With the series coming up on a long hiatus it's time to step back and examine the dark underbelly of Girls und Panzer.

I'm not talking about the very strong implication that fatalities in the sport are not at all unheard of.

I'm not talking about the fact that Miho was disowned due to the fact that she lost a match as a result of....not letting a teammate die.

I'm talking about the the stuffed animal gallery in Miho's apartment.

What the hell?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:07 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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When last we left our hero he was riding a bike all out... at night...in a snowstorm...trying to get to the hospital to check on his beloved.

As the episode begins, Kazuto is haunted by two visions, one of Asuna warmly greeting him,... the other of her glassy eyed corpse lying in bed, her brain fried by the log out kill switch which Sugo might have re-instated as a safeguard...

Arriving at the hospital he ditches his bike at the gate, gingerly makes his way across the icy parking lot, nearly collides with another pedestrian, almost falling over in the process, regains his balance,  bleeds profusely as he approaches the steps and....wait.....what?

^{Hemophilia perhaps?}

Oh...that lone pedestrian.

His name is Nobuyuki Sugo.
Perhaps you remember him. He's the villain who just got killed in the virtual world with the pain blockers set to zero. He hurt a LOT. He's not happy and he's not in the virtual world anymore. This is reality, and in the real world he's not actually a fairy king. He's the number two man in a major zaibatsu. He has people who will lie for him and a staff of people willing to carry out Block 10 type experiments on people minds for him. Whatever setback he may have had in a dippy VR game, there are only two things that stand between him and total victory right now. Those two things are Asuna Yuki and Kazuto and he aims to rid the world of them. Asuna,  being in a hospital room will take some finesse, but Kazuto is a nobody, a gamer, sad little out of shape teenager who hid from the world in a VR game and who now stands before Sugo armed with nothing but his own clotting blood and his shattered delusions of adequacy.

^{It's Mad Doctor Stabby!}

Sugo is armed with big ass diving knife (which is illegal BTW). Kazuto is a law abiding citizen in a weapons free zone. It SUCKS to be Kazuto. Kazuto tries "dodge" but it is ineffective. Kazuto slips on the ice and hurts himself.  He gets a nasty knife cut to his face and Sugo uses  "kicks the living crap out of Kazuto". It's super effective.
All those years of video games didn't actually prepare Kazuto for this.

^{"This boss-fight is serious business!"}

Of course Sugo is not running at 100%. His painful virtual death burst a blood vessel in his right eye and his depth perception is shot. This causes him to miss his killing blow by a wide margin. Kazuto is not completely helpless either, he HAS been practicing ken-do all this time and as Sugo lunges again he forces the fiend to loose his footing on the ice. Kazuto finally gets the knife to Sugo's throat.... there is a quick flashback to Sugo molesting Asuna in the hospital bed, in the virtual world, of the pain he inflicted on Kazuto, of the sadism Kazuto and Asuna endured and.....the knife dances across Sugo's throat...

...but only just.
Kazuto, with great effort, refrains from killing the bastard, who visibly wets himself and collapses.

Kazuto staggers into the hospital only to find it empty. The receptionists, the nursing station, security....gone. No doubt Sugo has ordered them away...Sugo was already here.
He goes to the twelfth floor and stands outside Asuna's room in terror. He then hears the voice of Y.U.I. telling him to go in...he does of course and...

^Yay!

Well that was a nice ending. We...wait what? 12 more minutes?
....
....

What follows is some perfunctory narration and a few character bits as we learn the following:

*Sugo went to jail because one of his employees ratted on him.
*The whole virtual reality online gaming industry collapsed as a result of the ensuing scandal.
*The 300 "test subjects" awoke with no memory of their ordeal.
*All those in Japan who were in school at the time they were trapped in SAO, are indeed now in a special school just for them.
*Asuna and Kazuto are still dating.
*A few friends from SAO (the cast from the first cour) gather at Sigils bar from time to time to reminisce.
*Oh...and that world seed Kazuto received from Kayaba?
its a starting program for virtual worlds. Sigil and Kazuto put it online as freeware and now the web is full of many versions of VRMMORPGs run by small groups, tiny companies and even individuals. All are cross compatible and based on the world designs of a homicidal maniac using the same interface devices proven to have a nearly perfected mind control capability. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!?

