Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by OshareKeiji » Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:25 am

MrHolister wrote:It's not like I'm wanting ridiculously long bloody climactic battles.. The show is about fighting robot girl toys, albeit in a slice of life observant sort of way... Asking them to devote more than 30 seconds to a combat scene is not making it like every other shonen. I guess what I'm disapointed in was is how the first few episodes included neat battles in between the hi jinx. Like the battle with Yda and Ach.. epic. The food battle with the octopus.. epic... even the "race" episode had a decent fight scene. I dunno, it just seems lacking in the last half of the episodes. Not violence, but them actually using their armor and stuff.. ya know, the stuff they are marketed with.. Sorry if it sounds like a rant, because in all honesty, I do enjoy the slice of life over just straight shonen, but things like the "Date" episode" and the Christmas episode were just kinda dull for no reason. Just my opinion though..
Those two were service episodes for the going-on-thirties-and-still-no-girlfriend crowd, which comprises more than half of the show's target audience.

I should know, I happen to be one of them.

Besides, since the games already demonstrated it to death, they thought the battling aspect is pretty much passe. They marketed moe appeal for the express purpose of raking in new followers. Despite the prevailing love for robots, mecha musume is still a niche platform even in the local scene.
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by Storm Wing » Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:21 am

MrHolister wrote:I'm surprised they used color variants and copy images in the crowd image instead of more diversity. It's not like they could run out of shinkis.. The beetle girls, Juvisy, Mk l Arnval or Strarf, Werkstra, etc. But I'm just glad a big group of characters got some recognition..
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by MrHolister » Sat Dec 15, 2012 12:38 pm

OshareKeiji wrote: Those two were service episodes for the going-on-thirties-and-still-no-girlfriend crowd, which comprises more than half of the show's target audience.

I should know, I happen to be one of them.

Besides, since the games already demonstrated it to death, they thought the battling aspect is pretty much passe. They marketed moe appeal for the express purpose of raking in new followers. Despite the prevailing love for robots, mecha musume is still a niche platform even in the local scene.
And they were also the first three episodes (Clara/ Strarf, -Octopus, Mao, Howling/ the girls - Ach, Yda / Clara, Hina, Arnval). So telling someone there is free cake, then putting a dead fish in front of them is hardly fair. Again, I'm not wanting the show to be violent, I just enjoy some compelling drama. The Shinki slums was a good episode, and I really felt it was a neat story..

I watch a LOT of other family friendly slice of life animes, aka, A-Channel, K-On!, and Ika Musume (squid girl) to understand the idea of what slice of life is supposed to be. Thing is with them, the characters do what you kind of think they should.. ie, squid girl is totally clueless to how the surface world works, hijinx ensue..or the girls in A-channel worry about a test or going to the beach or something.. so I would kind of expect shinkis to at least have some dialog about their armor, or see at least some of them (obviously not the main characters, because they are using them as a CONTRAST group,..which is the story arch up to this point with Hina, who doesn't get it...) but falls short because they don't really show a good enough contrast. I like the fact the main character's master doesn't fight them, but it stands to reason a LOT of other people would. And this is a tournament episode.. at least show little snippets of other battles, if no other reason than to fan the geekdom flames.

It would be like if they came out with a Gundam series where the mobile suits hung out at the mall and sipped tea and went on dates.. (that might actually be kinda cool actually..lol) Or Godzilla holding down a full time job as an accountant. Either one might work as an idea,..IF they still continued to show what the characters were originally known for.. That's right, ahem,..fighting. Busou Shinki were never marketed as Barbie Dolls, nor is there a video game where you can save Santa (and even the Santa character has big freakin guns) or one where you use the characters to fly around putting themselves in senseless danger just to bring their master lunch?? Sometimes it's slightly comical, but you are taking a line of characters called "Armament God Princess" and basically having little girls write each episode.

Anyways, not argueing, cuz to each their own, I just would prefer better cohesive theme or keep the show going the way they aired the first few episodes. Regardless, I like this a lot more than most of the ultraviolent stuff out there, so I'd rather it stay the way it is than turn hyper violent or something..
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by OshareKeiji » Sat Dec 15, 2012 1:46 pm

It doesn't seem like an argument. More like a healthy debate, really.

The thing is, Konami seems to be perpetually on the fence on what they want the feature to be: Hardcore action will make it too intense (and would invariably stink of the same cheap quality as those kiddy series that actually hard-sell toy lines), and moe appeal alone will make it irrelevant and nonsensical.

So they tried a little of both, but couldn't render the gray area they achieved with the games.

Moon Angel was baby steps shy of looking like shonen fare, so when the time came for the TV anime, they cast Rhihito as a passive nerd with no interest in battling. Since he wasn't around most of the time, the main 4 take majority of the spotlight with the other shinki types appearing here and there.

