Concrete Revolutio

Anyone else watching this? I just started. Being a superhero fan I find I like the premise, though I'm getting a deconstruction vibe from it I'm not entirely sure about yet. Like in episode 2 where the ghost kid got told he was responsible for killing millions of bugmen- which he was, but the Bureu put him up to it- and he'a a CHILD, he didn't know better! Even if the agent also defended him, he could have phrased it better. It's like he wanted him to know that "Life Sucks, Kid. Though." (assh*le.)

Still, I like all the homages so far (Grosse Augen was Ultraman, Jirou is Cyborg 009, etc.).

edited 2nd Nov '15 4:56:21 PM by Sijo

Jirou wasn't really being an asshole at that point, at all. He was advocating forgiveness for genocide, for crying out loud, and he was clearly trying to ease Fuurouta into the whole "life sucks" thing as gently as possible.

edited 2nd Nov '15 7:01:15 PM by illegalcheese

I like it. Trippy, some interesting ideas, and I know enough about Shouwa era Japanese media to get what it's doing

A couple thoughts:

• I have no idea what the bureau head is pulling from. I'm not familiar with anything with possession abilities from that era, nevermind as a "hero"
• I think Jirou might represent Heisei? Sure, he looks like Cyborg 009, but the power belongs to someone else, and his own is super chuuni. Not to mention what we see of him in the flash-fowards...
• Emi worries me

edited 2nd Nov '15 8:24:30 PM by Hylarn

I know that. BUT he could have said it better. He defended the boy not by admitting that they used an innocent to commit genocide, but simply by asking if she could kill her friend. Honestly, he comes across as a jerk, too concerned with his goals to care about other's feelings. And yet we know that he will eventually turn on the bureau itself. Hypocrite much? Yeah I guess there'll be explanations to come, I just am not sure they will convince me.

(Btw the one thing I don't like about the show, is the use of flash forwards and backwards. It's a-nno-ying! OTOH the character designs are great overall.)

This is my favourite show of the season so far, though objectively it's certainly not the best. I recognise the same sort of deconstructionist vibe; it reminded me of Kurt Busiek's Astro City, especially the first two episodes. So far though the whole is lesser than its parts and the overarching story seems slightly off.

But I love the visual designs and the way it tries to create a coherent looking superhero-esque universe using anime & manga archetypes in the same way Busiek and co did to create Astro City.

Just wish the characters were fleshed out better.

Yeah, I wish they fleshed out the characters over several episodes rather than using this "X months or years later" approach.

Just saw episode #3. Jirou came out a bit more sympathetic this time. Instead, it was the 8th-Man stand-in who came across as unreasonably mad. And the show's attempt to be "dark" falls flat because it fails to even try things most of us would (last episode, it was not consider talking things out with the Bugmen; this time, it was assuming the androids were weapons without examining them first.)

edited 3rd Nov '15 5:11:11 AM by Sijo

Jirou was desperately trying to convince bug lady not to kill Fuurouta. Reframing the issue as "do you really want to kill a childhood friend for something that happened in the past" is more likely to work then "sure, he killed your friends, family, and entire species, but he was just a kid." He wasn't acting particularly cruel.

Also, no one told Fuurouta to kill the bugmen. He grabbed the virus and ran off to toss it at the Diet building, and the rest of the group failed to catch up to him.

Also, after the fifth episode, the Bureau's incompetence might make more sense. Half of them don't give a shit beyond the bottom line of good publicity for superheroes, Jirou has been out of the loop his entire life and doesn't realize that "serving justice" has never been in his job description, Fuurouta's just a kid and justifies everything they do as "good", and Kikkou hasn't had time to give it much thought. The Bureau as a whole isn't afraid to take the easy way out, even if it means casualties.

edited 3rd Nov '15 9:20:01 PM by illegalcheese

Right, the rest of the team "failed" to catch up to him. Or let him do it for them since he wasn't affected by the Black Fog. And yeah, I've by now seen how effective the Bureu (and the Government) are. I mean, pretending superhumans don't exist- despite the public obviously knowing? Also, the show seems to go to ridiculous extremes to darken everything- the Giant Monster episode proves it. It's starting to feel like less of a "this is what would really happen" and more like a "even nice people are jerks or dumb" thing. Which I'm not going to stand for long.

