AnimeSuki Forums

Master_Yoma · 2017-09-03, 21:24

That was a heavy episode

Ghostfriendly · 2017-09-04, 14:12

A surprising episode, that I wasn't sure about to start off with. Wheeling out yet another race seemed rather cheap, and having several different races on both sides of the war seemed opposed to the idea that different races = worse historic conflict = militant political correctness backlash in the present.

However, giving the frogs a Native American culture allowed the shows to look at another real world issue through a fantastic lens. It was surprising that the fat cat-like classmate seems to be at least half frog, but if the frogs are South American, many Brazilians have moved to Japan in our world. Rousseau's musings on how contact with industrial civilisations has affected the frogs are debatable, but certainly thoughtful, and work with the other theme of conflict along both national and racial lines to create a mildly more nuanced world.

As for the WWII segment, which gave a very nice significance to the elderly angel shaking Rousseau's hand, having different races in the camp allowed them to show racial conflict between the prisoners. The 'Nazis' seemed to all be beastmen and centaurs, with all the angels and devils on the prisoner side, as 'inferior' races. The Nazis imprisoned Poles, Russians and many other groups besides Jews, and employed auxiliaries from Russia, Poland and all over Europe. In-universe, there don't seem to be enough Centaurs for them to form a nation of their own.

Lynching of real and suspected collaborators was a very well attested part of the Holocaust, and a very shrewd inclusion. Although hanging a centaur looks rather impractical, and the episode is wrong to base a sympathetic character on the Capos and informers who abetted Nazi genocide to delay their own deaths. The episode is probably alluding to the persecution and murder of Jewish holocaust survivors by Poles who the Nazis had also oppressed, but the message is a little mixed. At least the devil prisoner is right that physical difference isn't the real cause of violence, though his conclusion that nothing can be done is appropriately devilish in cynicism.

nicky. · 2017-09-04, 14:47

That episode was the last straw for me. Dropped.

Ghostfriendly · 2017-09-04, 14:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicky.

That episode was the last straw for me. Dropped.

For why, Keats, for why?

James Rye · 2017-09-04, 15:34

Guys, remember Hitler shown to have wings like the Angel shaped humans. Shape =/= race. There can be German centaurs, french centaurs and Japanese centaurs, there can be South American devils and Indian devils, there can be Korean angels and British angels, etc they will all have wings, horns or horse body but they would not see themselves belonging to the same race just because of their body shape. A Japanese centaur will see more cultural similarities with a fellow Japanese Angel than with an Italian centaur. Yes, due their shape and size they understand the problems they face with them, like needing extra large chairs in cinemas or needing to eat more thus having a need of higher salary. However, that would be like saying that a German human in a wheelchair and an Nigerian human in a wheelchair share far more similarities than them and their fellow Germans/Nigerians simply due the fact they both can't walk. That kind of thinking is stupid and it's not how the world of Centaur no Nayami, or at least its majority, work.

nicky. · 2017-09-04, 18:15

Because the show is just making problems and showing scenes for nothing; and isn't even trying to be original nor tell an actual story. It's devolved into a sobfest, almost propaganda-like anime.

Ghostfriendly · 2017-09-05, 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Rye

Guys, remember Hitler shown to have wings like the Angel shaped humans. Shape =/= race. They would not see themselves belonging to the same race just because of their body shape.

Nope, if 'body type' is hereditary it's analogous to race. If terrestrial races were evenly balanced in all countries, that would be different from any distinctive heritable feature in the world, and a major story weakness.

An Angel!Hitler also weakens the story in my view by making the war about purely nationalism, rather than nationalism and racism, as WWII really was. Of course Hitler and Heydrich may have had Jewish blood, but Angel!Hitler can hardly claim to be a centaur. We were told in ep1 about a history of conflict and discrimination across racial lines; ep9 reminded us that other factors create conflict, and centaurs from Japan or Europe have different racial heritage. However, the show would be denying reality if it claimed race doesn't create conflict, which needs a better solution than denial or militant political correctness.

Speaking of denial, the idea has come up somewhere that the centaur liberating the concentration camp was Japanese, if the elderly angel went to live in Japan. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that anything so outrageous was intended; the Centaur could have been American, and the old angel moved to Japan much later for work reasons (as UN Secretary General?).

