Whining about why
X is terrible, part 2:
I really don't get what purpose all the predestination bullshit serves in this story, except giving it an extra layer of maliciousness ("Woobie had to die because it says so in the script!") and causing too many plot holes and idiotic moments to count. On top of this there are a lot of scenes with various characters, often children, unironically wondering how the whole situation doesn't make any sense, which is, in my opinion, just bizarre from a storytelling perspective. Why would you have your characters repeatedly draw attention to the shortcomings of your shoddy writing?
All that is evil and wrong in the world of X happens because CLAMP wishes it to happen. They're the true final boss, and it's unfortunate we don't see the heroes beating them down, liberating themselves from the puppet strings of the cosmic fujoshi collective. Too bad, because when they're not succumbing to plot-mandated stupidity, some of them are quite likable people. Hell, a lot of the antagonists like Kusanagi, Satsuki and Yuto are likable, decent people as well. Of course, as such they don't really fit in with the moustache-twirling villains like Seishirou and evil Fuuma, and Kusanagi even narrates out loud how he doesn't like this genocide business, but he has no choice because he's being controlled like a puppet.
The antagonists are supposedly trying to kill everybody because humanity is a planet-consuming cancer and yadda yadda. You may have encountered this villain motivation before, but I've never seen it handled worse than here because it doesn't stem from within the characters. They don't hold any eco-warrior convictions by themselves, that's all beamed down from the CLAMP mind-control HQ. It's absolutely silly when you consider the character occupations and personalities: Kusanagi is a career soldier, Satsuki is a tech wiz girl whose rig guzzles down gigawatts of electricity, and Yuto is a playboy who loves women, whisky and neon lights. And these people are supposed to be Team Environment? What the fuck?
Not only is the story reliant on plot-mandated puppetry, it also features a lot of facepalm-worthy asspulls. These include, but are not limited to, using a murderous double personality as a plot device in order to have a traitor in the good guys' team, and having a computer suddenly become jealous of its operator with practically no build-up whatsoever. Truly, those who use Dell are damned. Even the very last battle is resolved with an out-of-thin-air asspull that unexplainedly changes the supposedly inviolable rules of how the barrier fields operate.
So, the series is pretty much irredeemably wretched in the story department, and it isn't worth watching for the visuals or the action either. One of ANN's paid reviewers apparently praised the animation by saying the characters are "never off model". This is technically true: the characters always look like themselves in bland, lifeless environs. There were times when I wondered why the heroes even bother with their barrier fields because there seems to be no citizens around that they could accidentally maul with their uninspired cliche esper powers.
Tokyo apparently has neither car traffic nor pedestrians, making it the blandest superhero sandbox ever. Even the mood of the show is predominantly bland, and even though the world teeters at the brink of destruction, there's never any sense of urgency in the proceedings. As for landmark destruction,
there isn't any. The show has a surprisingly low body count, so don't expect to see spectacular barrier field collapses like in the movie version.
Overall rating: F for fujoshit. But then again, I'm obviously not in the target demographic.
******
Started watching
Kiddy Grade, which is apparently a somewhat nostalgic series for some /m/-dwellers. After two episodes it feels like a typically Gonzo-ugly and Gonzo-unfunny version of Dirty Pair / Angel Links. The first episode seems to be copying
The Phantom Menace, with an unscrupulous trade federation blockading a planet and our two specialist heroes sent out to negotiate. Liam Neeson has a lipstick that turns into a whip, and Ewan McGregor is a kuudere loli in a fetishistic space swimsuit.
Xard wrote:Oshii's
Dallos
Did you manage to find a version with proper subs? I remember watching this with crabsicky bootleg subs. I remember it was mostly boring, but there was one sudden burst of awesome insanity in the scene where the MC downs a ground attack aircraft by launching a mining drill up a natural ramp, thus doing the impossible and breaking the unbreakable.