General Anime/Manga Discussion 15: The Beach Episode

[Gray Mage]

Aotrs don't read this, brotherhood spoilers

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It has been a while when does it become clear that they are different people?

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Pretty much now when gluttony brings Al to father he reacts and says that Al and Ed are "that man's kids" and how "that man had kids".

By the way, I can barely wait for Aotrs' reaction when he meets Pride's true form.

Don't be concerned, Aotrs, things only get greater and more awesome from here on out.

[LaZodiac]

There are so so SO much depth to the homunculi in this version by the way. Each embodies their sin perfectly, to a startling degree of depth. Lust was burnt out and faded early, for instance. Envy never lies because jealousy can oft strip bare the truth, even if you can't accept it. Gluttony is attached to an action you literally need to live at your most base so he's monstrous sure, but there's no real EVIL behind those blank eyes, just hunger.

Also since you know Fuhrer King Bradley is Wrath, I can mention...they call him Fuhrer because Amestria is a germanic inspired nation, but...what else does Fuhrer sound like?

Furor. As in rage. As in wrath.

[Silfir]

Aotrs don't read this, brotherhood spoilers

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It has been a while when does it become clear that they are different people?

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I'm fairly sure it becomes clear once he actually meets and talks to the Elric brothers. They realize pretty quickly he's not actually their father, if only because he doesn't recognize them.

[Ibrinar]

Anyone reading dungeon meshi? The elves have no respect for the importance of the dungeon for gourmet cooking. Where else do you get to eat *opens random chapter* "eisbein-style cockatrice & dryad bud saurkraut with a side of grilled anti petrify herb"? A little danger is no reason to close it for a while!

[Callos_DeTerran]

Um, isn't this guy supposed to be, like, Evil? Or am I entirely misreading what the manga/anime is about?

Because if you're evil, "challenge" isn't the point, if you indeed interested in ruling/controlling (which I would sort of assume is implied by "overlord"). Assured victory is. A "challenge" might mean you might lose. Watching your enemies try everything they possible can, and watching their despair when they realise that nothing they do MATTERS and how completely screwed they are? And in that moment, THEN, when you kill them? That's where you get your satisfaction. (And no, that never gets old.)

You're not, essentially the equivilent of Saitama playing competative multiplayer and bemoaning you're the best at, I dunno, Starcraft or something (One-Zerg Man?) and you can't get a decent game, you're Bleakbane playing EUIV on Easy. (And potentially gravitating into, like, Tropico or something.)

(You probably have to be Evil to appreciate that, though.)

Oh man do you want to watch Overlord. Even if its just like...the first three episodes. Hell, I want to know if you do so I can read your reactions!

And to clarify some of what's been said about Ains, he's a salary man trapped inside the body of an elder lich with a very negative morality (morality in Overlord is a numerical scale that goes from -1000 to 1000, Ainz is at -1000....or close to it). The vast majority of his followers are similarly morally compromised with maybe...two or three exceptions. At first, Ainz plays the role of evil overlord cause he is sincerely worried that his followers, who are capable of killing him, will turn on him if he doesn't play the evil overlord role they expect from him. Over time though? His negative morality and the fact his lich body supresses intense emotion lead to him just...naturally acting like that especially once he realizes he's a veritable god among fleas and he had fun playing the evil overlord in a game so why not in his new real life? In other words his evilness is sort of an act at first but he's still a bit of a prick and selfish and then it becomes just...who he is.

And between the Ainz curbstomps you get some fun stories with the side characters! Though fair warning, the first half of the second season is a bit slow and doesn't have much of what makes the series fun in favor of some world building and showing what its like to be in front of Ainz' goals.

[Aotrs Commander]

Next six episodes for brotherhood.

(Celestia hasn't said anything in that other thread, but I'll spoiler for the sake of arguement._

Spoiler: Brotherhood e26-31

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Envy no, don't eat Ed, that's just gonna lead to you getting exploded from the inside oh, no it isn't huh. Ed works out how to get out of Gluttony's belly instead. Huh, he's basically just teleporting.

Also, May is frickin' BADASS.

Well, plus side, Al's body is still in there, and apparently still vaguley aware...? (That's terrifying.)

