On RPG Campaigns/Settings I Would Totally GM

[As-Yet-Nameless Mecha Setting]

My vision for this setting is as follows:

One part Dune (Space politics, feudal domains, long-standing rivalries, bloody plots in the night)

One part A Song of Ice and Fire (as above, but with less mysticism and even more GRIMDARK and trolling)

One part Gundam (for the giant robots, naturally)

I freely admit, this setting is totally just my fiction fetishes rolled into one sexy package full of gritty violence and PTSD.  I do love the idea of giant robots not just as weapons of war, but as ancestral symbols of authority (The Five Star Stories, Knight Titans in the old Warhammer 40,000 Epic fluff).


System of Choice: Probably Rogue Trader, either using the internal vehicle rules (in Into the Storm) or, more likely, doing a partial homebrew system for the mecha (possibly based on that of Adeptus Evangelion, though I'm not familiar enough with it to feel terribly comfortably to saying with any certainty that I like its mecha combat rules).  I have been meaning to take a closer look at Heavy Gear, and I could probably cull some fun rules and tables from Mekton, if it came down to it, even if I'd prefer not to grapple directly with its rather '80s rules.


Bleach

This may sound like a weird one because I frequently disparage Bleach, but roll with me for a second.  Bleach is a mediocre to bad story set in a really cool, fairly fleshed-out universe with reasonably consistent but not overly restrictive or arcane, or full of exceptions created purely for the purpose of creating exceptions (cough*NASU*cough) rules.

Besides that, for all the plot of Bleach lacks, its characters are pretty cool, in generally, and set some pretty creative precedents for powers.  The fact that Bleach would lend itself very well to an easy mission-based setup (Soul Society and the Thirteen Court-Guard Squads were basically built to provide structure for roving bands of adventuring PCs who hunt Hollows, deal with ghosts' problems, get up to shenanigans in the mortal realm, etc) is just gravy.  It's relatively low on my list of things I want to run, to be sure, but it's still nice to know it's out there as a possibility.

System of Choice: D&D 4th Edition, probably.  In Bleach, stuff pretty much just happens - martial techniques and magic usually work as intended (though they may not be effective against a given target, they WORK), so DH/RT/DW/BC's systems that operate around a fairly high failure percentage and spells going wildly and hilariously wrong run a bit counter to the setting.  What's more, zanpaktou limit levels (Shikai, Bankai), powerful kido (spells), and other techniques fit far better with the Encounter Power/Daily Power dynamic than DH/RT/DW/BC's high-failure-but-infinite-attempt* model for magic.

Finally, nobody ever dies in Bleach.  Just like in D&D 4e.

As an alternative, I would consider Deathwatch or Black Crusade (since Battle-Brothers and Heretics are far less subject to the high failure rate than Explorers and especially Acolytes), but for the above reasons, I think these systems fit a bit less well with the setting.  Interestingly, Orpheus could work very well for Bleach simply based on how much thematic (and thus mechanical) overlap there is between the two settings.  But Orpheus is kind of a rules trainwreck, and what's more, just doesn't have the raw breadth of content that I'd like to see for Bleach (which D&D 4e probably exemplifies best - each class has assloads of options for powers, further opened up by multiclassing, etc).  I'd consider looking at Geist: The Sin Eaters, the spiritual if not direct successor to Orpheus, but that said, I'm generally not a fan of the way World of Darkness handles dice, even if New WoD is less broken.

*(infinite until you get eaten by daemons)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Despite lacking any real giant robots, Avatar is hands-down my favorite TV series, and I'd love to run a campaign set in the Avatar-verse.  As such, I think it hardly needs an explanation for why I want to run it.  That said, I will expound a bit more, but I'll keep it brief:

-Avatar's timeline is COLOSSAL, judging by how many Avatars statues were in the Eastern Air Temple.  What's more, the Avatar, the one of the few lore characters who spans this timeline can (and indeed, must, many, many times) die, meaning that nobody (excluding a few Spirits) is necessarily protected by causal plot armor.

-The series opens many doors but leaves many potential plotlines untapped.  In other words, free content for side-quests, if not the whole campaign.

-I want to make up my own horrible new abomination animals.  Shark-Bees, anyone?

(Edit: KillHammer beat me to this one, apparently.  I must grant props where props are due.)


System of Choice: This one would be a lot of work no matter how you slice it, because I like the idea of using D&D 4e's power scheme for Bending, but, unfortunately, because of the way powers are tied to classes, it would really mean creating at least four whole new classes (which would not be available on the Character Builder - no small downside), balancing them, creating feats and items to support them, etc.  Realistically, I would probably handle this by simply working with players to create appropriate powers for their characters as they needed them, but even that would mean a fair chunk of extra work that usually isn't necessary.

