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Old 05-26-2011, 03:42 PM   #126
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OWNED!

But maybe because of that meek admission of Ohtsuki's ("I almost made it to 20M...!") I felt sympathetic toward him. I don't understand his circumstances at all, and to me Kaiji felt almost demonic doing what Talon predicted so far back, but it's necessary for Kaiji to escape from heck, and Ohtsuki really deserved his comeuppance.

Yet I still felt pity.
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Old 05-26-2011, 04:09 PM   #127
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ACTUALLY, to be honest I felt kinda bad for him too, toward the end when his voice got all meek, and he picked up his strongbox and was like, "Well, I'm done for tonight." After all, he's an indebted prisoner too. He shouldn't have been such a dick, but does he really deserve to have his ENTIRE stash destroyed? I dunno.
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Old 05-26-2011, 04:29 PM   #128
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Lest you guys forget, he tried to murder Kaiji with the crane. At the very least, "fair's fair." I don't condone murder; and, as we've discussed before, Kaiji has effectively condemned Ohtsuki to die in the underground; but, so long as "fair's fair", since Ohtsuki tried to kill Kaiji, Kaiji's entitled to milk Ohtsuki like this and we can't really blame the guy. Had Ohtsuki succeeded in killing Kaiji, Kaiji would actually have died. While Kaiji has virtually killed Ohtsuki now, he hasn't actually, literally done so: the man can still breathe, eat, sleep, and dream. He's just doomed to die underground now.

Nah, I can't really join you guys in saying you felt sorry for Ohtsuki. I felt bad for Tonegawa post-E-card, but Ohtsuki? The situation's completely different.
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Old 05-26-2011, 05:57 PM   #129
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It's weird, even if he was a monster, when he's curled up in the fetal position like that, I'd feel something. I remember having that same kind of weird feeling when I saw Saddam Hussein captured.

If I were in Kaiji's shoes, it would definitely be easier -

1. This guy tried to kill me.
2. This guy has fleeced me and the money of a bunch of other guys.
3. I want to survive and escape this nightmare.

I guess it's a combination of the atmosphere ("we're all prisoners of Teiai") and Ohtsuki's wounded humanity that stung. Tonegawa, I was dancing on his grave until Hyoudou brought out the cooker.
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Old 05-26-2011, 06:02 PM   #130
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As was Kaiji. ^^; Yeah, that was definitely the game changer. One second it's "BWAHAHAHA, EAT THAT, TONEGAWA!" and the next it's an incredibly somber and tight-lipped "Oh fuck. "
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Old 05-31-2011, 05:42 PM   #131
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It's pretty much official: Triad has completely dropped the ball. If they can manage to get Kaiji Ep05 out by tomorrow evening, they'll be four episodes behind Nutbladder. Otherwise? Five weeks.
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Old 06-01-2011, 08:55 AM   #132
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Like I said, they're thrown in the towel already because of the existence of other sub groups. Judging by their inactivity in the past couple years, it looks like they had practically retired, but decided to "get the band back together" for Kaiji season 2. As it turns out however, they couldn't get the whole band back together, and succumbed to laziness after a decent effort in the first few weeks.
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Old 06-01-2011, 11:44 AM   #133
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Underwater-Commie strikes again!
Quote:
So we looked at a certain other subber's release pace for the last two weeks and saw that it's been notably slower than our ep5 release time, so we decided to give a little wake-up call and deliver some subs while we were at it. This still isn't a regular project, but enjoy the subs anyway!
I thought that Nutbladder had been doing a fine job (releasing subs the exact same day the raws show up on Tosho) but apparently I thought wrong. Unless, of course, they're referring to The Triad here and not Nutbladder. Which was my first thought. But everyone who's replied has accused U-C of bashing Nutbladder, and the "two weeks" comment certainly makes less sense for Triad who are five weeks behind schedule. So I dunno.

