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

[Blonto]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

I thought they were pretty straightforward. To stop coddling the weak at the expense of the strong, particularly in the face of the kabane threat, and revenge against the Shogun and all his ilk for doing the above in addition to some past transgression that will certainly get an explanation and/or flashback over the next few episodes.

Yes, they were pretty straightforward so it's telling that even after the villain makes a speech about his supposed ideals no-one can still make sense of his motivations.
The only motivation that's actually consistent with his actions and the plot so far is revenge. All that talk of social darwinism makes 0 sense: he possesses advanced weapons that he's relying on for his fight against the zombies ("naturally only the strong survive" but you rely on guns, the great equalizers. If it were some tired eugenics angle with the kabaneri, yeah it'd still be crap but at least it'd make more sense), weapons he's made no effort to share with others and confusingly that the shogun's also made no effort to confiscate or share with humanity.
Biba is going around in a huge armored train and he and his followers couldn't possibly be unaware of the fact that crushing the walls and the stations is akin to suicide because there will be no-one to provide food, maintenance and weapons for them anymore. They have nothing to gain from this. You can tell me Biba is "crazy" or whatever, but this is really the same excuse as saying "it's fantasy" or "it's anime" when the story loses all consistency and logic to it. Throwing anything you can think of onto your villain in only two episodes; a bit of darwinism, a bit of psychopathy, a bit of petty revenge, a bit of bishie charisma, and then justifying the resulting mess of a character with "crazy" is not good writing, especially since nothing so far has shown us he's crazy so I'm really not getting why people are ascribing a lack of logic to his motives. If you want an army, you usually need to base your views on something other than your insanity. "We work to exterminate our species and ourselves in the midst of the apocalypse" doesn't sound attractive on pamphlets.

And can I say I find it hilarious how killing that kid in the end was treated as sooo evil when that's been the accepted method of putting people out of their misery before they turn into zombies throughout the series. "Stop"? Why? And let the kid turn into a zombie and endanger everyone else? It's not like it was possible to save him.

Originally Posted by moncikoma

so much Hate and anger towards biba, mumei, and ikoma on every forum, disqus, twitter, and fb.. biba did his Job wonderfully as Villian.

You are mistaking hating someone as a person and hating them as a character. I don't feel anything towards Biba as a person because I don't see him as a person. I see him as a tool, a cliché the writers put in because they didn't have other ideas. If he dies I won't care because the damage has already been done. I guess there is some truth in that saying that the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference (when not used to justify mortal enemies being in love for fanfics).

Originally Posted by scififan

It's apparent the shogan is against war with kabane. He is into building defense walls. BIba and pro-war went against kabane, and shogan cutted off the supply.

So bulding defenses against a threat that's vastly superior to you is being "against war"? If everyone had Biba's tech I might buy that, as it is, Biba needs to be an utter imbecile to think that humanity is hiding out of cowardice since this is really their only option.

[Kazu-kun]

Either way, Biba has no right to be talking about cowardice when he's a coward himself, as Horobi aptly stated and proved at the end.

[BoyTitan]

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

I totally agree with Blonto's previous comments.
This anime had an outstanding first episode and i was utterly surprised by Mumei's character when she first appeared. I'm not even a loli fan but her serious and mature attitude together with her badass kick at the end made me fall in love with her. However, the following episodes revealed she was just some dumb spoiled brat that blindly follows a dubious person that is not even her real brother. I totally lost interest in her. Too childish for me.

But she is just a child. Why would a child not be childish ?

I just never get this when anime characters act like actual children adults bash them. Don't get me wrong there are extremes where the over childfy the younger character and make them a dumb ass or overly loud and obnoxious but this is not 1 I have the same issue with people bashing the main character in kuromukuro.

[DemonneoPT]

Originally Posted by BoyTitan

But she is just a child. Why would a child not be childish ?

I just never get this when anime characters act like actual children adults bash them. Don't get me wrong there are extremes where the over childfy the younger character and make them a dumb ass or overly loud and obnoxious but this is not 1 I have the same issue with people bashing the main character in kuromukuro.

But that is my problem. When i saw the loli in the first episode i though to myself... "great, a fucking kid as the main protagonist... again". However i fell in love with her because her personality was the total opposite and she showed she could be mature and badass even tho she was still a kid. The following episodes ruined the image i had of her and therefore my disappointment.

[RobotCat]

Heh...

I feel like if the anime goes down the cliche route where Ikoma defeats Biba and saves Mumei everyone is just going to forget about it next season, but if they have Biba win and Ikoma leaves because there's nothing left for him except find a way to turn Mumei back it'll be the ending that everyone will be salty about forever.