And apparnetly you make homunculous by using your typical test subject and seeing if the curse mark, I'm sorry, philospher's stone doesn't kill them.

(Still, this time, the homuculous make a lot more sense, as Bradley points out, why the hell would you want to be a human when you can have superpowers?)

Second episode is an Entirely Pointless Clip Show, only proving Hohenhiem is a nutcase.

Third epsidoe, Al arrives with Gluttony to "Father's" lair, just in time for Ed, Envy and Ling to pop out. (Scar and May aren't far behind.)

And... "Father" is NOT Ed and Al's Dad (I did begin to wonder in the previous episode), it's just his identical twin or something. Huh.

In the ensuing fracade, "Father" puts down what is clearly some sort of anti-alchemy field, but it doesn't work on alchehistry apparently, because the DM didn't activate magic/psionic transparency or something.

Ling, I really don't think that this is a good idea and wow you're just giving straight up without a fight that's a terrible idea. And new Greed. Formed from something... Else, which pretty muc as "demon" written all over it.

Net result, a lot of pants-wetting, but ultimately, Ed and Al dragged off (in the next episode) to join Mustang for a "that's a nice set of friends you have. Do we understand each other," talk with Bradley. (Which is a fatal mkstake becaus emustang always has a plan B...)

Scar finds Marco and he interrogates him, while Ed gets the down-low on Ishvala from Hawkeye at the same time.

Well, I really can't complain at her and Mustang, really. They plan to overthrow the government, et up a democracy, and then get tried as war-criminals. I mean, that's pretty much about as hard-core "take resonsibility for your actions" as you can get.

(I am not really surprised Armstrong had a breakdown. He is basically just Lawful Good to the core isn't he, bless 'im.)

Scar abscounds with Marco, while Ed and Al have a search for May, so they can get her to teach them how to not get anti-magiced.

Fu shows up to yoink Lan Fan (guys, you may as well use Winry, Bradley knows exactly who she is, she can't be in much more danger, seriously).

Well, Ling did snap at WrathBradley which took him by surprise, so maybe there is still something there...

Poor Doctor Knox. After having to break up My and Lan Fan trying to kill each other, he is so sad that he is praying just to enjoy a coffe with his son. Well. Okay, then.

Scar meanwhile, blows Marcoh's face off (to the horror of May and that opther dude) and says Marcoh gets to go north with them to find research note his brother left.



Well, that was a hell of a lot to unpack. It ain't sitting around, is it?

The plot thickens, and at the end of this w're not quite halfway in...

[Ramza00]

I am a fan of Doctor Knox.

And it is not teleporting it is plane-shifting from the material plane, to a platonic plane of ideas, and sometimes a demi-plane that is not really there yet simultaneously is there.

[Metahuman1]

Alright, finished the Ultraman Anime on Netflix. I, could sorta see a weird "Ironman as a Shield Agent." angle too it abit, mixed with the things I said before. Upbeat Kamen Rider crossed in with Spiderman, with a bit of sci-fi flavor on top.

I'm curious about where there going for next season. (Also, I confess, in the final episode, I really did think he went giant for a moment there the way the shot was framed initially.).

I know liberty's were taken with the franchise's history and lore, but I also got the impression they were making nods too it as well. Problem is I don't know the franchise super well, so I have no idea how any of that stacks up.


Fight scenes were pretty solid overall. And I feel it was enjoyable. I just hope they can maintain that fight scene budget, while, maybe getting a bit of a higher budget for the none fight scene's.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, started on Glitterforce Doki Doki.

So thios time, we have Glitter!JimmyNeutron (that's taking some serious adjustment), Glitter!Gaz, Glitter!Kyubei (!) and, keeping with the previous theme, Glitter!Hinata. also, in keeping, we have Cat Noir instead of Hawkmoth. (I look forwards to the next series in which we have Ladybug...) So, again, a very solid voice cast which amuses me.

But... Ehhh... At least in the first three episodes, it's just... less. Less self-aware, less funny. It seems a bit more syrupy overall, and honestly, neither the transformations nor the attacks are close to Glitter Force's, which is rather unfortunate, that being something we'll be seeing a lot. The whole "just add love" and spelling it out thing is marginally worse than "glitter puuf: apply shades of power." (And I'vbe just realised it probably is a lot more impressive to the Japanese, sicne theyr are spelling in in English, but whatever.)