Regardless: Kaiji S2 Ep09 is out!
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Old 06-01-2011, 02:20 PM   #134
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Underwater-Commie runs in with a steel chair again. To be honest, it's a brilliant marketing technique. They detect an opportunity to sub an eagerly anticipated episode, and do it for the drooling masses, without making a time consuming commitment to do the entire show. It lets people know, "Hey, we're Underwater-Commie, we're both fast AND good. So for next season's hot show, choose Underwater-Commie for all your subbing needs!"

Spoiler: show
Cool episode, but damn. I do NOT envy Kaiji. All that pressure of paying off the debts of ALL his friends? F that. No way in hell should he have ever accepted!
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Old 06-01-2011, 02:31 PM   #135
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Episode 09 was good. Discussion below.

Spoiler: show
As expected, it was the final episode of the Chinchiron arc. What I didn't expect was how beautifully it shared time between the two story arcs though! The first half is chichiron epilogue whereas the second half is pachinko prologue.

EPIC BROMANCE IS EPIC. While I expected Kaiji to be a good moral figure who split the money evenly all six ways, I totally did NOT expect the other five 45's to give back all of their money to Kaiji. That takes balls. That takes major balls. That or else they're just retardedly naive saps. Kaiji would never himself have done such a thing post-Espoir, I believe, which is why their deed struck such a deep chord with him. He couldn't believe that they could possibly trust him with their very lives like that -- that they would give up their precious 1 to 2 days of freedom in order to buy him 20 days on the outside and give him a good chunk of change to gamble with.

I also did not expect the 20 days of freedom. That really surprised me. I expected that Teiai was only going to give Kaiji one day of freedom and he was going to have to do all of the pachinko story arc during that window of time, sort of like how human horseracing, E-card, and the tissuebox raffle, as long as the three arcs combined felt to us, all took place during the span of one night. Isn't 20 kind of overkill? Wouldn't 10 days of freedom have been enough? Kaiji could have had more money to gamble with that way. Conversely, wouldn't it have been smarter to buy Miyoshi's freedom for 10 days alongside Kaiji's for 10 days, rather than just buying Kaiji freedom alone for 20 days, so that Kaiji could have a gambling partner for games where such things matter (e.g. mahjong)? Oh well. Obviously Fukumoto chose to give Kaiji this much time on the outside for a reason, so we'll have to see how it all plays out.

You're going to want to dive by 100 a lot this episode to convert yen into dollars. I'll help out. Here are the figures we're dealing with here ...

Kaiji's pocket money on Day 0 (pre-release): 18,000,000 perica = 1,800,000 yen = $18,000
Kaiji's pocket money on Day 1 (post-release): 800,000 yen = $8,000
Amount Kaiji needs to win to buy all six 45s' freedom: 6,000,000 yen (apparently each man's head is worth 1,000,000 yen, I have no idea why the blanket cost but whatever) = $60,000
Minimum bets at the secret casino's tables: $500, $1000, $3000
Pachinko costs per ball (normal): 4 yen = 4˘
Pachinko costs per ball (secret casino): 40 yen, 400 yen, 4000 yen = $0.40, $4, and $40
Number of balls Kaiji can purchase for the Ľ4000/ball pachinko machine assuming no payouts: 200 measly balls
Jackpot for the Ľ4000/ball pachinko: 500,000,000 yen = $5,000,000

It'll be interesting to see if he dives right into The Bog or if he decides to try making some cash at the other machines first and only then does he decide to risk it big on The Bog. We'll just have to wait and see next week.

Now, the biggest question I have for you guys is this: what do you think the trick is with The Bog? Obviously the game is rigged. Obviously. But at the same time, it allegedly can be won. That is to say, the casino claims that they'll award that mountain of pachinko balls as a jackpot should someone win it. Whether they really will or not, who knows. But anyway, that's kind of beside the point. My point is, how do you guys think Kaiji will win this? Luck? Strategy? Cheating? A combination of any of the three? lol Honestly, I can see a really easy way for them to rig this game but scene of the ball almost going into the final hole makes my theory seem unlikely. That'd be ...

Spoiler: show
if they have a magnet near the other four holes but not near the jackpot hole, making it sort of a "magnetic sink" the steel balls naturally avoid. Assuming they are steel, of course.

