Darling In the FRANXX (Trigger/ A-1 Pictures collaboration)

If they stick with Norse myth there will probably be only two humans left to recreate the entire race and Hiro will be a dinosaur

Okay this series using Norse Mythology kinda pisses me off.

I've recently played the new God of War & I'm in the mood to treat mythology a bit as a sacred cow.

edited 26th May '18 10:10:09 PM by slimcoder

The God of War franchise takes a lot of liberties with the myths though, even back when they dealt with Greek myths.

So i don't see how they reference the Norse myths here is a deal breaker.

And they're not as bad as marvel.

Difference: They use there liberties to create a truly compelling & epic tale (well in 4's case at least) of redemption & family.

Here its just babies are important & teens need to fuck, that's it.

But here it's not supposed to be a story about Norse Gods.

Heheh yeah.

I'm just joking here here.

Why are you guys assuming Zero Two is a clone of the princess? I was under the impression that whatever is in the test tube at the end is the clone.

Oh shit Omega might be right

I'm still not quite sure I'm understanding the problems some of you have with the show? Is it because it focuses less on the backstory and setting and too much time on slice-of-life hijinks?

Okay, let's talk about the show's message since a lot of people jump into bizarre conclusions, I'd try to be more careful this time with my tone.

The show is kinda opposite to Kiznaiver, while Kiznaiver was about being a part of a group and emphsizing with others, this show is about individuality.

APE are opposing individuality, you are either an "adult" or "parasite". You are not defined by name, gender, orientation or anything else. Just a number. The "infamous" anti-gender speech is not a political message against minorities, but literally the bad guys refusing people to identify as their percieved gender (the literal opposite of what people are thinking it meant). Ikuno thinking she is weird for having feeling towards girls is not a dig against gay people but an indoctrinated child getting into a crisis about her being different from the norm despite being told her whole life she is the same.

Speaking of which, I'd be not surprised if parasites who are percieved to be outside the norm in cases of gender and orientation were either emotion-scrubbed or outright killed, to have an "homogenous" environment for the parasites.

As for the babies, it's not some grand pro baby message (which I guess is now a political thing). Not only because if it was then the main characters and the other couples would have tried to conceive. Being married and having kids is not only defining yourself but also gives you someone more important than PAPA. Not to mention that it goes against PAPA's absolute control, all are big no-no's. And trying to criticize indoctrinated child soldiers for wanting to have something in the world after her death seems very tone-dead.

Now let's talk about APE and Franxx. Both are inhuman beings and who are a mishmash of political ideologies: There are social ranks (adult, parasite) like in Nazi Germany and the indian castes. Franxx is a Dr. Mengale expy with his atheism a reference to Communism rejecting religion. Suppression of self identity is on communism. PAPA is the whole knowing father figure like in Communism and Nazism and the indoctrinated child soldiers are like the Hitler-youth. So basically, the show's message is "self identity is important", Anti-authoritiism and "care about the environment". Not very right wing or left for that matter.

The show itself is pretty damn good in showing the oppression and manipulation the kids go through and only the reasoning how the world got where it is is kinda lacking.

Also, about the group accepting the offer in the end of the episode (or anytime a character doesn't know tropes), remember that they don't know tropes (or likely any fiction that encourages thinking too much or being betrayed) and were brainwashed their whole childhood.

edited 27th May '18 2:56:12 AM by haseo

EDIT: Malformed post.

edited 27th May '18 4:25:57 AM by Iaculus

True. Logically the issues caused by immortality would start becoming evident after at least a generation or two instead of what seems to be a mere decade.

Speaking of those problems, it's something that strikes me in a lot of sci-fi settings, notably those where robots end up replacing humans in the workforce: the fact that the governments don't consider for a second that major reforms might be needed to adapt the economy to such a massive change (cf the latest Quantic Dreams game). Nope, they just let unemployment and poverty explode, 'cause what can you do. Though in the case of APE it seems to be either deliberate, or just that they don't care.

That is a staggering amount of things you got wrong.

Ok, I want you to read what you just wrote, but paying attention this time. In all seriousness, though, the problem here is not that the speech itself is intended to be a political message, but the fact that it unintentionally comes across as one due to the circumstances surrounding it.

Same thing here. We know it's not, but she is still the only gay character in the show, and treatment of her has been underwhelming, to say the least.

