(L) Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (Nitroplus & Bee Train)

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by Slick_rick

Well, atonement as a theme is fairly ubiquitous in genres. They're are many way to try to atone for ones past sins. This show though partially stayed away from adding that theme. It could have but it didn't. Atonement doesn't always lead to a happy ending as rarely are people that forgiving but it certainly increases the chances. Reiji and Elen were not about that though. Whether you can ever truly atone for killing a person is debatable but they didn't even try.

Atonement was never part of this show to begin with, so why bring it up? To cause useless debate?

Whether you would return to a normal life to forget about your past and all the suffering you faced doesn't make all suffering you caused any less real. Their past caught up with them as it does with most people. Life sucks. If this was Shounen, then the power of love and forgiveness would make everything better. Perhaps it is you who are confused about what kind of show this is.

You're speaking from your prospective view, of course you wouldn't know what it would feel like. I'm not saying the past will never come back to haunt you for the rest of your life but why would you try to atone? self-satisfaction? Why try to force a subject which never existed in this series? I'm sorry but, the one who brought up the topic is the ONE who is confused about what kind of show this is. I knew since EP. 1 what kind of show this was gonne be and ATONEMENT was never part of it.

[Slick_rick]

Originally Posted by Zwei

Atonement was never part of this show to begin with, so why bring it up? To cause useless debate?

Because Haak brought it up as a way to avoid having a bad end while keeping the karma theme. You should really keep track of the conversation...

You're speaking from your prospective view, of course you wouldn't know what it would feel like. I'm not saying the past will never come back to haunt you for the rest of your life but why would you try to atone? self-satisfaction? Why try to force a subject which never existed in this series? I'm sorry but, the one who brought up the topic is the ONE who is confused about what kind of show this is. I knew since EP. 1 what kind of show this was gonne be and ATONEMENT was never part of it.

Well that really getting to the philosophy of if atone is even possible. Some say it isn't and some say it is. Self-satisfaction might certainly play into why a person might chose to atone but even self-satisfaction is often consider better than acting like you didn't nothing wrong. It's why we have prisons. People going in there to serve time for the crime they commit and once they're done "atoning" or being "punished" depending on your perspective of what prison is for then they are released.

And like I said we were discussing this element being added to the show. You obviously haven't followed the course of this conversation and that why you're so lost.

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by Slick_rick

Because Haak brought it up as a way to avoid having a bad end while keeping the karma theme. You should really keep track of the conversation...

You were the one who brought the word "atoning" up, you should keep track of your conversations.

Well that really getting to the philosophy of if atone is even possible. Some say it isn't and some say it is. Self-satisfaction might certainly play into why a person might chose to atone but even self-satisfaction is often consider better than acting like you didn't nothing wrong. It's why we have prisons. People going in there to serve time for the crime they commit and once they're done "atoning" or being "punished" depending on your perspective of what prison is for then they are released.

And like I said we were discussing this element being added to the show. You obviously haven't followed the course of this conversation and that why you're so lost.

Like I said, you were the one who brought "atoning" up, means it is YOU who is confused about what type of show this is.

Reiji and Elen were intelligent enough to know that Inferno would chase them until they would do something about it. So, please tell me how are they going to atone while defending themselves? They can NEVER atone for killing people to begin with, so I don't really see the point of saying it and why I even bothered quoting your post.

[Slick_rick]

Originally Posted by Haak

Yes but death isn't the only karmic ending. Reiji and Elen deciding to actively work to make other lives better and perhaps try and save lives would've been an equally karmic ending. Karma isn't simply "what goes around comes around".

I can't think of any reason why one would've wanted the former rather than the later, other than intense hatedom for Reiji and Elen. And you would have to hate them a lot if you'd rather they die than work to help others. It's either that or just not caring what happens to them either way.

Originally Posted by Zwei

You were the one who brought the word "atoning" up, you should keep track of your conversations.

That's phrasing Haak uses translates to atonement. Maybe you should stop being illiterate too.