If CnN world Japan was anything like ours it would be 90% centaurs or something. It's funny that a country where racial chauvinism is the bigger danger would produce a story about militant political correctness.

Btw I'm not saying racial differences should create conflict, just that they have, and do, and the existence especially of subconscious 1st world prejudice needs to be noted for it to be overcome.

James Rye · 2017-09-05, 09:51

Sigh.
Dude, all races share the same "body type" which is to have 6 limbs. Even in "same-shaped" families it can happen that a child is born with horns or with hooves or a tail, etc despite the parents having none of that. Also Angel =/= jews. Angels are just humans with wings and there are black Angels, asian Angels, european Angels, etc. Their body shape does not dictate their race. Again, you would not put in all disabled people as their own race, you'd still call them by what country/ethnie they are born in/with. Nobody writes in Nationality Disabled as answer, nobody. Same with the Centaurs, Angels, Devils, Mermaids and Satyr, they don't write their body shape down but their nationality they were born with. So a japanese Satyr and a japanese Angel will always write japanese as answer to Nationality and not Satyr or Angel or greek or jew or whatever you seem to see in them.

Ghostfriendly · 2017-09-05, 10:17

The fantastic races aren't linked to real world races, except Frogs = Native South Americans, and race is hereditary. Hime's family is all centaurs. Class rep has catman father, angel mother; she has her mother's race, triplets take after father, Suu is half-angel, half-cat. I don't think anyone doesn't share a race with at least one parent. For nationality they would write Japanese, for race Centaur or whatever, no contradiction.

The history lesson about racial conflict in ep1 shows that the CnN races have not regarded each other as 'all people with 6 limbs', and pretty clearly sets up the series as an analogy of the reaction to real racial conflict. If the manga goes on to say that fantastic race is non-hereditary it's weakening its own significance even further.

BTW, from Angel!Hitler to Class Rep, doesn't it seem that many angelfolk have the principled and self-righteous personalities (lawful but not necessarily good) you'd expect from angels?

alt_account · 2017-09-05, 11:30

Race-based tensions in the CnN universe occurred at an earlier point in history than WWII. In particular, centaurs used to be treated as slaves/livestock (i.e. forbidden to learn language, used as mounts by nobles/generals of other races) throughout Europe, until they were liberated by Napoleon and became a key component of his military during the establishment of his empire.

In the manga depiction of Hitler (who as previously mentioned was an angel), Hitler was decrying a supposed rise in racial hatred as a Jewish conspiracy designed to weaken their society. An illustration of blond, muscular members of all of the 'human' races posing together was raised as an example of cooperation. In other words, yes, Nazism in the CnN universe was ideologically rather than racially motivated. However, that is more accurate to Nazism in real life and doesn't in any way contradict/undermine the work's earlier statements regarding their world having a history of race-based discrimination.

It is a mistake to assume that the presentation of the anime's episodic material is in any way paced or edited to present a coherent narrative structure. The anime's content is merely a cherry-picked selection of manga chapters thrown together into 'thematic' collections without particular regard to chronology, which are then called episodes. For example: in the manga, the stories about Jean Rousseau and the Auschwitz survivor president who shook his hand were spaced several chapters apart. From the manga's perspective, the two chapters did not represent any sort of 'keystone' of establishing the setting or revealing the series' historical perspective, but rather individual snapshots among a large collection of other similar stories which build a varied view of the series' world.

alex_drian · 2017-09-06, 23:36

This anime makes me feel that all can go to shit anytime.

Itlandm · 2017-09-09, 01:56

It seems the author is trying to show that the innocent everyday lives of these cute monster girls are actually a rare exception, surrounded by a world churning with danger which could burst in on them at any time. I am not sure if this is meant to make their peaceful days more precious and valuable, or hollow and meaningless. I guess different people will view it differently. But it is certainly unusual.

Proto · 2017-09-10, 10:56

This was kind of an interesting episode. I don't think I had seen this kind of paired episodes (two different perspectives and narrative takings on a very similar concept in anime) since waaaaay back in the twins episodes in Seraphim Call. Now that I think about it this is the series that probably reminds me the most of what Centaur no Nayami is becoming.

Stark700 · 2017-09-10, 11:26

I like how they explore the social lives of these characters. Very human-like especially the date.