[Blonto]

Onto important topics, that love triangle tag seriously needs to go already.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Blonto

Onto important topics, that love triangle tag seriously needs to go already.

I agree, I didn't see any sort of romance between Ikoma, Mumei and Ayame, I see the first two as nothing more than mere friends that can be treated like siblings in arms, not to mention her being 12 is too young for Ikoma to fall in love with.

Meanwhile Kurusu seems to have romantic feelings hinted at Ayame, that's about the closest and only "romantic" thing that I could find about the series.

[Blonto]

Yeah, they were pretty obviously drawing parallels between Mumei and MC's sister. Honestly I've no idea where that tag even came from, I can't think of anything implying there's going to be a love triangle even with genre savvyness.

I think maybe they were hinting at something between the train rider and sexy ponytail guy, since they were usually near each other in their spare time (yeah yeah, I know, but even something like that tends to count in anime language). Also he asked to ride her train . Though I really didn't peg her as someone who'd be playing hard to get, I'd expect that from him considering how bitter and assholish he is. He needs a pair of strong muscular arms to break through his defenses haha! I guess it's probably just some dumb fanservice that's not supposed to amount to anything.

Really any possible romance seems to be strictly limited to a couple of subtle hints, thank god. I really couldn't stand a botched romance along with a botched plot.

[Incest Emblem]

Fools! They are obviously talking about the Sukari-Yukina-Ayame love triangle, not something that involves Ikoma.

[Blonto]

Maybe the train is the third wheel.
Heh, wheel.

[Xander]

My two cents about Biba's motivations and how they work:

Biba himself and his most loyal followers, as far as we can tell, are primarily seeking personal revenge for being either abandoned or betrayed by the shogunate ten years ago when they were left to die among the Kabane. The series hasn't told us what is their true endgame, so there are still pieces missing, yet this basic concept seems completely clear as their main motivation. Everything else is subservient to it.

Based on that background, the social darwinism rhetoric only makes some sense as a secondary motivation, which makes it a direct product of the above and not an independent reasoning that can stand by itself in a normal context. The idea seems to be that Biba and his comrades were originally "weak" and vulnerable before, otherwise they wouldn't be angry about the whole betrayal, but they value how fighting for their own survival is exactly what made them "strong" in the process, although at a high cost in terms of casualties. It doesn't seem like his "army" is all that big if they can all fit inside one train, so many of those folks might well have been together with him right from the start. If so, then they don't need to be persuaded about Biba's ideals because they were also victims of what happened ten years ago.

Sadly, Biba hasn't been able to overcome that experience. He believes there's something very unfair and cowardly about his group being forced to risk their lifes fighting Kabane, while those who betrayed them all those years ago can feel safe and protected. Therefore, he wants to punish those responsible for causing his trauma.

This dominates him so much that Biba also wants to impose a similarly traumatic experience on others and will recruit those who fought for their own survival. As we saw in the flashback, Biba already did this on a micro level with Mumei, though he clearly didn't tell her the full story. It's possible, though unconfirmed, that he's also done the same thing with other individuals before.

The problem is that he's finally going all out with this way of thinking, now that the capital of the hated shogunate is so close, and doesn't seem to care about causing a lot of damage in the process. Biba thinks "quality over quantity" also applies to the value of human lives. If you're brave and can still fight, awesome. If you're cowardly or can't fight anymore, he won't care about you.

Biba doesn't currently provide any real options beyond "join me or die" to those who stand in his way. The speech at the end of the episode didn't seem too convincing for anyone who wasn't already a hardcore follower of Biba and therefore predisposed to buy into his rhetoric. Those were the only ones who ended up cheering him. Everyone else is either a prisoner held at gunpoint or a shocked survivor, who could only hope to agree with Biba as a result of Stockholm syndrome. You're not going to get too many voluntary recruits with that process and this will definitely increase the total number of civilians killed, but it's not like Biba needs a ton of extra help. He already has a core set of loyal followers and a blue energy source that can be used to create hybrid colonies.

How many times has he attacked other stations before this point? We don't know. Will he leave none of them standing after toppling the shogunate? That's also unknown. Depending on what we learn, Biba may in fact turn out to be nothing more than a contradictory madman or there may be some semblance of logic to his behavior.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Xander

If you're cowardly or can't fight anymore, he won't care about you.

That wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't a coward himself.

[Xander]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

That wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't a coward himself.

If nothing else, the show seems to be aware of that irony.

[Brother Coa]

Originally Posted by Blonto

That love triangle tag seriously needs to go already.

Maybe they are leaving that for season 2?

Let us first see who will live and die by the end of this season, some few more tense situations are sure to create several bonds between characters.

[Blonto]

I don't think the tags are based on anything official, I remember Kokoro Connect having a harem tag which wasn't really true.