Like I said, you were the one who brought "atoning" up, means it is YOU who is confused about what type of show this is.

Reiji and Elen were intelligent enough to know that Inferno would chase them until they would do something about it. So, please tell me how are they going to atone while defending themselves? They can NEVER atone for killing people to begin with, so I don't really see the point of saying it and why I even bothered quoting your post.

Whether atone is even possible is debatable. Some people believing doing good acts will lead to forgiveness others don't. Whether Inferno was chasing or not they had months and years in between but they are never shown to actively help others.

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by Slick_rick

That's phrasing Haak uses translates to atonement. Maybe you should stop being illiterate too.

What Haak said and what you meant are totally different things. You wanted either Reiji and Elen to suffer for the rest of their lives or death, it's pretty obvious by your bad mannered comments. That's the kind of atonement you wanted which never existed nor will ever exist to begin with.

Whether atone is even possible is debatable. Some people believing doing good acts will lead to forgiveness others don't. Whether Inferno was chasing or not they had months and years in between but they are never shown to actively help others.

Like I said, it's a useless debate. Doing good acts will lead to forgiveness but that depends on what type of sin you commited. There is no atonement for killing people, you either move on and live with the burden for the rest of your life and decide to live life to the fullest or surrender yourself to the police and in their case, Inferno would have no trouble killing them at all.

Helping others wasn't shown for obvious reasons, the directors had a functioning brain enough to NOT add that to the plot as it was meaningless, boring and unrelated to the plot. This was an adaptation of the game after all, it did almost thoroughly follow the "Road of the Cerulean Sky" ending and completed it infact except for the additional scene they wanted to add in the end for reasons of their own.

EDIT: Thanks for the -rep, you're really showing what you are, aren't you?

[Slick_rick]

Originally Posted by Zwei

What Haak said and what you meant are totally different things. You wanted either Reiji and Elen to suffer for the rest of their lives or death, it's pretty obvious by your bad mannered comments. That's the kind of atonement you wanted which never existed nor will ever exist to begin with.

Now you're trying to backtrack. Just admit you didn't know wtf you were talking about and move on. Obviously the conversation about atonement originated there. That's what you wanted to know and there it is. If you'd pay attention I'd not have to waste a few minutes showing stuff you should have understood without me holding your hand through this conversation.

Like I said, it's a useless debate. Doing good acts will lead to forgiveness but that depends on what type of sin you commited. There is no atonement for killing people, you either move on and live with the burden for the rest of your life and decide to live life to the fullest or surrender yourself to the police and in their case, Inferno would have no trouble killing them at all.

Helping others wasn't shown for obvious reasons, the directors had a functioning brain enough to NOT add that to the plot as it was meaningless, boring and unrelated to the plot. This was an adaptation of the game after all, it did almost thoroughly follow the "Road of the Cerulean Sky" ending and completed it infact except for the additional scene they wanted to add in the end for reasons of their own.

Debatable whether there is atonement for killing. Some believe you'd have to spend the rest of your life doing good deeds while others think it unachievable. If Reiji had promised to spend the rest of his life in a Kenshin way atoning for his past sins while rack with guilt then a happy ending might have played off better. That's not to say that it still might not have been an unhappy ending but this could have still been an happy ending but they chose to go unhappy likely because they wanted to fulfill the theme of Karma. The Anime took a slightly different route than the VN.

[Haak]

Lol, I go away for a few hours and this is what happens?

I shouldn't have bothered...

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by Slick_rick

Debatable whether there is atonement for killing. Some believe you'd have to spend the rest of your life doing good deeds while others think it unachievable. If Reiji had promised to spend the rest of his life in a Kenshin way atoning for his past sins while rack with guilt then a happy ending might have played off better. That's not to say that it still might not have been an unhappy ending but this could have still been an happy ending but they chose to go unhappy likely because they wanted to fulfill the theme of Karma. The Anime took a slightly different route than the VN.

