Anime/Zetsuen no Tempest

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Zetsuen no Tempest is an exciting series about the battle between good and evil, or... no, that's not right at all.

Let's try this: Zetsuen no Tempest is an endearing series about friendship in the face of—

No no no, that's wrong.

This is a heart-pounding thriller in which out heroes try to save the world! Oh, wait, not exactly...

Ah, here we go: Zetsuen no Tempest is a literary analysis of the later works of Sir William Shakespeare and the intertextual correlations between - what, isn't that right? It isn't?

Um.

Maybe you guys should take this?

edited 4th Oct '12 4:41:24 PM by Savoie

And to make a fine point: the Anime/ heading means no manga spoilers.

Because the manga spoilers are huge.

A bit over-wrought, but I liked it. Also a bit gay, but I've long since stopped caring about that

Yeah, I was caught off-guard by the DRAMA factor, but if any show can ride that wave, it's this one. The orchestral music was a bit jarring at first, but I think I'm growing fond of it. The ED was also unexpected.

edited 4th Oct '12 5:27:19 PM by Savoie

Episode 1: I thought this looked like a generic action show from browsing superficially and it kinda is, but calling it that would be a grave injustice.

First, yeah, the drama. I was expecting some but not quite this much. I figured Aika was Yoshino's girlfriend when Yoshino was looking at his phone, but at the same time that message made me assume that Aika was still alive, so her being dead was quite a surprise. Makes his actions throughout the episode rather more depressing: the aforementioned looking at the phone, mentioning he has a girlfriend, and rationalizing at Aika's grave...

Mahiro provides the action for this episode, and damn, he had a nice bout with the girl with the guns. I'm eager for future fights! I also like the idea of Mahiro saving the world not because he wants to but because it's his end of the deal. Rather interesting to be the savior by proxy.

For the time being it seems the stranded girl will act as mission control, but I fully expect her to join up with them at some point! Though going by what I hear, it doesn't seem like things are going to be straightforward as I think they will...

What does "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite." mean? Does it help to read Hamlet before watching this?

Just mildly curious. I've already watched the firest episode and liked it, but I hope it keeps up the pace of the second half.

"Things are bad, and I'm the lucky guy who gets to fix things." Which is basically what Hamlet said about what Claudius did.

Okay, that was interesting. Liked the mood in the first episode.

Apparently there's a manga? Not going to read it until you guys force me to in this thread by mentioning Manga Spoilers.

Maybe I'm just imagining things, and maybe the source material is the source of this, but I've been noticing more artiness in anime post-PMMM. Certainly seeing a bit of similarity here.

Yeah, this is based on a rather recent manga, one so recent that I was amazed that it was already being adapted. Now, if only they would start work on Iris Zero and Tokyo ESP...

Is there any Othello in this?

Perhaps, but only in the sense of the board game - pieces flip from black to white to black very rapidly, and there is no shortage of cunning among the participants.

Since Othello is defined by racial tension, that would be a pretty weird thing to dump into the cauldron, not least of all because we all know how good the Japanese are about working in Aesops about racism.*

Well, there's also the whole "Treacherous Advisor makes you think your wife is cheating on you" thing.

I can say - without spoiling anything - that Zetsuen no Tempest doesn't feel so beholden as to regurgitate the Bard's work wholecloth. Rather, it is far more interested in the themes explored than some superficial imitation. By this metric, Othello falls within what is covered.

I'm guessing that bit about 40 000 brothers was a quote too.

So the sister's death was tied to this too hmm? Well that's one of the least surprising plot twists so far.

Still, unlike certain other shows they're really not actively withholding any answers at the moment, and yet I want to see what happens next.

Also, military girl is annoying. I can't believe he actually got her to listen to him off screen. That's so unrealistic it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Apparently some stuff changed from the manga in this episode?

Tempted to read it, trying to decide whether or not the added prettiness of the anime is worth waiting and trying to avoid spoilers.

The Posthumous Character bit is interesting, though I'm wondering how they can make her so prominent in the OP/ED when she's dead. We've already got a pretty good and I'm guessing complete idea of how she influenced our two protagonists, so it can't be that the series is just going to be that slow.

Going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing she's not really dead. Or something.

edited 11th Oct '12 7:18:16 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

We haven't even seen the first of the real twists - so far, it's just setup. I can confirm that the changes from the manga so far are very minor. Notably, in the manga Hakaze isn't wearing panties (notably not a plot point!), and the military girl who's name escapes me doesn't find out about Aika and Yoshino until much later.

I also noticed that Hakaze is referring to Mahiro with the incredibly disrespectful kisama, which if I recall is roughly analogous to calling someone "scum" in English.

edited 12th Oct '12 12:48:30 AM by Savoie

No, you're mistaken. Read chapter 2 again, Evangeline (military girl) knows about Aika and Yoshino in the same way and at the exact same time period, no changes there. The notable change is the confrontation between the two, which is much shorter in the manga. There's no ducking around avoiding smoke grenade in the manga, it's not even done at school.

It still ends the same way though, with Evangeline having the upper hand at first but Yoshino using magic for the first time to turn the tables on her so I really can't complain. Really, it seems expanded solely to fit in more action scenes and pad out the episode a bit, which I don't mind too much.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in checking out the manga to find out the difference, so far the two eps adapts the first two chapters and not more, so you can read up to compare without being spoiled. In fact, it's the anime that uses a scene from future chapters earlier, as the first kiss scene at the beginning only comes out several chapters afterward (being a flashback, it really doesn't matter where they put it, really).

edited 12th Oct '12 9:41:33 AM by Senahoy

So I am. Serves me right for skipping the first three chapters on re-read.

Realy? I read it all, but somehow I also got same impression, that it happaned far later.

The anime actually rather expands Aika's presence in the first two chapter/episodes. The manga doesn't focus on Yoshino's past with Aika until later in the story, and I think it does a lot more to make the reader emphasize with him. The expansions on the manga are all good so far. If they keep to the same level of quality, they may end up being the definitive version of the story.

Even if it doesn't, it introduced me to this story, and holy crap do I love it, so there's that. Can't complain!

All the stuff with Yoshino and Aika wound me. Figures that a mage killed Aika. Nice to know that the anime is improving on the source material, they're doing a great job so far.

Oh, and the ED is out of joint.

edited 14th Oct '12 8:05:31 AM by fillerdude

Why do I get the feeling that "The X is out of joint" is going to become a meme, or something?

edited 14th Oct '12 8:17:55 AM by RiotousRascal

I think we'd need more people watching it for that to happen

It already is. I wonder if we have it? Time Out Of Joint.

EDIT: Apparently not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_Of_Joint

edited 14th Oct '12 5:30:58 PM by Arilou

This series just keeps hitting my so many of my "like" buttons that I can kind of ignore the really slow pacing.