2011-11-02, 18:13 | Link #721 | ||
Longtime Lurker
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: The Inland Empire
Age: 40
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I kind of expect she has memorized the interior layout and performance of every major class of Federation warship. She is literally a walking intelligence dossier on the Federation's battle fleet. Actually when you stop to consider it the most valuable thing the Sky Pirates posses is the shear amount of intel they have gathered over the years by stealing warships. Performance specifications, interior designs, armor thickness, weaponry effectiveness, signal codes, etc. Basically anything you want to know when going into battle. Quote:
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2011-11-02, 18:24 | Link #723 |
Lost at Sea
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Xion, I think Myssa Rei has the right of it, when he or she says "I think the archetype being followed here isn't the historical bloodthirsty brigand, but the idealized adventurer-rogue like in Skies of Arcadia or Revenant Wings (stress on idealized)." The Sky Pirates are first and foremost literary figures, instances of a literary tradition of romantic pirates and thieves going back to Robin Hood and Odysseus, and passing a lot of really great Errol Flynn movies along the way. Paying the Sky Pirates too much moral scrutiny is besides the point.
Having said that, I wonder why the show does make an effort to introduce a complex moral back story, of natives displaced by returnees now displaced by empire? Why are we shown Empress Augusta's sympathy for the earliest inhabitants of the region? All of this tends to place the characters and the action on a real-world moral stage, and forces the question about the moral justification of their actions. |
2011-11-02, 20:08 | Link #724 |
Moderate Haruhiist
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As a Pixiv-dweller myself, I've been holding off on uploading anything to Danbooru on Fam yet, primarily because most of the recent fan-art are on Dio. Seriously, type 'lastexile' on the tag field. It makes it hard to find nice art on the girls, which kind of sad. Oh well, there's still more than 20 episodes for the fan-art to catch up on.
Also, I'm not sure if the some of the art so far will pass muster among the mods in Danbooru. For example, the lead pic of this series: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.p...st_id=22680689
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Last edited by Myssa Rei; 2011-11-02 at 20:28. |
2011-11-03, 07:16 | Link #725 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
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Not impressed
I see that few posts are making any serious criticism of this series. I hate to strike a discordant note, but I'm not entirely impressed.
Certainly, as I have said before, the flying machines and the mecha designs are great, and some of the characters are interesting. But to someone who hasn't immersed themselves in every detail of the series and its back story, much of the action is merely confusing. Particularly in the battles, too many characters pop up and one isn't sure whose side's ship or officer one is looking at. There is too much action that is just grossly implausible. The storyline focuses on the touchy-feely stuff (which admittedly a lot of the fans clearly like), while leaving various points dangling. I thought all the crew of the Turan flagship were killed at the time Princess #1 was captured, but in a later episode it seems that the pirates have the flagship, as they wanted, and are gutting it. So were the subtitles wrong or what, and what did happen to the crew? I feel confirmed therefore in my earlier opinion that the plot is rubbish. Whether the majority of fans care, or whether the producers care, is another story... The sequence of Princess Millia having a strop in episode #3 was quite well done, and the poor girl is probably entitled, having lost her father, her capital city and her sister in quick succession, but shouldn't she be showing a bit more stiff upper lip? She is a princess, after all... As for Fam's idea of reviving the air race, that's a bit like planning the 1948 Olympic games during WWII, isn't it? I also felt that the potential for adding some interest to the air battles has been largely missed. Tactically and strategically, the notion of having aerial battleships is very similar to that with naval battleships in our own history, and we can immediately apply the same ideas. The battleships c. 1901 were designed to be deployed in battle fleets of similar large, heavily armoured and heavily gunned ships which would bang away at each other in big fleet actions. In fact this rarely happened, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. Naval warfare was rather like a big board game, where to win you had to position your ships to damage your enemy before he could damage you. A big ship could always beat smaller ones because its guns had a longer range, the bigger shells were more damaging, and its thicker armour would deflect small shells. Certain fleet manoeuvres were intended to concentrate fire on the enemy ships. It should be noted that improved guns and range-finding allowed fire to be opened at a distance of several miles. The introduction in the early 20th century of some new and cheaper weapons, i.e. the torpedo, the submarine, and the aeroplane, largely spoiled the admiral's fun. By WWI, admirals were so frightened of the torpedo-boat that a whole new class of warship, the torpedo boat destroyer, or "destroyer" for short, was invented to counter them. They were just as frightened of the torpedo-armed submarine, and with good reason. Early in WWI, a primitive German sub sank three British cruisers in a single afternoon. The naval strategy in WWI was mainly aimed at keeping the precious battleships out of range of cheap, sneaky submarines. As for naval aviation, if it didn't play a key role in WWI, it wasn't for want of trying in some quarters. Many battleships and large cruisers had spotter aircraft which were fired off from catapults, the first aircraft-carriers were laid down, and the first carrier-borne attack was attempted. In WWII, as we all know, air power had a dominant role at sea as well as on land. The key naval battles were carrier battles, and aircraft played a key role in suppressing submarines. WWII