Forum - View topicDrifters (TV).
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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Depending on how reliable you think wikipedia as a source, there are mentions of Christianity's figurehead in other non-Christian written sources. The Jewish historian Josephus makes a mention of Christ in the Antiquities of the Jews even if modern historians dispute if the surviving fragments of the work were an authentic source or copied from a now-lost manuscript. A more reliable written source talking about the existence of Christ and his followers is Tacitus in his Annals. Christianity was a talking point from the reign of Tiberius onwards and Tacitus explained to his readers the origin of their appellation. I lack ready access to a university library and am unable to check the chapter reference for this translated passage, but anyone with basic to intermediate Latin can probably verify this for themselves. I have no issue with Tacitus being used as a historical source and if Kouta Hirano did his research and accepts the authenticity of the Annals, then Christ (if that's who the Black King really is) is fair game as a "historical figure". Mohammed fought in an era when the Byzantines had a more developed scriptorium than the Classical/Western Roman Empire so it's not surprising more non-religious sources talking about him survive. Many of the texts of Ancient Rome were lost over the centuries, probably to a greater extent than the eighth century. Anyone who thinks female anatomy qualifies as something which can be presented in some kind of intellectual argument in a series about historical figures fighting a war in a fantasy setting is full of conceit and isn't worth consideration. Humour is only funny until the jokes start wearing thin and reek because of how stale they are. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I have no illusion that Christ as described in the bible is probably not entirely accurate, but I am thinking that there was probably someone. You are probably looking at someone who was essentially a cult figurehead within Jewish religion for some years, who probably was lost from physical records of Rome but survived from word of mouth until it became its own religion. Even if not exactly as the bible says, I am thinking that the king is that person, and perhaps he became the legend once becoming an End.
If we are looking for entirely grounded figures, well Abe no Seimei has been shown to really have magic. The series really seems to just be the plaything of two gods only able to influence the game by taking figures from one world into the other. As far as we even know all the figures might have come from the same world as Hellsing, Hellsing did have a crazy samurai character with Yumie who fought somewhat similar to the one of this show. And the spoiler[nail used to crucify Christ shows up and upon use makes the user's regeneration extreme]. It would actually be rather ironic that Anderson's glove noticeably says "Christ is in Heaven". Looking for any connections might be that in the Hellsing universe the only thing that stopped the Nazis was that the English were able to send in a very powerful vampire. I have also thought about how the dark goddess behind the Ends also bares a resemblance to Alucard, or more plainly his female form, which he used during WW2. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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The visual similarities in art style between the two series is one thing, making a connection between the two based on art style is another thing altogether. Especially when Kouta Hirano himself has stated the two series are independent of each other. I don't know whether Murasaki and EAZY can be considered gods, especially after the latter's boast that the pseudo-social worker shouldn't be able to put one past her. If they are gods it's only in the sense they are responsible for sending humans who have reached the afterlife onto different paths. Yet Murasaki has transplanted both those who died from violent deaths and those who were just elderly but powerful in their mortal lives to this fantasy realm. EAZY picks from roughly the same source but prefers souls with immense hatred. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Gods can be social workers, it just kind of comes across that idea of technology to some point looks like magic, only that these beings that seem to be able to go across space and time can seem more mundane when peeked across the curtain.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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I suppose if one can accept a divine being has shift duty, drinks coffee and reads a newspaper as part of a desk job is divine because of technology or because of intrinsic qualities, no reason to doubt why a young woman dressed in gothic lolita clothing with a personal room holding a laptop with RSS feeds to otherworldly events is any less divine. Fairly traditional mindset on divinity myself, so the idea of Murasaki and EAZY being divine beings is something that I'm still getting used to. The Men in Black idea of human beings, planet earth and beyond just being part of an oversized marble to be played with by impossibly gargantuan alien beings seems like a suitable parallel to this series and its otherworldly entities. |
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Episode 11:
LOL, that Saint-Germi guy is hilarious. Easily becoming one of my favorite characters in this series now. Besides the comedy, we also get a bit of strategic battle analysis. Shimazu kicked some ass as usual. Oda and Saint-Germi had some tense and humorous exchanges while we get more buildup for the final battles. Can't wait to see Shimazu, Yoichi, etc get into action. They look fired up! |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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#11