The Distains have a much better name (one that's actually cool), and they are more talkative, but... "I don't like waiting in queue, should I cut in line" is quite possible the dumbest "use negative feelings to create monsters" I've ever seen. Hawkmoth/Ulrich is off somewhere facepalm/pawing at how dumb that is.

Mind you, in episode three, Glitter!Kuibei (Clara) turns out to basically be Glitter!FrackingBatman, complete with Alfred (Sebastian, the butler, is clearly digging this crap to the hilt, behind that polite butler mask); her complete "giving no excrements" about any of this is just HILARIOUS. I mean, Lichemaster, she literally has, like a Glitter!Batmobile which comes out of the ground in a ridiculously over-designed way that you imagine is how Lady Penelope and Parker take FAB1 out of the garage.

So, it isn't, like, bad. (And I was laughing, still, though not as much or as often.) We'll see - it took a few episodes for Glitterforce to warm up, too. (It's made two episodes more than some of these shows Ive started on, so...)




Edit much later:

Next six episodes of Brotherhood (to the First Homunculous):

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So Ed and Al meet the Fuerer's son, which is very awkward thing especially when Bradley drops by himself to be all ominous and crap.

Kimbley chases after Scar, leading to a fight on the train and Scar effortlessly kicks the CRAP out of Kimblee and skewers him like a stuck pig. Ahahahahahaha! (See, this version of Scar, I can actually sort of root for a little bit. In '03 I'd have been rooting for Kimblee . Maybe.)

Ed and Al head north and meet Armstrong's sister, who apparently the lady from the credits. (No joke, I could actually see the family resemblence in the artwork. I mean, like, seriously, not in a haha charactured way, there was just enough of something in the way they'd done it that I went "yeah, no, I see that.")

Little bit of an asshat, though, frankly. I don't have a lot of time for the uptight, humourless disciplinarians - like Izumi from round one, she's just about on the border of being intolerable without actually passing it. (Ditto for her men. I REALLY hate people who don't LISTEN, though.) Also, she clearly dislikes her brother, why I can't fathom...

We get introduced to Sloth for more than the single cameo, and he pops out inside the base and they have to deal with him. (Frack, they were lucky Ed and Al were there...)

Okay. Brotherhood. Those are, in fact, Proper Tanks. +10000 points for having Proper Tanks. Just one, small thing guys? Those are NOT WWI tanks. (And you have made a point of setting this is 1914 and being pretty clear that it is otherwise equivilent tech level more or less, so this is a little jarring to me.)

You see, I know what a WW1 tank looks like. I have done the one and only German one (and I know why in Wonder Woman, the tanks you see are actually all (clearly captured) British ones, because the A7V looks NOTHING like a tank), I've done British and French ones as casting masters for Kallistra.

Spoiler: I have no shame

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Those tanks they are using? Those are very definitely late, if not actually post-WW2 level technology, because I recognised a lot of the design elements (as I start at post-war with my own moderns), especially of some of the Soviet stuff like the T-55 (which is, of course, the most widely produced tank ever). Little details, like the ridges on the front mud-flaps. I don't think it is an actual dead-copy (the turret is a little more like the M60, which the Japanese also had), but yeah. It is a GOOD thirty to forty years ahead of where it "should" be, if we take the date of 1914 at face value. (Looking it up, it might be closer to some of the late German WW2 tanks rather than early Soviet stuff, but that I had to go have a close look tells you something!)

Now, with that said, I'm not going to scream historical inaccuracy because it's not Earth history, but, like, someone clearly rushed to the tank tech tree, is just what I'm sayin'.

And, like I said? Proper. Tanks.

Olivia gets Ed and Al in the tunnel sloth was digging, after being smart enoguh to realise when Ed says "he can't say" he's afraid of being overheard (bonus points, lass) and gets the full story from them. And they start putting together that Amestria has been used from the start, explictly CREATED to chisel out a transmutation circle for the, like, pass four hundred years or so. Yikes. And the Briggs fortress is the next, maybe even last target. Olivia is not happy. And, of course, at that moment, General Raven shows up with Kimbley in tow.

