Alphabet meme, M

[indigozeal]

Mia, Lunar: The Silver Star etc.: Mia used to be one of my favorite characters in Lunar, but I kind of don't like her that much anymore. With time, I've come to care less and less about Silver Star's five ostensible main characters, whose own small character troubles seem self-involved and by orders of magnitude less interesting than the Ghaleon-Dyne ideological conflict on which the game is founded, and while Mia's the most tolerable and grounded - not to mention just the plain nicest - of the bunch, she does get dragged down by association. There's another part of the problem, though: she is, or at least is treated by the fans at large, as a reader wish-fulfillment character: she gets to be doted on by Ghaleon in what fan works are fond of interpreting as a half-parental, half-adult paramour way, and while I don't mean to be playing fandom police here, I've come to find the various expressions of this a bit creepy. The alternative is Funato's take on her as an empty-headed baby doll, which (rare for a Funato characterization for me) I find even less appealing. Also: I find Funato's manner of drawing her excessively sugary and yet at the same time unsettling. "It's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes..."

Morris, Lunar: Vheen Hikuusen Monogatari: Steelstrings has brought up how Vheen Hikuusen probably isn't better-known among Lunar fans due to availability. It's a pity, then, that Morris hasn't found a larger fanbase. I'm quite possibly his only fan, actually. The illustration of him sitting with the window open, sadly, slightly-sardonically and masochistically listening to the beautiful singing voice of the love he knows he'll never have, is one of Vheen Hikuusen's most affecting panels for me. For the bulk of the story, he seems suave and well-adjusted - a smiling uncle figure to his students, the mazoku group's liaison to the human community, kind of a...well, not a sybarite or hedonist, but almost there, someone who appears Teflon to life's disappointments - and yet in the end, you learn that he's been going through the same mental struggle as Latona, showing that you never really know everything that's going on with people.
But that is an aggravatingly condescending speech he gives about Latona in the end, in parts.

Mathias, Neo Angelique: Unfortunately, Mathias's story serves to illustrate neoromance's storytelling limitations: it's so often bent on being smotheringly fluffy that it cannot discern between negative emotions, which may or may not be justifiable, and wrongful actions borne of them, and it therefore considers the very state of having negative emotions to be evil in itself. It's telling that the miffing of Mathias's storyline in this manner was the turning point for the quality of the show, which until then had been going quite well.
Five thoughts on Mathias in general:
- This is indeed representative of the central tragedy of Mathias's character, but I can't envision him in any outfit other than his priest robes. They gave him a gold and green jacket-and-shirt combo on the cover of the Platinum Harmony CD, but even something that conservative doesn't work on him. When it comes to the robes, however, it's crucial that Mathias have all the various overlays and capes and whatnot. The whole ensemble looks beautiful, but the gown by itself looks like a granny nightgown. (And the gloves look like granny gloves. Never have the building blocks of an outfit looked so nice assembled and so dorky individually. And yet that's in line with Mathias, I think.)
- One of Neo Angelique's hallmarks was its thoughtful use of untraditional color schemes, and Mathias's own was among the best; it's a faded, worn version of Rene's palette. (Its pale pastels bring to mind Phantasy Star's Lutz, both he and and Mathias being self-sacrificing men with light, cool palettes dedicated to religious orders.)
- I want to get Mathias's ending in the game, but in an aggravating instance of visual-novel logic, it's inaccessible unless you've already gotten the ending for Rene, who, if you're partial to Mathias, is probably the character to whom you're least charitably inclined.) I am curious as to how Mathias's character is worked into the story of the game, which opens with Rene as already Head of the Order, as Mathias being forced out of the reins of power is the crux of his character arc.
- About Erenfried:"I did want to shake him and lock him in a cell for most of the first series, then Mathias did it for me, and all was well."I know that feel, bro.
- I have a hard time remembering these days if his name is spelled with one or two t's. Sad that Neo Ange's faded so from both my own and public memory, particularly when so much of its potential remained untapped.

