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Probably best you dropped it, as that's largely how it handles the various characters being judged. Any amount of character study has more to do with the Bartending people, but that's still handled more so as dramatic tear jerker. If you weren't into ep 1, then I doubt you'd warm up much over the course of the series. It closes the arc but still manages to feel unfinished as well (feels like there is a more of a story to be told, and the way the red-headed bartender was incorporated felt off).

"To be precise, are you saying that Nomad is on-the-nose with its message of sport-life balance? Is it something in its depiction of racially-driven violence? Are you saying that the show is used by people to morally preen themselves?" Hmm... I suppose the first two. As for the third one, I never see any mention of this series anymore, except from you. XD

It's not a 100% neg tag as well. Often just has something that irritates me a bit starting around 4 and up on the score. Monster is in its own ultra-aggressive special needs category of moral preening, probably well beyond anything else I've tagged as such. Yeah, totally agree on the comparison of Monster and Nomad. Tenma is a horrible protagonist, and Urusawa is so up his own ass. I understand. You're making me feel a little guilty now, as I don't think Nomad is all that bad of a series, but I hate Monster and still haven't finished it. XD

For what it's worth, I like Mob Psycho okay, and I have it tagged with moral preening (it's also in its own preachy category). :S

Also, btw, fast Death Parade drop, as that's a really popular one. I'm not too keen on it either but found it watchable enough. Hate, hate, hate that OP!

I am trying to unite Patlabor fandom since 2 years ago and run a Patlabor Discord if you did not see!

I saw like 90% of it but never finished last 10 minutes lol!

Hi, you seem to be a Patlabor fan!

Yeah, I won't say it's perfect, as a matter of fact my score was a 7 for most of the time I was watching it, but the last couple of episodes are really, really good, and I think it's my favourite show of its genre.

Well, like I said in my original review, I think we can just chalk it up to my not finding what I was looking for in the show, an inherently subjective view, as you correctly state.

Still, I do have some notes on your response:


You know, that's a perfectly fair point to make. Plenty of works don't have characters undergo much change because they are more about crafting a portrait of said characters, their setting, a problem, whatever: a valid pursuit, I think. Except the setting in SAC is fictional and I don't relate to the static characters (though I am happy for anyone who does because it means they can enjoy the show).


I personally don't appreciate any of these abjectly defeatist and rigidly utilitarian views. For the characters presented in the show, emotional capacity is a weakness to overcome precisely because it possesses no utility, Togusa being the closest to an exception with the "pay the ferryman" moment, that brief interaction with his colleague's widow in "Interceptor", and his moment of rage in 2nd Gig leading to a legal battle (not to mention his assassination attempt at the end of S1). It's things like this that make him just about the only character I actively like in the series. That said, tying back to the point of my not relating to the cast, it seems that I like him because he is an everyman in a world populated with characters I find uninteresting.


I won't apologize for wanting to see some emotional affect in the characters rather than just witty banter. These characters have rapport, yes, but I feel that their unwillingness to show emotion weakens my connection to them.

It's certainly true that professionals joke around all the damn time ("Now a bigger wound, like from a .38, you're gonna have to get a new head. This one you could fix." - from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets). They exhibit no emotion in these moments because doing so gets in their way. The drama of many hardboiled cop-portrait stories is found in those moments where they are, indeed, affected. And how many such moments are in SAC?

An example from an early episode of what I'm talking about: why doesn't the Major show any care when she relays the last moments of the engineer who put himself in that experimental tank? She isn't Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation; she is a human being and this is exactly the kind of thing that should get to her, so why do I feel like it doesn't? Because we aren't shown it getting to her. We need to see those moments of personal weakness, and I just don't. Maybe others do, in which case, great! As it stands to me, though, the Major is just a very boring superhero.

I argue that, fundamentally, it is a character's weakness rather than their strengths that makes them relatable. I don't do backflips off of buildings, crack open conspiracies, or any of the superhero-y things the characters in SAC do. What I do is sometimes feel scared, sad, insecure, or powerless. For a superhero to exhibit a feeling of incapability is antithetical to their general way of being i.e. supremely competent and able; this adds nuance and relatability to an otherwise fantastical character.

Real life is not so different from a noir film. That a specifically cyberpunk show like SAC doesn't lean into that as hard as it can is a serious blow to my rating of it.

