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Jan 2, 2021
Oh boy, what a disappointing ride. Coming off of Gundam 0079, which was a highly flawed but sort of interesting story that didn't use its potential to its fullest, I looked forward to seeing how a followup could improve on the things I liked about it, while hopefully trimming away all of the garbage that ultimately made it a meh experience. And for the first half of Zeta, I have to say that it is a remarkable improvement over 0079. A more developed cast of characters, the plot's far more dynamic and multi-layered, and all of the fillery mobile suit fights of the original series
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are greatly reduced and replaced with generally more meaningful conflicts.
I want to get to the bitching as fast as possible, but for context, my main interest in Gundam lies in when it's able to give a grounded, tragic depiction of the human cost of war. Unfortunately that element of Zeta probably peaked for me at episode 7 out of 50. To refrain from spoilers I won't specify it, but suffice to say it indicated to me that Zeta did have great potential and was capable of making use of it. It decided to bring other things to the forefront as it went on, however.
Generally the show is pretty solid up until the episode 25 range, the exact halfway point, but the early developments mainly feel like buildup to something that will get paid off strongly in the second half. It doesn't really have complete, self-contained character arcs so it depends on the rest of the show to stick the landing to make all of it worthwhile. Sadly, the show in general has a LOT of writing issues that start mounting as you go through it. Even these early parts aren't perfect, but they're generally things that I could sigh at and then move on from. It did not earn that indulgence from me as it continued.
So let me get to one of the biggest issues that taints this show so that the complaining can begin in earnest: Tomino is fucking obsessed with his insipidly old-fashioned gender politics. The role of women in war ends up being a major, overbearing theme in Zeta and it's handled with all the care and grace of a colony drop. Except instead of killing billions of people with it, he just kills the dignity of his female characters. People in Zeta are hyper-aware of gender roles and the biological differences between men and women, and any time a woman's motivations factor in they will find a way to comment on it in the most reductionist way possible, courtesy of a fucking 45 year old Japanese man in the 80s.
The vast majority of female characters in Zeta are incredibly annoying and unlikable. Fa spends a good portion of the series getting pissy with Kamille over things that aren't his fault, and when she starts training to be a pilot, she's fucking terrible at it because she's too emotional to follow orders. But thankfully for her, once the AWFUL comic relief child characters get onto the ship, her mammalian instincts kick in and suddenly she's happy all the time now that she can live the fulfilling life of a 17 year old mother. After this point her efforts to be a pilot become largely irrelevant.
Just about every other woman has something like this that makes them very tiring to watch, the worst by far being Reccoa. Her, Sarah, Beltorchika, Rosamia, and Four are all terribly-written characters (Four less so but still pretty fucking bad in her second appearance.) The only notable exceptions are Haman and perhaps one other person. The recurring issue is that their motivations are usually defined by their insatiable cockthirst that lets them fall in love with men instantly, because Tomino is a miserable man who has no idea how to write relationships. Their interests end up being based around their attachments to the men around them (or with Fa, her maternal instincts, which he already did with Fraw Bow in the same way), and any time Reccoa is on-screen in the latter half of this show, you are not going to stop hearing her tell you about what a woman she is and how badly she needs dick. Possibly the single worst fucking character I've seen in Gundam so far, good god.
And this isn't so much a “woke” thing that I'm going for. I acknowledge that this show is old and values dissonance doesn't have to completely ruin every work of fiction, but if you're going to have shitty female characters because your story is outdated as hell and you're a middle-aged man who doesn't interact with women, at least have the decency to barely put them in the show. That's better than this awful drama-nullifying shit being at the forefront. It's one of the principle themes of the show and it becomes unbearable by the end.
With that shit out of the way, I can generalize the rest of the problems with one major motif in Tomino's work, and it ties into my previous point. He simply has absolutely no idea how to write organic drama or natural, human interaction. The Newtype bullshit in this is ever-present for a reason, and it's because it can be used as a catch-all crutch to get out of actually developing or setting up anything on an emotional level. You can hardly go a single episode in the later parts of this show without Kamille going 'WHOA, WHAT IS THIS THREATENING FEELING I'M SENSING?” because it gets around the whole logistical problem of establishing a character's knowledge of events. Worse than this is when it's used to instantly develop a powerful relationship between people who have no chemistry or time together at all, but because they're Newtypes you just have to take his word for it that their hollow, boring-ass romance is actually really deep. Kamille's interactions with Four and *especially* Rosamia are shallow and entirely unearned because they lack any genuine moments of bonding, in favor of them spouting their vaguely-defined anime feelings at each other within days of meeting.
