(L) Kotetsujo no Kabaneri (Knocking on the Walls of the Armored Fortress)

[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by AB079

For now and leaving the rant aside, Kabaneri started as a really amazing series that can bring incredible visuals and music with a great story but now all what comes to my mind thanks to the last 3 episodes is just 2 words, wasted potential.

Going from one extreme to the other, I think you were hyping it up too much back then and are hating on it too much right now.

Can't say I am a huge fan of Mumei, whether now or in the past, but she has always been immature and not too useful outside of battle.

[AB079]

Originally Posted by Kusaja

Going from one extreme to the other, I think you were hyping it up too much back then and are hating on it too much right now.

Can't say I am a huge fan of Mumei, whether now or in the past, but she has always been immature and not too useful outside of battle.

At least get your facts right, way before when the series was annouced I was one of those who said that people needs to stop trying to hype this too much because it can be good or bad, then after the first 3 or 4 episodes I was surprised about Kabaneri and how good it was but after the last 3 episodes nobody can say this is good. You can't be bland when you judge a series like this, they did a great job at the start and just one huge bad desition turned the show into this, so yeah going from one extreme to the other is right considering what they did to the series.

Now about Mumei, did you pay attention to the series? she was one of the most interesting characters that moves the plot when nobody can do that, she was the one who introduced the Kabaneri, she was the one who allowed Ikoma to be someone more important and put the development in motion. She's overpowered in battle but aside that she is the one moving the story, not Ikoma, not Biba, not Ayame, nobody else.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Kusaja

not too useful outside of battle.

At least she was useful in battle. Now she doesn't even have that.

Anyway, last episode I gave the series a 6/10. Now it's 4/10. It's getting worse by the minute. This show's the disappointment of the season, I'd say.

[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by AB079

You can't be bland when you judge a series like this, they did a great job at the start and just one huge bad desition turned the show into this, so yeah going from one extreme to the other is right considering what they did to the series.

Actually, I'll go ahead and do just that. At the end of the day, Kabaneri is simply bland, period. I don't think the series did such a great job at the start and the hype backlash is getting out of hand. But I can see where you're coming from. I wasn't all that emotionally invested in the series, either way, so the fact it turned out to be mediocre isn't surprising me one bit.

Now about Mumei, did you pay attention to the series? she was one of the most interesting characters that moves the plot when nobody can do that, she was the one who introduced the Kabaneri, she was the one who allowed Ikoma to be someone more important and put the development in motion. She's overpowered in battle but aside that she is the one moving the story, not Ikoma, not Biba, not Ayame, nobody else.

I am sorry, but it's you who isn't paying attention here. What happened immediately after that information was provided? She started behaving like a child and her subsequent actions towards the rest of the crew weren't very bright. She didn't exactly want Ikoma to be important. For her, he was just an useful tool (or shield, to be accurate). They ended up growing a little closer over time, through a couple of incidents that included even more of her childish nature.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

At least she was useful in battle. Now she doesn't even have that.

Anyway, last episode I gave the series a 6/10. Now it's 4/10. It's getting worse by the minute. This show's the disappointment of the season, I'd say.

Fair point, as I am not too happy about her current situation either. That said, I don't think the episode was any worse than the last one.

It simply continued in a predictable fashion. At least Takumi and Ikoma had a good moment and other characters got a small chance to act.

Nothing they did this week seemed out of place after what we had just seen. Admittedly, that predictability is also part of the problem.

[darkchibi07]

Will this series turn out to be the best entertaining 7-episode TV series?

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by AB079

Now this series must be called Guilty Crown

I know, right.
...*sigh*

[Blonto]

They just had to add in mind control too, huh?

Last episode was bad for its sheer amount of stupidity and nonsense. This one is just bad for how cliche-ridden and lame it is. And that's the worse kind of bad to sit through.

For what it's worth I liked the relationship between MC and his friend because usually the MC's friend gets reduced to someone who you're told is their friend, but who rarely interacts with the MC in such a way (usually they're just some annoying guy who's supposed to make the MC look better in comparison). I should've known there was something fishy when a series of this level puts a suspicious amount of focus on their friendship. The part where he saved him did throw me off a bit, I was like "Hmm, they're giving you a bit too much screentime this episode, huh?".

