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The Mike Toole Show - Anime in Orbit


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krpalmer



Joined: 03 Oct 2007
Posts: 31
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:43 pm Reply with quote
I was just the right age to see the very first space shuttle launch on TV (and went to Florida almost thirty years later to see one in person before it was too late), so I suppose I can admit to a considerable interest in space travel. Out of all the anime "pictured" in the article, I've only managed to miss seeing Nora (in fact, I hadn't heard of it until now) and Twin Spica (although I have all of its manga).

As much as discussion on Royal Space Force/Wings of Honneamise always seems to narrow to "that scene," I suppose I do find a small personal amusement in how, amidst all the elaborate "other-world" design, the rocket itself still very much resembles the Soviet Vostok launcher in my eyes. I do also understand how the Planetes anime differs enough from the original manga for some people to disagree with it, but there are times when I think that, for me, the conclusion of the anime feels more interesting than how the manga just may drift to a halt (as "realistic" as I can see that being...)
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partially



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 702
Location: Oz
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:49 pm Reply with quote
If they ever made an anime of Saturn Apartments, now that would be an anime about space. Laughing

I have always been most interested in the anime that go beyond the orbit of our little home though. Having a realistic take on interstellar empires and how they would go about without the need for aliens jumping in and all that nonsense. Pity there are so few of them.

Legend of Galactic Heroes, and more recently Crest/Banner of the Stars and Titania. And Titania was pretty awful.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:59 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Also, one of the video games people have been talking about lately, and generating a lot of buzz among horror fans, is Alien: Isolation, about space travel. Well, sort of.

Quote:
But Lagrange points are real—actual places where relatively small bodies can camp out in a point relatively stationary to the larger bodies around them. We'd have happy accepted “Just shut up about gravity and orbital velocity kids, we've solved those problems in the future!” but Gundam endeavored for an explanation that makes some sense.


I have yet to see any western animation show make use of Lagrangian points. That's something I noticed about anime compared to western animation: Anime does a ton more fact-checking, and until the mid-00's, anime and manga writers also seem to be incredibly knowledgeable about the topics they're writing about compared to western animation writers (and when I mean "until the mid-00's," I mean the western writers are becoming more well-versed). We have exceptions like The Simpsons and Pinky and the Brain, but for the most part, western animation had an almost antagonistic relationship with scholars.


Well, that's valid for western TV in general, I don't recall any sci fi western film or TV show that made use of lagrandian points.But there is also the fact that anime is generally made for older audiences than western animation, hence, you should compare kiddie anime with western animation (like Hamtaro).

Don't get me wrong; I am a big western animation fan--I had only wished there were more shows that did their research. I've always wondered why Japanese (and eastern, in general) fiction writers maintain friendly relationships with scholars and researchers while western fiction writers more often than not have hostile relationships. Is it because of the different school systems that create different views on knowledge in their upbringings?

Quote:
That sounds a lot like our mid-20th century space race, as both the United States and the Soviet Union sent stuff (and people and animals) into space in an attempt to one-up the other. I don't think anyone ever actually thought that the space race was done solely as research endeavors.


Of course, it would be extremely naive to think so. Purely a demonstration of military capabilities: if we can make a rocket that puts the man on the moon we also can put a nuclear warhead over the kremlin.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:11 pm Reply with quote
You have programming aimed at adults that don't do much fact-checking either. As far as space travel goes, I can only really think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels and Firefly that even attempt to portray space travel realistically, and the latter takes many liberties.

Heck, there are people like Roland Emmerich and Guillermo del Toro (I love the man's work, but I disagree with him on this stance) who abhor fact-checking, with Emmerich's infamous quote, "I'm not a scientist" when confronted with factual errors.

Oddly, perhaps the biggest offender of lack of research, Jerry Bruckheimer, was a science major (psychology with a minor in mathematics) before getting into the entertainment business.
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trilaan



Joined: 17 Jan 2009
Posts: 1053
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:28 pm Reply with quote
My happy smile kinda faded when Mike said the Planetes anime is not as good as the manga. I disagree as you can plainly see. Planetes is by far my favorite(also one of my dad's all time favorite animes) out of everything mentioned in the article. Still, I recommend that everyone own both the manga and anime(same with Space Brothers if that ever becomes possible.)

