Forum

Quote:

There is a real tear-jerking potential here, like something utterly depressing is waiting just around the corner.

But of course. And here's my prediction: spoiler[The ever-adorable Noel will be leaving the town (earth?) for good... but not before granting Nonoka's (or the kid's) wish.] I mean... what else, really?

Still liking it so far... unable to resist Noel's smile. Embarassed

Shione needs to get over herself. Nonoka had no control over whether or when she would be leaving town so blaming her for leaving is not fair. She is not mocking you and thinking you are stupid, she has amnesia, weirdly spotty though it may be. I would like to see her beg for forgiveness for being such a petty and horrible person. And if they regret summoning that saucer before she left, they should not take it out on her. They agreed to do it so they can't fairly put all the blame on her and as said before she could not control her leaving

You seem to refer to the main character as "Nonoha" a lot, and her real name, "Nonoka" a few times. Granted, I haven't gotten started on this show yet, so maybe there's something to that, but... yeah, that kind of stood out.

As for the show being secretive... that's... fine, as long as it doesn't do like Glasslip and answer nothing by the end.

"Shione seems to have deeper reasons for her dislike – we see that she keeps a photo of her face down on her cork board – but again, this seems over the top for her current age."

Perhaps deep down they wished they were writing about older people, and it bleed through into the writing.

Sounds interesting, so I will be putting this one on my list.

Yeah, Shione needs to get slapped back. She's acting as if Nonoka forced her father to mover her back to Tokyo.

I have to wonder really just how far that resentment really goes. She did after all keep the photo.

Also I have to wonder at why everyone -- or anyone -- would harbor such a deep resentment of the saucer being there in the first place. It isn't doing anything bad. They could light off fireworks if they wanted to. And it clearly attracts tourist dollars to their community. The only people really put off would be air traffic control and none of them are in the story.

Northlander wrote:

You seem to refer to the main character as "Nonoha" a lot, and her real name, "Nonoka" a few times. Granted, I haven't gotten started on this show yet, so maybe there's something to that, but... yeah, that kind of stood out.

I thought I'd caught all of those - sorry. She is Nonoka and I clearly did not edit quite as well as I'd thought. Embarassed

Ep 4 review:

Quote:

As for why, however...well, right now the only firm reason we have is that it stopped the fireworks over the lake. Even for a middle schooler, that seems to be a pretty lame reason.

Yuzuki lost the fireworks. Nonoka lost her mother. The totally unacknowledged and undeniable inequity makes it all the more frustrating.

The over-the-top drama and anger in this show is starting to annoy me, and the vague story that doesn't help me understand any of it isn't helping. That said, I'm still watching this show hoping it develops into something good. The quality of the animation in this show is pretty darn good, especially whenever Noel appears on screen. They go to great lengths to show how cute and cheerful she is. They also clearly put lots of effort into animating the ending theme as it has lots of fluid motion and uses unique camera angles you don't see used in anime very often. Studio 3Hz has some pretty nice animation talent behind it, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated at whoever's writing the scripts.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Shione's problem with Nonoka has more to do with her forgetting as opposed to leaving. Being forgotten is certainly more painful than simply having been left behind.

If you couple the ideas of being abandoned and forgotten, it makes her motivations seem a little less ridiculous. Perhaps over-analyzing the character a bit - for Shione, being forgotten means that Nonoka didn't value the friendship at all - and that type of insecurity is certainly a part of human nature.

Godaistudios wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Shione's problem with Nonoka has more to do with her forgetting as opposed to leaving.

That's a tempting idea but I think it is nullified by the line "do you think that forgetting would make us forgive you?" Then later: "you deceived us."

The lack of explanation on this is so pronounced that I relied on the review and people posting here to affirm that I didn't just miss something. No, I haven't so I am left to conclude that this effect is intentional on the part of the writing. Personally I don't like it and I don't see anyone around that does.

HaruhiToy wrote:

Godaistudios wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Shione's problem with Nonoka has more to do with her forgetting as opposed to leaving.

That's a tempting idea but I think it is nullified by the line "do you think that forgetting would make us forgive you?" Then later: "you deceived us."

The lack of explanation on this is so pronounced that I relied on the review and people posting here to affirm that I didn't just miss something. No, I haven't so I am left to conclude that this effect is intentional on the part of the writing. Personally I don't like it and I don't see anyone around that does.

