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Taboo-Tattoo (TV).


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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Mon May 16, 2016 11:55 am Reply with quote


Taboo-Tattoo (TV)

Genres: Action
Themes:

Plot Summary: Justice Akazuka (nickname Seigi) is a young man who is good at martial arts. Seigi rescues a homeless old man on the street one day from some thugs, and the man gives Seigi an object that imprints a tattoo on his palm. However, it is not an ordinary tattoo, but a special weapon that gives Seigi supernatural powers such as warping space-time. Seigi then meets a female American agent named Easy, whose duty is to recover the tattoos. Seigi decides to help her and gets wrapped up in a cross-national conspiracy.
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Another one of J.C. Staff production works this Summer.
This was actually announce awhile ago as well and the plot could be fun to work with.
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 2:26 pm Reply with quote
Episode 1:

Hmm, that was kinda odd. The production quality by JC Staff is nice and theme songs are catchy. However, the comedy really has weird timing. One moment, they are fighting like their lives are on the line, the next, we get comedic faces. The main girl (Bluesy Fluesy)...has a weird personality as well. Meanwhile, we'll probably find out more about those supernatural tattoos as the ED song implies there are many other users.

Main protagonist has the nickname Justice. (kinda fitting actually). I'll look forward to see how much they plan to adapt the series.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:54 am Reply with quote
Episode 1

From the first episode my response is that this is so trashy. Like not since Triage X have I seen something that I can quickly call it trashy. It looks nice, at least I think it does, the first episode had a weird habit of jumping around, like jumping to specific angles used to sell a sense of action, but I think it kind of felt like it was doing it to actually distract itself.

I think the biggest problem was that it felt like it moved too fast, like it knew that t wanted to get to this scene of where we see his power activate at the end of the episode, and put everything on fast forward to get there. And that really feels like a mistake, there was very little dramatic tension. All the characters popped up with what are pretty standard character types, but happens so quickly that it feels like it actually a joke, like Mako doing everything with crazy energy, except I am pretty sure that it is not a joke. The worst was probably his female friend, who although was funny when she head-butts and explodes a lettuce, but it was hard to get a beat of whether she was a "I am only looking after you because I was told to" tsundere, or a "I treasure you so much I will try and make your fictional meal" girl.

And what is up with that main girl? She warns him to be careful, steals his phone, monologues about his personality, tries to beat him up (almost killing him), explains way too much about the top secret tattoos, stalks him, is sad because she finds out she was not stealthy, and seems kind of mildly interested as he fights in a deadly battle. Writing that there does not seem too bad, but it just felt too erratic. We got told that she is older than she looks, but this seemed like a character trait they would only use when convenient because she sure as milk licking does not act like it.

Maybe it all was not too bad, some of it looked nice, but this first episode felt very erratic as barely any scene had time to really be effective, and despite that a lot of exposition.
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 11, 2016 5:35 pm Reply with quote
Episode 2:

Hmm, is it me or did it feel like they introduced more characters than they should already?

I'm guessing they'll have to explain some of the powers of the other tattoos. Expecting more action next time. Also, I hope they start cutting down the comedy soon as the first half of this episode made me face palm a bit.

Glad to see the show is keeping the violence uncensored though.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:01 am Reply with quote
Well. That escalated quickly.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:49 am Reply with quote
Episode 2

Strangely, this felt like a better episode, I was actually kind of enjoying myself despite it all being pretty stupid. To be honest it is probably in that guilty pleasure sort of way. Her name is Bluesy Fruesy.

Ladies, maybe someone can explain it to me. Why do women in anime care so much about their age getting out? Especially when say your physical age is frozen and that can only mean they are wiser and the like. All the power to her if she is like actually 40 or something, but at least make her act in a way that would be right for her age (not like tsundere teenager), and not pull the thing with elves where despite 100 they act like the maturity of a teenager. And that would probably mean avoiding sexual tension with the underage boy regardless of her appearance.
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HelloBucket



Joined: 07 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:56 am Reply with quote
episodes one and two

Is there a term in anime equivalent to exploitation film? There ought to be. Nihilism is a terrible place to live, but a wonderful place to visit in a controlled fashion. It's best that this show wears its colors proudly. Shows like this don't get anywhere by having a sense of shame, and it's better to chase away people who aren't your audience earlier rather than later. I'm having a great time, so I'm clearly in the audience.

Really looking forward to the fights that have been set up for the next episode.

On another note, I really like the energetic direction. There's no depth to it, but it keeps the the show's energy level and snse of sickness at the right level for the humor to work.

DuskyPredator wrote:
Ladies, maybe someone can explain it to me. Why do women in anime care so much about their age getting out?

I can't answer this from a female perspective, but I've always assumed it's because women have essentially the same weakness as the vampires from Blood Blockade Battlefront. Except, instead of needing to know their name to seal them away, it's their age.

DuskyPredator wrote:
And that would probably mean avoiding sexual tension with the underage boy regardless of her appearance.

You may think that, but my personal experiences don't agree with this assumption. I don't find her character unrealistic, in that regard. She's still very anime in a lot of other ways (see: boob groping).

Also, it may be that one of the things she's lying about is the whole older-than-I-look deal.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:42 am Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:
Ladies, maybe someone can explain it to me. Why do women in anime care so much about their age getting out?


