Code Geass: Akito the Exiled OVA - Episode 1 Discussion / Poll

[gordol]

Originally Posted by Bonzo

However, the OAV contradiction is: they give the alexander, the best kmf of UE to a eleven squad everyone consider a sacrificable crap?

Interesting paradox.

It's actually called RETCON

[Xander]

The entire OVA is a retcon, almost by default, but I'm assuming the E.U. government doesn't have much faith or investment in the development of Alexander as a project, so there might be other reasons explaining the situation. The usual stuff would be competing political or economic interests, for example, in addition to the previously mentioned apparent incompetence of the W-0 commander.

[wredsa]

So anyone put a report in the net on how was the first episode. This forum is amazingly very quite. Also I think we should move Code Geass forum to "Current Series".

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Bonzo

However, the OAV contradiction is: they give the alexander, the best kmf of UE to a eleven squad everyone consider a sacrificable crap?

Interesting paradox.

The Alexander has tissue paper armour. It isn't "the best", it is simply the ideal KMF for a good pilot who is willing to risk death by fighting in a Glass Cannon. If you mass produce it and give them to normal pilots, most of them would refuse to use them.

This reminds me of how the Sherman tanks defeated the Tigers in WWII because of superior numbers. But even the Sherman tank crews later admit that they would prefer to be in a Tiger, because the survival rate is higher. It takes three destroyed Shermans to blow up one Tiger.

[orpheus2]

Indeed. This KMF was made for suicide tactics or kamikaze maneuvers. If anything, I could compare Akito's squad to Gallian Army Squad 422 from Valkyria Chronicles 3.

[wredsa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skv3tJZmOUU

someone reviewed episode 1

[Bonzo]

Not really, japanese have a strange sense of honor, during WWII, their airplanes were all without armour for cockpit and fuel tanks, because like samurai codes, they didn't want to fight without any protection and to apply their skill for speed and maneuvers.

But that idea couldn't work with the american airplanes, they were too much solid, the hellcat at example was almost unvulnerable for the zero aircraft.

Japan industries changed mind in 1944, but too late.

The alexander is like the zero aircraft.

Like in other anime, when they show a "samurai behaviour" for them is a good thing, for us, is a totally crazy/moron character.

[Lost Cause]

Originally Posted by wredsa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skv3tJZmOUU

someone reviewed episode 1

So how many times does this guy say "geo-politacal landscape"?!
It's the first part for crying out loud! They're not going to give you everything in the first five minutes! Seesh!!
But thanks for posting it though, I'll still watch it when it comes out on DVD.

[Lost Cause]

Originally Posted by Bonzo

Not really, japanese have a strange sense of honor, during WWII, their airplanes were all without armour for cockpit and fuel tanks, because like samurai codes, they didn't want to fight without any protection and to apply their skill for speed and maneuvers.

But that idea couldn't work with the american airplanes, they were too much solid, the hellcat at example was almost unvulnerable for the zero aircraft.

Japan industries changed mind in 1944, but too late.

The alexander is like the zero aircraft.

Like in other anime, when they show a "samurai behaviour" for them is a good thing, for us, is a totally crazy/moron character.

And yet it was the Hellcat, Coursair, and Lightning that despite having armor managed to beat the highly maneuverable Mitsubishi Zero as well as the Kites, and Vals!
Plus by 1944 Japan was getting pounded, and most of its war efforts were on the skids and they were putting kids up in planes!
And many of these so called "Samurai" ran into another force to be reckoned with...The United States Marine Corps! A .45 beats a sword every day!

[Xander]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

This reminds me of how the Sherman tanks defeated the Tigers in WWII because of superior numbers. But even the Sherman tank crews later admit that they would prefer to be in a Tiger, because the survival rate is higher. It takes three destroyed Shermans to blow up one Tiger.

While that's true, in Code Geass terms we could argue that it's still significantly better to use something like Alexander rather than mecha with inferior performance such as Gardmare or Panzer Hummel, when having to face a Sutherland, Gloucester or even Lancelot.

