Anime & Manga 4: Brotherhood

[oslecamo]

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Magical defenses can also be cracked by a sufficiently powerful, focused, mundane attack, Kiritsugu's guns are explicitly chosen for the qualities of extreme penetration power to overwhelm mystic shields, or high rate of fire to drain prana quickly.

Additionally, some Masters are much stronger at ritual or preparatory magic than battle-magic. Sola-Ui mainly provides a superior manifestation for Lancer, Waver is basically best at alchemy(and not combat alchemy at that),
Kayneth is well rounded, but runs up against Kiritsugu's own speciality magic. Tokiomi is another well rounded crafter, but defeated by treachery(can't block what he didn't see coming). his wards are based around his house and they never came into play. Kariya was fucked from the outset, as was Ryuunosuke.

So basically the only two battlemages in the War were Kiritsugu and Kotomine, who have significant experience in mage-to-mage combat, rather than being primarily research oriented, or terrible magi.

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Now that you mention it, Kotomine had a nonmagic bullet-proof uniform. Why don't the mages walk with something like that?

Also from what I remember, the only reason Kiritsugu's weapon does work against that mercury barrier was because he was shooting special mageslayer bullets that only he has. The mundane ammo that he uses doesn't seem to even slow down that particular mage (which, remember, whitstood a freaking building exploding over him). He choose a high caliber model because, why the hell not. You don't want a random piece of cover to screw your single special shot.

Finally there's the detail that if you're not a battlemage, the smart thing to do  would probably just to turn paranoia mode and hide in some secret hole while trusting no bloody one but your servant and familiars to work from afar. I don't say they're all sane, but I would expect at least one to behave like that.

[Prime32]

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Now that you mention it, Kotomine had a nonmagic bullet-proof uniform. Why don't the mages walk with something like that?

I think it was a holy item. The equivalent of To Aru's Walking Church.

Also from what I remember, the only reason Kiritsugu's weapon does work against that mercury barrier was because he was shooting special mageslayer bullets that only he has. The mundane ammo that he uses doesn't seem to even slow down that particular mage (which, remember, whitstood a freaking building exploding over him). He choose a high caliber model because, why the hell not. You don't want a random piece of cover to screw your single special shot.

He used the automatic weapons as suppression fire, to force Kayneth to raise a shield. Then he fired a mundane bullet from his Contender so Kayneth would see how strong it was and put all his magic into defending against it when he fired the "make magic explode" bullet. It's stated in the novel that he picked an overpowered gun so that the only way to defend against it would be magic.

Finally there's the detail that if you're not a battlemage, the smart thing to do  would probably just to turn paranoia mode and hide in some secret hole while trusting no bloody one but your servant and familiars to work from afar. I don't say they're all sane, but I would expect at least one to behave like that.

Kayneth did - he rented out half the hotel and filled it with wards and magical guardians, with himself at the middle. And we know how that turned out.

[veekie]

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Kiritsugu's regular pistol bullet DID penetrate the shield and wing Kayneth in the shoulder. It was just that high caliber that it cut through his magic shield(heck, without the shield Kayneth would be short one shoulder), so that Kayneth would when faced with the same gun, dump as much prana as he could into reinforcing the shield.

As for Kotomine's uniform, its actually of limited use. Its simply a magically reinforced Kelvar coat with an enchantment that lets it resist injuries from supernatural assaults. Tokiomi or Kayneth would have punched clean through it with their magecraft, while any Servant except for Assassin would chop clean through it.
Pretty much the only one it'd be of any use against is Kiritsugu, and then not against his trump card. Note that he parries Kiritsugu's shots instead of just tanking them.

[veekie]

A tale of tanuki trolling the FUCK out of a traveler

[Prime32]

Any Berserk fans here? I hear the first movie is out.

[oslecamo]

Loved the manga, never really did see the anime.

I hear Tomoyo was involved in the movie making.

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Anyone can translate me what they're saying since I'm at it?

[Prime32]

Loved the manga, never really did see the anime.

The movie covers the same ground as the anime, or part of it (the Golden Age/Band of the Hawk arc). I know the anime left out Skull Knight and I hear he shows up here.