Masami Eiri, Serial Experiments Lain: On further nomenclature debacles, I keep forgetting which is this man's given name and which is his family name. But regarding Masami:It speaks to just how smart Lain was that at the core of its labyrinthine, intellectualized jigsaw-puzzle conspiracy (the show midway through its run takes an entire episode to put everything from previous eps together in voiceover for the viewers so that they're up to speed for the big revelation) it put perhaps its most human character (besides ordinary schoolgirl Alice). Many villains present portraits of urban normalcy lapsed into madness, but Eiri is one of the best: his once-starched lab jacket, the last remnant of his time of respectable employment, wreathing his scarecrow frame like a cloak; his virtual body symbolically swathed with tape where it was in meatspace cleaved in three; his now-long and bedraggled hair that parts upon his debut to reveal a masterful smirk beneath, becoming a Sadako-esque symbol of weaponized submission and anonymity; his personal realm of a deserted suburban cityspace with scraggly telephone poles stark against a sickly orange sky; the backwards conversation he has with the heroine upon revealing himself; his diseased entreaties to her to "love me"; his impotent salaryman ranting of "I'll quit! I'll quit!" ground out beneath his breath through gritted teeth in the ending, which surely touches base with anyone watching. Lain didn't need a great villain to be great, but thank the Deus it got Masami anyhow.

Minax, Ultima: It occurs to be how Minax doesn't really get her due in the Ultima series. Perhaps it's because her installment is viewed as the "weird" Ultima, but her accomplishments are considerable - I mean, she actually won, conquering one planet and laying waste to another, and the good guys had to resort to time travel to stand a chance - and yet the series, just like the Britannians investigating the wreckage of Mondain's castle before Ultima II times, characterizes her as Mondain's less-powerful sidekick, his moll. Respect, people.
.

Comments

I meant to do this so long ago

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Long enough that looking at it kind of sets my teeth on edge now, but. To avoid being yelled at again, I am here to inform you that there is now more Morris fanart (http://s246.photobucket.com/user/BladeSheef/media/morriscolor_zpsa62df993.png.html) on the Internet.

And…jeeze, it feels really lame to keep saying this, but I like Morris a lot, too, though I admit a lot of it’s also due to the similarities he shares with Ghaleon. If Morris were in the games, I think he’d probably be sad and maybe a bit angry but not all that surprised to learn about him. At the end maybe he'd also have something to say about how the last (mazoku) child of their city ended up.

Re: I meant to do this so long ago

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

I love it! Thank you for doing this! I know we've talked about this before, but there's comparatively so little on Lunar in general, and of these characters, so much less still that it's almost nothing, which is a particularly pity considering their richness. It's so nice to see art created of them.

(I'm afraid I yell out of enthusiasm. I apologize if I screwed up and miscommunicated before with good ol' Tagak.)

I agree that Morris commenting in a version of Silver Star would be quite sad. He's too much of a bitter realist to be surprised. It'd be intriguing to hear his epitaph, as it were; it'd probably fly over the heads of Alex & co. I would've liked to have seen him as an NPC in a Four Heroes game. Despite his life-of-the-party facade, I kind of find it easy to imagine him living a quiet and slightly sad life off somewhere, but hopefully having managed to find a bit of happiness in it.

(BTW, I read about your laptop issue on DeviantArt. I'm so sorry; I know it must have been a huge aggravation to have one of your major tools of the trade unavailable for such a long time.)

fjdkfj;s sorry this is so late

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I’m glad you like it! c: Your posts have given me a greater appreciation for these characters, which I think I’ve already said, too, and it’s partially because of that that I’m drawing them more. It's good for getting me to draw things other than the various forms of Ghaleon right now. :p

(Haha, no! I was happy, really. _{in an ohgodohgod sort of way.})

I kind of find it easy to imagine him living a quiet and slightly sad life off somewhere, but hopefully having managed to find a bit of happiness in it.

I remember reading that, now. I was imagining him in Meribia, since it’s a big enough city that it might be easy for him to go unnoticed, and that’s where you’re restricted to at the end.

(Also, laptop—thank you. I’ve been very fortunate to have use of one of the family desktops, so it’s not as bad as it could’ve been.)

Re: fjdkfj;s sorry this is so late

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Hey, late, look at me here; more than a whole week later. I delay responding in an attempt to do it "properly" and end up making a hash of both the timing and content. I'm sorry here.

Oh, thank you for the kind words about my stupid posts! That makes me happy (and, as I've said before, I'm so glad to see representations of the manga characters). Also, I know we don't discuss it as much here, but I do like your range of Ghaleon art - you show aspects of him and periods of his life that really aren't explored in fanart, and it's neat to see.

I can see Morris in Meribia! Large enough for him to get relatively lost, yet enough culture for him. I was thinking of running across him in as an NPC in a Four Heroes game, maybe having settled in some out-of-the-way location, though that maybe be too backwater for him. (And, of course, a Four Heroes game made now would really not have much chance of being any good.)