Anyone else an expert at contemporary art? I was almost lost as those girls...

HandofFate · 2017-09-10, 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Itlandm

It seems the author is trying to show that the innocent everyday lives of these cute monster girls are actually a rare exception, surrounded by a world churning with danger which could burst in on them at any time. I am not sure if this is meant to make their peaceful days more precious and valuable, or hollow and meaningless. I guess different people will view it differently. But it is certainly unusual.

Don't think its showing it as a 'rare exception'
does make it more realistic to me though, and another parallel comparison to our world.

I'm spending my days working and watching anime in a relatively peaceful pace, while outside my bubble, there's wars going on and whatever political conflicts all over the place that doesn't enter my daily travel thoughts or events.

Jazzrat · 2017-09-11, 03:30

Nayami no Centaur is just a slice of life anime that intertwines real world history into a fantasy setting. Personally i find the hybrid quite refreshing but i can see why some folks is turned off by it.

I don't think there's any real message or story to the series, just the mangaka having fun mixing it up standard slice of life stuff with historical scenarios. I might be a broken person but i'm still kicking back and relax to the show and manga.

BWTraveller · 2017-09-11, 09:45

Must say I rather agree with the assessment of modern "art". It really does seem like things have been decaying and reached a point where it's just a game to see who can be more "out there" and "rebellious". As a friend of mine's said, if you're at a point where you can call it a work of art when a person puts a cross in a cup of urine, you've gone way too far. Frankly, I'll stick to anime-style art. It's aesthetically pleasing, has a fair degree of variation with which creators can make themselves stand out, and gives plenty of room to make any statement you want to make while still being nice to look at. And yeah, if you have to read an essay to make out the meaning of the piece, you've failed. At that point, just write an essay and put it in a book. Don't go wasting space in a museum that's supposed to be about ART.

Ghostfriendly · 2017-09-13, 05:05

Nice episode, with interesting comments on art, and some cute SoL antics; stalking friends on dates really is the Japanese national pastime. Tama's new friendship was very heartwarming, though not sure if they reached any reasonable conclusion on what she should do for her father. Did he quit his job to paint full time afterTama's ultimatum a few eps ago? Glad if that decision is now reversed, they need to be realistic about things.

Cute catgirl against a pitch-black background? Looks quite unconventional to me, I'd buy it for a tenner.

DracoS · 2017-09-14, 16:26

Tama new friendship is intresting subplot. Pretty sure the other girl is gay and intrested in Tama, but considering her ealier words in the show and general attuide in the episode, I'm not sure she clicked whats going off in her friends head.

Stark700 · 2017-09-17, 10:52

Episode 11:

This episode focused more on those triplets and the younger kids.

At the same time, I find their behavior to be very human similar to some of the other episodes. The curiousity of kids and what they find are amusing to watch in this series. Besides that, I think these kids just behave the way kids do when at home together. Cute episode

2017-09-03, 21:24	Link #141
Master_Yoma Nekokota Festival Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Lost in the Fairy Forest	That was a heavy episode __________________

2017-09-04, 15:34	Link #145
James Rye Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Germany	Guys, remember Hitler shown to have wings like the Angel shaped humans. Shape =/= race. There can be German centaurs, french centaurs and Japanese centaurs, there can be South American devils and Indian devils, there can be Korean angels and British angels, etc they will all have wings, horns or horse body but they would not see themselves belonging to the same race just because of their body shape. A Japanese centaur will see more cultural similarities with a fellow Japanese Angel than with an Italian centaur. Yes, due their shape and size they understand the problems they face with them, like needing extra large chairs in cinemas or needing to eat more thus having a need of higher salary. However, that would be like saying that a German human in a wheelchair and an Nigerian human in a wheelchair share far more similarities than them and their fellow Germans/Nigerians simply due the fact they both can't walk. That kind of thinking is stupid and it's not how the world of Centaur no Nayami, or at least its majority, work. __________________

