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Messages - belldandyfan
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1
« on: May 21, 2006, 09:01:14 am »
Just read OR's explaination...
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I then did an Osaka (from Azumanga). Meaning I sat there and stared at it... and just... boggled. I couldn't find any sort of answer to her question in that post OR.
In fact, I think you just confused everyone.
Okay.. the down and dirty "Simplified version" of time travel how it all works (tm) or... how innertubing can teach us space/time mechanics.
Okay, First off, if you think of time as a river, it'll make things make sense.
On this river, you can get in an innertube (or raft) and float along on the current.
You have a "getting on" point and a "getting off" point, just like when you go tubing. You get on, upstream, float along, and get off downstream (hopefully with someone with a car waiting to take you home)
Now we get to the concept of time travel.
Suppose you are going tubing for a day, and you have 8 hours to play with, but only 2 hours of river length (the rest is kinda rocky and filled with rapids let's say... or maybe inaccessble from the road nearby.)
The logical thing to do in such a situation is have someone pick you up in their car at the end of the river, and for them to drive you back up to the "getting on" point.
This is basically what time travel is. It's using a method to move you either forward or backward along the river of time.
Now, the key thing to remember is that even though you are moving to different points in the river, you still have an internal chronology as well. Meaning those 8 hours of "tubing time" are passing, and just because you go back to the start of the river, doesn't mean time starts over from 8 hours again. Let's call this internal chronology IC for short.
So Makoto is floating along on his innertube of life in the section of the stream dedicated to Tokyo in his years of life, his IC is 16 years old.
However, Ifurita (with an IC of 12000+ years) happens to bump into him along the way and uses a power of hers to freeze the river (the timestop you saw in episode 1.)She uses another power and kinda pushes Makoto to a different point in the river (either miles and miles upstream or downstream... I'll explain this later) and unfreezes the river.
Okay... so... Makoto(IC 16 years) went from being at one point in the river to another. Meaning he is now in an entirely different point in space and time. He could be millions of years in the past... or millions into the future. We don't know the direction... and time travel makes the direction kinda unimportant, all we need to know is that he moved. That said, El hazard could be in an entirely different universe... we dont' know... but let's not dwell on it, let's just say... same universe... different point in space and time.
Okay... so, the events of El hazard unfolds, and Makoto runs into Ifurita... but here's the key... this ifurita is from a point in her lifespan prior to having met him, her IC is (let's say IC 2000). Now.. you might ask "How's that possible? She just sent him there. How can her IC be lower than when it started?" Okay, remember when I mentioned getting on and off the river? Well, this is where things get a little tricky. Let's say that Ifurita has "tubing time" of 20000 years. Meaning she can go tubing for a long long time if she wants. The Ifurita that Makoto met in the ruins under his school had tubed for 10000 years waiting to meet him again as well as a couple thousand years of hanging out asleep in the ruins of demon island.
It's the IC that's the whole key here.
Makoto meets this version of Ifurita who has barely even started tubing, and ends up freeing her.
The Eye of god shoots her upstream (or down... direction isn't important so much here) and she then drifts downstream from whereever the eye shot her (think of it as a friend who picked her up in his car and drover her to another point in the river and dropped her off) for 10000 years before she encounters IC 16 Makoto. She end sends him to El Hazard.
So, what about the Makoto who shows up at the end. Let's say that by the end of EH (when he rescues Ifurita on earth) he's grown roughly 3 years give or take So he's IC 19. That IC 19 Makoto is the person who showed up (note the more mature features, the longer hair... clearly he's older)
You see, there's no loop... everything is in chronology... from the standpoint of the characters.
They simply jumped around on the river of time.
Makoto has had 3 years of his life pass choronologically, and Ifurita has have 10000 years of her life pass chronologically as well. They've simply lived those years in different parts of the river.
So, El hazard doesn't really have any time "loops" it just has people getting on and off the river at one point, and getting on and off the river at another point.
Everyone is burning up hours tubing, they're just doing it at multiple and various different points in the river.
Make sense?
2
« on: May 19, 2006, 01:20:43 pm »
I've been thinking about doing this for a while... but unsure where to start.
Then I came across a series of 3d poser type models that had been shifted over into 3d studio max format, along with complex motion paths for the wireframes.
