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EP. REVIEW: KADO - The Right Answer


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Calsolum



Joined: 11 May 2010
Posts: 898
PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2017 1:00 pm Reply with quote
damn this was one hell of an episode.

honestly I enjoyed it a lot. As for ZaShunina 'suddenly' turning into a bad guy it wasn't sudden at all, at least in my opinion. ZaShunina in my opinion has always been framed as a well-intentioned extremist. All his gifts, actions and intentions have always seemed to be for the benefit of humanity and they were, the only difference now is that we've only just now found out that that ZaShunina altruistic goals were not so selfless and that he wanted something from humanity hence why he's helping speed up the process in the first place.
Also while this might be unrelated in the future but I wonder if the real reason ZaShunina can't make transportation into doors or tunnels because he actually copies them before he transports them in case he needs to roll back changes.

If I had to nitpick anything about this episode I'd say why is it that ZaShunina suddely started 'acting' antagonistic. I think the writer's should have preserved ZaShunina lack of understanding of humanity by have his expressions stay indifferent or benevolent as he deletes the current version of Shindo. Is this because he's started becoming more expressive as he learns human culture and realized he's a villain?
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Calsolum wrote:
All his gifts, actions and intentions have always seemed to be for the benefit of humanity and they were, the only difference now is that we've only just now found out that that ZaShunina altruistic goals were not so selfless and that he wanted something from humanity hence why he's helping speed up the process in the first place.


And that makes him a "bad guy"? By that definition most people would be "bad" because there are very few who do things for others out of complete and utter selflessness...besides, i don't remember zaShunina ever claiming to be an altruist and humanity sure didn't seem to care much as long as they were getting awesome stuff for free.

But well, i'm morbidly curious about what ridiculous explanation we'll be getting for Tsukai's sudden...magical girl transformation, so i'm actually looking forward to next week. Sort of.
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wolf10



Joined: 23 Jan 2016
Posts: 898
PostPosted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:28 pm Reply with quote
Calsolum wrote:
Also while this might be unrelated in the future but I wonder if the real reason ZaShunina can't make transportation into doors or tunnels because he actually copies them before he transports them in case he needs to roll back changes.
He paused noticeably before telling Shindo he couldn't. That's a pretty huge clue that he can, but chose not to, if even only for that instance, because he was preparing his contingency plan.

I'm still hoping this series resolves itself with negotiation. Unless they're planning to wrap up at 10 episodes, there's still time to explore why settling everything with magical-girl fisticuffs is not The Right Answer.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:13 pm Reply with quote
wolf10 wrote:
I'm still hoping this series resolves itself with negotiation.

I still have faith that it will be, because I'm really liking the point DP made in the discussion thread:

DuskyPredator wrote:
Remember the original story? Factory is looking stagnant, outside force comes in to what appears to destroy but has what appears to be good intentions for those involved. Negotiator steps in first to do what the outsider wants, but rather than do what he is supposed to that would help them he instead looks for a way they can move forward under its own hard work. Negotiator steps in to alter how both sides think to pick up a new way forward, convincing them that the stagnation can be broken. That was the positive outcome that the first episode presented, and flies right into the face of what ZaShunina has been up to that he kind of put himself in the wrong place.

I think that's really what Episode 0 was all about, setting up somewhat parallel circumstances to illustrate what Shindo can do to resolve this.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:10 am Reply with quote
A-, seriously?! I gotta admit that it was fairly entertaining, it made me laugh quite a bit at inappropriate places, but still...

Tsukai is my hot contender for "worst female character of the season" as it turns out that her anisotropic form is just as useless as her human one. She's no match for zaShunina because apparently she gave up most of her awesome alien superpowers in order to become more human because hey, who wouldn't? Rolling Eyes

Conveniently enough, she still has some (sexual? Seriously, i've got no idea what we're supposed to think about what happened there...?) healing powers left to get rid of Shindou's comically kado-shaped wound...she'll probably blush and cry her way to the end of the show now while Shindou will somehow safe the day because he's just awesome like that...and you can't really clone awesomeness as poor zaShunina had to find out. Laughing
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Valhern



Joined: 19 Jan 2015
Posts: 916
PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:13 am Reply with quote
To be fair, this episode was *slightly* better than the previous. In fact, the intro sequence of the universe being created was really neat, and overall the idea of this anisotropic being doing a Jesus and being born as a human wasn't bad, and I kinda liked how the anisotropic thought about making her way into the human world and know more about it; international negotiator is a good idea, after all. And that's about it.

