Fafner: Dead Aggressor

[Sunrise Lord]

Halfway through this.  Found it on Hulu, and both dubbed and subbed versions are available.  It's a futuristic anime, complete with mechas.  Basically, Earth has been invaded by gigantic golden aliens called "Festum" who have overrun humanity, and completely wiped out Japan.  The mechas are used to fight Festum, but not without consequences.  The majority of the plot takes place on a mobile island, home to the last remaining Japanese people on Earth.  I really like this anime because of its emotional depth, and philosophical tone overall.  Anyone else?

[Guest]

i watched the theme song on youtube, and as it usually goes, i liked it so i bought the anime immediately - huge mistake. in my opinion the show doesn't have any originality - it's basically a soulless and linear evangelion. enemies barely have any variety and no real explanation - you can get away with that when you story focuses on more profound elements such that explanations for certain things in the universe are not necessary or really wanted, but you dont get that with this series. the animation is mostly boring and ugly, only interesting thing was some of the effects and movements of the machines, it seemed like they could have gone somewhere with the few loose mythological elements they were using, but they crap it up with a horrible ending that does not tie anything together or make any meaningful statements about the plot elements or about any parallels to the real world. the only redeeming quality is the deaths - they arent afraid to kill characters - but the tepid reactions to most of them, probably as a result of bad dubbing and bad animation together, sort of ruins it. so sort of like i already said, the series had potential if it had actually made good on any of the foreshadowing or made some sort of strong moral or philosophical statements using the appropriated cultural motifs or even if they just had better animation and good action, but the latter was made clear it lacked from the beginning while the last few episodes showed they decided to take the route of most japanese animations and just be an incomprehensible and pointless mess of stolen names and unoriginal ideas.

 

if you hadnt watched it already, i would recommend neon genesis evangelion - the original series, not any of those reboots. like i mentioned, fafner basically copies it but unlike fafner it has interesting and disturbingly real characters and goes into freudian/jungian psychology, which  is not too evident in the first part of the series so its somewhat an unsettling treat when it takes that weird and dark turn later on.

 

heres some clips:

 

 

the audio on this one is from the actuall show, wasnt editted:

[Sunrise Lord]

I have seen the original Evangelion, and while there are similarities, I wouldn't say that Fafner is an exact copy.  Perhaps I enjoyed it more than you did due to the fact of your being quite a bit more well-versed in mythology than I am.  :)

[Guest]

i dont think its an exact copy but there is both a clear inspiration and a lot of the same plot devices - alien-like entities with mythologicaly-inspired designs suddenly start attacking an isolated bastion of mankind and its up to some kids with giant robot/robot-like entities to fight them off. i just think it had bad direction and the animation/character design was ugly but i am definitely not a fan of most of the style of japanese animation that seemed popular in the early and mid 2000s such as fafner

 

i could have somewhat forgive though i would still have complained about not going anywhere with the mythology involved if it wasnt for the first two things - they could have added artistic value to their show by somehow tying more of the legend connected to the name fafner into the plot somehow, but by failing to do that, it only hurt it in the end by helping to make it as nondescript and un-outstanding as many other mecha animes.