Even when it's not Newtype shit, interactions that become central to character arcs are frequently getting established on the flimsiest of pretenses (holy shit fuck you Katz and Sarah.) It's rare for anyone in this to have well-defined and understandable motivations because so much of the character writing relies on this contrived, sentimental bullshit. He pulled the same thing with Char and Lalah at the end of 0079, and what was once a disappointment has become a revelation that Tomino just doesn't know how not to ruin his characters in this way.
All this to say that these kinds of problems came to a head in the climactic moments of the show, as I realized that the series had long since lost interest in being the believable war drama that I was watching it for, in favor of characters I fucking despised dueling each other in their mechs while whining about their nonsensical anime melodrama. It's clear that they want you to be crying at this show in its final moments, but those minutes are filled with such a hilarious cascade of bad writing and terrible decisions, all I could do was laugh.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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May 11, 2019
I want to assault the person who wrote this for their awful, tiny-brained contrivances that continue to make this series insufferable. That is essentially all you need to know about this review if you don't feel like reading the rest because that was originally all I wanted to write, but I'm afraid MAL's character requirement forced me to elaborate.
The main character's entire personal conflict centers around her being "too tall," apparently to such a disgustingly monstrous degree that she can't fit in anywhere. She's 183 cm by the way, 6 feet, and is otherwise a completely conventionally attractive person. What a fucking joke. I don't
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care about this person or her exaggerated problem. Fortunately for her the game decides to make her character model a loli, which is simple pandering to a common archetype that has no other apparent narrative purpose. It isn't explored at all beyond her finding comfort in a smaller form, which could have been accomplished if her character were just a shorter adult. The fact that she is a child is otherwise never a talking point in the story. At any rate, the issue she has with her size is apparently resolved just a few episodes in, and the little bearing it had on the story ceases to matter at all, and her character essentially has nothing of interest to say after that point.
On the topic of size, I want to talk about what an awful piece of game design it is for Gun Gale to not only have randomized, predetermined avatars for its players, but for them to have physical differences that provide tangible advantages to the player. Her being tiny has a demonstrable effect on her mobility and the chances of other players being able to hit her. This is retarded. Gun Gale seems to be a terrible game in general, like everything else in this universe, and it's a miracle anyone still plays it.
Now let's talk about plot armor, baby, because there's a lot to get through. In its prominence, this is arguably the second biggest issue with the show (the first place winner we'll get to later). The protagonist is shown to have ridiculous, unrivaled speed that is never justified in terms of either gameplay or personal ability. Everyone is shocked at how fast she can move, but why this can't be recreated by other players isn't explained and she can just do it because ??? There are numerous instances of her facing immensely uneven odds where any sort of satisfying, clever tactics are unnecessary because she can decide she's able to outpace a group of 6 people and can dodge every bullet and physically overpower them in any circumstance. This is in addition to random idiocy and incompetence on the part of her opponents, such as firing their entire magazine into her *weapon*, which works as a shield for some reason. Or when she's completely vulnerable and at point blank range, but firing every shot into the one part of her body that happens to hold a small, impenetrable object that protects her. Instead of, I don't know, shooting her in the face.
This very quickly dissolves any sense of danger or tension, in addition to making every single encounter completely meaningless because the show can't even bother to pretend that they're legitimate threats. They're just more opportunities to demonstrate how impressive the character is, despite showing very little to earn that. In any instance where she does fail, her opponents fail even more to balance it out.
This show has an immense amount of issues that would take pages upon pages to cover, the two most extensive areas probably being pacing and characterization, but I don't expect people to read all of that so I'm trying to narrow it down to the few biggest examples that stood out to me.
To that end, I'm punctuating my thoughts with what I consider to be by far the most troubling and genuinely insulting part of it.
