Forum - View topicBest World-Building Tournament: Concluded!
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Round 3 Group B is now closed.
Hey, it's only a full day late! With 15 votes in, the results: B-17: New Yogo Empire stabs down feisty World of Beast Player Erin, 9-6. B-18: Bath House of the Gods goes magical girl on World of Madoka Magica, 10-5. B-19: Nausicaa's Post-Apocalyptic Earth ousts World of One Piece, 10-5. B-20: Amestris slams down Victorian England, 12-3. B-17 was close the whole round, with NYE having to take the final five votes to manage this total. The rest were also close early on, but the winners gradually set and stretched leads as the week progressed. New Group should go up shortly. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Round 3 Group C is now closed.
Results can be found here. Since this is already a day late, let’s get started without further ado! Group C-17 Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Last edited by Key on Tue Dec 17, 2013 12:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4159 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Tough one. Actually, wait; One's setting involves all possible futures that can be imagined, provided its either standard dystopian or boring pastoral {the imagination of the anime creators}, the other uses stock European motifs as a base {like any good soup?} to provide a world where anything imagined can become the future {the imagination of the viewers}. Gold Crown Town over the Noein multiverse; You'll believe a duck can dance! You better believe it, she needs all the help she can get... Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise Humankind Empire Abh over Ikebukuro. You have to admit that all the action built around Durarara!!'s setting would have been almost eliminated if people just talked to each, or texted in one case. Without that, you just have the familiar streets and intersections you've seen in other shows, movies and maybe even real life. It's kind of dull, isn't it, without the roaming gangs and ... more gangs? I never understood the attraction to gangs here. I do admit Abh is more thematically strong than physically; It is a space empire make out spaceships after all ... which is an original idea for the most part ... but it makes it hard to define it as a race separate from opposing people/races who appear only in their own ships. The genetically modified ears just reminds me of the old classic "rubber faced alien", the Vulcans, I mean space elves. Really too common... Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Prester over Gunsmoke. Steam punk beats desert punk. I could go into greater detail but Trigun didn't so why should I? Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Gargantia over the Solar System. I've never understood the Solar system's bounty hunting process, why it would have its own network {every sense of the word}, how bounties are priced or in what or why the members of the Bebop are always broke, almost starving at times but have fuel and ammo. Also, the Beboppers are losers but they're good, I mean, "competent", at ... whatever ... they want apparently. Cool over ... logic? ... I suppose. Gargantia, I haven't seen which is a mark in its favor. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self This one is actually a pretty tough choice if one looks hard at the merits of both (although I fully expect one of them to win by a wide margin). I am going to give a very slight advantage to Gold Crown Town because it is more of a unified whole in concept and does some especially interesting things with the way it blends classic fairy tale and magical girl elements. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise No contest. Ikebukuro is just an ordinary setting with a couple of fantastic twists, while Humankind Empire Abh is a fully-realized and meticulously-detailed space empire. While it may not be the most distinctive of settings visually, the details are everything here, from the way aspects of the setting affect combat tactics to the distinctive attitudinal and social characteristics of the Abh. It's at worst one of the two strongest sci fi settings in the whole field. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Trickier, but at least these two are playing on an even playing field. I will go with Prester because I agree that Trigun didn't do enough to distinguish is setting when compared to a series like LE, which got vastly more creative about it. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Solar System made it this far in large part because of the ambiance it creates, which is enough against lesser competition but Gargantia, with its fully-realized, post-apocalyptic water world, isn't that. While I still think that Roanapur is the strongest option in this branch, the floating city is the better of the ones present here. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu Yeah, Ima have to go for Gold Crown Town here. Noein is a great competitor, but few series have the setting impact where the settings' very nature and existence is part of the driving part of the story. Group C-18 Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise What can I say? I'm a total sucker for space operas and the more you see of Crest/Banner, the more you get into the world itself as well. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun The way the desert world affects its citizens and their way of life always fascinated me, it was part of the strong part of the series for me for sure. Prester never really impressed me, and now that I've seen what is kind of a vaguely similar idea by better with Simoun (the whole flying machines), I can't really go for Prester Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop I might be going with what I know here, but Bebop does have a very solid setting. For all those planets, I really got a good feel for all of them by the end of whatever ep they were in. And one of my favorite type of settings is forgotten cities, which this series has when Spike and Jet try to find a BetaMax player in a decrepit mall (though Mospeada has a whole town, which is awesome). |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu I haven't seen Noein but the multiverse sounds interesting enough that I may have to check it out. But I'm going to keep backing Gold Crown Town, since I know and love it and early voters who have seen both have gone that way as wekk. Group C-18 Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise I haven't seen either and they both sound pretty close as far as concept goes, so I'm going with the series I've heard more good things about in general. Group C-19 Prester, Last Exile I am abandoning my nominee here, though Gunsmoke was the entry I was least personally attached to. It does some really interesting things but I don't think it can quite hold up to Prester, at least not form the sound of it. Group C-20 Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Voting against the one I've seen because I really don't remember much about the Bebop world, other than it being in space. