「ガーデン・インディゴ」 (Gaaden Indigo)
“Garden Indigo”

Did no one proofread this script?

This is a Mess

I don’t know where to begin. This episode was an utter mess. All of the problems from the previous two episodes—the characters are ill-defined, their motives are nonexistent, the captain antagonist and his pet murderer feel shoehorned in, and the direction of the entire plot so far is utterly aimless—are continuing to compound. Add onto that a new antagonist, whose name I already don’t care about, and who is after Felia for reasons, and who only sees her powers because of another food-based mishap (and one I saw coming a mile away, like heart disease in a bacon aficionado), and—and there. That’s why. That’s why I’m at a loss for words.

I’d like to note that, as far as blogging moods go, I’m not in one. I feel like I would look more kindly on this episode in my usual state of mind, if only to delude myself that there could still be something here for a few more episodes. But episodic blogging is done whether you feel like it or not, so write I shall. And today, that’s going to mostly mean pointing out flaws.

The Idiot Ball

Every character holds the idiot ball (trope.) at some point in this episode. Sougo throws a broom at Moura. Kaon gives the cake to Felia. Felia … everything Felia does, basically, but especially the public telekinesis. The scriptwriter holds it when computer hacking skills inexplicably make Alfried McCarran (Majima Junji) able to shatter glass and pressurize sewer water, which makes NO friggin’ sense (unless everything is digital now, which I could possibly believe, though since they somehow still use USB, I’m disinclined to assume their technology is that advanced). Probably the biggest ones are when they split up (Sougo & Moura’s fault), Kaon and Felia get on the cable car (Kaon’s fault), and they then freak out when Alfried summons a ghost cat pigeon (what is this I don’t even) and lament that Moura can’t transform without Sougo nearby (everyone’s fault). Then why the hell did you split up!? Moura stays with Sougo from now on, PERIOD. It’s useless otherwise, so there’s no reason for Moura to go with anyone else.

How Do You Save Comet Lucifer?

My hopes for Comet Lucifer are sliding. I’m not giving up, but I’m starting to settle in for a cour of examining why this isn’t working, which, as a storyteller, is perhaps more useful than why stories do work. The stories that work usually work for a plethora of reasons, but the ones that fail often fail in ways that are easy to diagnose. “How not to do it,” is more illuminating than, “How to do it.” So, how would I fix Comet Lucifer? Other than throwing out the first three episodes and starting over.

“13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.” – Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

First, pay more attention to the characters. Too many of them are passive and malleable, Sougo in particular. Three episodes in and we still know next to nothing about him, which engenders apathy as a viewer. But all the characters need work, even the simplistic Felia and Moura. About the only one I kind of like is Kaon, if only because I’m surprised she hasn’t been utterly sidelined yet, and because she is nicely motherly to Felia. But they all need work. If we knew why Sougo and the antagonists were doing what they were doing—not with exposition, but through character-defining moments—it would help a lot.

Next, I’d decide what kind of story I want this to be. If you asked me to tell you what this show is about in two sentences, I couldn’t do it. It’s a mess. But if you asked me to say what my own book is about in two sentences, I could. And more tightly-scripted stories can do it even better (see: The original Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series, which comes to mind because cat pigeons sound like something it would do). But if you can’t do it without a paragraph? You’ve fucked up. I’d take Comet Lucifer and decide what I want it to be. This feels like a first novel that’s try to do too much, and it’s failing. Simplify to win.

Looking Ahead – Fixer Upper

There’s more. There’s much more. But I’ll have plenty of time to pick out more. And hopefully, the production team will start realizing the problems themselves and right the boat. It’s not over, and if the B-plot with the antagonists leads to anything interesting, it could still be good. But that needs to happen soon.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – It’s Felia & crew vs a random hacker, where everyone holds the idiot ball, especially the scriptwriter #cometlucifer 03

Random thoughts:

  • Why does the rock mecha need to eat sandwiches?
  • “Felia is a unique being who controls the breath of planet Gift.” Hello abrupt exposition. I feel like important information shouldn’t be the setup for a crappy joke.
  • Why did the construction mecha transmit his voice?
  • If those mecha tear up road anytime they use their wheels, why does the city leave the wheels on?
  • Why do I keep asking questions when I know there aren’t any answers? Wishful thinking, that’s why.