Hohenhiem, meanwhile is still doing his seemingly random wanderings, but we see his flashback that he's basically suffering from a complete inability to express his feelings to his children, that body was one he has "taken" and lived a long time in. Also, he recites some names, stabs his fingers into his chest and bleeds what appears to be some philospher's stones into the dirt. Good homunculous maybe?

Ed and company eavesdrop on Olivia smartly bluffing Raven into letting on about the whole immortality plan. A Bad Thing of eyes and teeth and spikey things slaughters the advanced team, but before Olivia can get a rescue party in, Raven tells her to let Sloth loose again and fill it in. He's getting really handsey at this point, the creeper fracker, and Olivia decide "frack this noise" and slices and dices him and chucks him into the concrete. At which point, she moves solidly away from the intolerable barrier to become Proper Awesome.

Rescue team, using a back door Ed created, slip down to find there were some survivors of the Bad Tunnel Monter attack, which apparently comes from the shadows.

Oh, crap, the scary thing in the tunnel is Pride ain't it, well that's not good.

Meanwhile back in centrel, Hawkeye discovers that OH UNHOLY CRAP ON A CRAP BASKET ON FIRE IN A SUPERNOVA, BRADLEY'S SON IS PRIDE!?!?!?!?!


And the thing in the tunnels is ALSO Pride? So Price is like an omnipresent thing that can manifest in shadows almost anywhere?

...

...

Well. In the words of Arnold Rimmer *looks down* I haven't done that in a few years.

More bad news, Kimbly brought up Winry for a hostage under the excuse of fixing Ed's automail. And his orders, from Bradley, to Ed are to find Scar, find Marcoh, and just commit an atrocity if that's not too much trouble, and he can have a philospher's stone if he does. Ed, of course is having none of that crap, but plays along anyway and uses the opportunity to clue Wintry in about what's going on. And not only does she take it well, she's determined to go with them when they go off to fight Scar. Because Best Character.

(Also, Ed's sudden nervousness around her because Hawkeye said he was i love with her was hilarious. And if he'd just made his perception check, he'd have learned she feels the same. *snort*)


Yeah, this show keeps throwing blindsiding unholy fracking crap curveballs at me, for which I can only salute it for.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

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YEAAAAAAH!! You finally meet Olivia! Yeah. She's great. And Brotherhood Pride is terrifying.

[Aotrs Commander]

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YEAAAAAAH!! You finally meet Olivia! Yeah. She's great. And Brotherhood Pride is terrifying.

Just a little bit, yeah!

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Compare and contrast, FMA '03 we got the child sin Wrath expressed as a tantrum-screaming toddler; in Brotherhood the "child" sin Pride expressed, presumably, as "Father's pride and joy" as an unholy fracking crap scary-hard near-eldritch horror. Liiiiittle bit of a difference there...!

[HandofShadows]

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Compare and contrast, FMA '03 we got the child sin Wrath expressed as a tantrum-screaming toddler; in Brotherhood the "child" sin Pride expressed, presumably, as "Father's pride and joy" as an unholy fracking crap scary-hard near-eldritch horror. Liiiiittle bit of a difference there...!

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You think Pride is bad now? Just. Wait.

[LaZodiac]

Just a little bit, yeah!

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Compare and contrast, FMA '03 we got the child sin Wrath expressed as a tantrum-screaming toddler; in Brotherhood the "child" sin Pride expressed, presumably, as "Father's pride and joy" as an unholy fracking crap scary-hard near-eldritch horror. Liiiiittle bit of a difference there...!

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Pride and Wrath's reveal honestly feel like direct attacks against the FMA03 anime and it rules. It was definitely always the case, but it deeefinitely felt like direct attacks at the same time. "Oh, you made the ruler of a dictatorship Pride, how boring and naive. He is Wrath, a ruthless monster. As for his useless non-character son? PRIDE"

Also Olivia is brilliant. I cannot overstate how everything about her and her Briggs is fantastic. Honestly, given how they talk about weapons development being done up here, I think it's valid they have a WW2 era tank in a WW1 style time frame. They're that good at war that they moved up from the boxes of iron to something far more reasonable for war. That's just how much respect and danger Briggs brings to the table.

