I agree with Kraco. I prefer characters with realistic mindsets over of the absolute-good-guys out there, e.g. Kenshin. I find them easier to relate to because as young adults, we sometimes feel the same things these characters do. Like...if someone cold-bloodedly kills your family, you won't consider the negative effects of revenge and the morals of killing another human being. You're gonna want to hunt that bastard down.
I'm not trying to start anything, I'll remove it if anyone objects...but,
something I found interesting... something about this scene was bugging me for a while, I think I figured out what it is...
My point was, that the hero is far, far from being a realistic character. If you wanted a realistic character, you would probably get a Shinji (sp?) as in NGE. That one probably comes very close to something realistic as a child(!) that murders people andg gets both psychologically and physically affected.
Im not sure if youve ever seen child-soldiers ( your deduction on weaponry in the other post, should have made it your interest though ) but they have become mindnumb over a passing of time. Its not something you get by being in an almost "peaceful" world and than the next day killing ~20 people without blinking your eyes, no, even smiling after.
Im just saying, however unrealistic the character is, they dont balance it out properly. They want to make him a hero, yet he has the properties of an anti-hero. I'd hate to have a shinji, its the thing that ruined NGE for me, but I also enjoy a little bit more clarity on how our hero really feels and thinks. So far, all we have is a chessplayer that kills people off strategicly.
Im sure we'll continue this discussion after 3 more episodes.
First of all: You will never see me admitting Shinji from NGE would be the realistic case. And I wouldn't even pretend to be impartial. If Shinji was the most realistic case, mankind would have been doomed for a long time...
However, right now I don't even need to be unfair. Shinji was several years younger than Lelouch, wasn't he? Lelouch should be, I reckon and unless I'm mistaken, close to being an adult already. And as it seems he has harbored a deep grudge for a long time and has likely seen his share of pressure and bad things, not to mention he has seen the circles of politics first hand, so it's likely he actually is, in certain ways, more mature than many with more years but with less developed minds would be.
If you draw forth an extreme example like Shinji, it's just as reasonable to say Lelouch is in fact the opposite example, and quite capable to do what Shinji never would have been. With humans, one thing is sure: Everybody's different and ready to do quite different things to reach their goals right from the beginning, not to mention at such a relatively late age.
Yeah, I indeed noticed that as well. An interesting detail. Hard to say if it's purposeful or not. However, as long as it's not actually planes crashing into high buildings, I won't really pay any attention. I personally think it would be hypocrisy to make all the twin towers around the world somehow untouchable. And hypocrisy is not a way of paying respect to any victims.Originally Posted by Church
I think you're forgetting that Lelouch received some superhuman power from the green hair girl. That power seemed to have come with another personality. If not, then for a kid who has held a grudge for many years to suddenly receive a power like this will surely make him eager to use that power to "bring justice."
Shinji was in a very different situation. He was just a regular kid living the regular adolescent life in a good world until he was transferred to NERV. Then everything collapsed.
The kid that claims not to pee his pants when facing giant aliens that rip you apart, I sir, call you a liar ^^
But than again, hes an extreme because his mind is fucked up on every stage of the anime.
Ok for realism, I think Gantz comes close. Weak yet strong, strong yet weak. The human mind thinking about things like sex while youre being beaten to pulp. I think and never hope to come close to experiencing this, that however stupid Gantz evolves, the beginning is definately close to realism and you know it
Now we go back to the current anime. Realism -> my ass <- Different characters ok, different personalities, yes. Different takes of pain, danger, excitement. Yes.
2 Boys, pro and antagonist becoming from scratch, powerfull beings. One by mind, the other by physics ( realism anyone ?:P). These are flat characters. Flat characters dont evolve. They have not evolved the last 3 eps even though they experience a couple serious things. Now Im not even sure how long this anime is supposed to be, but having this idea of realism in your head ... its all fake. Realistic is only that which comes close to your world of experience and is probably also slightly influanced by what culture you come from.
I cant support my way of thinking about realism, like, finding realistic anime is a desperate search for the impossible, but you should be able to tell yourself that. Besides, Our Dutch movies usually exell in realism and really..its boring ..very boring.
Too much talk, too little to say again. It could all be perfectly put into a couple words.
Realism? get off drugs.
If you want absolute realism then go somewhere else like maybe...reality. From episode one I could tell that this wasn't an anime that was meant to convey realism in either plot or characters. While the characters seem meant to act in ways that are understandable or predictable, especially from the mindset of an anime fan that has sampled nearly 100 titles.
When I see mecha I know that they will probably be paired with young characters with little to know training doing extremely complicated maneuvers that no ordinary human mind could make a physical body perform (even with augmentations to increase physical strength and speed). Along those same lines I don't expect the characters to act in a way that I think anyone could act, but I do expect they'll act in a way that I conceive that a person would act, if they were missing a few key aspects of most human psyches.
