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I really hesitated on making a thread for the show the last couple of weeks because I felt it was too late in the season, but after today (episode 10) I decided fuck it it's worth a shot.
Today's episode- Lodge- answers a ton of questions that the show has slowly been building all season, followed swiftly with a rather poorly-executed cliffhanger; the latter not being a surprise to anybody following the continued "quality" of the animation.
Still, focusing on the positives, we have several confirmations today:
Friends are made not only when sandstar contacts a living organic creatures, but the remains of one as well.
Ceruleans are made when sandstar comes into contact with inorganic materials. Thus, they are not, in fact, humans transformed by sandstar as some speculated.
Lucky-san (aka "Boss" to the friends) is a malfunctioned device that was meant to serve as a park-guide. It was damaged during a rainstorm.
Mirai-san, the voice we've been hearing this whole time, was indeed the human who possessed the hat Kaban currently wears.
Now for the fun part, the new revalations/hints:
Friends were around at the same time as humans on the island (more below*).
Lucky-san is capable of recording and projecting video and audio.
Mirai used this function to vlog, which explains the random non-attraction audio we hear
There is one giant Cerulean that the humans and friends could not defeat, in fact it could regenerate damage. It's implied it had/has multiple crystals and can regenerate them.
There is multiple types of sandstar.
Mirai's talking to somebody (almost certain the friend below) about how they (the friend) thought she was an alien because they're not from the island and flew in. This implies the island's existence and the existence of friends
in fact precedes the park. In other words, the park is not a man-made island a-la
Cage of Eden
.
Mirai's partner is a
friend
. Not only that, it was
Serval-chan
.
The hat that Kaban wears (that was Mirai's) was in Racoon's possession shortly before the events of the show but was stolen when a sandstar eruption caused her to fall off a cliff and a "black shadow" stole it before she could recover it.
Holy crap that was a lot for 30 mins, and the best part was it didn't feel like an exposition dump. It was cleverly interweaved into the larger narrative of the episode (a ghost haunting the lodge) and even the post-credit portion. Definitely the episode I've waited all season for (well, since i picked it up around episode 4).
Edit: corrections.
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For all of its low-budget 3dcg (which quickly became incredibly charming), the show has brilliant writing and directing.
Definitely the surprise hit of 2017.
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Episode 11:
Welp, this episode did a fantastic job of justifying my fears in the end, especially that heart-rending cliffhanger. I want my cute girls being cute back dammit. ;_;
As far as speculation goes, we got more mysteries as expected:
More mysterious objects on the mountain. Including the possible plane parts (see link image below) there were mysterious tablets that act as a filter for some wierd black substance that creates Black Ceruleans. This stuff seems to be called "Low Sandstar" and the tablets were called the "Four Gods".
The plane parts are especially interesting concerning last week's speculation of past-Serval thinking that the Humans were, in fact, aliens because they flew onto the island. Were the original humans survivors of a military plane crash? Just when did they arrive in the first place?
Creatures eaten by Ceruleans appear to not "die" in the traditional sense, instead the Sandstar is eaten and they lose their memories. I may be wrong, but it sounds like they turn back into whatever they were before contacting the Sandstar.
There's another Island within eyesight of Japari Park, visible mostly if you are on top of the mountain. It seems likely this is where the humans evacuated to.
I honestly don't remember Lucky-san referring to Kaban-chan by "name" ever before today's episode. If so, that seems an interesting development.
Raccoon says Kaban-chan saved her life? Am I forgetting something or did they never meet since we first started in the Safari?
Image linked: I noticed the wing too, but somebody apparently discovered a lot more hidden imagery on the mountain. (http://imgur.com/JzQoRMu)
The next and (presumably) final episode is titled Amusement Park,
so it seems like we're finally going to get our answers as to what happened in the past, including the source of the humans, friends, and Sandstar. Hopefully we also get resolution to the current crisis involving Kaban-chan and the Black Cerulean.
Honestly I wouldn't mind an episode 13 at all, but with a seemingly low budget and a very sober episode preview compared to the usual PPP previews
I'd honestly be shocked if we did.
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"We'll cross paths with a planet."
"Wait, seriously?"
"Yes."
"No, really, did you just send our spaceship on a course to crash into a planet?"
"Yes."
"You're ferrying 30 tonnes of magical dust across the galaxy, and of all the empty space, filled to the brim with loads and loads of nothing, you landed on a course with a freaking planet?"
"Apologies."
"For fuck's sake. Do you at least have a lifeboat?"
"Two of them."
"Great. Here's the plan then: I'm flying off to Switzerspace and taking the insurance money, while you are landing with the cargo and staying there to wipe the garbage."
"No need, we have cleaning automata."
"Will they do the job?"
"Maybe."
"...Fine, but look, if this planet will have a life developing on it, they will try the dust and feel unsatisfied, it's you personally who will deal with them, don't even call me about that."
"I won't."
"And you're not flying in the same boat as me."
"Figures."
Taiga says the 12th episode will be the last one, and usually it gets them right.
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I love this show, came for the quirky, bright, unique characters (Seeing toki, sandcat had me sold), stayed for the storytelling.
Contrary to how the show was joked to lower your IQ due to friends having like slightly above avg IQ than a typical animal, the storytelling did NOT treat their audience to be stupid at all. You can tell they planned the whole thing out since episode 1.
