(L) ef - a tale of melodies

[Skyfall]

I will have to agree with the previous post - the discussion is steadily steering off-topic. Fansub discussions and comparisons and all the related drama stemming from it is not the intended scope of this thread - the discussion of the show itself is. So can we please let the mater die and return to discussing the show. Thanks

[Zippicus]

I'm having a hard time getting into this show, it seems to hit on too many of my pet peeves. It's hard to believe that this is a continuation of Melodies. After watching episode 8 it seems like we can add ESP and Super Spy to Amamiya's set of skills, at this rate I fully expect him to be mind controlling people by the end of the series This would all probably work better for me if they weren't laying it on so thick.

[MarlinBeta]

Originally Posted by Azure_Peregrine

Anyways, I'm just curious, but have we any way of confirming that this wasn't just coalguys making a juvenile joke, perhaps, putting an intellectual spin on it, mocking the excessive use of the phallic references in this show? I ask this as a real question and not as something to continue an argument, I'm merely curious if the sub-group has come out with any statement themselves.

I just got back from TG break and the fiasco about CoalGuys' karaoke animation in ep 8 is still new for me, so I'd like to apologize to the mods for continuing to diverge from the main topic. But since CoalGuys doesn't have a site or an IRC channel, I'm going to use this topic to make my opinion known (and I feel entitled to my two cents, so here goes).

First, I'd like to tip my hat to Azure_Peregrine about the phallus references. I've enjoyed ef for a long while because of all the psychological imagery that is used (especially with the text flashes). However, penis references are something I didn't even pick up on (I don't do a whole lot of reading about other's analyses on the anime I like). In retrospect it was kinda obvious.

But I have to say that CoalGuys made a very big stylistic mistake on ep 8's karaoke animation. I think the majority of people who watch ef are like me and don't immediately pick up on some of the show's references. To this end, the anime version of ef is not hentai. Including an ejaculating penis in the karaoke animation seems to me more like a lack of respect for the very serious nature of this anime, no matter how well the animation was done.

There's a lot of references in popular culture to "jizzing on" things that you don't like or make you angry. Upon seeing the karaoke animation, I felt that CoalGuys was "jizzing on" me and all the other fans who like ef. For that reason, I can no longer show CoalGuys even a shred of respect as a creative fansub group.

I plan to continue downloading the CoalGuys subs as long as they are the first/only fansub group to release an episode of my favorite anime (perhaps I'm a hypocrite, but you let me worry about that please). However, from an artistic standpoint, I will never be able to appreciate CoalGuys any longer without their apology to the anime community.

That is all. For all of those who actually read this whole post, thank you for your time.

[Kristen]

Originally Posted by MarlinBeta

I just got back from TG break and the fiasco about CoalGuys' karaoke animation in ep 8 is still new for me, so I'd like to apologize to the mods for continuing to diverge from the main topic. But since CoalGuys doesn't have a site or an IRC channel, I'm going to use this topic to make my opinion known (and I feel entitled to my two cents, so here goes).

First, I'd like to tip my hat to Azure_Peregrine about the phallus references. I've enjoyed ef for a long while because of all the psychological imagery that is used (especially with the text flashes). However, penis references are something I didn't even pick up on (I don't do a whole lot of reading about other's analyses on the anime I like). In retrospect it was kinda obvious.

But I have to say that CoalGuys made a very big stylistic mistake on ep 8's karaoke animation. I think the majority of people who watch ef are like me and don't immediately pick up on some of the show's references. To this end, the anime version of ef is not hentai. Including an ejaculating penis in the karaoke animation seems to me more like a lack of respect for the very serious nature of this anime, no matter how well the animation was done.

There's a lot of references in popular culture to "jizzing on" things that you don't like or make you angry. Upon seeing the karaoke animation, I felt that CoalGuys was "jizzing on" me and all the other fans who like ef. For that reason, I can no longer show CoalGuys even a shred of respect as a creative fansub group.