All this talk about the shogun just reminds me how much I don't give a damn about him or Biba or the whole shogunate, no-one watching this does. I cared about watching a group of characters, as flat as they were, on a train. Spreading the simple zombie survival story of a train crew to some shitty revenge ploy by some shitty villain completely broke this show. The series never had great writing, let's not pretend that it did. It had issues from the start, both with consistency, lack of thought/explanation put into things (the way that MC turned into a zombie and the way the train broke into the station) and characters that were often kinda dumb. It's just that it could get away with it before because it was fun and honestly, that's not something many series pull off for me. But for no reason at all it just had to turn into boring, soulless shounen garbage with absolutely nothing interesting going on in it. It's completely lost track of what it was supposed to be about. No-one is going to remember it by next year. Pity, the premise had potential.

I never was fond of Mumei, not that her sheer idiocy and uselessness isn't incredibly frustrating (you just gotta make that badass female character useless so she'd get saved by the shounen, huh?) but I can't believe how useless MC is as well. He can't do anything for Christ's sake, he just screams and gets beaten over an over again. I really expected an MC who was kinda geeky, but also badass when he had to be (like when he cut his own arm to attract zombies just so he could test his own weapon). Instead we got a stupid shounen protagonist who can't keep his mouth shut and who just gets beaten over and over again. It's just tiring to watch.

The only thing I kinda liked about the episode is that it had the crew working together. I'm surprised the writers didn't just ditch them and focus only on MC, Mumei and the villain. Well, there's still time.

[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

I know, right.
...*sigh*

Now THAT's what I mean by going too far. That's a purely emotional reaction, not a rational comparison. The shows had, and still continue to have, many differences.

Ikoma hasn't become a fascist who would abandon his beliefs and easily agree with Biba's venom. Nope, he's remained true to his ideals. Which aren't anything new, but they're consistent for his character. By the way, he was also responsible for planning the recent rebellion among the train prisoners, so complaints that the man is just crying and whining all day long aren't fair either. Ikoma did take action this episode, even if it didn't completely work out. That's why stuff like just putting up a random screenshot without context doesn't mean anything.

[Blonto]

Originally Posted by Kusaja

Now THAT's what I mean by going too far. That's a purely emotional reaction, not a rational comparison. The shows had, and still continue to have, many differences.

Are you also one of those people who thinks this show wasn't ripping off Attack on Titan because the zombies are small and gray?

[Kusaja]

No, Kabaneri is definitely trying to be Attack on Titan.

Which has nothing to do with the content of said post.

We weren't even talking about the Attack on Titan comparisons.

[Marcus H.]

It's not only Attack on Titan this time. Some people had started comparing this with Valvrave and Guilty Crown, with more stark similarities with the latter.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

It's not only Attack on Titan this time. Some people had started comparing this with Valvrave and Guilty Crown, with more stark similarities with the latter.

The similarities with Attack on Titan for what concerns the concept and the premise are quite apparent.

The reason people compare Kabaneri with Guilty Crown has nothing to do with the content. Guilty Crown simply set a negative example as an anime with a great staff behind it, possessing great visuals, great music and a very elaborated setting, that ultimately flopped because of poor writing and lackluster execution.

Kabaneri at this point unfortunately seems to follow the same pattern, it doesn't help that it shares a lot of the people involved with Guilty Crown.


As for Valvrave, there aren't really many point in common with that and Kabaneri, but they do share the same writer, and there's some kind of similarity between the sort of "vampirism" of Kabaneri and the sort of "vampirism" of Valvrave. But at this point it has become an irrelevant point in the former.

[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

It's not only Attack on Titan this time. Some people had started comparing this with Valvrave and Guilty Crown, with more stark similarities with the latter.

The Attack on Titan comparisons have lot of merit on multiple levels. Even the Snowpiercer ones are quite valid.

But the others? They're not particularly good or well-thought out comparisons. Just superficial. The only Valvrave similarity that had any (purely visual) merit happened back in episode 3 or so. Which didn't amount to anything else, to be honest, thus proving its inherent limitations.

Similarly, Ikoma getting hurt doesn't magically make him into a completely different character from Guilty Crown who got his own limb chopped off for an unrelated reason.

