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Old 02-16-2014, 12:54 AM   #6201
big bad birtha
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Actually, Doppel, I dropped Galilei Donna because it reeked of obnoxious jingoism. Now that Suigin is on it, I wanna ask something. I asked the other person here who watched it, but he never answered me.

Episode 7 spoilers
Spoiler: show
How is Japan depicted in Galilei Donna? When the loli started going on about how great Japan is, I decided "fuck this shit!" and dropped it. Is Japan a paradise, while the rest of the world is a hellhole? I was always curious about that, because while the jingoism present while I was watching was small, I had a feeling it'd go full-on "ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY NIPPON!".


A-1 has been really annoyingly verbal lately. Their latest show, Sekai Seifuku, has a bunch of preaching in it.
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Old 02-16-2014, 04:49 AM   #6202
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So I know I've never like posted here buuut since we're on Galilei Donna and most people haven't finished it I'll just spoil the last few episodes... in a spoiler box.

Spoiler: show
I was pretty disappointed by the last few episodes. I didn't really see the point behind Episode 8 (that was the actual Japan episode itself) other than it being a filler and tourism. It struck me how no one in Japan actually knew they were criminals and the blissfully unaware grandpa and how the company wasn't actually smart enough to take people they are related to/know as hostages.

Episode 9 was pretty okay. Anna gets suspicion and then betrays the sisters, but then betrays Roberto. It was actually pretty great until like around halfway, when Hozuki's OP HOURGLASS THINGY suddenly froze time AND TRANSPORTED INTO THE PAST. Lots of wtf moments.

Then Episode 10 was cringe-worthy. 80% of the episode was spent on Hozuki/Galilei incest that had little to do with modern time other than reveal what the sketches' messages actually mean. It would've been nice if half of the time spent doing stuff like eating watermelons was cut and Hozuki wasn't be like oh hey i'm like frozen in time and my sisters are just about to be hit by missles but lol this is so fun Imma just take my time finishing stuff so I can get back. Then at the end they get captured.

Episode 11 was the anticipated finale! It was a trial. They were cornered then their amnesia mom stood up for the company. SHOCKER. Then she took a U-Turn and actually didn't have amnesia. Not sure how that worked there. Then her father shows up and both of them shoved the company into a corner. Then the big bad boss got killed by his son Roberto and died when he left the courtroom. That was surprising. Their lawyer was the pirate dude. In the end the now complete family goes onto Hozuki's ship and fly off while Anna looks at the boat and then get arrested. Poor gurl.

So if I remembered correctly the secret behind the Tesoro wasn't actually revealed. It'd be nice if it had a S2 but I doubted it.

Generally, the last few episodes were really bleh if they didn't spend the last few episodes on promoting Japan and incest love that has little relevance to the main plot.
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Old 02-16-2014, 01:24 PM   #6203
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It seems the Eevee special is out (raw), so I decided to watch it. It was pretty blah. I guess after the Meloetta special, my expectations were set a bit too high. It wasn't even that cute, which is the whole point of these damn little specials! The Meloetta special had some really fun interactions between the Pokemon, but this one just didn't have it. It was just everyone running around, and Team Rocket being annoying. It's a shame too, I was looking forward to this. Actually I wanted to watch this much more than the Super Model Slim Mewtwo movie.
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Old 02-17-2014, 06:25 PM   #6204
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Galilei Donna: Watched Episode 08. And so ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
I wanna ask something.

Episode 7 spoilers
Spoiler: show
How is Japan depicted in Galilei Donna? When the loli started going on about how great Japan is, I decided "fuck this shit!" and dropped it. Is Japan a paradise, while the rest of the world is a hellhole? I was always curious about that, because while the jingoism present while I was watching was small, I had a feeling it'd go full-on "ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY NIPPON!".
I can answer this question now.

Spoiler: show
Honestly, I was surprised by how non-jingoist the depiction of Japan ended up being. It wasn't Paradise. And it wasn't Hell on Earth either. It was pretty much just run-of-the-mill Japan as you might find it today. Given the universe of Galilei Donna, that might suggest that Japan in the future is somewhat more backwards compared to other countries in the world? But I'm not really a fan of that interpretation: given what was shown, I think it'd be fairer to say that they were culturally proud and old-fashioned but that, as far as technology goes, they were no less capable than European nations.

What happens is, Anna determines that one of the two scrolls is in a cemetery in Nara. The Ferrari sisters ask Anna for permission to take a detour to Kyoto; Hazuki explains that their paternal grandfather lives there and that they haven't seen him in years. In fact, Hozuki has never met him in person. Anna happily agrees to the detour and so the episode is spent almost entirely in Kyoto, with (literally) the final 30 to 60 seconds spent in the cemetery in Nara.

Kyoto looks pretty much like what you might expect in an ordinary anime. It's got 21st-century amenities and architecture mixed in with 19th-century sensibilities and architecture. The Ferraris' grandfather lives in a stereotypically classical Japanese house. Lots of wood, sliding doors with paper, the usual. But even his house has an enormous furnace in the front/side yard, central heating (although he doesn't know how to use it), and electric lighting. It's a pretty ordinary house and they don't make too big a deal out of it, to be honest.

