Daily Archives: Friday, January 14, 2011

Fractale – Episode 1

By | January 14, 2011 at 3:17 pm | 1 comment

So it’s time for my first show of 2011, and it happens to be Fractale.  This is an 11 episode series about a “Fractale System” that is beginning to collapse, and a boy finds a girl, and they go on a journey, and that’s about all I know other than the fact that it sounds interesting and it has pretty art.  I know that those don’t guarantee a good show, but it’s also amazing how much having good art and having a well thought out story correlates to each other.

Weird girls are weird. But still hot.

Weird girls are weird. But still hot.

So we got some information already:  The fractale system is basically an internet of trillions of computers networked together, and people can basically get a living wage by installing a terminal within their body and uploading their “life log” to a central server.  While we didn’t get any direct evidence of this, I’m assuming the dopples have something to do with the fractale system as well.

Speaking of the dopples, it seems like it’s the whole “connecting remotely” thing taken to it’s logical extreme, where even family members don’t live together, but are still able to communicate and interact via remote means.  Why people like Clain’s parents (and most of the other people who hang around town) use dopples, I’m assuming we’ll find out later, but it seems that it’s out of convenience or perhaps some obligation to the fractale system.  One can’t help but think that there is some catch to the whole “sending your life log for cash” thing, though.

As for Phyrne, I’m assuming we haven’t seen the last of her, and it is strongly suggested that she is a time traveler.  The question is, is she from the past or future?  Clain said that the pendant she was wearing was very old, I think, so it would be interesting if we had a time travel story, but the traveler came from the past instead of the future.  And what was up with the girl popping out of the pendant at the end?

Overall, the animation (and Phyrne’s flying machine) remind me a lot of Ghibli’s work, and Nausicca particularly.  It’s kind of a nice change of pace animation style, though, with kind of an older animation style, but still with good animation quality as far as I could tell (though the stream was somewhat choppy).  I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this series goes.

Oreimo: Episodes 11 and 12 [END]

By | January 14, 2011 at 12:16 pm | 1 comment

Kirino decides to be an ass while Manami visits, then tries to make up for it later.  In the finale, Kirino seems especially nice toward Kyou, and we soon find out why with her wanting him to go buy some eroge at midnight.  But we soon learn there is a reason for that too: she’s planning on going to America for track training the next day.

Gotta give the siscon people at least a few bones

Gotta give the siscon people at least a few bones

I think Kirino may be a hair jealous of Manami, there.  Either than or she just likes being an asshole.  Though it might be nice if Manami and Kyou actually decided to get it on.  And wait, how does Kirino know where Kyou’s porn is stashed?  Anyway, it’s nice that Kirino finally thanked Kyou for everything he’s done for her later, though it kinda got weird at the end with Kyou crying and Kirino giving him a siscon ero game lol.  At least we finally got to see the three girls in the maid outfits from a couple episodes ago.  This was definitely the best episode in this series for quite a while, and I laughed much of the way through.

In the last episode, it was pretty good I guess. A lot of series don’t know what to do for a final episode, but this one pulled it out pretty nicely, and left it wide open for a sequel as well.  And yes, I think this show is good enough for me to look forward to a sequel as well.  I had to laugh at Kyou’s friend buying a “homo game” as they put it for his middle school sister too.  Though, c’mon Kyou, wasn’t your reaction a bit harsh towards your friend, even if he was the one into those games?

As for overall thoughts, while kind of being marketed as a siscon show, I really don’t think this was one.  Yeah, there were a few awkward moments, and maybe Kirino has a little thing for Kyou (I think more than he has for her.  I legitimately think he has more of a thing for Manami), but there wasn’t anything major.  I know it might be weird for some people to conceive of, but there are some siblings who do actually have a good relationship with each other.  And while I’m definitely not opposed to siscon shows if done tastefully, I’m definitely not disappointed or anything by this show not going down that route.  I think there were a few episodes coming down the stretch that really weren’t necessary, but I think overall this series ended up being a pretty good one.