Firstly, thank you so much for being respectful. I really do appreciate the effort and it affirms my unfortunately small amount of faith in humanity. :D

As for what I think of your words, I find myself (perhaps uncharacteristically) tacitly agreeing with the majority of your points. I do think that the writing in SAC does have its deep and thought-provoking moments. Your example from the end of the show of Batou and the Major not having a sense of identity intrinsic to their physical representation is definitely a highlight and a well-executed one at that, but I want to acknowledge the very fundamental issues I have with this. Please take note that at least some of the following inherently is going to be subjective, as a lot of my more recent reviews tend to be.

My problem with this genuinely affecting scene (and I rewatched it before writing this) is not with how the show presents this idea, but its placement in the series (i.e. episode 25 out of 26) and what it as well as the show at large deliberately chooses to not say. Per the generalization in my review, I describe that scene as heartless. You (rightfully) assess that the emotional distance is the point, and I agree completely with that analysis.

I argue, though, that emotional distance between characters is not what makes something heartless, but the distance from the audience that does. I shed no tears for this couple's lamenting their seeming loss of identity because they haven't acknowledged (or maybe even figured out) how flawed their reasoning for what constitutes identity actually is. I argue that a better-written work would show these characters evolving past this hang-up over the course of its run. That this problem is only acknowledged by the characters in the penultimate episode is (and I state this a writer of fiction myself) a writing error; this moment should be, at the latest, ending the first act, not the whole season. If this is to be a foundational idea for the characters' arcs, we need to spend time observing how they explore it, not just tacking it on at the end. My other SAC reviews also point out that this is done in those works as well. I find this utterly infuriating and I swear its Kamiyama's fault.

Structure issues aside, what I think is missing from this entire series is the quintessential element of postmodernism that would make this moment feel less like just an idea and more like an actual arc with a theme. Here's how I believe the show could have gone if we want to have this idea of internal value being made external: the Major and Batou each feel this sense of loss and try to find ways to fill it across the show's run. They fail, of course, because there is no getting an intrinsic identity back, despite all of their attempts, but they learn to value, acknowledge, and celebrate their relationship, the having of which they realize is inherently miraculous and beautiful. It's a totally standard, boilerplate arc, but it's infinitely more affecting than what we got because it's an actual journey they undertake.

This moment between the characters would serve as the perfect capstone: forget all the nonsensical harping about what you've lost and take a look at the life you are actively living, because your real legacy is in the relationships you have. The scene as we got it completely drops the ball. The point that relationships are what count in life is never made, nor is there even a line making clear that they decide they want to let go of this flawed mindset they carry.

The reason I describe SAC as heartless is because most of the entire series is like this. It introduces a problem and doesn't bother to explore it even halfway let alone make some kind of actionable point out to the audience. The way to explore these ideas is through our lead characters. What affects them is what affects us. The problem is that few things, if any, really affect them. Example: episode 14, with the automated investment management program, has a bit of this "you can't take it with you when you go" kind of idea, only it doesn't really affect the characters at all. I am not made to feel closer to the Section 9 agents through this little story; it's like I'm on a ride-along with a bunch of taciturn cops that are totally checked out and just want the day to be over.

Our heroes in this show are the flattest, most unimaginative, most robotic people anyone could envision. "But wait, their being robotic is the point!" you said, which is fair and probably true.

But if that's the point, Kamiyama and co. should find another goddamn point.

I am not a lifeless robot. I want to feel things, like people do. That's what makes a human being, and I am positive that the showrunners know this. But, based on all available evidence, my (perhaps subjective) interpretation is that, instead of choosing to do more with this idea, they chose to do less, seemingly going the route of favoring emotionally repression. That seems self-defeating for an artistic work considering art is about conveying feeling. I'd say I'm entitled to think that the choice they made was stupid.

Even so, at the end of the day, I'm glad you enjoyed SAC to the degree you did. Hell, even I had some good times with it, after all. I certainly won't cast judgment on you or your preference. Please continue to enjoy the shows you will.

That said, if you are suffering from emotional repression (which I doubt, but only halfway), I want better for you because you deserve it. In fact, everybody deserves to be able to express and experience feelings freely. It's the key to enjoying life and art alike!