It's exactly a grand pro baby message. Japan is currently having issues with that exact problem, the show frames situations in such a way that everything look connected to that, and the very prime minister of Japan has approved this show's pro-childbirth message (This is not real. My mistake. Ignore it. The thing about the prime minister, I mean. I stand by the rest of my point.). It's not political in the sense of discussion, but it is political in the sense that Japan's very government wants this message out, and the studio apparently agrees.

It's not because something is the show's main message that every main character has to be a part of it, much less at the same time. Defending it, opposing people who attack it, there are many ways to get a message across.

Ok, first: Mengele was not an atheist. Not only is there no evidence to that, he was from a catholic family, at a time where almost the entire population of Germany was lutheran or catholic, identified himself as catholic in registries, and followed a group that had a lot of religious justifications in their beliefs and the pope's initial approval (though he rescinded that by the time the war began). Second: Communism is not by nature atheist or anti-religious. Some strands of communism are, such as China's thing or Marx's utopic communism, but many of the versions actually introduced into the world were, in fact, very religious. Third: No, suppression of identity isn't on communism. The idea of communism is to have a society that is more egalitarian, attempting to avoid the absurd concentration of riches in the hands of few to try and bring moderate riches to all. The implementation of this ended up being botched because humans are greedy, power-hungry people who decided to use this to build tirannies and authoritarian dictatorships, but by nature, communism is very much not against individualism.

Fourth: There is no all-knowing father figure in communism. Again, it's a product of how horrible people implemented the idea, not a product of the idea itself. Fifth: Nazism does not possess an all-knowing father figure, it possesses a hatred for a specific set of people. Hitler had a cult built around his image, yes, but that was because he was a power-hungry dictator, not because of nazism. Nazism was the tool he used to build his cult around him. You will notice that nazism has survived until today without any current all-knowing figure, just a lot of hatred.

No it isn't, to both things. The show makes hamfisted attempts at showing manipulation, mainly by showing that they brainwashed a bunch of people from childhood to serve them without question and by rewriting the memories of kids who disagree. However, they botch this by only doing it to the offending individuals and not everyone who went alongside them (and later claim this was a smart tactic seconds before it is visibly shown to cause dissent amongst the others), and even the ones who do obey and commit suicide are shown to have doubts before doing it. You want to know who pressured and manipulated people well into serving them? Satsuky Kiryuin, who had an army of unquestionably loyal, similarly looking meat shield people who would follow her every order and did so, no questions asked. Also, a lot about this show's reasoning is lacking, such as APE opposing individuality but having their personal squad being the only other people besides the protagonists to have actual identities, and strong ones at that.

They don't know tropes, but they can damn well tell that Papa doesn't have their best interests at heart, and the confrontation itself shows that, with even Zorome, the one most defensive of Papa, breaking down and accepting the truth. They're seeing people who ordered soldiers to storm a happy moment, forcibly take two people and hurt anyone standing in their way, then brainwash the people they took out of a difference in belief, and who they've just confirmed have lied to them for a long while, and their decision is "yeah, we'll trust them one more time". That's not brainwashing, that's plain stupidity. Brainwashing would have prevented them from questioning anything in the first place. Also, Hiro remembers soldiers saying he could be killed in Zero Two's retrieval because he was "just one of the kids", and yet he acts as if that entire day never happened.

Whew. That was a long-ass post, sorry.

I give you a D-. Go study some more, and bring me the essay back again with your corrections.

edited 27th May '18 7:31:37 AM by TheLovecraftian

Are even really sure in what you said was objective or just being arrogant?

Objective with a hint of joking to avoid things from getting too serious. Did it come across as arrogant? I do that sometimes without noticing. If it did, I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention.

I'm not sure if I caught it in the episode, is there an actual reason why the doctor's name changed from Frank to Franxx or is it just something that happened as time went on?

edited 27th May '18 5:42:24 AM by Nouct

@ Lovecraftian: The Shinzo Abe approving of the shows Pro birth message isn't real, its a meme that just happened to start circulating on the internet.

Let's stop the Not Real Communism© Meme, ok?