My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Momentum & mental space, The best content is in email, My morning routine, and True Ends

 

Preview

61 Comments

  1. “Did no one proofread this script?” Noooope….those were my thoughts exactly. I dont get what happened. Funnily enough, i still enjoyed what i was watching, although im pretty sure i enjoyed it because i sort of had the mindset that i was watching a saturday morning animation filled with the nonsensical nature one would pen a cartoon of that time slot with. Even though i ended up pointing out some flaws last ep, i was optimistic that those flaws would iron themselves out. Wasnt this show originally believed to be a slice-of-life series before it was revealed to be a mecha? cuz it seems that way from a production standpoint. I guess this is the kind of series that is meant to be whimsical and light rather than intriguing and foreboding. One the plus side, i guess it’s becoming more and more clear that KaonxSougo is the OTP??

    sonicsenryaku
    1. The show may be stupid, but I don’t get what proofreading has to do with its faults. Did the characters speak in jumbled words or might we be dealing with lacking editorial supervision instead?

      Whazzat
      1. proofreading is not limited to diction and syntax but the conciseness of ideas and the logical flow of said ideas. At least i hope whenever your professor is proofreading your essays, he’s not just worried about syntax and diction…that would be one baaaaaad professor

        sonicsenryaku
      2. @Whatzzat

        What I really meant was alpha/beta read. For my own work at least, it goes ideation –> outline –> outline feedback –> draft 1 –> draft 2 –> alpha read –> draft 3 –> beta reads –> update draft 3/draft 4 –> (continue beat reads & new drafts as needed) –> line edit –> proofread –> formatting & publication, where the final text-editing step (proofreading) is mainly concerned with grammar, syntax, and continuity errors. I just assumed that saying, “Did anyone alpha read this script?” was too inside-baseball for most readers. Using the word proofread got my point across in context.

      3. @Stilts
        I still think it’s an oddity, coming from a professional writer who is well versed in trade lingo. My motivation for bringing this up wasn’t just to nitpick for the heck of it. I’ve already passed on this show, so I wasn’t going to read the review at all, but after seeing your subtitle several times, it got me curious if sloppy subbing work by Funi(?) had been added to the list of things not helping the show. So, I honestly was mislead by your choice of vocabulary, because when I see “not proofread”, I don’t automatically associate that with “messy plot” – apparently not even when I already know the plot to be messy. Either way, it’s not a big deal, but I thought it warranted a little jab.

        @sonicsenryaku
        I’ve actually never had my essays “proofread” by a professor, but if that’s the preferred terminology at your school, well, why not, I guess. Language keeps changing, after all.

        Whazzat
    2. this series makes about as much sense as catgeons… nope, catgeons are much more realistic!
      1.If I was in Sougo shoes, I would be all over the little stone lizard with questions, and he is ignoring it when it starts to give some explanations! Makes even less sense considering he is depicted as quite intelligent crytsal specialist!
      2.Taking Felia out into city when she can at any moment deconspire herself with untimely telekinesis show… I dont even… /facepalm
      3.If I was gathering a spec-ops team, I’d prioritise sanity over brilliance. What use is gain in skills if I would have to devote 90% of energy as commander to stop them from going on murderous rampage or babbling incoherently? Psychotic killer and a hacker that is more mad than scientist… more fail…

      ewok40k
  2. If this is one cour, then it’s probably too late for the staff to change much. Anime might have relatively fast production schedules, but I imagine the studio is already working several episodes ahead of this one. Though I did see one anime a few years ago which seemed like it was able to read my mind and address my criticisms a few episodes down the line…

    I actually liked the first bit of this episode with the characters having fun exploring the city. It reminded me of Episode Five of Macross Frontier (probably in part because I was reflecting on how 8-bit was founded by ex-Satelight staff, and this show looks better than a lot of Satelight’s recent series). I think Frontier had better writing than this show does though (while not flawless, it at least had characters who made strong initial impressions).

