Darling in the Franxx (Studio Trigger)

[silvermoonlight]

Gigguk on Darling in the FranXX

SPOILER: Show

It was Hideaki Anno all the time!!!

SPOILER: Show

(That was actually 3.0+1.0...)

This cracked me up

[Mr. Tines]

A few thoughts a week on -- it really was the (lack of an) editor what done it; almost like each episode came from a slightly different parallel universe's version of the series. Once again, the final episode has the same extreme attachment to inconsequential detail as before, this time with the Mistleteinn cat making a cameo to show that it survived all the excitement, just in case people were worried about what had become of it. Meanwhile, the surprise attack via warpgate launched the previous episode has turned into a two year cruise to the real destination and is no longer any sort of surprise.

Related : anon's historical record of interpreting the show.

Added -- Apparently episode 24 had a less than 60% favourable rating on nicovideo, whereas previous low points were in the mid-70%s.

SPOILER: Show

[kuribo-04]

Just watched 24. Don't have much to say.
I liked what they did with the mechs.
It was actually kinda a nice episode, but only if you block out all the problematic messages.
Like further glorification of teenage pregnancy. Or the fact that Goro kisses Ichigo knowing the feelings aren't mutual (and this being succesful in starting a healthy relationship somehow). Goro was the good boi. That was out of character. It gets played as "so kawaii" but it wasn't (Ichigo's face was funny though).

Didn't care about Hiro or Zero Two, as characters who only exist within a romance aren't like people. They wrote them to not care about the context at all, and romance exists within a context.
A romance that is "I only care about you and nothing else, and nothing can stop that" isn't a story, it's autoconclusive. They didn't even care

SPOILER: Show

about death. I felt a lil something at the last sequences, but only because passage of time always gets me. It was kinda nice. That doesn't mean it was amazing though.

Really don't think this show came together. Even the characters morph from one thing to another.
At one point the show was (seemingly) about the complications of relationships, and it looked like it was gonna go deeper into that, but the characters just stop caring.
Well Goro didn't stop caring amirite

robersora:

But Trigger always seemed like the balls to the walls rock'n'roll rebels, when in fact, they actually aren't.

I don't think this show is a good representation of what Trigger is, and at the end each artist has their own views. Nishigori made this show, he isn't even that much with Trigger afaik.

lol, after our scathing reviews in this thread, this post comedic timing is on point.

It is lol.
I expected bad/mixed reception to Franxx 24, but I was thinking more of Promare at that point.

[amitakartok]

Or the fact that Goro kisses Ichigo knowing the feelings aren't mutual (and this being succesful in starting a healthy relationship somehow).

...so if it's unrequited, that fact can never and should never change? This isn't the middle of the series with any kind of status quo to be upheld.

[kuribo-04]

I don't think unrequited love changes by randomly kissing the person who rejected your advances.
There was no indcation by Ichigo that her feelings had changed.
It was just a silly escapism cutesy scene that had nothing to do with all the time dedicated to that subplot before.

[amitakartok]

Again: why do you think it's impossible for her to ever change her mind about him? Just because we're not told she did, only shown? Years have gone by, a lot have happened in the meantime we're not told about due to screentime constraints.

I don't want to sound obstinate, I just honestly don't understand your train of thought. It's as if you think the characters exist in a stasis, never allowed to change.

[silvermoonlight]

Again: why do you think it's impossible for her to ever change her mind about him? Just because we're not told she did, only shown? Years have gone by, a lot have happened in the meantime we're not told about due to screentime constraints.

I think what kuribo-04 is getting at is in the final episode we really don't have a real scene with Ichigo and Goro that show that real change of heart from Ichigo's side so in the time skips you never quite feel that their connection is genuine. Its not that they end up together so much its that the creators just did it half heartedly.

[kuribo-04]

I'm talking about the kiss scene specifically. At that point no time has passed, no change has occurred yet. He just kisses her.
Yes, later more time passes, but what is relevant is what is shown. And what is shown is that he disrespects her.
If somebody just kissed me it would make me feel uncomfortable.
I dunno, it's just weird that every relationship in this show has some unhealthy element to it but that isn't acknowledged by the show or characters.