I hear Tomoyo was involved in the movie making.

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Anyone can translate me what they're saying since I'm at it?

The funny part is how in any crossover Gutts and his gear will be approximately three times more detailed than anything else on the page.

[Prime32]

Vids related to Fate/Zero:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLXTJTcsz5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvODZGQxJtE

[oslecamo]

New Bersek!

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And that's how faeries sacrifice themselves to heal adventurers.

[123456789blaaa]

 So I was surfing the web today when I came across an interesting piece of information: apparentely Arcueid can grow a penis if she needs it, and he was considering have her do it for a sex scene with Ciel.

http://www.tsukikan.com/misc/kanwatsukihime/06.html


"Nasu
 Ah, okay, how should I explain this... (Laughs) Toward the end of 1999, while we were thinking up the plot, we were trying to decide how the females themselves would interact with one another. At that moment I was writing a scene between Arc and Ciel. And I was thinking that in this scene, I would have to end up making Arc the dominant one... (*18) But I'm glad I didn't go that far. (Laughs)"

"*18
 Here he's talking about Arc manifesting a male sex organ for Ciel... that would have been interesting"

[Libertad]

I feel like talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion.  The final two episodes left me confused, while the last 30 minutes of the movie was a real head trip.  I think I know what's going on, and have some theories of my own.  Any of you EVA nerds can feel free to discuss the spoilers for a 16-year-old franchise:

The Final 2 Episodes:

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was Shinji's hallucinations and internal monologues with other characters a result of

1. the Human Instrumentality Project united all human minds?  The voices in his head are actually other people.

2. Or possibly the result of mental contact with an Angel?  In the latter example, previous contact with an Angel's mind usually resulted in an introspective journey of the self as an external force attempts to tear away all illusions to expose repressed psychological flaws and feelings of self-doubt.  The "congratulations!" scene may be Shinji's successful resistance from losing his mind to the Angel.

The Angels:

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1. In End of Evangelion, it's said that Second Impact was intentionally caused by humans.  Does this mean that Adam was intentionally led towards Earth?  If so, then Adam's capture by NERV may mean that humanity was the initiator in the conflict.

2. Was the Giant Rei a manifestation of Lilith?

3. What are the Angel's grudge with humanity?  Are they all sapient, or just single-mindedly seeking out Adam?

The Human Instrumentality Project:

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From what I got, the HIP involves the transition of humanity into a primordial ooze hive-mind.  They believe that this will solve all of humanity's problems, or to start anew.  How would combining all humans into a hive-mind result in a perfect society?  Just because one shares a mind-link doesn't mean that everyone will accept it, or desire to remain together.  If the purpose is to destroy humanity in its current state and start anew, then what's preventing future sapient life from repeating the same mistakes of humanity?

[Kuroimaken]

I feel like talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion.  The final two episodes left me confused, while the last 30 minutes of the movie was a real head trip.  I think I know what's going on, and have some theories of my own.  Any of you EVA nerds can feel free to discuss the spoilers for a 16-year-old franchise:

The Final 2 Episodes:

(click to show/hide)

was Shinji's hallucinations and internal monologues with other characters a result of

1. the Human Instrumentality Project united all human minds?  The voices in his head are actually other people.

2. Or possibly the result of mental contact with an Angel?  In the latter example, previous contact with an Angel's mind usually resulted in an introspective journey of the self as an external force attempts to tear away all illusions to expose repressed psychological flaws and feelings of self-doubt.  The "congratulations!" scene may be Shinji's successful resistance from losing his mind to the Angel.

The Angels:

(click to show/hide)

1. In End of Evangelion, it's said that Second Impact was intentionally caused by humans.  Does this mean that Adam was intentionally led towards Earth?  If so, then Adam's capture by NERV may mean that humanity was the initiator in the conflict.