[Xander]

Not an entirely new article, but they have updated the previous (3rd) world/setting column again, with a couple more details about Alexander (the "insect mode" bit, I believe).

http://www.geass.jp/akito/world_column.html

Just for trivia, they're also holding some sort of "Director's Night" event on the August 10th, with Kazuki Akane (director) and Eiji Inomoto (3DCG animation director, from Orange).

http://www.geass.jp/akito/directorsnight.html

Last but not least, they're taking yet another cue from Gundam Unicorn, in that there's a new region blocked video (top) on the site with the first few minutes (!) of the OVA.

http://www.geass.jp/akito/media.html

Most people might want to wait until someone puts up a mirror elsewhere though, unless you can jump through the hoops.

[Eternal Dreamer]

Alright, here's the updated Akito Worldview Column 3. (The new portions are highlighted in bold.)

Column 3:
The main force Knightmare Frame of the EU army is the Panzer-Hummel. There is some distress within the EU army at having to designate this machine as a Knightmare Frame, when properly speaking it isn’t classified as a Knightmare frame. There are also said to be soldiers in the Britannian army who call the Panzer-Hummel a “pseudo-Knightmare Frame”.

The Knightmare Frame, a humanoid weapon developed by the Holy Britannian Empire and used in the invasion of Japan, had a big impact on the military-related people of the world with its ability and general-purpose height. Afterwards, the Panzer-Hummel was developed by the EU army with the aim of creating Knightmare Frames. However, the Panzer-Hummel, with its inferior performance, wasn’t a good rival for Knightmare Frames when facing them on the battlefield. Particularly inferior in terms of mobility, the Panzer-Hummel could not do a thing against Knightmare Frames that closed the distance between them at high speeds.

In such a situation, there is the state of the art and special tactical frame “Alexander”, deployed by the secret W-0 unit.

The details of the Alexander’s development team are said to be secret, but it is said that it was developed by Anna Clement, a member of the W-0 squadron, at her family’s factory.

The Alexander’s greatest features are its completely human silhouette, made with the assumption of anti-Knightmare combat, and its ability to change into the bug-like Insect Mode due to its transformation mechanism. The mobility of its Insect Mode is greater than that of its humanoid mode.

There are two reasons why it was equipped with a transformation mechanism. The first reason is that, because the tactics of the W-0 unit adopted the idea of disturbing the enemies who attacked Knightmares from behind the front lines, the Alexander needed a space-conserving form. The second reason is that, in order to approach the high-mobility Knightmare Frames of the Britannian army at even higher speeds than the enemy possessed, a form that dramatically dropped the ratio of hits on the Alexander was necessary.

Also, the Alexander is equipped with original-conceived features that differ from the Knightmare Frame development history of the Holy Britannian Empire and the Knightmare development team of the Militarized Zone of India which derives from them, and is a unique frame that could be called a “fruitless flower” in the history of Knightmare development.

[gordol]

1/35 Alexander model released, manual scans:

Spoiler for pic:

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Xander

While that's true, in Code Geass terms we could argue that it's still significantly better to use something like Alexander rather than mecha with inferior performance such as Gardmare or Panzer Hummel, when having to face a Sutherland, Gloucester or even Lancelot.

That's because KMFs are actually never that heavily armoured to begin with. The regular EU KMFs are armoured, but they still go down easily because their shapes don't allow as much defence as a tank. And to make it even worse, they can barely move.

The Alexander is fundamentally closer to the KMF's intended role as a skirmisher. The Europeans got the wrong idea in giving legs to tank shaped objects, and thus got the worst of both worlds.

[wredsa]

Originally Posted by Lost Cause

So how many times does this guy say "geo-politacal landscape"?!
It's the first part for crying out loud! They're not going to give you everything in the first five minutes! Seesh!!
But thanks for posting it though, I'll still watch it when it comes out on DVD.

The guy thinks Akito is evil cuz he enjoys victory. The guy should learn that not everyone is Kira Yamato

[gordol]

More detailed summary, HUGE SPOILERS!

