日本三國

First episode of Fallout: Neo Japan wasn’t half bad lol. I like the premise and the art style is different. Saki was a good woman. Fiery. It’s a shame she had to die but it’s what lit a flame under Aoteru’s ass. Dude was smart but he lacked courage. The state killed his wife and now they’ve given him a goal. In 5 minutes he got the man who killed his wife also executed. Who knows what he could accomplish with a month. A year. It’s gonna be interesting seeing how he reunifies Japan.

It was interesting to see how he resets his emotions, but after how composed he was in front of those responsible for Saki's death, seeing him bawling out when he was alone with Saki's head was so freaking sad. It's sad that he'll finally fulfill Saki's wish, but the trigger was her death.  Saki was badass though, I did not expect her to be able to move the way she did. She and Aoteru would have made the greatest power couple with brains and brawn.  I'm liking the setting of this and the art style is quite unique, this seems like it could be really good. I'm looking forward to seeing how this agricultural officer rises the rank in the military.

A marriage scene in the opening minutes? Romcoms could never! Aoteru & Saki's moments are pure diabetes. Love that bed talk where they talked about their future plans. How Aoteru had only wanted to build a stable live with her. Having said that, this was a post-apocalyptic world and all seemed to be going so well. There must be a catch. Yeah, it came the very next morning where he woke up only to find her beheaded by the corrupt Lord of Home Affairs. The sugar rush had come crashing down HARD. Respect to Aoteru. He had ultimately overcame his rage and got the tax collector killed using nothing but words. It might not have brought Saki back to life but it's a consolation revenge. As corrupt as Taira might be, even he respected Aoteru for this. Looked like her death had inspired him to follow through with her wishes – to reunite the fractured Japan. ___ Interesting fusion of old and new. Pretty much everything gave the impression of a Taisho era but at the end we saw the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge. PS: The woman on the magazine cover had a strong resemblance to Saki's VA. A fun Easter egg on Easter Day.

Favourite first episode of anime I've watched all year. Don't fucking miss it. The episode flew by The moment that animation of Saki ripping that wedding dress info sheet was the moment I knew I was watching greatness. The unique animation felt so satisfying, it was like watching Tatami Galaxy again. The movement of the camera and just how delightful each animation was. I knew Saki was gonna die but fuck me man, she was so cool and beautiful. There's something about the art, the animation, the conversations and the flow of this first episode that really gripped me. I'm a sucker for alternative history and this really was awesome. What a debut.

This might be THE sleeper hit of the season. The story setup is pretty damn interesting. The character(s) (although we only really see 2 so far) are loveable. Aoteru is a nerd but not the cliche, annoying kind. He's genuinely so passionate about knowledge. Hyped as fuck to see what the next episode will bring. And the animation?? It just oozes with style. The passion that went into this project must've been insane.

I'm so over fridging, it's such an outdated and offensive trope. Saki was one of the best thing of this episode and I'm disappointed that we won't see more of her. I sure hope the story will introduce new female characters... That being said I went completely blind and loved almost every minute of this episode. The slow build up, the look of the show which simply stunning, the music almost everything was so great.

*"Women in refrigerators" is a term coined by Gail Simone in 1999 to describe a literary trope which involves female characters facing disproportionate harm, such as death, maiming, or assault, to serve as plot devices to motivate male characters, an event colloquially known as "fridging"*. Based on the description, and frankly the way it has been used 99,9% of the time maybe just use a male character to kill. The best friend, father, uncle whatever. Because you know that there will other male characters down the road. But female characters aren't as present in fiction let alone in mangas, seinen and shonen. So they should stop using the little female characters they do have like this, maybe.

Dare I say, (potential to be) Anime of the Year? Definitely some of the most creative and dynamic animation of the season. The trailers and other promo were stunning and yet, still didn’t do justice. The little bit of color from cigarette and flame as Aoteru said goodbye to Saki, to the falling cherry blossom petals onto the blue sea.  There’s a strong ukiyo-e/wood-block print and ink painting/suibokuga influence. They have a professional calligrapher involved as well. The voice acting was perfect. The characters spoke in regional dialect with a mix of archaic and modern expressions which isn’t at all easy to pull off, but the voice actors sounded as if they were using their natural speech. And what a wonderful OP! Amazing all-around. It might not get much attention here, but it is one of the more anticipated anime in Japan. (Rest of comment in the source material corner.)