The antagonist, Pitohui, is demonstrated to have a very severe psychosis that primarily manifests with sadism and sociopathy, taking pleasure in killing other players while blurring the line between the game and real life in doing so, not to mention manipulating people close to her with threats of death, whether theirs or her own. So she doesn't even place much value on her own life. It's very apparent that she's severely out of touch with reality and that this would not be a simple thing to fix. While the show portrays this problem in an utterly cartoony and exaggerated way that lacks any nuance to the subject, it nevertheless tries to play the consequences of it fairly straight.
But then you get to the end, and after sharing a brief, melodramatic anime moment with the protagonist, all of these crippling mental issues of hers seem to magically be solved. Not only is it an ignorantly reductive view of the problem she has, it's also an unearned redemptive moment because all of the horrible things she did or threatened to do, whether they had lasting consequences or not, are completely forgiven or forgotten about. Even if she really does have no intention of hurting anyone now, am I to believe that the person who was willing to kill herself a day ago will never consider that again, just because a character was nice to her? Boy, Sword Art, you certainly have a profound understanding of human issues. If only more people were willing to witness your convenient, trite anime solutions to life-ruining problems that can plague people for decades.
But wait! This gets worse. At the end, a male character explains the relationship she had with the antagonist. Namely that she was abusive, physically and verbally, and manipulated and blackmailed him into being her lover. This is a bleak thing to discover about a character near the very end of the story, and in an intentional tonal shift it is immediately played off as a joke, because he's a masochist.
That's it. No one comments on how fucked that arrangement is, or how the woman in question is clearly a dangerous, unhealthy person who requires help, or that the man should not be making light of the abusive relationship he's in. They don't even really bring it up to the woman when she's there.
I was utterly baffled and confused when this came up because I couldn't understand how the writer could have had any respect for his story when he thought capping it off with a joke about domestic abuse and how mentally unhealthy two of the main characters were was a good idea. I want to clarify that this is not me reading into it to make it seem darker than it was, the *joke itself* is how dark it sounds when he starts describing it. I will remind you that the abuser in question just had her redemptive moment and is considered "fine" now. Despite no talk of this behavior.
And this is what elevates Alternative above simple poorly-made garbage. There's a disconnect with reality, and in particular the way humans behave, in the writing that leads it down asinine and immature lines of thought, which ends up insulting everyone who watches it. Whoever was responsible for writing those parts clearly didn't know what the fuck they were writing about and didn't realize how badly it assassinated their story and their characters by making the whole thing feel so unsympathetic. There are disturbing, unresolved threads that they don't even realize exist because they're too insensitive and witless, and ultimately the story has no point because the *very resolution* of it is half-finished due to that ignorance.
I'd love to confirm if this is the installment of Sword Art I hate the most, but I don't have the willpower to trudge through all these dumpster fires again to find out for sure. Suffice it to say, Alternative still has the typical SAO seal of quality.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 10, 2019
This is one of the most repulsive works of fiction I've ever experienced. Its philosophy and everything it attempts to accomplish is the bane of competent storytelling, and perhaps sanity itself.
Almost every character in this show is an utterly dislikeable, one-dimensional piece of garbage who you're expected to sympathize with because of their tragic backstory. This is Freudian Excuse: The Anime. No, your shallow examination of the nature of morality isn't deep or thought-provoking. It's very cut and dry that when a person is preoccupied with indiscriminate murder that any attempts at garnering sympathy with a cutesy, incongruous alternate personality or a sad backstory does
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not make them any less irredeemable, or at least irreconcilable with normal human life. Now, the show COULD have had a point here if they didn't go to such ridiculous lengths with her evil acts, but this is another example of the detrimental excess of the series. Subtlety would have required faith in their own abilities and respect for the audience, which were both in short supply. They wanted the most shocking thing they could think of, so they went with a girl who could cut hordes of people in half and explode their heads with her mind.
The characters are pretty much all defined by one thing and one thing only. Notably, most of the characters who could be considered evil are consistently preoccupied with finding ways to murder or be cruel to people, and like to make that clear to anyone they're talking to. Remember when Bando talked about how hyped he was that he'd get to shoot a defenseless child? Man, what a complex examination of human evil right there. And then he spends the rest of the series punching random people in the face and talking about how much he wants to kill her. What an awful, pointless character.
