And on with the summaries
Mar. 27th, 2006 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaI guess I'm sort of procrastinating from the stuff I should be doing, too. XD
7) "Battle Fairy": the Lynn meets Jack and Rei in Antarctica story. Short and mostly Lynn POV as she philosophizes re the political fragmentation of the human race, the digital/analog divide, the ethical implications of the alien invasion, etc. Frankly I like Kanbayashi's writing better when he's showing not telling, but I'm starting to believe the infodump is endemic to Japanese genre writers.
It turns out Jack had written Lynn letters after he read her book, as she seemed to be the only journalist with any real grasp of the issue. So she arranged to be on the carrier guarding the Passage when Yukikaze came through for a test flight in Earth's atmosphere (having just had a new engine installed), in case she might get to meet them - and she did, because a JAM craft followed Yukikaze through and they had to land to refuel after shooting it down.
While watching the anime I wondered why Lynn was so keigo-tastic. It turns out this was meant to represent the fact that she speaks a literate university-bred sort of English (I want to say Oxford English, but Lynn is American isn't she?), and Jack speaks the fast-paced, clipped, rudimentary most-of-these-people-don't-even-speak-English English he's gotten used to. I did think "FAF Japanese" was shockingly informal at times but I didn't realise it was suppose to be an active patois. XD I totally know what Kanbayashi is getting at though, I mean I work at a software company. XD XD
Jack: Oh God, I'd forgotten what it was like to use words of three syllables. English! Real English! What a beautiful lang--
Rei: (to technician) Hey, shithead, that doesn't go there! Are you deaf?
Jack: ...
Lynn: ...This is a Japanese ship. Why doesn't he speak Japanese to them?
Jack: Yeah, well, you know, SAF people, they have issues.
8) "Super Phoenix": Jack circulates a memo in which he concludes that the physical arms race with JAM is unwinnable. The rate at which new planes/weapons are introduced indicate both sides are going all out in computer-assisted R&D just to stay up to speed. The only FAF weaponry that are several years old and still not obsolete are the Sylphids - or more precisely SAF's thirteen Super Sylphs, not a single one of which has ever been shot down. Jack's theory is that because each Sylph is an advanced data-gathering AI assigned to an ace pilot, it ended up being "trained" as a high-level pilot in its own right, personal idiosyncrasies and flying style and all. His recommendation: turn the Super Sylphs into an unmanned squadron,** and either disband SAF-V or give the pilots newer, better models with blank-slate AIs to teach from scratch. (The assumption is that the learning AI can't be installed in all FAF planes even though that would be the obvious best-case scenario, because the computer would be too bulky for the smaller, lighter models. The tech aspect of this book is seamless enough that you don't often stumble over 1984-esque details, but it does happen. XD) FAF's computer design team recommends a new model of unmanned, Sylphid-sized plane period, and never mind learning from fallible humans. But Jack's lobbying wins out, and thus the FRX-00 is produced as well as the unmanned FRX-99 - a run of thirteen, one for each of the Boomerang squadron pilots.
Rei: ;_;
Jack: We'll get you a new girlfr--I mean plane! It'll be cuter! Lighter! You can teach it more things!
Rei: ;_____;
Rei and Burgadish are sent out on one final routine mission in Yukikaze, to drop some monitoring pods in the desert. Of course, by Universal Narrative Logic (tm) things go horribly wrong. They're ambushed by JAM, and instead of escaping back to base Yukikaze elects to eject her occupants and take on the assailants herself. Rei picks himself up out of the sand and thinks that he should be pissed off, but in fact he's sympathetic because in Yukikaze's place he'd've done the same: she flew all this way to drop those pods and wasn't going to let the JAM destroy them without a fight. XD He'd just gotten to the point of "but Jack'd tell me I'm projecting again" before JAM and Yukikaze swoop past and he's knocked out cold by the sonic boom.
He wakes up in a white room, and there's a nurse. The rest happens as in the anime only more gross and eerie, because it's so obvious they're pod people made out of goo that Rei figures it out quite well on his own without Yukikaze's help. >_> (Yukikaze doesn't actually "talk" in the book at all, although at this point Rei does use a terminal to connect to her remotely and asks her to scan for JAM. She goes "Very close," and he's like, "No kidding.") They try to feed him goo at first, which upsets his stomach because the amino acids are bent the wrong way or something, and that's when they resort to potage au Burgadish. Meanwhile Jack is upset at Yukikaze's disappearance and finangles a co-pilot seat on the new FRX, nominally for a test flight but really to search for Rei.