Am I alone in feeling like Space Brothers is a prequel to Planetes, set 50 years before?
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notrogersmith



Joined: 06 Jun 2010
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 6:05 pm Reply with quote
Personally, I thought that the Planetes anime handled the relationship between Hachimaki and Ai better than the manga did. My memory of the manga is a bit faint, but if I recall right, there wasn't any real foreshadowing or build-up before him having a sudden epiphany that he loved Ai, and they marry shortly afterward. With the anime, they were at least around each other more often, and one of Ai's friends was even trying to push them together (albeit for her own selfish reasons), and they at least dated before tying the knot. Overall, I thought that the evolution of their relationship in the anime was more believable.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 6:43 pm Reply with quote
I'm honestly confused about Planetes being about "wild idealism". "Fervor", ok, "haphazard", yes, "driven", when you give up, you become earthbound but the series doesn't turn away from what it takes to get there but calling that "idealism"? The series calls that sort of thinking naïve right from the start.

It ends on a manned mission to Jupiter but what it took to reach that goal would be a man, a scientist and engineer, who would be the villain in most Hollywood movies. Factoring in with that is Hachimaki and Ai's "union" which makes think of what Spielberg now feels about Close Encounters of the Third Kind": "I would now never end the movie with the main character, the hero, leaving his family and going into space for who knows how long." How to feel about Hachimaki's choice is left up to the viewer but seeing how the show ends, I don't see how it's intended as a positive one. "Uneasy" to put it mildly.

Well, at least Ai is one of the great heroes.

Space Brothers: I've yet to see any reason for the length of the show as even the The Right Stuff eventually ended. Hell, the series seems longer than the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions combined {college graduates and test pilots; maybe NASA should have recruited from Wall Street instead}. Of course, that was the testing phase and Space Brothers would be the "been there, someone else did that" phase.

The series would sound a lot more promising if less hand waving was done on the fiction part of "science fiction" but yes, I can imagine the series would be popular with the working business man type but I'm more a fan of speculative fiction that's, well, speculative rather than "Eh".
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phia_one



Joined: 15 Jan 2012
Posts: 1654
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 7:13 pm Reply with quote
I've really been itching for some good science fiction lately, so this was a treat to read. I definitely need to experience Planetes at some point. Twin Spica as well.
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trilaan



Joined: 17 Jan 2009
Posts: 1053
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 7:31 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
How to feel about Hachimaki's choice is left up to the viewer but seeing how the show ends, I don't see how it's intended as a positive one. "Uneasy" to put it mildly.



It's really is a spoiler[Bittersweet Ending], and I love those.
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Firstsummer



Joined: 11 Jul 2014
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 8:05 pm Reply with quote
Totally agree about the manga of Planetes being superior to the anime, almost everything they added in to the anime detracted from the original story (and that last episode, yikes what a mess).

There is a second Rocket Girls novel published in English called "Rocket Girls:The Last Planet", but I've no idea if it is any good or not.
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2260
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 8:41 pm Reply with quote
Shay Guy wrote:
Quote:
and a key scene where Shiro tries to force himself on the religious girl, Riquinni

You could just say "rape".

Yea, I'm surprised at the choice of wording there, afterall the character wasn't trying to steal a kiss, but maybe he was trying no to spoiler it. On the one hand, its a truly frightening scene and its not done for pure shock or titillation like a lesser work might do. On the other hand, if the creators were trying to add some layer of complexity to the character by giving him a moment of weakness they chose a poor way to do it (imho) as it pretty much undercuts the end of the movie and the speech. Which is such a shame, because there is so much else to like about the movie.
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jroa



Joined: 08 Aug 2012
Posts: 537
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 8:44 pm Reply with quote
Firstsummer wrote:
Totally agree about the manga of Planetes being superior to the anime, almost everything they added in to the anime detracted from the original story (and that last episode, yikes what a mess).


