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REVIEW: Fractale BD+DVD


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Fencedude5609



Joined: 09 Nov 2006
Posts: 5088
PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:02 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:

Couldn't agree more. Not only that, but when I look at some of the usernames of those who get apoplectic about Fractale, I notice some of them are posters whose taste and opinions I hold in no esteem whatsoever.


Its the meta, honestly.

Fractale's really just yet another badly selling, highly disappointing noitaminA show, nothing special about that. However Yamakan had to run his mouth about it, leading to A) increased anticipation and B) a far more hilarious crashing and burning.

If Yamakan had kept his mouth shut, it still would suck, but no one would really care.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:20 pm Reply with quote
I disagree that the show sucks. But yeah, that element you mention might explain why some of the hatred the show gets is out-sized.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:18 pm Reply with quote
Fencedude5609 wrote:
If Yamakan had kept his mouth shut, it still would suck, but no one would really care.

I don't know about other people, but what that guy had to say had no bearing at all on how I viewed the actual series. My reasons for not liking it was because I felt the series was a trainwreck -- several decent-to-good plot elements mangled together into an unsatisfying mess and a tone that was all over the place. I was only vaguely aware of some of the comments some of the staff made about the series, and most of those I didn't know about until later on.

I think the reason I'm so hard on Fractale is because it seemed to have so much promise when it started, so I held it to a higher standard (serious Sci-Fi) that it was woefully unable to meet.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:19 pm Reply with quote
asimpson2006 wrote:
I don't think Fractale itself is a terrible series, but it does have a few issues.

...

3. The System itself

Maybe it was mentioned and I don't remember even though I only watched it a few weeks ago, but I wanted to know more about the system. Whyspoiler[ the system start to fail?] It is because it's old? Why was it created in the first place?


You forgot about why the system's creators would use spoiler[an unstable teenage girl as the key to their system.] That one revelation led to quite the epic head-desk. I don't know what Mari Okada was huffing when she wrote that but it must have been quite strong.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:24 pm Reply with quote
I keep thinking I should give this show another chance. I may have been hasty in my dropping it so early back then.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:29 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
You forgot about why the system's creators would use spoiler[an unstable teenage girl as the key to their system.] That one revelation led to quite the epic head-desk. I don't know what Mari Okada was huffing when she wrote that but it must have been quite strong.


Gee, maybe because anime has a long, storied history of making kids and teenagers the linchpins of global significance? Ever hear of a little series called RahXephon? Rolling Eyes
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Fencedude5609



Joined: 09 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:58 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:

You forgot about why the system's creators would use spoiler[an unstable teenage girl as the key to their system.] That one revelation led to quite the epic head-desk. I don't know what Mari Okada was huffing when she wrote that but it must have been quite strong.


I don't know if you can blame that on her directly, its hardly the first time such a thing has been done.
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dtm42



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:06 pm Reply with quote
Fencedude5609 wrote:
I don't know if you can blame that on her directly, its hardly the first time such a thing has been done.


Oh come on. Just because it isn't the first time that trope has been used doesn't mean it was right to use it this time.
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:17 pm Reply with quote
I agree. Anyone who rates a show a "masterpiece" that depends on the trope of having a teenager in a key position - like say a teenage mecha pilot who needs to "tune" the world - needs to have their head examined. Laughing
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:21 pm Reply with quote
It's been a while since I've seen Fractale, and my memory is a bit vague regarding some of the issues I had with it now, but one thing that I do remember really bugging me was the Lost Millennium guys.

spoiler[Specifically, what the heck was their goal anyways? At first it seemed like they wanted to destroy the Fractale system, but at the end we're told that no, that's not the case (at least for the faction we see the most of, I'm not counting the "evil" Lost Millennium guys right now), they just want people to be able to choose how to live or something.]

spoiler[Ok, so why were they attacking innocent people like during the end of episode 3? What was the point of that? It's not like you can argue that they were simply trying to defend themselves from oppression by the temple, not in that case. This was no act of self defense or even an attack on a military base of the temple.
]


spoiler[It seemed like the show couldn't decide just what their goal was supposed to be, or who they were. Were they heroic rebels struggling against a corrupt system? Were they brutal anti-hero's trying to bring down a flawed system but willing to hurt innocents in the process? Were they a happy community that just wanted to be left alone and able to continue their chosen way of life? The show wavered back and forth, apparently deciding on the last one at the end, despite the fact that it directly contradicted some of their earlier actions.]
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:32 pm Reply with quote
@ Mad_Scientist - I remember being confused by that stuff, too. If memory serves, Fractale was fansubbed instead of getting a legit stream? Sometimes what seems confusing is the result of not great translation. I intend to buy this set, so I'll be interested to see if having a professional translation makes any difference.
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zensunni



Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:34 pm Reply with quote
I have always wondered at the vitriol associated with Fractale. I agree that it had more promise than it delivered, and the twist involving Phryne's origin and the whole incest thing was something I just didn't enjoy, but I enjoyed the show as a whole and felt that the world was fascinating. If it would have had 22 episodes to fully flesh out the story, it might make it up to a B+ level for me. As it is, I put it at a strong B- to a solid B, but the story aspect gets a B- to C+, while the visuals and music bring the entire experience up to the B level. I classify it in the same category as No. 6, which was similarly short of development time due to the noitaminA block's 11 episode length, and had a similar ride off the rails into bizarreness near the end, in that case spoiler[killing off the most interesting character, instead of merely raping her in a cross generational fashion.]

As I said in the Shelf Life column. I enjoyed it, but not enough to buy it. But I would like to see the dubbed version of it sometime, since what I have seen of it was very well done.

I also seem to have missed all of the Celtic symbolism, which is odd, considering my Irish ancestry, I usually latch on to things like that... I knew the song was an by Yeats, and the landscape had an Ireland like feel, but I must have missed the stuff that had heavy Irish mythology references...
Blood- wrote:
@ Mad_Scientist - I remember being confused by that stuff, too. If memory serves, Fractale was fansubbed instead of getting a legit stream? Sometimes what seems confusing is the result of not great translation. I intend to buy this set, so I'll be interested to see if having a professional translation makes any difference.

No, it was put out by Funimation on Hulu and their own web-site. I don't remember if it was as bad of a delay-cast as recent seasons, or if it was just delayed the one time that the production committee forced them to pull it because somebody released an episode on a torrent before the actual broadcast in Japan, or something like that.
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:47 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
@ Mad_Scientist - I remember being confused by that stuff, too. If memory serves, Fractale was fansubbed instead of getting a legit stream? Sometimes what seems confusing is the result of not great translation. I intend to buy this set, so I'll be interested to see if having a professional translation makes any difference.


As zensunni mentioned, it got a legit stream. Might have had a fansub as well, but I used Funimation's stream via Hulu. Of course, being an official stream doesn't automatically mean it got a good translation. For example, some lines from Funimation's Shakugan no Shana III stream were very weird. They were often different from niconico's subtitles for whatever reason, despite both being official subs, and niconico's usually made a lot more sense. Of course now niconico is... whatever the heck it is, so the only streams available are Funimation's. Really hope they update the subtitles for the DVD release though.

But I digress. Though it's possible some of my issues were the result of confusing subs, I didn't enjoy Fractale enough to have an interest in re-watching the series just to see if an updated translation makes things clearer.
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:57 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I remember now - I was watching a fansub because as a Canadian, I can't get access to Hulu.
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Fencedude5609



Joined: 09 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:08 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
Yeah, I remember now - I was watching a fansub because as a Canadian, I can't get access to Hulu.


The fansubs were rips of the official subs.
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