Though Morris has us all, apparently, what with being back on the Blue Star playing an English gentleman in Under the Rose and all. I suppose that doesn't quite work out chronologically with Lunar (or, rather, works out chronologically backward), but oh, well. I've read only the first volume, though, and he seems to be playing Not Oscar Wilde, so I hope things turn out better for him than Oscar. (He gets briefly, falsely accused of sexual assault by one of the characters supposedly inspired by KSK Ghaleon, though, so I don't have my hopes up.)

It's good to see your art account active again! Laptops are so fragile and volatile. I'm currently on an old tower I've had for ten years and actually don't have any incentive to switch. (I do have a working laptop, but it's running a copy of Windows 8 that for family-politics reasons would be problematic to switch out for XP or something, so it's not really used except for games and when I need to access the latest version of Office.)

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

That…is pretty much the same thing I did with my previous reply, which was also over a week late, ahaha. So! Hopefully it won’t take so long this time. Urk. _Sorry...

You’re very welcome! Also, thanks; I will try to work on more than just portraits in the future,too.

Yep, exactly! Though, hmm… if this was before Mel took over and there was still tension between humans and beastmen over there, I wonder if it would’ve caused problems for him, since it seems like knowledge of the mazoku/vile tribe faded pretty fast outside of Vane. He could probably disguise himself through illusions or something either way. _{A part of me also still, still wishes they made a port/remake of Eternal Blue for the GBA or DS since I actually have those, though. Ahaha.}

That’s good to know! I’ve heard of Under the Rose and seen some of the covers, but it didn’t really catch my interest. Also—hah, it… would be a thing if Morris and some of the others actually had predated the destruction of the Blue Star. It could almost work if you cherry picked from the games and the novels (I think Vane actually came from the Blue Star in those?), and were willing to give the mazoku an absurdly long (for Lunar, anyway) life span. I also remember looking at that one EBC cutscene showing the cities on the Blue Star being blown away and thinking that the architecture matched that of the Vane ruins.

Once again, thank you. I'll do my best to keep it that way, or at the very least, not go nearly a year without a submission again.

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Re: Eternal Blue: It's so strange, since in the early, Sega CD days, it was EB that was the standout game, it being so much more polished and attracting so much attention for its animated cutscenes, plus having a good deal of voice work, and SS was kind of pushed to the side for being considerably rougher. Nowadays, there're been so many ports of SS in aborted attempts to take over the franchise that EB has kind of fallen by the wayside. Maybe that company that ported Silver Star to the iPhone will tackle it, though the amount of outright rejiggering that would be required may be well beyond their ken.

I must confess: I have not actually read the Lunar novels yet. I keep meaning to get around to it, and it keeps slipping my mind. I recall from my flipthroughs something about Ghaleon wanting to use something as a spaceship to go back to the Blue Star? If so, that he actually is using his airship to run away from his people, as he initially feared his brother was, is rather sad. But I'm probably misremembering things. (Is the plot of the fourth volume any good, from what you know? Shigema brought it out so much later than the other three volumes and it would have to cover so much territory that I have misgivings. I liked the idea that the first three were kind of taking their time to work through the plot, and then Volume 4 would've had to gogogo.)

I wish I liked Under the Rose better than I did. Funato's art is gorgeous in it, and the characters' faces are so expressive; it's the best-drawn manga I've read. I'm not one for the Victorian era, though, and Volume 1, at least, is one of those Game of Thrones-type stories where the only the cruelest flourish. It's disconcerting for a bit if you've read Vheen Hikuusen, as the main character looks enough like young Ghaleon to throw you off for a bit, but that wears off after a while, as no one (except for Morris and maybe the Guildmistress-alike) acts like their Lunar counterparts; they're all kind of jerks. I'm just not one for that sort of storytelling.

The mazoku originating on the Blue Star would be a most interesting idea. If Morris came from the Blue Star, though, I'm not sure his race could have survived his insufferableness for so long. (This reminds me of how many story avenues Lunar has that were left unexplored by what we got. I suppose it's better, in a way, that the franchise hasn't yet lived to see them explored ineptly, though it's a pity we had to make the choice between no renditions and bad renditions at all.)

I am looking forward to more art, whatever comes down the pike!