The episode does "Japanese it up" in a few places, but it doesn't feel jingoist. They're never like "The way weeeeeeeeeee do it in Japan is so much better than the way youuuuu do it in Europe! " The Japanese stuff included things like:
  • attention drawn to Grandpa's house's lack of central heating. Thus, it was almost as cold inside as it was outside. He used a kotatsu to stay warm. When his granddaughters complained of coldness, he turned on a small electric range nearby strong enough only to partially heat the living room.
  • Grandpa preparing nabe for dinner, the Japanese hot pot
  • Grandpa's dress (he looked sort of like a 19th-century feudal government official)
  • the Japanese-style bath
  • a Japanese tea Hazuki gives to Kazuki
But honestly, that was about it. I'm sitting here trying to rack my brain to think of more examples, but like ... there was an awful lot they could have plugged but didn't, stuff like Kyoto's castles, temples, and parks (they showed some but very briefly), stuff like tangerines eaten around a kotatsu, stuff like Japan's contributions to the electronics revolution ... none (well, barely none) of this was shown or mentioned. No one ever spoke up saying, "Man, Kyoto/Japan is like Heaven. " No one ever said, "This is so much better than Europe/home." It was never suggested that Grandpa was 1000x smarter than anyone they'd yet met, that the Japanese held the answer to the world's energy crisis, nothing. They pretty much just visited Japan because 1) it had a scroll or two there and 2) a chance to see Grandpa. That's it.

As for the main focus of the episode ...

Spoiler: show
Anna learns from Roberto that he did not show the girls any mercy last time: he fully intends to kill them, just not yet. He intends for Anna to assist the girls in tracking down the remaining scrolls, to report back to him periodically, and to notify him when the final scroll is obtained. At that time, he'll come to collect all of the scrolls and end the three Ferrari sisters' lives. Roberto detects that Anna is emotionally attached to the girls and questions her resolve. This of course frightens Anna (who knows what sort of man Roberto is) and she denies that she's become attached to them.

Meanwhile, the Ferrari sisters find themselves warming up to Anna more and more. Hazuki is surprised when Anna voices no objection to the Kyoto detour and, I guess, sees Anna a lot more positively after this. While the Ferraris withhold from Granpda the truth of their visit, they tell him that Anna is their chaperone assigned by their father and that she's been taking good care of them. The girls' grandfather later thanks Anna and requests that she continue to take good care of the girls. On a trip to one of the temples in downtown Kyoto, the girls' love of life brings Anna almost to tears as she grapples with the reality that she is bringing them one step closer to their deaths with every passing day. When the girls ask Anna what's wrong, she realizes she's wearing her emotions on her face and tries to conceal the truth, but she can't fool them that something's making Anna sad.

That evening, Anna goes to take a bath all by herself. She needs some time to think to herself. As she sits there, sad and alone, in barge the Ferrari sisters. They dive into the bath with her and one by one they indicate that they have come to think of Anna as family. One even says that Anna is "the fourth Ferrari sister." This is too much for Anna to bear and she begins to cry. Kazuki says, "Hey, hey, it's nothing to get that emotional over! ^^;", not realizing the truth of why Anna is crying so much. She thanks the girls for their kindness and the scene ends.

The next day, as the girls leave Grandpa's and Kyoto to head for the cemetery at Nara, Anna looks rather revitalized. It's pretty clear to the viewer, even though no words are spoken, that she is very much on Team Ferrari and that, while she may still feel she owes Roberto her life and may even still have feelings for him, she will not allow Roberto to kill the sisters. Not if she can help it. Not if it even costs her her own life.

The episode ends with the girls discovering the scroll in Nara, and as one of them remarks that there is only one scroll to go, sadness returns to Anna's face.

Two other things I forgot to mention, and then that's pretty much the entire episode:

Spoiler: show
The girls' father had designed a machine when he was in high school. It was meant to provide the house with central heating and better electricity. Unfortunately, he didn't finish it before leaving Japan, and since Grandpa had no idea what it was, it just sat there in the yard for years, untouched. Hozuki completes the machine, and one of the final scenes of the episode is the girls turning the machine on as a gift for their grandfather. The lights brighten, warm air flows through the vents, and he goes, "So that's what it was ... " ^^; It's a cute scene which, in a lot of ways, is the polar opposite of a more "GLORIOUS NIPPON" jingoist message since traditional Japanese houses lack central heating (even many of the ones with Western-style architecture; think of the Minamis' apartment in Minami-ke, for instance).

The sky pirate captain tails the Galileo to Japan. He goes on a "date" with Hazuki (he waylays her by a bridge and they have a conversation by themselves), by the end of which she inexplicably has fallen in love with him. It felt very rushed and forced, especially since he did nothing different here to what he'd done in previous episodes, but whatever. The important thing plot-wise is that she's attracted to him now and he's ever more obviously the Ferraris' knight in shining armor as we go into the final chapters.
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Old 02-18-2014, 04:08 AM   #6205
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Galilei Donna: Just watched Episode 09.

