Anime/Suisei no Gargantia

You're missing the crux of the problem here; if liquid water can exist on Earth, has existed for centuries, either it will continue to exist for centuries, or there wouldn't be any bodies of water large enough to lose sight of land in.

I mean, they're a travelling fleet, and consider the idea of non-submerged land to be a matter of ancient history. That implies that they are, at the very least, in the middle of a sizeable ocean. There is no way to get rid of an ocean's worth of water within a human lifetime that doesn't involved outside interference on a planetary scale or conditions that were already world-endingly unstable.

edited 15th Apr '13 9:08:57 PM by Gilphon

I'm with you. I like the art and atmosphere of the show so far, but other than that I'm finding it kinda boring.

It's nothing new, but that's good. It's that it uses sci-fi staples instead of just making stuff up and using it for absurd purposes and I like that it's taking things slow.

And as I mentioned before I think the primitive setting contrasted with the advanced effectively alien tech really shows off just how cool that tech is.

Boring, really? I'm not sure what you expect from this show if you find this to be boring. Interesting characters? Check. Far-fetched but not improbable setting? Check. Reasonable action and explosions? Check. Scenery Porn and cool designs? Check.

Fucking impossible to please, you lot.

Honestly I'm fine with the anime developing slowly. Sometimes a show doesn't have to start with a bang.

Okay there was that entire space battle thing but right now the focus seems to be on the mystery of what's going to happen

It's just there's been nothing of note really happening, I'm not expecting huge plot points, but something at least kind of engaging would be nice. And at least with Madoka, even early on, I was pretty engaged with the characters, I cared about Madoka and Sayaka. Here, everyone's been meh, bland pilot guy, bland mechanic girl, bland older mechanic girl, bland blonde guy. The only character I like is the fascist HK-47 robot.

Honestly if Gen wasn't behind this, I'd probably be done, the first two episodes have been dull. The animation is excellent of course and I love the mech designs, but it's not enough to make up for how hollow it feels.

edited 15th Apr '13 9:26:13 PM by Firestorm

Nothing of note? There have only been two episodes, and one of them involved waking up six months in the future and the other was establishing the setting and it still found time to have Red/Ledo smash a pirate flotilla.

Fucking unpleasable.

Madoka can be viewed as hyper-compressed to the point where we never get a breather episode.

I'm hoping that this is a little different from what Gen usually does, and so far it is.

This is fast for similar types of Sci-Fi Speculative Fiction with Space Opera elements.

So... Maybe you won't like it Firestorm.

But now that the standoff is hopefully over I'd recommend giving the show at least until the characters get the opportunity to properly interact.

That's a good point, I generally prefer fast paced, compressed plots, so I'm just impatient. Though I seriously can't see how the characters are interesting, like, not even on a surface level, the main dude is a bland cipher, the mechanic girls seem to just exist for fanservice and while I like the robot, he's basically Bender/HK-47/other wacky evil robots. It just feels very staid and lifeless.

But yeah, I don't want to shit on anyone who enjoys it, I'm just not feeling it so far, which saddens me. I'll probably stick to the end anyways since a good friend of mine is loving it.

edited 15th Apr '13 9:48:03 PM by Firestorm

Maybe if you aren't feeling it then take a break from it and watch couple of episodes at once in a couple of weeks and see if it's more to your taste.

The main dude isn't bland, he's composed. The fact that he's reacting so calmly to all of this tells you what kind of life/training he must have had. The contrast between his cold military perspective and the Gargantians is the whole point of the entire series so far.

Also, not sure where you're getting the idea that the AI is particularly "evil". ...that line alone makes me think you're looking at the series in entirely the wrong way.

The fact that he saves the people because it has a use as a bargaining chip is already an insightful look at his character. Bland is the wrong way to describe him

I dunno about evil, but it would be funny if he was a little trollish.

In that butlerish way, knowing exactly when to say "I leave it up to your discretion, sir".

I can't call it more than a creative interpretation unless they consistently play it like that though.

edited 15th Apr '13 9:55:05 PM by UltimatelySubjective

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure where the Chamber/Bender comparison came from. Recreational drug use, maybe? A head injury?

edited 15th Apr '13 9:55:25 PM by Savoie

While it certainly hasn't done anything evil yet, I don't tend to trust Urobuchi-written forces of pure rationality, personally.

We'll know something's up if it offers to make a contract.

No, wait, that's Valvrave. Oops.

Maybe that's why I like Valvrave more so far, it's fitting my Madoka With Mechs needs much better.

And lol, Bender just came because I was bringing up robot types to compare the AI with, it's not a great equivalent though, yeah. Also like Gilphon said, it's a Urobuchi work, it's automatically untrustworthy to me

I'll probably take Moonmeh's advice for watching it, I do want to give this a chance and I dig the worldbuliding, just the first two episodes left me cold.

edited 15th Apr '13 10:10:44 PM by Firestorm

A) We've been told what happened B) Anything capable of changing Earth's orbit would be massively apocalyptic C) That'd require an orbital period of centuries to match what we've been shown

edited 15th Apr '13 10:22:11 PM by Hylarn

Though unlike Firestorm I am pretty into the series, I do agree that Ledo/Red isn't a very interesting character so far. Emotionless pragmatic child soldier isn't exactly a new archetype.

And to be honest, the tone has been slightly on the blandish side so far, compared to one of the other shows I'm watching concurrently, Attack On Titan.

edited 15th Apr '13 10:32:02 PM by Scherzo09

How is he emotionless?

I also like the touch of him collecting alien teeth and carving them.

Well he hasn't really emoted at all so far. I mean he isn't Heero Yuy levels of sociopathy, but he's a mecha protagonist we've seen a dozen times before; the consummate Child Soldier who's forced out of his element and becomes a Defrosting Ice Queen.

Scherzo you always articulate things better then I can.

He seemed pretty shocked when he first got outside and saw what kind of world he'd ended up in.

Oh hey Firestorm.

And I do understand if you are finding it a bit slow. Maybe it will pick up soon in episode 3. After all, that's when Madoka got really good.

edited 15th Apr '13 10:40:22 PM by LDragon2

Surprise is not really an emotion.

To put it another way; why should we care that the protagonist gets back to the Galactic Alliance? Why should we care about what happens to the people on the Gargantia so far for that matter? Because he's the hero? Because they're nice?

I mean, I am enjoying the series so far but I do get complaints that there's no stakes or real investments in the characters yet.

edited 15th Apr '13 10:44:20 PM by Scherzo09