Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Deep Themes of Orbital Children
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Watched the first episode and quite liked the hard-ish sci fi setting but I really can't stand annoying kid and this show went for the double scoop in that regard.
It's sound like they tried to do AI justice, so many show AI are just human with human level of intelligence, but once AI really get going we'll be unable to understand them, just like a jellyfish can't possibly understand us. But, nope, ain't gonna watch anything with those kids in it. Who decide that the best way to introduce a character is having them relieve themselves while another character comment on it? |
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kurichan69
 Posts: 112 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I tried to watch the first episode twice and gave up immediately both times. The third time I got to 6:51 before mashing the Back button. That was more than enough to know I could not watch one more second of these kids.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1008 |
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All I can think about in regards to this show is how like 20 episodes worth of content was cut and left as unused storyboards lol
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Dark Mac
Posts: 313 |
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I mostly thought it was pretty good, other than Taiyou being a dirty piece of shit cop. Surprised he got a pass here, after ANN people reamed out Police in a Pod. He's way worse than anyone in that show.
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earl.m
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I may be strange for this, but if you ask me to name an anime that is better than Den-noh Coil, I really do not believe that I could. And this is despite Den-noh Coil not being perfect: the quality of the ending - while good and satisfying - didn't match the brilliance of the buildup.
While Orbital Children isn't close to the previous masterpiece, it is still quite good. I only had two major problems. 1. The idea that AIs are spoiler[able to predict the future because they transcend time and space.] That introduces a lot of problems, including the possibility that the bad guys were only wrong by degree. 2. In works aimed at children, yet another villain is always someone who hates kids. You would think that a hard sci-fi show that deals with economics, politics, religion, metaphysics etc. should have been less on the nose and challenged the presumptions of its audience more. Also, the reviewers mentioned Konoha's embracing death. Well, that was actually realistic. When confronted with the idea that something is inevitable you can either become bitter, caustic and fight against it until the very end (Touya) or try to make peace with it by trying to convince yourself and those around you that it is a good thing (Konoha). The only potential problem may be that the work depicted Touya and Konoha in typical roles: brash assertive boy vs sweet fragile girl. But 1. Dennoh Coil already masterfully turned those on their head - Kenichi was the sweet fragile boy that the girls Yuuko and spoiler[Kanna's ghost] were trying to protect so I will give Ito a pass and 2. doing it any other way would have altered the character dynamics between Touya, Taiyo, Miina and Hiroshi (i.e. swap Touya with Konoha and A. Miina is more sympathetic instead of merely writing Touya off as a chuuni edgelord, B. Taiyo is less competitive, C. Hiroshi isn't a fanboy worshiping toady). A final bit: they played with the "censorship vs imaximum speech" debate and sided with the latter. 1. When finding out that Touya was a jerk with insulting behavior she tried to get him cancelled. Which was a mere throwaway gag until the end when: 2. The group decides to use the entire Internet to better train the A.I. Miina was the only one to object due to the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation on the Internet. As the only two other females were spoiler[dead - Nasa Houston - or unconscious - Konoha -] she was outvoted by a bunch of guys who took the position that the positives outweighed the negatives. The problem: as an extremely online female she is far more vulnerable to trolls targeting her for misogynistic abuse and spreading lies about her to ruin her reputation than guys are. And she was more likely to be harmed by potentially training this A.I. to be a misogyny-bot. Even her attempt to cancel Touya needs to be viewed in this context: she has to deal with jerks like him all the time in her online life. (And possibly her offline one also considering some context: one of Touya's establishing character moments was his blatantly staring at Nasa's chest.) I know that the show was rushed for time, but having the guys simply dismiss a problem that doesn't impact them the way that it does Miina just left a bad taste in my mouth. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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I do think all your other points are pretty valid (particularly the point about internet harassment), but at least as far as Nasa's "this is why I hate kids" shtick goes, I felt like the show was pretty clear that it was a case of "the lady doth protest too much". She went out of her way to spoiler[protect the kids in the elevator, construct a harmless gun, hide the severity of her injuries from them, and encouraged Konoha to seek out a future that actively went against John Doe's ultimate aims], so I think this was a case of her not wanting to be seen as someone who could like kids, due to how it would spoiler[compromise her perception as a threat (which could then jeopardize the future).] Anyways, I liked this, and the dub was a lot of fun! I also watched it all in one go, and I've never seen Dennou Coil, but watching this was like watching a much lighter version of 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors in anime form, so I think I've got something else to add to my to-watch list now! 
Last edited by whiskeyii on Wed Feb 02, 2022 7:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kiskaloo
 Subscriber Posts: 79 Location: Seattle |
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Definitely played like a Mitsuo Itō project and something I enjoyed very much. I have been re-watching older shows as of late and it is definitely time to pull my Dennou Coil BRD off the shelf and place it on the top of the pile.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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So after watching Orbital Children over the weekend, I fired up Netflix to see a giant ad for ... wait for it ... Dennou Coil (or Den-noh Coil as Siren Visual calls it). Yes, Netflix has licensed one of my top-ten anime after it being unavailable in the west for years. It's better than Orbital Children, so what are you waiting for?
Perhaps the ANN staff can take advantage of this opportunity as well. I was shocked to watch the seasonal preview video and see that only one of the four commentators, Bamboo, reported actually ever seeing Dennou Coil. |
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michizure
Posts: 177 |
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Hand Maid May, 22 years ago -- not necessarily influential, but certainly prior art. |
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zrdb
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Goddamn-I didn't even know about this until I saw it here!! Dennou Coil is one of my fav sci fi shows, I'm watching this new show now and I love it-whinny kid or not. Good Stuff
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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I think you confused Taiyou and Touya multiple times in the article (their names are very similar).
I really like The Orbital Children! I thought the kids were cute, although Mina tested my patience at points. No comment on Mina’s name being the same pronunciation as “everybody” in Japanese? I think her character was meant to represent “humanity as a whole” in some sense. I also think there may have been more commentary on the commercialization and commodifying of space travel than I completely grasped. But I’m still not sure I understood all the main points, especially with regards to AI...it all works on multiple levels. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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I was quite pleasantly surprised with this Anime. It's quite enjoyable, and I loved the character dynamics and the whole suspenseful situation. My only quibble is that it loses some momentum in its exposition heavy latter half, but the show never ceases to engage. I never thought I'd like it as much as I did.
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