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Gina Szanboti
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11348
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 Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:20 pm
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I think James might be about to break. "The cribbing of the stigmata scene from earlier in the season to stage Father Lauren's..." Obviously this should be Father Julia. Now he's got Lauren on the brain, and it's freaking him out so he's falling back on what he knows - serious reviewing - to ease his Dutch angle disorientation. How else to explain his neglecting to tell us that Dr. Thadeus Venture, aka Kid Goldman, is one of the players in this arc? 
As for "St. Carmel," that's probably exactly as James described the process. Researching the Bible and Catholicism, they might've run across the name Mount Carmel a time or two, and assumed it was named for a saint (its Arabic name is Mount Saint Elias). Or more likely they assumed the Catholic Carmelite Order was named after a saint rather than the mount, and simply didn't bother to find out if that was the case.
Btw, am I the only one who keeps reading the title as Vatican Medical Examiner? 
Last edited by Gina Szanboti on Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zhou-BR
Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1422
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:31 pm
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I don't know why I'm still watching this, but boy, did James sum up just about everything that's wrong with the show. I'd just like to add that the novels' author doesn't even bother looking up plausible names for the Western characters, and keeps mixing given names and family names from different languages, much to my chagrin. "Julia Michael Borje" is the worst example yet, especially considering it's a guy.
And speaking of names, Hiraga is Josef's family name, not his given name. It's just that the opening sequence shows his name written in Japanese order, which means the family name comes first. In Western order, his name would be spelled Josef Ko Hiraga. In fact, his little brother Ryota's last name is also Hiraga.
Last edited by Zhou-BR on Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Gina Szanboti
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11348
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:40 pm
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Hiraga is also, probably not coincidentally, the half surname of Taichi Hiraga-Keaton of Master Keaton.
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MarshalBanana
Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5316
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:08 pm
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I haven't watched this, but I've been looking at some of the episode reviews. And it sounds really interesting, like those really weird trashy OVAs from the early 90s.
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Chrysostomus
Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 335
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:26 pm
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| Quote: | | Having Nazis show up to be their usual self-parodic evil selves is one thing, but the waters get much murkier when the show just lumps a bunch of cultural and racial stereotypes together, slaps a couple of fake names on there, and calls it an African country. |
Lol nice double standards. He gets offended by African stereotypes but not the tired cliche of Catholics being pedophile rapists and secret Nazi sympathizers. Seriously, do you think real Africans are gonna be deeply affected by some crazy Asian cartoon that only some geeks watch? Please stop this dumb virtue signalling.
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lebrel
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:37 pm
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I too suspect that the prospective saint will be revealed to be not actually dead. Torn on whether beautiful blond bishop will turn out to be eeeeeeevil or, surprise-twist, actually as good as he seems (in which case I'd place a bet that his scars are not due to self-flagellation).
| James wrote: | | The show has gone from being geographically and culturally vague to just straight-up inventing saints and countries and religions, which completely clashes with the show's obsession with historical and cultural trivia and minutiae. I know that this is an absurd complaint to make after everything the show has given us already; it's been obvious for weeks that Vatican Miracle Examiner doesn't care about being culturally or historically accurate any more than any other supernatural anime. The issue is that when VME spends so much time presenting Hiraga and Roberto as Real Priests doing work for the Real Vatican, using their knowledge of Real Catholicism, it proceeds to throw away a lot of its credibility when it reveals just how little it knows or cares about the world it's writing about. Having Nazis show up to be their usual self-parodic evil selves is one thing, but the waters get much murkier when the show just lumps a bunch of cultural and racial stereotypes together, slaps a couple of fake names on there, and calls it an African country. |
Now I agree the depiction of the "natives" in the latest episode could use some improvement (to put it mildly), but I think this is being a bit overly harsh. It's clear by now that the narrative is using the whole "Vatican investigative reporters" angle mainly as a framework for lurid, pseudo-supernaturally-flavored Gothic horror. (Consider that for the intended - Japanese - audience, Catholicism is almost as exotic as fictional African snake cults.) And it's also clear by now that the stories are riffing off real events in a "no celebrities were harmed in the making of this film" kind of way: various Nazis did in fact escape to South America after the war; there is more than one reported "weeping Virgin" statue in the rough area of Mexico the airflight map would suggest; there were at least two well-established Early Medieval Christian sects in Africa, including one with a way cool church; and there are in fact a few African snake cults, too. The story doesn't claim to be accurately representing any real, specific place or time (as per the beginning-of-every-episode disclaimer), but it's not like the author is just pulling all this stuff out of his nether regions. Just accept it as a "spot the references" exercise mixed in with the gore and Shocking Revelations and "all this weird Christian cult stuff, that's all part of Catholicism, right?" attitude.
