(L+CR) Centaur no Nayami (A Centaur's Life)

[Wandering Soul]

Suu has quite the smile. I'm sure it's one Hime definitely won't forget.

I lol'd at the part where all the government agents were about to pull their weapons on Nozomi because she couldn't resist being the "straight man".

[SeaDoor]

The background elements of this series gets more and more disturbing but I am beginning to suspect that the only story is of the main characters. That was a lot of security folks with heavy firepower just to cover a few girls out shopping. Also, with as tightly controlled as the society seems, I am a little surprised that a monster movie like that was actually made and made twice. Seems to not fit with what we've seen.

The translators seemed undecided on what to call Hime. It's a nickname so to me Hime's fine and no need to occasionally translate that to Princess.

I hope the class rep gets an episode. She seems kind of interesting.

Also, yet another episode with a UFO in it.

[Random Wanderer]

The background elements of this series gets more and more disturbing but I am beginning to suspect that the only story is of the main characters. That was a lot of security folks with heavy firepower just to cover a few girls out shopping. Also, with as tightly controlled as the society seems, I am a little surprised that a monster movie like that was actually made and made twice. Seems to not fit with what we've seen.

Well, the Antarcticans aren't "Human" by this world's standards: they're a separate species. At the time the movie was made they were just a mysterious, alien, mostly unknown group of scary beings that no one knew much of anything about, who had little real contact with anyone, and who were living all by themselves in the coldest, most isolated place on the planet. At the time the laws didn't restrict such things about them because none of them lived among Humans, and when it came down to it they were more like a myth than a political group. Time and legislation, of course, have marched on, and now such a movie could be considered offensive and a hate crime.

Originally Posted by SeaDoor

The translators seemed undecided on what to call Hime. It's a nickname so to me Hime's fine and no need to occasionally translate that to Princess.

Well, if you're referring to what Kyouko said in the infrimiry, the term she used there was specifically Himegimi, rather our heroine's actual name. So she was genuinely calling her "little princess" at that point.

[James Rye]

Originally Posted by Proto

I'm getting a little uncomfortable in trying to figure out what is the series underlying message here, but otherwise so far so good.

Isn't the message like "be friends and live happily together no matter the circumstances" or something like that? With a little "and don't discriminate or litter, kids, else you will be shot" spice mixed in it. XD

[Itlandm]

Those boys enjoyed entirely too much the memory of helping to carry Himeno. Now I am scientifically curious as to what part of her exactly they were carrying that was so soft...

Karma is a bitch: Sassassul causes Himeno to faint, then faints herself when seeing the news. I guess everyone has some kind of fear in their heart, if only they happen on the time and circumstance to meet it.

I notice that even Sassassul herself refer to the other races as human, and I guess interbreeding is unlikely when only the queen lays eggs. That said, she mentions that she is different from most of her race, and talks about not having someone she likes as an obligation rather than a law of nature. Given how flexible genetics seem to be in that world, I wonder if the gap between humans and Antarcticans cannot be bridged...

Definitely still one of my favorite series of the summer, despite the dark background.

[alex_drian]

I must admit that I did't have expectations for this show with the initial premise, but is interesting the background and the situation about their society using the slife of life setting as approach.

Welp, after reflecting I have arrived to the conclusion of their world is the most proximate of a world of true peace. If something the story have demostrated is that the humanity can't achieve peace in a good way and not ruin it, impossible, don't exists. This would be the better that we could reach as a race and sapient beings saddly.

Something movies or visual material could scare you as a kid and stay with that fear for shit that the movie is nowadays. I remember the movie "It" of Stephen King that scare the shit of me when I was a kid. Nowadays I don't bear a damn clown.

Also, this remember me that the media can be racist for the sake of entertaining, with the foreign race as the villians. An example that I remember is the movie "Delta Force" of Chuck Norris with muslims hijacking a plane and Chuck Norris infiltrating in their country and wrecking half of their army.

[chaos_animagic]

The "Antarcticans" is basically depicting what the world viewed Japan when the borders were closed and then opened to an entirely different society from the rest of the world.

Except here they used an extreme example by making it non-mammal snake-like beings.

While the discrimination is depicting Black People in current world where if you make Black Jokes you would still get pointed at for discrimination.

And the "controlling the government from the shadow"... is pretty much about "Illuminati"

And the "blowing up ship" and "hiding" is about what happens to Japanese that was still living in America when Japan did Pearl Harbor.

