sábado, 3 de abril de 2010

Suddenly:


The last thing Sergeant Rufus and Private Jenkins saw before dying a horrible death was a giant flying dong. Condolences will be sent to their bitches and hos.

I am not quite awake, OK? Give me a break here.

[Deprecated - see this link]

Thanks to Bait for supah encodans.

Still, allow me to use this as a soapbox for a moment. (Fuck, I had to rewrite that sentence twice.) (And that other one, once.)

I got a link to that all-consuming black hole called TvTropes from one of the blogs I follow, particularly this link. Basically, this French director claimed that you couldn't make an anti-war movie, because you would inevitable make war seem attractive in trying to convey all of its horror. I can't say I agree with the premise (see most Vietnam War movies, frex) but it's still rolling inside my mind, particularly with regards to mecha war anime. See, this kind of anime is pretty much defined by mecha doing awesome stuff, whether it's super robot smashing, AC-style zipping and beamspam, or cinematic, gritty action a la VOTOMS or, of course, Dougram. We know that most of them carry anti-war messages (and a shitload of other baggage that's not relevant right now) but my question is, can they ever work when the show depends on making the action scenes seem awesome? We see now the unglamorous aftereffects of battle in these Dougram hospital episodes, but is the overall message drowned in the fuckawesome DOUGRAM KICK and smart tactical planning scenes?

I don't know, I'm sleep-ranting right now. For some reason, this makes me think of that one scene in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, when Mittermeyer finds out that he does enjoy fighting and matching wits with the enemy, even though the particular battle he is fighting is probably the worst thing he has ever done. And yeah, I know it doesn't have that much to do with the rant.

8 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

I'd try and answer your rant, but I'm too damned tired myself.

Let's make it short- That's just how it is. People enjoy watching stuff blow up. When it's done by giant robots, it's even better.
As serious as this show is, it was still intended to sell toys and get ratings, back when it aired.
Action sells.
If there's a message behind the action, then that's good, but it's mostly an afterthought.
Sometimes.
I think?
Man, I need sleep.

tl;dr EXPLOSIONS ARE COOL
THANKS FOR THE NEW EPISODE BRO, YOU'RE THAT CLOSE TO FINISHING HALF OF THE SHOW!
KEEP GOING AT YOUR OWN PACE AND DON'T LET THOSE EARTHQUAKES GETCHA

Anónimo dijo...

AND WHO CARES ABOUT WHAT THAT DIRECTOR SAYS ANYWAY

HE'S FRENCH

Crinn Cashim dijo...

There won't be dissing of the French in this blog. They're cool folk and they have the sense to license LoGH. At least, one of the movies.

Gunlord dijo...

Hmm...that's a good question, Crinn. However, for all the awesomeness of giant robots punchan each other out, I don't think it's necessarily inevitable that a mecha war show can't display the horrors of war. First off, there are a few shows about mecha being awesome in non-violent context, ranging from racing mecha (IGPX) to shows about power-armored heroes rescuing folks (Some tokusatsu shows are all about the heroes fighting fires, natural disasters, etc).

So we can agree that mecha is inherently awesome with or without the context of war. When added to the context of war, however, despite doing all their awesome things they can still display how awesome war is. It's great seeing Dougram kicking a crabgunner IN THE BALLS, but it wasn't so great watching [spoiler]

Festo, Crinn's mentor, the kid in that one episode, etc.

[/spoiler]

get toasted. So if Dougram would still be able to do all its awesome mecha things if it was dedicated to rescuing people, disaster relief, etc. instead of being put to use in war, I think folks can appreciate awesome action while still getting the point that war is a bad thing, even in shows like Dougram.

But those are just my thoughts, as they say, just my opinion man.

Gunlord dijo...

Also, good lord, Crinn what is up with your torrent speedS? I started it like a minute ago and it's 90% done, it's going OVER 9000 KB per second. Gimme a minute and I'll try to put it up on MU :D

Speaking of, hey, did you guys know our bros over at msubs put up a new ep of Layzner?

http://msubsreleases.wordpress.com/

FINALLY, it looks like Sasword is still alive :D :D :D

Layzner's another good example of how even mecha anime can still make 'deeper' points despite being primarily about showing off cool mechs and cool explosions. Eiji is a cool guy, and he does awesome stuff in his mech. However, despite all the cool stuff he does, and despite how awesome his Layzner is, guys like the various Americans, Soviets, etc. still refuse to believe in him because of Cold War paranoia, racism, etc. etc. So if Layzner demonstrates how the kind of Cold War mentality the Americans and the Soviets display in the show prevents them from appreciating an awesome mecha, I think that would impress upon the viewers how destructive such ideologies would be IRL. So I think even 'kid's shows' about robots blowing each other up can't necessarily find it impossible to impart at least relatively sound lessons to their viewers, glorification of violence nonwithstanding.

But again, I probably need sleep as well, hehe. Anyways, as anon said, fuck yeah you are awesome Crinn!

Gunlord dijo...

Please forgive me for the WORDS WORDS WORDS comment storm, but I put the next ep on MU! :D

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0Q3ZKDDN

Anónimo dijo...

orz

Sorry for the french comment. I guess it was out of place.

Sian dijo...

You rock! You consistently outperform larger subbers and we all love you for it.