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The Perfect Insider (TV).


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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:35 pm Reply with quote


The Perfect Insider (TV)

Genres: Mystery
Theme:

Plot Summary: Sōhei Saikawa is a member of the Saikawa Research Lab. He goes on a vacation held by the lab, and Moe Nishinosono, the daughter of his mentor, joins the group on their vacation despite not being a part of the lab. There, the two end up finding a corpse. The two work together to solve the mysteries of what becomes a serial murder case.

Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqBv7Sgl-f8&feature=youtu.be
----------------------------------

Another mystery theme series for Fall 2015.

The premise sounds quite interesting imo and from the preview, I like the atmospheric feeling that is similar to Terror in Tokyo. Also, it's a novel adaptation and those imo are usually have high quality. Highly anticipating this!

Addendum: due to the nature of this series, in order to avoid spoilers, discussion of the source material in any way, shape, or form is prohibited. -Galap
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 1:41 pm Reply with quote
Episode 1:

Finished watching first episode today...and .....

Well, I thought it was interesting but at the same time very heavy with the dialogues. So if this show is going to be quite talky, it's going to have to keep the viewer with what the characters have to say. Thankfully, I think it did that part right as it captured my interest.

And given the mystery aspect of the show, I find Magata to be an interesting character because of her intellect, background, and so far hard to read in terms of her personality. I wish they designed the characters that is modeled after Inio Asano though. Felt a bit slow in terms of pacing but I think it was trying to flesh out the main premise and concepts. Good start.
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HelloBucket



Joined: 07 Apr 2015
Posts: 477
Location: Upstate New York
PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 8:08 pm Reply with quote
episode one

Gorgeous show and I really dig them using Conway's Game of Life as part of the outro.

My big question going forward is whether or not it does anything interesting with all the philosophy it's throwing around, either by way of being philosophically interesting or by having all the philosophical rambling say something interesting about the characters. The show could easily get bogged down in it all and just devolve into being pseudo-intellectual easily enough.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 12:32 am Reply with quote
Could someone explain the "lonely 7" problem to me? I'm no mathematician. Smile

1) "Try dividing the numbers 1 through 10 into two groups." [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

2) "And then multiply all of the numbers within each group." [120; 30,240]

3) "Is it possible for the resulting sums to be equal?"

4) "No, one of the groups contains a 7, so the sum will be a multiple of 7. But there's no 7 in the other, so they can't be equal."

Ok, how did we move from multiplication to addition? Or did we? And even if you added in step 2 [15; 40] instead of multiplying, they're obviously not going to be equal. The absence of a 7 isn't going to make them equal. Couldn't the same could be said for other numbers?

Is she asking if there's any way to group the numbers so that they add up (or multiply out) equally? The two groups don't need to have an equal number of digits and 10+7 isn't a multiple of 7, so is she multiplying or adding?

I imagine this is some classic thought problem like all those games with 9s, and maybe they didn't have enough time to make it clear if you weren't already familiar with it. But it doesn't seem to make sense the way it was presented. Hopefully that's not an indicator of how this series is going to go. (Can't wait for them to try explaining whatever it is they plan to do with Game of Life).

And she also lost me further with the B and D thing. I didn't even see any clues about what she was on about there. Given that the title is "Everything becomes F" I'm guessing it's important?
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Raftina



Joined: 15 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:39 am Reply with quote
Hand wavy rather than rigorous explanation:

For the product of two sets of natural numbers to be equal, the product must be a multiple of every natural number in each set of natural numbers.

The number 7 is a prime number.

The only way for the product of a set of natural numbers to be a multiple of a prime number is if there is a multiple of that prime number within the set.

The only multiple of 7 in the set 1, 2, 3... 10 is 7 itself. Therefore, regardless of how you divide the set of 1, 2, 3... 10 into two separate sets of numbers, exactly one of the two sets has a multiple of 7 within the set. Therefore, exactly one of the two sets has a product that is a multiple of 7. Therefore, the product of the two sets cannot be equal.

All of the other prime numbers in the set 1, 2, 3... 10 has at least one other multiple within the set:
2: 4, 6, 8, 10
3: 6, 9
5: 10

So 7 is the only prime number that will, at a glance, tell us that the products cannot be equal.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:46 am Reply with quote
So when they started talking about sums, that was a red herring to throw me off? Smile
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Raftina



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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:51 am Reply with quote
I suspect "sum" is a mistranslation, because the sum of a group of natural numbers that contains a 7 is not necessarily a multiple of 7.