Elfen Lied's primary goal is to smother the viewer with its near-comedic grimdark view of the world in which most humans are excessively violent, evil caricatures who are defined entirely by sociopathy, and its absurd gratuitous violence that will frequently come out of absolutely nowhere. It will switch between that and awful lighthearted anime tropes at the drop of a hat, because apparently the concept of juxtaposition absolutely blew the creator's mind. But rather than the contrast having any real purpose to it, it only makes the tone feel schizophrenic and makes me think I'm watching the unfiltered thoughts of a madman rather than a finished work. An idea further reinforced by the disturbing amount of naked girls and exposed tits (including underage ones) at very confusing times.
Now, the reason the contrast has no purpose is because neither side of it had a purpose to begin with. The series is DESPERATELY trying to convince you of what a serious, dark drama it is by showing you more and more blood and death and dysfunctional personalities, clinging to its juvenile, deluded sense of maturity and gravitas. But it takes very little effort to pull back the mask it hides behind, and realize it in fact had nothing to show you past its insecure bluster.
Elfen Lied is a repugnant, immature, self-indulgent series that has no understanding of its subject matter or the world in general. Its attempts to convince the audience of its worth often feel like they're directed just as much at itself. It could not have less of a grasp on what it's trying to say, but it will do everything in its power to hide how empty its words are. It will try to throw more villainous caricatures, beheadings, and murdered children in the way to prove how grown-up and insightful it is, but it's all a pretense. Much like Lucy, when all the dark thoughts and violent impulses have faded from Elfen Lied, you're left with a benign and deficient creation that can't even understand itself, much less how wrong it is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Mar 12, 2015
Okay, this definitely won't be an objective review, but at the very least I'll try to make it descriptive and hopefully understandable, even for people who disagree with me. There's not really any need for another review of this, I just really feel like putting my negative thoughts about this movie into words.
As I said, this won't be objective, and it's coming from the perspective of a fan of the main series, and my criticisms are intended to be read by other fans of the series (after all, I don't see why anyone else would watch this). On its own, this movie might have been
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"okay", nothing great, but really nothing worth getting worked up over. But since it's so heavily associated with the established characters and plot line of what is my favorite anime, I can't help but find it frustrating to watch.
First of all there's the art style. Most of the characters get a jarring facelift that leaves them unrecognizable from their original iteration. For a new viewer who isn't familiar with the original art style, it might not be quite as irritating, but nevertheless it is a step down in terms of sheer quality, and definitely looks rather ugly. I was in pain when I saw Yang's appearance, but enough of that. I could complain about the visual design all day.
The art is a superficial issue that can be overlooked as long as the story and writing is up to par, right? Well it's not! A battle between the Empire and the Alliance that takes place at Iserlohn Fortress serves as a backdrop for most of the story. Well this is a good start. Are you looking forward to those interesting moments of juxtaposition, where the perspective shifts back and forth between the Empire and the Alliance as the battle develops? Well too bad. Any perspective from the Alliance side is rare and shallow. What about the complex military strategies and plans, laid out by the most intelligent commanders of the fleet? "Wait, what's strategy again?", the studio who made this asks.
In fact, the battle barely gets any special emphasis at all. It never makes any effort to explain why the battle is important, or why you should care about it within the confines of this story. Instead, the real focus of conflict comes from the most generic, uninteresting, and cartoony villain that's ever been in the series. "Such impudence!" and "How rude of you!" were his most memorable quotes. Also he looks stupid.
Really, the most annoying thing about this movie was how pretentious it felt. It was trying to imitate what made the OVA so good, and hoped that if it just echoed a few things without putting much thought into it no one would notice.
The most grating example which made me realize this was when Yang, who could hardly be called Yang due to the fact that his face and voice is entirely different, at one point says "Even though I think wars are pointless, I end up thinking of ways of winning them." Wow! That sure was precise of you, Yang! It's almost like the creators didn't know how to write dialogue for you and just made you state the most fundamental aspect of your character out of nowhere...
In summary, this feels like fan fiction. It completely misses the point of LoGH in almost every respect. Even though it has just about everything you'd expect: Reinhard and Kircheis bromance, large-scale space battles, and even some intrigue, it's all executed with no spirit or finesse, with a complete disregard for what makes those things worthwhile in this series. Reinhard's unrecognizable face serves as a good metaphor for this movie: You're -told- that he's Reinhard, and you see a slight resemblance at first, but in the end he's just an unidentifiable mutant masquerading as someone you once knew.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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