This series has spent the last two episodes building up a lot of important plot points, including the revelation that losing in the Financial District can change this world’s reality. However, the real interesting plot point from the past two episodes has been the expanded explanation regarding the activities of the Guild. While it certainly seems possible for Mikuni to control the financial district and save Japan’s economy at the same time on paper, in practice it seems as though it is only a matter time before his house of cards come tumbling down.

Mysu is still great, but the animation quality really took a dive this episode.

The whole concept of winning only by a small margin for the greater good certainly is does bring to mind the specter of Communism. Opinions on Communism aside, most people are generally happy as long as their piece of the pie isn’t affected, and that seems to be the case at the moment with the Guild members in the Financial District. Further, by entering the Guild, entres are entering into an agreement that reduces their risk of going bankrupt, though the rewards are also tempered (though that is something real financial analysts theoretically strive for).

Unfortunately, it seems like the status quo cannot be maintained, since, if I remembering correctly, the size of a Financial District is based on the strength of country’s economy. At this point, it seems like one of two things could lead one world to “destroy” the other. First, the whole basis of Mikuni’s plan is to get as many people to get join the Guild as possible and then control it. Assuming that Mikuni eventually does gain control over most of Japan’s Financial District, what would happen if Japan’s economy suddenly collapsed. It would seem that the amount of resources available to the members of the Guild would then decrease, and Mikuni would no longer be able to assure everyone of their security. This lack of faith in the future of the Guild, and more importantly the strength of the Financial District, would likely set off a chain reaction in which everybody started working for themselves.

Yeah... about this scene.

However, the more likely scenario is that someone in the Financial District, and likely in the Guild, is going to get a bit too greedy. Five episodes in, and I don’t really know what to make of Mikuni. I mean, on face, he seems like a good guy saving Japan and all, but where does he get all that money if everyone is only winning by only slim margins. There were some hints in this episode that there are some sort of membership dues or fees to belong to the Guild, but I get the feeling that Mikuni is only using a large swath of the Guild for his own personal gain. Now should he be found out, or some other person screw over the system, Mikuni’s source of funds that have been propping Japan up would disappear, and the aforementioned scenario would likely play out.

Regardless, I don’t think we know enough about the Financial District to make any concrete predictions for sure, and as always, my predictions are just something to mull over. At any rate, this show certainly does provide for some interesting social commentary. Obviously, people’s pasts being erased as well as their impact on the real world certainly makes you think about Japan’s lost generation (God, I watch so much anime that I know about their economic past in this much detail makes me sick). I’d hope that the show stays on this track with its observations on Japan’s finance and the economic shenanigans of much of the world, instead of becoming too preachy, which I fear that it might.

The past week has been absolutely crazy.  I haven’t had much time for myself between throwing myself at my senior project and visiting my relatives in the neighboring state.  However, I did manage to watch most of the shows I’m following this season.  I still have a bit of catching up to do, especially with Moshidora’s slightly unique airing schedule.  It hasn’t stopped me from compiling another list of personal highlights for the week.  This week, I’m highlighting Denpa Onna, Dog Days, C, and Hanasaku Iroha.

Denpa Onna – Losing Control

So Makoto has come up with this brilliant idea to shake Erio loose from her alien theory.  He’s going to scare the hell out of her by riding down a hill on his bike at top speed, then swerving at the last moment.  Unfortunately, either he doesn’t understand physics, or he has no common sense.  It’s already difficult to stop the bike normally, but now he’s got another person’s mass to overcome as well…

For the love of God, ABORT!

When he realizes his mistake, he freaks out.  Then, he figures his only option is to go completely balls to the wall and jump his bike.  Even when you’ve lost control of the situation, charging straight through it might be the best option.  They get soaked, but at least they’re not dead!

Dog Days – _____ Has Entered the Battle!

To me, Dog Days resembles Dynasty Warriors.  If you’ve never played the game, I mean it’s technically terrible but highly entertaining anyway.  They also both rely on Hero characters who can completely dominate the battleground (like Sengoku Basara).  Whenever a new Hero enters the battle, they can’t help but show off their abilities.  This week, we got three!

Please welcome a trio of Femme Fatales.

Of the three girls, Yuki is easily my favorite.  First, sorry pirate lovers, but ninjas are awesome.  Second, she’s not a fan of being interrupted, as the unfortunate nameless captain found out the hard way.  Third, she can team up with Rico to rain destruction from the heavens.  I hope she sticks around for the rest of the series.

C – He Wept Bitterly

CPAnime on this blog has covered the info dump aspects of the episode, and Thoughtcannon at MSIUD thoroughly covered the morality aspect.  I latched on to the resolution of Souchiro and Kimimaro’s conversation.  Souchiro found out his father used to visit the Financial District as well.  He was initially successful, but eventually lost everything and resorted to suicide…

I miss you... dad...

