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Old 2011-06-26, 00:36   Link #1061
hamstar
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
I had a big problem with the "deal = fight" metaphor to begin with. In an ideal deal, both parties benefit. In an ideal fight, only one party profits. Now if you were to apply that metaphor to the stock market, where money gets divorced from what it's supposed to buy, you may have point. But then you have a royal rumble, not a one-on-one fight. But if you have a "winner", i.e. all the money in one hand, money's become worthless, because you can't do anything with it. (Everyone else is too ruined to produce anything.)

They might have tried just that, but it didn't really work for me. I mean Kimimaro started out as a character who's afraid to spend money, lest he has too little in the future, but this ended up counting for little more than "a guy treasuring his asset".

Typical fighting show, different flavour. Occasionally interesting. 6/10
In capitalism, you basically get 2 parties that consent to trading something. There's an agreement of minds. Trading takes place. Sometimes one person is the big loser and the other is a big winner. The whole deal idea made sense to me. You make bad deals and you can go bankrupt, just like in real life.

With the whole "money becomes worthless when you have all of it" idea..I'm not sure exactly at what point that would happen. There are many banana republics on this planet but people with all the money still have what all the poor people want. So as long as there is confidence in the money rich people don't have to worry about whether their money will be accepted or not. And even if money were to fall into one person's hand with the rest of the population having virtually none, the one rich person would simply convert his money to assets.
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Old 2011-06-26, 01:06   Link #1062
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Originally Posted by hamstar View Post
In capitalism, you basically get 2 parties that consent to trading something. There's an agreement of minds. Trading takes place. Sometimes one person is the big loser and the other is a big winner. The whole deal idea made sense to me. You make bad deals and you can go bankrupt, just like in real life.
The point is sometimes. A deal is not a competition. You have banana. I want banana. I bigger monkey. I take banana. But you annoying monkey. You hurt me. I not want hurt. You want banana. Thus deal. Originally, a deal is supposed to avoid a fight.

Life doesn't always work that way. And especially in the financial sector, where there's lots of speculation, and where the banana no longer matters, a "deal" is really a cover up for a fight of some sort. I do think that's what they intended to address, but by having an everyday economy student as the protagonist they sort of muddied the water. Theme demands and characterisation demands were at odds, I feel.

It seemed to me, they tried to erect a plot of financial speculation on a foundation of day-to-day budgeting, and it just didn't work to me.

Quote:
With the whole "money becomes worthless when you have all of it" idea..I'm not sure exactly at what point that would happen. There are many banana republics on this planet but people with all the money still have what all the poor people want. So as long as there is confidence in the money rich people don't have to worry about whether their money will be accepted or not. And even if money were to fall into one person's hand with the rest of the population having virtually none, the one rich person would simply convert his money to assets.
That's not the point. If you have all the money (will never happen in the real world, but it could if deals were knock out fights), then: (a) nobody will be able to buy things from you, because they have no money, and (b) you will not be able to buy things, because they can't invest into producing stuff. If you have all the money, it won't do a thing. It stops being money. This would not be true, if "fighting" were an adequate metaphor for "deal".

Again, I do think the show has a point if they're saying that financial speculation is akin to fighting, and that it's in danger of robbing money of its purpose. But I don't see that coming across very well. If that's not the meaning of their metaphor, I can't see any other, and I'd be tempted to assume they just rolled with a popular anime cliché.

Much like Fractale last season, I think this show wasted its potential.
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Old 2011-06-26, 02:10   Link #1063
Deconstructor
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
You have banana. I want banana. I bigger monkey. I take banana. But you annoying monkey. You hurt me. I not want hurt. You want banana. Thus deal.
Haha, monkey logic... wait, if you're the bigger monkey, why are you getting hurt by the smaller one? In addition, why aren't you retaliating against the annoying monkey, being bigger and all?