    The later parts of the episode I wasn’t so keen on. BTW, if you want to add another criticism, how about the gondola having easily accessible buttons that let passengers open the doors while its outside of the stations?

    Darthtabby
  3. Well, that’s… not encouraging. I admit my interest was flagging after episode 2, but I was hoping this episode might allow it to pick up again. I think I’ll just quit this one while I’m ahead, instead.

    Wanderer
  4. Setting aside the proverbial smorgasbord of problems that this episode had (and boy did it have ’em), I could’ve forgiven them all if this episode had actually gone somewhere. It didn’t.

    Comet Lucifer, for all its promise, is boring me. Sure, things could’ve been better at the start, but at least they had some momentum, and I was just waiting for them to run with it. Get past the introductions and let us know who these characters are. We don’t need substanceless fluff to get and get across how adorable Felia is or whatever. Like what, you ask? I can think of a few things right now:

    – Felia is obviously a blank slate that’s basically picking up everything around her like a sponge. How about showing her some of humanity’s darkness and let us see how she reacts to that? Couldn’t that be a starting point to develop some actual relationship between her and Sougo or some of the others?

    – Sougo. I know nothing about him. Why not throw some drama in there and get him center-stage? His childhood friend is engaged, obviously against her will. How about showing some actual emotion on his part, maybe even some jealousy? That could be worth watching.

    – Sougo obviously isn’t the only one in this mix. What about Kaon? Instead of playing babysitter to Felia all day long, how about she takes some initiative here? Argh.

    – Felia. Okay, so she’s like the lynchpin that holds the planet together. Got it. Let’s sideline these uninteresting antagonists and get some real conflict brewing here. I suggested showing Felia some of humanity’s darkness (and goodness knows there’s plenty to go around). Let’s take that a step further and imagine this sweet, adorable girl not being all that she appears to be. Perhaps something like a Shadow Felia exists inside of her to contrast the sweet and innocent girl we’ve been seeing.

    And that’s all off the top of my head. Well thought out? Probably not, but at least it’s something, unlike all the useless fluff we got this episode.

    I want to like this anime, really I do, but pick it up and quick, Comet Lucifer. You’re sinking fast.

    Ryan Ashfyre
  5. …And this is why I actually compared this show to FRACTALE back in the season preview.
    -The styling looks similar.
    -Both have absurd individual episodes.
    -Snippets of plot in the both messes.
    –Captain Gus Stewart here is apparently recruiting madmen specialists for his squad atm…

    So yeah, I think I left my brain by the door for this show from the first episode onwards.

    (And I’ll try to keep watching, for better or worse for my brain.)

    info600
    1. Fractale knew were it was going and it wasn’t even subtle about it. This show is aimless and the direction is uninspired, and the less we talk about the script, the better. Fractale had its issues, but is a good show that was destroyed because it had a director with an ego way too big to shut his mouth and just do his job. Comet Lucifer is just a random mess of totally unrelated parts that don’t really fit with each other.

      Kamui
  6. I don’t even know what the hell’s going on in this show. Someone could ask me to describe what this show is about, and I’d have no answer for them. At first, I could describe it as a poor man’s Eureka Seven, but now I have no idea.