I plan to continue downloading the CoalGuys subs as long as they are the first/only fansub group to release an episode of my favorite anime (perhaps I'm a hypocrite, but you let me worry about that please). However, from an artistic standpoint, I will never be able to appreciate CoalGuys any longer without their apology to the anime community.

That is all. For all of those who actually read this whole post, thank you for your time.

They are not the only group releasing ef. Chihiro releases about 1-2 days later, and Menclave a while later.

I just saw episode 08, and I have to say, whoever made Yuuko was very knowledgeable about rape. Every thing about her behavior and her attacker is exactly as it should be. The desire to go back to her attacker even after he hurt her, the attackers saying she wants it, etc. It all makes sense, and I feel like they did a good job in developing her.

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by Zippicus

I'm having a hard time getting into this show, it seems to hit on too many of my pet peeves. It's hard to believe that this is a continuation of Melodies. After watching episode 8 it seems like we can add ESP and Super Spy to Amamiya's set of skills, at this rate I fully expect him to be mind controlling people by the end of the series This would all probably work better for me if they weren't laying it on so thick.

True enough on that last bit. I mean honestly finding out exactly where they were and the mind reading stuff. Seriously could Amamiya be killed anyways? I mean you have high level combat, mental assaults, and lockpicking . Forget a knife Yuu needs to go at him with a rocket launcher to have any hope. Oh well the only salvation for this is him dying in a terribly horrific way. But you can't have normal killing since the jerk would enjoy it too much. No idea what would be fitting but he definitely deserves the worst. If the guy wants to die so badly he should try suicide already.

Kuze is certainly going for his cutting all ties stuff. Though makes me wonder what Yuu is thinking at this point. He doesn't feel its over yet and Kuze is pretty confident he won't see Yuuko again. Suppose a mid-point is some bad coma and she's helping people in an out of body fashion. But honestly I thought she was dead for a while so her not being alive wouldn't surprise me.

Definitely not an uplifting series.

[MarlinBeta]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Definitely not an uplifting series.

I suppose that's one of the reasons I like ef. It's one of the few "depressing" anime that keeps me interested in finding out what's going to happen next. Of all the other "depressing" anime that I've watched, Elfen Lied is probably the only other one that I've really liked.

Both shows delve into the human psyche, but ef tends more toward realism and Elfen Lied more toward the supernatural (relatively speaking).

[Azure_Peregrine]

Originally Posted by coroloro

I agree with Shinji- I can't wait until we get deeper into the heart of the show. As EF A Tale of Memories showed us, even the first several episodes only began to scratch the surface of what the show was really about. Episode one was really only an introducer and a means to pique interest- not to mention a great episode to look back on after watching more, or all, of the series and say "OH, so THAT is why they acted that way..." and connect all the dots finally. I have a feeling we will do the same with this one.

Well, the show hasn't ended yet, but it's not too early to start looking back at episode one. I just wanted to look back at the first episode briefly about half an hour ago or so, and... well, I didn't expect to get nearly as much out of it as I did.

...It's really nice to do a little rant and not have to put it in spoilers now, since I'm discussing the very first episode. This is gonna be rather long, but I think I catch onto some stuff here, so it's prob'ly worth reading... And please, someone alert me if I go over an idea that's already been thought up. I don't want to just be repetitive.

First thing worth mentioning in this: simulacrum and post-modernism. As I mentioned in some of my first posts, this is a series that has a surprising number of similarities to the movie, "Fight Club." Both are very Freudian, and both deal with the nature of reality. In this first episode, Yuu says that there are two cities, one a copy of the other built in a beautiful land. Simulacrum is a word that I admittedly don't understand as much as I wish I did, but the gist of it is this: it is a recreation of an image, originally mostly used for images of Gods, that is thought to be less important than the original. A photograph is a simulacrum in that it copies the image of a place and time but not the actual place and time itself - it is, therefore, inferior. I think that the Otowa Australia is probably a simulacrum to the original Otowa. It also makes sense, to a degree, with the religious imagery used for Chihiro being the God of her world... Also, with her character in the story being on an island and creating the world around her to look like what she read in books... Huh. Ya know, I didn't realize all of this when I started typing this paragraph. Wow.

