RideBack

[Munsu]

Trying to hype this series a bit since I think this might be one of the hidden gems this season if done right. It's a seinen series, and that automatically makes me biased towards it since it's a target market that is quite infrequent in anime.

I read the first volume of the manga, and it has quite a few interesting characters that will make this a fun series. There's also a good balance between college life, political/social/war dilemmas and consequences, and probably some racing.

A bit disappointed to see anidb listing this series as 12 episode long as the manga is currently 8 volumes long and ongoing. I hope they don't take any shortcuts just to fit their needs of a compressed story.

First episode RAW is out for those who want to get an early peek:
http://www.anirena.com/viewtracker.p...nload&id=18377

Anyways, I have a bit of high expectations for this one. Looking at the trailers it seems to have good animation. I hope this doesn't end dissapointing me.

From Shogakukan:
In the year 2020, anti-government student movements are raging again. Having encountered a two-wheeled robot named "Rideback" modeled on a human being, Rin Ogata rides on the "Tetsuma", and the world's destiny begins to change!!

http://www.rideback-anime.jp/
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...anime&aid=6235
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ency...me.php?id=8049

Edit:
First episode out by Infinite-Zero:
http://a.scarywater.net/infinite-zer...4).mp4.torrent

[Kraco]

A good first episode. The background setting for the world is ridiculous, but I suppose it will play some fundamental role later in the show. Since it looks like a military junta world rule, the whole motorcycle (or rideback rather) theme may suggest freedom seeking in general. At first the rideback looked a bit ridiculous in the beginning of the ep but the last bit made it a lot better. Though I wonder why they opted to have a normal internal combustion engine and not some fuel cell technology since this seems to be well into the future. Maybe for the extra grease, eh?

I also at first thought Nana Mizuki would be far too soft and gentle sounding for a motorbike gang member, but when her character's actual indentity was shown, it made perfect sense.

[Munsu]

I only watched a couple of minutes of the RAW, and the introduction and how things go about are changed from the manga. I'll see it better when I watch the fansub later today. Changes are to be expected if they're really thinking of a short series, which I would really dislike, but it should be good anyways.

With that said, liked the art and the animation... made me think that they should make an anime about ballet, as lame as it is. Seemed to me that they put some money into this series, so that's always something that shows promise for the series.

Edit: Merging Posts.

Sorry for the double post, but I just watched the subbed version...

I really liked this first episode, the changes are welcomed and they still retained a scene from the manga (when she first sees the RideBack Club). There was a bit more comedy in the dialogue in the manga, but it's fine because of the atmosphere they wanted to create in the first episode, and some comments later in the episode (like the panties line) hints to me that we'll see some of the funnier dialogue later on which usually comes from the engineer in the club.

As said before I like the art and animation. Even though I hate CG, I thought it was handled quite well in this episode from what I noticed. I enjoyed the OP and ED too.

[Ryllharu]

It was different, but not in any bad way. There was a different approach to a some of the events, and more information at the beginning. The only thing I found a little surprising was that it doesn't seem she entered the theater department at all. It was a much better approach if they are trying to grab an audience in the first episode, especially of a short series. The first volume was a lot slower paced, easing her into getting on the Fuego. But with the way they presented her when she was doing ballet, rushing into things is more appropriate.

The art and animation reminded me a great deal of Makoto Shinkai films. There was a very good mix of CG and traditional animation.

I liked the little embarrassed flash her eyes made when they turned the engine on, and then the crazed look she had as she leaped off the cliff.

No surprise the OP went untranslated. Any MELL song is totally incomprehensible until the lyrics are published.

@Kraco: Why internal combustion? The vibrations obviously!

In all seriousness, the largest disadvantage to all-electric and fuel cells is added weight. Batteries or the cells no matter how high tech they are today, are no where near as energy dense as fossil fuels. Currently, we make up for that with added weight of more of them. If the RideBacks are mostly used for racing by enthusiasts, they want them to be as light and as powerful as possible.

EDIT:

I loved the interfaces on the RideBack. I thought it was one of the most well designed things in the episode. If they made motocycles like that, I would immediately go buy one.

[Kraco]

In all seriousness, the largest disadvantage to all-electric and fuel cells is added weight. Batteries or the cells no matter how high tech they are today, are no where near as energy dense as fossil fuels. Currently, we make up for that with added weight of more of them. If the RideBacks are mostly used for racing by enthusiasts, they want them to be as light and as powerful as possible.

It does contain significant battery power already as all the initial movement was done with batteries, not the engine. Actually all things considered that's a bit odd. A normal motorbike has no other use for the engine but to power the rear wheel and a small generator, but this thing can transform and has arms and everything. How do those gain their power? It would seem electricity would be far more logical than any mechanical means (like the rear wheels of our day bikes).

