Forum - View topicShangri-La -- discussion thread.
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DangerMouse
Posts: 3983 |
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Yeah, I thought that was very intriguing, spoiler[ looking forwards to learning more about those daggers. ]
Not to mention the spoiler[ surprise attack from the sky that occurred due to that, that even surprised the Atlas army as well. ] I very much enjoyed it. Love the soundtrack as well. |
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Ausdoerrt
 Posts: 481 |
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Hmm, seen the first ep. Not bad, I like the whole concept of the Carbon Emission economy (silly as it is - who'd base markets on sth so unstable that burning some coal is a danger to the market?
 ), and the protagonist girl is a bit silly, not to mention overpowered. Still, the anime is better than I thought it would be. The only complaint thus fare is - is it really necessary to dump all the main actors into one episode, without properly explaining anything? What in the world happened to exposition?
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Polly E.
 Posts: 139 |
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It sorta felt to me like they wanted to throw everyone in there to make the experience a bit disorienting on purpose, but we'll see. I like what I'm seeing so far though. Very beautiful world, intriguing characters, and a plot that has a lot of potential. |
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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It certainly may be, but, like I said, I really miss the shows with proper exposition, that slowly introduce you to concepts and characters as you go.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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I'm not totally sure what to think after seeing episode one. My first thought was that it's not sci-fi, so yes, Basquash is the only sci-fi anime right now. This is just more environmental drama which I get enough of from Miyazaki and Arjuna. There's also the chance that this could simply be another "nothing makes sense, everything is weird and stupid!" GONZO show all over again, but the end of episode one will make me at least want to give it another episode or two. I know it's just setting up, but I'm getting the feeling that I probably won't make it through this.
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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What do you mean "it's not sci-fi"? I mean, surely it does not have huge mecha battling in space, but that doesn't exhaust the definition. It's a PA anime set in the future, with technology advanced beyond the current tech development, so it's definitely sci-fi.
One thing I do agree with you on, is that the show seems to be trying to imitate some of the Miyazaki movies. Especially the "you're the wind" part made me think "Nauscicaä". |
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Aromatic Grass
 Posts: 2424 Location: Raleigh, NC |
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Maybe because of extreme global warming? I dunno, it makes sense to me that stuff would need to be limited if the environment was in that condition, and the only way to do that is force it through a country's market. (Of course, this is also a fictional story.) |
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rainbowcourage
 Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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Suffice it to say, I was blown away by the first episode. Awesome action, awesome characters, awesome world. We've already got two or three plot lines going, an appropriate amount of mystery, and just enough information to keep us begging for more.
spoiler[I have a feeling that this "disaster" took the life of Kuniko's mother (unless she's a robot/creature/thing that doesn't have a real mother, since she is called the Digma 2. My guess is she was found/created and then adopted by the metal-age, though I wonder why Momoko has the same powers as her. I laughed so hard at Momoko's "I love men!" the arm-waving was perfect.] This is the most promising first episode I've seen all season. |
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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That MAY be true, but then there is no reason for the "cabon police" and what not - if it's enforced by the market, carbon police seems useless. I also wonder if it's an international body, or what.
Thus far it seems like every country pays a tax to "someone" based on carbon emissions, they can bond the debt and then trade the bonds. The question then is what is that allmighty body that can control world's emissions and force people to pay (no incentive otherwise)? Also, computing power being unable to keep up with the market is kind of questionable too. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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(Just copying this from Eastern Standard.)