...What if this entire city project started up because of Chihiro, somehow? Do we have any evidence of the Australian Otowa existing in the Yuu/Yuuko arc?

As for the similarities with Fight Club? Well, after this realization, I feel like moving on from simulacrum and all that, so everyone should watch it (Or if they've seen it, watch it again) and make up their own minds, but seriously, Fight Club has some really odd similarities with Ef. For instance, a sense of chauvinism and masculine power. I believe Ef's sense of this has been discussed rather in depth on these forums over the past couple days than usual.

Moving on from there, within the first few minutes of the show, Himura gives his trade mark line about not remembering things from the past. Later in the show, but in the past, he says he does remember stuff from ten years ago that happened with Yuuko in the orphanage... This is probably the most direct evidence I've seen that Yuu is lying about not remembering the past from the present arc. But... Maybe there are scenes of him blinking in Memories as he's saying he can't remember the past anymore? That would be a good hint right there.

And here's the scene that really made me want to post this: the scene where Yuu talks to Amamiya back in episode 1. Oh my God, this threw me for a loop. When Amamiya is holding the unlit cigarette in his mouth and Yuu asks why he's doing that, he replies "when people do this, they just want to be satisfied with it as a replacement."

...

Just a little like his relationship with Yuuko, huh? Yeah. That blew my mind. I'm sure I'm over reacting, but still, it really did. Moving on with this scene, Yuu is featured in orange lighting while Amamiya is featured in purple lighting. Bear in mind that, at least according to my ideas, red represents memories, yellow represents impotency, and blue represents being frozen in the past. Amamiya has purple lighting, with the blue for being frozen in the past, and Yuu, who is refusing to participate in art, has the impotency in this scene... We learn later, of course, that Amamiya has his own impotency problems (I'm sure most of us could deal with him being truly impotent rather than metaphorically so), but that's not important to this scene. Between orange and purple, though, they do share the color red in their mixing. Just like Amamiya and Yuu have similar memories. Also, although sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, I'd say that the unlit cigarette in Amamiya's mouth constitutes a phallic reference. Take it or leave it, that's my guess.

Huh, Nagi's line "self-portraits are also the most basic of basic in art..." Well, that seems to fit right in with the idea of simulacrum, doesn't it? Yuu's question, in what world is there an idiot that uses themselves as a model, seems to be answered by the show: in his world. The people of Otowa created another Otowa in their own image... In theory, much like how the Christian God created Man in his own image.

Heh, Nagi asks Yuu, after Yuuko's been following them, if he's done anything to deserve someone else's resentment. Little do they know...

When Nagi walks away, one foot is blue, the other red. Ho-hum. Not sure what to make of this, other than one similarity I see in terms of color scheme later in the episode: When Yuuko says Nagi is a cute girl, Yuu says she's quite hard to get along with... But he blinks. At first his eye is blue, and then red. Yay for dishonesty. And then Yuuko, right after her face is portrayed as black, as it is whenever she's lying in the first few episodes, says that it's good to be an honest girl, and that she admires Nagi.

When the wave goes up as Yuu is telling Yuuko to leave him alone, it looks very similar to the wave that went up when Chihiro told Renji to stop bugging her about writing a book. Well, we all know how well those requests turned out.

In this episode, Yuu is featured as having a black face, signaling, again, dishonesty.. Ho-hum.

Ya know, I hadn't quite noticed this before, but there's Amamiya's snapped phallic reference paint brush in the opening theme.

Anyways, I haven't analyzed much of the second half of this episode... Just 'cause I got my mind blown enough by the first half, thank you very much. Well, rather, we don't know as much about what's going on with Kuze and Mizuki, metaphor-wise, than we do about what's up with Yuu and Yuuko. However, I thought the masks were worth delving into. Also, Kuze moved his couch... It used to be on the other side of the room.