Spoiler: show
You can tell that Galilei Donna is a story on a timer: because man do they rush things! And Episode 09 is no exception. We hit the ground running at the start of the episode, with the girls already somewhere in Libya. The briefest of flashbacks explains that, after they fetched the second to last scroll from the cemetery in Nara, they calculated that the final scroll was somewhere in Libya. So they flew all the way back halfway around the world to go and fetch that final scroll. For reasons that seem to be entirely dictated by the writers' desired outcome and make no sense given what we've seen up until now, Anna continues to keep Roberto in the loop and even goes so far as to sabotage the Galileo, draining its fuel so that the girls can't make a run for it when Roberto arrives. Despite this, Anna paradoxically loves the girls enough that she doesn't toss the fuel once she's emptied it -- she keeps it stored in containers on board the ship, so all the girls have to do is pour it right back into the fuel tank and the Galileo will be good to go again.

I feel like Anna's attempt to convince Roberto she was still with him was really, really dumb. She hurts the girls' feelings while failing to convince Roberto of anything, and ultimately she reveals her true colors five seconds later. So it's like ... what was even the point? ^^;; I feel like Anna also pretty much signed her own death sentence by pulling a gun on Roberto and not firing. The moment he got that gun in his hands, her life was over. Mind you, do I think she'll be dead? No, because this series feels like the sort which intends to deliver an ending where all of the heroes live happily ever after. But I'm just saying that were this even the least bit real, Roberto wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger on Anna and then go chase after the Ferraris.

The revelation that Hozuki swapped the sand in the goldfish hourglass pendant for ordinary sand felt rather deus ex machina.

So too did the activation of the pendant when those missiles were incoming.

And suddenly we're back in 16th century Italy and WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

And this is where the episode starts to get good despite the ridiculousness.

Because you see, this is where everything -- and I mean everything -- starts to come together for Hozuki and Galileo. Because it is here, in Hozuki's teleportation back in time and space to Galileo's Italy, that we discover that the woman Galileo wrote of in his journal, the woman he was deeply in love with, is very probably (not officially confirmed yet) none other than Hozuki Ferrari. And suddenly everything just clicks.
  • This is why the writers have been wasting our time with Hozuki reading her great-great-great-great-[...]great-grandfather's love letters and diaries. Because it's totally relevant to her character, it turns out, and is therefore not a waste of time at all.
  • Hozuki can often be found swooning over Galileo's love letters, wishing for the day she meets her special someone and falls in love with him as deeply as Galileo fell in love with his. What a coincidence it is, then, that the woman in Galileo's love letters that Hozuki is envious of ... is in fact none other than herself.
  • These letters of Galileo's resonate so strongly with Hozuki -- and this is without her knowing that she's the woman in the letters. Completely unbiased by that information, she finds the letters lovely. Imagine then how she would feel if she discovered that she was the woman the letters spoke of!
It's not just the love letters either.
  • Now we know why Galileo had notes which Hozuki was able to later use to build her own skyship: because Hozuki herself helped him draw the notes up. (This creates a fun little temporal paradox where Hozuki learns how to build a skyship from notes written by Hozuki who learned how to build a skyship from notes written by Hozuki who learned how to ... you see. )
  • Now we see why Galileo probably came to love goldfish so much. He associates the creature with his time spent with Hozuki, given that she plugged the creature herself when helping him out with his redesign of the Galileo. This likely explains why he placed the treasure-sand inside of a goldfish-shaped pendant.
I know I'm all excited, but like I did mention ... there are a number of little detractors which kind of spoil the fun. ^^;

First off, Galileo's age. He's depicted as being about 15 to 20 years old. Obviously this was probably done to justify how he could fall in love with Hozuki without it being mega-gross, but consequently it shoves down our throats more of this insufferable "child genius" nonsense that Galilei Donna is so fond of. As if it weren't bad enough that a little ten year old girl is outsmarting the most powerful conglomerate on the planet! Now we've got two child geniuses running amok!

Second, the really bizarre twist with the time-space wormholes in the thunderclouds. Galileo seems to suggest that these thunderclouds open up periodically and sometimes shit falls out of them. Obviously they match up with the times Hozuki's sand has activated to shield her from harm. But like ... isn't this a really big plot hole? ^^; The writers are basically saying that people or things from the future keep arriving in 16th century Italy every time they get sucked up by Hozuki's red light. Wouldn't that change the course of history? Wouldn't the ancient Italian scholars analyze the stuff that fell through the wormholes and ... anyway, you get the idea.

Third, the time-love ratio. From Galileo's letters, we understand that the woman he fell in love with was the love of his life. But he says it himself this episode: he only gets to spend twenty-three days with Hozuki. Yes, that's nearly a month. No, I don't think one month in your twentieth year is going to amount to enough passion that she is the eternal love of your life. Especially not if ...