I knew such things were out there, and I've been using lightwave and 3ds max for years for other purposes... but I figured that the fly away hair that Ifurita has would be too hard to model. Then I ran into a site that shows how to do this sort of hair... and I now have this image burning in my head of what a cgi ifurita would look like.
I'm going to give it a try.
I'll post pictures later to let you know how it turns out... and if anyone wants to try doing similar models... it'd be fun to see if we could duplicate scenes from the original anime using cgi.
3
« on: December 11, 2005, 11:42:08 pm »
Finally updated the El-Hazard fan-fiction links list. Fixed broken Pit Of Voles links and MediaMiner.org links, and added more recent stories from those two archives, some links I had found over the past year or so, and a couple of links that other folks kindly forwarded to me recently.
The missing stories are now at the bottom of the list. We got one back, but we lost four more. Help!!
http://echoalpha.com/fanfic/ElHazard_links.html
Enjoy! The fan-art list is next, when I can get around to it... I was able to contact two of the people that dropped off the list. Both of them deleted their own works, they said they thought that the stories were bad, and one said that she only writes yaoi now. *rolls eyes* Sorry, Yuri writers I can deal with... Anime lends itself to the medium. But Yaoi writers are generally a bunch of whacked out little high school girls with too much pent up sexual curiosity and confustion. The idea that you'd delete your own work just because it doesn't have a bunch of gay guys running around trying to get each other in bed... just stupid. Oh well... some people.
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« on: November 10, 2005, 10:03:44 pm »
Okay folks...I've been working on a fiction with a cross over with El Hazard... you can find it by doing a search for Point of Origin on Fanfiction.net under the Naruto fanfictions.
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« on: April 10, 2005, 05:52:55 pm »
Most excellent selection, I must say.
I did not care for the Kryptonite video. Love the song, like the idea but believe it fell flat during execution.
There are several different Bring Me To Life videos that I'm aware of. The one that is my favorite features Amy Lee performing with a single guitar accompaniment in an "unplugged" set. Hauntingly good one, that. The special effects were fun to see, too. They kinda get carried away but at many points they really add to the vid's power.
One that is notably absent from your list was done to Celene Dion's "Then You Look At Me." OK, OK, it's Makoto and Ifurita fluff, but then again, I have a soft spot for Makoto and Ifurita fluff. Very well rendered and executed video by Sandrock Productions.
I have that one.. the acoustic guitar version of bring me to life.. and I'm afraid I didn't much care for it myself. The timeing feels all wrong to me in it. Now the arabian remix of Bring me to life really is awesome in my opinion. It has this whole inital part ot it that reads like a silent movie. It starts with this synth type arabian background sound with ifurita meeting makoto and sending him to elhazard.. and then the video really picks up. I'd say it ranks in my fav 5 music vids of all time. Its timing is solid, the song and video seem to compliment each other and the whole thing feels just.. right.. and yeah .. same here on the makoto and ifurita fluff.. I mean comeon... how can you not love them? It's the classic boy meets girl who just happens to be a cybernetic super weapon that destroyed millions in a massive war which nearly anihilated the world, boy loses girl.. boy travels through time and across dimensions and reunites with girl. I mean it's just a classic. =^_^= Those being the once in a lifetime sarah brightman vid, the gravity of love el hazard one, the celine dion one you mentioned, nyo is war by studio doki doki(too funny for words),and the one I just mentioned.