The last scene of the show is all the surviving cast gathering in Alfheim (which has been migrated to a private server ) for a momentous event. Someone has rebooted Aincard...the world of Sword Art Online and brought it into Alfheim to replace the rather empty world tree.

...and well....It looks like Kazuto and Asuna really want to LIVE THAT NIGHTMARE AGAIN. They ask "Leaf" to come along just to add a bit of squicky awkwardness to the proceedings. Then they all fly off thumbing their virtual noses at any thoughts of adjusting to life in the real world.

^{Asuna as a Fairy inviting "Leaf" on their quest, to clear all 100 levels This time fer sure!}

So...while the first half of the episode was superb, it ends up being an uneven and rather forced ending to a very uneven series.

The second cour saw Asuna largely wasted (though she quite explicitly never gave up). It must be said that it had some really compelling moments too. The self reflection of Kirito as he contemplated the vast gulf between his online persona and his actual power occurred in a couple of episodes including this one and was neat. The fact that the heroes often got by by being clever was enjoyable too. There were some REALLY cool concepts touched on in the second cour as well, but none of them were really explored well. In particular the epilogue just seems waaay too pat and appears to have overlooked a major plot point of the series.


Yes the various Zaibatsu don't control the VR worlds anymore, (Yay small developers! Stick it too the man!) but these vr worlds are more widespread than ever...and all use the same architecture as SAO.  If anything, there is more likelihood that some of these worlds are actually set up to perfect mind control tech...and all the players potential guinea pigs and slaves.

The show in many ways had a "corporate ending" with everything sort of reset and fan favorite characters re-introduced and no real development other than giving everyone the in game ability to fly. This will allow games, light novels, CDs and perhaps a sequel, but the show which wowed so many of us with it's character development largely tosses that development out the window with the ending of the finale. In the end the virtual world becomes not a reflection of the real world, but an escape from it...Now that could be a cautionary tale itself, but it is not presented as such here.

The show was at its best when it was playing against type.

The first cour (episodes 1-14) was remarkably unpredictable. It was particularly interesting as it became an adventure/romance with a hero and heroine who were smart, dynamic, awesome and yet believable...and who complemented and completed each other in an unusually exciting but perfectly healthy relationship

...and that is how I'll want to remember this show.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:44 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 [side note; the unclosed spoiler tag ended up taking out the entry trailer, including the comment button]

Yeah, I was afraid this was how it was going to end, based on what I read about the novels; they weren't willing to go for an original ending, and they should have. Worse, it seems the author doesn't really know what to do with the cast after getting them back together; there are two side stories that take place in Alfheim (one of which is centered on Asuna), but the rest of the novels have Our Hero going off into other virtual worlds alone. And, yes, the author has written a story in which all the girls gang up to marry Tenchi Kirito in an accelerated-time VR, although that one may no longer be canon.

In fairness to The Seed, it's established that only people wearing first-gen VR helmets are vulnerable to Sugou's mind control; in fact, the impossibility of truly harming someone through the second-gen helmets is pretty much the plot hook for the next arc. (and, no, it doesn't make sense that they'd have added exactly the right safeties to prevent abuses that hadn't been invented yet, especially with Sugou on the team, but...)

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Sun Dec 23 03:46:40 2012 (2XtN5)

2  [side note; the unclosed spoiler tag ended up taking out the entry trailer, including the comment button]

Yeah...we're intrigued by that bug and we're working on it.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Dec 23 12:08:39 2012 (vp6an)

3

While I haven't seen the anime yet, I've read translations of some of  the light novels.  I'd agree that ALO is very much a low point in the series and I almost dropped at that point  It does get better afterwards.

Two of the major side stories are pretty good.  The Gale Gun Online (GGO) one introduces Shinon, another strong female character.  Unfortunately it also raises Kirito's Marty Stu-ness to new heights.  Mother's Rosario, however, gives Kirito the "more deban" sign to Asuna's lead.  Both are setup to the Alicilization arc.

The Alicilization arc turns things around with Kirito being the one trapped in a virtual world and Asuna having to do the Real World (tm) leg work to get him back.  Though Kirito still maintains a bit too much of his Marty Stu-ness, unfortunately.

