| I'm kinda old and tired, and I do need to vent somehow. And Seikai, as one of my favourite topics, is the best way to do so. Thus, as a disclaimer 1, I need to point out that this is intended as a sort of observational essay rather than attempt to attack someone's opinion (not to imply that I have much care or reverence of those, as well as not to imply that I expect reverence or care towards mine). As a disclaimer 2, being a fan, some might consider this post a salty rant of sorts. I won't try to convince anyone otherwise, as it is pointless. People rarely are able to change their opinions, myself included. Finally, disclaimer 3, UNMARKED SPOILERS. That said, let us begin. The best place to start would be this quote: Banner is pro-colonialist, political diatribe set in space that tries to use Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals" to prove that superior races should rule over inferior ones. Hoo boy! Hoo boy indeed! Some hefty accusations here, that actually need to be well-supported and covered in the most objective way possible. So, let us check out the story recap that follows: In the future, humans use genetic engineering to create a master race of elves. "Master race" was genetically engineered to be subservient and was considered to be subhuman. More so, they were engineered by an isolationist fringe radical group of ethnonationalists. The elves are more intelligent than humans, stronger, more beautiful, create better art, and create their own morality based on their superior Will to Power "The elves" are not more intelligent, they are generally weaker, they are indeed more beautiful, their art is extremely limited and can be fully experienced only by themselves as it's based on their additional sense, and their "own morality" is absolutely generic realpolitik. The elves disdain democracy as a product of inferior peoples trying to drag down the strong, and the anime goes WAY out of its way to say the elves are 100% correct. No quotes for any of these are given, so there is no way to qualify the statement as anything but author's invention. The Elves believe it would benefit the humans to be ruled over as slaves, which is a point our main human character agrees with! Again, I would be very happy to see at which point "the elves" rule the humans as slaves. It is easy to throw such phrases out, but they need some weight behind them, aren't they? The only humans that oppose the elves are simply jealous and "butthurt" that the elves are so much better than them. Yet again, I wish I could see any examples of the above. I could assume that the author refers to Kyte's screams at the end of Crest, but Kyte is literally insane at that point, not because "the elves" are better, but because they are the same as him, yet are allowed to live unsuppressed, unlike himself. The author mentions Banner in the review, so i have to add that later parts depict acts of honor and heroism from representatives of "the other side". The humans suffer from a "Slave Morality" which is based on weakness, resentfulness, and jealousy. The Elves judge good or evil by the result. They create their own values. The humans judge good and evil by intent and irrational emotions. The humans call the conquering elves "evil", merely because the elves being superior hurts their fee fees. The Slave Morality doesn't seek to create value, merely to drag down the superior to their level. In essence, anything the Masters stand for becomes "evil". This entire block is purely invented by the author and has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the material under review. While I have to point out that the real motives behind the actions of Four Nations Alliance are not at all depicted in the anime, the source material actually clarifies them as mostly economical in nature: "the elves" have successfully enclosed the ability of the Four Nations to further colonise, effectively making their future defeat inevitable; this required action which eventually came in the form of the war that started in Crest. The anime only shows the parts connected to propaganda actively enforced by the United Mankind, one of the Four Nations of the Alliance. It's a very simplistic, teenage surface reading of Nietzsche to push a frankly disgusting political agenda. Yet again, if one mentions ties to certain philosophical outlook and/or political agenda, it has to be clearly shown. The author does not bother with that. I am absolutely unable to find anything Nietzschean in Seikai. The concept of an imperialist state depicted as not the basis of all evil is somehow so frightening to the author, that he had to invent the entire basis for his argument, and boil dow the actual review part down to the meaningless The characters are as interesting as cardboard cut outs, and the animation is just meh. The production values are the only reason I didn't give this a 1. without any substance whatsoever. In consonance with this one, there is the second work I have to go through, but a bit less thoroughly,a s many points repeat between the two. The second author at least has the courtesy of trying to be objective, yet still: Subsequently, we get to see the effects of this change on the fate of a young boy (our protagonist, Lin Jinto) caught in the middle of all this, an unwitting pawn in the game. Due to various events, he is thrust into a position of civil service, and is awaiting transfer to Abh country for further education and training. 