Them: Hello, I’m sorry, this is going to sound weird but please give me a chance. When you were eighteen, did you have a childhood friend named Carli that you lost contact with after you left to go to college?
The start of a short science fiction story told entirely through text messages, written by @Azure_Husky.
Scrum is a short documentary directed by Isabelle Alan about trans people playing rugby and the attempts to bar them from doing so.
I like the attitude of one of the woman players when told about the possibility of playing with a trans team mate. That at first she was like, no, no way but shortly realised that it’s the twentyfirst century and just had to get herself over it. That’s how most normal people respond; it may all seem a bit scary or weird in the abstract, but when confronted with the reality of it most people soon just accept it? Not everybody of course, there is a loud minority of assholes who want nothing more than to drive every trans person from sports and public life in general, but they are a minority.
The whole issue of how the transes are invading our sacred womens sport is such transparant bollocks, isn’t it? Whenever you see some crybaby cis woman whinging that her place was stolen, it’s always some grade a loser who never stood a chance in the first place. Best example was the skateboarder who as it turned out came in 34th out of 36 in the competition she complained about, with even eight year olds beating her. When the only way you came claim second place or higher is if there’s only two riders, it’s hilarious to blame it on trans women. Stop whining, git gud.
The truth is that there very few trans people competing on a level that matters, that the very very few elite trans athletes are not noticably or at all better than their cis competitors and that all of this is just another moral panic to pave the way for trans genocide. Even if being a trans woman gave you an advantage over cis competitors, so fucking what? Nobody is going to transition just to medal and so like with the bathroom panic, you’re left with the idea that some cis bloke will just pretend to be a trans woman. As if any cis male athlete good enough to compete with top female athletes isn’t better off just joining the regular mens competitions.
As with a lot of transphobes’ obsessions, the thin veneer of ‘feminism’ painted over it barely hides the reactionary core behind it. Ultimately transphobes seem to believe men are so much better at everything than women, that any random bloke can just waltz into an elite female competition and win. That core belief that women are frail, vulnerable creators which need to be protected and sheltered in their own spaces from the violent male world is at the heart of what we call terfdom, the fear that men are so much better than women that they would even make for better women. You can call it many things, but you cannot call it feminism.
It’s not often I have such an intense and visceral loathing of an anime protagonist the moment he first appears, but Engage Kiss managed it. Let me explain.
When we first meet Shu, he’s messily stuffing his face at a dinner with his ex-girlfriend. Apparently he used to work for the company her mother owned but started for himself. She’s worried about him, asks if he’s been eating, whether he’s gotten any work in the three months since he left. He replies that this is his first meal in three days and that he worked only recently, on the scale of a human lifetime. She presses that being principled is good but not if you cannot eat. He blows her off by spouting some high minded crap about only wanting to do the jobs he should be doing. It’s not very convincing that all this is done out of idealism when she not only pays for his lunch but also his cell phone bill. He returns to this dingy flat, which earlier we saw another girl preparing dinner in only to discover the electricity had been cut off. They have dinner together and once again his situation is discussed. She has paid off the electricity bill, he promises he’ll pay her back once he has some work, she points out he hasn’t had work in three weeks. Shu counters with a promise that the case he’s been waiting for is finally here, but she tells him that’s the same thing he said last month. And the month before. Before having to pay again for an unexpected delivery.
Shu is right however, the case he’s been waiting for has occurred. That’s why he met up with his ex, to give her some intelligence and rope her into the plan, which is set in motion the very same day. A demon has attacked a casino and an auction is held to determine which anti-demon company gets the contract to get rid of it. Throughout the episode Shu had been busy setting up his plan to get the perfect job and his grand strategy turns out to be …under-pricing everybody to the tune of roughly $70,000, then hiring his ex’s company to support him, who take most of the fee? I don’t feel you need to buy intel to do this, especially if it leaves you with barely 4000 dollars for yourself. He could’ve doubled his fee and still won the auction. Also, what made this particular demon attack so special that he needed to wait for it?
None of this is answered because Engage Kiss isn’t interested in it. On we move to the actual demon subjugation. Note that the attack happened at 15:55, the auction was completed at 19:00 and Shu only shows up at the casino under attack at 20:11. what has the demon been doing all this time? Apparently he’s just been hanging around doing a little bit of roulette? The fight itself, once it finally happens is well animated, though the monster design and the cannon fodder are just meh. It’s now that we learn that Kisara — the school girl making dinner in Shu’s apartment — is actually a demon herself, much more powerful than the one they have to get rid of. Again, not sure why Shu’s ex and her minions are actually dare as all that was really needed to end the fight was Shu powering up Kisara by making out with her, after which she just wiped all the monsters out with one big blast. But not before getting into a cat fight with Shu’s ex, Ayano. Nothing in this plot makes sense.
I have the terrible feeling that all this was meant to be funny, that this is intended to be an action comedy, but it’s all done so straight and boring that it’s just not funny. Shu’s an asshole, his girlfriends are doormats with no personality than being thirsty for him and as a viewer I have no idea why I’m supposed to like this. Yes, there are plenty of action comedies with a loser protagonist: Date A Live, Strike the Blood or even A certain Magical Index spring to mind, but none of those are unlikeable assholes leaching off their ex-girlfriends. This episode goes through the motions of setting up Shu as one of them, ticking all the boxes, but without understanding how such a character can work and still be sympathetic. I want to like Engage Kiss because this sort of sci-fi action nonsense i smy bread and butter, but Shu’s making it hard. I’ll give it a couple of more episodes and see if this first one was just a bit too try hard and he becomes more bearable.