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sun Dec 23 16:07:31 2012 (5YSpE)

4 As an MMO gamer myself, I found the first cour to particularly satisfying.  All of the player types and behaviors in SAO are seen in any popular MMO, but of course with much lesser consequences.

If I'd found myself stuck in SAO, and known that dying was fatal in real life, I'd probably try to lock myself in an inn - I die far too frequently in games to risk "leveling up" and beating the game...

Posted by: Siergen at Sun Dec 23 22:15:27 2012 (Ao4Kw)

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My, my, my....this has been a good weekend for anime.

Here's the trailer for the fourth Yamato 2199 movie will hit theaters January 13th.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Episode 24 of Sword Art Online brings the Asuna in a Cage arc to an end of sorts....maybe.

The biggest disappointment of the episode is that Lightning Flash Asuna doesn't get to do much except put on a brave face. This is terribly unfair to the character who has really been a very well realized female lead.
The journey of Y.U.I. and Kirito to Asuna's prison was almost anticlimactic, until it wasn't.



Sugo is an exquisitely wicked villain. A petty, venal yet brilliant man who is utterly devoid of conscience and  on the cusp of controlling human minds. He is also present and has moderator privileges so they're screwed.

What follows is about 12 miutes of really disturbing sadism as he reduces or heroes strength to one, increases the gravity, engages and dials up their pain sensitivity, tortures Kirito, molests Asuna and taunts them with tales of how he will edit their minds. Kirito takes a moment from this agony to reflect upon the fact that for all his skill levels, he is a kid who plays video games and little else and has accomplished nothing in the real world. Yeah...utter defeat.

Fortunately for our heroes, Ubu Roi was right. Akihiko Kayaba is alive, or at least a copy of him exists in the mainframe. It seems that he and Sugo have been rivals for some time and he was most displeased when Sugo took over his game and re-skinned it into Alfheim online. He gives Kirito HIS password, which as he designed the master game, Sword Art Online,  trumps Sugos. Kirito "kills" Sugo, but does not do so quickly.

He then logs Asuna out, tries to log log himself out, but is informed by Kayaba  that there is a price for his help. Kayaba gived him a shiny he refers to as the world seed and tells Kirito to plant it when the time is right.

Kirito puts it in his inventory and logs out.

Kirito awakens, thanks his cousin for her help and rushes off into the snow to see Asuna.

...And so that's how it ends. Not by wits, skill, determination or courage, but by sudden divine (or in this case debased) intervention. This was a vastly less satisfying ending than that of the first cour. Nevertheless it did not suck. The second half of this show has been fairly uneven in comparison with the first, but it has still been far above average.

Note that we  HAVEN'T SEEN ASUNA AWAKE IN THE REAL WORLD YET and there are still at least 2 episodes to go.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Wow!
It was getting sappy there for a minute, but Girls und Panzer #9 was an astonishingly entertaining bit of mayhem. The climax was one of the best paced, most pitch perfect action sequences I've seen in a while, particularly because all the Ooarai girls, but especially Goosfish and Turtle teams, were smart and used their inferior equipment to its best advantage. Nicely done.


The bit of exposition at the beginning about the Student Council's motivation makes as much sense as anything else in the show.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:18 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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According to this article, the anime industry in Japan just packed it in and quit.

After the eighth episode of Girls und Panzer aired late Monday, anime studios around Japan have collectively announced the end of the anime industry and discontinued operation. "I would like to thank the fans throughout the years for their continued support,” Shinbou Akiyuki said as he addressed a crowd of reporters at SHAFT headquarters. "But after the last episode of Girls und Panzer, we all know that there is nothing more to accomplish in anime.”

...The episode featured the team of protagonists engaging a Russian tankery school in the snow. Around midway through the episode, to utter disbelief of the television audience, the Russian team burst into a rendition of the traditional Russian war anthem "Katyusha”. Voice actresses Kanemoto Hisako (Squid Girl, Cure Peace) and Uesaka Sumire (Sanae Dekomori) performed the duet. The episode concluded with a dramatic fight scene and ended on a cliffhanger after the Oorai High School team were surrounded by the enemy...