Because older women are seen as undesirable (see Christmas Cake). Well, I hope her age will prevent anything romantic from developing so the childhood friend isn't left out in the cold this time.

I'm liking the show well enough so far. It's kinda like a more competent version of Big Order. And it's interesting to see how America are the good guys this time. Normally it'd be the little country being picked on by Big Bad Uncle Sam that would get the sympathetic treatment.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:06 pm Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:
Ladies, maybe someone can explain it to me. Why do women in anime care so much about their age getting out? Especially when say your physical age is frozen and that can only mean they are wiser and the like. All the power to her if she is like actually 40 or something, but at least make her act in a way that would be right for her age (not like tsundere teenager), and not pull the thing with elves where despite 100 they act like the maturity of a teenager. And that would probably mean avoiding sexual tension with the underage boy regardless of her appearance.

Oh, you know there's nothing that could make them avoid the sexual tension with the underage boy. This is anime.

As for the main question - women have it drilled into them from an early age that women have an expiration date. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside (since women are inundated with messages that they're always lacking in that aspect at every age), the number is all that matters, if people know it (you can no longer "pass" if people know your shelf life is up). I imagine it's worse in Japan, where there's enormous pressure for women to be married by 26 and are considered off the market after that (western women get three more years).

I would imagine in this case she'd also like to avoid the bias present in your own question: if she's known to be a certain age, she should act that age (whatever that means), and not enjoy the advantages of the youth she actually has. People's internal self-image does not age at the same rate as their external appearance, so being expected to "act your age" is chafing, and would be especially so for someone who physically wasn't old.

Are we sure they're Americans? The dialog seemed to suggest they might actually be working for the Kingdom (or perhaps a third party), although the coup has changed things radically. If they were US military, why would they even mention handing him over to the Kingdom?
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:46 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
I would imagine in this case she'd also like to avoid the bias present in your own question: if she's known to be a certain age, she should act that age (whatever that means), and not enjoy the advantages of the youth she actually has. People's internal self-image does not age at the same rate as their external appearance, so being expected to "act your age" is chafing, and would be especially so for someone who physically wasn't old.

I was wondering if I should put an apology in how what I said was a little hypocritical, but I think that I would put the same thing to a male character. By it I meant that sure she can show a level of youth she could get away with her appearance, but she should also be able to show a level professionalism when working since she is apparently the senpai of the group, and at least not entirely act like any other anime teenager. I guess I was comparing to what I felt from the first episode of Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars where it felt like a character frozen in time was more than her physical age, which I think is important when making more than flavour.
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Gina Szanboti



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PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:44 pm Reply with quote
Well, the "act your age" bias exists for everyone, so gender doesn't much factor into it (except that older men are given a bit more leeway to indulge in their second childhood than older women are, which is odd since childlike behavior is often seen as attractive in younger women at least). I don't see any need to apologize though.

I do agree that she would probably not act like a teenager if she's in her 20s, since 20-something tends to be how people continue to view themselves for the most part, no matter how old their reflection says they are. Smile But if she's only in her early 20s, moments of reverting back to teenage immaturity aren't unbelievable.
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HelloBucket



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:55 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
If they were US military, why would they even mention handing him over to the Kingdom?

I had the thought that this line was intentionally vague, since you could take (the English translation anyway) it to mean either failing to be proactive and allowing Justice to be nabbed by their enemies, or them secretly being agents of the kingdom but are untrusting in their own government.

Far more suspicious, to me, is how easily the two kingdom agents located them. Not that there couldn't be some explanation as to how the kingdom acquired information about US agents.
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Agent355



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 12:29 pm Reply with quote
Wait, did I misunderstand that part? I thought Bluesy Fluesy (Laughing Worst anime name ever, or what? Laughing) and her partner were discussing keeping Seigi away from the American Government[ to avoid him turning into a guinea pig, so they'd just keep him to themselves and monitor him in Japan. Also, lol on poor, naïve Seigi trusting a couple of American agents when they say they don't want to start a war in the Middle East. Learn some history, kid!

Most disturbing part of the episode would have been Bluesy molesting Childhoodfriend-chan, but then the Kingdom's goon showed up and had to be graphic about his lust for Bluesy's kid body. Yuck! In hindsight, the molestation scene is just typical albeit in bad taste.
When Childhoodfriend-chan attacked Seigi, I was shocked for a moment before thinking "Oh, mind control! Obviously!" It's going to take more than that for me to consider it an original twist.
But despite everything, I still think this show has potential.
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HelloBucket



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 5:43 pm Reply with quote
^
If I recall the episode correctly, she actually mentions both. The guinea pig thing being in relation to bringing him back to the US, and the "handing him over to the Kingdom" as a line about what would happen if she just cut him loose. A typical rock/hard place setup to keep the MC locked to his questionable savior.
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Stark700



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PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:23 pm Reply with quote
Episode 3:

Yeah, I'm still finding the comedic timings of the episode/show to be strange and not entirely funny, only occasionally.

On the other side, I kinda like the action of the show. JC Staff seems to know what they're doing on the technical front this season. Looks like we'll probably get Izzy's friend fighting soon. I think it's also obvious that Touko has feelings for Justice (not surprising though).

That little girl who possessed Touko this episode is implied to be weaker than Izzy as well. Doesn't seem like she is totally emotionless though since she cares about animals.
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