Problem is, the ball didn't seem to approach any of the holes as if they were magnetized. Furthermore, that'd be impossible for Kaiji to defeat. Machine's too heavy for him to pick up or shake, and that's pretty much all he could hope to do at that point to get the ball into the jackpot hole. And that'd still require dumb luck.


With the exception of early Espoir and early E-Card, Kaiji's never won by counting on luck. (And he learned that lesson painfully the hard way with Season 1's fourth story arc.) Sure, some of his early wins in the two mentioned arcs relied on luck, but his big wins against Funai (Espoir) and Tonegawa (E-Card) were based much more on psychological warfare, which we can attribute somewhat to skill rather than to pure luck. We saw the same strategy again in chinchiron -- Kaiji's early wins in the arc were purely based on luck whereas his penultimate victory over Ohtsuki relied entirely upon psychological warfare and prepping his rigged 1-1-1 dice. I'm thinking we might see something similar in this arc. Though it'd be nice for a change if Kaiji's finally learned to quit relying on Lady Luck and if in this arc he hits the ground running, not placing big bets at all until he thinks he's figured out the winning strategy.

Though what the hell it could be for fucking Pachinko, I have no clue.
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Old 06-01-2011, 03:25 PM   #136
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I've been disciplined in not reading manga spoilers, but I still couldn't help hearing about various famous arcs in Kaiji ... pachinko was one of them. I had never even heard about chinchiron before I saw it in the anime, so I was surprised that it was so long. Damn, just think about all the epic we saw in an arc that was apparently not even worth mentioning? What are we gonna be in for in this arc that actually is famous?
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Old 06-01-2011, 03:27 PM   #137
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Old 06-01-2011, 04:45 PM   #138
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I'm curious to see what you guys will think about the Pachinko arc. The real reason it's famous is because of its antagonist, who, like Washizu Iwao, has taken on a fanbase of his own.

Also regarding Pachinko, (MAJOR SPOILER BELOW)

Spoiler: show
How Kaiji beats Kazuya is allegedly impossible with real pachinko machines, but since we're unfamiliar with them (the closest would be a pinball machine, and most of us don't know the ins and outs of pinball machine modding) I'm curious if people will laud Kaiji's ingenuity or bash Fukumoto's credibility. To be fair, Kaiji's method is an urban legend among gamblers, but no MythBusters: Japan exists to disprove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, so the idea persists.
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Old 06-01-2011, 05:00 PM   #139
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See, I'm curious to see how anyone could be an antagonist this arc since it seems like it's just Kaiji vs. the machine. What I had originally thought it might be, but it's not seeming to be the case any more, was that Kaiji and what's-his-name would each be sat down at their respective pachinko machines (identical) and that they would take balls from the same pool, i.e. one player's win is directly responsible for another player's loss and vice versa. That is to say, the pipes that feed the balls into these machines would be supplying their two machines from the same source and if one guy hits the jackpot well then duh it fucks the other guy over.

But since that doesn't seem to be the case here, I'm really stumped as to how this is going to be another psychological warfare story arc. I welcome it. I even expect it from Fukumoto by now. But I'm just not seeing how he's planning to do it this arc.
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Old 06-01-2011, 06:49 PM   #140
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Saw the episode.

It was really great! And I welcome Ohgi's voice actor back into the Fukumoto fold, it was really great to hear him return as Sakazuki.

Talon - as you must have noticed, the casino is Teiai owned and run. As with all the Teiai functions (Espoir/Starside, The Penal Colony) there's a Teiai executive in charge of the operation. Clearly, if Kaiji intends to scam Teiai out of its own funds, the executive is going to worried if Kaiji drains the Bog. That's not paltry cash.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't too impressed with the 45's vote of confidence in Kaiji. It felt far too emotionally charged, unlike the case of Espoir where it was a mix of logic and emotion. That is, it was in the 45s best interest to entrust their money to Kaiji. Assuming he would do it, seeing how Kaiji did something no one else ever did, it was completely logical to bank on the small chance of Kaiji winning big and saving them (two conditions) rather than use the money themselves in an unrealistic scenario where they could clear their debts in one day.