It looks like my guess for where they would stop the adaptation turned out to be spot on after all. Very well done, they cut out all of the unnecessary humour and managed to speed up the depiction of the coup to its logical conclusion this episode. It's impressive on print, but the animators have certainly portrayed it on screen in the best possible manner. Gunpowder and matchlocks were always the Drifters' secret weapon against the Ends, now that Hijikata Toshizou has seen what they've brought he knows his tactic of sending them down a narrow alley with no support was the worst possible tactic. He's also recognised an old foe as well which builds it all up for next week's conclusion. The dialogue between Rasputin and St. Germaine is interesting, since the two of them recognise each other and the latter's surprise at the other "becoming an End" is instructive. So too were the talismans used by Rasputin to mind-control the two Orte ministers at the conference, viewers who are paying attention cannot help but notice the similarities with a certain organisation's own talismans. A shame this is the last time we'll see Rasputin take on St. Germaine what with next week's episode being the last one. Source material spoiler[ I always knew the scanlators cocked up when St. Germaine taunted Toyohisa on his clan's fate. They translated it the wrong way round, Toyohisa knowing what his clan was like guessed correctly which is the only logical way he could have stunned St. Germaine in the way he did. ] As the source material is still ongoing, viewers will have to make do with next week's conclusion and to not expect any OVAs in the meantime. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11340 |
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Maybe he's actually Amakusa Shirō. That might explain his power of replicating cells and focus on agriculture and feeding his minions, since he and his army were starved out before they were all slaughtered. And using a dragonfly on his staff, which I think might be more meaningful to a Japanese man than a Middle Eastern Jew, but maybe not. It's been bugging me from the start that his scars are only on his palms and not also on the backs of his hands. Which could mean they're self-inflicted or remnants of stigmata...or the animators have forgotten to draw them. Just skylarking here. He's probably Jesus. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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Did Amakusa Shirou Tokisada have a side job besides leading a Christian rebellion? If he did, I don't think it will match the other details which the Black King occasionally reveals about his true identity.
What's definite is no viewer is going to explicitly hear him reveal who he really is by the end of next week. He's "too busy trying to destroy the world" to worry about tiresome Drifters after all. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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#12 End(?)
This should be the final episode for this quarter, despite what the end-credits and the report on this website had to say. Battle for Orte part #2. After Nobunaga's resounding success with the prototype matchlock squadron, it's left to Toyohisa and the dwarves to clean up the shaken enemy. Unfortunately things never go to plan when the enemy commander is also aware of the power of guns and has plans in place to counteract it. The battle between Toyohisa and Hijikata was always going to be this week's highlight, and it doesn't disappoint. Having seen this in print, I couldn't imagine a more faithful representation of what happened in those chapters. If I had one complaint, the shade of red they used for the various blood spatter effects looked a little off compared to previous episodes in this series. Viewers obviously have to employ suspension of disbelief in this episode, since any human no matter how well armoured can't survive close-range buckshot blasts from primitive blunderbusses and close range. Considering Toyohisa's been at death's door at least once in this episode, one of his great qualities in this series is his unbelievable vitality. Hannibal's last contribution to Nobunaga this quarter is his advice on how to handle the retreating enemy. Nobunaga being a quick study is usually good at grasping the hint from Hannibal's seemingly random actions resembling a senile geriatric. In some ways attaching Hannibal to the main group rather than Africanus was the creator's way of instilling a source of humour other than St. Germi as a cheap stick to beat. Nobunaga's instructions to his men on how to entrap and destroy the retreating army didn't need help from Hannibal since he's done it many times over his life. Mount Hiei is the first example that comes to mind. One of the lasting effects of this campaign is the knowledge of the lethality of firearms being propagated into the world for the first time, which is surely the most pleasing thing to Murasaki this season. YES! They used the ED for the OVA in this final episode! Always found it better to the one they aired over the course of the series, only problem was it's not a song that can be cut into something memorable over 1 1/2 minutes. It's been a great adaptation and alas no one is expecting a sequel anytime soon. It'll be quite a while before there's enough to adapt for another quarter so the animators knew what they were doing with that very flexible timeframe they set themselves. If and when episode 13 is aired (OVA? New season?) I hope to be around to continue watching it. |
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Stark700
Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Damn, that was intense for the finale. There's a very sinister feeling in the air as Shimazu and the others makes their attack.