[Aotrs Commander]

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Pride and Wrath's reveal honestly feel like direct attacks against the FMA03 anime and it rules. It was definitely always the case, but it deeefinitely felt like direct attacks at the same time. "Oh, you made the ruler of a dictatorship Pride, how boring and naive. He is Wrath, a ruthless monster. As for his useless non-character son? PRIDE"

Also Olivia is brilliant. I cannot overstate how everything about her and her Briggs is fantastic. Honestly, given how they talk about weapons development being done up here, I think it's valid they have a WW2 era tank in a WW1 style time frame. They're that good at war that they moved up from the boxes of iron to something far more reasonable for war. That's just how much respect and danger Briggs brings to the table.

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Like I said, I don't have any objections. It's just like watching a World War 2 program and the new Russian tank is brought into play and it's fracking T-72 or the new American secret weapon to shoot down the FockeWulf 190s is a fricking F-14 Tomcat or like a Leopard 2A5 rampaging through a host of T-55s. (Or a fracking TIE Defender showing up at the Battle of Naboo or something.) It's the whole "oh, SNAP, you'rr screwed!" moment.

I just notice particularly, since, as I say, I'm so very familiar with this stuff.

And, in fairness, with the exception of the British WW1 tanks, a lot of contemporary WW1 vehicles don't look anything like the later ones at all, so, like I say, I could entirely forgive Wonder Woman using them. I wouldn't have known what an A7V was until I came to do the model, so your average cinema go-er would have no chance at all!

(Okay, yeah, you could argue the '03 tanks were a little bit like WW1 tanks, except that even WW1 tanks had, y'know, vision blocks. Which were, by the by, IMMEDIATELY noticable to me, especially in the commander's hatch Olivia was sitting in.)

[Gray Mage]

Just a little bit, yeah!

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Compare and contrast, FMA '03 we got the child sin Wrath expressed as a tantrum-screaming toddler; in Brotherhood the "child" sin Pride expressed, presumably, as "Father's pride and joy" as an unholy fracking crap scary-hard near-eldritch horror. Liiiiittle bit of a difference there...!

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All of the homunculli in brotherhood are better than 03's counterparts, Selim in particular as well. If you'd like a cool bonus is to go back and see his past lines before he was revealed as pride, especially when he mentions his father or how amestrian alchemy is superior.

Also, about Al's body being at the gates of truth, it is something that can be figured out with what you've seen so far, but it's mostly only implied.

[Aotrs Commander]

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All of the homunculli in brotherhood are better than 03's counterparts, Selim in particular as well. If you'd like a cool bonus is to go back and see his past lines before he was revealed as pride, especially when he mentions his father or how amestrian alchemy is superior.

Also, about Al's body being at the gates of truth, it is something that can be figured out with what you've seen so far, but it's mostly only implied.

Spoiler: Brotherhood

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Actually, I'd already gone "oh [snap], that explains why he's always being so proud of Bradley!"

Yeah should have seen that coming. But no, even with him speaking the Bradley off-screen. I had actually assumed Pride was a girl or a woman at least some sort of secret eldritch horror yet to be seen. (I was HALF-right...!) So the clues were there, just for once (and, again in fairness, because of FMA '03), I didn't put them together.

By this point, Ed's actually SEEN Al's body at the Gate of Truth (unless what he saw during the trip out of Gluttony's belly was a hallucination, which is possible, I suppose...)

[Gray Mage]

Spoiler: Brotherhood

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Actually, I'd already gone "oh [snap], that explains why he's always being so proud of Bradley!"

Yeah should have seen that coming. But no, even with him speaking the Bradley off-screen. I had actually assumed Pride was a girl or a woman at least some sort of secret eldritch horror yet to be seen. (I was HALF-right...!) So the clues were there, just for once (and, again in fairness, because of FMA '03), I didn't put them together.

By this point, Ed's actually SEEN Al's body at the Gate of Truth (unless what he saw during the trip out of Gluttony's belly was a hallucination, which is possible, I suppose...)

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Oh, that was no hallucination.

Spoiler: hint

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Remember what happened with Ed's arm and leg back when he opened up the Gate of truth.

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Just like truth began to wear Ed's arm and leg, Truth is wearing Al's body.