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2267 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Hmm...tough one for me. Noein and its worlds derived from quantum physics or Tutu a story that is the setting. I think I'll give it to Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu because while I find Noein decently strong in its world building I think Tutu's execution is better. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise Another tricky one as I don't think Ikebukuro is that strong, however I'm probably in the minority here but I don't think Abh's world building is that great. We have modified humans living in space. Well that's been done thousands of times in Sci-Fi. I mean in this same group of nominees we have Gargantia which has humans that have been adapted for different environments and they reaaally look different which could add to a feeling of alien-ess or explain something like prejudice. Except in the case of the Abh its bishie space elves and that was eh, to me. The mechanics of space combat? How it actually works in this universe? The actual tactical, strategic and technical presentations of waging a battle in space was often posturing by commanders, waving batons and looking at screens. What a show like Starship Operators has over this show, not that I consider SO a great show mind you, is that it actually demonstrates a credible side of combat. For example, distances and time of engagement had to be calculated with results taking a long time to happen. It was almost like submarine combat. Not something you really see in Banner of the Stars. What you did see was the same footage of space battles being used over and over again, but I digress. For me the relationship of the two leads was the most interesting part of the show, while the setting was a little generic. I'm going to vote for Ikebukuro, Durarara!! because I find it a little more original. When Mikado is shown around in the beginning by Masaomi he's shown the local sights and that really ends up being characters that are both legend and fixtures of the place. The Black Russian, the Bartender, the Informant and the Black Rider are in a sense part of the setting. They are part of the Urban Legends of the setting. A headless motorcycle rider, people disappearing in the night, cursed items and possessed people. These are all stories, rumors or urban legends that are part of the world and setting of DRRR!! This along with its supernatural elements made it far more interesting and engaging than CS/BS world. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Voting for Prester, Last Exile Steampunk, vanships, the Grand Stream, cool aircraft designs, interesting uniforms, brutal ritualized combat that included musketeers (kinda) lining up and shooting each other. Different and interesting world gets my vote. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Gargantia was ok, but it didn't go far enough for me. I just felt that the cultures were mostly superficial and they weren't developed as much as it should have. Contrasting the brightness and shininess of Gargantia the world of Cowboy Bebop is a criminal world, a broken world that the characters inhabit. The criminals influence the politics and the police are corrupt. Meanwhile, the technology is somewhat advanced and as part of the setting of the show it has an old gritty worn quality to it. This maybe the result of the destruction of Earth and as a consequence the beginnings of a vibrant space civilization instead fell on hard times. Terraformed planets each unique to its world populate the show. Voting for Solar System, Cowboy Bebop.  
The terraformed Craters of Mars, Frozen Ganymede terraformed into an ocean world.  
Space Gates, Orbiting Casinos Last edited by One-Eye on Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4159 |
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And in other news, Hamlet is officially part of the Danish scenery. He's a shrub. In his own play within a play... OK, you're saying the urban legends are part of the atmosphere. Fair enough, works in the story "Sleepy Hollow" and here as well as long as you focus on the idea it's a special environment where only these legends can reign. Yeah, here's the problem with that: A misty moor in Ireland gives credence to the Dullahan; If you need the undead creature to give character to a bland part of Japan you want to focus on then you have a problem {the characters and plot are the meat of Durarara!!. It could pretty much be set anywhere} |
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One-Eye
Posts: 2267 |
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There's no problem. Its an Urban Fantasy and its quite normal to have elements from folklore, literature and myth show up in a real or fictional city and those elements don't even have to be from the creators own culture. So no, you don't need the story to be in Ireland if you have a Dullahan in it and yes fantastical elements can add to what might otherwise be a mundane setting. Furthermore, Ikebukuro is full of quirky and strange characters that call it home, not just the most extreme cases like Celty. In part its the characters that gives the place its character. That's what makes Ikebukuro Ikebukuro or as Mikado says "The dollars are the town itself." |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6587 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu: Of the two I've only seen Princess Tutu, which deserves to proceed. No one has yet provided a reason why I should vote for Noein so I'll stick with Tutu. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise I've seen Durarara!, Crest of the Stars and the first season of Banner of the Stars. Both franchises deserve to be in the final 16 and I am open to persuasion here. I'm going for Ikebukuro, Durarara!! because it achieves something that only Aria achieves elsewhere in this tournament. The setting feels alive, that it is a personality in its own right. Whenever a character enters the teeming Ikebukuro there's always the sense that something or someone is going to pop out of the masses to add some new wrinkle to the story. While Crest/Banner of the Stars is a good example of a nicely detailed sci fi setting, its world building comes third to the memorable characters and the terse, exciting story telling. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Prester, Last Exile is even better than the the Abh Empire when it comes to creating a detailed sci fi setting while its competition is nowhere near as accomplished as Durarara!! Gunsmoke doesn't amount to much more than an exercise in stylistic excess. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Voting for Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet even though I haven't seen it because the Solar System setting of Cowboy Bebop lacks a convincing social/political underpinning to make it anything more than a cool/pretty background for the activities of the characters. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Gold Crown Town It was interesting how setting is important for the story. Noein Multiverse is hurt by the fact that we don't see much of the other realities. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise While Durarara!! is a good urban fantasy show, the place is nothing extraordinary, apart from some mythical/magical creatures. It cannot stand against Humankind Empire Abh's rich world-building. If Durarara!! tried to come up with an explanation how there can be Dullahan in this world, I may have considered it a better candidate, but as it doesn't try at all to address these issues, I don't see much world-building in it. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Prester is an interesting vision and it seems to be the better one. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Gargantia I have seen neither, but after reading other's posts I am voting for Gargantia, as it looks to be the better one. |