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lebrel
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:43 pm
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| Chrysostomus wrote: |
| Quote: | | Having Nazis show up to be their usual self-parodic evil selves is one thing, but the waters get much murkier when the show just lumps a bunch of cultural and racial stereotypes together, slaps a couple of fake names on there, and calls it an African country. |
Lol nice double standards. He gets offended by African stereotypes but not the tired cliche of Catholics being pedophile rapists and secret Nazi sympathizers. Seriously, do you think real Africans are gonna be deeply affected by some crazy Asian cartoon that only some geeks watch? Please stop this dumb virtue signalling. |
Well, the Catholic church really does have a problem with covering up for sexually abusive priests, whereas the "African savages" thing is pretty much only due to racism. And it's not only "real Africans" who are affected by this stuff; everyone who watches it gets exposed to yet another bunch of black guys who might as well have bones in their noses, and (especially in Japan) they might not have enough exposure to actual black people to understand how racist and obnoxious this stuff is.
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Animechic420
Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1727
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 7:01 pm
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I couldn't help but notice that certain male characters with woman names look kinda effeminate. 
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Gina Szanboti
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11348
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Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 9:42 am
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Btw, what was up with that sky above the church/compound? How did none of the characters even notice there were like 20 tornadoes forming above the place? That's either a bad omen or Jesus returning...
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chaccide
Joined: 16 Aug 2016
Posts: 295
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Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 10:21 pm
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^ I kept thinking we'd see Van Gogh wake up from this outlandish dream at the end and decide to start painting Starry Night.....
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Animechic420
Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1727
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:12 pm
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| Quote: | | The show can't even get the homoeroticism right. |
Were they supposed to???
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encrypted12345
Joined: 25 Jan 2012
Posts: 717
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:31 pm
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| Animechic420 wrote: |
| Quote: | | The show can't even get the homoeroticism right. |
Were they supposed to??? |
In episode 4, it was pretty strong with the appropriate googles. In every other episode, they seem to be simply close friends though. No usage of the word love this episode implied romantic love, just love in general. Agape (A form of love somewhat difficult to explain, but often involves self-sacrifice) is the ideal form of love between Christians after all, and you could argue that's all Robert showed to Hiraga this episode.
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lebrel
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 11:28 pm
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| encrypted12345 wrote: |
| Animechic420 wrote: |
| Quote: | | The show can't even get the homoeroticism right. |
Were they supposed to??? |
In episode 4, it was pretty strong with the appropriate googles. In every other episode, they seem to be simply close friends though. No usage of the word love this episode implied romantic love, just love in general. Agape (A form of love somewhat difficult to explain, but often involves self-sacrifice) is the ideal form of love between Christians after all, and you could argue that's all Robert showed to Hiraga this episode. |
The last bit of the ED, with the guys eating dinner and chatting and watching the stars together, is 100% intentional fujoshi bait. Plus there's been the occasional moment in the show proper where they dangle a few hooks. But I suspect it will be wasted effort unless the show goes back to being awesomely trainwrecky real quick, because its only other move seems to be "boring and borderline nonsensical", and a teensy bit of BL tease isn't going to be enough to overcome that.
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hack5
Joined: 09 Jun 2015
Posts: 159
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:03 am
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| lebrel wrote: |
| encrypted12345 wrote: |
| Animechic420 wrote: |
| Quote: | | The show can't even get the homoeroticism right. |
Were they supposed to??? |
In episode 4, it was pretty strong with the appropriate googles. In every other episode, they seem to be simply close friends though. No usage of the word love this episode implied romantic love, just love in general. Agape (A form of love somewhat difficult to explain, but often involves self-sacrifice) is the ideal form of love between Christians after all, and you could argue that's all Robert showed to Hiraga this episode. |
The last bit of the ED, with the guys eating dinner and chatting and watching the stars together, is 100% intentional fujoshi bait. Plus there's been the occasional moment in the show proper where they dangle a few hooks. But I suspect it will be wasted effort unless the show goes back to being awesomely trainwrecky real quick, because its only other move seems to be "boring and borderline nonsensical", and a teensy bit of BL tease isn't going to be enough to overcome that. |
This is what upsets me every thing under the sun is fujoshi bait its like you can be friends anymore where is the friendship line drawn?then you have the viewers who is always on pins and needles guessing what the characters relationship is they cant wait for it to cannon.Dont get me wrong i like BL too but its getting ridiculous that you cant have dinner with the same sex or watch stars together its like the gay community invented friendship that nobody else can use lol why not just call it bromance? which is way better in my opinion.Just to let you know what i just said is not an attack on you or anything like that and i know this is the way things in the anime community is these days but its so frustrating when you cant even hug a friend of the same sex without being call gay.
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lebrel
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 10:29 am
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| hack5 wrote: | |
This is what upsets me every thing under the sun is fujoshi bait its like you can be friends anymore where is the friendship line drawn?then you have the viewers who is always on pins and needles guessing what the characters relationship is they cant wait for it to cannon.Dont get me wrong i like BL too but its getting ridiculous that you cant have dinner with the same sex or watch stars together its like the gay community invented friendship that nobody else can use lol why not just call it bromance? which is way better in my opinion.Just to let you know what i just said is not an attack on you or anything like that and i know this is the way things in the anime community is these days but its so frustrating when you cant even hug a friend of the same sex without being call gay. |
Well, BL tease is a thing. Creators put it in on purpose to bring in fangirls. The VME guys don't just act like freinds sharing a casual meal; the scene is given a calculated air of domestic and emotional intimacy. I don't see the problem with noticing and commenting on that.
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