And are you saying you split the banana evenly between yourself and the other monkey? I mean, being bigger and all, you could just probably beat up the other monkey. I believe that's how nature works: To the victor go the spoils. Perhaps you're suggesting beating up the other monkey would take more effort and cause more trouble than sharing the banana and living in peace. Even so, I think your example is very much akin to an elementary school bully taking a smaller child's lunch money. The bully takes the money not necessarily because he requires the money (although impoverishment often leads to such personalities) but rather because he wishes to impose his own dominance. Yet in the economic realm, entrepreneurs are simply there to make as much money as possible. So if the bigger monkey can eliminate a competitor with brute force and take all of his assets... it's going to happen. In the past, monopolies were probably enforced by physical means. And in some countries, I think brute force marketing is still how it works today. I know in America it's pretty hard to eliminate opposing companies by killing their employees... or is it?

While the people chosen by Masakaki are random selections, many of them go on to be prominent figures in the real world's economy. Mikuni, Sennoza, that old pharmaceutical dude are some examples. When these affluent investors make a deal, it's almost as if two business CEOs were settling market conflict with an honorable duel. Somewhat of an homage back to the shooting duels of the Wild Wild West, or samurai dueling under the Bushido code. As most people fight to completely take over the opponent, the loser usually ends up bankrupt and the victor takes all of his financial value for himself.

However, Mikuni tries keeping everyone afloat in normal society by keeping the deal as even as possible. I liked Mikuni, if only because he was a rich person trying to take responsibility for his own excessive wealth. Inequalities in wealth may be inevitable, but the people holding the money should be thinking about how their existence impacts the millions of others who are far less fortunate. And I actually believe Mikuni's philosophy is very admirable; his actions seem to have keep Japan quite stable and prosperous. The problem noted by everyone else is when Mikuni is faced with the impending doom of [C]: He panics, and starts printing out absurd amounts of money. There's no way uberinflation will save Japan. You may as well be saving today's people, in exchange for having the apocalypse happen tomorrow. Kimimaro's role, then, was to take responsibility; he sees Mikuni going out of control and stops him. Doesn't mean Mikuni was on the wrong path leading up to episode 11, but he was certainly wrong in episode 11.

I digressed... and made a big mess. Still the above monkey example seems very off to me.

Quote:
I do think that's what they intended to address, but by having an everyday economy student as the protagonist they sort of muddied the water. Theme demands and characterisation demands were at odds, I feel.
I don't know. I think everyone would have still been critical of the show if Kimimaro were some random bum in the slums of Japan, only because the show is centered around finance and the economy. Personally, I don't believe the show is aiming to satisfy even the most basic ideas of economic theory (not even supply and demand, haha). I've heard the show was going pretentious about knowing about how a real-life economy actually works. I suppose I don't even see the economy of [C] as realistic, given all the black money and fictitious elements. Heh, then again I do have an extremely willingness to suspend my own disbelief. Yet I can see how someone taught about economics in a classroom would spend all day poking fun at [C]'s blunders and mishaps. My physics teacher showed us The Core so he could point out all the theoretical "travesties".

Quote:
Again, I do think the show has a point if they're saying that financial speculation is akin to fighting, and that it's in danger of robbing money of its purpose. But I don't see that coming across very well. If that's not the meaning of their metaphor, I can't see any other, and I'd be tempted to assume they just rolled with a popular anime cliché.
I usually limit myself to one page per post... anyway, remember the gold-toothed information broker? He believes money only has value because people place their trust within coins and pieces of paper. Indeed, I am reminded of the stock market - people invest in stocks only because they have faith in a stock's ability to profit. I would say trust is a plausible interpretation of why money is valuable.

I wouldn't take the deals too seriously, given the Midas Money is printed by some higher power anyway. The entrepreneurs are essentially fighting each other for black pieces of paper coming out of Cthulhu's rotary press. The Financial District has a different economy with different rules, so the meaning of money in the real world is probably also different from money in the Financial District. There you can get the most money because your asset fires out the biggest laser. So no, I wouldn't assume the writers are imposing any beliefs on real financial speculation.