P.S. I acknowledge that my wording of the "scream loudly with feelings" bit was ambiguous and I apologize. What I was really trying to imply was that GitS uses its palpable mood to convey feeling and that SAC does not have this mood, leading it to come off as very dry. Again, this metatextual theme of the show favoring emotional repression rears its ugly head to the detriment of the show's quality (though I admit that last part is an opinion, and you are entitled to your own).

P.P.S. I do like the Tachikomas and regret not mentioning how much I enjoy Batou playing den mother to them. It's one of the few sparks of humanity in the series and I'm frustrated I left mentioning it out of my review. Thanks for reminding me!

Happy watching!
- LC

The endless everyday? I've seen these same ideas expressed without a specific term quite often. Well, yes, these kind of consumerist societies become plagued with meaninglessness and inauthenticity. This kind of "progress" is not fulfilling. Instead of Aum, you could look to someone like Ted Kaczynski as a similar figure who thought something was wrong about society and wanted something else, and he's far more relevant to Texh than Aum. He was concerned with technological society. He was a reclusive figure who wouldn't be able to lead a movement and there had already been many people writing about the same subjects that concerned him, anyway. For example, the majority of what he had written in his manifesto was influenced by Jacques Ellul and some others. Kaczynski's contribution was largely the revolutionary aspect to it and his concise fine-tuning of language. So he probably didn't think publishing essays and books on the subject alone would result in any change. Such books are still written, so he is obviously correct. So what he opted to do was mail bomb a bunch of technologists, resulting in deaths and a sensational case for the police, leading to his plan going through of getting his manifesto published in the newspapers for a more radical kind of influence. Of course, many people just don't take it seriously. David Skrbina is basically his successor of sorts, who conversed with Kaczynski while he was in prison, and some of these letters were incorporated into one of Kaczynski's books. I think what Aum did was far more silly as they were a rather powerful organization at the time, if I recall correctly, so they should have bided their time. Almost makes me wonder if there is some deeper conspiracy to the story. Kaczynski had far less to lose.

I suppose endless everyday = abundance + boredom + lack of direction is useful enough as a quick go to and to have a term to describe something that tends to require at least a paragraph of explanation. lol, at seeing Re:Zero as the example. XD

Nietzsche was referring to the antithesis of the ubermensch as the last man in Zarathustra and wherever else, which is a kind of pathetic people or man seeking comfort and not striving for anything, which becomes increasingly more widespread with technology and a lot of political and philosophical trends. The reason Yoshii does not do such a thing with the surface world is because they are "barely human" in a sense and have no potential for anything revolutionary or that would lead to change. They are sheep getting fleeced by the shepherd. And even that is a poor metaphor because they have no function, and they are going extinct. The sheep herd has a function and often continues to remain at parity or grows larger per the needs of the shepherd. Lux actually has humans that can be molded into something greater. Some of this you end up having to look at in broader strokes in relation to philosophical ideas because the characters tend not to explain much.

And I feel like what you're describing in relation to late-stage capitalism precedes what we might call late-stage. You could easily make the case that that's where we are now, and what we're seeing in Texh is far removed and is presented with far more "progress." It's just a common thing in rootless consumer societies that destroy tradition and culture. The thing about the surface is that many elements often described in late-stage capitalism are absent as well. I mean, I'll have to stress here that I need to finish the series again, and I'm going by memory; I'm also biased against Marxian interpretations (though what is described by late-stage capitalism is plausible enough, even though it's kind of thrown around carelessly), so take that as you will XD. There is no inequality or class (any class structure or inequality being associated with the Hill, Class, and Lux) that I remember; the "work" that was presented seemed like some pointless volunteering to give people like Sakimura or Yoshii or whoever something to do but was not needed. That's the impression I got, though there's admittedly not a lot to go on, and I think you'll agree with that in a lot of places for Texh, lol. The place is presented like an idyllic yet creepy ghost world. If anything, it is a desolate post-capitalist world of some sort. Basically, machines handle everything and society is apparently equal, medicated, and without meaning, whiling their days away without a care.

