#beatless kouka

[dailyfigures]

Kouka ; Beatless ☆ Good Smile Company

[thefigureresource]

Kouka - Beatless

Release: January 2024

Manufacturer: Good Smile Company

Size: 1/8 scale, 12.5in

[idontthinkimokaymentally]

Hello there Kouka fans.

[arbitrarygreay]

Anime vs. PoI

While watching anime with @mimeparadox, one of the things that has guided my selection of shows is our shared fandom for Person of Interest, and as much our shared frustration around how PoI ultimately dropped the ball on its themes around ASI and how our world is indelibly changed by advancing technology. So, enjoy this rundown of "Can this anime do better than PoI?" One of the interesting things about this "project" is that we still love PoI despite its thematic flaws because PoI continued to have a strong command over storytelling fundamentals: making us invested in its characters and their relationships. That's not so rare in this age of Prestige TV, but what put PoI over the top was that it then still had some fairly novel levels of hard-ish science fiction in its plotting. What we get in anime is often that they can explore their science fiction ideas far more thoroughly and in novel-to-audiovisual-media ways, but mostly don't end up meeting the standard PoI sets for character and relationships. GITS:SAC 2D: Have not watched the Oshii Movie, Arise, or the new 3D SAC seasons. Yes, I think this is better than PoI. Really digs into what's happening with civilians on the ground, and how they're still getting screwed over by governments and corporate greed (ballooning housing and healthcare costs, same as always), in novel ways enabled by new technologies. Meanwhile, the members of Section 9 all have vibrant personalities and distinct interaction dynamics, which really gives this show the edge over most of the other anime on this list, which tend to beat out PoI on the sci-fi side at the expense of traditional character and relationship narrative work. Dennou Coil: Yes, better than PoI! Excellent character and relationship work makes all that it's trying to say about technology look effortless. On the other hand, PoI never put Bear in such danger. Kaiba: The best cyperpunk show ever. Is it better than PoI? It undoubtedly far surpasses PoI in how much it delves into transhumanism, and the stand-alone early episodes are pretty devastating, thanks to them going beyond Black Mirror in exploring the true depths of the technology's implications. Unfortunately, it kind of whiffs the landing on the main characters in the back half, so PoI retains the edge there in terms of my emotional investment. Beatless: The best show about AI on this list. Adapted from novels, it has the most novel depiction of writing about AI you've ever seen in television or film. Zero dumbing down of hard scifi novel explorations of its concepts. Very much superior to PoI in that regard. But, the characters are pretty bland, with the exception of Kouka, and the wasted potential of Shiori. They even have bargain-bin Vigilance! The strength of the ideas Beatless wants to convey managed to make me root for these potatoes, which is nothing to sniff at, but it means that I would only want to rewatch the parts of Beatless that dealt with those ideas directly, whereas I can watch so much more of PoI and feel a higher level of joy at it, instead of just cognitive interest. Gatchaman Crowds: Superior to PoI in its exploration of social media, from gameified altruism incentives to mob dynamics' deleterious effect on democracy. However, the characters are nothing but discussion mouthpieces. Most of them are outright annoying. For that reason, while it provides a lot of discussion value, it has very low narrative investment or rewatch value. Orbital Children: Orbital Children comes really close to unequivocally doing better than PoI, only hobbled by its quite limited runtime, which cuts short how well they can develop their themes. Still, Orbital Children makes a strong effort at both its ambitious ideas (corporate sponsored space technology, ASI Asimov-esque Psychohistory) and their characters and relationships. As expected from Dennou Coil's creator. Expelled from Paradise: Explores a post-Singularity world, and so gets to dive into the lovely technology implications there that PoI could never. Unfortunately, they had to make their main character a KuguRie twintailed tsundere with The Worst Shoes in order to get this movie made. If you can ignore that, though, the character and relationship work isn't bad at all, even if this being a single movie means that it obviously can't build those as much as PoI can. Katsuhiro Otomo's Memories: Magnetic Rose, the only section to apply to this list, is undeniably gorgeous, but its tricks have basically been all pilfered by live-action, and at this point isn't so different from a standout Doctor Who episode. Is it better than PoI, though? Character and relationships, no, by dint of its shorter running time. Having something to say about technology, no. But it does have stronger aesthetics, since it isn't constrained by a crime procedural setup. Here is our turning point, where the shows below this are unequivocally not better than PoI. Summer Wars: This is the only entry on this list where it's here on the strength of the character and relationship dynamics, rather than the world-building or themes around technology. Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song: Extremely pretty animation. The action scenes are undeniably cool. However, the writers never explore any of their ideas to the depths of the other series, but think that they're getting pretty deep, which in turn makes us care about the characters less than they had the potential to do. Still, I would absolutely rather more creators shoot for their own stars with such confidence and style as this. The show goes a long way on that confidence alone, with the cracks only showing because I was hoping that it could do better than PoI, and so really interrogated those ideas. Tezuka's Metropolis: Basically here only on the strength of its animation and world-building, because the character/relationship work is thrown all out of whack by the finale. The devoted focus on the central relationship between Tima and Kenichi also means that its ideas about AI are really basic, with any novel implications happening in the background based on the environments. Deca-Dence: "I would absolutely rather more creators shoot for their own stars with such confidence and style as this", I just said up there about Vivy. Well, now I have to eat crow, because this show is that, but the writers think that their ideas, their world-building, and their character/relationship work are WAY better than the actual execution was. This show is shallow and hollow. I will, however, laugh forever that even like this, anime can do Westworld way better than Westworld with a fraction of the development time and budget. Even with all of this criticism, Deca-dence understands MMO dynamics and how they interact with society infinitely more than Nolan has given lip service to, but has not demonstrated. Speaking of bloviating about tech without actually understanding it... Serial Experiments Lain: I dislike this show. Towards the end, I actively resented watching this show. The basic storytelling (character/relationship) is so crappily executed, especially in the wake of Prestige TV raising the bar on integrating those elements with arthouse aesthetics, and its predictions around technology have aged so badly. Worse than "Peter and Valentine Wiggin, powered by Blogspot" aged badly. This guy knows so many buzzwords and conspiracy theories and whatever, but has zero conception of how any of that technology actually works, in ways that sabotage the story he's trying to tell. So I can't take any of it seriously, not even as a metaphor for the character/relationship stuff, which again, is crappy executed anyways. I get the impression that this guy would be all in on crypto and NFT but couldn't explain a blockchain to save his life. Getting addicted to 8chan will not give you superpowers, fam, no matter how autistic you are. Injecting it directly into your brain is just wireheading. The goggles, they do nothing! Have not watched Megazone 23 Lupin Part 5 Psycho-pass Time of Eve Casshern Sins Atom: The Beginning Robot Carnival (low priority) Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (very low interest in watching) Zankyou no Terror (very low interest in watching) Ergo Proxy (not interested in watching) Texhnolyze (not interested in watching)

[elli-psis]

[its-more-than-just-a-fantasy]

[justintaco]

[laguzmage]

[Vihuela intensifies, livestream edition]

[laughconfetti]

*spanish guitar plays as I enter your 23rd story window in order to discuss anarchy*

[superchat]

Albino Koukas saves the day

[maxkaoruklaus]

Beatless 

[my-anime-goods]

New Beatless Goods by Diomedea Mug and PuniColle! Acrylic Keychains

Release Date: 22 June 2018

[oh-those-ocean-eyes]

[gurikajis]

[zu2totheju]

Fanart Kouka Beatless

[renakurisumasu]