To conclude, I liked [C] for some the same reasons I liked Moshidora. Yes, the baseball manager anime, which you may or may not have seen. Similar to Minami, entrepreneurs have the role of not just making loads of cash but also to impact social change. The majority of each episode deals with how hyperaffluent people should use their money in relation to those at the bottom - the deals are more of a sideshow attraction. Take [C] as one of those anime which isn't too serious about real economics, and you might enjoy some of what you see. But if you're too busy pointing out all the theoretical travesties, maybe it's best to loosen up a bit. Give anime the benefit of your doubt.
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Old 2011-06-26, 04:05   Link #1064
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So...wtf happened to Kimimaro at the end? Was he really present there?
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Old 2011-06-26, 04:14   Link #1065
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It's hard to say. The ending was such that 5 different people would give you 5 different explanations lol
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Old 2011-06-26, 05:45   Link #1066
Quarkboy
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I don't think Kimimaro exists really in the end.

When he turned the Rotary press in reverse, it didn't buy back the future, exactly... It printed new futures, essentially.

That's why there was a different family at Hanabi's house.

Just like you can always print new money, but you can't replace a bill that's been lost. That serial number is gone forever.

Kimimaro doesn't exist in the future he created/bought for everyone. It's likely he's dead or essentially disconnected from the timeline... A walking ghost.

Basically, anything that had anything to do with the Far East FD and Midas Money was replaced with a new future. That includes the yen, and all parts of the entre's lives that had to deal with the FD.
That's why Takedazaki ends up disappearing (he was too connected to the FD), and Sato seems to have a new life... (she wasn't as deeply connected).

Kimimaro can't be an Entre again, even if he wanted to. He doesn't have any future OR present anymore. All he has is his memories of the past (that picture).
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Old 2011-06-26, 07:33   Link #1067
hamstar
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Originally Posted by TheEroKing View Post
It's hard to say. The ending was such that 5 different people would give you 5 different explanations lol
This much is true and after looking at the different interpretations of the ending on this forum I can say that they are all plausible.

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Originally Posted by Quarkboy View Post
I don't think Kimimaro exists really in the end.

When he turned the Rotary press in reverse, it didn't buy back the future, exactly... It printed new futures, essentially.

That's why there was a different family at Hanabi's house.

Just like you can always print new money, but you can't replace a bill that's been lost. That serial number is gone forever.

Kimimaro doesn't exist in the future he created/bought for everyone. It's likely he's dead or essentially disconnected from the timeline... A walking ghost.

Basically, anything that had anything to do with the Far East FD and Midas Money was replaced with a new future. That includes the yen, and all parts of the entre's lives that had to deal with the FD.
That's why Takedazaki ends up disappearing (he was too connected to the FD), and Sato seems to have a new life... (she wasn't as deeply connected).

Kimimaro can't be an Entre again, even if he wanted to. He doesn't have any future OR present anymore. All he has is his memories of the past (that picture).
I think Masakaki said to Kimimaro that he would have the option to go back to the FD if he so desired. I'm guessing that Kimimaro must exist in some form or another if he has this option.

I didn't think that Takedazaki disappeared (I personally believed that his future changed) but that is possible as you suggested. It is hard to believe though since he is such a resourceful person in the anime - he pretty much brought down a nation to its knees. You'd think that he'd be able to continue making a living at least selling crepes to the likes of Jennifer.
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Old 2011-06-26, 16:26   Link #1068
macroflation
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What’s all this talk about “saving the present or the future ?”, and does it mean anything in real life ? It does, and it is the biggest economic issue of this decade.

Wrote a few words on [C] and recent economic issues. Thought some of you might be interested.
Feedback & questions welcome, especially about my writing (I write like shit.)

Last edited by macroflation; 2011-06-26 at 17:51.
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Old 2011-06-26, 16:27   Link #1069
Dawnstorm
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Originally Posted by Deconstructor View Post
Perhaps you're suggesting beating up the other monkey would take more effort and cause more trouble than sharing the banana and living in peace.
Pretty much, except that it's not about sharing. It's about making a deal. Instead of everyone just trying to grab the banan, you're re-contextualising the scene, and see if you can find a course of action that has a better outcome for both than fighting.

Note that the inequality at the start of the situation doesn't go away. Big monkey is still Big Monkey.