When zaShunina says "How am I mistaken?" I really had high expectations on a rebuttal, not on a "I love humanity, humanity is good, don't screw it up!" What the hell even IS that?! I mean, that's your premise, cool, but at least EXPLAIN it, or try to reach an understanding, no wonder the guy will try to wipe you out if your argument ends there.

And if there was something I've never had one single care for is Shindo and Tsukai, because at all times it felt shoehorned stuff. Not only that, the flashback expects me to believe that all Tsukai's character ever does is...blush, and that Shindo really wants to get into that, for some reason. The last scene of them being almost naked was beyond artificial, I couldn't believe they even went there.

So far I'm more interested in how and when zaShunina starts reflecting more on what he's doing, but man, this turning point of stakes is writing the show into a bad corner.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:13 pm Reply with quote
Good thing she decided to incarnate as a human right where zaShunina picked to manifest in this universe.

The creation of the universe and its evolution sequence, along with Tsukai incarnating at various points along the way, somehow reminded me of the plot of Shikasta and the Canopus in Argos series by Doris Lessing.
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ryanvamp



Joined: 08 May 2007
Posts: 416
PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:16 pm Reply with quote
This is the first time in my 20 years+ experience of watching anime that I dropped a series (at ep9) which I was REALLY loving up until that point. I'm surprised because usually oneself can actually see the signs of doom of a story slowly turning into ass, but Kado gave me 8 straight episodes of what I would call "the closest anime has reached in years of being as smart as 50's sci-fi books"...and like a comment above me pointed out, out of nowhere it became genderless bishie alien (which he always was, admittedly) versus deus ex machina tsundere girl who was actually a special snowflake all along.

I would go into detail as to what's my problem with all this but those who still like the series will think otherwise and those who became disappointed already understand.

Sad
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:44 pm Reply with quote
ryanvamp wrote:
This is the first time in my 20 years+ experience of watching anime that I dropped a series (at ep9) which I was REALLY loving up until that point. I'm surprised because usually oneself can actually see the signs of doom of a story slowly turning into ass, but Kado gave me 8 straight episodes of what I would call "the closest anime has reached in years of being as smart as 50's sci-fi books"...and like a comment above me pointed out, out of nowhere it became genderless bishie alien (which he always was, admittedly) versus deus ex machina tsundere girl who was actually a special snowflake all along.


OK, here's the thing: fifties sci-fi books were actually all kinds of dumb. Specifically, they were really bad at social-context stuff. I mean, Caves of Steel has real merit, absolutely, but it's also got all kinds of problems from a sociological perspective, issues swept under the carpet, things remaining the same as the time it's written that really wouldn't stay like that in the setting presented, etc. Speculative fiction, but no speculation about society, only technology. [but society is shaped by technology, so...]

That's why we got the New Wave, so that we could have speculative social science. KADO is dumb for exactly the same reasons the fifties stuff was, only it doesn't have the excuse of predating Left Hand of Darkness, which kind of seriously detracts from its otherwise-genuine merit as an achievement.

[see also Sad Puppies, who don't want speculative fiction to speculate about messy and confusing social structures, only about nice, non-fuzzy and easy-to-understand technology.]
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ryanvamp



Joined: 08 May 2007
Posts: 416
PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 1:49 am Reply with quote
nargun wrote:
ryanvamp wrote:
This is the first time in my 20 years+ experience of watching anime that I dropped a series (at ep9) which I was REALLY loving up until that point. I'm surprised because usually oneself can actually see the signs of doom of a story slowly turning into ass, but Kado gave me 8 straight episodes of what I would call "the closest anime has reached in years of being as smart as 50's sci-fi books"...and like a comment above me pointed out, out of nowhere it became genderless bishie alien (which he always was, admittedly) versus deus ex machina tsundere girl who was actually a special snowflake all along.


OK, here's the thing: fifties sci-fi books were actually all kinds of dumb. Specifically, they were really bad at social-context stuff. I mean, Caves of Steel has real merit, absolutely, but it's also got all kinds of problems from a sociological perspective, issues swept under the carpet, things remaining the same as the time it's written that really wouldn't stay like that in the setting presented, etc. Speculative fiction, but no speculation about society, only technology. [but society is shaped by technology, so...]