I would actually pretty strongly consider trying to find a new setting that had specific rules for custom-created powers if I had concrete plans to run an Avatar campaign, since this would allow me to leave new powers almost entirely in the hands of the players.

Ork Trek

Rogue Trader.  But everyone plays an Ork.

"Spoice.  Da foinal frontier.  Deez a' da voyagez of da Kill-Kroozah Dedkrusha. Da mission: to WAAAGH new woilds, an' ta seek out new loife and KRUMP IT GOOD!"

System of Choice: Rogue Trader.  Duh.


There are others, of course, but these are the ones I felt like about writing about right now.

-Stormshrug

On OH SH*T I F*CKING KNEW IT

HTMC recently sent me a link to some photos of Gainax's building's walls.

Wait for it...

I SUCCESSFULLY PREDICTED THAT THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ANIME WATCH OTHER COMPANIES' ANIME.  THIS IS AN ACHIEVEMENT IN PROPHECY FOR THE AGES.

But seriously, I'm calling smug and insipid "Called It" rights when there are some Star Driver references in the next Gainax Super Robot series that I grudgingly watch and then incessantly whine about.

-Stormshrug

On Miscellaneous Consumption

Or:  I muse about the anime I have watched in the last six or so months, and try (read: fail) to keep it brief.

I finished Mars Daybreak today, and this inspired me to put my (metaphorical) pen to (metaphorical) paper regarding shows completed.



Nurarihyon no Mago


Rome's Rapid Rubric* (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  5/4/4

I wrote a bit about this show, and the experience of enjoying mediocrity.

Honestly, what I wrote earlier pretty much holds.  I did, in fact, finish this show, even though I dropped a number of other mediocre shows (Legend of the Legendary Heroes and Iron Man, I'm looking at you two, and especially you, Hakuouki 2) at roughly the same time, and then went so far as to watch nothing  from last season's offerings, which were not short on mediocrity.  I guess I can't watch every mediocre show.

But this one was fun, and actually had a pretty satisfying arc to it.  Characters often used their rather stock powers creatively, which I always like (part of the reason I've been enjoying the game Bulletstorm so much recently).  There were some predictable power upsets, because it wouldn't be a shounen manga adaptation without them, but there were some clever ones, too.  "Even when the sun rises, the moon is still in the sky," after all.

Apparently there is more in the works, though I don't know whether I'll watch it or not.  Probably not, but you never know.

Final Words:  Still not recommending it.  Though I'm still not not-recommending it, either.


Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid


Rome's Rapid Rubric (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  6/7/6


Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid is Full Metal Panic! Season 1 all over again.  Great start, entertaining (if far from revolutionary) character dynamics between Sousuke (professional soldier since childhood and thus devoid of social graces) and Kaname (brilliant but wrathful highschool tsundere), and a really big lead-up to an anticlimax at the end.  The first episode of The Second Raid, just like the first episode of the first season, promises GREAT mecha action as a series hook.  And, pretty much just like the first season, it's a bait-and-switch.  It delivers enjoyable but steadily decreasing mecha action (just like the first season), and then disappoints at the end by having a conflict that is much more emotional and introspective than military and full of explosions.

The animation of The Second Raid is gorgeous - that's definitely an improvement over the first season's rapid degeneration of quality - but the plot still lags badly in second half, this time due to angst (instead of poor animation AND angst).

In the end, The Second Raid's greatest failing, though, is that it's essentially the first season all over again.  Much of the relationship development from the first season is undone in the name of comedy and drama, and then redone in much the same way.  It's an easy way to repeat the success of the past than innovate, but it sometimes cheapens the experience.

Surprise Breakout Character:  Chidori Kaname.  I know, how can one of the two MAIN characters from the very start be a breakout character?  Yeah, I was surprised, too, but she pulled it off and really impressed me with her fortitude and resourcefulness.  Perhaps the only really new thing in The Second Raid is her individual character development, outside of her relationship with Sousuke.  If there is a third season, I will be very irked if this doesn't last.

Final Words:  A satisfactory continuation of the plot from the first season, and worth watching if you enjoyed that.  If you're just looking for lulz and don't care about the romance or plot, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu delivers the lulz in a more condensed form.  The action at large isn't bad, but I was left wanting more robots.