Quote:
Yet in the economic realm, entrepreneurs are simply there to make as much money as possible. So if the bigger monkey can eliminate a competitor with brute force and take all of his assets... it's going to happen. In the past, monopolies were probably enforced by physical means. And in some countries, I think brute force marketing is still how it works today. I know in America it's pretty hard to eliminate opposing companies by killing their employees... or is it?
"I kill you and in return you die," is not a deal. It's the situation both want to avoid, if both are ready to go in for a deal.

Quote:
While the people chosen by Masakaki are random selections,
Not sure they're random. They do seem to all have issues with the meaning of money (Kimimaro's and Mikuni's father seem to be the source of both).

Quote:
Yet I can see how someone taught about economics in a classroom would spend all day poking fun at [C]'s blunders and mishaps.
Yeah, except that's not what I'm doing. It's not a show about finance, and it's not a shounen fighting show. I find no approach to the show under which I can enjoy it.

Quote:
I usually limit myself to one page per post... anyway, remember the gold-toothed information broker? He believes money only has value because people place their trust within coins and pieces of paper. Indeed, I am reminded of the stock market - people invest in stocks only because they have faith in a stock's ability to profit. I would say trust is a plausible interpretation of why money is valuable.
Yeah, but everything happens fast and seems extraneous in the story, in the sense that trust in money isn't really an issue in the plot, or even to the characters much. The literal vs. metaphoric levels don't connect, and I'm left confused as what do with the show. (Spice and Wolf had a much better take on money=trust, I think.)

Quote:
To conclude, I liked [C] for some the same reasons I liked Moshidora.
I like Moshidora much better than [C]. It's straight forward, and everything flows from who Minami is.

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Give anime the benefit of your doubt.
I would, if I knew how. Just when I thought I'd caught a groove it turned into a non-sequitur. I don't know how to get into it.
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Old 2011-06-26, 16:36   Link #1070
Anh_Minh
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
I like Moshidora much better than [C]. It's straight forward, and everything flows from who Minami is.
Yes, that. That was my complaint about C too. It managed to keep my interest by being intriguing, but the "resolution" in the finale just threw everything away.
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Old 2011-06-26, 18:25   Link #1071
Deconstructor
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
Pretty much, except that it's not about sharing. It's about making a deal. Instead of everyone just trying to grab the banana, you're re-contextualising the scene, and see if you can find a course of action that has a better outcome for both than fighting.
I think you're relying too much on the context of the word "deal" in real life situations. If the writers named the battle "duel" instead, then people would accuse [C] of being nothing more than a Yu-Gi-Oh ripoff. As the show ends now people accuse the show of pretentiously flinging around economic terms. Indeed, since the Financial District works under different rules than the real world, a deal there is a winner takes all battle between two entrepreneurs. Doesn't mean the writers are telling the viewers to forget the real definition of an economic deal... but the word sounds cool and fits into the entire financial setting.

Quote:
Not sure they're random. They do seem to all have issues with the meaning of money (Kimimaro's and Mikuni's father seem to be the source of both).
I just go off what Masakaki says. Although, maybe I am better off doubting anything Masakaki says.

Quote:
Yeah, except that's not what I'm doing. It's not a show about finance, and it's not a shounen fighting show. I find no approach to the show under which I can enjoy it.
I did enjoy the "deals" between Kimimaro and everyone else, even if they were often short and sometimes cutoff entirely. I would call laser swords and giant explosions part of the shonen genre.

I am confident someone else besides me out there enjoyed [C] for immersing the viewer in a science fiction world, but as often the case with science fiction, experts will criticize every reference to any academic field of study. However, your problem seems to be the show sucks in general. Not much I can say there.

Quote:
Yeah, but everything happens fast and seems extraneous in the story, in the sense that trust in money isn't really an issue in the plot, or even to the characters much. The literal vs. metaphoric levels don't connect, and I'm left confused as what do with the show. (Spice and Wolf had a much better take on money=trust, I think.)
I see trust in money as the focal point of the entire anime; the idea was stated repeatedly in the final two episodes (and a few episodes before then). I think you might be asking too much of the writers to turn the metaphor of "money as trust" into some literal event - the Japanese doubted their own currency and therefore discarded the Yen in favor of the dollar. I mean, I can't really think of many other ways for a physical manifestation of the idea.