The way how things are tied to the died app game is amazing. People have pointed out the voice actor for the serval in boss's recording from epi 9 is the app's serval's voice, thus being able to guess that the recordings we've been hearing are Mirai and Serval's. Instead of pretending the dead app didn't exist, or simply reproduce the app story, they went ahead a build upon the remains of the app and throughout epi 1~3 we can see that Japari park clearly was occupied by humans before but only the ruins remain (e.g. worn signs, old sofa seen in epi 1), before it was hinted at on epi 4 and confirmed by epi 7.
Can't wait to see how everything concludes in the last episode! The disappearance of friends silhouette in the ED and the unnerving preview is very unsettling though...
Episode 11:
Creatures eaten by Ceruleans appear to not "die" in the traditional sense, instead the Sandstar is eaten and they lose their memories. I may be wrong, but it sounds like they turn back into whatever they were before contacting the Sandstar.
There's another Island within eyesight of Japari Park, visible mostly if you are on top of the mountain. It seems likely this is where the humans evacuated to.
Raccoon says Kaban-chan saved her life? Am I forgetting something or did they never meet since we first started in the Safari?
Seeing how most friends do not remember why humans left, it seems to heavily hint that most friends got eaten by the last battle with Miral against the Cerulean?
It's really sad to see how Serval has been talking to Kaban about being together after finding where humans inhabit since around epi 9, while Kaban seems to have figured out humans are far away from the island and she might have to leave.
Pretty sure Raccoon is referring to how she almost drowned in the river but was saved by the bridge build by Kaban on epi 2
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I'm so glad that I managed to come at the exact moment before it ends, holy hell.
Only thing of note worth speculating is, I'm fairly sure Kaban has to be what happens when Sandstar encounters human remains.
Specifically, in this case, probably Mirai's. So uh, I get the feeling this bookend for Kaban is... pretty final.
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Final Episode
Cheesy finale is cheesy, but honestly compared to the first 11 episodes it pretty much was exactly the tone the first 10 set: slightly mysterious, but mostly goofy and cute. A fitting end to the series in my opinion (and I mean that as a praise).
Well, we didn't get all the answers we wanted, but enough I think to put things to rest.
The humans did indeed all evacuate when they failed to defeat the giant Cerulean.
The warning of "Ceruleans tend to appear where humans are" was accurate, but backwards; humans appear where Ceruleans are. More specifically, they were essentially the front-line defense against them, so whenever a Cerulean appeared the Humans were quick to respond, explaining why they were always in the same place at the same time.
KABAN'S EXISTENCE REVEAL BELOW:
Chaore, as well as many others, were super close. She wasn't born from Mirai's remains, but was born from her DNA. More specifically, a strand of hair in her hat that was blown away. Essentially, Kaban's a clone, which explains the imperfect similarity to Mirai.
On a related note, how fucking strong are winds around the park where they can blow a hat from the Amusement Park (near the harbor) all the way to the Safari area, which is insinuated to be clear across the island?!!!
Related to the above: humans who are consumed by Ceruleans do not die for reasons related to my speculation last week. When a Friend is consumed by a Cerulean, as I guessed, they are reverted back to their animal forms. Since a human's natural state is, well, Human, they stay the same. Still likely not good to be inside of one long-term, but not the immediate danger it poses on the other species.
The island that we saw in the last episode was almost certainly Japan, but my knowledge of the region is scare. Best guess was off that Japari Park was off the Eastern Coast.
Also it appears that there are water-based friends. Maybe it's possible certain Sandstar can work in water?
Overall my impression of the show remains the same: full of flaws but more than enough charm and excellence in writing and world-building (especially in terms of "show, not tell") that I could easily look past the animation and awkward directing. These friends will be missed.
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I had a ton of fun with the finale. Great show!
These friends will be missed.
They hinted at a sequel - the last few seconds of the ending in the lower right had "to be continued" in japanese slowly start to rise from the water.
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The finale was definitely fun; I got a few legitimate laughs from the jokes.
Also if there really is a sequel, hopefully it's like Symphogear where the unexpected success of the first season brings with it a larger budget. I don't mind the use of 3D animation, but they can do so much more with it, even if it isn't a priority.
The show strikes me as a eastern version of where cartoons seem to be trending in recent years: aimed at children, but with enough subtle odds and ends to keep adults/parents entertained. Or maybe that's all just a coincidence. At the least it would explain the emphasis on storytelling, learning, and throwing in unexpected easter eggs such as the plane wreckage
while skimping on the animation quality. To me animation's something young children are much more forgiving of, assuming they notice anything wrong in the first place.
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At this point I consider the wonky CG part of its charm, but if they can touch up the models a bit I'm certainly not going to complain
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I may be using the term wrong (I'm definitely not a film student) but I think the directing was causing the wonkiness more than the animation, but the former made the latter that much more noticeable.
Like I said I wouldn't mind them sticking to 3D, and it's not like this is the kind of series that calls for a lot of flashy effects and camera work. Like you said I just really would like them smoothing out the edges when it comes to presentation.
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Oh my god episode 12
I cried
then I cried
then I cried again
then laughed at some jokes The ferris wheel falling off is brilliant
then cried again
and again
I'm easily emotionally influenced by animes/movies/novels etc but I don't think I've ever been this emotionally invested in a show.
Seems like a sequel is confirmed, hope they can make the magic work again.