Short Synopsis: Ariabart screwed up, so he now has to face the consequences.
Highlights: No battles this time.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
Okay, first of all, about the rating. After dunno’s comments I got thinking a bit, and I’m experimenting right now with a different rating-scale for episodes, that uses a bit more of the available numbers. I still need to tweak this a bit, but in a nutshell:
5 – lacking
6 – solid, good, but nothing special
8 – excellent
So yes, this episode was pretty much a good one, and I liked it, although it mostly was an episode of building up without any real battles. Over the next few episodes, I’m going to tweak that rating a bit.
In any case, for those who remember my little contest: this series ended up winning it, so it’s going to be blogged Tytania is most likely going to be my “why the heck am I watching this raw”-series of the season, with the huge amount of political dialogue and all.
In a way, I was pretty surprised when I found out that Artland is handling the animation for this series. Still, it might actually be the perfect company for this series: we’ve already seen in Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino that they pretty much suck at fluid and high-budget action-scenes, but these guys really try to make up for it with some excellent fight coordination, which is EXACTLY what this series needs. With this, we’re assured that this series isn’t going to feature some impossibly moving spacecrafts, but instead a very large focus on tactics. I mean, the animation of To Aru Majutsu no Index was nice and all, but in essence it’s just about a bunch of people who throw a bunch of photoshop-filters at each other until one of them goes down, which isn’t really my idea of an excellent action-series.
And there’s also that strange talent of Artland to choose the exact soundtrack that fits their series the best. Apart from perhaps Happiness or Hakushaku to Yousei, each of their soundtracks has fit the mood of their series perfectly: the very subtle natural sounds in Mushishi, the dreamy music of Bokura ga Ita, the folky music for Il Teatrino. And Tytania really has a soundtrack that screams “build-up” and “epic”, which basically is the essence of this series.
In any case, about this episode. I managed to pick up that Fan Hulic was supposed to lose his battle of the previous episode, because of some deal that his superior had made with the Tytania-family, which brings even more shame to Ariabart. If I understood correctly, this means that Ariabart will be degraded in ranks, and he’s going to have to keep an eye on Fan Hulic. The question is of course: if any other member of the Tytania-family would have commanded that ship, would he have lost as well?
Since when did turning on sprinklers to ruin ink equate into throwing photoshop fillers at each other. Here’s a tip, when you want to talk up a series do it without having to bash another one and if you do bash one do it right.
I know such problems with rating systems, cause I do this for fun with some of my friends after watching some anime. Since some years it tunred out to be 4/5 oder rarely 5/5, cause from the very beginning only interresting animes find their way to the tv. In the end, I think it’s normal, that your favourite animes are ranking from 8/10 to 9,5/10 only in the most cases.
The 6/10 ranking shocked me first, because you rarely use that scale, and my first thought was: “must be a very bad episode this time”.
Maybe you reconsider about your old rating-system… 🙂
As for ratings, I think the simpler the better, so I’d suggest a simple 1-to-5 scale with a detailed explanation, which you already do anyway. 🙂
The soundtrack for Tytania is a little TOO epic for my taste… or rather, it’s a quite in-your-face sometimes. I don’t want to keep comparing this show to LoGH (despite all the similarities), but now I admire even more the producers’ decision for LoGH to use classical music as BGMs.
>>Westlo
What’s your problem? He didn’t bash anything, simply commented on different animation types and qualities.
Oh wow I always have trouble with ratings as well. I really dislike MAL’s 1-10 scale because I think there are too many options. Personally I like a 1-5 scale
5- Excellent
4- Very Good
3- Average
2- Poor
1- Horrible
Or something like that
Although I do like how you use a normal grading scale out of 100 for the final review of the series.
Something of tyranny of choice in having a 1-10 scale. I think 1-5 is a little more workable, or even just a verbal scale.. like ‘Must Watch’ or Entertaining but missable … even… ‘meh’.
Everyone is gonna have their own opinion of a series and while it’s our role as writers/bloggers to give our own, there will always be those who disagree. Still better to give our own views and let others make up their own mind with or without it. And if they ignore it… ‘meh’ 🙂
Lol you just can’t get these rating systems down can you psgels? 😛
I prefer a boolean scale:
– (0) BAD
– (1) GOOD
I haven’t seen Tytiana but from it’s screenshots It’s 2d work looks to be hardly anything special.
Still I think it’d be good to point out that Artland did Mushishi, one of the most beautifully animated shows of the past few years. In Japanese studios with few exceptions, it’s really about who animates what, not really which studio cause aside from a few, most Japanese studios just aren’t good at doing animation at all.
(Seems harsh I know, but I’m from the western school).
Still Tytaina looks cool, never seen LOTH but it’s been a while scince i’ve seen such a sci fi show.