PS. I'm looking forward to learn more about the Fox Demon.

edited 4th Nov '15 5:16:54 AM by Sijo

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, but yes Fuurouta is considerably more mobile than Jirou, and yes half of the Bureau probably didn't care as long as the problem vanished.

As far as I can tell, no one is pretending that superhumans don't exist—the government is simply controlling any and all information about them, which is considerably more sinister.

I agree that the show is a almost oppressively dark, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt here—I'm particularly interested in where they take Raito, and what precisely caused Jirou to break with the Bureau. I actually get the feeling that the show has a definite endgame, and not just aimless pessimism.

edited 8th Nov '15 12:40:31 AM by illegalcheese

Ehh, I don't think I can keep watching. Part 2 of the Kaiju story made NO sense and hits you SO hard over the head with the whole "Humans are worse than monsters!" message.

While I like some of the characters, I don't think I have the patience to endure episodes like these just to see if the show gets better. I'd rather wait and decide if I come back to it later, after more information comes out.

Suddenly, Madoka

Next is Tetsujin #28 and some of the... fandom issues involving it

So Earth-chan has a black-and-white view of morality, like Jiro, but I don't think her views match up with his- he didn't seem happy about being stuck treating her decisions as "good". I can imagine he might have sided with the guy shooting up the company for using him, for example. Very interesting.

Backstory this time, including some golden-age stuff. Kind of a pity that the "BL" part was just a bit of a lampshade

Next is... Sazae-san? Seriously?

So shit's hit the fan now.

Also, show's confirmed for a second season starting April 2016, and apparently Gen Urobuchi's gonna be writing an episode. Sounds like fun!

Well, Kikko's new outfit looks familiar

Starting to think this show would be better off being single-cour. Has too much time to dick around

I completely disagree. When did it ever dick around rather than building the mystery more? One-cour shows are almost universally terrible if they're 13 episodes or less. It would be as if they took what we had now and compressed it while squeezing out all the distinguishing characteristics of the secondary supers and removing almost all the foreshadowing.

On a side note, holy shit, that episode! I'm glad I caught up instead of waiting until the end of cour 1.

From the looks of it we'll be seeing Jiro leaving the Bureau at the end of this cour (Spooky McMaskface seems like a good catalyst for that), cliffhanger, and then the second cour will start piecing together the flashforwards and go from there. And I'll be rewatching the first cour a couple week beforehand in vain hopes of making sense of it :P

I don't think we need to waste screentime piecing the flashforwards together. They are already pretty organized as they are.

Well, covering the period of time the flashforwards came from, anyway.

I somehow have the impression the next cour of the show will be inverted, in that most of the episodes will focus on the "future" but be complemented with more bits of the past.

I'd like that... like, minor scenes between the characters that were glossed over in the first cour for being too unimportant then, but which will take on more meaning in the context of the second cour's events.

You know what else I really want? The OST. January can't come fast enough.

The Series is back now and the timeline seem like it should be settling down a little although still jumping around a bit. I like the Superhuman Bureau's new uniforms and we discover what the Chief actually is. Looks like Kino is becoming a bit creepier as well with the hole where her eye should be in the opening.

Yeah thats who I mean.

edited 9th Apr '16 7:09:52 AM by SebastianGray

...Don't you mean Emi?

Anyway, yeah, great start to the new cour. Poor Raito. ;_;

My God, that was an incredibly finale to an incredible show.

Hating something is one thing, but refusing to even acknowledge it? Jiro's right; laughing is the true evil. Man, I'm glad I watched this show.