Kuromukuro

[shinta|hikari]

http://i.imgur.com/EbwH7VE.jpg

Summary from MAL:
During the construction of the Kurobe Dam, an ancient artifact was discovered, and so the United Nations Kurobe Research Institute was established. Intellectuals from all over the world gathered to study the object, and the children of those researchers attend Mt. Tate International Senior High School, including the institute head's daughter, Yukina Shirahane. In the summer of 2016, a lone samurai once again awakens.


Episode 4 is already out.





This is one of my favorites this season, possibly only behind Kabaneri. I've always been a fan of the badass Tarzan trope, and the Full Metal Panic vibes I get from this is a plus. I also love the sleeveless loli and the samurai style heavy mecha combat. If you haven't seen this, watch the first episode at least. The naked fight scene there is probably the best in anime period.

I can't wait for the blond kuudere to get into the mix.

[Munsu]

Oh, wasn't aware of this show's existence. Don't have much time to browse all releases so all I've been noticing are ones from Horriblesubs (which I assumed covered the whole season).

Getting this now.

[Ryllharu]

Overall, I'd say the story is pretty generic. But it is worth noting that this series is actually done by P.A. Works (Nagi no Asukara, Uchouten Kazoku, Hanasaku Iroha, Angel Beats, and Charlotte).

Despite the generic story, and in addition to the samurai mecha combat shinta mentioned, the actual charm of this series comes from its characters.

Awesome little sister who speaks in samurai dialect, scatter-brained dumbass mother who leads to the whole mess in the first place, swearing American support character, feisty main heroine, and realistic fish-out-of-water hero. But what is actually hard to describe is that they actually all feel like...people. They have natural reactions to the things going on around them, no one is passive and simply goes with the flow of the situation they're all thrust in. They have motivations, beliefs, agency, and personality. P.A. Works took what is their strong suit (characters) and applied it to a genre that most people had little faith in them accomplishing.

And it works. Remarkably well.

There's life to these characters. It's easy to empathize with them right away, and you end up feeling invested in their story (by the books as it is thus far) quite quickly.

[MasterOfMoogles]

One of my favorite shows this season so far.

[shinta|hikari]

Totally agree about the characters, especially bushiloli.

I just hope it doesn't devolve into drama fest, even though i admittedly like drama.

[Munsu]

Watched the first 2 episodes, and looks like it'll be one I'll be enjoying.

Naked sword fight scene was sweet indeed.

[Kraco]

Yeah, one of my favourite shows of the season as well. Now that Ryll mentioned it, he's absolutely correct about the characters. They all possess some depth.

I was somewhat sorry to see the one thing I didn't want to see in this episode: That only sword swings can destroy the enemy. A nuke apparently didn't do anything apart from stalling it a bit. I'd have rather heard it's extreme difficult to defeat them (very few would be willing to rely on nukes before all hope is lost in any case). I hope this will play no further role in the show.

[Ryllharu]

I'd guess it's like Dune. "The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow."

Their gravity shield or whatever works against supersonic bullets or hypersonic explosions, but not so against traditional weaponry.

[shinta|hikari]

Didn't one of the enemy robots die from a cannon to the gut?

[Kraco]

I presume the enemy that couldn't be taken down even with a nuke was one of the head honchos. The other big ones were considerably weaker when Kennosuke and Yukina were fighting them (or when one was taken down by the contemporary humans). The last one standing, that then escaped, was clearly different. I'd guess that one actually had someone inside, the rest were just drones, just like the tiny runners. Albeit they all might boast organic technology.

[shinta|hikari]

Oh, so the one they killed with a team of modern soldiers was just fodder.

Damn, they are so fucked.

[Kraco]

Episode 5 - HS



- - - - ---



I wonder when somebody finally tells the anime studios that attack helicopters don't like to engage the enemy from 50 meters away but rather from 1km or more.

Quite a jolly episode. They are putting the tarzan trope to a good use. Sending Ken to attend high school classes was more or less a haphazard choice, but it would have some real benefits as well. It's obvious it won't give the man much education per se as he must have less knowledge than a middle schooler. In that sense he's only wasting his time there. On the other hand it will allow him to update his language and cultural skills and it's quite wise to stick him close to Yukina. The mecha won't function without both, so it's better if they get acquainted as much as possible. So, those two factors must be the reason why he's there.