Damn! This show has a very bold presentation. It feels a bit reminiscent to Tatami Galaxy in this respect. It's a shame that we've already had to see our goodbyes to Saki. I really liked her fiery spirit. Although I knew that she'd get into major trouble after her stunt, a part of me held onto the hope that they'd perhaps be more forgiving towards women. But no... Now that Aoteru got no reason to hold back anymore, he's going to set this world ablaze.

I wasn’t expecting a show with such a serious-sounding premise and semi-realistic artstyle to be so comedic. The way characters are drawn reminds me of how side characters are sometimes depicted in Zetsubou Sensei. Japan has fallen in this story, but realistically you’d expect other countries to swoop in and try to take over. That doesn’t seem to have happened, so I’m curious how that would be explained. But wow what a first episode. It’s about as impactful as Oshi no Ko’s. That scene in the snow is so sad but beautiful.

The art in this show was really great and the plot wasn't too bad, but I'm very surprised that Amazon was the co producer on this blatantly nationalist anime lol Edit: My gripes: I'm all for another Neo-Sino-Japonese adaptation of 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' (and there are \*many\*), but some things about the show were just so odd. There's no instance in history where a mass influx of refugees caused a societal collapse (an \*efflux\* yes), and the disease comment was frankly a bit sinister. What's more if Japan's economy were so ruined by the depredations of the US, China, and India's AI economy, then why would refugees flood in? And how could technology regress to \*just\* the early Meiji period--after all they still have \*books\* from the present, meaning the knowledge is not lost. This is why collapse narratives always see technology fall \*very far\*, because it's sort of an all or nothing affair--falling back 150 years relative to the present just isn't possible, really. The \*only\* exception I can think of is if the nuclear war in question basically knocked out electricity, and caused global cooling, but this would likely, again, push society well below early Meiji in development. Also, \*where\* are the supposed refugees? Everyone looks distinctly Japanese. If they're so post-Reiwa, why is their language still dotted with anglicisms? And while the 3 kingdoms narrative is necessary for the adaptation, it is not realistic to the Japanese case. If anything, each island would become independent (which is to say nothing of Okinawa, Bonins, etc), and that Honshu would split in two. Obviously suspension of disbelief is necessary for narratives, but this one wants to be somewhat 'realistic', given its source material and premise. This is a common problem with 'speculative science fiction'--the premise and its motivation contradict each other. He wants to tell a story of a revolutionary who fights with words rather than violence, but, basically, because of these social scientific inconsistencies and somewhat reactionary assumptions actually work strongly against that intent.

The official press release describes it as an adaptation of the Three Kingdoms: The scale of degradation is the issue--it is too much to be accounted for by the amount of time that has passed, the clear preservation of knowledge and so on, and it is too little to be accounted for by the factors described. If the series took place 500-1000 years from now, and there was little to no published material left \*then\* the premise would be believable. As for "closing their borders"--even during the so called 'sakoku' period, contact with the outside world was constant, both in recorded documents, AND, non recorded (since it was illegal, records were often fudged or destroyed, but internal complaints about the porousness of Japan's borders throughout this period are a constant). What's more, it had even more mediated and second degree contact than that (through Hokkaido, Satsuma/Ryukyu, Tsushima/Korea, Nanban trade/the Dutch, tally trade/the Chinese). And, more to the point, "refugees flooded in" is explicitly mentioned as concurrent with the rest. Therefore 'Japan remained unspoiled virgin territory cut off from the world that was then destroyed by a flood of refugees, \*after\* the collapse of everything else\* strains credulity. Also, as another point, so called collapses are usually accompanied by \*outflows\* of people (especially if caused by disease and war), AND, for people in the underclass at least, historically their living standards actually rise, not fall. Bone density and nutrition indices after collapses regularly in the Middle East or Rome, for example, should clear signs of improvement after 'collapse', But a nuclear winter or otherwise global climactic collapse would occur everywhere, the population would fall to incredibly low levels if not extinct, there'd be little agriculture possible, and there certainly wouldn't be remaining large scale infrastructure or collection of knowledge. We can guess the writer did not think of them because basically few anime and manga do, whereas they repeatedly use the "China and US betrayal lead to mass influx of diseased refugees" trope (Ghost in a Shell, and Akira both mention these for example). Gintama, while not post apocalyptic, shares many aspects and it basically equates Japan with earth. Space Battleship Yamato is another example. To*wa no Yugure* features an almost identical implausible setting to Nippon Sangoku (though some hand wave explanation is given, and, more to the point, the people inhabiting Japan in that are ethnically diverse). Evangelion gives a slightly more plausible explanation for a similar conceit, but like Akira, and GoiS takes place in a world more similar to ours. Miyazakis post apocalyptic works take place in sui generis locales so do not have this problem (same is true for the various ones taking place underground, in space, on terraformed earths, in the far future etc).

