All my dreams are memes, and all my memes are dreams...
Joined on 3/6/11
Why is the armored robot defending its head from a handgun? a handgun! they should just ricochet away from it, is the design really that faulty?
Oh that's some great news those clothes were really distracting is like they where sentient XD.
Did you managed to fix the background?
Because the eyepieces of the head are not armor- they're glass lenses so it does have weak points and its not a static thing like an armored tank.
It's also a crowd control suit instead of assault suit which is why it does not have any guns or missiles. If it did- they'd both be dead
Also this suit is a new technology in this world- the Arestrans don't have it- but also tanks are something that doesn't really exist yet in this world since this is like a parallel World War I universe.
Which is why they have bi-planes but not jets and things yet
Time to start using hardened crystals!
Meh what a lame robot then, they could give him some teasers, or gas grenades, rubber bullets, even our current anti-riot police comes armed with sound cannons and sniper guns nowadays... i feel cheated. At least tell me that it has an electric baton? maybe a net? tranquilizing shots? nothing?
just waaaaait...
This robot is the base for what will be used later on. Think of it like an RPG game and the level of conflict is at the noob levels.
This goes for Rion as well- she has an ability but doesn't know where it came from or how to use it yet.
The war is being fought with Gen 1 technology so far and also remember people like Rock are mechanics and tinkerers- so imagine what happens when the country is occupied and in resistance.
Also remember Ern is an idiot with 1000% level of machismo.
And that although the mech shielded itself from the bullets it wasn't injured or destroyed at all how do we even know what Ern said about aiming for the head is even valid?
Afterall it's not like he makes a habit of fighting giant robots.
I'm trying to write this through the lens of the characters in the situation which means they're teenagers during a war that think they know something. Like in Chapter 2 or 3 when Rock was coming up with his stupid plan. It wasn't because he's an omnipotent tactician, it's because he's a panicked kid that is probably the smartest in the group besides Pilla and everybody was looking to him for what to do.
This means what they're experiencing or saying in regards to things doesn't mean they know everything about the situation. Just like Rion's power.
She actually thought she could use it against the two soldiers again but failed miserably. Its pretty much luck of the moment that they haven't been killed outright yet
But still an unarmed robot is just a big box with 2 legs and 2 arms, that's boring as hell, it could at least have something extra, otherwise you just run away from it and escape using a back alley, or get some rocks and some rope and tie up its legs, etc. What i am saying is, for a robot as far as robots go this one sucks, specially since is one that is being used in a military operation, even if the idea behind it, is that it is does crowd control... somehow without any crowd control equipment...
So while is nice to give the guys some weak enemies for them to level up and just not get instantly obliterate, maybe introducing a mobile suit to go against them was too early, because on my eyes that thing is a cripple, an expendable unit at best, the punch on page 23 was nice, but even if it somehow had the strength of a pile driver it still looks like a desperate move, and that brings the following question: why would anyone ever employ such an useless machine?
Well now with that out of my chest, you are right we don't know if Ern assumption is right at all, however your initial reply pretty much confirmed me that the mech is nothing special, and that is sad as it can be, mechs are supposed to be special, that is their charm, that's what makes them cool, this one on the other hand and after 2 pages it was already covering itself from small gunfire and then punched the ground, it is an awful first impression, plus now i know that it is unarmed.
True true. You're my best critic and great for coming up with ideas. But there's alot of stuff I haven't even gotten to yet in the story.
The reason for this mech is for a plot device at this point in the story. Its a tool that will help me separate Ern and Rion. Originally I was going to use an explosion of some sort which would have worked. But I specifically wanted the characters to know this mech suit exists so they can relay that info later to other characters later on.
I also paused it before the outcome of this encounter between the bot and the protagonists was finished which- in the next couple pages would show the folly of shooting at it.
But the main thing is- I haven't had enough pages to develop it yet and just because some kids are shooting at it with the equivalent of BB guns doesn't really make it useless.
It's also not that the mech isn't special. It's that this is the first iteration of it. They're doing a blitzkrieg against an unarmed populace so they really didn't need to do much besides occupy the town and hold it.
The Arestran military hasn't even responded yet and realistically the Ariesians are establishing a foward operating base in an area where there is no resistance.
Further in the story when the mech is needed for heavy fighting against the arestran resistance it will have all its accoutrements for a full battle load.
Think of this mech as a modular exoskeleton system. The base level doesn't have much on it since the mission doesn't need it. This is how it was even in the Gundam series. The base Gundam didn't have any weapons.