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J-Dark Side
 Posts: 25 |
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oh hai dorcas~
Group C-17 Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Hmm, toughie. Noein's multiverse has a fascinating set of ideas behind it, and the timelines we do see are all well developed and feel completely different from one another, but still somehow familiar. Nearly the entire series is explaining itself, so it definitely has that down. Princess Tutu has a great setting, but it's not quite as well structured. There being a group of people rebelling against the writer seems odd to me with how much control said writer has, plus it's not too well explained how some stranger elements function by the end. It feels like they had a different idea at start, but the world developed a different way and didn't mesh perfectly as a result. That can easily be knocked up to magic, but I appreciate how much thought Noein put into its massive world of possibilities more. I vote Noein. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise I vote Durarara!!, no question. That city just feels alive, and I love how they showed different parts of it. The entire world feels like a city should, multilayered with different classes living their lives in wildly different ways. A lot of attention went into that. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Voting Last Exile. I like Trigun, but I always felt Gunsmoke was uninteresting in the anime. It felt like the most bare bones set of ideas for a desert setting, with some technology thrown in. If I want that, I have the Dark Tower series to work with, and demons and a multiverse are mixed in there. No complaints against Last Exile's world building at all. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Cowboy Bebop gets my vote. I like all the little touches, like the bounty hunter show and the massive mash of cultures. It's pretty much a colony landscape setting, except done in a more grungy way that really works. There's always something new to find, just like with our myriad amount of human cultures. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Sorry I haven't updated the minigame. I was busy with finals last week, and then I got a nasty cold over the weekend. I'll have a current update by Wednesday at the latest.
Group C-17 Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self Choosing: Gold Crown Town As before, I wasn't really impressed with the depth (or lack thereof) that Noein went to with its parallel worlds. GCT, however, is vibrant, distinct, and fully realized. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise Choosing: Humankind Empire Abh I said before that the Ikebukuro setting didn't seem to add much to DRRR. The Abh Empire, on the other hand, is replete with culture, technology, and a complex political and military system. Also, in regards to One-Eye's point that the "folklore" of the show adds to the world-building, seeing the how mundane the truth behind the legends in the series are spoiler[the Dollars and Blue Squares are both lacking in purpose and barely have a cohesive identity] undermines potential interest they create. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Choosing: Gunsmoke I enjoy Prester's aesthetic more, but there are a few vaguaries that it doesn't adequately explain by the end. Gunsmoke, despite being a dusty wasteland, fits its enviroment and history together like cogs in a well-oiled machine. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Choosing: Gargantia Arguments have swayed me. |
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rosebrook11
 Posts: 1181 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu vs. Noein Multiverse, Noein – to your other self I love the way that Gold Crown Town does it's world building as a story within a story. Too lazy to go into more detail now. Group C-18 Ikebukuro, Durarara!! vs. Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise Ikebukuro I loved the overall esscence that Durarara put out with its setting. It's not just a random urban setting that the characters hang out it. The city is basically its own character brought alive via the urban legends and the like. Group C-19 Gunsmoke, Trigun vs. Prester, Last Exile Gunsmoke I absolutely love the worldbuilding in Trigun, because of how it tells its story. You don't get all of the answers right away and the viewer gradually begins to learn more about the land as time goes on. It may not be as visually detailed as Prester, but I think its world still has more of an impact on me. Group C-20 Solar System, Cowboy Bebop vs. Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet From all of the comments, I know really want to see Gargantia. But I don't feel compelled enough to vote for it. Both this round and last round I never got a great sense of what made Gargantia so special compared to both Roanapur and the Cowboy Bebop Solar System. Because of that I'm going with Solar System not because I'm more familar with it, but because I truly felt invested in that world while I was watching the show. Also, the images that One-Eye posted reminded me how beautiful some of the settings in the series can be. |
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Furudanuki
 Posts: 1874 |
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Group C-17
Gold Crown Town, Princess Tutu Noein's world(s) is broad, yet thinly spread. Princess Tutu's is narrowly focused with a great deal of depth. I'm going with the deeper world. Group C-18 Humankind Empire Abh, Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise I seemed to me that Durarara! could have been set just about anywhere and it wouldn't have made a huge difference to the story. So I can't see it holding a candle to what I consider one of the strongest entries remaining in this contest. Group C-19 Prester, Last Exile Prester admittedly has a number of undotted I's and uncrossed T's. But Trigun left me underwhelmed in a multitude of ways. Group C-20 Gargantia, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet[/quote] Aside from the soundtrack I have never considered Cowboy Bebop to be all that and a bowl of soba. Gargantia did more with what they had, and that's good enough for me. |
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