7
« on: April 06, 2005, 12:41:06 am »
Yeah, I'm sure that Mr.What will have (by now) burst a blood vessle if he's seen the current eps of AMS! TV with Marler(mara). heh.. Personally I'm loving the new TV series of AMS! That said, who knows, maybe they'll finally do a followon to the original OVA ElHazard in a proper manner. A lot of the older anime are making reappearances in whole new rejuvenated versions. Tenchi, AMS!, Fist of the North Star, Ghost in the shell ect ect. (all venerable anime) I'll bet you that it won't be too long and we'll prolly hear about them thinking of redoing the El Hazard series from the begining, or picking up where they left off. They'll probably even seek to rejuvinate Ranma 1/2 at some point. mark my words. heh Anyway, if you or Adcock haven;t seen eps 11 and 12 of AMS! I'll try and help rectify it. They made Mara absolutely irresistably cute. She's got the whole wacky demon thing down pat, and I'm gonna bust a gut when Senbei shows up... I know they're gonna make him hillarious. However, back to el hazard. If they either pick it up or start over,I hope that they don't keep ifurita as the 100% ultra serious demon goddess of the OVA.. I mean, I love parts of the wacky ditz tv version and how the same voice actress had such a diametrically opposed range of presentation....It'd be a shame to waste such ability to make you laugh. Then again... it is possible that if they did pick it up where they left off... Katsuhiko could try and find another demongod to balance out Makoto's Ifurita if they did return her to El Hazard. What an opportunity that would be... they could give us two very different ifurita's at the same time (Oh the humanity) The thing that made that idea pop into my head is a picture of three different Ifuritas all together. The OVA blue blond, the TV black haired version, and a third version that we've never seen before that is almost a synthasis of the two. http://www.el-hazardonline.net/artbooks/anthology/page002.jpgJust a thought.
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« on: April 06, 2005, 12:20:44 am »
Unfortunately, every source I have suggests that all "polite" requests to Harnum to finish Mortal Engines were rebuffed.
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Yeah, Seifert's "A Paradise Built For Two" was funky spooky weird. But he more than redeemed himself with "Jinniyah and The King." Maybe I'm just dense, but I was guessing as to just whom the storyteller was right up to the final TWO WORDS. And in those last two words, the entire story seemed strangely satisfying.
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Avery, is that you? From our dialogue after Wolfe and I published Rough Justice I would say so!
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If you haven't written the piece yet, I hope I can take that to mean you're gainfully employed once again.
And the last line of your last post contains an absolutely hideous pun, I'll have you know.
In order of responces I contacted harnum also, but he was unfailingly polite on the issue. He said that yes he had been bitten by the Utena bug, but that seems to have subsided. He also said that he was going to keep the fic to himself because he still might finish it someday. But that of course has been a long while now. Yeah , that was spooky, but the ending in the followon piece made such sense. Yep it's me Oh as to the free time and employment.. that concept of having any free time lasted a couple days... and then I made a decision.. to return back to school, use the GI bill I still had.. and finish my EE degree. Just finishing up now.. just a class in VHDL, data structures, and engineering 408 to go ...As to employment... I'm working for a company called Quad group... you can find em at www.quadgroupinc.com. They do some really cool engineering stuff... Though currently I am just an intern, the owner likes me and is already talking permenant employ... but I am just waiting to see what develops. The interesting thing is that the owner, this 77 year old WWII vet, worked with Shockley(I forget the spelling) back in the 60's when the whole field of microelectronics was invented. Very cool guy... and a total genius. But I digress... anyway, free time evaporated the instant I decided to finish my engineering degree.. you know what I mean, late nights, lotsa calculus, lotsa circuit analysis. Maybe someday I will actually get on with that fic idea of mine.. till I actually have the time to do it, I continue to develop the story line in my head and do a little outlining now and then to satisfy the demon... you know what I mean. Later Steve
9
« on: April 05, 2005, 01:53:29 am »
Well, the series got licensed by, of all people, Media Blasters. Which means that fan-subs will be much harder to find now (Damn the MPAA and their wrongful suing of Suprnova). ... Actually, that all may be coming to a crashing end for the MPAA in a few months. Take a good look at the supreme court hearings on the issue and you'll see what I mean. The justices... even the ones that are conservative and are generally the ones that are pro-big business are all saying that the file sharing technologies like bit torrent and the like are damn nifty... and have serious good deeds that they can be used for... This tone is very very reminescent of the tone the supreme court had when they rules on the betamax issue back in the 80's The upshot is... if the justices rule that file sharing technology companies cannot be sued... then the mpaa will have it's grip well and truely snapped off at the wrist,elbow and shoulder in one fell swoop. Once that happens... they will be forced to adapt their business models to make file sharing un-needed ...which they are desperately trying to avoid doing because they like being able to charge rediculous rates for movies and music. (take a look at the MPAA's recent decision to sell dvds of movies in china for $3.00 to $4.00 us... the deal is... they will just take out the extras section... (big whoop) in those dvds. They say they're doing it to help deter piracy... but the fact is... they could be providing movies at that rate in the us then (no overseas shipping and such) The MPAA looks like it's going to have it's rear end handed to it in the courts... and they are doing some serious back pedaling in their arguements.. especially since a lot of artists and big high tech companies are saying that the MPAA is a buncha selfish controlling basta.. well you get the idea.. and that if they are allowed to keep suing... that it will stiffle high tech innovation. Check in on the court proceedings.. it's one of the most important cases there is in the digital world right now.