[Mr. Tines]

Apparently in the June issue of Newtype, Nishigori was interviewed, and in it he said that he meticulously planned out things from episodes 1-15, then figured that "things would develop naturally from there on."

Which probably explains why the fight against the klaxosaurs and the Zero2/Hiro story both seemed to reach a conclusion there, and the rest of it showed dire lack of editing.

[silvermoonlight]

Apparently in the June issue of Newtype, Nishigori was interviewed, and in it he said that he meticulously planned out things from episodes 1-15, then figured that "things would develop naturally from there on."

Which probably explains why the fight against the klaxosaurs and the Zero2/Hiro story both seemed to reach a conclusion there, and the rest of it showed dire lack of editing.

Here's a lesson Nishigori should have learnt which is unless your Anno or Hayao Miyazaki don't do the whole "progress naturally route" because it won't end well for you and you'll just piss of your fanbase and ruin a good anime.

[pwhodges]

Although the end got really messed up, the show was not great in the first fifteen episodes either.

[kuribo-04]

That behind the scenes info makes a lot of sense.

[Blockio]

Apparently in the June issue of Newtype, Nishigori was interviewed, and in it he said that he meticulously planned out things from episodes 1-15, then figured that "things would develop naturally from there on."

Which probably explains why the fight against the klaxosaurs and the Zero2/Hiro story both seemed to reach a conclusion there, and the rest of it showed dire lack of editing.

Yep... this explains A LOT.

[robersora]

Although the end got really messed up, the show was not great in the first fifteen episodes either.

this

[Blockio]

The older posts in this thread suggest something different, really. A lot of people in here went from "this is a good show and fun to watch" to "Ive been telling you that it is shit all along" with little to no transition

[pwhodges]

It was pretty fun to watch while still bringing up serious reservations, especially about the handling of sex issues and some shoddy world-building.

[robersora]

Being easy to consume is pretty much the only positive the show had going for it, and don't get me wrong, that in itself is a pretty high feat, especially in Anime.
Also, I was always screaming like a baby, how bad it is, but kept watching, because I craved for a show in this style. Until the last third, but then I didn't wanna give up, because I was so far in and kinda enjoyed shitting on it in this thread.

[barnett]

I finished to binge-watch DitF recently. I had it on my radar for months but I prefer to wait for series to be over before watching them. Anyway, I entered the show with low expectations but quite curious, needless to say it was a frustrating experience.
First, I had no particular issue with the "conservative politics" of the show: it does not reflect my own, but I am quite on the centre of the political spectrum, and I am well aware that this was a show not catering to the sensibilities of certain segments of Euro-American audiences. Overall I'd prefer a competent, compelling show with uber-conservative ideological leanings than an incompetent show that tries to move audiences and create hype simply by saying "yay minorities!". Unfortunately Franxx wasn't that show.

Things I liked:
-The show's overall aesthetic
-Opening titles.
-The charadesign (Klaxosaurs included)
-The portrait of the psycho-sexual tension among the characters, at least in the first half of the show
-A surprising capacity to be "sweet" without fully descend into "saccharine" territories.
-The bittersweet ending

Things I disliked:
-The mechadesign (really ridiculous)
-Incredibly messy, at times downright incoherent plot, almost as bad as Mirai Nikki. Almost everything after the big plot-twist is awful.
-The plague of contemporary anime: not being able to develop a plot without info-dumps monologues (they should all re-watch freakin' Cowboy Bebop and learn how to leave certain thing unsaid - it's also more fun).
-Complete disregard for the dynamic of the battles. I did not expect "realism" but at least the ability to put down some precise ground-rules - and respect them (example: the warp-gate blitz that becomes the Verdun Battle in space).
-Connected to the one above, the usual "sci-fi turns into magic" trope.