IMO, the lack of other mainstay master characters (save for the collector dude who came in just now) made for the thin plot points and nonsuch. In the Battle Masters game, you can see how the master's personality rubs off on the shinki, creating either a like-minded partnership or an owarai-style foil relationship.

In the end, all we got is a show that tries to be a lot of things at a given time, but doesn't fully shine in any one aspect. This was mainly done to widen the target audience beyond the following already established by the figure line and games, after all.

It didn't end up horrible, but it never reached the point of being hype-material.

All that's left now is to see how the ending will salvage the lopsided ensemble.
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by MrHolister » Sat Dec 15, 2012 2:32 pm

OshareKeiji wrote: IMO, the lack of other mainstay master characters (save for the collector dude who came in just now) made for the thin plot points and nonsuch. In the Battle Masters game, you can see how the master's personality rubs off on the shinki, creating either a like-minded partnership or an owarai-style foil relationship.

In the end, all we got is a show that tries to be a lot of things at a given time, but doesn't fully shine in any one aspect. This was mainly done to widen the target audience beyond the following already established by the figure line and games, after all.

It didn't end up horrible, but it never reached the point of being hype-material.

All that's left now is to see how the ending will salvage the lopsided ensemble.
Agreed.

I started to think they were gonna have the other masters be more influencial when they showed pics of Clara's master, and then the ghost master, then the pics of Mao's master.. It would have been cool instead of Ann dating her master, to instead maybe have a funny awkward episode where the main characters and Clara try to hook up their prospective masters. That would have been an entertaining story, and the slice of life hijinx would be decent fare. Who doesn't love the "awkward blind date scenario". As it stands, we don't get the vibe that their master even cares about girls (albeit a few girl posters..) but his social life might be a good area to draw believable drama from. The shinkis wanting their master to be happy, so they try to hook him up kinda thing.. instead, we just see a fanatical longing on the shinkis part for their own place next to their master. They could have even had this be an interesting arch by having the shinkis be jealous of their master getting a girlfriend..etc.. instead it just kind of comes off...creepy?.

I'm excited about the next episode and hope overall whatever makes the decision for another season happens, I just hope the prices of the toys levels off soon... $900 for a Mrk ll Arnval on Ebay is just ridiculous...lol.
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by Adventwings » Sun Dec 16, 2012 11:40 am

MrHolister wrote:On that note, I'm surprised they used color variants and copy images in the crowd image instead of more diversity. It's not like they could run out of shinkis.. The beetle girls, Juvisy, Mk l Arnval or Strarf, Werkstra, etc. But I'm just glad a big group of characters got some recognition..
Well, there is that issue with animating... or even drawing that many shinkis is a serious pain. With a deadline to meet, you just can't get that kind of diversity without sacrificing personal health. And even then, they probably can't even make the deadline with that kind of sacrifice. Pallete Swap saves time, money AND headaches.

Been there, done that. Didn't keep the T-shirt.

There have been a spat of QUALITY animation this episode. I hope its only temporary.

OK, that aside, let's go into the story. We can now confirm that Hina is not the Strarf model who won last year's tournament. Now we get to see what happens with memory-wiped shinkis. Though that postcard does seem intriguing...

P.S., Whatever you do, don't believe for a second that even a white Arnval Mk.II FA Package is worth that much. I'd put her around 300 USD at best. At least that's how much it'll go for on Yahoo!Japan Auction.
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by Klinkin » Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:38 pm

Interesting episode, but I agree that the lack of fight scenes is a squandered opportunity. Moon Angel gave us a taste of the kind of epic fight scenes you can play out with Shinki, but ultimately dropped the expected Shinki-vs-Shinki finale for some human-sized robot...thing. I also doubt we're going to see a truly epic fight scene when we see Ann vs. Hina. I would also argue that it's entirely possible to write a series with good, frequent fight scenes without making it bog-standard shounen fare; Fate/Zero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and the Rebuild of Evangelion movies all have excellent fight scenes, though they're all rather darker in tone. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is one series that I can think of whose tone and fight scene quality/frequency would probably fit Busou Shinki well.

I was really hoping Clara was going to put up a better fight this time around; if she's been training all year, you'd think she'd have something to show for it. Really, the only thing that's gotten her this far seems to be determination. Comparing Devil MkII and Siren models, you'd think Clara would actually have an advantage; a Siren's agility should allow her to avoid melee combat with Devil types and keep up a constant barrage of medium-range fire and wear down the heavy armor of the Devil type through constant attrition. I would attribute it to Victoria just being that good, but Clara runs into the exact same problems when fighting less experienced Shinki; Yda manages to pull basically the same thing against her despite being fresh out of the box, and Ann can match Clara if given a reason. Maybe Rihito and Ann participated in some battling when they were younger? We'll see if Clara gets to do better next episode; hopefully she'll be able to take out more than just a few drones.