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« on: April 02, 2005, 02:32:24 pm »
How about this for a new topic.
I'm sure most people here are at least marginally familiar with the concept of Anime Music videos... that said, what Anime music videos have you seen that include ElHazard are good?
Myself I have the following vids
Superman's Theme - a El Hazard AMV featuring Fujisawa in all his superman glory
3 doors down, Kryptonite- An El Hazard AMV focused mainly on ifurita
Enigma, Only time, by Rogue Guymelef productions... an El Hazard and Cowboy beebop AMV focusing on Makoto and Ifurita
Evanescence, Bring me to life, video by onyyx studios- nother Ifurita /makoto focused AMV
Evanescence , Bring me to life (arabian remix) , a mostly ifurita loves makoto focused AMV
the HubbaHubba Zoot Zoot AMV (words fail me here)
chumbawumba , tub thumping An ElHazard AMV that is just silly
Sabre Dance by Khachaturian, original Skin studio... a pretty silly classical El Hazard Wanderer's AMV
Josh Grobin, You're still you , Rtfbrtr productions, a 'meh' AMV.. not all that great.
Enigma , Gravity of love, by Gigavan productions... one the the best El Hazard AMV ever IMHO
peter gabrial , Big Time, (a tribute to Katsuhiko fans hehe)
Sarah Brightman, Once in a life time,AMV by Micheal Ko.. the absolute quintescential EH AMV . If you've never seen it before it's a _must_ have
Anyone aware of any others out there that are good?
Also... I'm thinking of setting up a Exeem bit torrent with all these zipped up into a single file if anyone is interested in getting them all. Any takers?
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« on: April 02, 2005, 10:41:53 am »
I totally agree,
Alan Harnum's work has always been top notch as far as I am concerned.. better even than th vast majority of professional authors I've read. His style is one that I only wish I could emulate. He can, with few words, evoke images of startling crystal sharpness, and set a mood that is amost frighteningly vivid.
I also agree that I wish he'd finish Mortal Engines...it was too good a story to leave it unfinished. Who knows, maybe if enought people _politely_ told him how good the fic is... and how they wished he'd have finished it.. he might (one day) take up the story again.
As to the mortality issue... well... there have been a number of angles taken to address this issue by other authors. I enjoyed Ken's take on it. (which I'll also be notably vague about in the event someone has not read it yet)
Some of the more orginal have been ones like the one used in the story pair , A Paradise Built for Two and The Tale Of The Jinniyah And The King by Vince Seifert (I liked this one, while at the same time was a little creeped out by it... It's just too plausible for Makoto and Ifurita to fall into the trap shown in these two fics)
(Which again I won't spoil for the reader because it's too good to spoil.)
However, I have a particular like for Alan's thoughts on the matter because I believe his solution to the issue fits on so many different levels.
First, from a cultural perspective, the idea that Makoto might be changing into something more compatible with Ifurita fits nicely with the Japanese ethos of doing for others without worring about self.
Second, it fits the Zoroastrian/ indo-iraqi mythological mix that is found in El Hazard to a T. Specifically, if you know what to look for, you find references throughout the story to actual elements of the Zoroastrian religeon, and if you follow that vein you quickly find that Motoko falls squarely into the role of a meshiah (Saoshant) who would save the world, and bring about the triumph of truth, light, and freedom while becoming immortal himself in the end. (There has been a great deal of arguement among scholars of biblical lore that the three wise men supposedly present at the birth of Jesus were actually Zoroastrian priests) Anyway, back to El-Hazard... If one takes a look at Makoto's name, that right there is the first piece of the puzzle... His name translates to "truth". I think the rest of his deeds speak for themselves as to the light and freedom part of the story.