When someone seemingly abandons you, it’s easy to demonize them in your mind.  He pursued his own interests.  He was selfish.  It’s not my fault.  I can wash my hands of it.  Kimimaro’s explanation really gets to the kid.  Losing someone because they wanted the best for you is so much harder to accept.  It shattered Souchiro’s closure.  He dismisses Mashu, sits down, and weeps.  If C does nothing else right for the rest of the season, at least in that instant, it moved me.

Hanasaku Iroha – Oyasumi Ohayo

I’ll close the post out on a lighter note.  Ohana has struggled to get Minko to like her.  I don’t think it will ever happen, given the great lengths Minko has gone to to hate her.  It certainly didn’t help when Ohana insulted her crush without even realizing it.  That unfortunate exchange led to this brief but delightful scene…

If it didn't work the first time...

...what makes you think the second will be better?

You have to admire Ohana’s drive, even when it comes to making friends.  I kind of hope she never succeeds in this case, especially if the tension between them keeps making scenes like this happen.

That wraps up my thoughts for this week.  If you’ve got any comments or highlights of your own, please, feel free to share them!

Let us imagine an imaginary organization that gives actual awards for anime, and this organization gave awards to individual episodes from the aforementioned anime, and one category of awards was for the best info dump episode, then this episode of C would most assuredly, in all likelihood not win the aforementioned award. That said, it didn’t do a bad job of info dumping either, for the four following reasons, which I hereby refer to as the Rules of Info Dumping (feel free to add more).

Rule of Info Dumping Number 1: Put some effort into masking the info dump nature of the episode

Let’s face it, any info dumping episode you realize is an info dumping episode is a bad episode. Could we all realize that having Jennifer monologue for half this episode was a ploy to flesh out the plot? You betcha. Still, I appreciated that we as an audience were given enough respect, so that creators wouldn’t think about throwing out some bad guy explains his motives for no apparent reason speech. I’m looking at you, Fractale.

JUDGEMENT: B-

Rule of Info Dumping Number 2: Earlier Info Dumps are better than later Info Dumps

Once again, let’s face it, all info dumps are bad. In a perfect world we wouldn’t even realize we were getting info dumped on until that aha moment, as a lot of people reading this likely had with Madoka. Sadly this isn’t a perfect world. So, when it comes to info dumps its best to have them at the beginning of a series rather than in the middle or end. In short, its good to get them out of the way so the viewer doesn’t have as many questions later on. FMA and FMA:B both did a good job of this. Explaining Alchemy could have been a long a drawn out process, but both of these series, especially the first, did a good job of getting their key setting info dump episode out of the way early.

C did this to some extent. At this point, we more or less understand the battling system and how the entres are able to attack. Sure, there are some questions left unanswered, but everything that needed to be revealed was. To put another way, a good info dump is like a woman worth your time. She teases you, giving up information about herself over time. We wouldn’t want C to put out so early, would we?

JUDGEMENT: B+

Rule of Info Dumping Number 3: Introduce characters and/or issues prior to when they become useful, so that their introduction doesn’t seem too out of place.

While I mentioned in my episode 1 post that the father may eventual play some role in the show, the way this was too clunky, at best. I mean, find your dad’s old journal; that is something that should only be used at the beginning of a series. The episode tried to have the Mikuni/Yoga conversation lead into this, which built character, but it didn’t work as a transition. However, the introduction of the information broker in the last episode meant that his sudden appearance in this episode went down a bit better than other plot devices, but it was still noticeable.

JUDGEMENT: C+

Rule of Info Dumping Number 4: Make the Info Dump Matter

Too many shows utilize info dumps that about events that have already happened (cough, BLEACH, cough), or they explain things that will never actually be useful. What I loved about this episode of C was that the info dump, while not always interesting did do some character building, with the Mikuni/Yoga interaction and the interacting Assets. However, the lynchpin that made this episode work as a whole was that we now have a rather clear idea of some of the players within this series, mainly the IMF vs. Mikuni. What role Yoga plays in this fight is unclear, and I suppose the story still has a few twist and turns, but at the moment the next eight episodes look like they might feature more than one showdown I’d like to watch.

JUDGEMENT: A-

That was one hell of a battle, right? First, I have to say I’ve seen some chatter online the past few days about how this show reminds people a lot about Yugioh, and quite frankly I’m appalled at the rush with which people assume all shows with cards are alike. Most will likely quietly move away from these idiotic assertions over the next few days, but many might say what is up with that whack battle system. You’ll deride the show for its lack of explanation, or the fact that Mashu didn’t sustain any real damage during the battle. But, with a quick lesson, you’ll be up to speed. (Partially talking out of my ass, but I do almost have two degrees in this general area, so, you know, not really.)

