アニ・ノート

Beware of spoilers.

• Suppose we accept Jonathan’s explanation. But then, why is a Ribers self-aware? I do not see how it helps its effectiveness any. I can understand that a degree of AI is necessary to maintain the integrated UI. It can be explained that integrating user’s consciousness into control of Ribers will result in mental diseases due to the loss of integrity. But the AI is not a “person”, at least not necesserily.
• Related question: since there does not seem to be any downside to it, why is it necessary to disengage from Ribers at all? Why not make it a permanent enhancement to human/alien body?
• How does the concentration of a thought on a body part helps Ribers? I could understand if the user retained some kind of detailed control. But it seems that Ribers’ consciousness can do it all just fine.
• How did aliens know which memories to erase? To do it completely would be an enormous work. it has to cover all schoolmates, and everyone in the town who came into contact with Hikaru (such as store clerks). Not to do it completely leaves lots of fragments which can be pieced together by someone sufficiently obsessive (e.g. Kuroda).
• Speaking of the devil, what is the purpose of Kuroda in story terms? I see that he allows to demonstrate that Ordeena is not a completely cold bitch as initially appeared. But that was demonstrated equally well when she permitted Tsubasa to keep her memories, only without any unnecessary drama.

Cannot avoid spoilers for Chobits and Figure 17 in this entry, so with this in mind…

As a take off on Ayako doctrine, Steven formulates “The Inoue Kikuko principle: any character voiced by Inoue Kikuko must be hated,” and supports the case with a list of “repulsive” characters, including Chitose Hibiya from Chobits. Mrs. Inoue also plays Ordeena in Figure 17, and indeed she’s set up to be hated initially although turns around later. What is his problem with Chitose Hibiya though? I suppose it has something to do with her failure as a “mother”, but it’s personal, not universal; it cannot support a principle. I suppose the same can be said about Belldandy, but I’m reserving judgement because I’m not very familiar with the OMG franchize.

Seen at AD2225 today:

I remember watching Figure 17. That’s 12 episodes at 40 minutes each. I was blown away at the depth of it. (I also had no idea that they were 40 minutes a pop when I started. I was thinking to myself, “Wow. They managed to fit so much into such a short time.” Then I looked at a clock.)

I’m so glad someone else fell into the same trap, I’m not lonely anymore.

Daniel pointed me by e-mail to this nugget buried in a entirely too long post, which I skipped initially because I don’t care for Darker than Black:

2. Figure 17 doomed anime to be consumed in 24 minute bites. While Figure 17 wasn’t a horrible series, it had no business being a 48 minute episode experiment. There was just no reason beyond, “Hey, we can do it!” The narrative didn’t call for it, and they padded it with a lot of filler to get up to cohesive 48 minute episodes. I’m convinced it killed hour long anime since there hasn’t been anymore hour long anime since Figure 17. (The fact that anime are really just gloried infomericals nowadays don’t help either.)

I have never imagined myself living long enough to see Jason writing “narrative didn’t call for it”. Plus, I disagree. The supposedly filler elements in Figure 17, such as the cows, were a part of the master plan. The episode length was organic to the show as well (or should I say “to the narrative”). Creators completely fooled me into watching the episodes as if they were 24-minute sized.

Although I’m famously stupid, we’re talking anime which Lawson seen seven times, cried every time. I didn’t see any complaints about the episode length from his direction either.

So, personally, I suspect that the lack of twin-sized episodes has more to do with the rigours of TV broadcast and the decline of OVA outside of porn than any damage Figure 17 dealt to the format. I cannot prove it though.

And the glorified infomericals? This is not so stupid actually… J.P. since elaborated:

But with anime, I don’t really have the same problem seeing how anime is really just a more elaborate late-night infomercial, with the difference being that instead of buying a Flowbee or Juice Tiger or a set of Miracle Blades, it’s selling figures and body pillows. So commodiciation is basically built in.

I think we’re done here.