Fourth, didn't Galileo start a family with somebody else? I mean, that's the idea, right? "We're the Ferrari sisters! Descendants of famed scholar Galileo Galilei!" For the Ferraris to Galileo's descendants, Galileo must have impregnated somebody else. Soooooooooooo ... who was that? And did he love them less than he loved Hozuki?

Fifth, wouldn't a scholar as journal-happy as Galileo have recorded Hozuki's name? Isn't it sort of a big ol' obvious plot hole that Hozuki has all of these diaries of Galileo's and yet she never comes across her own name scribbled down in one of the entries?

Sixth, there were no flying wooden ships in 16th century Europe. Yes, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci and many others have had designs for flying contraptions. No, no one ever made anything like what we saw Galileo piloting in this episode.

I could probably think up more but good God it's 4am and I should really go to bed. ^^;
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Old 02-18-2014, 06:23 PM   #6206
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Galilei Donna: Episode 10.

Spoiler: show
Most of the episode is time Hozuki spent with Galileo in 16th century Italy, the two working together to develop an aircraft, fly into the mysterious storm cloud, and return Hozuki to her place and time. The final portion of the episode sees Hozuki having returned to Libya in the future/present, the sky pirates coming to the sisters' rescue as the trio boards the fuel-depleted Galileo and attempts to escape.

The episode was pretty much there to be enjoyed by fans of the Galileo x Hozuki subplot, and enjoy it I did. It confirms that Hozuki is indeed the love Galileo wrote of in his letters. Hozuki is a bit clueless at first. For instance, she witnesses the creation of one Galileo's love letters but all he puts on the paper is a drawing of the Moon: the love letter portion is missing. When she holds her magic hourglass to it and illuminates it with red light, no words appear, revealing that all the paper contains (for now) is the drawing of the Moon. She then wonders to herself if she's mistaken or if perhaps he just hasn't written the words down on it yet. (HOZUKI! HE'S GOING TO DO IT IN THE NEAR FUTURE! HE'S GOING TO WRITE ABOUT YOU! ) Later in the episode, after they take to the skies and are preparing to send Hozuki home, the words of Galileo's letters begin to come back to Hozuki.
"I had never even considered trying to get someone to understand me. I had never felt lonely. Until I met you."
But Hozuki still doesn't seem to have accepted it, and so she says to Galileo, "One day, you'll surely meet someone who will understand you." To which he answers: "I've already met that person. A person who understood me, and even helped me.

"That's you, Hozuki."

And thus Hozuki is finally made fully aware of the truth. And suddenly her great-great-great-great-[...]-great-grandfather's letters taken on new meaning.
"That summer, when you suddenly appeared before me, I discovered love, that extremely vague and abstract, unprovable and indemonstrable emotion unique to humans."
Describes the time Hozuki fell from the sky and crashed into Galileo.
"The moon in the night sky. Until now, it was just something to observe. But I will never forget the moon the two of us saw on that summer night."
Describes the night they spent together watching the Moon. These very words are written on the piece of paper with the drawing of the Moon she saw Galileo create.
"Faced with the fact that I would never see you again, I realized for the first time how painful and heart-breaking it was to part with someone. When I met you, I made my decision. I decided to grant your wish with my own two hands."
Describes Galileo's determination to return Hozuki to her proper place and time even though he yearns for her to stay with him.

Honestly, it's all very sweet. I only wish the show had done a better job of exploring this. Perhaps they didn't have the time or resources to. It just feels so very rushed. It feels like these characters are very real and have very definite histories in their creator's mind but that he struggled to convey this to us in the short span of only ten episodes. I realize he gives me one and a half episodes out of eleven for Hozuki to spend time with Galileo, but still: I would have liked at least five episodes of them spending time together, possibly ten or more, and really, really showing her spending the twenty-one days there with him and falling in love.

And to be honest ... I know it would have changed the course of the story significantly, but part of me kind of wishes he would've indulged in the guilty pleasure of an "I'm my own grandpa"-esque story and had Hozuki stay behind in Italy, marry Galileo, grow old together with him, have babies, and (LOL TIME TRAVEL) be her own great-great-great-great-[...]-great-grandmother. But that wouldn't have jived with the letters they'd already decreed Galileo wrote (in which he describes the pain of separation and his determination to return his love home), so I guess it would've been impossible to expect this sort of development once we were already at Episode 09. Alas.

Yeah, that's a greedy wish. It would be hard to write something like that and have it satisfy everybody, myself included. So I don't blame the writers for going for what they did ultimately go for. But man. It sure does suck that Galileo only got to spend twenty-one days with her. :\
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Old 02-18-2014, 07:32 PM   #6207
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Some time travel systems I've seen kind of rely on the past taking some time to "catch up" to events changed there, where it doesn't happen automatically. You see the same kind of phenomenon in that Pokemon movie with Arceus, where the past was changed but Arceus didn't know it for like 10 minutes until his memories readjusted and he went oh shi- (I haven't seen the movie personally).