But aside from that detail a fuel cell is using chemical energy just like an internal combustion engine. Only it doesn't burn it for mechanical energy but oxidises it to produce electricity directly. The efficiency should be much higher. And it wouldn't produce vibrations, noise, or air pollutants (like oxidized nitrogen and particles), and it would be far more maintenance free.

But I guess those things I listed as negative are actually really important to real bikers...

[Ryllharu]

Fuel Cells actually aren't very efficient. The hydrogen inside them has to come from somewhere, and the only method for mass producing hydrogen is electrolosis. Unless you have a fusion reactor on the end of the chain, you use more energy to fill a fuel cell than you get out of it. Once it is inside, sure, they are cleaner and more efficient.

That still doesn't avoid two other problems. They are heavy, as I said before, but they are also very expensive. Even assuming hydrogen is cheap, the catalyst that allows the reaction to occur is not. Platinum is the most commonly used one today, and one of the least abundant metals on Earth. (.003 ppb)

(I went to a university that had a huge fuel cell research facility. We were pretty much forced to learn about them.)

[animus]

The beginning of this episode kinda got on my nerves for a bit. But the RideBack segments relieved all that, and I enjoyed the rest of the episode. It was quite relaxing.

[Yukimura]

'Wow' sums up most of what I have to say about this ep. The show just looks sexy, the premise seems like it could be cool in several different ways, the main character seems quite agreeable to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why, and of course the RideBack scenes were just awesome. I was a little distracted trying to figure out how the thing transfers rotational motion to the wheels but once she started doing tricks I stopped caring and just marveled at the implications and potential fun that could be had with such a machine.

The show looks like it's got a solid foundation and I can't look forward to the rest of the series any harder.

[digitalrurouni]

You know I just stumbled upon this show and am grabbing the first episode of it right now. Looks to be very interesting!

[Kraco]

Ryllharu, I'm seriously beginning to think the term science-fiction is alien to you... If we assume nothing develops from its current state in the future, it'll be an annoyingly boring and uninspiring future. And when the oil seriously starts to run out, it'd be folly to convert other far more inconvenient materials into gasoline for the inefficient internal combustion engines, especially for things like cars and motorcycles that could be easily powered otherwise. Although it wouldn't be the first time mankind does stupid things but still.

[Ryllharu]

This is going to be a little off-topic...apologies in advance.

Ryllharu, I'm seriously beginning to think the term science-fiction is alien to you... If we assume nothing develops from its current state in the future, it'll be an annoyingly boring and uninspiring future.

Science fiction is actually one of my favorite genres (far and away actually) but I've started to lose a lot of faith in inventors and scientists due to patent trolls/squatters, horrible government oversight, and corruption and hubris of [certain] scientists.

Innovation has been utterly stifled by patent squatters. Patent reform in America needed to start a decade ago. There are companies and people out there, who file for the vaguest of inventions or innovations, and just sit on them for a decade. Once someone starts to make money off of something they actually created and developed into a viable source of income, in sweeps the patent troll to the Eastern District of Texas to file a claim. Some ridiculous percentage of claims are filed there assuming the defendants will never show up. It's finally gotten so bad that it is hard for anyone to create anything innovative because patents are so broad. "A method of converting files to a viewable format on portable devices," is an example of the language these trolls get away with. There's no specifics listed below, just this.

But my bigger problem is with government oversight, corruption, and top-heavy adminstrations. Of course this means NASA. Once the pinnacle of innovation, due to both budget constraints and admins determined to see their pet projects be the only choice, they've turned into a joke. They gone from a set one of the biggest dreamers, boldest pioneers, and quickest innovators to a bloated, stagnant organization that can't even do what they were once capable of. While the programs like Cassini and the Mars Rovers do some amazing things, manned spaceflight has become a joke. They are so set on the Constellation Program, that they won't even consider better alternatives. All of these problems the system has were solved 40 years ago, but NASA can't even duplicate what they did.

Lastly, there are things like the Space Elevator. There is a lot of progress being made to try and make this more than a pipe dream. But I don't think the state of nanotechnology will ever be good enough to create the ribbon the crawler is supposed to go up. There are plenty of alternatives to make space development cheaper and faster, like Launch loops, but the only thing that ever seems to get any press is the space elevator. There is of course tons of merit in developing things that don't ever seem feasible in today's world, that's what innovation is all about. However, there is no reason to completely ignore other viable alternatives that we could build today, though admittedly at great cost.



So to bring this back towards the topic, yes, I do think we needed alternative fuels yesterday. We could easily rebuild the electric grid once battery technology gets back up to spec (see patent troll section, or how an Oil company owns the patents to the battery out of the EV-1 all-electric vehicle) and build enough nuclear power plants (or other high-capacity, base load, non-polluting sources) to get all of the United States on functional electric vehicles.