2. Was the Giant Rei a manifestation of Lilith?

3. What are the Angel's grudge with humanity?  Are they all sapient, or just single-mindedly seeking out Adam?

The Human Instrumentality Project:

(click to show/hide)

From what I got, the HIP involves the transition of humanity into a primordial ooze hive-mind.  They believe that this will solve all of humanity's problems, or to start anew.  How would combining all humans into a hive-mind result in a perfect society?  Just because one shares a mind-link doesn't mean that everyone will accept it, or desire to remain together.  If the purpose is to destroy humanity in its current state and start anew, then what's preventing future sapient life from repeating the same mistakes of humanity?

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Whatever the HIP's original purpose was MEANT to be, it was corrupted by Gendou's designs to become God-like and get back his dead wife. Hence why he noms Adam.

The general understanding about the Angels is that they're less "sapient" and more like drones (it is worth noting the original term for them, Shitou, means "messenger") with a single purpose in mind. The scariest part is that supposedly they share an absurd degree of genetic similarity to humans, so one of the theories is that the Angels aren't aliens but rather the future of mankind.

[Prime32]

I may be misremembering some of the details, but...

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There was an ancient god-like race who created two kinds of Eggs, Black and White, each imbued with half of their attributes, in order to spread life across the galaxy. Each contained a progenitor entity which would spawn similar beings; in Earth's case these were Adam (Fruit of Life/Angels) and Lillith (Fruit of Knowledge/Humans).

No planet was supposed to be seeded twice, but a Knowledge Egg crash-landed on Earth which already had a Life Egg (First Impact). The collision destroyed Lillith's control device, the Lance of Longinus, allowing it to suppress Adam since Adam's Lance was still intact. It bled LCL (El Ciel) from itself, a mass of orange goo which could divide itself into multiple consciousnesses and which came to make up all life on Earth, aka "Lilim" (everyone is depressed because they subconsciously want to return to being whole but their AT Field, aka ego, drives others away). The Egg itself later became known as the Geofront.

Uniting Life and Knowledge would result in a god-like being similar to the creators of the Eggs, and just about every faction is trying to do this in order to achieve their goals; Eva-01 was needed for Instrumentality because it was grown from Lillith while the other Evas were grown from Adam, though I'm not sure if the Angels were aware of this. Yui let herself be absorbed into EVA-01 for unexplained reasons but Gendo can't stand being away from her and wants to hijack everyones' plans to bring her back. Lillith wants to reabsorb the Lilim so she can fight Adam at full strength. Rei takes pity on Shinji (at least the last clone does) and wants to give him a chance not to be a puppet.

Second Impact was the result of an experiment where SEELE tried to use the Lance to control Adam. Some really weird stuff happened, including IIRC some human DNA becoming sentient, diving into Adam and becoming Kaworu.

Oh, and the soul in EVA-02 isn't Asuka's mother, just the part of her that loves Asuka.

[Libertad]

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So, what exactly would have happened if an Angel managed to penetrate NERV's defenses and established contact with Adam?  I assume that since Adam and Lillith are hostile towards each other, it would have resulted in the destruction of all life on Earth (except for the Angels).

[Kuroimaken]

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So, what exactly would have happened if an Angel managed to penetrate NERV's defenses and established contact with Adam?  I assume that since Adam and Lillith are hostile towards each other, it would have resulted in the destruction of all life on Earth (except for the Angels).

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Third Impact, theoretically.

[Libertad]

Found an interesting page detailing notable events and people of Evangelion.

[veekie]

A Surfeit Of Swords

Get your Prisma Illya Today!

[Pencil]

Do you guys have a favorite script writer for anime?
For me the top 3 would boil down to something like: [() are example works]

1. Naoki Urasawa (Monster, 20th Century Boys)

2. Chiaki Konaka (Serial Experiment Lain, Texhnolyze)

3. Hayao Miyazaki (duh)

[Libertad]

In which Libertad still muses on the meaning of Evangelion.

There's something I found odd about Episode 24:

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So SEELE wants to do the Human Instrumentality Project, except that the Angels are the primary threat to this because they'll wipe out all humans if they get to Lilith.  So SEELE gets the last Angel, Kaworu, to infiltrate NERV and mess up Gendo's plans.  Except that he's an Angel, whose goals line up against SEELE's master plan.  Why did they use Kaworu instead of another agent to sabotage NERV?

[veekie]

I think that was because they simply had nobody else to use.