1. Jinto is not in a position of 'civil service'. He is a member of an aristocratic house, who is legally required to serve in the military in order to maintain his title. He can abandon this position at any moment. 2. He is awaiting transfer to enter the military academy in order to acquire the military profession of Administartive Officer. Both points are very important for understanding of the narrative. the trials and tribulations of our young heroes are ultimately relvealed to be nothing more than convenient plot devices to showcase the baseness and cruelty of the Terrans opposed to Abh rule. They are shown to be deeply envious of the eternally youthful and long-lived Abh race, and want to subject them to their own dominion and make them their slaves (I swear I'm not making this up). ...I'll consider the final statement to be the ironic cherry on top, because "making this up" is literally what the author does. As I've pointed above, the only person to express anyting similar to "deeply envious of the eternally youthful and long-lived Abh" is captain Kyte, who is himself "eternally youthful and long-lived", but, unlike the Abh, is oppressed for it, which leads to his psychological self-destruction. The United Mankind, though, is simply using *the facts* about the Abh being effectively the dangerous rebellious biorobots as the basis for their propaganda against them, which is absolutely logical in their position, and leads to predictable results. Any humans who are less than enthusiastic to the idea of Abh dominion are portrayed as grotesque caricatures of spite, envy, prejudice, greed, selfishness and cruelty, and even their visual portrayal looks obnoxiously cartoonish and ugly. I am desperately trying to remember a single character fitting the description. Alas, I wasn't able to find a single person fitting the description, especially considering how low the show is on antagonists. Seriously, who is the author referring to? Kyte again? Or occupant soldiers? I am unable to decipher where this is coming from. And the Abhs, in contrast, are made to come off as larger-than-life beings who could do no wrong (unless of course they have half-human ancestry...), and they are accordingly animated to look stately and elegant, with their elf-like features, blue hair and proud but noble bearing. Again, where is this coming from? Admiral Trife is a cartoonish buffoon, his chief staffer Kahiyul is a hypercompetent borefest, Spoor is a hedonistic psychopathic bloodknight who is constantly trolling her subordinates, while her chief staffer is misassigned and a coward, Lafiel is impulsive and overly-confident, the baron Febdash is literally an insane hypocrite. Is it really necessary to invent stuff to criticize the series you don't like? all these exaggerated portrayals were in the show's way of justifying the Abh's entirely unprovoked aggression on humans The show is showing how the Abh justify their aggression for themselves. Yet their aggression is in no way different from aggression aimed at them, as in the end Abh have never attacked the Four Nations Alliance and have never oppressed the populaces they've conquered. It is called 'nuance', the thing one usually starts missing as soon as their bias starts showing through. And in the face of this, the show insists that the Abh are humanity's only real hope - on one hand, it tries to pass off all their horrifying actions as extremely smart moves that are beyond the understanding or appreciation of lowly mortals; and on the other, it tries to suggest that their enemies are actually driven only by bitter jealousy of the Abh's apparent "greatness" and superiority. Poor show. It was just palying off the Heian and Kamakura Japan with some added Prussian flavour, but actually it was dunking on the untermench. I won't repeat the motives of the sides, but no, neither the Abh, nor their opponents are shown as pure good or pure evil. The reason the Abh look better is that we observe the conflict from their point of view, but there is such a thing as analysing the narrative beyond the self-invented bold statements. An important device for furthering this illusion is the show's own narrator, who speaks in Abh-language with an air of lofty detachment [...] by the end, he is quite explicitly showering unconditional praise on everything Abh, and utter contempt for all Terran institutions. This is obviously a collection of mostly Abh or Abh-affiliated texts. Of course they'd be pro-Abh. through the