2017-09-05, 09:51	Link #148
James Rye Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Germany	Sigh. Dude, all races share the same "body type" which is to have 6 limbs. Even in "same-shaped" families it can happen that a child is born with horns or with hooves or a tail, etc despite the parents having none of that. Also Angel =/= jews. Angels are just humans with wings and there are black Angels, asian Angels, european Angels, etc. Their body shape does not dictate their race. Again, you would not put in all disabled people as their own race, you'd still call them by what country/ethnie they are born in/with. Nobody writes in Nationality Disabled as answer, nobody. Same with the Centaurs, Angels, Devils, Mermaids and Satyr, they don't write their body shape down but their nationality they were born with. So a japanese Satyr and a japanese Angel will always write japanese as answer to Nationality and not Satyr or Angel or greek or jew or whatever you seem to see in them. __________________

2017-09-05, 10:17	Link #149
Ghostfriendly Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008	The fantastic races aren't linked to real world races, except Frogs = Native South Americans, and race is hereditary. Hime's family is all centaurs. Class rep has catman father, angel mother; she has her mother's race, triplets take after father, Suu is half-angel, half-cat. I don't think anyone doesn't share a race with at least one parent. For nationality they would write Japanese, for race Centaur or whatever, no contradiction. The history lesson about racial conflict in ep1 shows that the CnN races have not regarded each other as 'all people with 6 limbs', and pretty clearly sets up the series as an analogy of the reaction to real racial conflict. If the manga goes on to say that fantastic race is non-hereditary it's weakening its own significance even further. BTW, from Angel!Hitler to Class Rep, doesn't it seem that many angelfolk have the principled and self-righteous personalities (lawful but not necessarily good) you'd expect from angels? Last edited by Ghostfriendly; 2017-09-05 at 11:09.

2017-09-10, 10:56	Link #153
Proto Knowledge is the solution Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: St. Louis, MO Age: 39	This was kind of an interesting episode. I don't think I had seen this kind of paired episodes (two different perspectives and narrative takings on a very similar concept in anime) since waaaaay back in the twins episodes in Seraphim Call. Now that I think about it this is the series that probably reminds me the most of what Centaur no Nayami is becoming. __________________ How to play Japanese games in Linux

2017-09-04, 14:12	Link #142
Ghostfriendly Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008	A surprising episode, that I wasn't sure about to start off with. Wheeling out yet another race seemed rather cheap, and having several different races on both sides of the war seemed opposed to the idea that different races = worse historic conflict = militant political correctness backlash in the present. However, giving the frogs a Native American culture allowed the shows to look at another real world issue through a fantastic lens. It was surprising that the fat cat-like classmate seems to be at least half frog, but if the frogs are South American, many Brazilians have moved to Japan in our world. Rousseau's musings on how contact with industrial civilisations has affected the frogs are debatable, but certainly thoughtful, and work with the other theme of conflict along both national and racial lines to create a mildly more nuanced world. As for the WWII segment, which gave a very nice significance to the elderly angel shaking Rousseau's hand, having different races in the camp allowed them to show racial conflict between the prisoners. The 'Nazis' seemed to all be beastmen and centaurs, with all the angels and devils on the prisoner side, as 'inferior' races. The Nazis imprisoned Poles, Russians and many other groups besides Jews, and employed auxiliaries from Russia, Poland and all over Europe. In-universe, there don't seem to be enough Centaurs for them to form a nation of their own. Lynching of real and suspected collaborators was a very well attested part of the Holocaust, and a very shrewd inclusion. Although hanging a centaur looks rather impractical, and the episode is wrong to base a sympathetic character on the Capos and informers who abetted Nazi genocide to delay their own deaths. The episode is probably alluding to the persecution and murder of Jewish holocaust survivors by Poles who the Nazis had also oppressed, but the message is a little mixed. At least the devil prisoner is right that physical difference isn't the real cause of violence, though his conclusion that nothing can be done is appropriately devilish in cynicism.

2017-09-04, 14:47	Link #143
nicky. animesuki Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: United States of A.	That episode was the last straw for me. Dropped.

2017-09-04, 18:15	Link #146
nicky. animesuki Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: United States of A.	Because the show is just making problems and showing scenes for nothing; and isn't even trying to be original nor tell an actual story. It's devolved into a sobfest, almost propaganda-like anime.