It's possible, but if she had remembered and been able to answer the question right away in the first episode as to why she'd come back after all that time - the insecurities and resentment Shione held may have been abated - instead, those feelings are intensified when she realized that she was forgotten as well. So her words are her outlet for expressing the anger - it's not so much about "You deceived us," but more about "you left me," and "you forgot me."

Considering that Shione is asocial as it is, it's all the bigger to her.

The glaring flaw to me is that this series is filled more with character types, than characters themselves - but that's all the more reason why I take things the way I do.

Nice review of ep 4. I acknowledge all of the frustration points Rebecca brought up, but none of them are really a concern for me. There are a lot of things that are left extremely vague at this point, but it's hard to explain how this show gives off an air of confidence that it will get to those points. We've learned more about the characters and their relationships each episode, and it gives me confidence that we'll continue to. I can understand how people find it frustrating that the relationships' tensions often boil down to simple misunderstanding or miscommunication, but I actually think that makes it feel much more real. These kids aren't acting like horrible people; they're acting like kids.

---

My initial thoughts on ep 4:

This episode explored some interesting themes as it further examined Yuzuki’s anti-saucer activism, but as a whole it felt fairly slow and flat. ★★★½☆

I found Yuzuki’s efforts to campaign against the saucer extremely silly at first, and completely missed the point: that’s how everyone feels. What she’s doing makes no sense—it’s extremely childish, there’s absolutely no logic to it, and there’s no reasonable way to expect that spreading flyers to tourists is going to affect in any way the actions of a UFO. But what is she to do? This is the only thing she can even think of to do. Are we to judge her for trying to affect change, even if it’s pointless? Initially, I thought the show was attributing this silly optimism as natural for the characters at their age, but we saw in this episode how both Souta and the extremely air-headed Koharu are jaded by reality and look down on her actions, and the only characters who join her are Nonoka—acquiescing to anything to make friends—and Noel—who is an embodiment of childish optimism. The saucer is a really apt metaphor for all the terrifying threats that linger over our lives over which we have literally no power[1], and it doesn’t help that it’s a scar on the town that is impossible to avoid.

But the thing that really affects me is how much Yuzuki’s childish, pointless, illogical actions remind me of my own as a 24-year software engineer who writes and podcasts about cartoons on the internet without any promise that people will read them. I think all creative work requires that kind of “screw it, I don’t care how pointless this is, I’m just going to do it!” attitude on some level.

[1]: Ebola, ISIS, terrorism in general, financial ruin, murderers, debt, dying, old age, pressure to get married and/or have kids, etc. (the list goes on nearly forever). It also doesn’t hurt that Celestial Method writer Naoki Hisaya likely grew up at the tail end of the Cold War (I can’t actually find info about his age, though).

---

Some responses to other comments...

HaruhiToy wrote:

Ep 4 review:
Yuzuki lost the fireworks. Nonoka lost her mother. The totally unacknowledged and undeniable inequity makes it all the more frustrating.

I think it's unfair to imply the show puts these on the same level, or directly compares them. Nonoka is lacking information about what's happened since she left; everyone else is lacking information about why Nonoka and what's happened since she left (and, yes, it's frustrating that a lot of things could be solved if everyone just told each other what's happened, but people don't immediately act that way in real life either). Yuzuki doesn't know about the death of Nonoka's mom I believe, and there were brief signs possibly hinting at death in her family that she could associate with Nonoka's sudden move. But I just really don't think there's much reason to compare them, except that we see one character fighting against their fate and the other not, but that's more conveying info about the character and not the fate.

Godaistudios wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Shione's problem with Nonoka has more to do with her forgetting as opposed to leaving. Being forgotten is certainly more painful than simply having been left behind.

I agree that's totally a strong part of it. I really liked Shione's response to Nonoka's admission that she'd forgotten about them—I'd been thinking from Nonoka's perspective and hoping that revealing her memory loss would clear things up and calm Shione down—but, no, hearing that your best friend completely forgot about you would be [expletive] brutal to a kid.