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Ah, is that so? I missed the Sega CD entirely, haha. From what I’ve seen, though, I agree that EB looked a lot better than TSS. I do remember reading somewhere that a lot of the things people associate with lunar started with the original EB. But, yeah, the number of ports and remakes for SSSC still baffles me. It’s only the first half!

Oh, I haven’t read them either! All that I know about the novels comes from the summaries on LunarNET. As for the plot, I’m not… sure. It's different! (Uh, spoilers for the rest of this paragraph, I guess?) From what I understand, in this version, Althena’s rebirth is stated as having caused a temporary drop in the magic that kept Lunar livable and stable, and Vane was the ship that carried people from the Blue Star instead of the Goddess Tower. Ghaleon apparently did not know about the magic decline only being temporary, or else he did not care and just decided to take this opportunity, because his plan was to have Luna gather up every last scrap of magic and take as many people as Spaceship Vane could carry so they could go colonize Venus. That's probably the biggest difference from SSSC. I think Ghaleon actually lends the airship out to Alex & co. to hunt down the Dragons.

… …I might try to pick up a volume or two, then, for the art if nothing else.

Good point. (And…I guess so. I’ll probably get excited if anything new does pop up in spite of myself, though at this point it's... _{probably going to be another Silver Star Story.})

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahaha, that novel story. I don't know if Ghaleon's Trip to Venus is just a hilarious Ghaleon character development or if that's just amping up the villainy blindly without regard for his character. I guess I'd have to read the dang thing finally to get the context to decide. I suppose I should be impressed that Shigema swung for the fences, at least. At least Ghaleon has excellent taste in planets.

(Is the airship Ghal lends out _the_ Great Inheritance, then? It isn't destroyed at the end of TnK in novel land? I know it's so against the spirit of the story, but I just bristle at the thought of Alex getting his grubby hands all over it. Damn kids, get outta that airship!)

Re: enthusiasm for Lunar: I actually tallied it up one time and realized that I'd bought four consoles (Sega CD, Saturn, DS, and PSP) just for Lunar. Nothing can make us throw judgment to the wind like our favorite franchises.

(I love your recent pic of young Dyne, BTW. I didn't catch that detail about the staff in that novel illustration. That's exactly what he would do with it.)

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Yyyeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. I'm not sure what to make of Ghaleon, either. (If you do read them, I’d be interested in knowing what you decide?)

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be the same ship. The summaries don't say whether it was destroyed or not, but I just assumed it was and the Guild had it repaired. _{Ghaleon could've overseen the repairs, maybe?} Kyle’s the one who ends up piloting it and …uh, names/renames it while he’s at it. With Mia’s approval.

Haha, this is true. (Also, wow, that's a lot. I can't say I've done that _yet. Closest I've done for Lunar so far is get the Legend guide because hey that looks like art I've never seen before in the sample image. _{And the hardcover EBC guide because I wanted to see what the commentary was like.})

(Eeee, thank you. The idea was kicking around in my head for a long time and I finally got around to drawing it out. I’m glad to hear you agree that’s what he’d do!)

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Good grief, I actually did the exact same thing with the Legend guide myself - I wanted to see any new art that was produced for the game. I don't have the EBC guide, though. Way out of my reach now pricewise. (Any interesting commentary there?)

(I should be grateful, I suppose, that I've gotten good use of the systems Lunar's compelled me to buy. Except for the Saturn; that was a bust all around.)

Kyle’s the one who ends up piloting it and …uh, names/renames it while he’s at it. With Mia’s approval.

We are living in the darkest timeline.

(Also, the pirate's daughter doesn't steer the ship? Really? I know Jess has a habit of crashing these things, but not yet, not in this continuity, at least.)

(Also also, now that I think of it, cripes, Shigema, having the airship survive TnK really is missing the point of that story.)

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Haha, nice! The character lineart sections were what caught my eye. (I got something called …the EBC Capture Guide? for similar reasons. That time, it was dialog portrait art of Ghaleonnn the antagonists in the sample image. _{And thus not as ridiculous/risky to me, hahaha.})

Er. Commentary may not have been the best word to use. Working Designs humor? The captions under screenshots and descriptions and such. I’d uh, never had a strategy guide like that. _{They are pricey, yeah. Mine was a little cheaper because the dust jacket was damaged.}

(Kyle's a pirate in this version though? He had his own steamship, so I guess it makes a little more sense.)

(_{...It’s silly, but I’m kinda disappointed and amused that Ghaleon’s hand me down cloaks lasted longer than that ship.})