I wonder what that male classmate's role will be. He hasn't got a chance to win Yukina's favour, that much is clear, but will he annoyingly hinder the fight?

[Ryllharu]

I'm really starting to wonder what Sophie's deal is. Is she friends with Yukina? Frenemies? Yukina seems to be quite fond of her as a classmate, but Sophie seems perpetually disappointed in her for reasons unknown.

Is it because she respects Yukina's ditz mother as a scientific expert and feels disappointment that Yukina seems to be a normal teenage girl?

We can safely assume that Yukina is somehow related to Kennosuke's lost princess, be it reincarnation or descendant. Perhaps Sophie learned of Yukina's lineage and is disappointed that a noble peer lack the same bearing she does?

Instead we got more cryptic mutterings from her, including displeasure that Yukina was chosen as the navigator to the artifact or the one that opened up the cube in the first place.

I know it is only the 5th episode of 26, but we need some answers somewhere!

We know nothing about Sophie, nothing about the command units of the demons, little about what happened in the past, and next to nothing about Yukina's family. Instead they've just kept adding characters. Male classmate with a crush on Yukina and nurse with a samurai fetish of her own.

[Munsu]

Looks like it'l officially have 26 episodes:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/daily-briefs/2016-05-07/p-a-works-kuromukuro-tv-anime-to-have-26-episodes/.101863

P.A. Works revealed on Thursday that the Kuromukuro television anime series will be two cour and will have 26 episodes. The anime premiered in Japan on Tokyo MX on April 7. The anime celebrates the 15th anniversary of the studio.

Netflix had announced on April 7 that it had the exclusive worldwide streaming rights to the anime. The announcement stated that Netflix will stream the series in other countries at a later date, but did not give any other specifics about streaming debuts outside of Japan. The website is currently streaming the series with English subtitles on Netflix in Japan.

[KrayZ33]

I can't believe how funny this show is... he seriously tried to make his "steed" go faster by screaming "hieyaa, Haaa!, Huaar!"
It looked so silly.

[Munsu]

Episode 5 - HS



- - - - ---



I wonder when somebody finally tells the anime studios that attack helicopters don't like to engage the enemy from 50 meters away but rather from 1km or more.

Quite a jolly episode. They are putting the tarzan trope to a good use. Sending Ken to attend high school classes was more or less a haphazard choice, but it would have some real benefits as well. It's obvious it won't give the man much education per se as he must have less knowledge than a middle schooler. In that sense he's only wasting his time there. On the other hand it will allow him to update his language and cultural skills and it's quite wise to stick him close to Yukina. The mecha won't function without both, so it's better if they get acquainted as much as possible. So, those two factors must be the reason why he's there.

I wonder what that male classmate's role will be. He hasn't got a chance to win Yukina's favour, that much is clear, but will he annoyingly hinder the fight?

The reason he's in school is merely because it'll provide amusing scenes for entertainment purposes. :)

[shinta|hikari]

He's in school to copy FMP.

[Munsu]

In all, very much enjoying this series so far. Certainly among the favorites this season. Still not all that sure about the plot and the villains, have to see how that develops further.

The characters are good and the character interaction has been top notch.

[Kraco]

The reason he's in school is merely because it'll provide amusing scenes for entertainment purposes. :)

UN doesn't possess a sense of humour, so that can't be the reason.

[KrayZ33]

Im using gg-subs btw, is that blonde pilot really speaking like that or are they just trolling, it's hilarious though, so I'm not complaining

"I'll let you off the hook this time, because you were all brave and shit, but if you mess up again, I'll empty a clip of .45 up your ass."

[shinta|hikari]

Trolling.

She was bad ass though.

[KrayZ33]

I meant the guy, the squad leader.

[shinta|hikari]

Oh, possibly accurate or a little naturalized. I don't recall it very well.

[Kraco]

All I can hear from the backgound noise is the number 45, so while I can't say for sure, I think it's at least partially correct. Shinta can verify it for sure if he bothers to check it out: Episode 3, around 17:16 (gg release).