Last edited by Munsu; Wed, 11-01-2006 at 06:12 AM.
Exactly my point, Kraco talks out of his ass ^^ there is no realism ^^..which is good..reality is fucked up.
P.S I think you meant to "tell"me something, but I was saying exactly what you said, just in other words. Kraco keeps moaning about the realistic mainchar, when its not there..its utter bull :P
Eh? I was about to drop out of this useless argument already, but now I seem to be on the receiving end of personal offences...
My sole point in all of this was that a main character who doesn't refuse to kill his worst enemies is more realistic than some generic goody-good boy who refuses to kill an enemy who every day torments him and kills and tortures his friends. Fiction didn't invent killing and grudges. The realistic humans did. A long time ago.
And anyway, you seem to be able to totally conveniently miss the comparative form of adjectives when you read posts. Otherwise you would have noticed I wasn't talking about absolutely realistic characters but more realistic. Well, nobody's perfect.
Im sorry I did get a bit out of my normal ways and might have tried to put a blunt insult in there too :P
On the other hand, when you claim to be watching a "more realistic character", one might ask to what background you hold it.
If you in general watch all sorts of crap anime, I suppose the mainchar here would seem a lot more realistic.
Ok there I go again :P, but what I mean to say is, you cant argue that something is more realistic, without explaining why, in comparison to what, reflecting upon ? Claiming that this character is more realistic than a Naruto is pretty obvious. Theyre in the anime to fillfull a roleplay. More realistic than One Piece I'd say hell yeah!, even though I enjoyed every bit of the manga, laughed and shed a tear here and there ( sucker for drama ) , I cant claim any of those characters evolve very much. Or for that matter, they dont really need much realism to get through their adventures.
So..assuming you are talking about the "general main-character of todays animé " Maybe Im just a little bit lost here. I dont watch sports anime, so I cant contribute on that matter ( cant imagine they suffer alot of realism though ), however, Hellsing , has absolutely nothing with realism. One piece..nope..Naruto..nuhuh.. Tokko, started off pretty good, I anticipated a psycho animé b/c of the first scene in the first ep , went bad around episode 3 to degrade to the level of Guyver. Then we have this BUTTload of crap that had something to do with cloning NGE but doing it completely BAD with a semi-link to something erotic in the form of a merge when making the perfect warmachine. Enjoyed the first ep, the rest was dead before it hit the ground. Mainchars so far ..nothing fancy.
Next up, Blood+. A better storyline, a slight bit of Shinji Syndrom on some occasions, some doubt in some episodes, grabbing more than just that which is obvious, so all in all, I would call this a "more realistic main-character" if I compare her to the rest of mainchars so far
...what else is up, oh yes, some blue lantern guy which for realities sake, Im not even going to discuss.
Death Note , one of the most promising animé at the moment. Something to truely enjoy watching. Main character has a Kami-syndrom , but than again, we don't really always agree with his solutions, or even strongly disagree, so its not the standard hero-behavior you have in anime such as Escflowne/Kenshin . An anti-hero, coming close to the most fascinating main-char Ive seen so far. Except for Griffith in Berserk, but he was fascinating b/c we knew something would happen..that it didnt add up.
Back to Light and realism. Why does Lights position of being an anti-hero add up and why does the Lelouch...whatever guy ..character not ?
The whole picture matches. We have a brilliant person ( deducting that from the fact that both are supposed to be extremely intelligent ), gets the highest grades in school. Smiles when he has to smile, emotions on a button sort to say. No friends whatsoever, yet he is admired and can wrap anyone around his finger if he wants to. Bored to the bone looking for a way out, he creates himself an illusion of a peaceful world by his hands. ( if I gave things away, I never read the manga (past a couple chapters :P), so dont shoot me )
no we go to Lelouch. Had some crap in his youth with Japan being take over, so the hatred starts from there. Grew up in a protective society, in fact, overprotected because of his sisters disabilities and has as far as we know, not laid a hand, physically, on any person in his entire life. He is probably meant to be almost as brilliant as Light, perhaps on a different field. But life has given him everything. He has plenty of friends, a luxery appartement, hes in the board of school and he occasionally likes to make the English blue blood look stupid. Next thing we know he by accident and not by his own choice, gets involved in a conflict. His mind is apparently still set on revenge, because the sweet DNA fragment picks him as her new host. BOOM character change. He kills off a couple guys, organizes the entire rebel resistance, walks himself into the mainship, chats with his halfbrother, puts a gun up his face and blows him to pieces..the head that is.
He understands everything thats going on, by pure instinct and his strength in strategic thinking. He then returns to school, completely unharmed, no scratches, no psychic impact. Not a single nightmare.