Edward Hopper presents a kind of lonely melancholy and nostalgia mixed with pleasant but potentially alienating surroundings. I take it to mean the theonormals saw something was wrong, so they went with a retro setup when things were more agreeable and had not progressed as far, hoping that would fix the problem, but they're just throwing up another shade of paint rather than getting at the root of the issue. It's a kind of ersatz traditionalism or regression on their part. The thing is that capitalism does give something to strive for even with its problems, but it's trending toward a particular direction and can be cast aside if it's no longer relevant to those calling the shots. When you get beyond even that, then you are really fucked because there is no striving at all. Live in your pod, get your UBI (or energy certificate, as the old technocracy movement would call it), items and food droned in, watch your media, no need to go outside if you don't want to, as machines are handling tasks, etc. It's basically E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops by that point, which has a similarly bleak ending to Texh, where the characters live in little hermetically sealed vessels of the machine and concern themselves with abstruse matters disconnected from society. Only I feel Forster had a more "intellectualized" view of the future that was far less degenerated than what we should expect.

Yes, I'd agree that leisure certainly isn't enough to give meaning. Leisure time is good to have, but it has to be directed toward something or it leads to meaningless consumption and discontent. So I just nodded along to endless everyday (though I've yet to read the second, longer link), but largely reject late-stage capitalism in relation to Texh.

lmao, the sports part with note. XD

lol, Malice is pretty much Konaka's realistic sex doll fetishism but more of a mood piece than even Texh. The android girls in Armitage III, which he also wrote, are highly advanced and come with artificial wombs. There's not even a single female (other than android) support character. There's a strike against androids because they're taking jobs, and there are a bunch of angry women because the android girls are too sexy. XD

AIII is way better than MaliceDoll, though.

lol, the camera work in that interview. Is he trying to sneak a low-angle panty shot without being suspicious? XD

Alice in Cyberland looks like it's probably among his worst script credits, but I guess I'll add it. I still need to get back to his take on Giant Robo.

Not sure with Ghost Hound, but it seems to be his favorite among the anime he worked on, so I suspect he put his own unique spin on it. But I'm also not sure how it deviates from the source, and I haven't seen the anime in a long time.

Yeah, a lot of his stuff seems to have divergent perspectives amongst fans, especially Texh and Lain.

Edit: One thing I was wondering about is that I read your original post before you had a chance to edit it, and you were talking about late-stage capitalism. Main reason that I bring it up is that I don't recall too many people mentioning that in relation to Texh. Is this something fans sometimes go into, and so there is a theory camp like that or was that an observation you made separately? That's fine if you don't want to talk about it, as I assume you edited that out because you thought it wasn't relevant. I guess you would have been applying that to Lux, though, and some of the shifts the city went through during the course of the series, rather than the surface. I don't find it that relevant because capitalism in relation to technocracy and transhumanism isn't necessarily a permanent thing. Ultimately, capitalism is costly and resource-intensive. It's great for controlling international markets and centralizing parts of the world further, but if you look at technocratic ideologists, few of them are interested in unlimited growth and consumerism. Further and further automation means a need for fewer and fewer people. I would say that Texh is already past this point, with Lux being a raffia station that has the single-minded aim of radical change by providing supplemental material for the growth of transhumanism.

>Furthermore, from what I hear about the direction of Mikado's arc in later entries, I think he's gonna become straight up alien to me.

Many Durarara fans and critics alike rate the x2 sequels significantly lower. I noticed you have the original in your favourites, but you haven't watched the sequels. Would you say the original is a complete enough experience? ( no spoilers :) )

What do you make of Narita's obsession with connecting everything together?

It worked for Baccano since the anime is pretty much self-contained, and you only watch it for the thrill and mystery. Not so sure if it will work for Durarara since this one demands a certain level of investment in its characters, so it might start to feel a little tedious if you can't connect with its characters after 60-ish episodes. But I'll see.

I'm hesitant to say much because I'm only at ep 10 of my rewatch. The union flag is an intriguing design. Them being a union of industrial workers and loosely based on Japan's communist party but also having that rather busy symbol inside of the cogwheel. I guess it does make sense for that to be a flower, meaning raffia. Raffia is the crop of concern for Lux because of its applications, and the main part of industry would be extracting it, I'd assume. Though, ironically, it will be the undoing of the industrial working class as they are, and despite them being anti-texhnolyzation, Kimata is texhnolyzed.

