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ANNCast Holiday Special The Third: Part Deux

One final point: I completely disagree with the notion of cutting Darcia to put more focus on Jagura, Zac. Kinda always felt the opposite. I mean, they reference her from the very beginning and she causes a lot of bad shit to go down, but I dunno, she's just too distant, too removed from the story for her role to have any weight. She's sorta like a far weaker Johan; you have this vaguely mythic-feeling villian whose mentioned regularly in fearful whispers but only in passing, her shadow casts a threatening pall over the world and plot, clearly has significant influence and power, but for the most part it's all just faceless thugs in armor smacking people down. She herself doesn't really do much even indirectly and when we finally see her, her motivation is revealed too quickly and is honestly too pithy to paint her as a legitimate threat or interesting figure(and the whole 1984 thing she has going is just a tad cliche.)

Whereas from the get go, you have this other villian whom you see immediately, spend far more time watching and delving into his backstory, is way creepier and oddly charismatic, does far more horrible, nasty shit directly to the protagonists, wolf and human, and lest we forget, basically caused the entire apocalypse. Jagura(accidentally) set it into motion, but Darcia shoved the jalopy down a cliff smilin like a boss, and she probably could've been cut out entirely if a few details were reworked.

If you remove a major character such as Jaguara or Darcia, you obviously change the story. If Jaguara didn't exist than Darcia would be a different character, if Darcia didn't exist than Jagura would be a completely different character.

The Sars epedemic might have changed the timing of Jaguara's defeat, but I am sure that the character of Jaguara would still exist.

Well, *yeah* but I'm just saying if you *have* to get rid of a villain, it would be Jaguara rather than Darcia. I think the story works just fine with both of them playing the roles they play, anyhow, as I like the story beginning to end. I never really found it boring or "being fillery," hell, I even like the giant walrus episode. So maybe I am not the one to ask.

Right now, the hottest anime screenwriter is Mari Okada. So let's hope that she continues write great original stories that make anime great.

I'll take the aforementioned Yoji Enokido, Ikuhara, Konaka, and definitely Nobumoto over her.

JesuOtaku wrote:

I'll take the aforementioned Yoji Enokido, Ikuhara, Konaka, and definitely Nobumoto over her.

Hey, JO, off topic but as long as I've got your ear, what did you think of Star Driver after all was said and done? Assuming you saw the conclusion?

I'm more of a Dai Sato person, myself. Minoru Onoya and Kazunori Ito, too.

SoandSo wrote:

JesuOtaku wrote: I'll take the aforementioned Yoji Enokido, Ikuhara, Konaka, and definitely Nobumoto over her. Hey, JO, off topic but as long as I've got your ear, what did you think of Star Driver after all was said and done? Assuming you saw the conclusion?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, I eventually wrote down my thoughts on it at one point, lemme find 'em...sorry for any typos:

"Star Driver really dropped the ball on its big toe hard, sadly. I'm still glad I watched it, it still had some marvelous moments of insight and visual genius, but...it didn't deliver on what it kept foreshadowing and promising, and I can't help but wonder if the tsunami had something to do with it. If it did, well that is too bad, but priorities, it was just a TV show.

So yeah, I enjoyed it, I would probably watch it again (with an English dub for giggles, I guess,) but its attempts at deconstructing the super-robot genre, right down to some [expletive] fantastic Utena parallels, ultimately collapsed due probably to internal production issues and a poorly-written "indomitable main character." I get what they were going for, but they went way too far and made him a Gary Stu leaving the rest of the characters very little to play off of. At least it was consistently good-looking and entertaining. I was never ever bored.

I mostly feel bad that I recommended it so highly after just 3 episodes, ASSUMING it would deliver on these terrifically subversive seeds it was planting, and being pretty darn mortified about...3/4 through? When I realized they'd written themselves into a corner and we were in for a disappointment on the depth end of things. Which just goes to show I should ONLY review completed series and movies and whatnot, because my judgment on portions of shows only has been consistently pretty gawky. "

[/offtopic]

penguintruth wrote:

I'm more of a Dai Sato person, myself. Minoru Onoya and Kazunori Ito, too.

Now that you mentioned him, I need to ask: whatever happened to Kazunori Ito? I know he wrote those excellent Gamera movies from the late 90s, and the last thing I remember him working on was the .hack franchise. Is he still active in the industry?