{"id":9544,"date":"2011-01-17T01:20:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T07:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/?p=9544"},"modified":"2011-01-17T01:20:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T07:20:01","slug":"first-impressions-fractale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/?p=9544","title":{"rendered":"First Impressions – Fractale"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is no Ghibli, boy. No Ghibli.<\/p><\/div>\n

Yamakan, NoitaminA, original story, etc. The buzz surrounding this has been pretty significant, and with good reason. If you’ve ever wondered what a full anime series made by Hayao Miyazaki would be like (and who hasn’t?), you’ll get a reasonably good idea after watching\u00a0Fractale<\/em>. However, even the grandmaster who created\u00a0Princess Mononoke <\/em>had a few duds like\u00a0Castle in the Sky<\/em>, and this series unfortunately leans a bit more towards the latter in terms of quality. Even so, it’s still quite enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Clain is growing up in a world run by the Fractale supercomputer. It provides for everyone’s livelihood, regardless of whether they actually work or not, in exchange for “praying to the day star”\u00a0a few times each day. It also allows everyone to interact with others through holographic avatars known as ‘doppels’ without leaving their homes. Unlike most people,\u00a0Clain is quite fond of wandering around and one day he rescues a mysterious girl who is being pursued by a rocket zepplin.<\/p>\n

More hikikomori paradise after the break!
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What I Liked<\/h2>\n
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He never smiled like that for a hologram.<\/p><\/div>\n

Setting: <\/strong>I’ve always had a thing for social thought experiments, and I find this one very compelling. This isn’t like\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em> or Star Trek<\/em>,\u00a0which dealt with societies that, although allegorically linked to our own, were still very alien. As social networking sites and cell phones have become ubiquitous, it’s easier than ever to regularly interact with people we rarely (if ever) physically meet. We can filter our associations or even cut ourselves off from them altogether with little to no real consequences. This only started a few years ago, so\u00a0our society is still learning to accommodate. I’m looking forward to this show fleshing out a\u00a0world which is not only fully adjusted to this dynamic, but essentially based around it.<\/p>\n

Protagonists:<\/strong> While so far\u00a0these characters aren’t wholly original, they are something we don’t see often these days. The heroine Phryne is independent, capable<\/a>, and somehow both mysterious and down-to-earth at the same time. She is cute but never tries to be, which is quite rare. Her understated\u00a0strength and femininity are very reminiscent of classic Ghibli heroines. The hero Clain is similarly refreshing and much more realistic than most contemporary anime protagonists. Having been raised by his parents<\/a> through their doppels, he isn’t used to human interaction when he first meets Phryne. He’d likely never met a real woman before, but he adapts very quickly. When she\u00a0walks up to him topless and asks him to help her put medicine on her back, he’s understandably\u00a0flustered<\/a> and has no idea how to react.\u00a0\u00a0However, he manages to overcome the awkwardness of the situation and help her anyway. I’ve seen many men in anime be reduced to blushing, blubbering messes by less and refuse to get anything done out of some false sense of modesty. I really appreciate that what could have easily been a huge misstep became an interesting character moment instead.<\/p>\n

Art and Animation:<\/strong> Yamakan wasn’t just taking notes on the characters and storylines when he was watching Miyazaki’s movies. The flying machines, the character designs and even the grass<\/a> looks like it could be cut out and pasted into almost any Ghibli film and not look out of place. It’s a simple\u00a0and timeless style and animated beautifully, so I have no problem with it.\u00a0If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.
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What I Hated<\/h2>\n
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As effective as having no antagonists, but wastes more time.<\/p><\/div>\n

Harmless Villains<\/a>: <\/strong>There’s a fundamental problem in rolling your comic relief into your antagonists’ characters. If they’re not portrayed as somewhat capable and threatening, there’s no\u00a0perceived\u00a0danger or tension. Even the behavior of the protagonists cannot remedy this. If the heroes are much more competent than their competition, then there’s no struggle and no catharsis. If the bumbling bad guys still manage to cause problems, then it can either come off as forced or just make us hate the people we’re supposed to support for being dumber than dumb. I do get the distinct impression that the folks chasing Phryne were intended to be\u00a0nonthreatening, but even if that’s the case,\u00a0it doesn’t bode well for what’s to come. Even though this is my only real complaint, it has the potential to ruin the rest of the story if not reigned in properly.
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Overall Impressions<\/h2>\n

It’s a little underwhelming after how much of a drama queen Yamakan was being by saying that he’ll\u00a0quit anime if this show\u00a0doesn’t succeed, but I can’t really hold that against the show itself.\u00a0Despite the derivative elements, the execution is very solid and\u00a0there’s enough of an interesting original premise to keep it from feeling like we’ve been here already. There’s a lot of potential here, and I can’t wait to see what they do with it.\u00a0I’m especially looking forward to learning more about the Fractale system’s true nature and why it’s breaking down. However, if that trio in the machine gun blimp is coming along for the ride, it could get pretty bumpy.
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Rating<\/h2>\n

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Yamakan, NoitaminA, original story, etc. The buzz surrounding this has been pretty significant, and with good reason. If you’ve ever wondered what a full anime series made by Hayao Miyazaki would be like (and who hasn’t?), you’ll get a reasonably … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050,31,3,1934],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2011-winter-season","category-anime","category-reviews","category-episode-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}