But from the scene, I got the impression the guys were unquestioningly loyal, even that one dissident from earlier (I forgot his name). Even considering different circumstances from Espoir, where everyone was worried about going to the Penal Colony, I felt the logical basis was mentioned but not emphasized as the real reason.


Now, something I've been thinking about since S1 has more or less been confirmed - Hyoudou Kazutaku is way, way, waaaaaay richer than Washizu Iwao ever was. Washizu was worth a Ľ1,000,000,000 at his peak (about $10M) while we've seen Hyoudou juggle Ľ100M almost casually. It's pocket money to him, and while Ľ100M wasn't a TON to Washizu, it was still a good chunk of his fortune, especially after he was left with a paltry Ľ600M after all those bribes he had to make after Fake Akagi's death.

I used to think, "well, Ľ500M in 1954 is probably worth an unimaginable fortune in today's yen" but in 2007 I was a full-fledged economics student, and I remember having access to inflation tables that told me Japan's inflation rate didn't change much from the 1965-1997 period. There was deflation in the 1990's that counteracted inflation during the 1970's, so Ľ100M yen in 1965 was roughly equivalent to Ľ100M yen in 1997. Unfortuntely, I don't have that data at my fingertips anymore, but I'll see if I can find something.

Suffice to say, Washizu was portrayed as the shadow king of Japan, but to our eyes he's not nearly rich enough to wave around that kind of power (influence on social elites notwithstanding). His Ľ500M yen would have been enough for him to live lavishly, if quitely, overseas. Ľ20M would have sustained Akagi modestly for the rest of his life while it's just big money to Kaiji. Yet we have Hyoudou's Teiai juggling tons of cash in all of its operations, and if Hyoudou himself is really like Washizu (I think not, to me he's merely a very powerful, very rich, insane socialite) he's definitely far more wealthy.
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Old 06-01-2011, 08:19 PM   #141
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Actually, I had no idea that it was Teiai operated.

Spoiler: show
But if it makes you feel any better, just today after I finished Episode 09 I had it spoiled for me that what's-his-face is the Teiai grunt running this casino. So you didn't spoiler me: Wikipedia did.

*was on Wikipedia trying to find confirmation that we have more than 10 episodes this season since no one's revealed Ep11's title yet whereas Ep09 and Ep10's titles have been known for weeks*


When you put it that way, okay, I guess the idea of "competition" makes sense: Kaiji vs. the house. I still don't see how the house is going to cheat, though, beyond what they've already done in constructing the machine -- and I fail to see how Kaiji is going to be able to pwn them. Losing $5,000,000 of the mafia's == insta-death for that manager.

As for Washizu vs. Hyoudou, that's some interesting insight but I almost wish we hadn't had it XD because it really neuters Washizu in my eyes. In Akagi, he was marketed as what Hyoudou was marketed in Kaiji: a mover, a shaker, a true kingpin of the underworld. We're not talking "boss of a mafia family," we're talking "shadow government of Japan"-level stuff. We're talking "the man who owns all the mafias"-level stuff. And Washizu was ostensibly marketed in much the same way, what with all the talk about how he helped rebuild Japan post-WW2 and how all the prime ministers owed him favors, etc etc.

But at the very least, it certainly goes a long way towards driving home the point that Hyoudou is not merely some crazy old rich man who gets his kicks by watching people play Battle Royale-style games: he's an important figure in shadow global politics because he's that fucking wealthy.