But hey, this isn't for me to decide. If you really think those comparisons are necessary, I am not going to comment on them anymore. Just shake my head.

[BoyTitan]

Again I am missing the bad writing. This seems like people complaining because they did not get the series they wanted.

Lets see things that happened Mumei went through actual character development something a lot of shows don't have. Questioned Biba bit by bit in a timely unrushed manner. her character change was natural. Then at the end finnally saw Biba for the monster that he is.

Biba being the big bad was presented as a intelligent villain being 2 steps ahead of everyone. He limited Mumei dosage to make her weaker. The put her under mind control which with her being a kabeneri and the control he had over the last kabeneri by turning her into a colony seems like something he is capable of. He also out smarted the heroes. He was presented as a smart tactical villian. The series even showed off how people blindly follow him where he only asks ikoma to join him after completely breaking him down.

We finally get to see what the shogun did and its something completely screwed up.

The series didn't even write itself into a hole either by having the heroes fail today because we still have the samurai behind and Ikoma is probably going to just heal up and come back.

What more do you guys want its a solidly written story that has explained every action so far.

[Marcus H.]

This seems like people complaining because they did not get the series they wanted.

Meh, I'm probably tired of human drama in zombie shows.
Every single freaking one of them has it nowadays. There are no one-sided onslaughts by the humans against the zeds.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Meh, I'm probably tired of human drama in zombie shows.

I'd say the show is at fault for introducing its cartooney villain so late in the game. If the series wasn't really about zombies, then Biba should have been introduced around episode 4. No point in having 6 episodes of zombies when the zombies aren't the point. 3 episodes of zombie action would have sufficed.

[Stark700]

Episode 10:

I'm not sure how to feel about this episode, hopefully Mumei snaps out of it. Somehow, I'm not entirely surprised by what Biba did as he is capable of doing anything by this point so even using her as a spawn to attack others like Ikoma was a good possibility.

Also poor Takumi...there was a bit of a death flag on him this episode already in the beginning, didn't think they actually pull the trigger. Two more episodes left, I hope we get more insight on Biba's background story. I also wonder if Kurusu will play an important role soon as he's still one of the stronger fighters that can make a turnaround.

[larethian]

This show started as a zombie apocalypse and suddenly the zombies took a back seat and became a backdrop for other stuff. The actual development and unfolding of plot vs my initial expectations felt kind of disjointed?

[Freeter]

I knew it, Wit ran out of budget. That slideshow rebellion was awful.

Wake me when Ikoma snaps Mumei out of her funk and the two tag-team Biba while the OP wails in the background.

[Brother Coa]

Yeah, I can see why normal people ( the ones who watch anime and do not rate it like we do ) found this episode sad. And it was really tragic to see Ikoma's friend dying to protect him, a noble sacrifice worthy of true martyrdom.

But this episode has flaws, although they are not that great to ruin the anime like Guilty Crown did with itself. I get it that Biba is a villain, but they really didn't have to turn him into antagonist Mary Sue. He predicted that Mumei will turn against him - fine, I can swallow that. But to predict exact time of Ikoma's rebellion? I call blls**t on that. It doesn't even help that he has that Mary Sue kind of personality, always standing proud and superior to others because he knows how better he is from them.

And for people who complain that Mumei us useless now: she is caught in the situation and I can understand that. Imagine if you have person who is like family to you, and an inspiration in life to that, and he suddenly turns on you. For all of us who are 20 and more it is reasonable that we would abandon him because he is bad and join the 'good' guys. However it's not the same story with 12 year old kid, who was saved from death by him, who survived so far because of him and who has PTSD put in check by him. It was very hard for her to face this right until the end and it shows, hopefully she will deliver in last two episodes.

But what I do agree with others is that show has shifted focus from Kanabe as main threat to one pretty guy who knows everything, fears nothing and has a revenge wish so dense he will sacrifice half the country's population to achieve it. The show really didn't need this, and same example is with majority of zombie films - once the focus shifts to humans alone it becomes boring ( unless you are good written drama like The Walking Dead, but even that show was boring when entire season was focused just on humans ).

Hopefully the show will get better in the last two episodes, if not it will be left remembered as show that started great but became mediocre by the end.