Steven opens Figure 17, and it’s a good trip so far for the readers. For example, he mentions off hand that Hikaru must be returning into a human form because her containning capsule was broken. I did not even think of that. As we see, usually the crack in Ribbers’ container means that it dies, yet I did not bother to give a second thought to the one sole exception of Hikaru. I’m intellectually lazy.

Also, there’s a quote I want to save:

Our Girl is having a hard time coping with her mother being dead. Then an Alien Girl comes into Our Girl’s life. The two end up partnering, and they eventually become close friends. Alien Girl has to learn a lot, and Our Girl helps teach her. But as she’s doing so, Our Girl also learns a lot, about herself and about her life. In the end, Alien Girl has to leave forever. But even though they won’t ever see each other again, they’ll remain friends. There’s a tearful farewell, but Our Girl gets over it, and is happier and more well adjusted because of what she’s been through. The last scenes show that she’s doing much better.

I’m not going to comment on the substance, because of Steven’s request, but one thing: how can they “remain friends” if they’ll never meet again? I suppose all that can be claimed is that they part at friendly terms.

UPDATE: I can’t believe he’s dissing portball:

Pete mentioned that when he watched it, he felt as if he had to struggle to get through it. I’ve been feeling the same. I started skipping through the post-ball parts of ep 3, and I felt like skipping through parts of the first and second episodes.

Portball may be the best part of the anime!

As I mentioned before, the combat weariness of Tsubasa is one of the central themes of Figure 17, and a similar phenomenon plays a role in Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I just remembered another depiction of it, in Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington. While Ender reaches the finish line, the protagonist of Aldington is so worn by the burden of fighting by the end, that he makes a simple mistake and gets killed mere couple of weeks before the Armstice. Watch the anime to know if Tsubasa squeaks by. I’ll only add that when compared to the literature, Figure 17 showed it pretty well.

I do not remember any anime treading there. Banner of the Stars is unparalleled in showing the tension and terror of naval combat in space, but the operation Phantom Flame is not long enough to need to deal with the kind of issues Tsubasa has to deal with. The 08th MS Team does not do it either. And I do not watch mecha and military stuff to remember much else.

Daniel/IKnight (author of Animanachronism) uses a different nickname to discuss the end of Figure 17:

Wow, that was a great finale. Alien hordes were slaughtered, stuff blew up, tears flowed. At times hard to digest, Figure 17 is nevertheless a fine example of solid anime: you can nitpick, you can say that it’s not what you’d enjoy, but I challenge you to present a convincing argument that it’s not good.

I pass.

Still, I wonder what he means by “hard to digest”. It was a tiring job for me, because it just went on an on without end for the viewers emphasizing with Tsubasa just as Tsubasa herself. But perhaps something else was hard for Daniel.

Daniel completed Figure 17 and has a few ideas on reflection.

I still cannot remember what THE SCENE was, or perhaps again: I have a vague feeling that I e-mailed Jeff Lawson with a question, he replied, and I cannot find the e-mail now. DVDs are gone back to Netflix and I cannot rewatch the ep.10.

Not that I want rewatch it, but Figure 17 was a great show. I had some money left on a gift card with which I paid for Ani-nouto’s server, mitsuki, so I used it.

Also, I noticed just now that it’s a Media Blasters release. Surprising. I came to think of them as bottom feeders, not purveyors of boutique masterworks. [Update: Steven says that it was their policy to release one big-name series per year.]

DVDs don’t have volume numbers on them anywhere I could find, so I marked them.

UPDATE: I probably should not dig deeper when in a hole, but “getto” is a weaboo for “get”.

Honestly, I was curious what he was going to review after quickly burning through all of the Ghibli movies and other… movies. Anyway, looking at the review of Figure 17, I cannot help thinking he’s missing some kind of tremendously important point about the anime, so we get weakly-sourced speculation about the anime’s target demographic instead. No wonder he calls Figure 17 “not remarkable”.