Seirei no Moribito


Rome's Rapid Rubric (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  5/0/5

Seirei no Moribito (officially rendered "Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit") is a series about a warrior, Balsa, and a kid, Prince Chagum, who she sets out to protect from various court intrigues like murder and more murder.  There are some other recurring characters (various people from the court, Balsa's not-boyfriend Tanda, and his extremely cantankerous teacher, Torogai the shaman), but fundamentally, it's about Balsa and Chagum hiding from the assassins on their trail, occasionally punctuated by the utterly brutal asskickings that Balsa delivers to the people hunting them.  Do not f*ck with Balsa.

Though it is set in a fantasy world, it isn't written like a fantasy world - it is far more akin to George RR Martin's gritty, historically-influenced fantasy than works of high fantasy.  Thankfully, it isn't anywhere near as dark as Martin's works.

The martial arts in this series, although they don't appear as often as they might, are beautiful.  Production IG lovingly renders the fight scenes when they do show up, though they hardly skimp on the visuals at other times.  Seirei no Moribito looks good - really good - all the way through.

I would recommend this series quite broadly.  The only thing it's short on is humor - it isn't a comedy, and it doesn't try to be.  Though it has funny moments it does not contrive to create them.


Final Words:  Huh, I don't hate slice of life after all.  I just hate slices of boring people's lives.  Also, what's with all the bodyguard series I've been watching?


Ghost in the Shell Stand: Alone Complex: Second Gig


Rome's Rapid Rubric (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  6/6/8

The second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was a show I had seen most of before, back when I watched anime week-to-week on [Adult Swim].  I remember liking the action, but being rather confused by the byzantine plot, because I would occasionally miss episodes, and then be totally lost, and I was watching it over such a long period of time that I could hardly remember the important details (of which there are many).

It's definitely a show to watch over a short period of time, like Lost (or so I'm told, as I haven't seen Lost).  The action is beautiful, the characters are interesting, if a bit secondary to the complex machine that is the plot.  As with the first season, it doesn't give you answers, though it doesn't leave them to nebulous interpretation usually, either - it expects you to pay attention and then figure them out yourself.

The Tachikomas are still fun, and get to play perhaps an even more integral role in the plot this time.  The Tachikoma Theatre shorts at the end of each episode are something I won't claim to fully understand, though.

Final Words:  The Major's outfit is slightly less unreasonable in the second season, since she wears what actually amount to real, full-length pants most of the time.


Senkou no Night Raid (Lightning-Fast Night Raid)

Rome's Rapid Rubric (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  4/1/6

Senkou no Night Raid is an extremely problematic work, and one that isn't easy to write on, especially because I am so poorly versed in the history that it covers.  It situates itself in China in 1930, beginning in Shanghai, and follows a special para-military unit of psychics working for the Japanese Army.  Shanghai at the time was an extremely international city, and a huge number of nations had significant stakes in it.  This is a fascinating setting, but obviously, a troubling one.  The show has definitely prompted me to do a little bit of research on my own into less openly fictional accounts of the events it portrays, but I'm no expert on these matters.


Where Senkou no Night Raid succeeds is in its portrayals of its main characters, and in the fascinating ways each member of the team uses his or her rather limited psychic powers (especially in conjunction with one another).  The first arc of the show, which takes place in Shanghai, while tensions are mounting, is very compelling.

Where it falls short is in its attempt to launch itself headlong into the semi-fictional, semi-historical territory of political intrigue between China, Japan, and the League of Nations in 1930 while still claiming the auspices of being "a work of fiction," as it frequently reminded the viewer.  Every time the show portrayed a "historical" event, I questioned the accuracy of it, and then the spin that might have been put on it even if it was technically correct, and then the spin inherent in history books themselves.  The fact that the fictional main characters fell out of focus, to some degree, in the second half did little to improve the situation.

The resolution of the plot was somewhat rushed, because of the focus on "historical" events in the second half of the show, and the clever uses of psychic powers mostly fell by the wayside, only briefly returning for the finale.

It does have a really good OP, though.


Final Words:  Senkou no Night Raid was definitely thought-provoking, though perhaps not in the ways it intended (or perhaps so - it was hard to tell what, if any, messages it carried).  The first few episodes are significantly stronger than the rest of the series.




Mars Daybreak

Rome's Rapid Rubric (Action/Fanservice/Plot):  5/5/4

When I picked up Mars Daybreak, I knew only a few things about it - it was by Studio Bones (who I like), it was about pirates (cool), and it featured giant robots underwater ('nuff said).  The first episode begins with a look at the impoverished dystopia Mars has become in the far future, languishing under colonial rule by the Earth, in a situation not entirely unlike the Space Colonies of Universal Century Gundam.  However, despite the frequent implications of a GRIMDARK backdrop behind the action, Mars Daybreak is anything but.  