    Mormegil
  7. Last episode I posted that this show sort of reminded me of Chaos Dragon which IMO was also a mess. In retrospect, perhaps I should have left out the qualifiers. :/ Where do I start? Do I even start since a lot of it has already been pointed out? There’s conspicuous lack of direction/cohesion to it all. The “WTF moments” remain and are arguably increasing. Not good. There’s also still insufficient setting exposition. Obviously shows can, and do, go overboard with exposition, but as I mentioned before, it’s also possible to go too far the other way. Three episodes in and we finally get a couple throwaway lines here and there. “Did I mention that Felia is a unique being who controls the breath of planet Gift? I didn’t? Well, I just did. Moving on…” Uh, okay…

    I also posted last episode that there was no “hook” for me – not even a small one, and that remains the case which of course is a problem. I stuck with Chaos Dragon primarily for the “WTF will they throw in next?” factor. Robot “undead” with powered Gatling gun? Fine, bring it. Here, we have meowing birds… Well, that and a sandwich stealing, mecha transforming, comedy relief rock worm. Then there’s the creepy villain of the week. Last week it was “impervious to bullets murderous young teenager”. This week it’s “gets off on scaring little girls genius computer hacker”. You’re doing a fine job building Team Psychopath villain boss who’s name I don’t remember let alone have any idea of what your evil agenda is other than “kidnap Felia and do evil things”. At least Chaos Dragon made the stakes clear.

    In short, yeah, I’m out. Not a big mecha fan anyway and there’s nothing of interest for me other than the potential train-wreck factor which isn’t sufficient.

    @Stilts: GL with this one and kudos for sticking with it. FWIW, I do plan to check your reviews to see where this ends up.

    daikama
  8. It is clear at this point Comet Lucifer probably started off as a two cour show before being shoved into a single season. The tell-tale sign IMO is the show components. By themselves all the individual parts of the show are fine, there is clearly a plot and a structure to move the plot forward with character development and world building. The issues are size and pacing. Rather than cut the story down to a manageable size, it appears the writers decided to keep everything as is and simply accelerate each act’s introduction, sacrificing buildup in the process. As a result we have this jumbled mess of characters and ideas hardly built upon or explained, a story that grows increasingly chaotic as depth is abandoned in favour of horizontal expansion.

    I am no pessimist, but I cannot see things improving much from here on out. There is simply not enough time to do the SoL Lucifer is determined to give us while properly fleshing out the story linking back to Felia and why others are after her. I’m going to stick with Comet Lucifer, but it’s going to take some fantastic recovery work to set this show back on the right path. Just too many ideas and not enough time.

    Pancakes
    1. They probably wanted to have it be 2-cour, just from the type of story it seems to want to be. But one they didn’t get that … I don’t know, I feel like if such a huge element is going to be out of your control (as a storyteller), you plan what you’re going to do if you don’t get the time you need. Have an alternate version of the story that’s incredibly streamlined, for instance, or say, “2-cour or I’m not doing it.” Not cram. Angel Beats mostly got away with that, but Charlotte failed utterly (not the least because its foundation wasn’t as solid). This is looking more like Charlotte by far.

      I might be covering the Charlotte of this season. I guess I really did defeat Zephy and take over his blogging powers, Highlander-style.

      1. Angel Beats was good but could have been so much better it was very clear to me watching it that it jumped way to fast to the end game after introducing a huge cast of characters.

        RedRocket
      2. I recall something similar happened with the Galilei Donna anime. The staff said the story was planned to be 20+ episodes, but their producers suddenly cut them down to 1 cour. They said therefore it was necessary for them to compress their planned story into 1 cour.

        zztop
  9. Feels more like this anime is suddenly about Captain Gus going around and putting together his motly crew than it is about Sogo and Kaon finding out anything about Felia and Moura (that seemed to truly matter anyway, given the way the whole “Felia is the breath of the planet” bit was just brushed off as joke fodder). And is there really much point to having mechs in this at all? Doesn’t really feel like you’d be missing anything if you took them out.

    It feels like they’re trying to do some sort of Chaika imitation but…yeah…

    HalfDemonInuyasha
    1. I was thinking that. Cap’n Gus seems like the one with the quest, not Sougo and crew. They’re just faffing about.