Although he was merely saying that if Ken tries to espace, he'll be unloading the clip up Ken's ass. Surely he didn't use a similar line for a second time, or did he?

[KrayZ33]

Well, he was talking like that all the time, I wasn't word for word quoting him.

Ep3: 19:50 for example, or 17:00 "I'll have you commit seppuku for that!"
I can actually hear the word seppuku, but who knows if that word doesn't mean something else too and gg is just using it for the lulz.

[Ryllharu]

Im using gg-subs btw, is that blonde pilot really speaking like that or are they just trolling, it's hilarious though, so I'm not complaining

The guy is using the rudest language and tone available. gg is embellishing, but not by much. It is primarily due to a limitation of Japanese when converting to western languages, because Japanese lacks a lot of its own swear words because the tone and pronouns do so much of the work.

[Kraco]

Episode 6 - gg



-- -- - - --


Now even the support plane was flying so close that the enemy mecha could extend its hand and grab (or is it crab?) it from the sky... Aren't the creators of this show ashamed?

Not a bad episode otherwise. The fight was pretty good and had some nice details, like stealing the enemy sword. The Earth mecha also used suitable tactics to beat the stronger but stupider headless drones. I'm not yet sure what to think about the very human form of the enemy. Since they were kidnapping people, perhaps the aliens made the kidnapped folks breed and brought the resulting offspring up as ones of their own intending to use them to subdue Earth. There's certain wisdom in initially making humans rule humans, instead of trying to make Earthlings instantly serve some ugly Predator looking things.

I almost hope the two classmates died, like they should have considering the power of the explosion. I doubt they really could have, but it was kind of annoying to watch them do so foolish things. There ought to be a price to pay.

[Killa-Eyez]

Mechabushi.

Rad.

Seems dark haired Japanese high school girls are kidnapped for "research purposes".

Dope.

Where them blacks at?

Misleading anime title is misleading.

Oh wait...

BOOM!

[Kraco]

Episode 8 - gg



- -- -- -



I'm quite disappointed Yukina was written so stupid she goes alone wandering into the woods despite everybody knowing there are still possibly those human kidnapping drones around. Her own little sister was kidnapped previously and only narrowly saved, for heaven's sake. I guess the script writer was enjoying particularly good sake in copious amounts when coming up with this.

Not much else to say about the ep.

[shinta|hikari]

She's a teenage girl. Go figure lol.

[Kraco]

Episode 09 - gg



- - - - -



I keep liking how this is mixing things. We have the dude from hundreds of years from the past slowly getting used to the modern times. Then we have the alien future technology relic mecha. Mixed in between those is the cutting edge human technology that is barely enough to somehow struggle with the alien technology, but also able to be compatible with it by augmenting it like the launch catapult or the pilot suits increasing the MCs' personal safety inside the alien relic. We, the audience, have our own perspective as the human tech, while it's also scifi partially, is still kind of ours, yet for Ken that is also largely incomprehensible future tech not much different from the original relic.

Ken's social skills understandably leave something to be desired by modern standards, but he's slowly getting there. Yukina can deal with him surprisingly well as long as she gets over her own problems. She's a teenage girl, like you said.

[shinta|hikari]

This episode was like a nod to NGE. The emo pilot, the catapult, the sudden teamwork (Asuka and Shinji) between butting heads, and the command center missile support.

I really don't understand the purpose of the two stooges. They are taking way more screen time than their characters deserve.

[Kraco]

I really don't understand the purpose of the two stooges. They are taking way more screen time than their characters deserve.

Yeah. I have no idea about them either. Maybe they are meant to bring some kind of civilian/school relativity in the story. Yukina isn't really a civilian anymore and the school hasn't, in the end, played that big a role.

[shinta|hikari]

Yukina and loli-sister are enough for that.

Yukina is pretty cruel though, turning the guy down like that, and then having a lover's spat right in front of him.

I hope the loli-blonde gets dragged into some kinda harem hijinx with Ken. She's too friggin' full of herself right now and needs some derefication.