It was only armed when they had to launch against other gundams or were doing offensives against ground forces. I also remember a couple episodes in alot of the mobile suit series where they would deploy the gundam and it would be missing a weapon which added tension in the fight.
Also keep in mind the governor in chapter 3 allowed the Aresian forces in. The goal of Aries is not to destroy Vobis or Arestra but to annex it basically, so they have a limited bombing campaign, ground forces with overwhelming force to basically capture and hold a city to bring in supplies from the rest of their army
Those are some words of relief for the future of the mech, but there is a discrepancy when you read the whole thing in a siting between their initial attack and the one that follows which is a mech that is not really equipped to deal with the survivors of a town that just got bombed, and while the intimidating size may work, it does so just partially, if people decide to run away or retaliate in attack it becomes highly ineffective, unless it has the dexterity of a Gundam in that case it will always be armed with quite the decent some times even superb hand to hand combat.
But then that would get in the way of this mech being a low level enemy, well that can be solved by making the pilot an incompetent or inexperienced one, which will make it look as if the invading forces are looking at this operation like nothing more than a drill mission in which they can even send their new recruits for some ground practice, that can shape things, it can also explain why the pilot panics when attacked with weapons that can't really damage the mech.
The inexperienced pilot is a good idea, but I should also say. The mech itself is not a slow moving behemoth, it's on par with a gundam when it comes to mobility, however its role on the battlefield is like a tank.
In infantry tactics tanks are very vulnerable to enemy infantry because well placed ambushes, Anti tank weapons and AT mines and disable a tank easily. They usually use infantry in conjunction with armor so that they can cover eachother This is how the Bradley fighting vehicles work and MRAPs and other APCs.
I was thinking about this when I made the chapt 3 cover which is why I had two infantry soldiers with the mech and if you look at every depiction of the mech thus far its been the same setup. 2 infantry with one mech- at the gov's house, the cover and also in this chapter.
Like i said though- the chapter is not done yet and just because Rion and Ern attacked the mech doesn't mean they're going to easily defeat it.
I think things will make sense as the chapter is fleshed out- Also at the end of this chapter I was planning to do another "Unfolding Tale" thing to put out more info. Although I'm kind of leaning on making the "Unfolding Tale" segment more like the Shinigami's cup Golden segments that they have in bleach or the Naruto lessons where its like characters schooling the reader about somethings. That's more interesting I think than just a wall of text.
That's a bold claim to make when you have them survive the mech attack XD, anyway is good to know that they are not sluggish, but putting it on par with a gundam, which are machines capable of doing space travel is indeed what i would call crazy, but sure i get the idea.
Yeah but this is an unarmed mech, it hardly counts as a fighting vehicle as it is now.
What about making the transition between background, present and future one part of the story? and not just an isolated segment?
Of course when we talk about that both Kishimoto and Tite are awful examples, because one is the creator of talk no jutsu, and the other is the master of filler flashbacks, and by now his manga is just a husk of what it once was, man reading Bleach is just sad nowadays, is like it is parodying itself.
And talking about the big 3, look at OP as an example, the guy actually makes people to want to know about the past of the characters and we actually wait and want for a flashback to take place, is not something that gets in the way unlike with the other guys, the key to all this is passing, giving things their place so they don't get in conflict with other things like appearing in the middle of a battle encounter, and at the same time it is part of the story, not just an extra section that appeared at the end like an authors note or even footnote.
They may not survive the mech attack- atleast in whole...
Yeah i didn't mean following flashback-sodes for the sake of it. Just like chapt 4 was a flashbackisode but I didn't do it just for filler, it was to establish what rion's and rock's relationship was, that she was essentially a foster kid, that there were points of contention about her being a foriegner and also the seor ability she has.
The problem I think for this is- since everything is happening in realtime and I'm purposely not doing narrator bubbles its like- where do I put the information? Even in Attack on Titan they had pages dedicated to explaining things like the 3d manuever gear and titan info- I might go that route.
By segment I just mean something that allows me to give the information to readers about something that wouldn't necessarily be said by characters in the moment. That would be good if it was a straight comedy type of thing but this is something more like fullmetal alchemists that has comedic and serious moments.
Wouldn't it be weird if Rion and Ern both were talking to eachother and basically stating all this info about the mech to the reader? It'd break the fourth wall and kind of throw out the in the moment action.