Shimazu's battle was fun to watch as he showed off more of his badass fighting skills and ideals. While the finale did focus a bit more on Shimazu compared to others, there's also some segments with others that I thought were amusing. Comedy wise, we still got Oda's jokes. Good show overall. Glad that season 2 has been announced as the finale didn't feel so much as a finale. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 12 (season finale)
I think that we have come a ways, but at the same time I can’t help but feel we are getting started. And it feels like we won’t get much more for quite some time. Well it had the author’s strength of massive style, there was some okay fantasy set up, I just feel a little let down by the amount of action we had in the end, like it was a little slow. I am not really sure what else to write in a large review. I like Hellsing, it is one of the few manga I own, and what should be expected of someone who likes the work, I enjoyed Drifters. For a rating I will go with Good (7/10), it was good, but I also feel some amount of wasted potential, of like always waiting for it to lift off, maybe like if you only watched a few episodes of Hellsing Ultimate and impatiently wait for the big stuff to start. Here's waiting for 20XX. |
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Tsunayoshi Sawada
Posts: 1 |
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Love te endingLovethe art style even more. The style is insane. |
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DeTroyes
 Posts: 520 |
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Josephus (who you mentioned) and Tacitus are the principal earliest Roman references. But lets us not forget that many of the gospels (both canonical and non-canonical) were also written and in relatively wide circulation by the time both men were writing, with some possibly written within 30 years of Jesus' death. Far too many in too short a period of time, in the words of one scholar, to be the product of a fabrication. Most credible scholars accept that there was a historical Jesus, but what his exact words, teachings, and actions truly were is a matter of debate.
Slightly disagree here. The literacy level of Classical Greek and Roman society was actually probably higher in the 1st to 4th centuries AD than it was in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, even in the Mediterranean. Books were being copied everywhere; Alexandria alone was known as a principal exporter not only of writing papyrus, but written scrolls (which is how most works were transmitted, not in the codex form we think of today) of all kinds. The Byzantine Empire in some periods may have had active and robust scriptoriums, but they were confined to (a steadily dwindling portion of) the Eastern Mediterranean, whereas during the Roman Pax period literary works were being copied and distributed everywhere within the Empire.
The greatest percentage of the Greaco-Roman corpus loss happened primarily during the initial centuries after the fall, about 5th to 8th centuries AD. This was when what little organization that was left finally collapsed in the face of barbarian invasions, Islamic conquests, civil unrest, and no small amount of general neglect (when you're fighting for your life, books and such things are often very low on your priorities list). It was only later, in part due to the rise of powerful states in the middle east, Byzantium, and (briefly) Charlemagne's Europe, did the situation stabilize. But by that time most of the damage had already been done. Christ as the Black King has crossed my mind, but I'm hoping that won't be where Drifters goes. Ditto Mohammad. Both possibilities have the potential to unnecessarily anger a large number of potential viewers, and doing so would severally restrict any possibility of selling the series beyond where its already been sold. Whatever else anime is, its still a business, and I just can't see any business wanting to open that can of worms on something that might otherwise be sellable. I'm guessing the Black King is someone else, probably someone closer to our era and perhaps someone (given many of the historical choices the series has already made) more familiar to Japanese audiences than perhaps our own. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2834 |
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#13 + #14
It's been out for over a month now so might as well. In one way, releasing these two episodes as OVAs makes sense since it acts as a bridge to the more interesting segment which can air as the first episode of a new season. Having these two first after such a long wait from the previous season would have left all but the most dedicated fans utterly confused. Unlike the big finale of #11 and #12, there's not a lot happening on the action front. Much of the content is focused on the scheming of Nobunaga to consolidate Drifter control over what remains of Orte. It does mean plenty of comedy skits mainly focused on Nobunaga's absolutely unreasonable demands which St. Germi is forced to accede to in order to ensure long-term survival. #13 is actually interesting for another reason: no other episode goes so far in explaining the raison d'etre of the Black King and his monster army. Putting his powers to one side, there are few historical personages who give such an eloquent denial of the human race which may or may not be a clue as to his true identity. Considering he's placing all of his bets into letting monsters destroy humanity and then letting them forget all they have learnt about civilisation in such a short time immediately afterwards, the conflict really shapes up to be the apocalyptic face-off between human and non-human which the other Minamoto brother was so excited about. Viewers will see more of Kanno, Scipio Africanus and Admiral Yamaguchi. They aren't in the world just to make up the numbers. |
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