But yeah, for some series...shut off your mind, turn off your brain, the miracles of life can't be explained!
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Old 02-19-2014, 03:04 AM   #6208
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18+ only please.

Spoiler: show
So I was looking at a tankoubon of this one eromanga and it had an interesting message on the cover slip that caught my attention. "Ever since before I came to Japan, I've been a big admirer of [author's work]." I was confused at first: to the right of this message was a small circle showing artwork I recognized, artwork that was unmistakably Shindou Eru's. It took quite a few seconds for my mind to process what could be happening.

"Is ... is this message saying what I think it's saying? Is ... is Shindou Eru a foreigner? "

I raced to Google.

"I mean, it's possible he's a foreigner, I never knew that ... but gosh, I doubt he's American! That would just be too cool! How crazy would that be!? Shindou Eru! An American!"

Wikipedia loads up.

I see it in the text before even noticing that it's right there on the right in the banner box, American flag and all: "Shindou Eru is an American mangaka. Born in New York, he resides in Tokyo's Edogawaku."

Later in the article: "His father Japanese, his mother American, Shindou's nationality is American, that of an ethnic Japanese American. Born and raised in New York, ever since childhood he admired Japanese and American comics. In particular, it is said that it was because he so wanted to be able to read Japanese comics that he learned how to read and write in Japanese."

LIV. ING. THE. DREAAAAAAAAAM!

Oh man, you have no idea. I am so happy for him, and this is so, so cool. I didn't think we'd had an American penetrate the eromangaka A-list market yet. Imagine my shock to discover that it already happened with Shindou Eru's skyrocketing to fame half a decade ago! Man. Unbelievable. The artist became popular because of his drawings and stories, but it's icing on the fucking cake to learn that he's an American citizen representing in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Although whoa: time fucking flies. It feels like his second tankoubon only just came out last year (2013) or thereabouts. But Wikipedia indicates that it came out in April 2011. Damn. And that it remains the last tankoubon Shindou Eru's published. Double damn. I see chapters from him in magazines from time to time. I wonder why he hasn't got a new tank out yet. Probably the same infuriating reason Takeda Hiromitsu has yet to get a new tankoubon out.
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Old 02-19-2014, 02:44 PM   #6209
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Galilei Donna: Watched Episode 11, the series finale.

Spoiler: show
"Like father, like son," they say. I think that describes Episode 11: it was a microcosm of the entire Galilei Donna series, all of its strengths and weaknesses on display.

So much of this series' story takes place offscreen. So many times, you'll be in place one second and then the very next second you're thousands of miles away, days if not weeks into the future, and the goals spoken of in previous conversations are already met. When Episode 10 ends, the Galileo is shot down over the desert sands of Libya, the ship is surrounded by Interpol forces, and Hozuki is desperate. That's how it ends. Episode 11 begins ... with the girls in a jail cell in Tuscany. I shit you not. It's like, "Welp! We didn't need to explain that part, did we? " There's so much about this project that screams "24-episode story on an 11-episode budget." It reminds me of Hollywood films that are meant to be 3 hours long but get cut down to 2 hours to fit the classic length of Hollywood films, leave audiences confused and bothered at some parts that seem to jump too quickly forward, and then wind up getting a 3-hour DVD release down the road which presents the film as the director intended it to be. It feels so, so much like there was some editor at this studio who was like, "Okay. You've given me storyboards for nine scenes in this episode. By my estimates, presenting these at a normal pace would require 45 minutes. We only have 20. So, gentlemen ... what do we cut?" Many scenes are shortened. Some are scrapped altogether. The result is a final project which works ... barely ... but can be frustrating in how jumpy it feels.

With the girls in jail in Tuscany, the episode quickly reveals that the series finale is to be none other than a circus trial. This is the next problem I have with Galilei Donna as a series: not only is jumpy temporally but it's jumpy conceptually as well. Who among us can honestly say that he expected the series finale to be the trial of the three Ferrari sisters? I sure as hell can't. In hindsight, I suppose that this is why the author had Hazuki be a law student -- he'd intended for her to have her day in court all along so she could strut her stuff -- but there was otherwise nothing at all about the plot in the previous ten episodes that would have prepared one for this sudden development. One minute we're excited about things like Anna's relationship with Roberto, the girls' quest to discover/reinvent Galileo's treasure, Hozuki's feelings for Galileo, the skypirates ... and the next second *WHOOOOOSH!* we're whisked off to court. What the hell.

Once we're in the courtroom, a third problem of the series' reveals itself: the caricatured behavior of many characters in this story. They feel less like real human beings and more like poor actors in a poor film or play. Adnimoon's lawyer, Hazuki, and the judge were all three of them pretty ridiculous in this regard.

I wasn't a fan of the plot twist that Sylvia Ferrari had been faking her amnesia this entire time and that she was working within the company to try and help out her daughters. I'm not even sure if it deserves to be called a plot twist since it seemed like not even the episode itself saw it coming: one second she seems to be a bonafide amnestic and the next second her husband says something to her and just FWISH! she's back to the way she was before she got shot.