Third, during the OVA, there are a number of event clues that seem to indicate that Makoto's fate appears to be that he becomes something more than human. Specifically, note the opening credits where he is shown flying, with a contrail of some sort being left behind him (rather like Ifurita's contrail when she initially fly away from the forbidden island after she'd been awoken.), the previously mentioned oddity of Ifurita's attempt to blast him after their first "contact", and even how makoto was able to move fast enough to dodge her attempt to kill him in the bugrom hive at very close range.
Of course the real reason I support Alan's view is 'cus I like the symetry of it all.
Of course, all this could be moot, because after 10,000 years without a service checkup... Ifurita's warrenty could be up. That right there is one thing that I don't think anyone has explored. How would Ifurita and Makoto deal with the concept of Mortality if it suddenly came up that Ifurita was dying.
I've had an idea for a fic that initially focused on this issue perking around in my head for ages... (just haven't had the time to write it) where Makoto returns with Ifurita to ElHazard, and after arriving , they re-wind her "spring". However, during the process, a distinct snapping sound is heard and they discover that the stresses her being subjected to the eye of god and the passage of time has so damaged her systems, that only a partial rewind was possible. Furthermore, while a demongod can self repair to a great extent... the rewind mechanism is too complex for her self repair systems to fix, and it is no longer functional. This leaves her with a limited lifespan of perhaps (at most) 4 or 5 years living as a human, and less if she makes significant use of her full powers. Yeah I know, a bit contrived.. but it has a purpose for later in the plot ida, dealing with her love for makoto, or more specifically where her love for him springs.
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« on: April 01, 2005, 12:06:50 am »
Okay... here's what you do. http://www.rainbowsymphonystore.com/plasmaball360.html8 " plasma ball... okay.. that's the easy part... finding the large size plasma balls. Next .. the electronics for them would have to be in the shaft of the staff... Okay.. now the tricky part... Since these sorts of things use DC power (hence the power supplies that generally plug into your 120 V 60 hz AC outlets. That said batteries can be used... by hooking them up in combinations of series and parallel configs (to boost longevity of the batteries and reduce the load on each individual battery. I'm betting the power supply is something 9V with an amperage rating you can look up. The trick then is to just do a little math, and pull out a digital multimeter and measure the resistance of the circuitry itself so you know how much resistance you need to overcome to get the amperage rating you need to energize the spheres. Taking a college course in basic DC and AC circuit networks will give you all you need to do this. I just took my 400 level classes in this for my engineering degree (just went back to finish my degree this last year) and it's not really as bad as you might think. Baring this... get a Schaum's outline book (cost you 19.00 at a bookstore) on basic electric cirtuits will give you all the tools you need to do this. If it's a 9 V power supply.. you can do this with a buncha 9 volt batteries and put them in the shaft and head of the keystaff. it'll even add weight to the thing. Hey.. if you do it... you should give Jenny a call and see if she'll break out the ultimate ifurita costume and dress up with the staff at some point. I think everyone who is an elhazard fan know's Jenny's ifurita outfit. If you need specifics though... as in you need some help with the voltages and such... drop me a line.. I'll see what I can do... provided you have at least put some effort into figuring it out yourself first. The thing is... if you haven't tried.. then most of what I'd say would be greek to you right off the bat... and it'd be like trying to explain how to drive stick shift to someone that has never seen a car in their life. The point is, you need to have the plasma balls on hand, or know what their amperage ratings and voltages are. Here is why. Since the plasma balls operate on DC current, you typically are using a step down transformer(depending on the voltage requirement), a voltage rectifier and a couple other devices in the powersupply to give you a nice steady (single direction) current. Now, current (amperage) is defined as the Voltage divided by the resistance. So.... if you have a 120 V voltage source with a 100 ohm resistance, you get a 1.2 amp current. Now, with the DC powersupply, you have two leads.. a positive lead, and a ground. So, what this means if that you -can- substitute batteries for the normally hooked up power supply by wiring the positive terminal lead of your battery supply to the postive lead of the plasma ball, and hooking the ground to your battery supply. Note I said SUPPLY, that's because you'll be hooking up some batteries (more than one) in parallel, and some in series... so that the load you need to create will be distributed across them. You'd also need to include an appropriate resistor (after accounting for the internal resistance of the batteries) so get your current right. The one thing is... can you read schematics?... I hope so, because otherwise it's hard to explain to someone what exactly they'd need to do.