How would I've liked the show
-Smaller scale story: does it always have to be about the future of the whole planet/universe every single time?
-More death and "sex": this is the most frustrating issue of the show for me. It had the potential to deliver some heavy punches and saying something interesting by doing it, but it constantly refrained from that. I imagine the reason is TV censorship, maybe a shift into streaming will change this (wasn't that the case with Devilman? I did not watch it). Specifically, when I say "sex" I don't mean that the show should have become an ecchi-fest, but that to develop a compelling show, given its own premises, this theme should have been thoroughly explored rather than "LOL they pilot the mecha doggy-style" and "that's how kids are made". About "death": by the last third of the show it appeared quite clear that nobody would have died, and this diminished inevitably the "stakes". Retrospectively, the beach and the Mistilteinn episodes were among the best of the show, because beneath the surface they showed tension and darkness creeping in.

To conclude, I am a bit surprised that among the many shows mentioned as source of inspiration nobody recalled another A-1 production (and my favourite anime of this decade) From the New World - Shin sekai yori, which competently frames a story of apocalyptic teenage-hood and coming-of-age into a compelling fantasy/sci-fi setting.

[kuribo-04]

Hiroyuki Imaishi
https://twitter.com/shiimai/status/1023201392809238528

[Mr. Tines]

TL /a/non has dropped the full translation of the June Newtype interview, a short excerpt from an Interview with Hayashi and Yamazaki (worked on the setting and wrote the scripts for episodes 7 & 9) from the same issue and a few excerpts from an interview with Hayashi from CONTINUE vol. 54 which went on sale after the anime had finished aired, the interview itself however was conducted at the end of June.

Q: How do you feel about the production of Darling in the Franxx up to this point?

A: As an anime original work, I created it from scratch, but the cast and staff understood what I was trying to do, so there are parts that expanded and grew beyond what I had originally envisioned. It’s a refreshing experience to look forward with excitement to the finished film each time.

Q: Which parts of the work remained largely unchanged between the original planning stage and the present?

A: There are also parts related to “what I wanted to do with this work” and its themes, but it’s “the human elements” that manifested when I finished creating the relationships between the characters. As far as these are concerned, anything goes. „A desire to be recognized“, „an interest in the other sex”, “a healthy appetite”, all of these are fine. I wanted to depict things like the vitality that young people have. I feel that I was able to include this properly.

Q: On the other hand, are there any parts that deviated from the original plans?

A: Regarding the developments in the latter half, I decided to keep my options open. This work consists of four separate parts. I had already made up my mind about the first half, consisting of part 1 (episodes 1-6) and part 2 (ep 7-15), but for the second half I just let things take their course. I believe that if you make up your mind about the first half, then in response to the tension of the staff and the cast, the story in the second half will unfold naturally. I believe this momentum at the workplace is one of the pleasures of creating an anime original work.
Q: So as the story changed, what was the moment where you had worked out the protagonist, Hiro?

A: To be honest, I purposefully left some parts of him difficult to understand. He isn’t the kind of person who becomes a protagonist out of his own volition. He’s at the center of the world, but he’s not the type to set the story into motion in a shounen manga fashion. I think you will come to understand him if you watch DarliFra until the very end.

Q: You see Hiro through the eyes of the children and Zero Two.

A: He is Hiro, and he is the protagonist of DarliFra. In making DarliFra up to this point, I talked with everyone from the staff, and there were also parts where I was persuaded by Uemura-san’s voice. The “self” that he put into his acting and screaming made me think “This is probably Hiro”. Because this is also the story of a boy who screams “I am here” and is looking for a place where he belongs. I think it’d be nice if I could depict him and Zero Two, who each lost one of their wings, finding a place where they belong together

Q: What can you tell us about the portrayal of Zero Two until now?

A: She’s an interesting character to write. Zero Two is also a character that wasn’t really cast in stone, but based on Tomatsu-san‘s acting and the staff’s depictions of her, I decided to make her captivatingly free-spirited and wild. For example, in episode 3 Ootsuka (Masahiko)-san wrote the line “Just kidding” into the script. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but when I heard Tomatsu-san saying it in a cute voice, I thought “I wonder, is she really?” and couldn’t bring myself to change it anymore. Another thing, in episode 5 Takao (Noriko)-san (Storyboard & Screenplay) gave Zero Two some really creepy vibes when she draws in Hiro. So each of them freely worked out Zero Two’s appeal. With Zero Two, we followed the approach that if it was interesting, we included it.