That's what we got from the manga forum a long while ago, lol



And yea, as I said before, this show is mostly going by a Historic/ Educational approach while giving some slice-of-life. (so by that... it does get darker as you continue watching the show)

[Magewolf]

Well the Antarcticans have a heavy Illuminati/Jew vibe more then anything else with their own continent. And while they do seem to be covered by the anti-discrimination laws since they are non-humans who mostly keep to themselves the enforcement seems to be a bit more slack.

The movie probably gets away with the snake monster being an "alien" since it looks like it is based on The Thing .

[Random Wanderer]

Tama-chan kind of let her dad have it in this episode. Comes across as kind of harsh, although I can't say she was wrong. I suspect she was probably a bit frustrated after feeling like she had scammed that woman.

[BWTraveller]

Wow, getting sent to jail simply for doubting a person whose hair color is abnormal for their race when they say it's their natural hair color. The list of convictable offenses is just getting crazier and crazier. I'd never want to be a teacher and if a teacher asked me to be on the public morals committee I'd have a few suggestions of places for him to shove that request.

[alt_account]

^ Cultural context is important here. Due to Japan being such a mono-ethnic culture, there is a stereotype associating blond/lighter hair colours with delinquints/gals. As an unfortunate side-effect, this has lead to discrimination (from teachers) and prejudice (from peers) towards kids with uncommon hair colours.

As there have been actual instances of teachers in Japan harassing students for their hair colour, I think the incident that Himeno described this time is moreso an illustration of the extremity of consequence for offenses in their world, but not the arbitrary restriction of freedoms.

[EroBotan]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Wow, getting sent to jail simply for doubting a person whose hair color is abnormal for their race when they say it's their natural hair color. The list of convictable offenses is just getting crazier and crazier. I'd never want to be a teacher and if a teacher asked me to be on the public morals committee I'd have a few suggestions of places for him to shove that request.

yeah .. i begin to dislike this series. I thought this's suppose to be a peaceful slice of life but there are sign of oppressive laws in place and everyone thinks it's normal! Maybe Mitama is the exception tho since she is annoyed about it (cutting her hair's halo = racism).

If you're going to throw politics and other hard stuff in an anime, how about choosing another genre? Like action, mecha, medieval war fantasy .. that's more fitting instead of making "a not so peaceful slice of life anime".

[alex_drian]

Originally Posted by EroBotan

yeah .. i begin to dislike this series. I thought this's suppose to be a peaceful slice of life but there are sign of oppressive laws in place and everyone thinks it's normal! Maybe Mitama is the exception tho since she is annoyed about it (cutting her hair's halo = racism).

If you're going to throw politics and other hard stuff in an anime, how about choosing another genre? Like action, mecha, medieval war fantasy .. that's more fitting instead of making "a not so peaceful slice of life anime".

That's the idea, in other genre the impact is lesser for the focus in other thing

[Flower]

Originally Posted by EroBotan

yeah .. i begin to dislike this series. I thought this's suppose to be a peaceful slice of life but there are sign of oppressive laws in place and everyone thinks it's normal! Maybe Mitama is the exception tho since she is annoyed about it (cutting her hair's halo = racism).

If you're going to throw politics and other hard stuff in an anime, how about choosing another genre? Like action, mecha, medieval war fantasy .. that's more fitting instead of making "a not so peaceful slice of life anime".

As regards throwing elements like this into an anime, please remember that this is based on a source manga and that those types of elements are even more present in the source proper - the studio thus far is being pretty faithful to the manga itself, though to my mind they are sorta toning things down a little.

Even so I do agree that the pre-season advertising does indeed seem to emphasize the "SoL" elements a bit more, and some of those who were familiar with the source material proper raised some concerns and doubts about what material was going to be adapted and how as a result. For those unfamiliar with the manga whose initial exposure to the series was this adaptation I could very easily see that sort of a feeling arising.

If it's any consolation, though, there were many who had similar reactions as the chapters of the manga came out and more and more "all over the map" content began to be included. I saw many people mentioning that they were going to drop the manga back then as well.

Point being that this is a very ... erm ... acquired taste of a series, and while it does have a dedicated fanbase those who do not like the overall world it builds are not few in number.

So no worries - if it is not the sort of thing you are looking for up to now you might consider dropping it ... things are not going to change much overall, though there will be individual variations to the general theme that will show up in the future.