      As for the mechs, I’m not against them being in there, but they do seem like they’re cluttering up the narrative in most instances. The end of ep1/beginning of ep2 fight featured them well enough, but they were clutter here. Mechs aren’t bad, it’s just that they’re one more element in an already schizophrenic story at the moment.

      1. I also forgot to mention how the villain of the week also felt like some sort of attempted copy of Shū Tsukiyama from Tokyo Ghoul – resembles him, has a weird psycho perverse attraction to a main character for a weird reason, and the random spouts of French.

        HalfDemonInuyasha
  10. How house size remotely controlled mecha can balance weight and walk on the steel rope is beyond me. Also wtf, cat pigeons, cars with caterpillar tracks. This supposed to be best season anime, not f*****g japanese Alise in Wonderland or SpongeBob SquarePants.

    BBD
    1. If I may offer my opinion, Spongebob Squarepants is quite good. Comet Lucifer is not.

      Kinda doing Spongebob a disservice by comparing it to this show.

      I get the point though.

      legwkio
      1. If I might add to your addition, I would say that Spongebob Squarepants was good, back during what they call the “Hillenburg Era” – Stephen Hillenburg, that is – before it went off the rails and now it’s just being milked for every last dollar they can squeeze. Damn shame, that is.

        Ryan Ashfyre
  11. Wow. Even Dragon Crisis way back when didn’t crash and burn this fast.

    I’ll give credit where credit is due. The action is by and large fairly well done, if far too much in the vein of a late 90s/early 2000s show. If you can stomach mecha flying in the air on surfboards, mecha balancing on cables isn’t that much of a stretch. Frankly, the show has far, far worse problems, many of which Stilts points out above… somewhat ironically, given that this does the exact opposite of what he complained about in his Heavy Object post, and repeatedly writes the most contrived ways to get the protagonists in trouble. It really doesn’t help that as of this point we actually know more about the rogue’s gallery being gathered by the loose cannon who is being funded and armed by a splinter faction of the army-ish antagonist organization which… somehow is doing absolutely nothing, despite the protagonists being anything but on the down-low. And when said rogue’s gallery consists of Psycho Killer Shota and Yandere Lolicon Hacker, that’s… not good.

    It compares even less favourably, I suspect, because just about all the other mecha anime this season are just that much better. Gundam Orphans and Fafnir of course, but Heavy Object at least has better characters and a smoother plot, and even Aquarion Logos does better than this by a mile – and that’s not something I thought I’d ever say after that show meandered for nearly 10 episodes with Pretty Cure-esque enemies and an almost omnipotent main character.

    It doesn’t do anything really on other fronts either. As a future fantasy, Asterisk frankly does better; and especially with how little this show seems to care about it’s own setting past inexplicably feline avians, it’s not going to approach Aria the Avvenire as a pretty planet exploration.

    …so yes. I think I just typed myself into deciding I’m done with this show for the time being. -_-

    Corin
    1. I was actually going to mention that (with regards to my Heavy Object complaints), but there was so much more to get to. I still do think that coincidence that gets characters into trouble is all right, whereas coincidence that gets them out is cheating—to a point. Randomly running into a known adversary in a market is one that’s always been borderline to me. I always feel like I can sense the hand of the storyteller too much if the protagonists get THAT unlucky, though it can still work on occasion (especially if it’s unexpected, and the following action is worth it).

      Here, though, they randomly run into an UNKNOWN and NEW adversary. What’s more, he wouldn’t become an adversary if not for this! That’s over the line to me.

  12. didn’t actually mind the wonky parts of early episode (Shogo throwing that broom was stupid but I didn’t mind it that much when it happened). The slice-of-life montage was actually pretty cute too. For me the episode went from tolerably average to steep downhill when the extremely bad cookie-cutter yandere lolicon guy started going “mademoiselle”. That downhill ended up amplifying the wonky parts from the start too and by the end of it I just found nothing enjoyable about the whole episode.