I wasn't a fan of Roberto killing the Adnimoon CEO either. The episode tried to portray it as an act of filial devotion by a madman, but I feel like either Roberto's filial devotion to the CEO would have been so sincere that he would have worked hard to bust his foster father out of prison or else that it would have been so frail that he would have abandoned his father to his fate and perhaps joined Anna in trying to make a new life for themselves. It just seems stupid that Roberto would choose the middle option of murdering his foster father in order to spare him a drawn-out criminal trial and a prison sentence. I guess the one thing it's good for is establishing just how nuts Roberto was -- something which I think is reasonable and does fit the evidence the show'd given us.

Man, so many complaints! Well, we're not done yet. I've saved the best/worst for last.

My biggest complain with this episode was how it ended so abruptly. So many plot threads were either loosely tied up or else not tied up at all. Better to just list them off:
  • The sky pirates. So they steal Hozuki's pendant. Okay. What do they plan to do with it? Give it to R&D to try and reproduce its secrets and give the world abundant clean energy? Use it to power their skyship and keep on being pirates? It's not really explained what they intend to do with it. It's really not even explained why they felt compelled to steal it. Why not ask for it, now that you're on much better terms with them than you were in Episode 01? Or why not cooperate with the Ferraris and work towards reproducing Galileo's treasure from scratch? How are you helping the world out by stealing this from the child genius best equipped to discover abundant clean energy for the world?
  • Galileo's globe. It's not explained why his globe from 16th century Italy is still in perfect condition despite having had heavy rubble collapse on top of it. It's not explained why Galileo would have even though to place a love letter in there to Hozuki when she hadn't ever made a big deal about the globe in front of Galileo.
  • Hozuki's role as Galileo's love interest. Why is this not explored with the family? Why are they left out of the loop? It seems like it was done for comic purposes but it's a pretty dumb joke. "Hey, this girl looks like Hozuki. Hey, Galileo said that his love interest has the word 'moon' in her name, just like Hocchibi does. Hey, Hocchibi keeps crying every time Galileo comes up now. What's going on? WELL, GUESS IT'S NOTHING. *laugh track*" Dumb.
  • Anna's fate. So .............. is she the new CEO of Adnimoon? Where exactly was she at the end of the episode? Why didn't she accompany the sisters on their trip to Japan?
  • Roberto's fate. So ............... is he in prison? One assumes so but who the hell knows when it's never even addressed.
  • Hazuki's future plans. Does she intend to still become a lawyer? Has she lost faith in the system given the corruption she's witnessed firsthand both inside and outside the courthouse? Not addressed.
  • Kazuki's future. Fuck Kazuki she's the boring one. [/the writers]
  • The time travel properties of the treasure-sand. Never explored further. Was this a one-time thing unique to the girls' adventure? Or is this a fundamental property of the sand? If it's the latter, isn't it a huge problem that the sand has fallen into irresponsible hands?
  • The energy properties of the treasure-sand. Why is it never explained how this is supposed to work? Like, at least give us some technobabble explanation! Something would be better than nothing!
  • Why does the entire world seem to be in an ice age? (Maybe this was explained way back in Episode 01 and I've just forgotten because it's been so long.)
The ending just felt very, very rushed. Much like the series itself.

Now I guess it's time for the series review.

Plot: 6/10. It's fine, but calling it "good" would be too kind. I would honestly call it a sterling example of an average anime but for my love of the focus of Episodes 09 and 10. I'm a sucker for stuff like that and so that bumps this up to the 6 out of 10 for me.

Characters: 6/10. Likewise fine. Sadly, the only character really worth caring about in this show is Hozuki -- and if genius, timid lolis get on your nerves, then that doesn't leave you with much to fall back on. Hazuki, Kazuki, Anna, Roberto, and even the captain of the sky pirates (to some extent) are developed too, but they have a hard time becoming more than vague concept characters imagined by the series' creator. Still, the writers do attempt to do some quality character writing with Roberto in the one episode, Anna in the other, and of course the co-star of Episodes 09 and 10, but at the end of the day these aren't exactly characters that would deserve to be called "memorable."

Animation: 8/10, and that may be me being too hard on it. It honestly might deserve the 9. It's quite pretty: it's just that it doesn't do much new. It's as pretty as the top 10% of pretty animes were in 2008. It doesn't mean it's not pretty, but it just doesn't mean that it stands out as a phenomenal work of art either. The character designs appeal to fans of simple, moe faces. Hozuki is ever adorable for this reason and the other girls melt your heart too when they give that stereotypical ^D^ smile. Color is one of the nice selling points of this series, I have to say: because of the protagonists' hair and eye colors, the colors of the Galileo, the frequent blue skies, and much more, this production does in many ways feel like a celebration of color.

Music: 5/10. Average.