Anyway, Briggs is a very fun part of the manga ano anime.

[Ramza00]

Responding to some of the characters that Aotrs Commander brought up in FMA Brotherhood.

Spoiler: Brotherhood Episodes 33 to 37

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Olivia Armstrong is a character very similar to Roy Mustang, with Roy being someone who in another life could have “turned into her” if Roy lived a different life with different experiences and/or if Roy made different choices during those life experiences.

Olivia Armstrong is a person who will pick the most effective tool at the moment and wield it either like a scalpel or like a hammer depending on what it is called for in the scenario.

While Olvia’s younger brother Alex (oldest male figure, there are other female siblings younger than Olivia that gets cameos) will start a speech “"This technique has been passed down the Armstrong (family) line for generations!” Olivia will instead just pull out her sword and stab you. There is no show off elegance in Olivia when it comes to battle, only force and proper application of technique (which is its own form of elegance for there is no wasted movement) , but outside of battle Olivia is very savvy and knows how to use other forms of elegance, to show off and so on.

Let me use a speech from OOTS to illustrate the point I am trying to make. Pulls it up and puts in a quote box to make you understand Olivia.

(Xykon vs Dorukan from Start of Darkness)

:Hey, you know what really gets under my skin?
Proverbially, of course?
A century of wizards looking down their damn noses at me.
Energy Drain!
I know people think I'm stupid.
Because I'm not a wizard.
Because I get bored easily.
Because I have no interest in strategy or tactics or contingency planning.
Energy Drain!
But see, I've learned a lot over the years since I died.
A lot more than I learned during my life.
And now I see that planning doesn't matter.
Strategy doesn't matter.
Only two things matter:
Force in as great a concentration as you can manage, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide.
Energy Drain!
In any battle, there's always a level of force against which no tactics can succeed.
For example, all I need to do is keep smacking you with Energy Drains, and soon you won't be able to cast any of your fancy spells at all.
Energy Drain!
Because yes, I am a sorceror - and this magic is in my bones, not cribbed off of "Magic for Dummies."
And I can keep casting the same friggin' spell at you until you roll over and die.
You can have your finely-crafted watch - give me the sledgehammer to the face any day.
ENERGY DRAIN!

Now Olivia is not like Lichmaster Xykon in dozens of ways, but I bring up this speech for it illustrates different ways to fight a war.
Raw Power, Raw Power sometimes so intense it triggers feelings of the Sublime.
Style,
Strategy,
Tactics,
Negotiation causing alignment of intentions with multiple peope,
Cooperation,
Etc.

Olivia understands the world can be cruel, and she also understands the world is never static and it is always changing. Death will happen if you do not respect the world (which is different than respecting the people in the world) and thus she has a survival of the fittest belief where you must be willing to engage in power in order to survive. Yet Olivia will use several other skillsets I mentioned above in order to solve a problem. She is a very versatile lady. A terrible lady for she is competent and ruthless and thus she induces thoughts of terror when she is your enemy or rival.



-----

Olivia has no respect both for her younger brother Alex Louis Armstrong and Roy Mustang for both of these characters allow Sentiment to cloud their vision during War. Olivia has her own Sentiment but she will be cold as ice and hard as stone when necessary during warfare instead of people like this.



She cannot count on soldiers with PTSD or letting their sentiment cloud their vision during a battlefield. These people are unreliable, they are like an unreliabile gun that sometimes fires and sometimes does not and sometimes explode in your face, a true form of Russian Roulette.

Olivia respects sentiment that can be kept in check, that can be kept internal, but she does not like external sentiment, she hate “mush”. She recognizes sentiment is the animating force that moves humans and makes them alive, subjective, and having value. But when you let your “sentiment control you” and you are unable to function towards your goals for you are being overwhelmed by sentiment, well Olivia has no tolerance for that!

Yet Olivia is not completely heartless for she encourages people to have their own sentiment, and to have sentiment that contradict hers and will “feel alien” to her, just as long as they are able to cooperate and work with her towards a common purpose, a common goal, a common drive where everyone survives and thrives.

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Briggs is very into R&D when they are not defending the border so even though most of Amestris is WW1 tech plus Alchemy Magic think of Briggs as a R&D outpost. It was also mentioned those tanks were prototypes.

