(L) Fractale (TV)

[felix]

Originally Posted by monir

Fans can quickly lose interest with themes that relies on grandiose schemes of things to tell a story if it goes on too long.

Particularly when you have virtually no subplot or sideplot to go with it...

[monir]

Originally Posted by felix

@monir

My impression is that anyone with a terminal or with terminal glasses, can see Nessa. The scenes you speak of are not people not seeing Nessa but people not interacting with her, or otherwise ignoring her (along with Cain).

Yeah, I considered that possiblity also, but then those guys would haven't been so furious at a mere doppel to initiate a chasing. After all these guys should be more than familiar with doppels and take appropriate action rather than chasing a digital data, i.e. making notification about a faulty doppel that's causing havoc. I think what the animators have done in regards to Nessa in episode 2 are something similar to movies like The Sixth Sense or Fight Club. The way it has been masked may hint to a future portion of the story would be tied to that event to the overall plot point somehow.

edit: I wasn't the only one to notice that people didn't seem to see Nessa in our discussion about episode 2.

Originally Posted by ninja_pintu

Wow, episode 2 was really good. Better than episode 1. The male lead became much more interesting and likable with this episode. Though can't say the same for the girl. She's pretty much an unknown at this point.
btw

Spoiler for episode 2 question:

Were those people at the park not able to see Nessa or something?

Oh and the visuals of this series are just amazing to see. Especially the background.


Link to the post

I feel a little bit better now. Opposing the masses to stand by your understanding is never easy.

[Tatakae]

Originally Posted by Outcast within

Is it me or is there something wrong with the guy in charge of music?
Every ep has a scene where the music doesn't fit and is played too loud.
Is it artsy?
In episode three the whole scene at the six minute mark where they have a conversation in the plane the music felt distracting instead of supporting.

Originally Posted by Katapan

I'm with you here: the music placement felt wrong almost all the time in this episode. Especially during the first Sunda/Clain conversation - the BGM killed the scene for me.

Originally Posted by Arabesque

While I can say that I thought that this was a fairly strong OST for the show, I can't say they had been using it correctly the past two episodes (episode 1 had the BGM literally clash with what's going on on screen, during Phryne and Clain's first meeting and when she was singing to him as if it was trying to one up her :/) but this episode simply had the music be completely mismatched with the visuals. The scene with Sunda was a complete joke, and made me wonder if they really wanted us to even sympathies with Lost Millennium (I got the impression that they don't want us to) goals and reasons.

Well, it's looks like it depends on one's individual taste and previous knowledge if the BGM is supposedly distracting or mismatched with the visuals. I don't think the music distracts in the six minute mark of episode three at all. I like the pompuous feel of the BGM in that scene, it reminds me of older anime, especially Nadia.

Maybe some of you guys should look up Nadia, Secret of Blue Water again, if you haven't done it yet - Fractale is inspired by Nadia and the pompuous BGM by Sagisu Shirou is used exactly the same way like in Fractale (and I don't remember fans complaining in the older days about the use of BGM in Nadia ). It that show, you see sometimes characters talking about serious issues, but the BGM still sounds like a circus show. Then you must conclude that the scene was not entirely as dead serious as the spoken words might make you believe. The BGMs reinforces the feeling of big adventures and grand schemes, nothing more.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by monir

Yeah, I considered that possiblity also, but then those guys would haven't been so furious at a mere doppel to initiate a chasing.

But that's the thing, if they can see Nessa, their first impression would be "person" not "doppel." Therefore, their first reaction to her would be to disregard her or respond to her as if she was a person.

[Haru~]

If Nessa's physical appearance came from Phryne's sister, what about her personality? I'm betting it's still from her before she was brainwashed by the "Stars".

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by Haru~

If Nessa's physical appearance came from Phryne's sister, what about her personality? I'm betting it's still from her before she was brainwashed by the "Stars".

I have a feeling that the priestesses (and this includes Real!Nessa and Phryne) don't have terminals, and thus can't be affected by the star-brainwashing. My only evidence for this is that they're not held in thrall by the starlight like Clain would have been without those special glasses (what were they made out of, anyway?).

Your theory is equally valid though.

[felix]

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

I have a feeling that the priestesses (and this includes Real!Nessa and Phryne) don't have terminals, and thus can't be affected by the star-brainwashing. My only evidence for this is that they're not held in thrall by the starlight like Clain would have been without those special glasses (what were they made out of, anyway?).