Kuze seems to have seven masks on the wall in this episode. While three is probably the most interesting number in literature and mythology, seven pops up a fair number of times... Seven deadly sins, seven cardinal virtues, and in reality, seven colors of the rainbow. Makes sense for this show that they'd choose seven for that last reason, but it could just be a coincidence. Anyways, the masks I can identify are these:
The mask of a musician: This one has what appear to be leaves on it, and notes. Self-explanatory for Kuze. In fact, each of the ones I get is self-explanatory for Kuze.
The mask of a jester: It has bells and stuff. Leaves room for the real person's mouth to be seen.
The mask of an adult: This mask is shown last in the scene where Kuze covers how adults accumulate masks as they grow up. It seems to cover almost all of the face, but has little flair about it, and looks rather plain compared to some of the other masks.
The mask of a mourner: This one has a tear on it. Well, he is dying, so... Makes sense.

There are three other masks: a green one (envy? Heh), one with a lot of blue feathers coming out of it, and one with a string hanging down from it and yellow and purple tufts of feathers coming from the top. I don't know what those are. Anyone wanna take a stab?

...Ooooh. Ya know, I know I said the masks would be the last thing, but here's what I'll really end on: idling. Mizuki loves the feeling of just idling around a room, doing nothing wasting time - it feels good to her, and she takes it in. In short: she just enjoys living. Huh, makes sense how it rubs off on Kuze now... I like it.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I had fun coming up with this. I could be way off the mark on some of my ideas, but I think I might've hit the nail on the head for most of 'em. I really wanna talk to people about this, though. Anyone got anything to add?

[Leon_Lelouch]

fuhoh....what a long post....O_O
I'll try to read and reply to it later...

BTW.... Did someone notice that ep 8's ending song has canon's theme in it....
and oh.... ep 8 is a nice episode.....:top: it made me fall in love all over again to ef.....

[SuperKnuckles]

Originally Posted by MarlinBeta

I suppose that's one of the reasons I like ef. It's one of the few "depressing" anime that keeps me interested in finding out what's going to happen next. Of all the other "depressing" anime that I've watched, Elfen Lied is probably the only other one that I've really liked.

Both shows delve into the human psyche, but ef tends more toward realism and Elfen Lied more toward the supernatural (relatively speaking).

I think the deal with ef is that 90% of it is either sad, traumatic or just philosophically downtrodden, but then in the end, they find ways to overcome it. And surely in both cases, they'll find a way to overcome. It's like some weird/deranged Bible parable with death, famine, rape, murder that ends up with salvation.

As for this latest ep, Yuu went from being a cool cat to being a groveling dog in record time in anime. Even Luke in Tales of the Abyss didn't fall this hard.

[animekritik]

Originally Posted by SuperKnuckles

I think the deal with ef is that 90% of it is either sad, traumatic or just philosophically downtrodden, but then in the end, they find ways to overcome it. And surely in both cases, they'll find a way to overcome. It's like some weird/deranged Bible parable with death, famine, rape, murder that ends up with salvation.

As for this latest ep, Yuu went from being a cool cat to being a groveling dog in record time in anime. Even Luke in Tales of the Abyss didn't fall this hard.

biblical indeed. that's how come yuu is being crucified in the opening..

[Bathory Area]

Kuze sucks at this episode, but then he gets slapped from yuu as deserved! Poor yuuko! You shouldn't return to Amamiya! And you baka yuu, come around! walk forward! Stand on your feet and don't run away anymore!.

* I am pretty sure Che Guevara is not related to Lelouch.(Politic
is boring.)

[Lostdreams]

ummm, just wondering if this was a joke from subbers or something, but during the op did you guys notice a male private part shooting out stuff? Ep 8 btw.

[Kristen]

Originally Posted by Lostdreams

ummm, just wondering if this was a joke from subbers or something, but during the op did you guys notice a male private part shooting out stuff? Ep 8 btw.