Finally Rei bites the nurse (on the boob XD;;;), realises she tastes like goo and not blood, shoots her, shoots the commander dude, breaks out and finds clones of Burgadish and himself standing next to Yukikaze, shoots them, gets shot by Burgadish's clone, jumps into Yukikaze and tries to fly back to base. The JAM catch up to him and manage to shoot Yukikaze down above the jungle. So Rei is hanging there trapped in the forest canopy, bleeding to death, his plane on fire, and he thinks Well this is how I always assumed I'd go anyway, as long as we're together?
Then Yukikaze links to the incoming FRX and beams herself up to the new body, and Rei realises he might be ready to die with her but she isn't ready to die with him. ^^; Mind you she kindly ejects him so he wouldn't blow up at least, but by then he's lost consciousness.
Yukikaze wrests control of the FRX from Jack and the bamboozled pilot, takes out the JAM, messages the nearest TAB base to pick Rei up and flies home. The end. ...And that really is the end of the book. XD It's pretty devastatingly effective, actually - I think if I read this at any time prior to 1999 when the sequel came out I would've assumed Rei was dead and maybe Jack, and even if they were alive they'd've given it up as a bad job and gone back to Earth or something.
Tomorrow I'll make a list of what's in the anime that's not in the book (and thus presumably in the sequel), but one point sort of confounds me - the FRX in question is a manned plane, not an unmanned one. Oh well I suppose I'll find out when I order book 2.
** At this point it's actually hard not to imagine them as anime girls. >_>
7) "Battle Fairy": the Lynn meets Jack and Rei in Antarctica story. Short and mostly Lynn POV as she philosophizes re the political fragmentation of the human race, the digital/analog divide, the ethical implications of the alien invasion, etc. Frankly I like Kanbayashi's writing better when he's showing not telling, but I'm starting to believe the infodump is endemic to Japanese genre writers.
It turns out Jack had written Lynn letters after he read her book, as she seemed to be the only journalist with any real grasp of the issue. So she arranged to be on the carrier guarding the Passage when Yukikaze came through for a test flight in Earth's atmosphere (having just had a new engine installed), in case she might get to meet them - and she did, because a JAM craft followed Yukikaze through and they had to land to refuel after shooting it down.
While watching the anime I wondered why Lynn was so keigo-tastic. It turns out this was meant to represent the fact that she speaks a literate university-bred sort of English (I want to say Oxford English, but Lynn is American isn't she?), and Jack speaks the fast-paced, clipped, rudimentary most-of-these-people-don't-even-speak-English English he's gotten used to. I did think "FAF Japanese" was shockingly informal at times but I didn't realise it was suppose to be an active patois. XD I totally know what Kanbayashi is getting at though, I mean I work at a software company. XD XD
Jack: Oh God, I'd forgotten what it was like to use words of three syllables. English! Real English! What a beautiful lang--
Rei: (to technician) Hey, shithead, that doesn't go there! Are you deaf?
Jack: ...
Lynn: ...This is a Japanese ship. Why doesn't he speak Japanese to them?
Jack: Yeah, well, you know, SAF people, they have issues.
8) "Super Phoenix": Jack circulates a memo in which he concludes that the physical arms race with JAM is unwinnable. The rate at which new planes/weapons are introduced indicate both sides are going all out in computer-assisted R&D just to stay up to speed. The only FAF weaponry that are several years old and still not obsolete are the Sylphids - or more precisely SAF's thirteen Super Sylphs, not a single one of which has ever been shot down. Jack's theory is that because each Sylph is an advanced data-gathering AI assigned to an ace pilot, it ended up being "trained" as a high-level pilot in its own right, personal idiosyncrasies and flying style and all. His recommendation: turn the Super Sylphs into an unmanned squadron,** and either disband SAF-V or give the pilots newer, better models with blank-slate AIs to teach from scratch. (The assumption is that the learning AI can't be installed in all FAF planes even though that would be the obvious best-case scenario, because the computer would be too bulky for the smaller, lighter models. The tech aspect of this book is seamless enough that you don't often stumble over 1984-esque details, but it does happen. XD) FAF's computer design team recommends a new model of unmanned, Sylphid-sized plane period, and never mind learning from fallible humans. But Jack's lobbying wins out, and thus the FRX-00 is produced as well as the unmanned FRX-99 - a run of thirteen, one for each of the Boomerang squadron pilots.