course of the 13 episodes, it subtly shifts from portraying Jinto as an unwilling hostage of the Abh system, to a regular Earthling helping a stranded Abh out of ordinary decency, to an outright Abh sympathiser who implicitly approves of all the atrocities they would commit in the name of a "wronged" people, to a full-fledged member of a nobility that is subjugating his own home planet ......Jinto has STARTED the series at the final point of author's list. he had his doubts and problems, but they were not - at any point - related to his position on the Imperial side. The show has an enigmatic and bombastic prologue scene depicting the Abh fiercely engaged in what appears to be an epic and heroic battle for their lives - but all they were actually doing was destroying the defences of an unwary and ill-equipped planet that barely even knew of the Abh's existence. Quite the heroes, these guys... Wow. And now we arrive at direct and blatant lies in order to further the point. The "bombastic intro" is literally the battle of Gosroth and has nothing to do with subjugation of Martine. The prologue indeed depicts an unprovoked attack of superior force on a single Abh ship. Instead, it turned out to be something so nasty it beggars belief, and leaves you feeling sickened and horrified. If one needs to lie to try and prove how sickening and horrifying something is, how is he different from what he tries to depict here? I am unable to understand why one would try to blatantly misrepresent the material in order to overplay how bad the show is. Is it too pro-imperialistic for you? Just say so. Why is there the need to invent things and qualities that are not even there? And by the effort put into the reviews of these kind I cannot believe their authors are unaware of their actions. |
| Don't discredit yourself by calling this post you clearly put much effort into 'pointless and unnecessary', in my opinion it is important to call out people that blatantly lie, for no clear reason. |
| Nice post. I feel like some people missed certain points and ideas that this series conveyed. And some are well aware of the fuss and influences their opinions have... |
 |
Reply to 0063873192871
Anyhow, the two demented reviewers are clearly in trouble with their own identity, judging by:
"The word "elitism" gets tossed around MAL a lot. Anyone who thinks Evangelion and Texhnolyze are better than Angel Beats and Bleach gets called an "elitist" and soon self identifies that way. What actually is elitism?
Definition: Elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others."
and
"So how does Banner of the Stars win this title? Banner is pro-colonialist, political diatribe set in space that tries to use Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals" to prove that superior races should rule over inferior ones."
and
"In the future, humans use genetic engineering to create a master race of elves. The elves are more intelligent than humans, stronger, more beautiful, create better art, and create their own morality based on their superior Will to Power. The elves disdain democracy as a product of inferior peoples trying to drag down the strong"
and
"The Elves believe it would benefit the humans to be ruled over as slaves, which is a point our main human character agrees with! The only humans that oppose the elves are simply jealous and "butthurt" that the elves are so much better than them. The humans suffer from a "Slave Morality" which is based on weakness, resentfulness, and jealousy."
and
" They are shown to be deeply envious of the eternally youthful and long-lived Abh race, and want to subject them to their own dominion and make them their slaves (I swear I'm not making this up). Any humans who are less than enthusiastic to the idea of Abh dominion are portrayed as grotesque caricatures of spite, envy, prejudice, greed, selfishness and cruelty, and even their visual portrayal looks obnoxiously cartoonish and ugly. And the Abhs, in contrast, are made to come off as larger-than-life beings who could do no wrong (unless of course they have half-human ancestry...), and they are accordingly animated to look stately and elegant, with their elf-like features, blue hair and proud but noble bearing."
Like, c'mon man, just say you have serious problems with your own identity. No need to project the fuck out of your silly issues on the reviews. The Abh aren't real, they can't hurt you.
Furthermore, there are also many excerpts like this one:
"On the other hand, they are shown to be territorially aggressive, invading terrestrial planets where the regular humans (called Terrans in the show) live, and claiming them as territories of their Empire. They don't even want to live there (they seem to prefer their Space habitats), but they nevertheless exert their authority over the planets, going to the trouble of toppling the existing governments in place and appointing Terran puppet figureheads to rule on their behalf. This much is verifiable fact."