    Also, I found it in very bad taste that the weirdo lolicon going loco with the city’s security/whatever system and causing large-scale mayhem was played for laughs in the end. All he got from it was a silly hairdo by cut cable car cable (how…).
    (To be fair he might get what he deserves later in the series but is that enough justification for viewers being forced to suffer more screentime for him? Not in my opinion)

    Erimaki
  13. haha Stilts, nice screengrab of the man ass.

    https://randomc.net/image/Comet%20Lucifer/Comet%20Lucifer%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2014.jpg

    so this guy’s a perv, huh?

    https://randomc.net/image/Comet%20Lucifer/Comet%20Lucifer%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2026.jpg

    cat pigeons? meow!

    https://randomc.net/image/Comet%20Lucifer/Comet%20Lucifer%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2005.jpg

    This was definitely way too villain of the week sort of episode, and not sure if they could waste an entire episode on this (even though he joined the villain team at the end). I hope it picks up next week otherwise it’s gonna be a real mess towards the end.

    Bamboo Blade Cat
  14. Wow, Stilts, harsh.

    But I can’t say I disagree with it. This was one of those episodes where the more you thought about it, the stupider it became. I mean, where do you even begin? The large amount of nonsensical elements? Like the ghost-cat pigeon from nowhere, the doors on a cablecar that open in mid-air, the wires that are strong enough to hold two mechs, the way the city gets hacked? Or the incredibly lame SAO-style villain? The fact the plot still isn’t going anywhere? The vapid (Felia), boring (the main characters, the other antagonists) or annoying (that stupid worm) characters?

    I gave this show a chance. I wanted it to be good. It certainly had decent building blocks! But, no. After three episodes, I give up. I don’t care what happens to these characters. The moment I caught myself ranting at all the idiocy this episode was throwing at us was the moment I decided this wasn’t going to pass the three-episode rule.

    I’ll still read the blog posts to see if there’s anything redeemable about it, but my patience with this show has reached its limit. What a shame.

    Dvalinn
  15. The saddest thing is that in an era dominated by manga/novel adaptations this is one of the few anime- original titles this season – and it’s terrible. This will probably do poorly in BD sales which will only solidify the industries reliance on leaning on proven properties (novels and manga).

    There is nothing inherently wrong with that, except that many novels are recycling the same story of ‘a wish-fulfillment MC goes to some fantasy land or digital environment. Fight hordes, gets girl, et al.’ – because that’s where the money is. It’s like how vampire-based stories were everywhere for a time because you could put out garbage and people would still eat it up.

    It’s telling that the only thing I really care about anymore is the romance (and I use the term loosely) between Kaon and Sougo. There’s really nothing else going on in the show that is even worth a second thought.

    7godeohs
    1. The thing is, originals are always higher risk/reward. It’s like venture capital—you back a bunch of startups that’ll probably fold in the hopes of getting a Dropbox or Uber in there. But the problem is that most anime studios can’t place multiple bets, so when they place one and it doesn’t go well (which is apt to happen on the first one, because they don’t have practice making originals), they can get gun-shy. That’s why P.A.Works is just about the only one that consistently puts out new anime-original works (and maybe Sunrise, though they’re leaning on the Gundam name all the time, which means lower risk AND higher reward).

      We shouldn’t pin all our hopes on anime-originals, because for every Madoka or Shirobako we get, we’re going to get a Glasslip, Charlotte, and by the looks of it, a Comet Lucifer. I think the industry as a whole knows that. But when anime is so damn expensive to make as is, the individual players may continue to shy away from unproven IP.

      1. Sunrises decision to play it super safe with Gundam, Code Geass Akito and Love Live surefire cash ins this year has been pretty disappointing if unsurprising. I mean Gundam The Origin and IBO are really good so far but I fear them becoming a victim of their own successes at this rate this year and further having Bandai farm out its originals like this one and Concrete Revolutio to other studios while Sunrise grows complacent and revels in the easy cash. I know at the very least that they are planning an Accel World original series, that Classical Composer mecha series and Mirai Arise next year but still this calender year could very well end with them creating no new franchises for the first time since I can remember.