If they wanted to atone, they wouldn't have wasted time going to school during the 2 year period and instead should have decided what to do with their lives right there, either destroying off Inferno or any obstacle in their way. So it was pretty unthinkable that they would try to atone, BeeTrain was pretty much giving us directions to where the anime was going, unless of course some viewers might miss this message.

Getting a happy ending and living with the burden for the rest of their lives should have been the correct ending, but seeing as Reiji and Elen were two strong people and have already surpassed the burden of living with the thought of killing, it shouldn't have been a problem for both of them. Everyone goes through shit in their lives and some worse than others but that doesn't mean no one deserves a happy end. Obviously, some people are speaking from their prospective view and aren't putting themselves in Reiji/Elen's shoes. I can get why people would hate Reiji, seeing as he was pretty much the central person of everything that happened, but the blame shouldn't be brought upon his shoulders, he's innocently guilty.

[Slick_rick]

Originally Posted by Zwei

If they wanted to atone, they wouldn't have wasted time going to school during the 2 year period and instead should have decided what to do with their lives right there, either destroying off Inferno or any obstacle in their way. So it was pretty unthinkable that they would try to atone, BeeTrain was pretty much giving us directions to where the anime was going, unless of course some viewers might miss this message.

Complete agreement. They didn't want to atone. I never tried to imply they did.

Getting a happy ending and living with the burder for the rest of their lives should have been the correct ending, but seeing as Reiji and Elen were two strong people and have already surpassed the burden of living with the thought of killing, it shouldn't have been a problem for both of them. Everyone goes through shit in their lives and some worse than others but that doesn't mean no one deserves a happy end. Obviously, some people are speaking from their prospective view and aren't putting themselves in Reiji/Elen's shoes. I can get why people would hate Reiji, seeing as he was pretty much the central person of everything that happened, but the blame shouldn't be brought upon his shoulders, he's innocently guilty.

Living with there burden doesn't fit the theme of the shows theme of Karma. It highly unlikely that living with a burden would equate to equal balance on the karmic scale. Not even close or else any sin would be pretty easy to get away with.

The rest of your argument is just an appeal to pity. They had it tough but that doesn't wipe out anything they did. The show clearly wanted to send this message. If you could relate to them or if you couldn't doesn't mean that death wasn't always on the table for them. Why is that so hard to accept?

[Haak]

I'm talking to npal here. I just want to make this point that I don't think a Dues Ex Machina has anything to to do with the internal workings of what happens. In otherwords, it can make sense. It is loigcally possibly. But that's not the point. In The Andromeda Strain, a lethel virus is suddenly rendered non-lethal by a random mutation which apparently affects every existing virus particle instantaneously. Now we're already told that the virus mutates frequently and regularly but it's still a pretty blatant Deus Ex Machina.

You guys have you're own discussion by yourselves. There are to many responses for me to get involved.

[Zwei]

Living with there burden doesn't fit the theme of the shows theme of Karma. It highly unlikely that living with a burden would equate to equal balance on the karmic scale. Not even close or else any sin would be pretty easy to get away with.

The rest of your argument is just an appeal to pity. They had it tough but that doesn't wipe out anything they did. The show clearly wanted to send this message. If you could relate to them or if you couldn't doesn't mean that death wasn't always on the table for them. Why is that so hard to accept?

Because with the way BeeTrain decided to leave the ending, is pretty hard to accept any kind of argument. They tried to content the viewers by giving us this kind of ending but it pretty much backfired and left it open for more debates.

It's like this - We are the viewers, we know what kind of life they led and we got pretty much every of their prospective thoughts. It's up to YOU now whether you want them to live a happy ending or NOT. Then there's the other thing...

If you put yourself in their prospective view, are you really willing to give up the rest of your life for atonement even though the life you lived up to now has been hell or just destroyed in a matter of seconds? Some people like Elen/Reiji in real life end up becoming serial killers because they can't stop killing, being haunted by their crimes for the rest of their lives.