It's also not possible for the sums to be equal, because the sum of 1, 2, 3... 10 is 55, which is not divisible by 2. This has nothing to do with 7 whatsoever, so I still suspect "sum" is a mistranslation.
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Gina Szanboti



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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 3:20 am Reply with quote
Ok, thanks. Did you understand what she was on about when she mentioned the letters (or musical notes)? Or was that supposed to be mysterious at this point?
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:25 am Reply with quote
Episode 1

That felt like something more at home with a live action movie or tv show, an idea to fill out the time on a topic without characters moving much. Fairly low amount of music, a character duo I am not too familiar with. You have a college professor who ponders really "deep" things with him talking about the point of existence, and a college student who is fairly smart and clings onto the oh so deep professor. I can see why she is having attraction to him, but it is kind of childish that she is seeking such approval from a guy who seems to actually lack so much actual substance.

I am somewhat interested where this might go, but right now I don't know what that is.
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ookamigirl



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PostPosted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:34 am Reply with quote
Art is nice.
Plot is slow.
Feels melancholic and mysterious.
Not feeling it though..
Skipping this one.
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Galap
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:37 am Reply with quote
It's been quite a while since I've seen something that had such an impressive first episode.

First of all, that OP is beautiful and fascinating, and I love how the show began right with that, so we saw as its own thing, with no context. Just some really elegant animation. Reminds me a lot of Ryan Woodward's Thought of You. May be making a direct reference to that.

Second, wow the storyboarding here is incredible! To me, one of the fastest ways to separate the boys from the men in terms of anime is to look at the storyboarding. There are really striking and evocative shots, and in addition to the dialogue and first order nature of what's being depicted, the way things are depicted gives a lot of information by itself.

This thing also had a lot of little details it drew attention to that both made the setting and environment feel more 'real' and showed a lot more of that nonverbal storytelling. For example, I really liked how the coffee machine cup is cracked, and how they use it to both make coffee and water the plants. It's funny to me that people are saying this one is too talky. To me I can see making that complaint if the characters are standing like chess pieces and nothing much is happening, but here subtlety of their facial expressions, body language, actions they're performing, and camera angle and shot composition focusing on every aspect of their environment makes it really captivating and diverse, despite there not being a lot actively 'going on'.

Make no mistake, though there is a lot of dialogue, this is largely a very visual story as well, and in this episode I'd say that listening to the dialogue was just one voice in the ensemble.

The characters are pretty cool. We've got the 'Shitty Shit guy' (to appropriate a term my friend Ghost_Wheel used for Hikki in SNAFU) Saikawa. He's certainly cut from the same block as Hikki in terms of many aspects of his life philosophy. And we've got Moe who's pretty complex and tough to describe. One preview guide reviewer (I don't remember who at the moment) said that it was disappointing how she seemed only to be motivated by impressing Saikawa. I got strong vibes that there are other things motivating her that we're not privy to yet. I also disagree with the criticism that she wouldn't have a reason to be attracted to Saikawa. I can totally see it. She may act like a 'normal' socialized... socialite, but that's not the only side of her that exists. She's willing and eager to engage in 'normal', trivial interpersonal interactions, conventions, and smalltalk, but she can also roll with the dogs when the heavier topics come up. She even seems to enjoy doing so. So from Saikawa she gets a lot of intellectual stimulation she might not otherwise, and also gets along with him pretty well despite his philosophy: they seem to have a pleasant time when they're around each other, and the content of their conversations and forms they take are not something that you would see from people who do not feel close to each other. There may be the ever-present disagreement about socialization, but this appears to be something that the two are willing to tolerate-- a good relationship often takes the form of someone whose values and biases you understand and recognize, rather than someone who is exactly the same as you. In addition, I can also see her being attracted to his 'cool' attitude and vibe.

Globally, Moe is also pretty sly and a tad demanding and manipulative.

I'm not sure whether Saikawa is romantically attracted to Moe. We've seen less of his private thoughts and motiviations with respect to interpersonal dynamics.

I also liked the idea of wanting to talk aobut 'complicated', conceptual stuff rather than the trivialities of everyday life that seem to dominate most conversations.

Above all, it seems like all of these characters are intelligent, and things are always SO much more interesting the smarter the characters are.

I hope this doesn't fall into a lot of the traps of media trying to portray very intelligent people. It doesn't seem like it has yet (with the exception of them being either somewhat sly (like Moe) or misanthropic in that particular 'Shitty Shit guy' kind of way (and note that that's just a lol descriptor. I'm not saying he's not an interesting character or that I don't like people like that). A lot of them are kind of isolated and have difficulty relating, but the issue I see tends to manifest in a different kind of way than Saikawa. Then again, a lot of people resonated quite strongly with Hikki, so that type clearly exists as well.).