[Kraco]

In my opinion he handled the dude well, patiently and gently enough. Out of poor thinking and poor luck he was saying unfortunate things to her. She's the one protecting him, and the whole world, so how is he, a mere high school student, supposed to protect her? On the other hand he was suggesting running away to her just when she realised and decided she's not going to try to run away anymore. The quarrel with Ken was hardly anything new and hardly something the stooge couldn't have expected. He's the one trying to get between those two.

[Kraco]

Episode 10 - gg




- - - - - -



How laughable. I could design better security procedures than that vital facility has. Even those two great idiots who escaped the room where the sword was kept didn't bother to launch an alarm after fleeing. I guess they just headed to the cafeteria to drink tea like nothing was out of ordinary. They should be fired. Another hilarious thing is that this clear enemy didn't have the shock collar while Ken, who has fought numerous times on Earth's side, still carries one.

Other than the author not being quite up to the job, this episode did reveal fairly interesting things, assuming Ken's memories are real. It would of course make perfect sense the human looking aliens actually are humans, like I earlier said, and simply brought up to work as an interface between the alien master species and Earth. Perhaps they thought to use the princess directly but the brainwashing failed, or perhaps the princess was already earlier involved. Ken might be a sleeper agent, although I fail to see any benefit from such, which is why I'd rather think he just got some nanomachines from the princess and is thus able to pilot the relic. The aliens now might simply have cooked up some stories to get rid of him. It remains unexplained why Ken would recognize the man's face.

[Ryllharu]

He does and doesn't recognize him. At this point, I think it is likely that Ken is one of them, part of the lost recon party. A serious brain-bashing injury must have resulted in him losing all his memories, and he just fell into the life of being a wanderer and eventual low-level guard employed at the castle.

The princess acquired the kuromukuro though, and dropped him into it, so she's far more involved that Ken remembers her being. She may have been the one that actually betrayed the aliens. It was her blood that bonded Ken to the kuromukuro, the same way that Yuki was injected by the machine itself. The mysterious figure was also certainly part of the recon party.

I think he was a grunt with the aliens, and later misled by the princess and the mystery figure into helping her betray the aliens.

[shinta|hikari]

I think Ken recognizes the dude because he saw the guy doing recon or something. The brain-stem implant Ken has can be explained by the blood pact he did with the princess. Nanomachines are such cheap plot devices...

Did Ken not have a past? He seems to be fairly sure of his identity aside from the fact he doesn't remember where he saw the scout dude.

[Kraco]

Yeah, so far the series hasn't even suggested that Ken would not have a past. He's not overly forthright about his past, but that's his basic personality and probably even a cultural thing. If he was an amnesiac before a certain (adult) point of his life, you'd think the show had foreshadowed that somewhat. Instead we have been only seeing flashbacks of him being just another regular soldier in the service of the local castle.

Still, it has always been a big point of the story the aliens kidnap people left and right. It's certainly possible Ken had been kidnapped earlier, perhaps at the same time as this new dude, and then brainwashed. Maybe the princess was there as well, but somehow managed to rebel and bring him back with her. Then the aliens came after them. Why would Ken remembered nothing of it, though? No matter what sort of theories I try to come up with, there are always too big holes in them.

Of course it's also possible Ken simply saw this dude randomly walking around. The dude looks like a human and speaks Japanese, so he could have walked the streets as a samurai and nobody would have paid any attention. Doing who knows what, but it's still possible.

[shinta|hikari]

Recon? He is from a recon unit, after all. Maybe they learned Japanese that way. He even knew the sign of surrender.

[Kraco]

Episode 11 - gg




- - - - -



It's still a bit hard to say what's going on. Ken obviously thinks he's just another soldier of the old Japan, and this villain was another one who later joined the demons. The villain dude however think Ken is one of them and later betrayed them and all of his earlier memories are fabrications. It's kind of hard to imagine why he would say such a thing in the middle of a fight if it wasn't true. But if they have the technology to create a whole lifetime of false memories, why couldn't his own memories be in the fact the false ones? Yet the unavoidable detail seems to be that the princess did have the power to assign operators to the relics, so she certainly wasn't just anybody. Was she, in fact, then an escapee from the alien civilization who had taken Ken with her? Later the aliens found her. Or maybe the aliens are like Goa'uld making this whole situation far more messy.

