アニ・ノート » dual

Parallel Dual starts

Author — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:35:34 +0000

I saw 4 eps. of Parallel Dual: Visions, or whatever its name is, by accident. Seems like mindless fluff, but if I get a chance to see more, I probably will.

The animation sometimes reminds me of the old Tenchi OVA.

At other times, not so much.

Also, it looks like these people parody or copy Evangelion, I’m not sure which.

For some reason, I always feel cheated when a character jumps into a mech and starts kicking major ass (Hellooo, Hibiki! Hellooo, Kamina!). At least Shipon had to work for it. Even thinking rationally, fidelity [^1] of the show gets injured. Need to ask Astro some time how much it took. Not sure if it is The Most Annoying Trope Ever, but it sure is close, and is annoyingly common in anime. Oh well. Dual never pretended to be a masterpiece.

^1: In communication studies it is said that a narrative has to have high fidelity and coherence to be persuasive. Fidelity is a measure of how well the story matches the world experienced by the audience. Coherence is a measure of internal contradiction (well, the inverse of it), e.g. Vandread’s plot is coherent but not “realistic”.

I fail at unique insights

Author — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:20:14 +0000

I made two observations in my previous entry about Dual: its Evangelion references and the visual similarity to Tenchi. Now it turns out that just about everyone comments on the EVA part (AD2225 wrote it on the same day, even). As for Tenchi, Owen drew my attention to the fact that Masaki Kahishima is the creator of both. I have to say, Dual and Tenchi are a bit more distinguishable than Stellvia and Gravion.

Parallel Dual ends

Author — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:40:49 +0000

Well… I suppose not every anime is Haibane Renmei.

The harem formula in Dual is the same as in Zero no Tsukaima: the chosen girl (the original Mitsuki) is fairly nasty, and an alternative exists which is far superior (Mitsuki II), but due to various circumstances the male lead is unwilling or unable to dump the chosen one. It’s a serviceable setup, though ZnT extracted more mileage from it, being the ultimate harem etc.

They should have resolved it one way or the other.

Liked: It’s ok. A comedy. Mindless.
Rewatch: No.