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« on: March 31, 2005, 11:43:56 pm »
Aaron Bergman had something like this in his "World of Endings Promised." The journey across dimensions granted the Wanderers immortality as well as their abilities... until something went wrong.
My take is that Earth, El-Hazard and Creteria are the same planet in three alternate/what-if dimensions. All three worlds have humans, and although many species are different, they all have basically-compatible animal and plant life.
Only a (cough) complete weirdo would write a semi-realistic story with a El-Hazard native who contracts terminal cancer. (BTW, I just wrote about 1000 words of Hana Ni Arashi. First real progress on that darn thing in ten months. Woo hoo!)
Another author, Alan Harnum, wrote a piece (still unfinished) titled "Mortal Engines" which addressed this issue... but from a different angle. (yeah.. I know... you have it up on your website... heh) Personally I ascribe to his view of what happens to Earthlings as they stay longer and longer on ElHazard... that the powers they have inhierited gradually alter them as time progresses. regardless... as to diseases.. I'd think that either earthlings would be very susceptable to Elhazardian diseases(if they are human just like us)... and vice versa... or... they'd be completely immune (and vice versa) because of significant physiological/genetic structures. IE...just as you can't catch feline leukemia from your cat, Elhazardians may not actually be "human" at a genetic level.. they may simply look human and seem to have identical physiology as humans... but use entirely different DNA and RNA strings... and hence cannot catch human diseases at all. Of course El Hazard could be a colony of a space faring civilization ( note the dual suns... very unlikely that a terran standard wolrd would be able to exist in a solar system with a binary star system.. mostly because the widely fluctuating solar energy would create wildly oscilating solar winds, creating hotter and colder cycles on the planet. Terraforming technology like nano tech would be needed to moderate such effects. If this is so, it's likely the elhazardians would have medical nanotech that would make them supremely healthy (they would never catch diseases), and it could be that such nanotech would exist in the food they eat and water they drink ... which would have also been introduced into the Earthlings as well since they've obviously eaten and drank Anyway.. that said.. I don't think there was any indication of sickness on Elhazard at any point in any of the OVA's or TV shows. Anyway... back to the point I was gonna make. The powers of the earthlings seem to be growing as they stay on ElHazard.. at least to me they do... and if so...it's likely that they are changing for a reason. Specifically, if you note, even when Fujisawa is pretty 'dry' at points early in the story... he never gets as strong as he did eventually when fighting the super bugrom. This seems to indicate that Fuijisawa's ability became stronger over time. Likewise, Mokoto's interfacing ability seemed to get stronger as well. Specifically, he went from just grazing through Ifurita's memory store initially, to being able to communicate with her in her memories... to finally being able to delve into her core systems and destroy her obedience circuit. That said.. a case could be made for this also being simply that they became more adept at using their abilities... but that doesn't seem to mesh well with Mr. Fujisawa's purely physical abilities. Seems to me he'd have had his glowy strength field before the time he exhibited it if this were the case. Anyway... Alan Harnum seemed to be saying (in Mortal Engines) that all the earthlings were gradually becoming something more than human... which I think I agree with. in that vein I reccomend taking a good hard look at the episode where Ifurita is awakened by Jinai, and fires a shot a Makoto... hiting the ground right in front of him. Take a good hard look at the explosion and the after affect. You'll see that the explosion seems to wash along a spherical "safe" area around Makoto, looking rather like the force bubble that demongods are supposed to have around them according to the manga.
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« on: November 27, 2004, 06:38:44 pm »
Ahem.. first... let me just say... prematurely... TOLDYA!!! I posted some while back in the love triangle thread that this was a real possibility since a lot of definative Anime works were getting a lot of new attention. Works like Tenchi Muyo are getting picked back up from the ova plotline, Fist of the North Star is being redone as of recently, classics like One Piece are appearing on kids saturday morning cartoons in the states, And if you're a fan (like me) of Ghost in the shell you know all about the GITS TV series... and the second gig 2nd series... oh... and for you fans of Ahh megamisama... Yes.. There is even going to be a brand spanking new Oh My goddess TV show kicking off very soon with all the orginial voice actors from the first ova. As has been said before... all things old are new again. It was just a matter of time till El Hazard got picked back up .. dusted off.. and people were reminded of exactly how good it really is. Mark my words... they will do another show of it... but the thing they have to watch out for is them dumbing it down or just churning out another "cute" anime.. El Hazard and cute do not mix IMO. El Hazard has some small comedic moments.. but for the most part it's strength lies in it being serious, smart, and sexy I could think of many ways it could play out in a 3rd OAV.