Rei: ;_;
Jack: We'll get you a new girlfr--I mean plane! It'll be cuter! Lighter! You can teach it more things!
Rei: ;_____;
Rei and Burgadish are sent out on one final routine mission in Yukikaze, to drop some monitoring pods in the desert. Of course, by Universal Narrative Logic (tm) things go horribly wrong. They're ambushed by JAM, and instead of escaping back to base Yukikaze elects to eject her occupants and take on the assailants herself. Rei picks himself up out of the sand and thinks that he should be pissed off, but in fact he's sympathetic because in Yukikaze's place he'd've done the same: she flew all this way to drop those pods and wasn't going to let the JAM destroy them without a fight. XD He'd just gotten to the point of "but Jack'd tell me I'm projecting again" before JAM and Yukikaze swoop past and he's knocked out cold by the sonic boom.
He wakes up in a white room, and there's a nurse. The rest happens as in the anime only more gross and eerie, because it's so obvious they're pod people made out of goo that Rei figures it out quite well on his own without Yukikaze's help. >_> (Yukikaze doesn't actually "talk" in the book at all, although at this point Rei does use a terminal to connect to her remotely and asks her to scan for JAM. She goes "Very close," and he's like, "No kidding.") They try to feed him goo at first, which upsets his stomach because the amino acids are bent the wrong way or something, and that's when they resort to potage au Burgadish. Meanwhile Jack is upset at Yukikaze's disappearance and finangles a co-pilot seat on the new FRX, nominally for a test flight but really to search for Rei.
Finally Rei bites the nurse (on the boob XD;;;), realises she tastes like goo and not blood, shoots her, shoots the commander dude, breaks out and finds clones of Burgadish and himself standing next to Yukikaze, shoots them, gets shot by Burgadish's clone, jumps into Yukikaze and tries to fly back to base. The JAM catch up to him and manage to shoot Yukikaze down above the jungle. So Rei is hanging there trapped in the forest canopy, bleeding to death, his plane on fire, and he thinks Well this is how I always assumed I'd go anyway, as long as we're together?
Then Yukikaze links to the incoming FRX and beams herself up to the new body, and Rei realises he might be ready to die with her but she isn't ready to die with him. ^^; Mind you she kindly ejects him so he wouldn't blow up at least, but by then he's lost consciousness.
Yukikaze wrests control of the FRX from Jack and the bamboozled pilot, takes out the JAM, messages the nearest TAB base to pick Rei up and flies home. The end. ...And that really is the end of the book. XD It's pretty devastatingly effective, actually - I think if I read this at any time prior to 1999 when the sequel came out I would've assumed Rei was dead and maybe Jack, and even if they were alive they'd've given it up as a bad job and gone back to Earth or something.
Tomorrow I'll make a list of what's in the anime that's not in the book (and thus presumably in the sequel), but one point sort of confounds me - the FRX in question is a manned plane, not an unmanned one. Oh well I suppose I'll find out when I order book 2.
** At this point it's actually hard not to imagine them as anime girls. >_>
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 04:07 am (UTC)O.O
Did he really speak like that? *mind breaks at imaging soft-voiced actor who did Rei uttering such language*.
Wahhh. I want to read those novels... It would just complete my Yukikaze experience [aka having the manga and the anime... I only MISS getting the novels but heck... nothing I could do with them but look at the nice lacy characters].
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 04:08 am (UTC)What's "keigo-tastic"?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 04:23 am (UTC)Keigo is polite speech. Basically Lynn speaks rather more formally than I expected, though not impossibly formal.
I'm updating the post with the summary for story #8 now.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 12:48 pm (UTC)WOW...
It's as amazingly stunniing as the manga chapter or the anime itself (I still remember my jaw being on the floor when watching the end of OVA1).
And again, if Jack said "we'll get you a new girlf---" in the book? Bwahaha... too bad that whole stuff was taken out from the anime.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 09:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:13 pm (UTC)'shithead' lulz.