Speaking of the tournament, I was given the impression prior to this episode that it was basically a Shinki little league; stock configurations only, the second-place Shinki gets beaten too regularly to be actually good at battling. Honestly, I'm going to stick by that even now; the venue looks too small for anything larger than a regional event, and given that it's only a single-day event and there's no signs of any preliminaries prior to it (and honestly, there's no way Tanami could get through preliminaries), I think that Victoria's master is just being a jerk and rubbing his superiority in the face of people by entering an experienced battler in a small-time amateur tournament. It seems well within his personality to do that, and would explain the large power gap between Clara and Victoria. I seriously doubt Victoria could win that easily on a professional level.

Fubuki's master is officially a ghost. I think the studio forgot Busou Shinki is a sci-fi series.

As for monitor Shinkis being special...I'm guessing they have either special Big Brother-style surveillance equipment so parents can check in (hence the term "monitor") or some extra pre-loaded subroutines to be better able to watch over less mature humans and Shinkis. Doesn't quite explain why a famous Shinki collector would want a monitor Shinki so badly as to straight-up steal one. Maybe monitor Shinkis are pre-equipped with military-grade combat subroutines? Hina seems a little too good at fighting for what would essentially be a babysitter. It's been brought up before that Rihito's Shinkis get in life-and-death situations rather often; I think Hina's supposed to be preventing that (which makes me wonder why they would choose a Strarf for monitoring duty, since all Hina wants to do is polish her weapons). I'm also not sure about the rejection letter, but since we don't see the full thing, I'm guessing Hina never read the full thing and missed something important. Bet we see the full letter read in the first part of the next episode.
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by MrHolister » Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:08 pm

Klinkin wrote: I was really hoping Clara was going to put up a better fight this time around; if she's been training all year, you'd think she'd have something to show for it. Really, the only thing that's gotten her this far seems to be determination. Comparing Devil MkII and Siren models, you'd think Clara would actually have an advantage; a Siren's agility should allow her to avoid melee combat with Devil types and keep up a constant barrage of medium-range fire and wear down the heavy armor of the Devil type through constant attrition. I would attribute it to Victoria just being that good, but Clara runs into the exact same problems when fighting less experienced Shinki; Yda manages to pull basically the same thing against her despite being fresh out of the box, and Ann can match Clara if given a reason. Maybe Rihito and Ann participated in some battling when they were younger? We'll see if Clara gets to do better next episode; hopefully she'll be able to take out more than just a few drones.
Agreed. +10000000000000
Klinkin wrote:
Fubuki's master is officially a ghost. I think the studio forgot Busou Shinki is a sci-fi series.
Very disappointed in this. There was no reason for it. It's extra pointless plot kibble for no reason. Plus I'm not a fan of supernatural anime. There are far too many. For a slice of life anime, it has no real place unless critical to the main theme. This will probably keep me from buying the series when on DVD.. (Or I may buy it but have someone edit it and make a legal {because I bought it} copy for me,...sans ghost parts..)

Back to the episode in question.. Clara was beaten very badly. It was just ridiculous at this point. I was sooooooo excited to hopefully see her put up some kind of fight. Even getting beaten was expected, but not in less than 20 seconds..
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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by halconfenix » Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:17 pm

after watching the subs and reading everyones opinions everything can be resumed like this:

- hina is a monitor shinki, that somehow ended up in rihito's hands... but what's a monitor shinki in the first place?
- so the yellow eyed strarf is called victoria and is as evil as she looks...
- although this is a small tournament i seriously doubt it's just stock equipment, victoria still has MK1 strarf blades on her head
- my best guess is that the first match (and by extension the rest of the tourney) was a set up to attract and test hina, how else would you explain real missiles??? poor Ia and Mary...
- if that shinki collector isnt voiced by hideki kamiya then... i better not say it....
- forced memory wipe and and upcoming battle... possibly strarf vs strarf by the end... although i would like to see ann mop the floor with victoria for what she did to hina...

too bad ep 13 is going to be dvd only... *sigh*


EDIT: someone out there in japan must have been a fan of ShadowDragon's comics because... Nitro Jelly can make a shinki drunk is now canon.
Last edited by halconfenix on Sun Dec 16, 2012 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Busou Shinki Episode 11 - Spoilers of the Strarf kind

Post by Sonja » Sun Dec 16, 2012 2:01 pm

Adventwings wrote: OK, that aside, let's go into the story. We can now confirm that Hina is not the Strarf model who won last year's tournament.
That was confirmed in episode 1 when we saw they had different eye colors, and again a couple eps later when Clara met Hina saying "You're... the same model of Strarf that beat me!" indicating Hina wasn't (who we now know as) Victoria.
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