2017-09-05, 11:30	Link #150
alt_account ... Join Date: Jul 2016	Race-based tensions in the CnN universe occurred at an earlier point in history than WWII. In particular, centaurs used to be treated as slaves/livestock (i.e. forbidden to learn language, used as mounts by nobles/generals of other races) throughout Europe, until they were liberated by Napoleon and became a key component of his military during the establishment of his empire. In the manga depiction of Hitler (who as previously mentioned was an angel), Hitler was decrying a supposed rise in racial hatred as a Jewish conspiracy designed to weaken their society. An illustration of blond, muscular members of all of the 'human' races posing together was raised as an example of cooperation. In other words, yes, Nazism in the CnN universe was ideologically rather than racially motivated. However, that is more accurate to Nazism in real life and doesn't in any way contradict/undermine the work's earlier statements regarding their world having a history of race-based discrimination. It is a mistake to assume that the presentation of the anime's episodic material is in any way paced or edited to present a coherent narrative structure. The anime's content is merely a cherry-picked selection of manga chapters thrown together into 'thematic' collections without particular regard to chronology, which are then called episodes. For example: in the manga, the stories about Jean Rousseau and the Auschwitz survivor president who shook his hand were spaced several chapters apart. From the manga's perspective, the two chapters did not represent any sort of 'keystone' of establishing the setting or revealing the series' historical perspective, but rather individual snapshots among a large collection of other similar stories which build a varied view of the series' world.

2017-09-06, 23:36	Link #151
alex_drian Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2015	This anime makes me feel that all can go to shit anytime.

2017-09-09, 01:56	Link #152
Itlandm Porcupine Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Norway Age: 65	It seems the author is trying to show that the innocent everyday lives of these cute monster girls are actually a rare exception, surrounded by a world churning with danger which could burst in on them at any time. I am not sure if this is meant to make their peaceful days more precious and valuable, or hollow and meaningless. I guess different people will view it differently. But it is certainly unusual.

2017-09-10, 11:26	Link #154
Stark700 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: Somewhere on Earth	I like how they explore the social lives of these characters. Very human-like especially the date. Anyone else an expert at contemporary art? I was almost lost as those girls... __________________

2017-09-11, 03:30	Link #156
Jazzrat Bearly Legal Join Date: Jun 2004	Nayami no Centaur is just a slice of life anime that intertwines real world history into a fantasy setting. Personally i find the hybrid quite refreshing but i can see why some folks is turned off by it. I don't think there's any real message or story to the series, just the mangaka having fun mixing it up standard slice of life stuff with historical scenarios. I might be a broken person but i'm still kicking back and relax to the show and manga. __________________

2017-09-11, 09:45	Link #157
BWTraveller Born to ship Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Texas	Must say I rather agree with the assessment of modern "art". It really does seem like things have been decaying and reached a point where it's just a game to see who can be more "out there" and "rebellious". As a friend of mine's said, if you're at a point where you can call it a work of art when a person puts a cross in a cup of urine, you've gone way too far. Frankly, I'll stick to anime-style art. It's aesthetically pleasing, has a fair degree of variation with which creators can make themselves stand out, and gives plenty of room to make any statement you want to make while still being nice to look at. And yeah, if you have to read an essay to make out the meaning of the piece, you've failed. At that point, just write an essay and put it in a book. Don't go wasting space in a museum that's supposed to be about ART.

2017-09-13, 05:05	Link #158
Ghostfriendly Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008	Nice episode, with interesting comments on art, and some cute SoL antics; stalking friends on dates really is the Japanese national pastime. Tama's new friendship was very heartwarming, though not sure if they reached any reasonable conclusion on what she should do for her father. Did he quit his job to paint full time afterTama's ultimatum a few eps ago? Glad if that decision is now reversed, they need to be realistic about things. Cute catgirl against a pitch-black background? Looks quite unconventional to me, I'd buy it for a tenner.

2017-09-14, 16:26	Link #159
DracoS Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2017	Tama new friendship is intresting subplot. Pretty sure the other girl is gay and intrested in Tama, but considering her ealier words in the show and general attuide in the episode, I'm not sure she clicked whats going off in her friends head.

2017-09-17, 10:52	Link #160
Stark700 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: Somewhere on Earth	Episode 11: This episode focused more on those triplets and the younger kids. At the same time, I find their behavior to be very human similar to some of the other episodes. The curiousity of kids and what they find are amusing to watch in this series. Besides that, I think these kids just behave the way kids do when at home together. Cute episode __________________