        KaiserSoze
  16. The more I read the blog posts of this show on RandomC, the more perplexed my mind becomes as to what the hell the writers and directors are thinking. To me I can’t. I just can’t. I just can’t brain their thought processes at all. Just, what the hell are they even trying to do?

    Y’know, the initial synopsis of the plot on the Fall anime charts pointed towards a story about some kinda ‘revolution’, and that this girl Felia, is supposed to be the key somehow. I imagined it to start out with Kaon and Sougo wandering about discovering Giftjiums amidst some socio-political turmoil, but of course the story had to be crap.

    Oh Goddang it…

    Nishizawa Mihashi
  17. What the problem is with this Show?

    The White side is just Slice of life, as if nothing is happening. No wondering of her Powers, taken the talking Stone as normal. As if it’s everyday life

    The Boy has no background
    the Girl (older) has no background, except she would had be married with this werido, that taken bads in an puplic waterfountain. His C3PO has no background.

    The entire White side has no real background

    in the meantime…

    The Dark Side has cookies…

    they have an ex-War veteran
    an Boy that killed Men in Prison and can still walk free around
    an IT Hacker, that put an entire City in Chaos and caused Deaths, can still walk free around

    So… Witch side is more interesting?

    With Episode 2 the pendulum was heavy in the Dark Side
    and with Episode 3, it overturn the hole balance into Darth Vader, no Imperator

    That is the problem with this Show, and let us not talk about the screenplays so far

    WorldwideDepp
  18. Love the views but yes many flaws. Will give it a bit longer.

    Hate the insane villain as they are often used to put the protagonist at risk in ways that are foolish for the villain.

    RedRocket
  19. What I got out of this is that the planet breathes.

    The PLANET. BREATHES.

    Seriously, whoever wrote this show should not get paid. He should go on a worldwide apology tour. NAO.

    Also, I hope that all of the companies that have been filling my JP Twitter account with Comet Lucifer retweet spam will join him in apologizing to all of us for wasting our time.

    I’m willing to give a show a chance if they take some risks. This isn’t risk-taking, it’s just incoherent nonsense written by an 8th grader who reads too much Jump.

    s_w
    1. Perhaps they want to kill her, so that the Planet collapse. If i speculate it right, then they want to avoid and planet collision. if you take this moon this old men is looking at in the beginning of episode 1, as their Planet of Felia

      or… they only see in her and Big incredible Power Source with two legs

      as if Part A Director do not know what Part B Director has on his plate

      WorldwideDepp
  20. Soooooooooooooo…… I dug up a little bit of info as to who on earth the writer of this show is and well…

    http://myanimelist.net/people/16205/Nomura_Yuuichi

    Now, according to what is stated there, this dude has worked on:

    1) Gundam SEED (eps 23, 30, 34, 39)
    2) Gundam SEED Destiny (eps 5, 6, 10, 11, 16, 17, 26, 28, 34, 40, 46)
    3) Freedom
    4) Eureka Seven (eps 5, 10, 13, 19, 24, 28, 32, 36, 41, 45, 48)
    5) Darker Than Black (eps 3, 4, 15, 16)
    6) Rinne no Lagrange

    + others.

    I don’t know what to make of this. For one, I know of these shows, despite having only seen Darker Than Black S1 & Rinne no Lagrange. Can anyone help out by discussing more of his contribution to these shows? Does anybody still remember the episodes stated? Y’know at the very least, we could use this as a kinda springboard to kickstart some kinda conversation on what not to do when writing a story.

    Nishizawa Mihashi
      1. That was Morosawa and Fukuda’s fault. I’m not saying that this guy is a good writer or anything, but SEED Destiny’s issues start with its director (Fukuda) and its main writer (series composition) Morosawa.