This is the anime I was most looking forward to this season, and unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this first episode very much. It has tones of almost comedy while also trying to make you take the whole situation around the protagonist seriously. It seems to me that all the political intrigues he will face throughout the story are going to be quite boring, because it looks like he will just be quoting lines from some character X in some book (I hope I'm wrong). Someone in the comments here said it reminded them of Orb, and I strongly disagree. In Orb, you would feel fear when an inquisitor came on scene and started interrogating a citizen; here we have a "pseudo idol". Note: before giving a negative vote, give your argument here, your argument might make me see the anime from a different perspective, giving a negative vote and leaving does not help at all.

Standout debut episode to introduce the setting. One big difference that was shown between Atoeru and Saki is that the former is logical and the latter is more emotional. Though her words that Atoeru just lacks courage are important because you can be the smartest person in the world, but if you lack courage, all of that doesn't aid much. As Atoeru learns of the death of his wife, he could have been irrational and led to his death. Technically that is courage, but illogical. As his wife mentioned, he can change the world. He combines his logic with the courage that his late wife wanted him to have. He did an outstanding job of using how corrupt the "Lord of Home Affairs" is against the tax collector. Just assuming that he is what Saki called "Fatso" is an insult to him and is reason enough to kill the tax collector because it was reason enough for Saki to die. Very curious how this anime goes from here. Very intrigued.

- I suppose this is one way to have the series feel like it’s in the past but it’s actually in the future. - I love Tatsuya Kitani’s music. Awesome OP. - Okay this is a fun way of having her interact with the background. - Wait, the library director died only a few days after the wedding? - Saki’s trying to push him into something ambitious, but Aoteru doesn’t want that. Something’s going to happen to Saki, isn’t it… - Good lord… - Oh boy. - Okay fuck this guy. - She’s not wrong. - Fuck, exactly what I was afraid of… - Bro is locking the fuck in now. - At least the tax collector got his comeuppance, but damn… - The ED song is also very pretty. - Aw, he’s cremating Saki in the wedding dress she liked…

Calling it now, this might be THE hidden gem of the season. Very interesting premise and worldbuilding from the onset. Didn't waste time to get you caught up in the fictional setting all while immersing you immediately. As soon as you throw Sun Tzu quotes at me at a point I didn't expect, you have hooked me. I expected Saki to be targeted since the Taira clan seemed to be petty assholes, but I didn't expect they'd outright chop her up out in the blizzard, holy shit. Aoteru's clever revenge was an insane 4D chess move. All that right after he was presented with his wife's head, too. His calm facade was too good, fatso did not see the rage and sorrow Aoteru was hiding behind them. That breakdown scene made me cry a bit too damn it. We didn't get to know Saki much, but already her impact on the story is solidified.

Ok wow what an episode. Of the season so far this probably is the first episode that grabbed my attention the most. I figured the wife Saki was going to die but I loved their dynamic so much I kept thinking she'll gotta live plz somehow but then of course she died. Then, instead of falling into the fire of rage, he instead rationalizes so quickly and his rage turns into a deep, brewing ocean instead and looking to the future. Amazing then, how he stated only facts, no deception, got the tax collector dude executed as well. I had this manga on plan to read but I'm really glad I'm getting to experience this first. I hope the story and quality keeps up and doesn't disappoint because this is a very promising start. I can't wait to see how he unites Japan.