Oh, good ol' Potato Nose.
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Old 06-02-2011, 02:38 AM   #142
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Actually, I had no idea that it was Teiai operated.
I'm surprised, I thought the logos stood out:

Spoiler: show





Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
When you put it that way, okay, I guess the idea of "competition" makes sense: Kaiji vs. the house. I still don't see how the house is going to cheat, though, beyond what they've already done in constructing the machine -- and I fail to see how Kaiji is going to be able to pwn them. Losing $5,000,000 of the mafia's == insta-death for that manager.
I don't know either, I just know how Kaiji beats the machine. Kaiji might have an alternative reason for targeting the owner of the casino - to me, the Ľ500M payout of the Pachinko Bog seems like a red herring, in the same way that "Ľ100M" was a potential possible payout of E-Card, but realistically speaking, even Ľ20M was an unimaginable win from it. And Sakazaki is going to take a big chunk of the change, so unless Kaiji's planning on bailing out everyone from the Penal Colony (unlikely! The 45's, at worst, would have debts totalling Ľ250M) the Bog payout + whatever he fleeces the owner from would be overkill, and Kaiji + financially set are three words that don't belong together unless in the company of "never will be".

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As for Washizu vs. Hyoudou, that's some interesting insight but I almost wish we hadn't had it XD because it really neuters Washizu in my eyes. In Akagi, he was marketed as what Hyoudou was marketed in Kaiji: a mover, a shaker, a true kingpin of the underworld. We're not talking "boss of a mafia family," we're talking "shadow government of Japan"-level stuff. We're talking "the man who owns all the mafias"-level stuff. And Washizu was ostensibly marketed in much the same way, what with all the talk about how he helped rebuild Japan post-WW2 and how all the prime ministers owed him favors, etc etc.

But at the very least, it certainly goes a long way towards driving home the point that Hyoudou is not merely some crazy old rich man who gets his kicks by watching people play Battle Royale-style games: he's an important figure in shadow global politics because he's that fucking wealthy.

Oh, good ol' Potato Nose.
That's the reason I didn't bring up the Washizu point earlier and was trying to find a way to prove myself wrong. Hyoudou isn't portrayed like Washizu as a "shadow king", he is simply a very very rich, very insane and diabolical old man. And unlike Washizu, a man who benefitted from the times and luck, Hyoudou has Kaiji-level cunning that he can call upon at will, rather than in clutch situations. He's almost like what Kaiji would be if Kaiji gave in to the immorality and cutthroat attitude of the people around him, but a step above that - if Kaiji's a magical girl, Hyoudou is a witch that hasn't lost intelligence.

But if one compares, it's pretty consistent -

1. Washizu owned a consulting firm, and was able to personally pocket most of his wealth. Hyoudou owned a conglomerate, perhaps a latter-day zaibatsu, staffed by hundreds and involved in all matter of legitimate and unscrupulous business. The scale of the companies can't be compared, though if we look at ages, Hyoudou would be in his 20's when Washizu was still active in the business world, so it's possible the two could have overlapped or even met one another.

2. Washizu was never portrayed as having billionaire-style wealth. He didn't own a garage full of the same type of car (like Bill Gates), just a single elegant car and a mansion in Tokyo. A mansion in modern-day Tokyo is unimaginable. By comparison, Hyoudou (either through his own wealth or his company) owned a ship, a skyscraper, another building and has a personal mansion all to himself. In terms of land alone, this is way more than Washizu's.

I'd like to think that, even though Washizu's wealth by our modern standards isn't really impressive, in an era where a millionare (not multi-millionaire, millionaire) was rare, Washizu's total wealth clocked in at ten million and is still unimaginably rich compared to the average Japanese citizen of the day. Billionaires are pretty common in our time, but most of their wealth is evaluated in terms of financial assets that aren't very liquid (since they're tied to corporate influence, like Bill Gates' shares of Microsoft) so while they can be very flashy, they don't have a ton of free cash. Washizu not only had that money, it wasn't tied to his political influence.
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Old 06-02-2011, 10:30 AM   #143
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I'm going to have to disagree with you about Hyoudou not being a "shadow king" with his hand at least partially in government for one very simple reason: the underground fortress. Having seen how expansive that thing is -- not just deep, but wide -- and judging that, if the Espoir arc directly ties into the chinchiron arc in terms of penal colonies, the underground fortress is somewhere off in China (b/c we know the Espoir ones were iirc), Hyoudou would have to have connections in high places. Why? Because no modern-day government is going to just allow a private citizen to build an underground fortress to live in for 50+ years while weathering out the effects of the nuclear apocalypse. A, governments are probably going to want in on that shit. But B, governments are going to have concerns that the project isn't what Hyoudou claims it to be, e.g. he could really be producing an underground testing center for nuclear arms rather than producing an underground Noah's Ark, and they're going to insist on regular inspections and such, telling Hyoudou "if you don't like it then you can GTFO."

