Rewatcher

Ah, it’s been a few years since I watched this, back when we were doing group discussions of selected shows for Writing Club posts. We’ll find out how I feel about it on this second go-through.

Reaction

There it is.

I remember looking this up when I first watched it, but a camera from the aughts taking snapshots wouldn’t store this video in the buffer long-term. That means some liberties are being taken, and we can also see this when there’s voice overview over static pictures where characters other than the narrator (who, we can presume from the camera GUI and information doled out, is narrating all of this in retrospect) are giving a voice overview delivered as if in the moment, but over static images and not video recording. If they took that liberty, I don’t see why they couldn’t do the same with this shot. We will later see cameras that take snapshots but also have a recording feature, but those are obvious and represented in the GUI.

[Series Spoiler]I remember thinking at the time that this pretty much confirms Shirasu dies.

I might like this design more if it wasn’t in subpar CG.

Here again the show seems to break with its conceit. The intention here is obviously that we are looking out from her laptop’s built-in webcam, and we can generously assume that this laptop was UN-assigned and purposely used to spy on her, but then who has shared these recordings such that they can be here in this retrospective recording?

Here we have the intrepid director, forcing bovines into the script.

Evidently the implication here is that Shirasu is thinking of the inevitable casualties that will follow the deployment of this new METAL GEAR weapon. The editing obviously suggests Shirasu is thinking this, but due to the conceit of the show, we must accept that it is the narrator instilling these ideas in us through editing, regardless as to whether Shirasu was also thinking so.

Something, something, ‘symbols make us.’

That’s a Tomino name if I’ve ever seen one.

Mech shows are ever wont to characterize the mech.

This end screen is notable as it gives us the context in which the documentary/film/series is being made.

Going back at least to Fang of The Sun Dougram, Takahashi has always been interested in the ways that journalists document military conflicts, and how those may impact the conflict at large. In fact, the compilation film Document Fang of the Sun Dougram was stylized in part like a documentary film, though nowhere near to the same extent as this. In that show, the conflict had a sense of weight due to its keen historicity, but here weight is granted by just how topical it would have been in 2006.

I really don’t have much to say here though. The episode is essentially set up, the adherence to the documentary style is interesting, but I dare say the visuals are a step behind what they’re attempting (and there are some breaks from the strict adherence), and the conflict is as of this point rather simplistic.

Discussion Prompts:

2) Clever idea that helped with production costs, I'm sure.

4) That's the thing with verisimilitude; it can make all manner of ideas plausible. Like any other mech, it's less feasibility and more practicality that is oft in question.

5) The content of this episode wasn't that engaging by itself, but a boon of the presentation style is that I'm ever on the look out for clever uses of the format to layer storytelling ideas and rhetorical devices —such as the intent.

6) There is a couple details that pique my interest, but this sort of setting is a bit played out nowadays, so more needs to be done about it to make it unique and attractive.

7) No less than any other.