It depends on how one defines deterrance

(ZnT II complete)

I suppose it's easier to non-fatally deter an army of 70,000 as opposed to an army of 7,000,000 [1]. It's also a lot harder to pick out commanders in such a crowd. Sometimes, one just has to kill a bunch of Red Shirts. Or put them to sleep. Who knows. I've stopped caring.

An otherwise powerful finale ruined at the end, etc. I have nothing further to add.

[1] Maybe it was a typo on the translator's part. What's two zeros anyway? Myths tack on a zero every time they're past from one generation to another. Enron did it for lulz.

Continue Entry......

Zero no Tsukaima Futatsuki no Kishi: A whiff of betrayal

When Zero no Tsukaima's first season was still airing, I stumbled across a thread that summarized events in the light novel up to its seventh volume. Since they never took place in the first season's run, and with no guarantee of a second season at the time, I proceeded to forget about most of it.

What did stick with me was the underlying conflict that pervaded the later volumes, which boils down to pacifists against warmongers when set in a comparatively backward and primitive era. This may or may not sound something like the premise of Zipang.

In other words, Zero no Tsukaima Futatsuki no Kishi could have had a promising, coherent, plot, except J.C. Staff has generally chosen service over serious, backing away from the darker undercurrent that began to take hold in the later episodes of the first season.

Sure, service sells and trivializing the overall story with undeveloped side plots has probably turned out to be pretty profitable for all involved, but I do get a sense of frustration having seen even a high-level view of what things could have been. I think I understand a bit what it must feel like for a fan of the source material to watch such a gutted adaptation.

Continue Entry......

Zero no Tsukaima: Futatsuki no Kishi

The first season of Zero no Tsukaima started strong, but the story really began to drag after the Staff of Destruction arc. The second season, now at the halfway point, just continues the aimless wandering with war as a backdrop.

Kirche and Tabitha continue to be conveniently timed assistance, reduced to bit roles following the RPG [spoilers!] arc. To some extent, the Valliere sisters are their replacements. Saito's lecher act has gotten old since he never gets away with it, nor does he try to stand up for himself like he did earlier in the first season.

As far as actual events go, they are all related to the pending war, but they could be related to anything. Add to that the isolated feel of each episode, and you get a show that makes for disengaging viewing. I don't care for the war because it's so distant. I don't care for the events themselves, since they are generic situations where war and other related words are thrown in because the writers think that the viewer will automatically start caring.

If they had a longer episode run, could they have done a better job adapting the source light novel series? Perhaps. But as it stands, ZnT II is just like any other predictable sitcom, with magical elements, and the word war thrown in as a value-add. At the end of each episode, the writers push the reset button, absolving themselves of the need to write effect since it took so much effort to write cause in the first place.


I totally don't know who the Flame Snake is. Every time Colbert-sensei has a flashback involving a village, and fire, I stick my head in a conveniently placed hole in my floor.

In the first series, we all knew that the secretary was the thief, that Wales was sketchy, etc. Only the first example was forgivable because it was an excuse to deploy a rocket launcher. I don't think anything Colbert does, now that he's gone from badass mofo to pacifist zen master, will quite live up to the satisfaction of seeing an RPG applied to a sand golem, but anything less will only solidify this series' mediocrity.

Continue Entry......

Zero no Tsukaima

Source NSFW, but oh so funny

(Originally 11 Oct 2006)

Zero no Tsukaima started off favourably. It may horrify you to learn that I find groin kicks hilarious. I might think differently if I were on the receiving end of one, but it's one of the best forms of slapstick humour.

The series could have been a commentary on challenging nobility and authority figures, since here was a character who didn't really possess any magical ability yet could hold his own in a fight with a magical noble.

Towards the end, it just kind of fell apart. There wasn't much of a plot linking episodes together, other than Saito getting his ass (or other) handed to him. But it had an intriguing backstory, with the mysterious interactions between the magical world and the real world, and how it seems that the real world totally beats the stuffing out of magic. The scene in which the Staff of Destruction is deployed, primitive as it is, was really well done, which is to say, it was as badass as Shiro Amada using the same weapon against Zaku MS' in 08th MS Team.

Likewise, the Dragon's Raiment use was satisfying despite being an incredibly lopsided battle.

Towards the end, the secondary characters were reduced to some bail-out squad for whenever the leads got into otherwise inextricable situations. And the villains were meh. The final story arc was half-hearted, standard let's take over the world, lose the war in the very first battle fare. I was struck by the lack of any real premise, but I suppose people do wake up one day, get together, and declare that they want to take over the world for the hell of it.

Apparently the light novels are really good, from which the material for the anime was derived. The series needed more than 13 episodes — the light novels haven't even concluded, currently weighing in at 9 volumes.

Continue Entry......