Replay Value: For me personally, it'd be pretty low since I wasn't too enamored with this series. But as far as people who loved it go, this would honestly be a pretty solid candidate for a rewatch in the near future. The reasons being: 1) it's conveniently short at only 11 episodes; 2) it'd probably be a lot of fun to rewatch some of the earlier scenes that seemed to lack relevance to the plot now that you know their relevance; and 3) the series is more of an adventure than a mystery so reliving the adventure would likely be enjoyable to those who loved it the first time around even if they know what's going to happen.

OVERALL: 6/10. I was prepared to give it a solid 5/10 but I like what they did in Episode 09 and 10 enough to feel that Gailei Donna isn't exactly an "average" anime. That stated, if you asked me which anime of the Fall 2013 series I watched was the most mediocre of the lot, Galilei Donna would be a strong contender.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:04 PM   #6210
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Wasn't there CGI in the GD anime? One of the reasons I never picked up the series was because of CGI, IIRC. Ironic, because I watched Arpeggio in spite of it.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:27 PM   #6211
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There was. The Galileo was CG as were the other skyships and mechas.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:39 PM   #6212
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I've very surprised you'd give an anime featuring CG an 8+! And consider that low! Me, i have a pretty strong anti-CGI campaign going on so I'd be hard-pressed to vote anything above a 7 unless it absolutely blows my mind, like the PreCure dancing scenes do.
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Old 02-19-2014, 09:41 PM   #6213
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I honestly didn't have the Galileo et al in mind when I awarded that animation score. But to be honest, all that'd do is lock out the 9. The Galileo honestly looked very pretty; and since it was usually in the sky with nothing else but other CG skyships, it wasn't distracting the way that CG usually is either. The times where CG did clash with animation, those were distracting; but, they were pretty rare.
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Old 02-20-2014, 04:38 AM   #6214
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
18+ only please.

Spoiler: show
So I was looking at a tankoubon of this one eromanga and it had an interesting message on the cover slip that caught my attention. "Ever since before I came to Japan, I've been a big admirer of [author's work]." I was confused at first: to the right of this message was a small circle showing artwork I recognized, artwork that was unmistakably Shindou Eru's. It took quite a few seconds for my mind to process what could be happening.

"Is ... is this message saying what I think it's saying? Is ... is Shindou Eru a foreigner? "

I raced to Google.

"I mean, it's possible he's a foreigner, I never knew that ... but gosh, I doubt he's American! That would just be too cool! How crazy would that be!? Shindou Eru! An American!"

Wikipedia loads up.

I see it in the text before even noticing that it's right there on the right in the banner box, American flag and all: "Shindou Eru is an American mangaka. Born in New York, he resides in Tokyo's Edogawaku."

Later in the article: "His father Japanese, his mother American, Shindou's nationality is American, that of an ethnic Japanese American. Born and raised in New York, ever since childhood he admired Japanese and American comics. In particular, it is said that it was because he so wanted to be able to read Japanese comics that he learned how to read and write in Japanese."

LIV. ING. THE. DREAAAAAAAAAM!

Oh man, you have no idea. I am so happy for him, and this is so, so cool. I didn't think we'd had an American penetrate the eromangaka A-list market yet. Imagine my shock to discover that it already happened with Shindou Eru's skyrocketing to fame half a decade ago! Man. Unbelievable. The artist became popular because of his drawings and stories, but it's icing on the fucking cake to learn that he's an American citizen representing in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Although whoa: time fucking flies. It feels like his second tankoubon only just came out last year (2013) or thereabouts. But Wikipedia indicates that it came out in April 2011. Damn. And that it remains the last tankoubon Shindou Eru's published. Double damn. I see chapters from him in magazines from time to time. I wonder why he hasn't got a new tank out yet. Probably the same infuriating reason Takeda Hiromitsu has yet to get a new tankoubon out.
I think it's okay to have that visible for even non +18-crowd since there aren't any such images in there.

As for Finnish representation in Japan, I only know of this guy:

Quote:
Marutei Tsurunen (ツルネン・マルテイ or 弦念 丸呈 Tsurunen Marutei?, born 30 April 1940) is the first foreign-born Japanese of European origin serving as a member of the Diet of Japan. He is a member of the Democratic Party of Japan, where he serves as Director General of the International Department. He served in the House of Councillors from 2001 to 2013.
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Old 02-20-2014, 07:46 PM   #6215
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A while back, I asked LBC a question regarding a remix I found on YouTube I couldn't search. I found the source now, and it brings me to ask if everyone here can pool information they have on how to acquire remixes from other sources (like IM@S covers - I used to have links to this on Demonoid, but no longer).

The label of the remix I linked earlier is Exit Trance - they do covers and remixes of popular anime songs with the "trance" genre. It sounds very DDR material. Although, from what I've found, the Danzen!! Futari wa Pretty Cure! cover was the best single of the lot.
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Old 02-20-2014, 11:34 PM   #6216
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I don't understand your request.