Yes, we have been discussing it for the past page or so. Personally, I feel like ef is a thing of beauty and that was like peeing over a statue of Jesus or something, but meh. Nothing you can do except not watch them and wait for someone else.

Also, didn't 08 seem to have a lot less Shaft-wtfness? I don't really think there were any over-done scenes at all, were there?

[Jaka]

Originally Posted by Kristen

Yes, we have been discussing it for the past page or so. Personally, I feel like ef is a thing of beauty and that was like peeing over a statue of Jesus or something, but meh. Nothing you can do except not watch them and wait for someone else.

Also, didn't 08 seem to have a lot less Shaft-wtfness? I don't really think there were any over-done scenes at all, were there?

Yeah, I agree, just avoid Chihiro and their mistranslations. Go wait for menclave.

Meh, whatever, can't wait for episode 09!

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Kristen

Also, didn't 08 seem to have a lot less Shaft-wtfness? I don't really think there were any over-done scenes at all, were there?

We talked about this last monday when the show aired. It just seems like there wasn't anything so the idea of 'running away and starting fresh' seemed more real.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Shiroth

We talked about this last monday when the show aired. It just seems like there wasn't anything so the idea of 'running away and starting fresh' seemed more real.

I know I talked about this earlier, but since it probably got lost in the drama, I'll ask again. Did anyone else think this episode had very strong parallels with episode 5 of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu?

[sirn]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I know I talked about this earlier, but since it probably got lost in the drama, I'll ask again. Did anyone else think this episode had very strong parallels with episode 5 of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu?

Not only you, this episode reminded me of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu, too. This is why I like this episode, a lot.

[komichi]

Hmm, I look forward to ef every week, but at the same time... not. I don't know I guess it's because this series has a lot of emotional impact.

Anyhow, I like like the episode itself, it was really exciting in a way to see how much Yuu is being tortured (I'm a sadist).

I just saw episode 08, and I have to say, whoever made Yuuko was very knowledgeable about rape. Every thing about her behavior and her attacker is exactly as it should be. The desire to go back to her attacker even after he hurt her, the attackers saying she wants it, etc. It all makes sense, and I feel like they did a good job in developing her.

Yesh, that's exactly what was running through my mind the entire time I was watching the episode.

[Mushi]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I know I talked about this earlier, but since it probably got lost in the drama, I'll ask again. Did anyone else think this episode had very strong parallels with episode 5 of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu?

I watched episode 8 today, and yes, I was thinking the same thing, having just watched Iriya for the first time a little over a week ago. Some serious deja vu there.

As much as I've lambasted Amamiya for his evilness, I couldn't entirely hate him this episode. They've made him out to be such a pivotal character that it's hard to not appreciate his role in the story. I just knew he was going to show up and ruin things for them, but it was done in a way that I didn't expect and that made him all the more intriguing. But, I still think he's disgusting and hope for his undoing in whatever form it takes.

@Azure_Peregrine - Wow! I read your entire post and I like your analysis. I've been suspecting all kinds of symbolism in this series, some apparent, some not, but I haven't bothered to examine it that closely. Thanks for taking the time to give us lazy people something to chew on.

And someone mentioned Yuuko being more moe now... I totally agree. She really grew on me this episode, but I've got such an uneasy feeling about what lies ahead. She's almost too cute and sweet to be a tragic character and that gives me a hollow feeling inside as I anticipate the coming episodes.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by SuperKnuckles

I think the deal with ef is that 90% of it is either sad, traumatic or just philosophically downtrodden, but then in the end, they find ways to overcome it. And surely in both cases, they'll find a way to overcome. It's like some weird/deranged Bible parable with death, famine, rape, murder that ends up with salvation.

This is my reason for my great admiration of the series. The idea of people overcoming themselves and finding the right path in life is just so inspiring and emotionally impactful. Their internal struggles are just so real and I think many people are able to relate to them in this respect.