Pre-seeing how enormous the underground fortress was, I might have been persuaded by your argument that "he's just some ridiculously wealthy guy but no more involved with the government than is Bill Gates." It's a sound argument. But the underground fortress kind of hampers it. And for me, it not only hampers it but dismantles it completely. Maybe it's not enough to convince you, but me ... I can't imagine any world government today allowing any private citizen today to get away with that sort of project, whether or not he legally owns the land. (Btw, by the same logic that land ownership does not equal airspace ownership, I imagine that land ownership does not equal subterranean ownership past reasonable [i.e. agriculturally and irrigationally relevant] depths.)

As for "I thought it stood out ..." dude, give me a break on that top picture. That's desperately grabbing at straws. You were LOOKING for the words there, because so too did I have to just now: and in the episode, that cel is shown for like 0.5 second before it cuts to the next one. C'mon, man! Now your second screencap ... that's a much better example. The buckets are big, in your face, etc. I guess they were just so much in my face that they fell out of my focus. I was intently focused on the subtitle text.
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Old 06-06-2011, 03:57 PM   #144
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Yesterday, someone lamented on Triad's weblog that:
Quote:
Originally Posted by No.12939
Female voices fuck up the zawa

Bitches
I replied:
Quote:
Originally Posted by No.12948
The first season's zawas were dramatic and inspired fans to talk about them. The second season's zawas are distracting and seem to have been expressly recorded with the intent of generating fan hubbub. It's kind of like what happens when you try and force genius: you get an inferior product. It was better when they weren't aware that what they were doing was awesome because their awareness is what I think has ruined it in Season 2.
Today someone else replied to me:
Quote:
Originally Posted by No.12950
Agree completely. I think what you described has ruined many many sequels, actually.
What do you think? Are fans just imagining that the new zawas are inferior to the old ones? Or is there a noticeable drop in their efficacy, in their ability to make you feel like "shit's going down"?
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Old 06-06-2011, 04:58 PM   #145
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It's exactly as you say. Whenever the makers of a show find out that a particular thing about the show is a hit, they feel this need to do more of it to please them, and it thus becomes overused, unnatural, and loses its impact as a delightful treat.

A prominent example of this was Happy Days with The Fonz. He became such a popular character that he started hogging all the screen time, became the focal point of most episodes, and the network actually considered renaming the show "Fonzie's Happy Days". Erkel from Family Matters, same deal. That's why as much as I love Hosaka from Minami-ke, it would not necessarily be a good move to increase his prominence. That guy never wore out his welcome!
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Old 06-06-2011, 05:26 PM   #146
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While it's true this season's zawa zawa's aren't doing much for me, I didn't really take exception to them, either. In the previous seasons the zawa zawa's were like vampire bats that would swarm Kaiji when he was most fudged, but once in a while they turned on the antagonist (Funai, Tonegawa) and it was really awesome.

This season...there wasn't a situation where I felt Kaiji was truly fudged. I mean, comparing the previous seasons, it always seemed like Kaiji was risking death or injury at every turn. The penal colony was reputed to be basically death, and Human Derby was instant death falling from the beam. Kaiji was risking his eardrum and then his life against Tonegawa, and bet his fingers against Hyoudou.

But here...Kaiji was still risking money. Even if we take Talon's "inevitable death from tuberculosis" scenario, it's less frightening than the "UNKNOWN" of the penal colony during Espoir, and is a far cry from the death risking scenarios in the other gambles.

So, the intense scene for a zawa zawa never really presented itself, so my attention was never drawn to them enough for me to notice something was wrong.