(Sidenote I just realized while typing the name Amestris out… Amestris and Xerxes, as in the Persian King and his wife of history and myth.)

[ellenate]

started watching prison school... this is not the comedy i thought it was going to be.

(i'm not really a good tell for voice acting but they seem to have pulled a good cast. which is a bit of a surprise, the good ones usually don't want their names associated with such things.)

I thought the reason i haven't really heard that much about it was because it was a forgettable comedy, now i'm realizing that people probably don't want to admit they watched it.

[Pendulous]

which is a bit of a surprise, the good ones usually don't want their names associated with such things.)

This confuses me. For multiple reasons, like how Prison School is actually a pretty highly rated show. And that there are the trashiest of trash that has some really big name actors in them. Valkyrie Drive, which I like to describe as "basically hentai but with an actually decent plot", has the likes of Brittney Karbowski, Jamie Marchi, Monica Rial, and Trina Nishimura in it. That said, nowhere will you find the voice actor who plays the lead, Mamori (ha, get it? Mammories). But it is definitely Megan Shipman.

For fun I found the lowest rated show licensed by Funimation. Master of Martial Hearts. And its cast is about as all-star as you can get. No secret names on it.

[ellenate]

This confuses me. For multiple reasons, like how Prison School is actually a pretty highly rated show. And that there are the trashiest of trash that has some really big name actors in them. Valkyrie Drive, which I like to describe as "basically hentai but with an actually decent plot", has the likes of Brittney Karbowski, Jamie Marchi, Monica Rial, and Trina Nishimura in it. That said, nowhere will you find the voice actor who plays the lead, Mamori (ha, get it? Mammories). But it is definitely Megan Shipman.

My guess is that it'd stop them from working on projects aimed at children, but honestly...

Outside of anime, no one keeps track of voice actors. (On that note- Voice actors seem to be, at large, in a very unappreciated profession.)

For fun I found the lowest rated show licensed by Funimation. Master of Martial Hearts. And its cast is about as all-star as you can get. No secret names on it.

That show gave me a headache after I finished it. It should be burnt in fire, not given a low rating.

[Cozzer]

Prison School is top-tier anime, and this is a hill that I'm willing to die on. It has something to say about a topic, and fully commits to saying it in the loudest way possible, pulling no stops.

[Pendulous]

Outside of anime, no one keeps track of voice actors. (On that note- Voice actors seem to be, at large, in a very unappreciated profession.)

I actually got into the idea of voice acting because of western shows. I watched a lot of commentary from old seasons of Futurama and Family Guy. Got to the point where I was hearing new characters and picking out who voiced them.

[LaZodiac]

this is a hill that I'm willing to die on.

Then perish.

In all seriousness everything I've seen of Prison School makes me seriously doubt it has anything to say, and if it does it's marred by the fact that there's a scene where a dominatrix disciplinarian at a prison school gets off by riding on top of a tiny action figure Genghis Khan action figure and I get it, it's absurd and silly, but it's also one of the dumbest ****ing things I've ever seen or heard of and I don't know how you could watch that with another person and feel comfortable afterwards. It's like watching a regular film with your family and all of a sudden there's a sex scene. It's not that that is inherently bad or anything, but it's unexpected out of nowhere and there are people in the room that makes it awkward.

[Kato]

My guess is that it'd stop them from working on projects aimed at children, but honestly...

Outside of anime, no one keeps track of voice actors. (On that note- Voice actors seem to be, at large, in a very unappreciated profession.)

Now that's just untrue. Admittedly, I'm a stupid purist and watch almost only Japanese originals and therefore at best know a few popular Japanese VAs. But beside the great English dubbers, there are plenty of VAs for original English animation or related media, i.e. video games with big names. Admittedly, off the top of my head I can only think of Hamill, Basco or North, but as I said, I don't care about it a lot.

Then perish.

In all seriousness everything I've seen of Prison School makes me seriously doubt it has anything to say, and if it does it's marred by the fact that there's a scene where a dominatrix disciplinarian at a prison school gets off by riding on top of a tiny action figure Genghis Khan action figure and I get it, it's absurd and silly, but it's also one of the dumbest ****ing things I've ever seen or heard of and I don't know how you could watch that with another person and feel comfortable afterwards. It's like watching a regular film with your family and all of a sudden there's a sex scene. It's not that that is inherently bad or anything, but it's unexpected out of nowhere and there are people in the room that makes it awkward.