[Wandering Soul]

Originally Posted by Brother Coa

Maybe they are leaving that for season 2?

Let us first see who will live and die by the end of this season, some few more tense situations are sure to create several bonds between characters.

The tags are added by members of the forum, nothing official.

[Brother Coa]

I read today on Facebook newsfeed that second season of SnK is delayed to 2017 because of Kabaneri.

[moncikoma]

Originally Posted by Brother Coa

I read today on Facebook newsfeed that second season of SnK is delayed to 2017 because of Kabaneri.

Im sure AOT will be release on january or february.. Not that long..
Im sure they already started the production by now.. Since kabaneri already end this month

Originally Posted by Blonto

Yes, they were pretty straightforward so it's telling that even after the villain makes a speech about his supposed ideals no-one can still make sense of his motivations.
The only motivation that's actually consistent with his actions and the plot so far is revenge. All that talk of social darwinism makes 0 sense: he possesses advanced weapons that he's relying on for his fight against the zombies ("naturally only the strong survive" but you rely on guns, the great equalizers. If it were some tired eugenics angle with the kabaneri, yeah it'd still be crap but at least it'd make more sense), weapons he's made no effort to share with others and confusingly that the shogun's also made no effort to confiscate or share with humanity.
Biba is going around in a huge armored train and he and his followers couldn't possibly be unaware of the fact that crushing the walls and the stations is akin to suicide because there will be no-one to provide food, maintenance and weapons for them anymore. They have nothing to gain from this. You can tell me Biba is "crazy" or whatever, but this is really the same excuse as saying "it's fantasy" or "it's anime" when the story loses all consistency and logic to it. Throwing anything you can think of onto your villain in only two episodes; a bit of darwinism, a bit of psychopathy, a bit of petty revenge, a bit of bishie charisma, and then justifying the resulting mess of a character with "crazy" is not good writing, especially since nothing so far has shown us he's crazy so I'm really not getting why people are ascribing a lack of logic to his motives. If you want an army, you usually need to base your views on something other than your insanity. "We work to exterminate our species and ourselves in the midst of the apocalypse" doesn't sound attractive on pamphlets.

And can I say I find it hilarious how killing that kid in the end was treated as sooo evil when that's been the accepted method of putting people out of their misery before they turn into zombies throughout the series. "Stop"? Why? And let the kid turn into a zombie and endanger everyone else? It's not like it was possible to save him.

You are mistaking hating someone as a person and hating them as a character. I don't feel anything towards Biba as a person because I don't see him as a person. I see him as a tool, a cliché the writers put in because they didn't have other ideas. If he dies I won't care because the damage has already been done. I guess there is some truth in that saying that the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference (when not used to justify mortal enemies being in love for fanfics).

Shitty fans keep bad mouthing this anime even before the final episode..

So bulding defenses against a threat that's vastly superior to you is being "against war"? If everyone had Biba's tech I might buy that, as it is, Biba needs to be an utter imbecile to think that humanity is hiding out of cowardice since this is really their only option.

you cant judge biba is a weak villain by just 2 episodes..
Im sure he have a motive that is more than just a revenge..
The answers to biba motive is what happened 10 years ago..
Im sure we will see more about biba story next Ep.. Maybe at the ending..

if no motive explained.. then yes its a cliched villain with darwinism
Which is a shame, because this story can be much more interesting if biba is our friend and the shogun is the real enemy.
I think, The kid, can be saved, there is a vacine (kurusu is going to bring it later)

I hate when Shitty netizens keep badmouthing this series even before they watched the whole episodes ..
There are 3 more episodes left.. And by 3 episodes everything can changed really quick and Epicly..
We can see that in ep 1-3 .. This arc can still be saved.. hopefully

Today its ep 10 ..

[endarion88]

just seen ep 10 WOW they really want to make mumei useless till the very end!

and

Spoiler for spoiler:

as if they didnt use already lot of overused things, they had to add the mindcontrol/brainwash to the list!

[AB079]

Now this series must be called Kotetsujo no Disappointment

They're making Mumei going from badass and insteresting to stupid and boring, literally making her useless and childish unable to do something by herself even when on the early episodes she was one of the most interesting characters.

Biba is just a joke, a cartoonish villain trying to hard to be the edgelord master and even his motivations are weak as hell. And if that is not even enough the Kabane are not the focus of the story anymore, when the series should be focused more on them and the Kabaneri.

But the worse part of Kabaneri right now is how they're turning Ikoma into a useless character who only spend time screaming and making angry faces. Ohhh and that arm getting chopped.... where I saw that before?.... pic related

Spoiler for you can't be serious.:

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.