As viewers omniscient to all the present events (and select past ones), we can clearly see that Nonoka *really* didn't want to leave. But Shione really doesn't have any way of knowing that, and it's totally reasonable for someone extremely hurt to read into things pessimistically. I mean, the actual scenario—Nonoka *really* didn't want to leave, loved her friends, struggled with telling them she was going to leave because she cared about them so much, and then 7 years later has absolutely no recollection of any of them—is pretty far-fetched to assume. I guess I could find it justified to dislike the emotional states of the characters if someone rejects Nonoka's amnesia, since that's the crux of everything emotionally, but I personally am totally fine suspending disbelief of something like that.

HaruhiToy wrote:

That's a tempting idea but I think it is nullified by the line "do you think that forgetting would make us forgive you?" Then later: "you deceived us."

IIRC, Shione's been saying things about deception for a while, so I read that former line as being her reaction to Nonoka's admission of memory loss and the latter line as being a holdover of the deception idea. Also, Shione is more likely referring to the deception about leaving 7 years ago without telling anyone (which is the main scar Shione is upset about), not about showing up and lying about her memories.

Godaistudios wrote:

The glaring flaw to me is that this series is filled more with character types, than characters themselves - but that's all the more reason why I take things the way I do.

I'm probably just really ignorant of anime archetypes, because I can't see obvious ones these characters fall into =/. The only ones that scream archetype to me are Koharu (but I got from ep 4 that there's a lot more to her than just ditzy airhead) and Noel (but I mean... she's a spaceship, so does that count?).

Quote:

I'm probably just really ignorant of anime archetypes, because I can't see obvious ones these characters fall into =/. The only ones that scream archetype to me are Koharu (but I got from ep 4 that there's a lot more to her than just ditzy airhead) and Noel (but I mean... she's a spaceship, so does that count?).

This comes from a writer's perspective I suppose. Having taken screenwriting classes and churning out a few passable pieces of work, one focus is based on creating characters. Shione is a perfect example of the asocial type - have her be cold and distant. Make her unapproachable by having her wear headphones. Have her project blame rather than what she actually feels because of the walls she builds. The problem comes when it remains only at the surface level - it's rather superficial. I could go over the other characters and how they seem to fit "one type" but I just wanted to state it's a bit glaring.

It's not necessarily wrong to take this approach from a writing standpoint as it's fairly practical to do so - after all, it's a production to keep us entertained. The problem is that it remains shallow when you front load these "types" up front to the point that viewers become disengaged.

Rebecca seems to be experiencing the same sort of attraction/irritation I am with this show. Noel is adorable but the sort of blasé way that Nonoka treats her bugs me. And the eppie 4 suggests that Shione has undergone a major personality change due to Nonoka's abrupt departure from town seven years ago which seems a bit dubious. You go from a generally friendly kid to a sullen teenager just because your seven year old pal leaves town suddenly without saying good-bye? Come on.

Plus, I hate the anime thing where kids move away ... yet can somehow never get back in touch with their bosom pals through phone calls, letters, emails, texts, etc. Is there some law that when a Japanese child moves away it becomes physically impossible to ever contact his or her friends again?

Anyway, I like this show, dammit.

Blood- wrote:

And the eppie 4 suggests that Shione has undergone a major personality change due to Nonoka's abrupt departure from town seven years ago which seems a bit dubious. You go from a generally friendly kid to a sullen teenager just because your seven year old pal leaves town suddenly without saying good-bye? Come on.

Actually, it shows Shione wearing headphones back then as well. It implies she was shy and closed off rather than cold and closed off - it means she's been introverted the entire time.

This concept even has its own trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeadphonesEqualIsolation

Quote:

Plus, I hate the anime thing where kids move away ... yet can somehow never get back in touch with their bosom pals through phone calls, letters, emails, texts, etc. Is there some law that when a Japanese child moves away it becomes physically impossible to ever contact his or her friends again?

This really depends on the age of the kid - most seven year olds don't have cell phones or emails even now - and with moving, the distance grows even more so because of not having the maturity to handle a long distance friendship. It's just the psychological development of children.

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Celestial Method

Taste Naruto's Ichiraku Ramen in Real Life in Silverlake Ramen Campaign

New Spice & Wolf Anime's English Dub Features Returning Cast From Previous Series

Gundam SEED FREEDOM's Rie Tanaka, Sōichiro Hoshi Share Memories at Los Angeles Premiere

Kurayukaba and Kuramerukagari Anime Movies Review

The Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Celestial Method

Forum

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Celestial Method