This can only point in two directions. 1 of them is bad character design, but most anime suffer this and its something everyone is accustomed to. The other is having multiple personalities, which entirely leaves realism out of the question.
No..I dont think hes more realistic.
And dang, I enjoy a debate, havent posted here for a long while( Im more of a viewer in general, but I heat up over the worshipping of this anime when its quality is simply put, poor , thats also why I attacked kraco a bit head on. He seems to be glorifying it and defending it fiercely )
Alright. When you sum it up like that, I have to admit the whole sequence of events Lelouch went through was somewhat unlikely. I guess I forgot the transition from the student to the manipulating killer in an instant, when he received the superpower. Aye, that's right. I have to admit that was a weak link, and might have been caused by the script trying to save some time by not gradually making the dude the killer he is now.
Well, on the other hand I never thought this that deeply. I was only referring to the rather superficial fact that he doesn't have some lenient version of Asimov's law hardcoded in his brain preventing killing his enemies. So, that's the only thing. Otherwise he might very well be quite unrealistic as a personality. I won't try to deny that.
However, considering the settings, he might need to be like that. Death Note is, in a certain sense, located in a world that tries to represent our world, I think. It's much easier to write a realistic character in such settings. To twist things a little, if Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had won the world war, and after that we would have experienced somewhat peaceful period of time and much technological development, only overshadowed by a different kind of cold war, then personalities like Lelouch would have been a bit more likely in the real world as well.
To be truthful, I'm not really interested in really realistic personalities, other than not having the kill block. I enjoy mostly fateful characters in stories. Characters that just do what they want, which is also what they need to do, yet at the same time that's the only path for them. Those characters aren't often the exact main characters of shows, though, but the second characters or so. But this should explain why I didn't like Shinji at all: He was almost the exact opposite to what I want to see.
Yeah NGE seriously got pwned by the overdramatic maincharacter ^^.
In general Im watching anime to lose connection with reality for a moment. I am a dreamer. Thats also the reason why I cant enjoy sports anime. however beautiful it is for some people, I dont envision myself a supersportsman
Im quite fascinated by human behavior and Im often told I push people to the edge. I grew up being pretty violant. Well..I wouldnt harm a fly in my normal state, but when I exploded, you didnt want to be near 20 feet with me. Overcoming that, I had to change an anger I apparently have into something positive, so I had to learn to deal with it over a longer period of time. Im not violant anymore and I didnt need any counceling to do it, just willpower. Nowadays when I do explode, I usually look very scary, but I only get verbal.
Somehow, Im drawn to anime with a high emotional feel to it. Not that Im a sucker for romantics, far from it. But things like friendship, honor, lost relatives, memories..well things along that line. I love to watch those. They drain me a bit and somehow enable me to stay in touch with the real me. As if Im in cry-therapy
I didnt feel a thing watching this 3 episodes and thats basically why I disagree(d) with you. I personally say Im quite sensitive about it :P
On to Deathnote 5! :>
And episode 4 is released and the fans go wild!
Torrent
An interesting episode. Looks like no matter how carefully and thoroughly Lelouch plans, he can't predict the human factor, after all. Well, at least he got himself an outfit that makes him look like a masked dracula...
Looks like Karen doesn't suspect anything. But that being the case, has she lost all interest in Lelouch? Will she become interested in Zero? Will we have some sort of pseudo-triangle..?
And most of all, what manner of role will Suzaku have? Will he become an enemy for Lelouch? That would certainly be interesting, but even though Suzaku might not agree on the methods Lelouch is using, they are still on the same side, and it would be somewhat unseemly for them to fight each others, thus wasting their powers.
wow... I took a break from posting and it already has a huge debate? I'll read it later when I have time.
I didn't really expect Suzaku to follow Zero that easily, their thoughts are different, thus their actions are different, but they sort of desire the same goal; I guess the worse case scenario Lelouch would have to use his power on Suzaku. That, I think, would be the most interesting part, how is Lelouch going to use his power on Suzaku, his friend, and use it only once.
C.C. appeared at the very end, so I guess she's not dead from a headshot... this is going to be interesting.
Btw, what's their connection with Pizza Hut? are they the sponser or something? So far in every episode there's a PIzza Hut sign...
In the future, every pizza store will be Pizza Hut.
over my dead body.....the non delivering bastards
Better episode this one..at least ..I think :P
Yes! I knew she wasn't dead...hopefully Lelouch's powers will get formally explained at the least now.
Nuh-uh, every restaurant will be a Taco Bell(at which point I'm committing suicide).
Finally decided to watch this ep. to see what all the hub-bub was about. And it's pretty good. I just don't see why that girl got shot in the head 15 min. in. But I'm guess she'll get back up and become some immortal zombie character or something. That or she'll act normally.
R.I.P Captain America.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