Thank you Cyan can for putting the two big climatic Nevermore battle scenes from the new RWBY anime and the original RWBY Flash animation back to back in one Youtube video:
You can see that the battle is roughly the same in both, with a lot of the differences due to translating a 3D scene into 2D animation; much harder to swing the camera around as impressively for example. But there are also differences in the choreography of the battle itself, as well as in what the anime chooses to showcase as opposed to the original. the biggest difference is at the start of the battle. In the anime, the battle is quickly divided into one team fighting the giant scorpion while the other tackles the giant raven. In the original, this all happens much more organically, with various characters switching which monster they fight as their comrades need help until finally you get the two teams established that will remain together for the rest of the battle. (And which will remain teams for the rest of the series.)
Character wise, the anime version keeps a much tighter focus on Ruby, Weiss and Jaune. In both versions it’s Ruby and Jaune who come up with ways to defeat their respective monsters, but in the anime version the other characters have little more to do than just fight whereas in the original they got their individual moments to shine as well. Especially the scorpion’s defeat was much more of a cooperative affair, with Nora playing a much larger role. She just hammers the scorpion’s spike into its head in the anime version, while in the original she was flipped into the air by Pyrrhia, riding her own hammer and giggling. The team work to defeat the other monster also suffers a bit in the anime version, with the original being much more clear about all four members setting up Ruby to launch the final blow.
Neither version is bad, both are very good actually, but in the end I prefer the original. Its choreography and the way it makes everybody shine is just slightly better than in the anime version. A fitting tribute to RWBY creator Mony Oum who created this choreography and who sadly never got to see it in a proper anime, as he died in 2015.
Child soldiers return to the war they just escaped from as they cannot concieve of any other future.
How could they do otherwise? The world ended nine years ago as the Legion, AI driven combat mecha overrun the entire world except for their homeland, the Republic of San Magnolia. Its citizens found refuge in the 85 districts protected by the Gran Mur, but not them, as the original Alba population of the republic decided to kick out everybody non-Alba. Instead they became the 86, no longer deemed human, forced to wage endless war against the Legion, a war that killed their parents, siblings and friends, a war that’s supposed to end in two years as the Legion’s AIs die out, a convenient solution to the problems of the Legion and the 86 both. That’s the reality they faced, but even worse, they knew the Legion wasn’t going to die that easily because they knew it harvested the brains of their killed comrades to command its mecha. So when they were sent on their final mission, a suicide mission, they felt relief to know it was almost over, one last fight and then they could die.
And then they woke up and Shin Nouzen and his four surviving comrades from the Spearhead squadron found themselves in the country that started the war, Giad, free from the burden of duty, free to be teenagers rather than soldiers. Originally 86 was a standalone light novel and this was where the story ended, but because it was so popular it was expanded into a series. The first 86 series adapted that first light novel, but ending just before they found out they’d survived. This second series adapts the next two books in the series, which show what happens after they wake up, with the first two episodes following them in their newfound civilian life before they rejoin the military. Just in time for the next big Legion offensive…
The plot in the first series was largely driven by Shin’s ability to hear the thoughts of the Legion as well as those it killed to ‘crew’ its mecha. Some of those killed with brains intact would not just command a mecha, but entire armies of the Legion, one of which was Shin’s brother, with the fight against him to grant him peace being the climax of the series. This plot is repeated in the new series through the introduction of Frederica, the last surviving member of the old Giad imperial family that started the war ten years ago. Her body guard Kiriya was taken by the Legion the same way Shin’s brother was and the two bond over their shared experiences. Kiriya of course turns out to be the most important piece in the Legion’s offensive and it’s up to the 86 to kill him, deep inside Legion territory. Meanwhile, back in San Magnolia, Spearhead Squadron’s old handler, Lena, their handler, one of the few to take the threat of the Legion seriously or treat 86 as actual humans, is preparing for war. The deaths of her subordinates on a unnecessary suicide mission haunts her and she uses it as motivation to prepare for the final Legion offensive she knows is coming, to save as many people as she can, if she can. As the offensive hits her actions do make a difference. Her story converges again with that of her old squadron in the last two episodes, as they finally meet face to face.
In some ways this entire second series is there to help Shin to get over his PTSD and guilt over killing his brother. At times he comes close to sliding into battlefield madness, only held back by Frederica. The rest of his comrades are less traumatised than him, or are able to handle it better, but it’s telling that they all feel at ease more in the post-apocalyptic ruined towns and landscapes of Legion territory than in the cities of Giad. Even in a much more tolerant country than they left behind their experiences set them apart from ordinary people. Things are just that more simple when it’s just themselves and the wilderness the Legion created The landscapes are certainly gorgeous, beautiful images of ruin and decay, nature reclaiming the wreckage, softening the tragedy that lies behind it.
In the end this second season of 86 was not as good as the first, because it lacked the focus and sense of overwhelming dread it had. The story was certainly done no favours by the series disastrous production schema, with weeks and even months between episodes, making it seem much more disjoined than it actually was. Having a similar sort of antagonist as the first series thematically makes sense. Having killed his own brother in season one brought no closure to Shin, but doing the same thing for Frederica, having another person who went through the same journey as him, did. It works well but it still left this second season feel like a rethread of the first one.