Actually, the characters here seem pretty smart in a real way. They're perceptive and seem confident and experienced. For Moe to be able to immediately multiply those numbers I would not say indicates high general intelligence, but rather skill in that area. However, immediately having the answer to that number theory question does denote what I would consider abilities in general intelligence beyond those of normal human beings. Unless she was remembering the answer, I don't think mathematicians would even be able to get an answer that quickly. That takes real intelligence. It's not just using a skill.

Holy hell I LOVE the ED! It's called nana hitsuji, which I believe translates to 'seven sheep'. Music in 7/8 time signature (reference to 'lonely seven'? and is the sheep a reference to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), and all those references to Conway's Life and other cellular automata, combined with circuit diagrams, old style computer windows, and city layouts was masterfully put together. Holy damn that's such my kind of thing! And it didn't just use that imagery without understanding it. The coolest part was where conway's game of life was being simulated in conway's game of life, then turned into copies of cities blinking in and out of existence in the form of a life oscillator. That moment, combined with the fact that Magata claims her parents were killed by a doll are what make me most hopeful that this could go to some REAL weird and fascinating places.

What's in store here? I really don't know. I have some guesses (hint: it has to do with the part of the ED I described above), but this show certainly has the capacit to surprise me. It's certainly not played its hand at all yet, but to me it doesn't seem like it's intentionally keeping things from the viewer or trying really hard to be in medias res. Rather, we've started playing the game, and we have to play the game to know why we're playing the game.


Last edited by Galap on Tue Oct 13, 2015 12:14 am; edited 1 time in total
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:35 am Reply with quote
Raftina wrote:
I suspect "sum" is a mistranslation, because the sum of a group of natural numbers that contains a 7 is not necessarily a multiple of 7.

It's also not possible for the sums to be equal, because the sum of 1, 2, 3... 10 is 55, which is not divisible by 2. This has nothing to do with 7 whatsoever, so I still suspect "sum" is a mistranslation.
Yes, it is a mistranslation. The original dialogue clearly contains the word 積 (seki), meaning "product (of multiplication)", while the Japanese word for "sum" in the meaning of "quantity obtained by addition" is 和 (wa). The dialogue does contain a different "wa", which is a grammatical particle, but I doubt that any professional translator of Japanese would have taken it for anything else, so I'm assuming they just forgot their math from school and got fuzzy on the distinction between sum and product.
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Galap
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:46 pm Reply with quote
Thanks for the confirmation. i thought it was a mistranslation as well.

it happens to also be true for sum as well, but it has nothing to do with the number 7 specifically. Here's the proof for that:

there are 5 even numbers and 5 odd numbers in the integers 1-10.

Since there is an odd number of odd numbers, one group will have an odd number of odd numbers and the other will have an even number of odd numbers.

The sum of the group with an even number of odd numbers will be even, since the sum of any number of even numbers is even and the sum of an even number of odd numbers is even.

The sum of the group with an odd number of odd numbers will be odd since the sum of an odd number of odd numbers is odd, so the sum of evens plus the sum of odds in that group will be odd since an even plus and odd is odd.

Since one sum is even and one sum is odd, the groups cannot be equal.


Also, I talked with my mathematician friend and asked him the problem (the intended product form of it) to see whether it was reasonable for someone who was in that field to get it instantaneously, and he did, so while I maintain that it requires a high degree of intelligence to do that, it's not evidence for fantastical superhuman cognitive powers.
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CoreSignal



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:33 am Reply with quote
Finally got around to watching the first ep. I'm liking it so far. The atmosphere is great, and I like the university/research setting. I can see some of the complaints from the preview guide. It's true that the show is pretty talky. While Saikawa is definitely the most interesting character so far, the writers have a tendency to make his character "monologue" (aka ramble) sometimes. I definitely like how the small-talk conversations are pretty laidback, I find it a bit more subtle and natural in comparison to other shows.

My only complaint is that this definitely feels like a set-up episode that'll make a lot more sense once we get further into the show. Anyway, it's good to see NoitaminA back to form.

Galap wrote:
Unless she was remembering the answer, I don't think mathematicians would even be able to get an answer that quickly. That takes real intelligence. It's not just using a skill.

Depends. I'd say there's a very close relationship between strong fluid intelligence and strong mathematical skills. You could know very little about numbers (or math), yet still understand your proof if have good cognitive skills.
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Galap
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 4:42 am Reply with quote
^

I agree with what you're saying. Maybe I wasn't so clear. What I was initially saying was that I thought the complexity of the problem was sufficiently high that anyone presented it for the first time would have to take at least a couple moments to think about the answer.

I am retracting that statement now though, since I tested it empirically (see my previous post) and saw that it is possible for someone with a strong formal mathematical education to intuitively and immediately know the answer to that problem.

So her answering that so quickly I still do say is an indication that she is very smart. Being able to multiply those numbers though isn't strong evidence since it's a 'rote' skill.
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