...In any case, Id rather have a new EH series than no EH at all. Couldn't agree more... right up till the pref of new El hazard being better than no El Hazard.. I can't countanance crap. That said... there are only a few ways to mess up Elhazard... Sure fire ways to ruin El Hazard 1. Put too much emphasis on cute. (El Hazard is not Hello Kitty, and Ifurita should not play the role of Mihoshi unless she is deliberately doing it) 2. make everyone a buncha kids (Naruto this isn't... El Hazard is an anime for young adults to adults.. young Rune Venus making goo goo eyes at Makoto is just not right.. in case you couldn't tell the TV series is not my idea of good ElHazard) 3. Send Makoto off with some other girl.. wrong.. Makoto belongs with Ifurita.. period... you mess up that chemistry.. you ruin the show. 4. Remove Fatora.. (GAH... unthinkable) 5. Have Katsuhiko not be the cackling madman he is 6. Dumb down the show... I mean come on this was a show built on the temporal paradox of time loops allowing two lovers to meet across 10000 years for the first time and for the last time in 10000 years. I mean you gotta at least have some sorta brain in your head to watch it. 7. Introduce a new character that is sure to irritate the fans. It's such a solid show that only a few things can really mess it up... But as you said.. there's a lot of directions they could take it.. Personally I'm in favor of a more serious and dark bent to the show. For example.. Let's suppose it picks up a few years after AW.. (now now.. I know a lot of people have a problem with AW .. but me I think it has some interesting things in it that harken back to the time loop of Makoto and Ifurita... specifically I think that Quorul is actually their progeny.. but that's something for later discussion) Now that Rune has a reason to support Makoto's desire to master the Eye of God, (She'd like to get her beau back, the guy that she left behind in the AW, and Makoto may be her only chance to reunite with him) it's likely that Makoto would therefore get all the support he needs to accomplish his task of retrieveing Ifurita. Katshuhiko would of course hear of this and his measure of desperation would grow... He seek to find a way to gain some sort of equity of power ("If Makoto is reunited with that traitorous Demon God, we'll never be able to conquer the Alliance...unless..."...ect) Now, suppose he goes off and wakes up a Demon god (Hey..he may be a fine tactician, but after waking up Ifurita and having her turn on him.. you'd think that he'd learn not to stick keystaffs into strange female demon goddesses (But then again.. he's a guy, huh) However this Demon god is unlike any of the others we've encountered so far... it has a purpose that it plans to carry out.. and it's not to destroy the world.. but to conquer it. I mean the whole Holy war of El Hazard was fought over something.. it had a reason... and the two sides fought each other for dominance of power over El Hazard... it didn't just happen. Okay.. so here's something to consider... If you're a fan of Ghost in the Shell... the one thing that more or less seperated humans from the AI's they'd created was the existance of a Ghost... or soul. On that basis.. humans had rights.. AI's didn't... and they could be created and destroyed at will. Since this was a Holy war.. what could be more "holy" then the question of souls... Perhaps AI's like Ifurita were becoming so complex that they acquired souls spontaniously... and this created an untennable social situation. This social/philosophical stress sparked the war.. On one side were people trying to fight for the "human" rights of all ensouled beings.. and on the other side.. people who believed that the AI's were only machines... and that therefore they must not be given such entitlements least the human race be destroyed through machanical revolution. Obviously the people using beings like Ifurita employed enslaved AI's in their warfare. Maybe Katsuhiko wakes up another DemonGod in an attempt to counter the rising power of the Roshtarians.. and inadvertantly has started a chain reaction. That demongod is determined to revive more of his own, and finish the holy war their way (his last command from his master was to sleep until awakened, and then destroy the enemy forces while they lay complacant... This would fit in perfectly with the whole Zoroastrian mythology theme that runs through the show of a final battle between good and evil... with Makoto filling the role of the saoshaynt (for more info on that.. here's a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster that will explain the idea of the Saoshaynt) Anyway... It could be really interesting if they just dont' try and make the series something it isn't. Keep it as a serious story, rather than just a buncha gags like the TV show was. If they opted for a serious and heavy story, they could make something as good as the first series without too much trouble in the plot department. -Crosses fingers that they do make the new series.