"Try using a Zoopraxiscope!"

  Girls und Panzer‘s eighth episode is missing about a minute in its Crunchyroll version. Unless you download a fansub, you are going to miss this 1938 song, the highlight of the episode.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:08 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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There are some things that strain credulity.
I was able to look beyond the premise of SAO and the implausibility of the technology. I could look beyond he occasional writers hand-wave.

But this is too much...
See that thar nebbish, the one who goes by the handle of Recon? In real life Leaf Sugu his Kendo senpai. He pines for her but is shorter than Sugu, physically weak, socially awkward, and has a stammer. In the online world however, he's shorter than Leaf, physically weak, socially awkward and has a stammer, plus he's got a bowl cut and walks with an Egor style hunch. I just don't see him picking that avatar. I just don't.

Wait, where was I?
Oh yeah, Sword Art Online  episode 23:


When last we left Sugu, she was smelling her knees and burbling, having had something of a mental breakdown upon learning that her brother was actually her partner in the game.


Kazuto, is somewhat taken aback as well, and really doesn't know what to say. I lieu of any sage wisdom, Kazuto  informs her that he will wait for her at the south gate of Arun.

Sugu Leaf re-enters the game and is shocked to find that Recon, over the course of the last 4 episodes, (and quite off camera) has managed to escape from his imprisonment, poison his captors and track her down. As one can imagine, he's feeling pretty buff right now...so buff that he actually builds up the courage to confess his love to Leaf.

You may recall that Recon is shorter than Leaf, physically weak, socially awkward and has a stammer, plus he's got a bowl cut and walks with an Egor style hunch. Recall too that Leaf is not in any sort of mood to take this affront to her dignity gracefully, so she punches him and throws him down the stairs.

Leaf then laughs a rather worrisome laugh and announces that Recon has given her a splendid idea! She then flies off to meet Kazuto Kirito, who is, as promised, at the south gate.



...and so they fight....inconclusively, although she does demonstrate that tactics and pure essence of yandere can counter even the highest sword skill.


After the fight Kirito explains that:
A: HE DIDN'T KNOW!
B: He won't be fully returned from Sword Art Online until he rescues his beloved.

For the first time Leaf actually groks the stakes of Kirito's quest. She realizes that his is quite possibly NOT a game and a life may be at stake. She and Recon follow Kirito and Y.U.I. to the entrance to the world tree where both agree to help him (Recon because he's still carrying a torch for Leaf).


Y.U.I. has analyzed the guardians of the gate from the recent battle (last episode) and is perplexed. She thinks that given the guardian's spawn rate, the gate may actually be unclear-able. In other words Y.U.I. thinks it's possible that this entrance is not actually intended to be cleared by players.

Of course, that would be crazy as clearing this entrance and entering the tree is, ostensibly, the whole point of the game, thus, it is decided that their best bet is to try to rush to the gate before  the guardians become too numerous. the plan is to have Leaf and Recon (who have the ability to heal at range) heal Kirito as he rushes the gate.



Well....
That doesn't work.

^{The gate as seen from below near the entrance.}

^{There are Catgirl princesses  on on fire breathing dragons. This is the best show ever.}

^{"Funny...It doesn't LOOK like cake."}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:29 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It all turns to worms.
Asuna throws away her trump card. Now this does, in fact convince Kirito and Y.U.I. that she's up there, but she's lost her one ace in the hole and Kirito and Y.U.I. are no closer than they were to getting into the World Tree. Arguably they are now rather farther from their goal that they were, because, well...


Sughu figures out who her partner is...and does not react well.

^{"Oh... God...Did you just say Asuna Yuki?"}

No indeed she does not react well at all...

^{"Burbleburbleburble....}"

Interesting in that there are really only 3 scenes in the episode proper.
*A fight sequence as Kirito rashly tries to rush the gate of the world tree...and discovers why no one has succeeded.
*A brief interregnum where Leaf saves his ass, resurrects him and then learns who Kirito is.
*An extended scene in the real world where Sughu confronts her brother cousin and proceeds to have a complete nervous breakdown.  This was actually pretty scary to watch.

 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:09 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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