Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Active Raid
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5420 Location: Iscandar |
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As usual Nick provides his reviews as soon as the episode airs; thank you.
Episode 2 was better than episode 1, but I still find Active Raid more crappy than good. The funny thing is that I dig this show. If it eventually becomes good, that would be nice. But I am cool with it being crap as long as I keep having fun watching it. |
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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I'd probably tend to give both episodes a score of B myself, but otherwise this was an interesting write-up to read. It's nice that Nick is still digging the show and can analyze some of the less obvious aspects of the same too.
Episode 2 slowed down the pace, so it was able to focus more on a couple of the characters (and also develop the setting to a certain extent in the process) without rushing too much to get to each joke, which I think addresses one of the most common issues from the community. To put it another way, there was more structural stability and the episode was a lot less chaotic of an experience for the most part. Unfortunately, the storyboarding and animation did worsen. There were still a good number of silly gags and so on, but that is to be expected here. In short, you'll either be the kind of person who can easily chill out and freely smile at some of those, like with the whole software situation near the end of the episode, or you won't. It's a simple matter of personal preference, since the practical brand of humor in this show is not really aiming to be too sophisticated nor subtle. Incidentally, I liked that they did have the inevitable couple of fanservice shots but neither of them took a lot of time. That said, I do continue to disagree with angelmcazares above, because for me what the show literally wants to be, at its core, is just a lot of silly fun. Ergo, that's only "crappy" if you feel the material should either attempt to be far more self-serious all of a sudden or completely switch genres. Which, by and large, isn't likely to happen. |
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Episode #1-2:
I concur with the review; usually, law-enforcement shows fall to one of two categories: the "clear line in the sand" one, and the "a black and white at the outliers of the moral scale, with a whole lot of gray in the middle" one. And I'm glad to see that, at least for now, this show is part of the latter category, which means it is aiming to appeal towards the older audience. There are quite enough "line in the sand" shows as-is already, so having a show like this one is quite refreshing. |
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Scherzo
 Posts: 149 |
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I sort of have a split mind on this. On the one hand, it's good to have some depth to the world, and some conflicting interests between order and justice, but I don't think it'd be bad if they portrayed the police in the end as a force for good. At least, as long as they don't go all GATE about it, but clearly this is more critical of the structure of Japanese society than that was.
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chito895
 Posts: 512 Location: Lima, Peru |
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I as well liked this second episode more than the first one. I thought it was funnier than the first one, more packed with its main themes, and I was also impressed by how talented Asami was when using that robot suit. This episode left me rooting for Rin. She's clearly in a difficult palce, as she gets all the complaints for something she and her team are not able to avoid. Hopefully, next episodes will develop Rin's position in this kinda broken system.
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Scherzo
Posts: 149 |
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I do agree though that the evil mastermind character is pretty dumb. Given how interested the rest of the show seems to be about how police should operate in the real world, it seems kinda lame to have a villain be some sort of Joker-esqe 'trying to prove a point about society' type.
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lucio542
 Posts: 262 Location: Brasil |
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how funny
the review its an A- but the rate its a shit . |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Meh I dunno, maybe if the main character was less of a running gag. It's like the show gets a kick out of making fun of her. Like she brought a suit and did tons of simulation but never once tried to put it on, wouldn't she at least try it at first just to make sure it fit her? It didn't come off as funny so much as "man she's a moron, how did she ever get hired?".
Then there's the fact that it's really hard to root for S8. It's hard to care for that co worker who doesn't show up to work all the time, but at least there job isn't to literally be ready in an emergency. Here it's hard to see how they could even still have a job. Patlabor was also about a bunch of miss fit, but they also were all really good at there job and wouldn't just casually ignore there duty. I guess I could take the show as a silly one, but then my question is, why are there so few jokes? We get maybe 1 joke per minute, with long section completely devoid of comedy. Ep 2 really cement this as one of those show that are too serious to be considered silly and too silly to be considered serious. |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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I see this as a "day in the life of" anime, set in a slightly different earth, focusing on this police force. It'll have all their in jokes and habits and complaints, and those will teach us about their world. The action scenes will teach us about their tech and morals and laws. This is how you do world building. It shows the flavors of their lives, so we can compare and contrast with ours. And there's apparently and overarching story to pull us along through the whole thing (though the villain is, at this point, stupid).
So I don't real expect a consistent tone from it because there isn't one in real life. I kind of like that about the show. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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I think Nick is a good choice to review this one -- from the preview guide it looked like most of the rest of the reviewers were set to trash it.
What do you want from an over-wrought mecha show anyway? You got it all here -- the equip sequence (underwear-to-armor) the launch sequence, the HUD stuff and all sorts of tech details that make no sense at all but look really military. Sort of. If I had to name the best thing about AR I would say that it doesn't seem to be taking itself too seriously. We have a Section 9 already and Unit 8 isn't that. And that is fine. |
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TendouMan
Posts: 8 |
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What really bothers me is that everyone's focusing on what the writer did in anime, when in context of this series, we should be looking at his much more successful venue - tokusatsu.
Why? Because the stuff he did there is good, and by that I mean "award-winning and both critically and fan acclaimed" good. And seeing as AR is pretty much a superhero show, but animated, I think that by looking from this angle, we will get a much clearer view on what to expect from him. Especially since he already has one police-themed toku series under his belt - Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, AKA the Super Sentai that was adapted into Power Rangers S.P.D.. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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just one phrase; this show is very 90s, I get bublegum crisis feeling here.
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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To answer Nick's (rhetorical?) question: I've been saying all along that this show primarily wants to have fun and not be extremely serious at all. Even the staff has put this on the record, so they are not trying to hide behind a forest or anything.
There are more or less interesting aspects involved, depending on who you are as a viewer and what the series actually decides to address during a particular episode. Perhaps you'll have more crazy antics alternating with more character-based pieces. There is a certain amount of weekly variety. Some situations will deserve a lot of attention from the audience and others will ask for little of it. But at the end of the day, my position is this: Active Raid is not trying to communicate a profound message about bad government or the realities of law enforcement. This might be important in certain moments, as a way to move the narrative forward, but the mission statement appears to be entertainment, not sophistication. Last edited by jroa on Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:26 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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Anyone else think the scene with the big bad's sister was weird? I'm not against siscon stuff, as I have no sisters blood related or otherwise, but I thought it was weird when she knelt down, picked a (grape?cherry?) tomato with her mouth and fed it to him mouth to mouth. I don't really like that he called her a slut per CR's translation, but even if you translate it as bitch, it doesn't make it better. I'm not sure siscons would be into that. I can see mouth to mouth feeding but having he get on her knees and pick it up with her mouth just seems weird not sexy. And from what I've seen, siscon content tends not to be degrading to that extent. Maybe a stop being so weird but never to the degree of get away from me slut/bitch. From what I've seen, Imouto moe tends towards revering sisters (in a way some find creepy) not insulting domination. I find the treatment of women in that scene more problematic than the fact she is his sister.
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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Do we really know that? I am not so sure. I have the distinct impression she might not even be his "real" sister, but just someone who plays that part. And presumably this is why she approached him that way (ie: otaku are supposed to think incest is hot) and he wasn't interested. If that assumption is correct, then it would fit with the whole transparent immature rich nerd vibe that his room and general attitude seems to be transmitting. Which is probably also why he is horrible towards women and so on. He's a total jerk (and my least liked part of the show so far). |
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