Not that this necessarily applies, but this post in no way constitutes financial advice.

First, the facts:

1. The monsters, some of which are really cute, devilish, and moe, are called assets.

2. The characters seem to using their futures as collateral

3. The assets can still fight after they take damage.

4. If you don’t protect yourself, you will go bankrupt. Episode 1 suggests you die if you go bankrupt.

Now for the fun part. Let’s assume for a minute that we are talking about the real world, and you have a real financial asset. It could be a house, a currency position, or a general stock. For the purposes of explaining the issue, I’ll use a currency position. Now, you don’t really need to understand the ins and outs of how you make money in these transactions, but the key point is this: If your position has lost money, you do not need to pay until you close your position, thus the concept of an open deal. However there is one caveat to this rule in most instances. If you are losing too much money on your position you are going to have to pay at least some of it back. This is called a margin call. But what if you don’t have the money? Well, then you are presumed to be out of assets. Then, long story short, you are bankrupt.

Mashu so cute

Getting back to the show, Mashu, the asset, taking damage during the battle compares to the value of an asset dropping. Using a house asset as an analogy; the value of your home can fall, but the house is still your house. Same thing applies here. Mashu took damage, but not anything happened. However, that doesn’t mean she or Yoga are impervious. This requires a little more understanding of what a margin and a margin call are, as it was mentioned pretty prominently within the episode. Think of it like a line of credit at a casino. Richer people can bet more money without actually giving the casino any cash until they lose a predetermined set of money, when compared to normal people who need to put their cash on the table as soon as the play. Surprisingly, it doesn’t appear that Yoga or Mashu reached the point where they had to pay a margin, but I am looking forward to what might happen if it does. Further,  I would like to know the differences between Yoga and some of the other more veteran players when it comes to the amount of their margin.

And all that still doesn’t explain why the hell Mashu was so powerful with her awesome fire attack thing. The show did give a theory about how Yoga caring about Mashu as the reason for her power, which is plausible. However to explain it requires trying to explain why most people who enter the Financial District lose right away, and another use of my house/property analogy.

So cute

While C could stand for a lot of things, I’d like to believe that it stands for credit. A lot of people borrow to improve their standard of living with every intention of paying back, as a way to increase the quality of their life. The thing is, a lot of people extend themselves a bit too much. Thus far, Yoga seems content with the simpler things in life, and protecting Mashu. However, many fall victim to the problem of spending too much and forgetting about the value of their assets/homes, which ultimately is their undoing. I hope that Yoga doesn’t fall victim to this problem, but it seems like he has ample possible “distractions” around him, so I doubt it.

For an opening episode, C did an excellent of setting up its world, detailing its characters, and opening the door for many potential avenues the show could take in the future. All that said, the most interesting part of the episode was its opening 5 minutes or so in which some poor sap who loses a battle in the Financial District, for one reason only: The concepts of chance and collateral.

First, the concept of collateral, though I view it as more of a legal term. Generally, collateral is something you promise to give up should you fail to perform on a stated obligation. In the context of this show the thing that you might have to give up is your soul should you not repay the loan granted to you. Now this seems like a generally straight forward concept. However, if you combine some contract law to this show you can up with a whole bunch of different possibilities. The one I am hoping that the show utilizes in some way is the concept of a surety. Simply put, someone else, the surety, could promise to pay the debt of the debtor should they not have the money to pay back the loan to the lender, in this case the Financial District.

However, the Financial District doesn’t necessarily seem interested in money, but in souls, as the references to hell are plentiful in this opener. With that in mind, I am hoping that someone somewhere down the line will take the place of someone else’s obligation to the Financial District, if for nothing else, it would be a great storyline. Who this could eventually be, I don’t know. However, the show gave us many possibilities, most notably the missing parents who were never actually shown in this episode.

As for the second term, “chance”, it was mentioned a few times by the poor sap who lost the fight in the beginning of the episode (though he also referred to it as a gamble). First off, in finance, there is some element of being in the right place at the right time, but it is not something that people succeed at by being lucky as one might be with playing and winning at roulette. A good investor can put the odds in their favor, and beat the market should they put in the time. Alas, there are also circumstances in which the markets do not behave perfectly, and some people have insider information.

Given the nature of the relationship that was shown between Masakaki and Mikuni, it appears that Mikuni may have a unique edge over his opponents. While there is something to be said for experience, as the show stated, we have to consider the possibility that Mikuni has some sort of special advantage.  This possibility is even more likely, I believe, as we are coming of the worst financial crisis in the world’s history in some eighty years, so the concept of fraud is fresh in our minds. Also, talk about some resentment for the world’s recent troubles directed at America in the opener, when compared to the industrious Europeans and Japanese.

While I doubt that the things I brought up in this post will actually play any role in the story, it is something to keep in mind given the financial nature of the show.