        Kamui
      2. Hmm, so in SEED Destiny’s case, the handling of the show’s overall direction by the director and lead writer led to its perturbing problems correct? Y’know, this situation somewhat reminds me of what they did with Psycho Pass S2 when they took on Kumagai Jun and Tow Ubukata as the writers of the show.

        What is most certain is that, based on what we can observe, since the one in charge of series composition and scripting lays down the overall plot, dialog and the scenarios for the scenes, it can be said that in Comet Lucifer’s case, the writer is doing a rather bad job of setting up the story itself. Then again, that is as far as that can be observed.

        Nishizawa Mihashi
      3. Yes, in Gundam SEED Destiny’s case Morosawa, Fukuda’s wife and was in charge of the Series Composition, was a really incompetent writer and was self-inserting as Lacus (With Fukuda as Kira) There were rumors that she had a beef with Cagalli’s VA and that ended up causing the erratic behavior the character had during GSD. Gundam SEED Destiny was plagued with production problems since the very beginning.

        In Comet Lucifer case, this guy is the Main writer and is doing the Series composition too, and by the looks of it he’s totally incompetent as well. PP S2 is kinda weird in that they made a totally pointless second season and tied the writer and director’s hands in what they could or couldn’t do.

        Kamui
      4. Oh man… Oh lord… So yeah, I looked up a bit more and well… Needless to say, if I ever run a multimedia production company, I sure as hell won’t be hiring those two. Or even this guy working on Comet Lucifer right here.

        Also, what you mentioned on the strict limitations and pointlessness in the production process of PP S2 piques my interest. I don’t know Ubukata’s contributions and influences on GitS: Arise but personally coming from me, I think PP as a whole would’ve benefited more if they consulted with psychologists so that they could better understand and implement psychological principles, since the entire concept is rooted in psychology to begin with. And that yes, my main academic concentration is psychology and I did notice very, very, very, very questionable depictions of concepts that stretch suspension of disbelief- ESPECIALLY when S2 crashed into our faces, my God.

        Nishizawa Mihashi
      5. They were limited because the movie was being produced in parallel in another studio (If you check PP’s credits, you will see that the Movie and the first season have the same studio, but season 2 doesn’t)They couldn’t do anything that would contradict the movie.

        Ubakata is a hit and miss writer. He saved Fafner and that is the only thing that I can confidently say is good since he took reins (S1 second half, the OVA, movie and the currently airing Exodus) Supposedly “The Mardock Scramble” is good but I haven’t watch it so I can’t say, Arise is hit and miss y PP S2 is horrible.

        Kamui
    1. You should be very cautious about assigning either credit or blame for an anime to any particular writer. Anime production is a highly collaborative process and the writers are often serving the creative vision of the director and/or producers. It’s also not unheard of for anime scripts to be altered during storyboarding and other parts of the production process -sometimes rather substantially, as an article translated on the blog of one of my online acquaintances makes clear: https://karice.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/p430/

      Darthtabby
      1. Now that is one thing that I -while conscious of it- have not really come to fully realize? I think that’s the way to put it. Yeah, something like that. It’s like, I know about it, but I wasn’t truly aware of it, especially in anime. Thanks for reminding us of that. I appreciate it, for one. Hmm, if that is so, then not withstanding the poor sequencing of plot points and incompetent dialog, then the introduction of various incompatible elements are most probably an attempt to drive sales I suppose? It could be. Even until now, we still barely know anything about what’s going on behind the scenes. These guys are seriously secretive huh?

        Nishizawa Mihashi
  21. I trust all Bloggers of RC, and i respect all their own Opinion. So even if you write 10.000 times, you do not like Stilts comment for this, then it is your personal opinion. You will not succeed in blackmail (or something alike) him out.

    i am satisfied with the entire RC Bloggers and they have my trust, since i know this Page under Omni. Please respect their thoughts, as they respect ours

    WorldwideDepp

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