Q: Episode 13 is about Hiro’s and Zero Two’s childhood and their encounter. How did you feel after you finished writing this important episode?

A: It might be an overstatement to say that I created DarliFra because I wanted to write episode 13, but that’s basically how significant this episode was from the very beginning. When you write stories like this, you often hear “these poor children” from the other staff, but this time I wanted to write about the joy and emotions that blossom in such a dystopia. Things like Nojima Shinji-san’s dramas [2] gave me a much more painful impression when I watched them in my youth. Because in “Miseinen” [3] or “Seija no koushin” [4] for example, amidst all of the suffering, there were also charming parts. Things like “the world of the adults” and “the potential of the children” in DarliFra might have a touch of the dramas from that time. I followed the approach that I would be satisfied if DarliFra itself could provide a stimulus for the ever more scrupulous present age.

Q: I want to ask you about the children, what can you tell us about Ichigo and Goro?

A: In this world, their characters are absolutely necessary. They’re honor students who are in a somewhat unfavorable position. I have a bit of a weakness for characters in thankless roles who make you feel sorry for them. In this world where children don’t show any emotion, Ichigo in particular acts very human and rushes headlong into things, yet she also has a delicate side, so the staff are hoping that she will get rewarded. I am happy that everyone became so attached to my characters and puts so much care into how to depict them.

Q: It seems Zorome and Miku are also popular with the staff, aren’t they?

A: (Laughs) Because those two are the only ones who are easy to understand, carefree and composed. Episodes 8 and 10 are Miku’s and Zorome’s episodes respectively and while it’s fine if they’re cheerful and make a ruckus, it’s precisely because they act like this that I can use them to depict the children’s weaknesses. Because it’s revealed that usually, they’re just acting tough. In Idolmaster as well, Makoto, who’s boyish at first glance, was interested in things like dates. I like showing that kind of gap.

Q: The relationships between Futoshi, Mitsuru, Kokoro and Ikuno changed, didn’t they?

A: Kokoro picking up a book called “My first childbirth” in episode seven is essential to the story and marks a big turning point. Some elements of the adults enter the world of the boys and girls. However, there are no adults around them that they could go to for advice. Kokoro is a gentle and agreeable character, but we come to see her motherly and obstinate side. At around this point, Hayami (Saori)-san had apparently come to understand her role in the story as well.

Q: Mitsuru, Futoshi and Ikuno start to act in accordance with their wishes, right?

A: I had thought of Mitsuru as a counterpart to Hiro but now he feels like a secondary protagonist. [5] He’s different from Hiro, but in the world of DarliFra he represents the children growing up. I think Futoshi, who watches over Mitsuru and Kokoro, has grown into a splendid man. As for Ikuno, I look forward to how the audience will respond to her from episode 16 onward.

Q: The story will soon reach its climax. Please give us a few pointers on what we should look forward to regarding future developments.

A: There will be a huge wave of revelations in the latter half about things like the Japanese town that appeared in episode 7 and the relationship between klaxxosaurs and mankind. The character that appeared at the end of episode 16 will also play an important role. Understanding the entirety of what is depicted in the second half might prove to be difficult, but I’d be happy if you could empathize with the children’s emotions as you watch it.

Footnotes ([1] was a TL note)
[2] In a different interview, Hayashi also mentions these dramas, saying that Nishigori told his staff to familiarize themselves with them.
[3] A 1995 television drama about a group of high schoolers. The protagonist is nicknamed Hiro, written in Katakana just like DarliFra’s Hiro. Another character’s first name is Goro.
[4] A 1998 television drama about mentally impaired factory workers who are treated inhumanely.
[5] The exact wording Nishigori uses here to describe Mitsuru’s role is 裏主人公, which is commonly translated as “antihero”, but I don’t think that term makes much sense here.
[6] The artist published a few of the original illustrations for the picture book on his twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/_poo_illust/ ... 1779301379