Now, that's just unfair, Zodiac. I haven't seen Prison school either, probably for about the same reasons as you, but claiming an anime is bad because it has a (or a few) questionable scenes it is, is just wrong. e.g. iirc you are also a fan of Kill la Kill, and if you tell me, that show has no scenes you would not want to watch with your family then... Your relationship with your parents if very different from mine.
Note that I'm not saying PS is good, (or bad), I have no idea, but I disagree with the reason for judging it bad.

[Cozzer]

Eh, the thing it has to say is "People, at their core, are silly, horny idiots, and there's nothing wrong with that. Try to hide or repress it, though, and they will get exponentially worse". Every stupid, disgusting and exaggerated thing the characters end up doing is the direct result of the stupid, exaggerated way they've repressed their perfectly normal teenage sexual desire. Honestly, for me it's a pretty spot-on grotesque parody of the results actual, real-life sexuality shaming achieves.

The point of Prison School is that you should find every single character a bit disgusting, because that setting is what happens when the people at the top have internalized and enforce on others the wrongest way possible to go about things.

For me it was also totally hilarious, but that's tastes.

(For an anime about similar themes that's less grotesque and that has a few characters you can actually root for, there's Shimoneta which is another favorite of mine).

[LaZodiac]

Now that's just untrue. Admittedly, I'm a stupid purist and watch almost only Japanese originals and therefore at best know a few popular Japanese VAs. But beside the great English dubbers, there are plenty of VAs for original English animation or related media, i.e. video games with big names. Admittedly, off the top of my head I can only think of Hamill, Basco or North, but as I said, I don't care about it a lot.



Now, that's just unfair, Zodiac. I haven't seen Prison school either, probably for about the same reasons as you, but claiming an anime is bad because it has a (or a few) questionable scenes it is, is just wrong. e.g. iirc you are also a fan of Kill la Kill, and if you tell me, that show has no scenes you would not want to watch with your family then... Your relationship with your parents if very different from mine.
Note that I'm not saying PS is good, (or bad), I have no idea, but I disagree with the reason for judging it bad.

Yeah, that's a point. I feel like Kill la Kill is better about actually presenting it's message? It's also a really nice message about self acceptance and knowing you don't need to follow everyone's trends.

I'm hesitant to call Prison School's "repressed sexuality is bad" message executed well since it goes way too deep, way to hard on some stuff that is like, actually uncomfortable for people. The main character's love interest basically sexually assaults him by forcing him to piss into bottles and stuff. There's no real message about "repressed sexuality is bad" there beyond the fact that "if they weren't repressed they wouldn't sexually assault each other" which...isn't a very nice message, to me.

[Cozzer]

I love Kill la Kill too, but I really don't think it's incompatible with Prison School. The main difference is that Prison School goes about it in sort of dystopian way (every character is occasionally sympathetic, but there's nobody challenging the status quo with success), and it's less removed from reality so yeah, I guess it could be unconfortable.

I love both anime, but if I had to advise one of them to somebody I don't know, it would definitely be Kill la Kill (and even that's something I wouldn't advise blindly to everyone). Prison School is definitely a "I love it, but I can also see how others don't" kind of thing. I'll just defend it forever. I'll go as far as saying that it's probably healtier than every anime where female innocence and "purity" are subtly sexualized.

[ellenate]

Yeah, that's a point. I feel like Kill la Kill is better about actually presenting it's message? It's also a really nice message about self acceptance and knowing you don't need to follow everyone's trends.

I don't really buy into messages unless the author commits to them...

like hxh

Spoiler

Show

and the whole humans are evil thing

(and yes, i decided to somewhat still keep up with it after dropping the anime. Which i can't really say i regret doing. Though i wouldn't hate the idea of going through the manga once it is complete)

[John Cribati]

I'd take "sexually questionable situations in an attempt to say something about human sexuality, even if it doesn't really end up working" over "sexually questionable situations for plain old shock value" any day of the week.