Quote:
I like Moshidora much better than [C]. It's straight forward, and everything flows from who Minami is.
Despite enjoying Moshidora, I found the show at times a bit boring, if only because the story was too straightforward. [C] adds a little bit of shonen fighting and special effects; the fantasy aspect prevents the plot from being grounded too much in the real world. Although, I don't think many people here were impressed enough by the special effects to suspend their disbelief.

Quote:
I would, if I knew how. Just when I thought I'd caught a groove it turned into a non-sequitur. I don't know how to get into it.
I don't think it's my duty to tell people how to enjoy an anime. If you can't get into [C], then maybe it's better not to put in unnecessary effort to enjoy something you inherently dislike. Still, I enjoyed [C] - and if you ask me, I will tell you why.
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Old 2011-06-26, 18:32   Link #1072
macroflation
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I think the 'deals' are mainly just here to give viewers some action scenes.
The real economic metaphor is in the rest of the story.
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Old 2011-06-26, 19:54   Link #1073
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
I like Moshidora much better than [C]. It's straight forward, and everything flows from who Minami is.
Well, Moshidora is about management, and [C] is about... well, I have no idea what the series is about. Moshidora is better because it is stricly focused on the management wisdom show whereas [C] is littered with Pokemon/romance/random econ jargon.
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Old 2011-06-26, 23:30   Link #1074
Vexx
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My final feeling was.... "annoyed and aggravated" (sigh).

@ipodi: yeah, I have to say Moshidora scored more in my book as far as management theory and Spice&Wolf communicated economics, deal-making, and trade better. I'm pretty much left here with the two main characters being interesting but stuck in a bit of a mess of a story.
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Old 2011-06-27, 01:31   Link #1075
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is it wrong to assume that Mikuni's sister, Takako is dead for a long time when Takako's bed becomes empty? Or Takako will disappear if Mikuni's future is lost?
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Old 2011-06-27, 02:53   Link #1076
macroflation
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is it wrong to assume that Mikuni's sister, Takako is dead for a long time when Takako's bed becomes empty?
I think so too - Mikuni used Midas Money to pay for her hospital bills, so without Midas Money Takako disappeared.
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Old 2011-06-27, 06:08   Link #1077
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Mikuni used Midas Money to pay for her hospital bills
But Japan has national health insurance !
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Old 2011-06-27, 06:22   Link #1078
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Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
It seems like she truly died. Both Kimimaro's father and the teacher survived because that had something to lose: their children/wife/basically anybody close to them. However, Jennifer appeared to be all alone. My guess is that there was nothing the financial district could take away from her at the moment, other than her own life; that's why she died after going bankrupt.

Or maybe it was simply because she got injured too badly. Entres lose money when they get injured, so what happens if someone attacks them after they went bankrupt? Maybe Q kept eating her even after she went bankrupt... a disturbing thought.
Spoiler:


I got to the point of thinking 'how the hell this doesn't got a manga/light novel?', they skipped many fights that were really interesting. Other thing that I haven't see too often on anime is the english speaking, which this one got (America's Makaki was 100 times better than Japan's ). Definitely a really original plot and pretty well developed, without any useless filler and straight to the point.

Also I was specting a Angel Beats! ending style, with Kimimaro and Mashu meeting each other again at the new reality, and for a moment the show fooled me near to the end, but I guess she it is going to be his daughter after all.

Masakaki coming at the end makes me think if there is gonna be a second season (doubtfull, since they closed almost every part of the story), anyone knows anything about it?
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Old 2011-06-27, 10:24   Link #1079
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Also I was specting a Angel Beats! ending style, with Kimimaro and Mashu meeting each other again at the new reality, and for a moment the show fooled me near to the end, but I guess she it is going to be his daughter after all.
We prob did have one. The camera angle for that pre-school teacher was the same angle used for Q and the pre-school teacher sounded like Msyu. She also had green eyes like Msyu.
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Old 2011-06-27, 11:20   Link #1080
satomianzaki
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^ but she looked like hanabi with that mole in her eyes...could that be hanabi not only recognizing kimimaro or is she a different person?

hope she's a different person and is actually masyu in real world...
oh well...somehow not really a satisfying ending...
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