Forum - View topicChildren of the Whales (TV).
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Children of the Whales (TV) Genres: action, drama, fantasy, mystery, psychological Themes: espers, post-apocalyptic, sages Plot Summary: A boy named Chakuro lives on the giant vessel Mud Whale that drifts over the sea of sand. Chakuro and his friends have never seen anyone from the outside world, and they spend their days yearning to explore and learn about it. One day, a ruined ship suddenly drifts ashore, and Chakura meets a girl inside. --------------------------------- I've only read a few chapters of the manga but the visual style of the show so far really has my attention. Not to mention, the premise of the story interests me a lot as I like fantasy and creative world fiction. Hoping the best for this show. |
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Stark700
Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Episode 1:
Wow, I love the visual style of this show. Very aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. Well done JC Staff. The show also has a colorful cast and setting. Chakuro is an interesting character so far as well. The world building of this show looks really well crafted with the refreshing feel. Saimia is a deadly ability that I have no doubt will be a recurring element in this show. Good episode. Rikosu is a mysterous character, hope we find out more about her. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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This does look like this is a series which is going to go a way to build its world, at first just trying to put some pieces together. It does seem that the Mud Whale is a splinter from the wider world which may have a very different culture, perhaps more militarily minded. Emotions are a sticking point, where people on the Mud Whale try to keep them under wraps by self discipline, but there are apparently people elsewhere who lack emotions for some reason. The emotion thing might be something that drains the marked ones, so elsewhere they remove the emotions so that they can be weapons, and unmarked people on the Whale also partake to be fare in giving marked people a slightly longer life.
It is also pretty despite the show's environment apparently being oceans of sand. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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It's been quite a while since I watched a first episode that was as captivating as this. I hope it keeps up with this level of quality and interest. I might actually watch this ep again since I feel like there were a lot of implications to pick up on.
The one thing I don't quite like is the animation. The backgrounds, color schemes, and character designs are quite nice, but the motion itself is kind of lackluster. A lot of exposition, but it was interleaved pretty well, and it fit into context of the main character being a record keeper and writing for people in future times to understand the context. One of the themes I seem to be getting here is the ability care about the distant future, or about things that are grander in scale or in time than yourself. It seems the marked, with their short lifespans are forced to live in the present as opposed to those who live longer. It makes sense for the longer lived ones to be in charge, but i think this might also be a bit of a metaphor for certain kinds of inequality in work, where the 'lower' ranked people do all the hard and dangerous stuff, while the 'higher' ranked ones just benefit from it and expend others' life for their own gains. I like the culture these people have, and how it is different form our own, but it's not being portrayed yet like it's either utopic or completely dysfunctional. That ED song is really amazing. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, the show is done with introductions and is really shifting gears. Episode two leaves us on quite a shocking cliffhanger. spoiler[I hope Sami survives getting shot, though since she is a childhood friend character her odds of survival are not great.]
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11602 |
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Episode 3
Wow, they just keep turning the screws on this one.  I'm kinda speechless, except to say this is amazing so far. Oh, and that by "emotionless" they must mean "compassionless" since Pinky sure was displaying a whole host of emotions once she arrived on the scene.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11602 |
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Episode 6
I love how this is taking its time unfolding its story. The world-building is among the best I've seen, with everything laid out organically and not because "oops, we'd better shoehorn this bit in here before its too late." I really hate stories like this (it reminds me a bit of Gargantia), but I love them. The scene of them teaching the little kids to use weapons broke my heart. But it was nice to see the girls welcoming Lycos rather than being jealous or some other mean girls crap that's so common in anime. They kind of played off that expectation nicely too. It's really a shame this couldn't have weekly reviews. One big write up just isn't the same. And not enough people are watching it. I think it's every bit as good as Made in Abyss, though they're very different series. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1946 |
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^I'm really enjoying this as well. It looks gorgeous, there's a bunch of interesting characters and it really makes me want to find out more about this world.
The reveal of their "grave sin" felt a bit underwhelming to me, though. From our perspective, spoiler[not giving up your emotions isn't exactly considered a sin] and so - at this point at least - it seems to be pretty clear who are the good and who are the bad guys here. I would have preferred a bit more ambiguity, but we'll see where it goes from here. I definitely agree that it's a shame we are unable to have weekly reviews, but that may just be something we'll have to get used to from now on... |
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xyz
Posts: 243 |
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I'm grateful for this and Magus' Bride this season. I haven't enjoyed a story for a while. It's so mysterious and tragic, haunting and unpredictable. I can't wait to see what will happen next ep.
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5528 Location: Mexico |
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I believe there will be more to it than the "grave sin" we've already been told about. I'm fairly certain thespoiler[ "having emotions"] is like the official story, the Elders' reticence points at there being something bigger we haven't been told yet, probably related to spoiler[Neri being Falaina's child or something]. I agree this is one of the best shows of the season with a truly endearing cast and they've been very clever in slowly revealing all the mysteries without it being too exposition heavy but also not holding it off until the last second. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11602 |
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Episode 7
Is Chakuro the only character with any plot armor? The attrition rate is just through the roof in this. They're going to need more characters pretty soon. Whaaa? ...the Mud Whale is made out of the Black Hills of South Dakota (or did they just sculpt it after a picture they saw)?  That felt a little like we just skidded into Planet of the Apes. 
Pinky can die any time now. I think it's not so much her cartoonishly over-the-top villainy that's bugging me, so much as it is the whole "the other side doesn't have emotions" thing, when she so obviously has more emotions than she can keep a lid on. If they're going to keep her on as a villain, they really need to explain why she's exempt sooner than later. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Wait? That is a woman! Honestly I was kind of annoyed how we led up to the ambush, because I felt the flag a mile away that it was actually frustrating that no one in the show was seeing it. As soon as they separated with that sort of confident I wrote off all of those characters. It should have been obvious that an ambush could be placed to kill every one in the place they can't use their powers, that should have been when they were the most careful. Lykos was the only one I thought had a chance of surviving somehow. |
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Merida
Posts: 1946 |
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^Yeah, i thought it was a bit too obvious when pretty much all the "more important" characters conveniently stayed behind...
And no, "Pinky" is not a woman and i'm sure we'll find out about what's the deal with him sooner or later. But first, i suppose he'll finally get a battle that is a little bit more...entertaining to him. |
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Merida
Posts: 1946 |
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Episode 9
There've been death flags all over poor spoiler[Nibi] for a while now, so i wasn't exactly shocked, but that scene with Ouni was still fairly touching. The rest of the ep. was very...trippy and made me wonder what exactly the Nous are. Also, those enemy commanders didn't seem especially emotionless, at least not on the same level as the foot soldiers who appear to be almost robotic... |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3672 |
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I think I'm done with these "adventure-as-analog-for-youth" shows. They seem to just keep getting worse.
I'm constantly distracted by the giant holes this show leaves floating around. Whether the way-too-emotional people in this society without emotion, or the fact that every one of these ruthless, emotionless soldiers will patiently stand around waiting for the narrative to progress through overwrought conversations before finally springing into action at the dramatically appropriate time for the dramatically appropriate result. I get that I'm not supposed to pay attention to the details of the framing plot, but it's there, and it's hard to ignore when the show basically spits in its face. |
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