No, I haven’t died. Work is hell right now and I’m coming home mentally drained. I watched Divergence Eve on Sunday and am trying to work up the energy to watch it again and write up a review. Managed to exchange a few e-mails with Steven over it, but that was about it.
Watched the first DVD. Four immediate thoughts.
Beats the hell out of Godannar. Slight difference, Godannar intentionally has comedic aspects.
Never seen a less appropriate closer.
You were right, they stripped the extras. Nothing but previews.
The CGI looks like it was done on my PC, in a game.
I just can’t express how badly mismatched the closer is. No matter how I express that, it won’t be enough to convey the reality. I swear, it’s not even from the same show. I think the budget ran out before they did the animation and song, so they swiped one from another show entirely.
It’s a damn good anime, I recommend it. But try not to be too distracted by the humoungusized tits.
The Divergence Eve OP is excellent, and is definitely related to the series. The Misaki Chronicles ED is OK; it’s not very interesting, but it does relate to the series and the style of music doesn’t break the mood.
The Misaki Chronicles OP, on first viewing, doesn’t seem to have anything whatever to do with the MC series, but as I’ve watched it a few times I’ve begun to see that there are at least a few things in it which actually do relate. (Not many, though.)
But the Divergence Eve ED is simply amazing. There’s nothing in it that has anything whatever to do with the series, except Misaki, and she’s out of place and out of time, and pretty much out of character, too. The music is bright and bouncy, and coming just after the end of some of the episodes it’s like a bucket of icewater in the face.
The only excuse for it I can think of is that it’s concentrated fan service. It’s almost like the people who were responsible for this show were afraid that the audience wouldn’t like it, so they felt as if they had to paint it with lots of fan service in order to get people to watch.
And they might have been right, too. I confess that’s the main reason I tried it.
Well, I played with the idea that the ED for Divergence Eve is meant to reflect Misaki’s personality apart from the horror that she finds herself in, maybe what she was like before the series began. I did get the feel from her that she’s not really deep. Not a “Pacifica-level airhead” but she’s not really concerned with the serious stuff, aside from her father’s fate. She’s definately the extrovert of the bunch to start, and her attitude about life comes out during one of the meals when she confesses that she knows she’s going to get lousy grades so she just doesn’t worry herself over it. (Not that she’s being fully truthful). Thus the ED is meant to counterpoint the horror of the series with what Misaki expects her life to be about and like. In other words, it’s deliberately meant to be an incredibly jarring juxtiposition against the hell-in-outer-space she encounters.
Or it could just be an excuse to show her in a very skimpy swimsuit. And with lips. My money is that they meant the latter, but told the network the former, while going wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more. The network said “Ooooh, boobies!” and didn’t hear a word of it.
The only problem is that it’s an anachronism. The ED looks like the year 2000, but the series is set in 2317.
317 years ago was 1689. What did popular entertainment, let alone clothing, look like in 1689?
The OP for Misaki Chronicles has the same problem: most of it looks like the year 2000, not like 2317.
I’m not sure that’s a problem as such. Or rather, if it is, it’s an insoluble one. This is a three-part issue: the technology we see, the society represented by the activities Misaki is involved in, and the details on the screen that say “contemporary” to us.
First the technology: It’s generally acknowledged that we are passing the “knee of the curve” and going from a primarily horizontal time/technology curve to a primarily vertical one. If you look at 1689 and then compare it today, on the surface, things are much different. But that’s my contention–it’s almost all surface changes, because the fundamental element governing us isn’t the technology — it’s the human being, and we change on a time scale measured in tens of thousands of years (if not longer), not a couple of piddling centuries. What we’re seeing as “change” is exhibition of formerly supressed facets of the human condition — these are now able to rise to the surface because of the changes in conditions. Adaptation, in other words, not change.
So society isn’t following the rapid change in technology, IMHO. The details are changing, but if you reduce it to the basics, the proverbial “man from 1689” wouldn’t be as out of place as might be assumed at first. Consider: In 1689, leisure was not as common for the common person, but there were universal constants, whether we speak of European culture, Asian, or any other: People with spare time will gather, they will drink, they will converse, they will sport, and there will be a certain dichotomy between how men and women (as a whole) execute these activities. Recorded performances of concerts, operas, or plays were unknown, but the activities existed. Tennis was played by rich Frenchmen, and poor Englishmen might gather for a game of ninepins.
So, to this point, I have established that the world of 2317 should look different due to technology, but it won’t look that different, because the controlling element is the human being that uses the technology, not the technology itself. Well, yay me for stating the blindingly obvious, eh? (Deleted wandering discussion of science fiction authors whose future predictions were so wrong.) Summarized: the differenece between 1689, 2006, and 2317 is in the details, not the fundamentals. (Ya coulda just said that and saved all the pretentious yammering! -ed. Who’s being pretentious, you figment of my imagination? – ubu)
Now assume you are an animé filmmaker, and you’re given the job of showing Misaki as a cheerful, not-a-care-in-the-world young lady in the space of a 90-second ED. With titles running on top. And so what do you do? Make up forms of recreation that the viewer won’t recognize as such? Dress her in strange looking clothes that the viewer won’t know for formal wear, leisure attire, or survival gear? Show her trying to decide between red goop in a bowl and blue goop on a stick? Nope, you put her on a skateboard, in a swimsuit, and deciding between various sugary confections. Because that’s what the audience will recognize without a second thought.
And of course that entire train of thought runs into the iceberg represented by the scene where she’s riding in what is recognizably a 20th century convertable, and sinks.
Just don’t ask me what trains are doing running into icebergs. It makes as much sense as a contemporary auto in the 24th century. Or Galaxy Express 999, which put trains in outer space. You know, maybe we just think about this too damn much…