That's just how nations work. But I guess this guy's brain is too moldy and rotten to read half a minute of wikipedia pages regarding the history of humanity. @Rastrelly points that out in his review, and he's absolutely right. He also goes on and makes some other interesting points:
"The Abh as a race or faction are a fantastical assumption (i.e., something that has to be considered true within the story for the story to function, like FTL travel or futuristic tech) as of itself - they *do not* treat their enemies as non-humans. On the contrary, the centrepiece of Abh philosophy is based around humanity of both their enemies and themselves. Notice the way Abh engage with the lands they've conquered: whatever their leaders (and enemies) say about their iron regime, they actually do three things: remove anti-space defences, remove ownership of interstellar spacecraft, enforce the right of citizenship. And that's it. No other policies are forced upon the populace. United Mankind and their allies act... Just like mankind does, aren't they? Ideological opposition is eliminated, separatist movements are destroyed, wrongthink is forcefully cropped out by expansive propaganda, and after THAT all the freedoms and democratic way of life are the topic of the day. Whatever country you live in - I assure you, this is the way things are there. It can be done in a more fine way, or brutforced (like where I live), but it is there. All of it."
Which is more or less what the anime shows us. The Abh are a superior species that exerts their superiority in a largely peaceful manner. When such a disparity of power happens in real life, you get way more blood. When the Abh invaded Martine, they didn't even put their enforced propaganda on all radios, but merely negotiated with those in power. You don't even see Abhs in Terran planets. They do in fact seem like competent and fair leaders, and humanity does in fact seem like ungrateful warmongers - which they are in real life as well. Nothing wrong there. You think a bunch of two digit IQ's wouldn't get envious and mad over 300 year old genetic perfected elves? Petty people get envious for much less in this distasteful world of ours.
"The word "elitism" gets tossed around MAL a lot. Anyone who thinks Evangelion and Texhnolyze are better than Angel Beats and Bleach gets called an "elitist" and soon self identifies that way. What actually is elitism?
Definition: Elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others."
and
"So how does Banner of the Stars win this title? Banner is pro-colonialist, political diatribe set in space that tries to use Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals" to prove that superior races should rule over inferior ones."
and
"In the future, humans use genetic engineering to create a master race of elves. The elves are more intelligent than humans, stronger, more beautiful, create better art, and create their own morality based on their superior Will to Power. The elves disdain democracy as a product of inferior peoples trying to drag down the strong"
and
"The Elves believe it would benefit the humans to be ruled over as slaves, which is a point our main human character agrees with! The only humans that oppose the elves are simply jealous and "butthurt" that the elves are so much better than them. The humans suffer from a "Slave Morality" which is based on weakness, resentfulness, and jealousy."
and
" They are shown to be deeply envious of the eternally youthful and long-lived Abh race, and want to subject them to their own dominion and make them their slaves (I swear I'm not making this up). Any humans who are less than enthusiastic to the idea of Abh dominion are portrayed as grotesque caricatures of spite, envy, prejudice, greed, selfishness and cruelty, and even their visual portrayal looks obnoxiously cartoonish and ugly. And the Abhs, in contrast, are made to come off as larger-than-life beings who could do no wrong (unless of course they have half-human ancestry...), and they are accordingly animated to look stately and elegant, with their elf-like features, blue hair and proud but noble bearing."
Like, c'mon man, just say you have serious problems with your own identity. No need to project the fuck out of your silly issues on the reviews. The Abh aren't real, they can't hurt you.
Furthermore, there are also many excerpts like this one:
"On the other hand, they are shown to be territorially aggressive, invading terrestrial planets where the regular humans (called Terrans in the show) live, and claiming them as territories of their Empire. They don't even want to live there (they seem to prefer their Space habitats), but they nevertheless exert their authority over the planets, going to the trouble of toppling the existing governments in place and appointing Terran puppet figureheads to rule on their behalf. This much is verifiable fact."