Also - its just the way I write I guess I tend to leave alot of cliffhangers so you keep reading. I'm fully expecting this story to go to something like 50 chapters because there is alot of stuff I want to do and although I have the ending written- there is alot of stuff in the middle that happens. I'm also not releasing big chapter blocks and only doing a couple of pages at a time. I think if I had released chapter 5 in its entirety alot of the things you're talking about would have been already addressed. There's still 30 + more pages in this chapter.
I haven't even gotten to Captain Shariz's part yet which is still part of this chapter.
Since I'm animating and doing this manga and doing my regular job, this is the most I can put out
Oh the suspense!
Attack on titan... oh man i will just allow you to read it for yourself, straight from the author (there are some heavy spoilers concerning the manga in which this interview takes place which is regrettable because is one of the best stories i have ever come to read, i even made a whole post on its honor when the translation to English was finished, the manga is Doubutsu no Kuni, btw they also mention The World is Mine, and that is one hell of a masterpiece, which probably will be fully translated this year and i will cross one thing from my bucket list):
http://2.p.mpcdn.net/2420/451602/53.jpg?1398349626
http://2.p.mpcdn.net/2420/451602/54.jpg?1398349626
http://2.p.mpcdn.net/2420/451602/55.jpg?1398349626
http://2.p.mpcdn.net/2420/451602/56.jpg?1398349626
http://2.p.mpcdn.net/2420/451602/57.jpg?1398349626
As you can see Isayama is a fairly young author and a new one too, and he himself gets in some hard spots plot wise and with passing too, in the possible the information should not be handled out of nowhere if you don't want to have a narrator that tells the story from a place detached from the world, and that is where passing plays its role, when things are a part of the story as a writer you should find the moments to give those things a place to exist and be explained in a natural way preferably by the characters themselves, if they don't posses this info then other character shall act as a mentor, look at it as writing a book, then illustrating it.
So if you want to talk about the mech what about giving us a look into the world of the invading forces? that would open a lot of possibilities to talk about, for example you can show how the new recruits get their introduction to the Ariesian army, how the mechs works, and what their goal is and their relation ship with Arestra is, that way while is true that the readers will come to know more than the main-characters, it doesn't feels like the info came from the sky just because yes.
In the end just do not rush it, give things their place, while action is necessary to give the public something to latch onto, you should not put plot as a side note, like here: "read this and when you are done lets go back to the story" or similarly " whether it is at the end or middle of it all, other mistake is when an arc to explain things is done, and we never again get to see the characters on it.
The part you mention of giving a look into the invading forces is later on in the chapter after this mech fight. It's the part with Capt. Shariz that I was talking about before. I guess I can use that part to further get into the mechs along with the battle plan and combat reports and more of what's going on in the world.
isayama is a really good writer so far, i can't really expect to be that good and intricate with story telling as I'm just not that creative
Bleach does that a lot, indeed just recently it did one of those filler arcs just to explain the enemies powers, oh and then it had to re-explain something that was explained when Ichigo went to soul society for the first time, those kind of things show a weak plot, in one hand the new information lacks impact and appears as unimportant unable to differ itself from genuine filler, filler which exist only to illustrate power differences, and in this mic the real information is lost, and thus he then needs to repeat himself because no one remembers or paid attention to it, after all this time it is incredible that such things still happen, but oh well at least it seems that it will be near it end, or maybe not, Bleach unlike Naruto and OP doesn't really has a goal to it, so that allows Tite to pull whatever he wants to keep the story going, but... the thing is already inside the fields of the absurdity where nothing can be taken seriously, if it keeps like that even the most delusional fans will end reading it out of duty and anything else.
But since you already have a defined ending this should not be a problem for you, however you can see how the story telling that Tite uses could not work for your story.
Yep that's what i am saying it is with moments like those that you can inject the info about the world without it feeling or looking like an isolated text, page or side story.
Give yourself more credit, if you were not that creative i wouldn't be spending time reading your story, let alone making reviews or even commenting XD haha, you have shown to have some great ideas for some pretty wild and interesting scenarios.
Hibiki is a girls name? Only time I've heard that name, was the male character of Vandread (there were 2-3 other guys, but technically, it was a harem/robot/scifi series). Maybe it's like Pat, Sam or Dan... I didn't start watching anime till I was in my 30's, sometimes Japanese culture eludes me.
Damn, Doomroar, you keep twisting her ears (eyes), she won't have time to animate cool shit for us ;)
Hibiki is a whiskey in japan but it's one of those names like haruka that can be male or female. So theres a couple male and female characters with the name or surname.
Incidently this character is also a drunkard or will be in the show when I start
Phyrnna
Whooo! Nice stuff! I'l go read the manga now!
Keep up the good work! :3