That's why we got the New Wave, so that we could have speculative social science. KADO is dumb for exactly the same reasons the fifties stuff was, only it doesn't have the excuse of predating Left Hand of Darkness, which kind of seriously detracts from its otherwise-genuine merit as an achievement.

[see also Sad Puppies, who don't want speculative fiction to speculate about messy and confusing social structures, only about nice, non-fuzzy and easy-to-understand technology.]



The thing is, neither Caves of Steel, Childhood's end or any other well regarded sci-fi novel of that era turned into something it wasn't mid-through: that's EXACTLY what Kado did and why I felt such betrayal. Anime is usually dumber by most good books, which is why I don't expect the sharpest writing. But Kado was on the right track to stand above a lot of anime tropes....and suddenly, it didn't anymore.
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Saidah Gilbert



Joined: 03 Oct 2015
Posts: 28
Location: Trinidad and Tobago
PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 8:23 pm Reply with quote
What I don't understand is if ZaShunina believes that the right answer is to advance humanity into the anisotropic why didn't he go the tried and true method of organised religion? All he had to do was write out a new ideology and promise eternal life or in this case, advanced being status and people would've been lining up to join the anisotropic.

I guess, though that they wanted to make a science fiction story so they focussed more on technological and scientific changes rather than the social and cultural changes which seems to be a mistake now because all the gifts brought by ZaShunina had more social and cultural changes rather than technological and scientific advancement. At least that's how it seemed to me.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:12 am Reply with quote
Shindou's ever-growing harem: "We love you! We can't live without you!! Don't die~!!! Crying or Very sad
Shindou ever-so-stoic: "It can't be helped. There's nobody even close to my level of awesomeness, humanity is f*cked without me!"
zaShunina: "There can never be enough Shindous! Nobody loves Shindou more then me!"

I've got zero expectations for the final anymore, but if i had one wish, please kill off Tsukai! And make it painful. I don't remember the last time i've hated a character so much just for being useless. It's probably because she really shouldn't be so useless. She's supposed to be the second best negotiator AND a bloody anisotropic being, for crying out lound! Yet she's basically been reduced to being Shindou's devoted wifey...Rolling Eyes

That "battle suit", though... Laughing
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Gabriel Augusto Vidigal



Joined: 07 Jun 2017
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:47 pm Reply with quote
Really liking how things are turning about to end in this anime, all the philosophical conversations are great with always question of whom is right or wrong, I am with Shindo cause I cant see how this merge this the higher dimension can be a good thing, with problably billions os people being killed. This one is my favorite anime of the season with the best ship of the season for me, just love the chemestry that Shindo and Tsukai have, cant wait to see how it will end, but I am pretty sure it will be satisfatory.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:56 pm Reply with quote
Merida wrote:
zaShunina: "There can never be enough Shindous! Nobody loves Shindou more then me!"

Laughing Really, what was up with that? Were those all the clones he made every time Shindo came to see him, or was he making them fresh because he missed him so much? And why, exactly does he miss him? They're not programmed robots. As Shindo said, the clones are as real as he is. They're just at a different point in time/knowledge. If you saw your friend from yesterday who'd forgotten the last conversation you'd had, would you like them less than you would if they remembered it? Would they seem like a different person to you because they don't remember?

I don't hate Tsukai as much as you do, though I see where you're coming from. She's actually less obnoxious to me since she's stopped being tsundere and started being Ms. Anisotropic. Besides, my Useless Girl hate list has Aoi from Coppelion and Lisa from Resonance, and Tsukai's not even close to being in their league.

Well, let's see if they can surprise us and zaShunina at the same time.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:21 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:

Really, what was up with that? Were those all the clones he made every time Shindo came to see him, or was he making them fresh because he missed him so much? And why, exactly does he miss him?


It isn't really possible to clone the full awesomeness of Shindou, i suppose? And those copies pretty much seem to do whatever zaShunina tells them to, so he probably got bored very quickly since "being surprised" is what he wants the most according to orignial!Shindou.

Gina Szanboti wrote:

I don't hate Tsukai as much as you do, though I see where you're coming from. She's actually less obnoxious to me since she's stopped being tsundere and started being Ms. Anisotropic. Besides, my Useless Girl hate list has Aoi from Coppelion and Lisa from Resonance, and Tsukai's not even close to being in their league.


I don't really remember much about Coppelion, except that it was aweful and yes, Lisa was useless BUT she was just a regular girl, not a super-powered alien turned genius negotiator...
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