That's just how nations work. But I guess this guy's brain is too moldy and rotten to read half a minute of wikipedia pages regarding the history of humanity. @Rastrelly points that out in his review, and he's absolutely right. He also goes on and makes some other interesting points:
"The Abh as a race or faction are a fantastical assumption (i.e., something that has to be considered true within the story for the story to function, like FTL travel or futuristic tech) as of itself - they *do not* treat their enemies as non-humans. On the contrary, the centrepiece of Abh philosophy is based around humanity of both their enemies and themselves. Notice the way Abh engage with the lands they've conquered: whatever their leaders (and enemies) say about their iron regime, they actually do three things: remove anti-space defences, remove ownership of interstellar spacecraft, enforce the right of citizenship. And that's it. No other policies are forced upon the populace. United Mankind and their allies act... Just like mankind does, aren't they? Ideological opposition is eliminated, separatist movements are destroyed, wrongthink is forcefully cropped out by expansive propaganda, and after THAT all the freedoms and democratic way of life are the topic of the day. Whatever country you live in - I assure you, this is the way things are there. It can be done in a more fine way, or brutforced (like where I live), but it is there. All of it."
Which is more or less what the anime shows us. The Abh are a superior species that exerts their superiority in a largely peaceful manner. When such a disparity of power happens in real life, you get way more blood. When the Abh invaded Martine, they didn't even put their enforced propaganda on all radios, but merely negotiated with those in power. You don't even see Abhs in Terran planets. They do in fact seem like competent and fair leaders, and humanity does in fact seem like ungrateful warmongers - which they are in real life as well. Nothing wrong there. You think a bunch of two digit IQ's wouldn't get envious and mad over 300 year old genetic perfected elves? Petty people get envious for much less in this distasteful world of ours.
0063873192871 said: The Abh are a superior species that exerts their superiority in a largely peaceful manner. I'd argue that neither the Abh are superior species, nor the narrative presents them as such.The major implication is that their system of governance is stronger and more sustainable despite al the flaws of Abh as a culture or a society specifically due to them maintaining their genetic standard which includes a set of genes that predetermine their social hierarchy. However this puts a set of limitations on them as well as leaves some areas extremely vulnerable (ergo, books 4 and 5 and ). As for their superiority as a species, there are areas where they excel at (navigations, anything requiring sense of space and movement, long-term survival in space), but they cannot even reproduce normally (they technically can, but IIRC by the third generation their offspring would lack frosh), and their longevity leads to traditional "elven" issues, as their natural populace growth is as slow as it gets, and most new blood they receive comes from outside the "natural" Abh, and the only thing that keeps them from falling apart on demographic front is - yet again - the Imperial Genetic Standard, to which each and every representative of the ruling classes must adhere to. Meanwhile, the regular human's empires are on the losing side mostly due to natural inability to cooperate without conflict, which leads to wasted opportunities and overall inefficiency of their governance. See: |
Reply to 0063873192871
@Rastrelly I do see them as superior. That's just how it is. That's what the human species should aspire to be one day. In my review I point out how unreasonable the show treats them, and how nonsensical it is for the humans to have advanced to Abh level in less than 10 years. Well, the entire anime makes very little sense to be honest and that's why I didn't like it. As I've also mentioned in my review, Sidonia no Kishi makes a much greater and in-detail portrait of how an evolved human species would look like. Not as graceful as Abh, but definitely more realistic.
To be honest, having something like a Genetic Standard could definitely happen in a far future dominated by space travel. Long exposure to radiation in space would make DNA unstable and prone to mutations. Plants overcome that (in the form of all day long sun exposure) by having multiple copies of their genome. At this point, assuming you can genetically edit people's genes at will, might as well set a standard. The more changes you make, the more prone to failure you are and the less space you have for further modifications (god knows what might happen if you change even a couple genes). Once they've achieved the limit of carbon-based lifeforms, they'd have to set strict rules not to mess things up. A shame the anime doesn't dwelve into none of that, and istead has 4 episodes of some childish Tom and Jerry garbage.