If the light is a signal, and the terminal is doing most of the work, then it's safe to assume the priestesses are simply on another protocol. Meaning, they have special "bitch" terminals that follow different procedures.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

I have a feeling that the priestesses (and this includes Real!Nessa and Phryne) don't have terminals, and thus can't be affected by the star-brainwashing. My only evidence for this is that they're not held in thrall by the starlight like Clain would have been without those special glasses (what were they made out of, anyway?).

Your theory is equally valid though.

Weren't they able to track Phryne with Fractale? Or was that just Claim's assumption?

[Dop]

OK. This series has just jumped up my own ratings ladder with episode 3.
I wasn't expecting the 'terrorist' attack.
I wasn't expecting fat comedy henchman to get shot.
Things have got much more interesting.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Dop

OK. This series has just jumped up my own ratings ladder with episode 3.
I wasn't expecting the 'terrorist' attack.
I wasn't expecting fat comedy henchman to get shot.
Things have got much more interesting.

Let's see:

• Cheap copy of real world frustration; with little to no emotional backend
• A cent a dozen character development: kill unimportant side-characters

And you're telling me the show is now of higher quality?

[Seihai]

I don't think "much more interesting" equals to "higher quality".

[felix]

I was referring to his line of: "jumped up my own ratings ladder"

[Vexx]

I'm having real trouble staying interested.... and no, the "terrorist attack" didn't really help at all. You know its a bad sign if you keep finding reasons to do something else than watch.

However....haven't dropped it yet.

[broken270]

I would like to know what the heck is going on and if I am viewing things correctly.

Spoiler:

Clain and Vanessa gets dragged into Granitz village, the place that still has the "freedom" left to do whatever they want out of their own freewill. Clain calls this place old (the good part about it since he is interested in antique things) and weird (the bad part about it becuase he doesn't understand why they would not have doppels in the first place). Both are so far excited about being here until his talk with the big brother. Here Clain is trown with a bunch of information about the village and what they are trying to accomplish. Clain views this as a scary thing, since no one that he knows had ever rebelled against the priestess. Clan visits the hospital, and it is here tht he questions the Fractale system and its true nature. Seeing some of the patients like that, Clain believes that most of their problems can be solved through dopple, but the village chief? argues against it. Big brother decides to throw a party welcoming them (even though they are hostages). Clain feels awkward being around with people, and I guess has not seen real food yet until they make something for him. And then, we have an odd bed scene with Vanessa and Clain.

The next day, Clain would witness upfront what the star ceremony truly is. Although they were supposed to stay in the village by word of little sister, Clain still manages to get on board and is once again fascinated by old technology. Again, Nessa pops up with him becuase she is a doppel. Big brother and the gang landed on a safe zone and proceed to crash the party known as the star ceremony. After wearing the special glasses, Clain sees the truth behind the Fractale system. It seems as if the system brainwashes people and gathers their data for the day while feeling relieved from their problems. Big brother gives the signal, and the fight is on. Magic and bullets are flying all over the place, killing enemies and innocent civilians. Not only that, the main priestess that is performing the ceremony is none other than real Nessa, a gentle and soft-spoken version. Nessa and Clain are caught up in the middle of the fray and see the deaths of the people upfront. Out of the blue, Phryne retuens and calms everyone down. Apparently, Phryne is real Nessa's older sister, and probably the main high priestess that the other priestesses were talking about a few episodes back.

Is Clain somehow connected and the key factor to this whole mess of rebelling against the Fractale system. What is up with using a priestess as the first doppel to be created? Does Phryne want to fight the system as well because it did something to her real sister? What the heck is going on? Will the next episode help clear some of this up?

[subazoke]

whats with the trend nowadays where shows start with lighthearted comedy pretty girls yadayada then turns into bloodshed/ death/ boom headshot


not like im complaining but this is getting too predictable

[DragoZERO]

Yeah... HanaKana is enough reason for me to keep watching. I know, I know.

[Southern Cross]

Being a huge fan of dystopian literature, I actually am very impressed with the direction that Fractale is going right now. I perceived some dystopic vibes from the onset, with the suggested incompatibility between the present state of the "Fractale System" and the previous state of things.