Other than that, this episode had some surrealistic parts. The soldiers foremost were like NPCs from an old game with no AI, let alone a combat AI. The workers as well; a suspicious looking guy was pointing an SMG at them, yet they just kept grinning and talking shit? It's like they borrowed the fricking Kabaneri's director for this ep.

Fortunately the ep had very nice Yukina+Ken development.

[Kraco]

Episode 12 - gg




- - - - - - - - -




Damn, they were made to run even more than Saitama every day. The regimen is beyond cruel. You could see from Yukina's expressions that she's not sure this is the ideal way of spending the summer vacation for a high school girl. Fortunately she wasn't whining, so I guess she has accepted her role fully now. No doubt almost getting killed in the previous ep for being who she is granted her extra motivation.

Ken not bothering to learn to shoot was quite weak, however. He's a soldier, so even if he considers his magic sword superior to ordinary slug throwers, he ought to realise that the more versatile a soldier is, the higher is his power and his chances of completing missions. Not to mention his mind is so simple that a five years old could have goaded him into doing it. It was funny to see Yukina doing it, though. Seems like nobody told her beforehand how to use a gun and what are the safety protocols.

I don't dislike eps like this as they make sense.

[Munsu]

You guys still watching this? We're up to 18 episodes... I'm far behind though.

[shinta|hikari]

Holy. I forgot all about this.

[Munsu]

Holy. I forgot all about this.

What, you're like me and goes to tokyotosho and only searches for "horriblesubs"?

[shinta|hikari]

No, I go to horriblesubs and download directly from there. WTF were you doing all this time?

[Munsu]

No, I go to horriblesubs and download directly from there. WTF were you doing all this time?

Newsgroups.

[KrayZ33]

I have this show on my PC and the folder is named Kuromukuro and every single time, every single day I question myself: "what's this show again? *click* oh yeah, I stopped watching it for no reason, I should start again, it was fun"

but in the end, I never get it going.. I wonder why, because I'm so bored I even started rewatching Mahouka-jesus-rettosomethingsei-Sasuga-Oniisama again.

[Ryllharu]

You stopped watching it abruptly the same reason the rest of us did: gg stopped subbing it. Apparently their translator was having real life issues and just still hasn't come back. Wasn't anyone on their usual crew, anonymous script submissions.

[shinta|hikari]

I thought it just took a break for a season or so. I just caught up to the latest episode. The plot thickens...

[Munsu]

You stopped watching it abruptly the same reason the rest of us did: gg stopped subbing it. Apparently their translator was having real life issues and just still hasn't come back. Wasn't anyone on their usual crew, anonymous script submissions.

Oh? I hadn't noticed that they had stopped subbing until you mentioned it. So they're up to episode 12... And that's the last episode discussed (if you call what Kraco was doing discussing).

Their IRC topic says "DROPPED" =(

Not sure if that's final decision or drop for now kind of thing.

[shinta|hikari]

The subs out there are utter trash. It's wrong half the time, and I'm not even exaggerating. They keep mistaking statements that leave the pronouns out, a typical mistake of noob translators.

Why didn't crunchy or some other streaming service pick this up? It's good!

[Munsu]

The subs out there are utter trash. It's wrong half the time, and I'm not even exaggerating. They keep mistaking statements that leave the pronouns out, a typical mistake of noob translators.

Why didn't crunchy or some other streaming service pick this up? It's good!

Yeah, I won't be watching any random scripts around... does this include the ones that are v3 (HEAVY MODIFIED!) types of scripts I've seen?

[Ryllharu]

Why didn't crunchy or some other streaming service pick this up? It's good!
Netflix has the worldwide streaming rights to it.

I can only guess they aren't putting it up until the series ends. Amazon doesn't have a problem with adding one episode at a time (they did with Kabaneri, they do it with Starz/Showtime/HBO), but Netflix apparently does.

edit:
Netflix has the first cour up as of July.

[Munsu]

Looks like Netflix will begin airing episodes 14+ on October 10, so hopefully that means gg might pick it up again?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-09-23/netflix-to-debut-kuromukuro-2nd-season-in-u.s-on-october-10/.106796