For racing though, until we do get that battery technology down to lightweight, high-capacity alternatives, fossil fuels will still be a better choice. Everyone else that doesn't need to go 0-60 mph in 3 seconds (or even 8) should be using all-electric. RideBack only takes place in 2020. Assuming there is a war and these same problems I listed above still exist, then I wouldn't expect there to be all that much innovation (aside from the obvious inclusion of ridebacks, which were developed quickly due to their use in war and support from the government, as the episode mentioned).

/rant

A RideBack would even be easier to build if it was using electric motors. Drop the motor into or right at the wheels themselves and you can get the same arms-and-legs appearance. No need for complicated linkages or other dangerous mechanical components. Then the internal combustion engine would only serve as a generator.

[MFauli]

Except for the fact that i dont like it that the lead character is female, great first episode.
And it instantly makes me want to play a game based on these RideBack-machines. I loved the scene where she discovered that the machine reacts to all of her movements, haha.

[Yukimura]

@ Rylharu: There are inventors in countries that aren't America. Maybe in the future one or some of those other countries will be leading the cutting edge of science and invent the really cool stuff for the rest of the world while our scientists flee to avoid letting their talents wallow in bureaucracy.

Anyway, I think you had a good point about electric motors in or near the wheels. That could explain how the engine can be in the torso and the wheels can still have all that power with no obvious signs of direct rotational motion transfer. I hope we'll get to see military-grade RideBacks at some point though, I can only imagine how cool a skirmish between two RideBack mounted cavalry forces might look.

[Sapphire]

Series en Fuego? Hell yeah!!

I was going to wait until I've seen more episodes, but I think I'll stick in my two cents now. Maybe this season has a LOT to offer, but if I thought Kurokami was disturbingly beautiful, I think that RideBack is twice as so. I began to be drawn towards this series from a single picture of the manga, and an odd description of a post war crisis. It seemed interesting to me.

After downloading the codecs enable viewing, I sat there in shock and excitement at the opening monologue and it's following scenes. WTF BEAUTIFUL!! In most other anime or even science-fiction books I've come across, if there is political turmoil, the main character is immediately thrust in the middle. This is a fresh approach. Yeah, all of that shit is happening, and it effects her, but not directly. She has her own adventures for now.

I've always been a fan of dance, and if she can dance with her robot, that's even more breathtaking and beautiful to me.

[RedneckNoob]

I was absolutely filled with joy watching this once Rin started riding the Rideback. Lately, I've felt I had become jaded and nothing could entertain me anymore, but once she got on the Rideback and lost control I realized I was mistaken.

It was really interesting to have a quiet girl be a heroine, and I'm wondering where it's going to go with her riding the Rideback. I immediately saw the two possible stories of "underdog against the government or rising through the challenges" and "replacing x sport with y sport". So far, it feels like either would be good. I'm hoping for a minor (very minor) romance plot to accompany the main plot, just to see how the characters evolve.

[Ryllharu]

@ Rylharu: There are inventors in countries that aren't America. Maybe in the future one or some of those other countries will be leading the cutting edge of science and invent the really cool stuff for the rest of the world while our scientists flee to avoid letting their talents wallow in bureaucracy.

True, but I'm just going with what I know best. If you want to use space development as an example, the ESA is far too conservative to make use of their full talents. The Jules Verne ATV is a marvel, but the ESA seems really paranoid about losing any astronauts, so I doubt they will ever perform a manned mission. They just get the US or the Russians to shoot them up instead. The Indians were a total surprise to me, I'm really impressed with what they've done with the Chandrayaan-1 in so short a time. But ultimately, I believe the Chinese will make it to the Moon first before the Americans get back there.

But...there is a huge political motivator there. China has been very desperate to prove they are a growing dominant world power.

I hope we'll get to see military-grade RideBacks at some point though, I can only imagine how cool a skirmish between two RideBack mounted cavalry forces might look.

I'm having a bit of trouble imagining it for some reason. They showed the military force just rolling straight through, blocking attacks with one arm and shooting with the other. However, with Rin and the grumpy guy at the controls, we saw what RideBacks are really capable of. I bet some would just charge in with them, but more skilled riders might be something else entirely...

[digitalrurouni]

For those who are in to motorbikes, I am sure the first scene where she finds out the bike reacts to her is something you can relate to. I ride whenever I can and its a feeling I dont think I will ever get used to It just rocks!

[Ryllharu]

The separate groups once known as Froth-Bite and Ureshii joint effort for Rideback. Should be better subs than I-Z.

[Frostii]​ RideBack​ -​ 01​ [720p]
[Frostii]​ RideBack​ -​ 01​ [480p] (mp4)

[animus]

And here I thought, that there was gonna be a link to episode 2. Boo.

[Ryllharu]

Same thing I thought when I saw the link on tokyotosho, sadly.