Pokémon: Watched XY016 the other day. It was okay. 100% filler, but it was mildly enjoyable throughout with occasional flashes of higher quality. AK2 pointed out how this was the second episode in a row without Team Rocket, proving that the writers aren't willing to completely give in to the Rocket Trio's voice actors' demands. Yes, they're more comical than they were in Unova and show up more frequently; but no, they're not going to be showing up in every episode; and yes, they are going to be a touch more serious and competent than pre-Unova TR. So that's nice.
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Old 02-21-2014, 12:15 AM   #6217
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I don't understand your request.
The main problem with the earlier search was I didn't know the name of the label/band/release. I kept searching "Danzen Futari wa Pretty Cure! YuRIE" and getting little to nothing. But once I found the name, "Exit Trance" I got a ton of hits and many uploads of that very song where I previously had little to go with.

I want to know 1) if people know of albums that consist of covers or remixes of anime songs and 2) the names of those albums. For example, I know IM@S does covers of anime OPs and EDs but I don't know what that series of albums is called, so I wouldn't be able to search it if I wanted to.
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Old 02-21-2014, 12:44 AM   #6218
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Q1. Are you familiar with albums consisting of covers or remixes of anime songs?
No, I am not.

Q2. If yes to Q1, what are the names of those albums?
N/A

One thing I am familiar with is where a song sung by multiple characters gets soloist versions on the single. For example, if Satou Rina, Inoue Marina, and Chihara Minori all sing together for a Minami-ke song, there might be a Satou Rina-only version of it, an Inoue Marina-only version, and a Chihara Minori-only version.

Another thing I'm familiar with is where a song in anime might get a remix down the line. But it's done in-house. For example, one of the opening theme songs for Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, "High Touch!", was so popular that it got remixed in 2009, the song thus labeled "High Touch! 2009". Here's the original, and here's the 2009 version.

But as far as voice actors and/or singers not involved in the original songs covering those songs ... or as far as regular musicians covering anime songs and you being able to find them all on one CD ... I'm not really familiar with that, no. Even Idolmaster, which you bring up as an example, I am not familiar with covering other anime songs. I mean, I'm sure I've heard one or two examples before, but 1) I don't remember and 2) I feel like the vast majority of Idolmaster songs are original content anyway, with or without a few anime covers here or there.
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Old 02-22-2014, 11:23 AM   #6219
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Ubacchau yo!

...Momo's voice might get on my nerves a little.
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Old 02-22-2014, 11:37 AM   #6220
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She admits it's her first anime, and it shows that it's probably one of her first CV roles too. Is she a model/idol or something?
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Old 02-22-2014, 11:41 AM   #6221
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Quote:
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She admits it's her first anime, and it shows that it's probably one of her first CV roles too. Is she a model/idol or something?
In-universe, Momo is an idol. Looking at the CV's history, she is a newcomer. The only roles she's played are a couple side characters in Recorder to Randsell and a character in something called R-15.
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Old 02-25-2014, 05:37 AM   #6222
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Hey Talon, are you aware that you are the only person who regularly posts in the Anime forum to have not seen Princess Tutu? I've confirmed this with several sources! That's just so bizarre, usually if there's something the majority of the forum has expressed interest in you'd have at least shown some curiosity. The only comment I've found in the past six years where you address this is in response to LBC bringing it up:

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Another one I haven't seen.
Dude, you need to watch it pronto! It's a classic and a Masterpiece!
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Old 02-25-2014, 09:03 AM   #6223
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Princess Tutu is good. I once said that it's the only magical girl anime I've seen that can hold a candle to Madoka, but I now realize that it's stupid to call it a magical girl show in the first place. It has a lot more in common with a Disney film in style and execution.
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Old 02-25-2014, 09:33 AM   #6224
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A Princess Tutu AMV was one of the first that originally inspired me to become serious about videomaking. To be able to make ballet look freakin' epic is quite a feat.

Warning: Contains heavy SPOILERS

BORKED

I heard the series actually sold out at Animé Boston due to it. I can only hope to create something influential enough that it attracts so many people someday and force them to watch what I like give underrated series more exposure. (Having made contest finalist this year is a start muahaha.)

...Ironically, I just read that the creator hadn't actually watched the series when she made it. (The more you know. Guess that explains why the lyrics don't actually mean anything. XP) Which I never really understood yet a lot of advanced editors seem to do often. Why work with something you don't even care about/aren't familiar with at all? '~' Maybe as a mix for fun or an original concept sure, but as a full serious project it'd personally drive me crazy... ^^; I try to watch any source in full before putting it to music so I at least know what I'm doing with it and why, especially if I see a clip I like and want to use. Since I think kinda the point is to make people curious enough to check the show out and hopefully enjoy it as well, or at least express an opinion on the story itself. *shrug* But to each their own, if others like doing things that way. I imagine it's an interesting challenge in itself.

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Old 02-25-2014, 09:40 AM   #6225
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Heresy! That's like when I found out Hiroshi Yamauchi (old president of Nintendo) didn't even play video games.
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