For example, the "antiques" that intrigue Clain so much aren't very popular (they busted the "Junk Market" in episode 1 - that was an explicit means of the present, police state repressing older technologies) - probably because they either are analog or a rudimentary kind of digital that cannot be networked/tracked the way that everything in the Fractale system seems to be.

Also, we were more recently introduced to Lost Millennium, which appears to be a relatively normal, self-sufficient community to people like us but is actually labelled as a "terrorist organization" by the Fractale system (they discarded their "terminals" which seems to be the basis of social control in the Fractale system). This is where I realized that the Fractale system really resembles a dystopia - it appears perfect but actually degrades society (families can't even live together anymore) and represses individuals very covertly (manipulating things such as doppels when individuals dissent, as suggested in episode 3).

They manage this by taking advantage of how everything is networked conveniently through their system (having control over terminals, doppels, etc.) and manipulating everyone's thoughts and surroundings.

I'm not sure how I can elaborate on this any further, except by drawing parallel with Orwell's 1984, in which a more old-school form of dystopia (through very strict control over information, omnipresent screens that monitor people and brutal brainwashing techniques utilized on those who visibly dissent) is exercised.

Essentially, I'd go so far to say that Fractale intends on being dystopian in order to comment on how everything today is getting technologically networked to the extent that we're relying more on our networks than we really need to. (i.e. the "Digital Home" demo with network-connected fridges that message you around when products expire at the recent Consumer Electronics Show and probably more familiar to everyone: recent internet networking trends such as Foursquare/Facebook Places in which people actually report where they're at.)

Perhaps this idea would have better suited a film than an 11-episode anime since the intellectual weight behind it can actually be very subtle and easily overlooked unless fleshed out completely or if the individual watching was intently looking for such themes. (I'm not even sure why I expected Fractale to turn out this way, myself.)

On a similar vein of thinking, I feel like the execution of the "terrorist attack" came too suddenly with little-to-no explicit justification made. However, I am certain they'll come to expand on why Lost Millennium has resorted to belligerent means similarly to how most dystopic backstories are set: with war/revolution starting with one party (usually the apparently weaker, as in LM in this case) getting driven to a corner.

Anyway, I'd say those LM "terrorists" aren't really terrorists. (They don't purposely do things to incite fear - the whole "terrorist" label was just made up by the Fractale system itself; LM probably had an overlying objective while trying to "cancel" the update.) They are simply people who preferred an older, more free style of living that the Fractale system doesn't only cast out but wishes to completely erase for the ease of controlling society. I feel like this will probably be the reason they use to explain why LM turned to fighting.

I also expect Clain to become more and more disillusioned by the Fractale system (I mean episode 3 could've been traumatizing for him) until he'll finally decide to turn against it as well, if this anime will follow a truly dystopian fiction format.

It's nice to see it in classic books, but it is even more refreshing to see dystopian themes echo in an anime like this, and I'm pretty stoked. Hopefully this post helps others understand Fractale in a different light.

[Bikerider]

This show has taken a side ways turn from weird into the surreal.

[Southern Cross]

Originally Posted by Bikerider

This show has taken a side ways turn from weird into the surreal.

I'd say that it was surreal from the onset.

To explain, I'll expand from my argument that Fractale is actually intentionally employing dystopian themes by breaking down some of the elements behind the anime revealed so far:

• Doppels - Virtually replace "interpersonal relationships" and are controlled by the Fractale system. Clain could only interact with his parents through their doppels.
• Terminals - Apparently connect individuals to the overlying Fractale system, likely allowing them to utilize the technology behind the doppels but resigning them to absolute Fractale system control. (More explicitly evidenced by episode 3.)
• Old technologies have been completely phased out and are even illegal (judging by that "Junk Market" bust in the first episode.) - This implies that every "modern" electronic in the Fractale system is likely also networked to it in a way that allows the Fractale system to exercise even more control over people via technology.

Episode 3 just made everything explicit with the introduction of the "Star Festival." The revelation behind what it actually sought to accomplish particularly uncovered how the Fractale system is dystopic - essentially with the brainwashing of those individuals networked to it through their terminals.

This might seem like a stretch for now, but I suspect they'll be expanding on these concepts of network manipulation as a means of information/mind control. That will only further the case for this anime exhibiting dystopian themes.

[Jimmy C]

Clarification, the Police didn't bust the junk market for selling old tech, but because someone was peddling narcotic data.