Spoiler for SPOILERS!:

- The EU are using roided out Elevens as soldiers because they don't count as citizens, and so their casualties don't matter in the war.
- The Alexanders are equipped with self destructing bombs, and the elevens basically use that to blow up the Britannian KMFs.
- Akito is immune to the side effects of the roid, but he seems to be enhanced in some other way. He goes crazy in battles, but he's the typical cynical cool main bishie character. His craziness in battle is justified in the end though, when he said that he's fighting cause he wants to die.
- Layla is a pretty sympathetic character who tries to help out the elevens, but she isn't whiny or anything. So its cool. She's engaged to her step brother cause her stepdad wants to be a Britannian Aristocrat or something.
- The EU's main base is in Paris, and their stuff, including the KMFs are in French.
- The black knight looking dude in the PV, Ryo has two other people with him, and their goal is to look for a place where they belong. They killed some shady dudes in the underground to get a KMF with a planned out bombing. The shady boss asked if they're related to the terrorist group in Area 11: The Black Knights, but Ryo was all "Nope we just want world peace."
- They tried kidnapping the main EU dude, but was stopped by Layla and Akito.
- The basic EU grunt KMFs are shite, since a Glasgow can easily beat them.
- Akito did pretty well fighting in one, but it wasn't good enough, so he just ejected himself, and took out Ryo's Glasgow on foot. By shooting its crotch, well its leg joints between the crotch with a grenade launcher.
- Ryo and friends told them their main goal, which is to find a place where the three of them can belong, so Layla ended up recruiting them (using the threat of air bomb on them) to be in her squad.
- Akito seems to have a brother with Geass cause a guy with the same last name was talking to a Britannian high ranking guy and Geassed him to kill himself.
- In the end, Akito was making graves for his fallen teammates from the first ep, and it looks like he can talk to dead people, at least hear them. Layla asked why he is silent, and Akito said that he's been dead before.

PV for the next episode shows blue Alexanders, CC and Shuzack.

[duckroll]

I've been avoiding the thread because of spoilers, I'll probably continue to avoid it after this, at least until the blu-ray is out. :P

But I watched the first 10-minutes of the first chapter on the official site, so some thoughts on the technical side of things, I won't comment on the plot since there isn't really much in the first 10 minutes to make any sort of judgement:

- Character animation seems rather stiff, not as nice as some of the stuff in Code Geass.

- The CG action is pretty well done, except for the explosions. I love the particle effects and the shading, but the explosions trying to copy how 2D explosions look just doesn't work well.

- Music rocks.

- The 10 min clip ends in the middle of an action scene, FML.

[Xander]

Originally Posted by duckroll

I've been avoiding the thread because of spoilers, I'll probably continue to avoid it after this, at least until the blu-ray is out. :P

Sounds like a good decision, though not one I can easily replicate in my own case.

- Character animation seems rather stiff, not as nice as some of the stuff in Code Geass.

- The CG action is pretty well done, except for the explosions. I love the particle effects and the shading, but the explosions trying to copy how 2D explosions look just doesn't work well.

I suppose that's probably one of those situations where they had to compromise a bit for the sake of the budget and focused on the CG action in terms of time and resources spent, at least during those first ten minutes, since for all we know there might be some more variety later on. The first highlight is the battle itself, after all. Then again, there's also a new chief animation director involved (Shuichi Shimamura) and I imagine not all the previous chief animation directors (Code Geass had four main ones plus a couple of assistants) or animators in general came back either (though Eiji Nakada's absence in particular is easy to notice given the use of 3D mecha).

- Music rocks.

- The 10 min clip ends in the middle of an action scene, FML.

Despite the mixed reactions to the crazy jazz from the first trailer, I never doubted that Hashimoto would try to do something interesting with the BGM if given the chance.

And well...I guess that's what they call a tease. They know how to do such things.

[gordol]

Originally Posted by duckroll

I've been avoiding the thread because of spoilers, I'll probably continue to avoid it after this, at least until the blu-ray is out. :P

But I watched the first 10-minutes of the first chapter on the official site, so some thoughts on the technical side of things, I won't comment on the plot since there isn't really much in the first 10 minutes to make any sort of judgement:

- Character animation seems rather stiff, not as nice as some of the stuff in Code Geass.

- The CG action is pretty well done, except for the explosions. I love the particle effects and the shading, but the explosions trying to copy how 2D explosions look just doesn't work well.

- Music rocks.

- The 10 min clip ends in the middle of an action scene, FML.

Could you rip it for us? We can't access it and nobody has uploaded it yet

[Bonzo]

It's too much soon, in Japan "steal" a movie on a cinema is very hard and a heavy crime.

I think with the dvd and Bluray distribution we will see a lot of avi or mkv in the net.