, that if you're not initially feeling JoJo's (Part I is the "so bad it's good" part of JoJo's), just skip to episode 10. That's when Part II takes the reigns and turns the series into an insane, psychedelic, and incredibly homoerotic rendition of Indiana Jones. Parts tend to vary a lot in terms of tone and pacing, so disliking any one part doesn't really speak much to whether you'd dislike the others. Edit: Anyways, on the whole "Madoka is sexist" thing. The post I see getting linked the most is this one. Basically, the argument is that it's moe tragedy porn that victimizes its protagonists and punishes them for wanting power so the viewers can beat off to them, which... well, it seems like a pretty disingenuous interpretation of the material that disregards the ending by its own admission, to be honest. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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You completely missed the point to what I was saying if you sincerely thought I was supporting the argument that the Japanese animation industry is dying due to not appealing more to a different group of people.
Except it really doesn't happen all the time. The amount of threads anywhere on the internet nowadays having to do with the condition of the Japanese animation industry and how it doesn't appeal to westerns compared to threads that talk about anything else are few and far in-between. The only way I can see why you would think such discussions still exist all the time and are still a really big deal to lot of people think in the year 2014 of all times, is if you were constantly looking around the internet to see if people kept making such discussions. Otherwise, I don't see how you can ignore such comments and not make them seem like a bigger deal than they really are. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5469 |
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Hehe, interesting how light novel fan translations are the next level of "uber elite knowitalls" though I'd imagine that particular hurdle will be much difficult to cross. Let's hope Yen Press' new light novel line will do them favors in the long run.
That's....wow, that's a rather cynical take of the series. |
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StudioToledo
 Posts: 847 Location: Toledo, U.S.A. |
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Zing! 
I think that "Dawn of the Dead" thing that was brought up as being done by Disney is actually "El Dia De Los Muertos", based on a familiar Mexican holiday. Disney tried to trademark the title to much confusion and backlash from the community. http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/us/disney-trademark-day-dead/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead |
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Mudkips
Posts: 9 |
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My thoughts exactly. It also completely fails to understand that Gen Urobuchi is basically writing about himself. I mean, just look at the afterward he wrote for Fate/Zero years before (last paragraph spoilered, on account of it basically being Madoka's ending).
So, yeah, the point of Madoka isn't tragedy porn so much as it's Gen asking himself, "How do I get over my crippling nihilism?" |
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insert name here
Posts: 84 |
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A response to the tangent about the Tumblr/Twitter social justice brigade. The sort of call out culture that's been set up online is kind of the logical outcome of PC politics. You can call everything racist and sexist, because racism and sexism have been intimately woven into the fabric of society. This extends even to the level of language, so a lot of left-liberals have taken to this theory that if you change the language and the culture, it will bring about more egalitarian social relations. What this ignores is that language reflects material and social conditions at least as much as it conditions them, and so sooner or later this strategy of language policing is going to come to a point of diminishing returns, if not collapse entirely. What's missing here is the primary factor that determines inequity in human social life: class. This lack of class based political economy forms the absent center of the yakkity sax background music worthy farce that is todays Left. Rant over.
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lkmjr
Posts: 68 Location: Austin, Texas |
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[quote="Mudkips"]
It's not like he couldn't have told that story without torturing (fictional) little girls for episodes on end. Urobuchi could have chosen almost any genre to tell his story with. Unfortunately, he picked magical girls, the one genre that's centered around little girls becoming superheroes, empowered by their emotions, desires, ideals, and friendships. PMMM is the genre taken out of the girls' hands, twisted until it's barely recognizable, ripped apart, and clumsily pasted back together, and yet a very large and vocal portion of its fans hold it up as the best thing that ever happened to the genre. (Sure, there have been tons of grody, sexualized, adult-oriented "magical girls" over the years, but none of those are put on a pedestal to quite the degree that PMMM is.) I really did enjoy PMMM the first time I saw it, but the longer I think about it, the more uncomfortable with it I become. Even with the ending, which spoiler[isn't nearly as positive as it's given credit for. Almost nothing actually changes. Madoka rescues puella magi before they become witches, but otherwise she doesn't change a single thing about the Incubators' system, which is still built around deceiving young girls into making wishes which will turn sour on them, ripping their souls from their bodies, and allowing them to either die quickly in combat or slowly of despair and corruption. And Madoka gives up everything for this!] The show spends episode after episode torturing little girls and crapping on everything magical girls stand for, then at the eleventh hour it tries to tack a smiley face on the end so that you don't feel bad about enjoying it. |
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