Definitely agree that last season's zawa's were much more intense.
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Old 06-07-2011, 10:56 PM   #147
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In this episode of Talon Posts on Triad's Blog, I write:

(spoiler boxing this sucker 'cause man is it LONG!)
Spoiler: show
Quote:
Originally Posted by me
Nah, it's a fair question, don't get mad at him. Triad never had a delay quite this long during their release of Kaiji S1 in 2007-2008. If you look back at their release dates ...

Kaiji 26 - Friday, April 18, 2008
Kaiji 25 - Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Kaiji 24 - Sunday, March 23, 2008
Kaiji 23 - Sunday, March 16, 2008
Kaiji 22 - Thursday, March 06, 2008
Kaiji 21 - Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Kaiji 20 - Sunday, February 24, 2008
Kaiji 19 - Thursday, February 21, 2008
Kaiji 18 - Sunday, February 10, 2008
Kaiji 17 - Friday, February 08, 2008
Kaiji 16 - Thursday, January 24, 2008
Kaiji 15 - Friday, January 18, 2008
Kaiji 14 - Thursday, January 10, 2008
Kaiji 13 - Saturday, December 29, 2007
Kaiji 12 - Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Kaiji 11 -- missing --
Kaiji 10 - Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Kaiji 09 - Saturday, December 08, 2007
Kaiji 08 - Friday, November 23, 2007
Kaiji 07 - Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Kaiji 06 - Saturday, November 10, 2007
Kaiji 05 - Thursday, November 01, 2007
Kaiji 04 - Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Kaiji 03 - Saturday, October 20, 2007
Kaiji 02 - Saturday, October 13, 2007
Kaiji 01 - Friday, October 05, 2007

The top five longest delays they ever had were ...
(1) 17 days to get out Episode 25
(2) 15 days to get out Episode 17
(3) 15 days to get out Episode 09
(4) 13 days to get out Episode 12*
(5) 12 days to get out Episode 14

* I don't know when they released Episode 11 (blog doesn't make it clear whether it came co-packaged with 10 or with 12 or whether it came out on its own) and so the "delay" between episodes 10 and 12 might actually have been punctuated by Episode 11's release.

Regardless, given 24 confirmed release dates, the average delay between releases was 8.1 days. (195 days between the releases of Episodes 1 and 26 divided by 24 intervals of time corresponding to 25 known release dates [since Episode 11 is off the grid]. If my math's off by a bit, don't geek out: this isn't for a grade, I'm just demonstrating a point.)

And the point I've been leading up to has been that while many of the Kaiji fans here today *are* accustomed to Triad's slow pace, they have never before had to contend with a delay or a silence of this magnitude. Back when Triad left us hanging with Episode 24 for SEVENTEEN DAYS before rolling out Episode 25, fans were practically clawing their eyes out in anticipation for how TISSUEBOXLOL would play out. You can see the evidence of that here, in the news post for Episode 24: http://www.the-triad.org/News-articl...rtnum-301.html . It made its way to SEVEN PAGES (over 300 replies) before finally, on April 9, Triad rolled out the 25th episode of the first season.

Now, if a seventeen-day delay in 2008 was bad, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a fan to politely express his frustration about a delay that's already gone ten days longer than that. It's been twenty-seven days since we last heard anything from Triad regarding Kaiji S2. This isn't just about them falling behind schedule any more: we don't even know if they're still working on subbing this series or if they've dropped it for any number of reasons. I think it's reasonable at this point for fans to expect of Triad an announcement declaring several things: firstly, whether they're planning on continuing to sub this series or not; and secondly, what their current status is.

Let's hope for the best: that LordBrian (a) takes what I've had to say seriously, (b) makes an official announcement in the next few days, and (c) that the announcement is positive. Or at the very least isn't "Yeah, Mcsweeney totally called it. Sorry, guys. We wanted one last broo-hah-hah but it just didn't pan out. *sigh*"

Mind you, I think Mcsweeney's 100% correct. But let's hope for the best all the same.