BeeTrain pretty much left an ending where the rest is solely decided by yourself.

The ending was ripped off Kite anime if you ever watched it, you would certainly notice the similarities between the two imo.

[npal]

Originally Posted by Haak

I'm talking to npal here. I just want to make this point that I don't think a Dues Ex Machina has anything to to do with the internal workings of what happens. In otherwords, it can make sense. It is loigcally possibly. But that's not the point. In The Andromeda Strain, a lethel virus is suddenly rendered non-lethal by a random mutation which apparently affects every existing virus particle instantaneously. Now we're already told that the virus mutates frequently and regularly but it's still a pretty blatant Deus Ex Machina.

You guys have you're own discussion by yourselves. There are to many responses for me to get involved.

Yes, but that's not a Deus ex Machina, that's just a lame use of an established plot device. A Deus Ex Machina is a device that trascends the plot/story/setting (as in comes from outside the story setting), appears without any justification save divine providence/intervention and seeks to resolve what appears to be an unsolvable situation in a plot which cannot be fixed by any other means available at the time. There was a bit too much justification behind the notion that they will be hunted and killed eventually to dismiss it as DeM.

If I told you "Magic makes everything possible", "virus mutates uncontrollably", "Gods may get involved in the affairs of men" beforehand in an attempt to avoid the DeM label if I wanted to introduce whatever, that's just a pretty weak setting, but typically it's not a DeM because I have already established a setting that can afford it, no matter how lame that makes me look. The DeM-labelled device is actually a technicality. If it follows the story's internal established logic, it ceases to be a DeM. Instead, the story as a whole becomes lame based on the setting that can allow it, but I'll argue that Phantom's setting wasn't lame at all, because the whole mafia workings made enough sense, which made the last part make sense, too.

DeM in that virus situation would be if there was no indication that the virus mutates yet SOMEHOW when the situation becomes unbearable, it mutates and becomes harmless. Thing is, if something has been established (and karmic retribution by means of getting to taste your own poison in the end was heavily emphasized in Phantom), the best you could possibly say is that actually utilizing mafia assassins (which were out to get them based on the story premises) was lame, something which I argue against (UNLESS Reiji gets killed by a falling boulder or struck by lightning out of the blue). For me, examples that more readily warrant the DeM label is Kanon's and Clannad ~AS~ 'sending, but the fans of said material choose not to believe so.

[Haak]

I think a poorly executed Chekhov's Gun counts as a Deus Ex machina. Atleast it does on TVTropes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph.../DeusExMachina

And the Clannad AS and Kanon endings are definately an example of such.

[npal]

Quoted from that site (I think you meant this?) :

4. Fridge Brilliance. When something seems to be a Deus Ex Machina, but really isn't. The writers were just a bit too clever for their own good. To build from the above, let's say that the hero intentionally rigged his gun to blow up should it ever be fired in some early scene and it both fits with his personality and seems like a logical thing he would do. It might seem like a cop-out at first, but one them remembers he's a Technical Pacifist that hates guns and never wants to fire one in his life in spite of his job. See also Chekhovs Gun.

What I'd argue with here is that that's certainly not the case with Phantom. The mafia is always there, the underworld characters have taken the same actions many times in the series, the series was pretty gloomy for the most part, so I don't think something was amiss in the infamous 8 seconds.

Spoiler for Kanon/Clannad spoiler:

Unlike the miraculous, all powerful, out-of-nowhere globes of light that can fix timelines and Boku Ayu stomping the miracle sacrifice rule

Not sure how they fit that with Chekhov's Gun and Clannad ~AS~ though (as in there are good ways to use that and Clannad's was one of the worse imaginable, even we even count it as such a device). I'm not even sure whether the mere appearance of something that did nothing throughtout the whole series (as in hardly even EXISTED, let alone mentioned) is anything but a blatant straightforward DeM, but I suppose technically it could fit the bill.