Second point. To be fair, almost all dictatorships in general are based on the idea of a powerful Strongman (or woman) figure that leads everything. The degree of how much is variable from system to system, but an idealized leader? That's a common feature.

edited 27th May '18 7:32:48 AM by KazuyaProta

Really? I thought it was an actual thing. My bad. I'll amend that on my post.

My point remains on it this series making a big pro-baby argument, though. They have been very unsubtle about it, and the real life context of Japan being very worried about it's birth rate declining makes this a very topical thing to bring up.

There's a meme for that? (What am I talking about, there's a meme for everything.) I wasn't aware. I wasn't providing some kind of meme or defense, I was just making the point I spoke of. Communism does not have an all-knowing figure by nature.

Precisely my point.

What the hell even is this Not Real Communism meme?

edited 27th May '18 7:35:25 AM by TheLovecraftian

All the versions that did actually manage to impact the world were very anti-religious.

Dunno but...atheists aren't a persecuted minority, at all, only if you live in a uber religious region.

Plus, this is Japan, I'm sure that Franxx atheism is to make him more sympathetic than the vaguely abrahamic APE

Is a meme because a answer to a lot of the failure of Communist ideas tend to be "It wasn't real communism", which while technically true, it don't allows to exactly critique the flaws of the ideology.

Communism is one of the things that don't work unless you really brainwashed everyone to follow it. And until we got a safe brainwashing machine, I remain wary

edited 27th May '18 7:38:47 AM by KazuyaProta

Oh. No, that wasn't my intention at all. Communism is flawed as fuck. It's an idealistic and utopic idea that doesn't stand by itself when put to practice, because it necessitates humanity to be this perfectly selfless and idealized version of itself according to Marx, something that it's never going to be. It requires us to let go of several things that are emblematic of humanity, good or bad. It's an interesting theory, but not something that should actually be pulled off. It wasn't great when it was invented, and it hasn't aged well at all.

I was just saying that it wasn't by nature atheistic.

That is true. Doesn't mean communism is atheistic by nature, however.

I... never said it was. There is some prejudice against atheism, sure, but it's nowhere near the level of persecution, unless in super-religious places, as you mentioned. But I never made an argument for it being so.

edited 27th May '18 7:46:20 AM by TheLovecraftian

The hell happened while I was gone?

Anyways, just saw Episode 19...It was alright. But agree with the backstory being a little bit contrived as fuck. And I thought Hiro and co would instigate a rebellion against Papa... Then again, I'll agree with someone that they are pretty much heavily indoctrinated by PAPA... Then again, I just wait for the last 5 episodes which I need to wait until 2 weeks.

But what if...it's actually a Batman Gambit by Hiro?

Then again you're probably right as in the final moments on Episode 18...There's a scene where Hiro said that he don't want to follow Papa anymore. But I'm not sure if the rebellion could happen...But let's just look forward for two weeks

@The Lovecraftian, my reply I likely won't continue in it since it seems you made the best effort to be rude as possible (and saying you're joking doesn't excuse the snide tone), by paragraph order:

1. But even if you look at it in the unintentional manner it's just the horseshoe theory in full swing of a controlling group don't let other identify as themselves.

2. How should be treated exactly? Should be lesbian like Nina in Code Geass? Should she get more screen time despite her being underused like most of the cast, strictly by the virtue of her sexuality? if anything, she behaves like you'd expect a kid in her position, be very quiet and avoid conflict out of fear of rejection. It's the old catch-22 of writing gay characters, either people will complain of them being too gay or not gay enough.

3. Except people here took it as political attack despite it (if it really is political) only concerning Japan.

4. Then you can take every line a character takes and frame it as the gospel, if it was that important it would have been more than a plot line to emphasize APE's control.

5. I never said Mengale was an Atheist. Also, Communism is anti religion at its core ("Opium of the people") and it will always logically be accompanied by rejecting self identity since you can't have full equality if people define themselves as different from people (I know, #notTrueCommunism).

6. I meant more of how the ideas were put into practice in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, though once again, Communism will always end that way due to being a terrible ideology.

7. Different people different taste I guess. Also,Satsuki was kinda shit until she got her relationship with her mother and then she wasn't a pure villain sue.

8. In general it's for remarks on how the cast behaves oddly. Currently, we don't know how the team will behave and whether they'll run away the first chance they get. Plus technically they got a warning before "storming the wedding scene" so it's not like they lied.