In the meantime, here's hoping I wake up tomorrow to discover yet another Underwater-Commie fansub of Kaiji S2. Will be sorely disappointed if they've gone back to their "tee-hee! ;3 You don't need us when you have Nutbladder doing timely subs for you!" shenanigans. Your guys' Kaiji releases are good, c'mo~on. ;_;
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Old 06-08-2011, 06:00 PM   #148
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They've dropped some shows in the past, especially recently (Gunslinger Girls season 2, Nanoha StrikerS, Legend of Koizumi), which is why I said they've basically been inactive for years now. They said it was because the shows sucked, but those were probably just excuses for laziness. Well they can't use that excuse this time, it's Kaiji for gods sake! Time to ride off into the sunset for good, I think.

The mystery of what happened to a.f.k.: I've heard two versions of the story. One is that a.f.k. was actually one guy like I said before, who did the whole fansub himself. His legend grew to be so great that he had no choice but to vanish without a trace.

The other version is that the other people in a.f.k. were at odds with Strato: he insisted on almost exclusively doing Kyoani shows, and the other guys wanted to do other stuff. They were like, "All right, enough with the moeshit! How's about Darker than Black or Bartender this time?" And Strato was like, "NOOOOOO GOD DAMN IT, LUCKY ☆ STAR ALL DAY!"
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Old 06-08-2011, 09:43 PM   #149
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I have a hard time buying either of those theories. Theory 1's problem is that takes Strato from being a god-tier translator (which is already amazing) to being a god-tier individual period. As in, holy shit, how could ONE GUY hold a steady job -and- be that awesome of a translator + typesetter + editor + raw acquirer + yeah. Theory 2's problem is Strato's repertoire: in addition to subbing KyoAni works, he also did Seto no Hanayome iirc and didn't he also do Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei? I could be wrong about one of the two, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about the other: and neither's a KyoAni series. (Seto no Hanayome does admittedly feature a large-breasted lolifaced beauty ŕ la Asahina Mikuru. I guess you could shoehorn in the "he only does lolimoe shit!" argument that way, but it's a bit of a stretch to me. >_>)

I dunno. My theory is an optimistic one: that he got discovered (God bless him, he deserved to be) and is now working as a professional translator in some corporate or government capacity, e.g. aide to a UN ambassador or something. Guy had a definite gift for translating. Would be a shame if he wasn't able to make a mid-to-high paying career out of it with some fun perks attached.

Anyway, Episode 10 is out. I got through half of it earlier in the evening before heading out. Will probably resume either later tonight or else some time tomorrow.

Spoiler: show
Correction: looks like I've been reading the name 美心 wrong the entire time. I've been reading it as Mikokoro, but apparently Sakazaki's daughter's name is Mikoko. Drop the -ro. The name is uncommon, and in my defense it seems that neither of the two readings is listed as the most common by WWWJDIC:
Quote:
美心 【こより】 Koyori (f) 【みこ】 Miko (f) 【みここ】 Mikoko (f) 【みこころ】 Mikokoro (f) 【みさね】 Misane (f) 【みしん】 Mishin (f) 【みつこ】 Mitsuko (f) 【みみ】 Mimi (f)
Looks like Koyori is the most common, followed by Miko, followed by Mikoko and Mikokoro. Mikokoro's also on the list so I don't feel too bad. Whatever. No more calling her Mikokoro! From here on out it's Mikoko. My apologies for getting the name wrong all this time. I guess that's what happens when all you have to go off of is print and a foggy memory of reading that print three years ago. (No excuses, though! )

Last edited by Talon87; 06-08-2011 at 11:52 PM. Reason: whoops, totally goofed and spoilered Doppel, my apologies
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Old 06-08-2011, 10:18 PM   #150
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Spoiler: show
Mikoko is Sakazaki's daughter?! O_O

Whaaaaaaat?


And IIRC, a.f.k. was a two person gig. Strato did the TL, the other person handled the subbing/encoding/distro. Strato found time to sub Haruhi because it was fairly easy to handle, and then decided to be a bit more ambitious and try to sub the next popular-in-Japan title SZS, which lead to a burn out for both staff members.

The only reason a.f.k. wasn't more prominent was because of SZS.
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