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There are a few more introductions to
get through which are fine to watch but boring as all hell to write
about. I'm not sure if they're equally boring to read about. (If they are, skip to the next post.) Here goes.
We pick up at night in a snowy place,
there are snow laden pines in the foreground and mountains in the
background. The sound track is music with a sort of carnival sound.
Tskasa is riding something called a grunty which I'm not entirely
sure how to describe. It's like, a small furry cartoon hippopotamus
perhaps? This one is Yellow. It walks into a wall, backs up
recovers in that way cartoon things do, then walks back into the
wall. Tsukasa remarks with amusement on it's lack of intelligence,
and then we cut to an oasis in a desert during day.
Tsukasa looks around, thinks he's
alone, and throws something into the water. That summons a water spirit thingy who starts what is
presumably a preprogrammed conversation. I'm not entirely sure what
the gameplay was supposed to be, because Tsukasa isn't interested. He
takes a few swipes at the water NPC with his staff and it dodges and then disappears. And
that that point I finally get what he's doing.
He's playing the game wrong for fun. Playing with the game instead of playing it. I'm not going to judge, sometimes when I feel bad I rain nuclear
annihilation on stone age civilizations. (Empire Earth II allows for
massively unbalanced wars, if you want them.) We all have our means
of coping.
I mentioned last post that there's one
time in this episode where I wasn't sure if Tsukasa reacted with fear
to the arrival of a new person. This is it. Sometimes when I watch
this I am convinced that his initial reaction is fear. Other times
I'm convinced that it definitely wasn't fear. This most recent
viewing my position is that Tsukasa is not afraid here. He still
will prepare to be attacked though.
Either way, he hears laughing behind
him and turns to see a swordsman, Bear. I haven't talked a lot about
player appearances but it might be worth noting that Bear probably
has the least clothing of anyone in the series. Instead much of his
bare upper body, as well as much of his face, is decorated with blue
body paint. It seemed worth mentioning.
He asks if Tsukasa is having fun,
comments that he does the same thing when he's feeling down, and
offers to help out saying that he's always helping newbies. Tsukasa
leaves without a word. Bear comments to the empty space that was
certainly a very shy person.
And now for the first non-Tsukasa
conversation in the series. BT, who like Tsukasa is a wavemaster,
walks up and isn't happy that Bear apparently left in the middle of a
fight. Bear points out she won anyway, there's some back and forth
ending with a statement on Bear's part that will be repeated much
later in the series in a different context. It is translated as,
“Oh, I am gentle, but not a pushover,” it works here where it's
in response to an accusation that he's not being a gentleman, but
makes no sense when repeated later.
I prefer a fan translation I saw once
where it is, “Oh I am nice, but not soft,” because that can fit
both the original and the call back. I should see if I can find that
fan translation again.
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And then we come to Venice. Actually
it's called Mac Anu, but Mac Anu probably means nothing to most
people while Venice ought to give a good idea of what it looks like.
Both the buildings and the canals remind me of Venice. I think we
can be pretty sure that's intentional.
On a boat Subaru, the leader of the
Crimson Knights, is speaking with Silver Knight.
Subaru: The other day, I had a
chance to speak with Lord Orca. He is also concerned about the
recent situation in The World.
Silver Knight: The increased
number of users has caused a decline in morality.
Subaru: That's not it. However
he said he can't reveal any details yet. He also said he will work
with Lord Balmung to find out more.
Lord Orca will never appear in the
series, Lord Balmung will appear only briefly. While we, the
viewers, don't know anything about them (unless we've followed other
parts of the franchise) Silver Knight and Subaru both do and it's
clear they have high opinions of both of them. They also draw
completely different conclusions based on those two being involved.
Silver Knight's position is that if
those two are on the case then there is clearly nothing to worry
about. Subaru's position is that if the case is big enough for those
to be working on it then it's definitely worth worrying about.
They can't get into discussion of the
relative merits of those two positions because what to Silver
Knight's wondering eyes should appear but Tsukasa, sitting by himself
at the side of the canal.
Silver Knight can apparently make his
eyes (red lenses in his helmet) glow. Which is neat. Tsukasa runs
(actually runs, instead of warping) away, and Silver Knight says a
melodramatic line:
It is not easy to act in the name
of Justice.
This is actually the halfway point, and
I'm going to break the post here.
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