subs were really surface vessels with a limited submersible capability, so very vulnerable to air attack. Far more ships were sunk by torpedoes and aerial bombs than by shellfire. The Yamato was sunk by an air attack. So, how does this relate to Last Exile? As one can see in every episode, they already have cheap and highly mobile air vehicles, with anti-gravity motors, so we should expect aircraft carriers capable of engaging at a distance of 100 miles or more, air torpedoes, cruise missiles, ground-to-air rockets, small torpedo gunboats, and kamikaze guided bombs, all capable of achieving very high speeds. The WWII scenario, in fact. Lots of fun, but one can't avoid thinking that the attention of the scriptwriters, and probably the bulk of fans, is elsewhere. Finally, you probably know that a "Vespa" is an Italian make of motor scooter, but are you aware that other names are a joke. As a clearly unimpressed German anime fan reports: "Btw, for me as a German it isn't easy not to laugh out loud, when I hear that a country is named "Kartoffel" (potato) and another one "Zwiebel" (onion). It looks, as if a particular scheme has been poorly executed" |
2011-11-03, 07:43 | Link #726 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Although, there is one aircraft carrier in the show, but it's a novelty. It's also why it's the most badass ship around, the show Cool Ship and go by the nickname of Shinigami. It show up in episode 4. |
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2011-11-03, 07:57 | Link #727 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
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I'm just more curious if hiroshi5 has seen the first series, since people who have usually know what to expect rather setting awkward expectation asking for something which isn't intended or going outside the premise. |
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2011-11-03, 08:57 | Link #728 |
Moderate Haruhiist
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azarhal and Nemuru: Different opinions and all that. That said, it does seem that fellow has missed the point... theeeeen again most of us here have watched the first series, so we're used to the setting and how technology works in it. We know, for example, how the Silvana and its complement of Vanships was pretty much unique up until the final confrontation of the Alliance against the Guild.
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2011-11-03, 10:07 | Link #731 | |
Moderate Haruhiist
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Bottom line, the series has to sell. Everything else will usually fall into place after that.
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2011-11-03, 13:12 | Link #732 |
Waiting for more taiyuki!
Join Date: Jan 2004
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Well you really shouldn't assume that viewers are going to watch season 1 before tuning in to this one. If that's what it takes to understand this series, then it prob won't sell well imo as people usually don't invest that much time in a title.
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2011-11-03, 13:53 | Link #733 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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I don't think you need to have seen the first season to realize that the settings isn't based on WWII tech level. In 3 episodes we haven't seen a group use vespa/vanship in air-combat beside creating smoke screen. Also, we have only seen canons on battleships or the ground as main firepower (steam powered canons at that!).
I also don't think you need to have seen the first season to enjoy the show, unless you need to be spoon feed. |
2011-11-03, 13:57 | Link #734 | |
Longtime Lurker
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: The Inland Empire
Age: 40
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Found this particular one on Sankaku Channel using that particular tag. http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/post/show/1154501 (SFW picture but the news feed at the top for Sankaku Complex probably won't.) I don't see why they wouldn't allow it. That picture is quite nice. The rest of the Fam related pictures they posted are rather good too. (Though I don't think Gisey is going to tsun at you for drawing her in underwear as much as shoot you with a flare gun.) . I rather like the second picture of Fam and Gisey, even if Fam's hair and eyes is olive green. The sixth picture, while kind of a rough, is a rather nice action shot of Fam and Gisey in their vespa. And of course since I am a yuri fan, got to love the seventh picture. P.S. Found my avatar via the Last Exile LJ community. Last edited by Stevie_Nix; 2011-11-03 at 18:51. |
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2011-11-03, 14:30 | Link #736 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
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Quote:
The pirates are scavengers/salvagers. They salvaged a lot of other Turan wrecks too. |
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2011-11-04, 02:10 | Link #738 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
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I'm pretty sure a fully functional flagship type battleship would be a lot more valuable than the scraps they can salvage it for. The Ades Federation would probably have bombed it after the battle to prevent turan forces/pirates from using it.
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2011-11-04, 06:22 | Link #740 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Teddy was probably shipped back to Potato along with the Turan soldiers who couldn't fight.
As for the Lasas, she was already damaged before her final flight (she lost all her wings). edit: Official website added 4 more characters (3 Silvius Mechanics and the Acoustic officer): Cecily (acoustic Officer) voiced by Megumi Nakajima. (I'm starting to think they should make an songs album for Fam, they have like 3 professional singer in the cast now) Anri KATSU as Ignas (sp?) Miyu IRINO as Nicolo (sp?) Mikako KOMATSU as Elio (a girl mechanic ?) Oh and there is now a "Secret" added to the Mecha page showing an extremely familiar vanship for viewers of season 1. Last edited by azarhal; 2011-11-04 at 06:59. |
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adventure, science fiction |
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