To be honest, having something like a Genetic Standard could definitely happen in a far future dominated by space travel. Long exposure to radiation in space would make DNA unstable and prone to mutations. Plants overcome that (in the form of all day long sun exposure) by having multiple copies of their genome. At this point, assuming you can genetically edit people's genes at will, might as well set a standard. The more changes you make, the more prone to failure you are and the less space you have for further modifications (god knows what might happen if you change even a couple genes). Once they've achieved the limit of carbon-based lifeforms, they'd have to set strict rules not to mess things up. A shame the anime doesn't dwelve into none of that, and istead has 4 episodes of some childish Tom and Jerry garbage.
0063873192871 said: how nonsensical it is for the humans to have advanced to Abh level in less than 10 years. Wait, what? Humans did not "get to Abh level" in 10 years. Abh and humans were fighting for over a 1000 years at the start of the series. More so, Abh aren't even the most technologically advanced nation in the setting. Hania is. |
Reply to 0063873192871
@Rastrelly Huh? A thousand years? I had the impression that regular humans met the Abh for the first time in the very first episode. I also fail to comprehend how the Abh then raided and conquered most of humanity if they were on par technologically. The wiki says Hania has the 3rd most advanced military. This anime makes even less sense that I thought then.
| @0063873192871 Ooooookay then. I, for some reason, have to reiterate the wiki to someone who apparently read it and managed to get it THAT ass-backwards. The Abh were created by a radical fringe group of Japanese isolationists as bionic slaves to drive their colonisation effort. The Abh have abandoned their mission and spent some time as space traders. After a while they get back to Solar System and demand the formal acknowledgement from their creators. The request gets rejected. The Abh destroy the habitat of their creators, killing millions in the process. This they consider their original sin. At a certain point afterwards they discover planar travel, found their capital, and, as, as they think, the only owners of the technology, they begin to reunite the human colonies under their rule, using their separation and inability to organise any resistance against a small but heavily militarised FTL-capable space force. The purpose of he unification is declared to be the prevention of any possibility of future warfare by complete isolation of humankind from uncontrolled space travel. Meanwhile, Sumei system discover the planar travel on their own, and unlike the Abh, they do trade this tech and soon the new interstellar states arise. Abh specifically annexed exclusively the non-FTL-capable nations they found, while ignoring those which did discover or buy the technology. This led to several wars with and without the participation of Abh Empire. After about 1000 - 2000 years (it is canonically undefined) of this process, we have the big four human nations and the Abh having about half the known space of the galaxy in their hands. The Abh annex the Hyde system [this is where the anime begins] (one of the last few unconquered independent systems, which it remains such only because their location was remote and hard to find) and this leads to the encirclement of the Four Nations by the Empire, putting the final nail in hopes of those to continue expansion outwards. After this event the Great War between the Empire and the Alliance was a given, and both the Abh and the humans understood it. Abh, using their traditional approach, did not initiate the war, but as soon as they got the opportunity, they gladly declared it after the incident at Clasbul. TLDR Abh won the race of taking one by one the unaligned systems without FTL ships during a 100-year race because they were united, while FTL-capable humans fought each other ignoring Abh threat for far too long. |
Reply to 0063873192871
@Rastrelly I didn't read the entire Wiki. Just the Hania page. None of that is even remotely explained by watching this first season. I've just re-watched episode 1 to make sure that I didn't forget any dialogue and had the same exact same impression. There are lines such as "They rule over 1500 inhabited star systems and another 20000 partially inhabited star systems?" -> "Are you suggesting we fight such a powerful empire?" -> "But that's only what they're telling us, isn't it?". To me, that suggests they've never seen them before. That's like being surprised Russia's territory is the largest in the world, and then calling it BS when they say that to you, when you can literally look at a map.
| @0063873192871 You know, that is probably because the authors expected the viewer to be at least remotely able to make logical conclusions that, FOR EXAMPLE, a small isolated colony that was conquered 10 years ago would have nothing to do with the Four Nations Alliance that was formed 12 years ago [episode 4 intro] by UM, Hania, Greater Alcont and Independent Planets. Or maybe the UM propaganda that was confirmed by Lafiel [episode 11] would make it absurdly clear that the recently conquered planet Martine could not be the "fortress" Abh legends talk about? Seriously, dude, this is not funny. |
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