[Haak]

Actually I meant the third one. Fridge Brilliance is a good thing. Looking at my previous responses, I guess I should elaborate some more since I've missed some things out. I'll get back to you later.

Oh btw, you keep abbreviating it to DeA when i think you mean DeM.

[ac195]

Originally Posted by Haak

Yes, Requiem for the PHANTOM. Reiji and Elen wouldn't really be Phantoms in the Karmic ending I suggested.



Now that's a little vague. Personally the speeches I remember don't involve any takes about how they should die.



I have already told you that the ending I suggested is a Karmic ending. That doesn't count. You're supposed to be arguing how the the show has suggested death as a karmic ending rather than just a karmic ending.



Yes because they are Phantoms. But the ending I suggested would've put an end to that wouldn't it, now that Elen knew where she came from.

Seriously, though, ending themes don't count. They could've easily just replaced it with another ending theme and it would've still worked.



Erm, the ending doesn't always have to fit in with mood of the show. That's how you get downer endings:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownerEnding

"2. A similarly low-key or unhappy ending to an episode of a normally "happy" series."

Seriously? How could anyone not see the "Bad End" coming with this series?

Did you think Light was gonna rule the world at the end of Death Note?

I guess some people just love grasping at straws.

Oh, as for opening/ending animations and songs... they're pretty much a mini-spoiler reel in anime... and it's been that way a long time...

Get over it, they died and it pretty much fit the overall tone of the series.

If you want to see a "Happy End" go play Phantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO, because this is Phantom - Requiem for the Phantom.

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by ac195

Seriously? How could anyone not see the "Bad End" coming with this series?

Did you think Light was gonna rule the world at the end of Death Note?

I guess some people just love grasping at straws.

Oh, as for opening/ending animations and songs... they're pretty much a mini-spoiler reel in anime... and it's been that way a long time...

Get over it, they died and it pretty much fit the overall tone of the series.

If you want to see a "Happy End" go play Phantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO, because this is Phantom - Requiem for the Phantom.

That's because Reiji and Ein were pawns in Light's hands, get what I'm saying? Light was Sycthe/Claudia/McGuire.

Take another example Code Geass, so Kallen should have received the death flag just because she was a pawn in Lelouch's hands and killed people? And all the other people that were being manipulated as well? Their pawns (Ein/Reiji) survived but Light and Lelouch didn't. The only difference is that we got the whole series from a different perspective view (Reiji).

[npal]

Originally Posted by Haak

Actually I meant the third one. Fridge Brilliance is a good thing. Looking at my previous responses, I guess I should elaborate some more since I've missed some things out. I'll get back to you later.

Oh btw, you keep abbreviating it to DeA when i think you mean DeM.

LOL, yeah, sorry about that, mixed some languages up there It's Από Μηχανής Θεός in Greek and I kept thinking A.

I can't get how Phantom's case was what that site calls Cut and Paste DeM though. The logic of the story seems pretty intact to me with Inferno and all that so people after them felt almost set in stone.

[Haak]

Well I dunno. I figured Diabolus Ex Machina's in particular only happen in gritty stories anyway. Maybe a Diabolus Ex Machina work a little differently...

[npal]

Well, I can name at least one anime that comes to mind that it really uses something like that to off one char near the end in the form of a random, totally irrelevant kid. While it fits the description, it didn't feel out of place in the story. Phantom however doesn't use some random totally unrelated occurence, it uses other assassins and it leaves the option for their ex-boss to seek their heads, which is a logical step to take, so you have perpetrators from within the story who are backed up by the plot and the premise. I fail to see how that is somehow bad storytelling. Personally I attribute the 8 sec rage to "I didn't remember there was a mafia there, I didn't want to remember there was a mafia there, I am oblivious to the fact that both ex-Phantoms actively seek to become more human, have enjoyed enough peace after that final confrontation to let their guard down, so I cannot accept that legitimate plot devices downed them, my happy ending plox kthxbb".