Just to reinforce that people have different thoughts about this matter...on the contrary, I thought the last episode was an excellent epilogue. I was quite satisfied with the ending of Planetes in general. But then again, I see them as two fairly different stories with various thematic parallels, shared situations, main characters and settings in common. If the anime was exactly the same as the manga, you wouldn't even need to read it (or, vice versa, watch the show). This way, I think they can co-exist and both are worth experiencing on their own.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8458
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:09 pm Reply with quote
I think the important thing is that Shiro isn't made to feel any better by the apology. He realizes she only forgives him so readily because of her faith and it makes him feel even worse, and what's more, it's one of the reasons he probably feels he has to go through with the launch, even if it might kill him, as a kind of atonement. It doesn't excuse that what he did was wrong, but I don't think it's meant to. That said, it's still a tough scene to get through, and I can see where it would turn people off to the movie.
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Doodleboy



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:41 pm Reply with quote
What I ultimately loved about the Planetes manga was how... grounded the themes of the series are.

What's important to you? Your dreams and career or your friends and family? Are you going to be like Werner Locksmith, a man who does great things at the cost of being horrible to anybody he encounters? Or are you going to be like Tanabe, a woman who thinks human connection is more important then advancing space-flight.

It's a simple message, told extremely well. After all what's a better metaphor for leaving human connection then spaceflight?
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2260
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:15 pm Reply with quote
Mr Adventure wrote:
'Sexual assult' is probably the corect term, since actual rape did not occur. That said either or doesn't nessisisarily ruin the movie, as there are plenty of good movies that use both.
For me it does ruin it. Its not that there is an spoiler[attempted rape] that bothers me and as I said the scene is done well in that its not just done for shock value. What bothers me is that it undercut what he had to say at the end of the movie.

Quote:
That said, what makes the scene incredibly uncomfortable is Riquinni's reaction to apologize to her attacker. But I think it's suppose to make you uncomfortable. So strong is her religious faith, even self defense isn't an excuse in her mind. It's take me more then a few rewatch a to start to realize that this may be a character strength. Not a sign of weakness.

But it's still very very uncomfortable.
No her reaction didn't bother me as much. I felt that it could be justified by the extreme religiosity of the character. I've met people like that before. However, for me at the time they basically spoiler[turned a rapist into a hero] which I thought was problematic and maybe unnecessary.


penguintruth wrote:
I think the important thing is that Shiro isn't made to feel any better by the apology. He realizes she only forgives him so readily because of her faith and it makes him feel even worse, and what's more, it's one of the reasons he probably feels he has to go through with the launch, even if it might kill him, as a kind of atonement.

Hmmm...My feeling was that this was intended as a catalyst of change for Shiro. He is inspired by her purity and humility. She is in a sense turning the other cheek which spoiler[culminates at the end with Shiro's inspiring prayer for the world while he orbits space]. This is fine, but its problematic spoiler[because our hero is an attempted rapist. No matter what the intention was, no matter that the result perhaps makes Shiro a better person he is still a rapist. You can't get around that. There is no grey area here. Two very drunk people did not fall into bed together and had all-around impaired judgement. Because its Shiro who is the perpetrator and there isn't much discussion or regret afterwards it leaves a very bad taste in one's mouth].

Shiro also displays a bit of a mean streak with his interactions with spoiler[the little orphan girl that Riquinni is taking care of. She might have some developmental problems, but he doesn't feel particularly bad or guilty knocking her over when he's alone with her. This gives the impression that Shiro doesn't have a very good character or intentions. He may find Riquinni's purity--I hesitate to say goodness because she does come off as a bit fanatical--inspiring, but he also seems to be more callously in it for getting laid]. This is why spoiler[the attempted rape] becomes problematic. I think both of them are flawed and the situation complex which is a positive. However, his obvious spoiler[hitting on her and his behavior towards the kid were enough to establish his weak qualities. He was already flawed and his improvement could have been inspiring in itself. Instead he goes from a little douche to a major douche-bag of an attempted rapist]. It feels a little repulsive to use spoiler[rape to benefit the development of the rapist], especially since his development came off a little fast and to me with little guilt attached.

There's a lot to like about this movie. Visually its pretty darn good with character clothing and aircraft that reflect the cultures. Its got actual adults in it, not teenagers. The politics, Shiro's spoiler[disillusionment] feels real and overall its inspiring. However, how that one scene is used (not the scene itself) damaged an excellent movie for me. I'm just speaking for myself. I'm not trying to convince others how they should feel about the movie. I'm just sharing how I felt about it at the time.


Last edited by One-Eye on Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
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