15
« on: June 14, 2004, 02:36:46 am »
Hi,
long time fan of the series, first time poster here. I think Saucer hit the nail on the head with his post about having to look at it from the perspective of the people whoe wrote it. Vis a vis, a japanese perspective, meaning that however fleeting, love does not need to follow considerations like "life expectancy", or "fairness"
Anyway, a couple things I'd like to point out about the possibility of a followon for El hazard. Now, this is not me just being a hopeful fan, this is me being realistic about the industry. First off, El Hazard is considered (as we know) a fairly definative work of anime (the first series is what I'm talking about of course) and given the huge explosion of popularity in anime, I think that in the next few years we should not be surprised if we find out that a new OAV series for El Hazard comes out.
Okay, that said, what about the love triangle stuff?
*sigh*
I think it's pretty clear what happens if you've watched the first series... and read between the lines.
The final scene is the watercolor where Makoto and Ifurita are just about to kiss. Of course the logical anti argument is that they never actually show them kissing... so how do we know there were going to. And of course, this gets back to the whole "japanese" thing. Kissing in front of other people is pretty much unacceptable socially, and in fact you'll notice that just about every mainstream anime never shows two main characters actually kiss. (For example, Love Hina, Ranma, Slayers, ect ect) Instead, they get the characters right up to the point of kissing and then freeze that moment. It's full of anticipation, and that's better than any kiss ever could be.
However, the question about immortality is a sticky one, how can they be together if he's gonna die, leaving her behind. After all, didn't the other Ifurita get left behind when her love interest dies in the second OAV?
Well, I submit that what we saw was a significantly different relationship develop there. The Ifurita of the second OAV was very much colder than the Ifurita we saw Makoto awake beneath Shinanomi HS. Try watching that scene, and you'll see that the humanlike traits were far more pronounced, where the Ifurita guarding the trigger of destruction was far colder and more mechanical. Obviously something is very different about how Makoto's Ifurita and the other Ifurita have matured. Someone postulated that perhaps she was becoming more human by being on earth. Well, to that I must point out that she was there for 10,000 years.. and she was still inhuman enough to have her demon god powers.
Okay, so, my theory... First off, I think that the powers each of the Earthlings got when they showed up in ElHazard have been changing as time went by. First off, Fujisawa, his strength increased when he dried out... and toward the end his power was visibly manifesting itself. Kinda spooky really, kinda makes you wonder what would happen over time if he was kept on a strict purification regime really. Then there is Nanami, initially, she could just see through the illusions of the Phantom tribe ( the scene with the female assassin at the hot springs)... and later on she could just step right into the vicinity of one of the illusions and break it. (Think of the throne room scene where Gallus had the three priestesses bedeviled)
So it could be argued that perhaps Makoto's own powers are in the process of growing and changing him. Perhaps there's more to the opening scene showing him flying that immediately meets the eye.
If this turned out to be the case, well.... I think that that'd take care of any lingering issues that might exist between him and Ifurita. They'd be a matched set, more or less.
But whether he just feels sympathy toward iffy... or true love.... well... I think that sorta answers itself... Makoto and her touched souls, laying bare all that she'd done, and he created a place in his life (even if it was only invented between them) so that she could have a possible past that didn't include being a killer. That's more than just sympathy. That sort of sharing speaks a lot more eloquently then any love poem.
Anyway... just my take on the triangle. I think if they do a follow on though, that it'll include Iffy's return, and the fallout that follows.
Personally, I'd like to see them draw more from the mythos that Ifurita comes from (The Zoroastrian and indo iraq/iranian mythos). What'd be cool is if they had Makoto fall into the role of Saoshyant, who (in the Indo Iranian/Iraqi mythology) was the goddly human who leads the forces of good in the final battle which destroys the forces of evil and delivers the world. This would fit perfectly with an El Hazard follow on, one where Katsuhito does something stupid, like waking up yet another demongod, only this one is one who is hell bent on waking up all the rest of the demon gods on el hazard so that they can finally finish the holy wars they started a long time ago.
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