Real Drive: RD Sennou Chousashitsu

[Munsu]

First episode out by Shinsen:
http://a.scarywater.net/shs/%5BShins...5D.mkv.torrent
http://bt.shinsen-subs.org/%5BShinse...5D.avi.torrent

This is probably the series I've been waiting most for this season. A Production I.G & Shirow Masamune, responsible for some of our coolest animes around like Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.

The story takes place in 2061, 50 years after humanity developed the "Net society" that depended on information networks despite their security issues. To improve security, a new network called Meta Real Network — or "Metal" for short — was developed. People's personal memories are reduced to information and placed within "protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves" called bubble shells online. The result was a virtual "explosion" of creative freedom as people felt safe enough to explore instincts and desires on Metal that they would not otherwise explore in real life. This "friction" between the Metal's alluring lack of restrictions and rules-bound reality led to trouble and incidents that investigators known as "cyber divers" must handle. Masamichi Haru is one such cyber diver.

http://www.ntv.co.jp/RD/
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...anime&aid=5538

[Board of Command]

Ugh...no H264 version? I'll wait a while and see if there will be other groups releasing this. I try to avoid Xvid whenever possible nowadays.

[Munsu]

Same here... I see no reason why shitsen keeps releasing these xvid episodes.

[Death13a]

I understood about 20% of what is going on.

[NeoBear]

yeah i guess i should have stayed in school stuff like this is way over my head i didnt get much out of this. visuals and animation details are very well done though

[Ryllharu]

If you watch a whole hell of a lot of Ghost in the Shell, and the various movies, and browse through at least some of the manga sequels (Man-Machine Interface) it makes a little more sense.

RD just skips all the terrorism and police work and goes directly for the existentialist elements that are much more pronounced in the three films and the Tachikoma character development parts of the two series.

Let's see if I can work this out, since it only made any sense to me after about 90% of the episode.

- Humanity developed the Meta Real Network system. A networking "society" as the description states, but more of a super high level internet. This allows nearly everyone, especially those equipped with cyberbrains to connect all the time and interact. Not too different from the networks of GiTS, but somehow deeper than that.

- Problems develop, sometimes manifesting themselves in the real world, sometimes flooding people with an overload of information, as we saw in the opening sequence and at the end with the hospital.

- To discover these problems, they send cyber divers, since exploring a system like this, quite poetically a "sea of information" much like the Internet today, they first began employing real world divers, like Maru. His was more of a prototyping procedure, to see if "diving" into the Metal would be similar to diving in the sea, and tracking how this procedure would work by recording brainwaves. In the 50 years since, it has advanced significantly, and androids or cyberbrain enhanced humans can do it easily.

- Maru was crippled by the incident where the problems in the Metal manifested themselves physically. The incident left him comatose for 50 years, and he's now paralyzed as well. Since awakening, he has used the android Holon to dive and record for him, looking for answers to this problem, hoping that recreating this dive would let him get evidence of the phenomenon to determine it's origin. This is not unlike some of Motoko's actions in Man-Machine interface if you've seen that, or Motoko going into the "Solid State Society" (if you know who was controlling it, being vague to not spoil that movie).

- Minamo, a girl with a great deal of "intuition," finally gives Haru the encouragement he needed after waking up paralyzed. There's really no difference in his condition if he really thinks about it. As long as he still has the will to figure this whole mess out, he will be able to overcome any of his physical shortcomings.

- At this point, where the system is going haywire, Haru remembers her words and it clicks in his mind. He can access the system anywhere, as proof of the pain the phenomenon is causing in his head due to the cyberbrain, and because "diving" into the system is a mental and metaphysical thing, he is not limited in any way. His brain is still fresh, his mind sharp, and his will do figure it all out is once again burning bright instead of smoldering thanks to Minamo. He dives into the system feeling as he once was, and the episode ends there.

...Well that certainly cleared things up for me. If you were as confused as I was until I wrote it all out, maybe this will help you too.


Definitely watching this one. Ayako Kawasumi is always good, I remember Katsuji Mori (Haru) from some of the series he's been in, and the way the actress playing Minamo really brightens the series in a pleasant way. Love her haircut too.

What was with the Secretary-General? Lazing on a couch thrusting her large "assets" around? I highly doubt that is the way business should be conducted, but this is a Masamune series, that might not even be real. When they said she was calling, I was expecting a Kayabuki (GiTS SAC 2nd Gig Prime Minister) not a Tsunade (Naruto).

[Munsu]

Ugh...no H264 version? I'll wait a while and see if there will be other groups releasing this. I try to avoid Xvid whenever possible nowadays.

Well, they released an h264 version now:
http://a.scarywater.net/shs/%5BShins...5D.mkv.torrent

[Darknodin]

If you watch a whole hell of a lot of Ghost in the Shell, and the various movies, and browse through at least some of the manga sequels (Man-Machine Interface) it makes a little more sense.

RD just skips all the terrorism and police work and goes directly for the existentialist elements that are much more pronounced in the three films and the Tachikoma character development parts of the two series.

Let's see if I can work this out, since it only made any sense to me after about 90% of the episode.

- Humanity developed the Meta Real Network system. A networking "society" as the description states, but more of a super high level internet. This allows nearly everyone, especially those equipped with cyberbrains to connect all the time and interact. Not too different from the networks of GiTS, but somehow deeper than that.

- Problems develop, sometimes manifesting themselves in the real world, sometimes flooding people with an overload of information, as we saw in the opening sequence and at the end with the hospital.

Metal wasn't even built/finished in 2012. Whatever happened then though is the same thing that happened in 2061.
Metal might be a subnetwork or the successor to the network they were diving in in the beginning (if they were even in a network).
at any rate, the sea we see in 2061 seems to be artificial...

btw, the animation is really top notch and I like shows that go this deep! and how world could look like that VERY soon!

[tnynyn]

Cool, I love animes done by Production I.G, their artwork and animation is really top notch.

[Ryllharu]

RD Sennou​ Chosashitsu​ -​ 02​ (HD, h264)
and because some of you somehow still like them:
RD Sennou​ Chosashitsu​ -​ 02​ (.avi)

What a kickass OP. Reminds me of System of a Down to be honest, and the trippy animation goes perfectly with it.


Well they made Minamo cute. Really Cute. Slightly more and I might find her incredibly annoying, but maybe it is the very wide hips (at least as far as non-Shirow Masamune art goes) that balance it out. On occasion it's hard not to smile when she's on screen. She's just so determined and driven.

But it is her "intuition" that is really scary. She seems to be so in tune with the world that it's almost like she's the Puppet Master of Nature. Can practically communicate with the wind, enough to know she shouldn't climb Ayers Rock, can imagine the ocean without ever seeing one, and knows when the wind is coming. She also knew exactly where to go before Haru even lit up the track for her. I wouldn't expect a girl who more or less is acting as a nurse to read the schematics intuitively (since she self-admittedly despises math and probably related sciences because of that) and know that it means a defunct power station is down there. That's downright creepy.

I can't wait to see what she makes of Holon whenever she gets back.

[Pyro411]

Thank you for posting ep 2 Ryllharu. I think people like the AVI because they have computers pre 1998 w/ onboard video or something.

My Pentium 3 933 w/ a voodoo 5 5500 played most h264 files fine till it got hit by lightning in memory of my classic gaming rig...