Well... does it ever address the degenerated healing? I know Yoshii notes it, but I'm not sure if they ever say much about it otherwise, except we can note that other than symbolic cuttings of limbs, as Organo carries out, it seems if you get a bad leg wound, it's much more likely in Lux to not heal, become gangrenous, and require amputation. While I don't understand why this is happening, I feel a big part of transhumanism is to weaken the body so it requires augmentation from external sources. You're not healthy, so you need medicine. You're weak or disabled, so you need some kind of mechanical assistance or texhnolyzation. Medicine has side effects and can be damaging longterm (and costly in a lot of places). If you don't have to take medicine, you don't want to take it. Stuff like adding a limb or a brain chip or whatever also has a lot of risks, and there's a dehumanizing aspect to it individually and as part of a social dynamic. There's a trend in society that seems to avoid improving the body in favor of external "improvements." So this seems partly a means of making the transhumanist elements more widespread and to create greater class division. Those who can texhnolyze and those who can't. Eventually, you weed out the weak who can't get texhnolyzed and society becomes increasingly texhnolyzed, and the transhumanism is expanded.

Ichise is stubborn and prideful, wanting to take, procure, and earn things himself rather than to be given charity. Maybe I'd say more, but I think it might be too reaching right now.

Not sure when it comes to Onishi permitting. I'd lean toward it being a minor factional dispute rather than him approving it, but I'd probably have to watch the Organo scenes more closely as there are a lot of small details that are only easy to pickup when you're looking for them and roughly know what happens in following episodes.

Yup, my guess is also that the pimp is former Organo who got too big for his britches and got his limb stripped from him, just as happened with the Michiko scene. Organo are the only ones who would be called "big shots." Racan are punks. SU are a workers union. Organo are basically like well-dressed yakuza running the place. I think there's also a piece of dialogue between Shinji and the afro guy about suits and "baby gangs" (which would have to be the Union). They clearly present the Organo as the head of the pack.

Still haven't looked back at your previous message yet.

Yeah, it's interesting to see how certain pfps correlate with behavior...

Yup, it's really cool. It's like Baccano on a larger scale and with more fleshed-out characters. The only real complaint I have is that I am not always able to relate or empathize with the characters. But they're quirky, so it's fine.

I'll respond to your longer comment later. Just wanted to say right now that a lot of plot points and things I've mentioned in those notes are incorrect. And I remember glaring errors, mixing up characters, etc. It's a combination of remembering things and watching, so it's a mess right now.

>Every single person needs to be stripped of innate desires of self-preservation, the very sight of blood and distress.

Well, that's the thing. She didn't even consider that she was in danger. She was merely perplexed by what that man was trying to do. Of course, it's worth questioning how long it would take to desensitize people to what so obviously looks like a threat (if it is at all possible). Psycho-Pass doesn't really talk about this, so I guess it's upto the viewer to decide how believable it is. I think that, given enough time, this is possible. Before the Helmet Arc, such incidents were extremely rare, so suspicions were usually unfounded, and being overly suspicious would probably also result in a clouded Psycho-Pass. So people just naturally stopped being distrustful.

>The connection could be there, but it's highly highly contentious in the real world nevermind on the massive scale that we see in Psycho-Pass

I think the connection is more likely in a sanitized world like Psycho-Pass. The thrill of violence might make people feel disillusioned with the peace of Sibyl Society. I am not saying they are going to outright commit crimes, but even the slightest precondition for violence is going to be taken care of by the Sibyl System. So, I think it's safe to say that such media is being regulated, or at the very least, the people themselves have shunned such media for their own good. The screwed up sadists were being supported by Makishima and had to live away from the Scanners (which does raise questions on the universalness of the system, but the general population still had little contact with these fringes pre-Helmet Arc), and wherever the police are involved, people know that some unordinary situation is taking place, so they are naturally more suspicious. Like I previously said, the sheer, unabashed nature of the crime couldn't be processed by the people in that scene, at least in that particular moment. But yeah, much of this is me trying to make sense of what happened, so I guess Urobuchi should have done something that more viewers would find believable.

Also yeah, the show doesn't really go into the science of how the Sibyl System actually works. But to me, at least, that's pretty much a non-issue, given the interesting questions it raises once you just accept that it somehow works.

>I find Makishima's stance against the Sibyl System somewhat compelling in and of itself, but I didn't remember the offer being all that tempting to him to begin with.

I didn't mean to say that the offer was tempting, but like you said, people generally value immortality. Criminally asymptomatic people have always disagreed with the Sibyl System to such an extent that their Psycho-Pass simply couldn't get clouded, and yet so many of them ended up joining the System. I think Makishima's decision, at the very least, is a testimony to his strong beliefs. Not as earth-shattering as Griffith's choice, but yeah.