[Nachtwandler]

You know, there are chapters about Napoleonic wars and Nazi labour camp in the manga so the things shown by far are quite light-hearted in comparison and they really toned down the dark aspect in anime. For example, flashback abot Himeno's ancestors saving their sister was longer in manga and had some gory scenes.

[EroBotan]

my criticism is directed to the author of the series. Since this is manga based then it's directed to the mangaka. Sorry for not making that clear ^^

I think there is a limit where you can combine genre .. like in the recent macross anime:
1. transformable mecha (good!)
2. team of girls who sing and make the mecha stronger & cure disease (good! mahou shoujo and mechs!!! )
3. A dude as the main character who dance & maybe sing too?. (uaaaaaaarrrghhhhh!!!!! whyyyy????!!!). There is nothing wrong with a dude dancing, like "yuri on ice" for example. The reason why it doesn't work with macross is because it clashes with the 2 previous elements.

Some elements clearly are not made for each other .. and in case someone can somehow pull it, that someone must be extremely talented.

and yeah .. my other complaints are how most of the cast give the impression that people getting jailed for trivial stuff (like a misunderstanding in that teacher's case) are normal and there's nothing to worry about. It's a slice of life show, but there is a bad guy here (the government), but no hero/heroine to fight them.

And true, nothing will change in the series. This is more like a rant/venting ^^

Originally Posted by alex_drian

That's the idea, in other genre the impact is lesser for the focus in other thing

Gundam has tons of politics in them, if you only combine 2 things. mecha wars & politics then there are plenty of room for these too aspect to grow together. A lot of series/movie even add more elements like romance & comedy and they're still looks good. There are limit obviously, but combining 2 or 3 genres won't break the show.

[Cloudedmind]

I'm personally glad the mangaka has combined these two elements. The limits you describe are of course your own personal preference and there's nothing wrong with not liking certain things. However, they are in no way hard and fast rules. There is no genre in which certain elements can't/shouldn't be combined, but rather whether or not the author does a good job in doing so. Personally, I think the author has here. I see the world in which the characters live in as a cautionary tale of what can happen when we take equality, respect, and the idea of nondiscrimination to far. Like many dystopian tales (while the world these characters live in may not be a true dystopia, from our point of view it has dsytopian elements) it's a way in which to get the audience to think and ponder by creating a world that seems alien to ours, but perhaps really isn't. There were a lot of things in history that our ancestors took as normal, or right by virtue of who they were.

Yes, some of the harsh laws are presented as normal in their world, well because it is for them, and these laws may seem repugnant to us, but I think there's a lesson to be learned here. Yes, there's no hero coming to save the day, not every story needs one, and life doesn't always have one even when a situation may seem to warrant it. Instead I think it would better to use stories like this to examine the societies we live, and to examine ourselves.

As Flower mentioned not every story is going to be for you of course. But that doesn't mean a story shouldn't be told, and done so in a way that may seem unconventional at the time. I've personally found this show very enjoyable because of the way it's presented it's material. I hope we get more shows like it in the future.

[EroBotan]

I did says that if you want to combine 2 clashing genre you're going to need to be extremely talented so we're in agreement.

Originally Posted by Cloudedmind

As Flower mentioned not every story is going to be for you of course. But that doesn't mean a story shouldn't be told, and done so in a way that may seem unconventional at the time.

like i said before, i'm just complaining/venting/doing some critiques on the author's work. I have no intention on making efforts to stop this anime from airing or the manga banned ^^. Book/art burning is against my principle

[ScrewySquirrel]

The other thing is the Mangaka was commenting satirically on his own society. Japanese cultural pressure to conform is, I think, more whats being destructively tested, not the American ideas of equality. Dpon't read it as a comment on modern American society,

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by ScrewySquirrel

The other thing is the Mangaka was commenting satirically on his own society. Japanese cultural pressure to conform is, I think, more whats being destructively tested, not the American ideas of equality. Dpon't read it as a comment on modern American society,

While the mangaka is probably in fact deconstructing Japanese society, it's not like these ideals and ideas don't exist in other societies. Equality or lack there of and discrimination is something that exists everywhere. It's not exactly like America came up with it. Some truths are universal. And that scene with Hime and the teacher is very much about discrimination as well as Japanese views on conformity. He basically singled her out because her appearance, in this case hair color didn't conform to their current status quo. The law clearly saw this as a form of discrimination, and he was arrested because of it.