... Well, Shangri-la has some nice backgrounds, at least. But, damn, you can really tell this is the director's debut. Lot of very awkward editing and compositionally dull scenes. Even the action scenes are hit-or-miss. Doesn't help when the story isn't any better. Two lolis with pandering, loud voices (no, Hojo is not 18, and no amount of "b-but the youth of Asian women" is going to say otherwise)? Check. Stereotyped transvestite? Check. Outrageous hair style and colors (seriously, what the hell is with that commander?)? Check. The Evil Character introduced by Evil Music as she does Evil Things with Evil Make-Up on a generic Evil Expression that the director cuts to because we must know that she's an Evil Leader? Check. Exposition about a ludicrous concept poorly shoe-horned in? Check. Another one of countless, failed attempts for an anime to attempt to balance playfulness and a Serious Plot with Serious Themes? Check. And then we get the soldiers running away from the stereotyped transvestite instead of shooting him, because, well, you cannot have competent soldiers actually killing a main character. And I'm not even starting on the [expletive] boomerang. Not that Gonzo has made anything that I've given a damn about in over a half-decade, but I sort of deluded myself that they would succeed here with Shangri-la. I just give up.
I'm not quite seeing how that situation would be possible, though. That, and the scene is bungled, anyhow, and I'm not envisioning the staff actually handling the environmentalist themes well at all. |
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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I'd say at least 1-2 more eps will be necessary to say for sure with this one. Maaaybe, the director will have a stroke of geniality, or something (ppp-please?
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rainbowcourage
Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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I didn't see Kuniko as loli at all; sure, her skirt came up, but I can't recall any panty shots. Even if she was sexualized in any way (and I can't recall any since it's not like her breasts were emphasized at all), she is far from loli. She's meant to be charismatic and enigmatic and free, not a sexual object. I mean, I suppose it's subjective, but loli was in the farthest corners of my mind when I watched Kuniko. I was, unsurprisingly, rather reminded of tomboy Lavie. Also, computer-whiz girl falls under the category of, well, child genius. Was she really made sexual in any way? I did roll my eyes at the evil music. And then I was like, "Holy shit, it's Delphine's long-lost evil sister!"
If you remember, they did take quite a few shots at Momoko, and I'm pretty sure they only ran away once they realized that defeating him was going to be impossible since he can headlock them from behind and take them out quite easily.
Not even Last Exile?
What's exactly so ludicrous about the premise? Granted, I didn't entirely understand how whiz-kid negated that third world country's taxes, but I think it's pretty clear that to save the planet from a projected global-warming-related disaster countries had to subscribe to the tax system, which was enforced by this totalitarian government run by Lady Ryoko. Obviously the metal-age doesn't like the violent way this government goes about doing it (and somehow they're screwing over/making the third-world countries dangerously dependent on them), so they've tried to become independent. And the totalitarian gov't doesn't like it, but they abide by it...for now. Cap-and-trade legislation is going on right now in the states (I believe we here in NJ are going to have the first one). |
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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I dunno, I'd say you'd need a bigger incentive than "let's save the world from global warming" to make such a system. Otherwise, we'd have it now already.
Not that it really makes that much of a difference for the show. The shows where the supposed economy and politics make any grain of sense are precious few, so there's not need to bash them for not having it. Would be a nice bonus though. Oh, BTW, Lavie was more or less a loli 
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rainbowcourage
Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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The most powerful organizations need a bigger incentive than "Let's save the world from global warming so we can continue to exist on it"? The reason we don't have it now is because people don't believe it or want to believe it until they see it. Given the state of the world in Shangri-la this "disaster" forced people to open their eyes, otherwise greed and selfishness would have continued to propagate rampant destruction.
... |
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Ausdoerrt
Posts: 481 |
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Well, yes they do. IMO, anyways. And, if anything, there's about as much sci-fi, if not more, where with a similar disaster, the attitude changed little. I personally do not believe in the ability of people to work on "saving themselves". Have you read Ishmael? It's got a pretty interesting discussion about that - comparing the current society to a guy who jumped off a scyscraper, like in that joke "so far so good". So we'll probably "fly" until we hit the ground.
In any case I think some sort of strong coercive power would be required to set the system up. Especially since not only do they control the emissions, but also collect taxes. And taxation is pretty much impossible without a power that can make people pay them - nobody pays taxes out of free will. |
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