Mars Daybreak is basically Star Trek on a pirate submarine on Mars.  Bones drops you right into the universe with nary an explanation as to how things work, because they're much too busy getting down to the HIGH ADVENTURE!  The cool-as-a-cucumber main protagonist isn't surprised by anything, so the viewer is left in the awkward but not entirely unenjoyable position of being alone in shouting "LOLWUT!?!" every few minutes for the first couple episodes.  The crew contains such characters as a talking cat, some kind of Vulcan, an empath of some kind, and a dolphin in power armor (or possibly some other small toothed whale), and besides a few short glimpses, their backstories are largely closed books.  But Mars Daybreak isn't about backstory.  Even the main character barely gets his backstory fleshed out, beyond necessary details.  It's about sailing towards the horizon of tomorrow, and being totally awesome doing it.

Although it doesn't delve into the past, the secondary characters are all satisfactorily, if not deeply, developed (as are the primary characters, fortunately).  This lack of depth comes in part from the large cast, but also seems to be a part of the aesthetic of the show.  Mars Daybreak doesn't aspire to great depth.

On an note few people but me care about, the mecha action falls into that all-too-common category of "decent, but not great" occupied by so many shows that would be absolutely amazing if they'd just put a bit more effort into this aspect of the show (Full Metal Panic (1&2), Eureka 7 (until the last quarter or so), Xam'd).  Combat tends to be low on both stakes and fatalities, and both mechanical power and pilot skill tend to be determined somewhat arbitrarily.  There are some mechanics of the universe that ameliorate this slightly by offering a form of explanation (enemy mechs are controlled remotely, and so they have slower reaction times, relying on attrition over skill to win battles), but the protagonists' victories often seem hollow because of this, too.  The mechanical designs are really cool, though.

Surprise Breakout Character:  Poipoider, the power-armored dolphin pirate voiced by the Lich King.  This is the dolphin Jesse would play if he were ever to play a dolphin or other small toothed whale in an RPG campaign.

Final Words:  Mars Daybreak is a fun, lighthearted, and mostly character-driven adventure series without much depth or the desire for such things.  This format lets Bones take advantage of their biggest strengths (great characterization and versatile animation), while avoiding their most glaring weaknesses (stupid, incomprehensible endings and big, unanswered questions).  Also, Poipoider is a badass.


-Stormshrug




*As always, I must mention that Rome's Rapid Rubric only accounts for "objective subjective" factors.  As such, it is not an indication of quality, merely of content.  "Good" and "bad" action (or fanservice, or plot) are weighted the same on this scale.  Fanservice only denotes sexually-oriented fanservice, since other forms of fanservice are too difficult to measure on this (intentionally) simplified scale.

On Alternate Universes

A list of my favorite media-type-things that don't exist in our universe, in no particular order:

-A good film version of Beowulf.

-An anime retelling of The Iliad in space with GIANT ROBOTS.

-A series/movie/weekly radio show/whatever in which everybody is voiced by Alucard or Emperor Wakamoto or BOTH.

-A 20 page paper on how Beowulf fails to use weapons properly on my hard-drive.

-Ciaphas Cain: The Musical.

Possibly more to come if I manage to actually survive creating ONE of these...

(Note: Sadly, it is NOT Ciaphas Cain: The Musical that is due at noon on Friday).

-Stormshrug

On Rumors of this Blog's Demise

They are highly overstated.

I love it when you find an obvious variation on a meme that nobody has done.  Unless somebody has, in which case I sure feel stupid.

Anyway, I would post a review of the Macross Frontier movie, but frankly, HTMC has it covered.  The only things I have to add are that it was gorgeous, which is redundant but cannot be overstated, and that Alto somehow became even more of an utterly ricockulous pilot from one training montage than he did from the entire war against the Vajra in the series.

Oh, and Ozma is still my hero, as he is responsible for the SMS 'initiation' scene, which is perhaps the best part of the film.


-Stormshrug

On Enjoyable Mediocrity

Alternatively: "Sometimes You Just Want a Show About a the Hijinks of a Kid Inheriting His Demon Yakuza Family."

Nurarihyon no Mago, or Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, as it is apparently titled stateside (but hey, it's being simulcasted free on Hulu, so I'm not gonna b*tch excessively about an awkward translation of the title), is not a great show.  I wouldn't recommend it that highly to anyone, and I'd even say that anyone who does not like shounen series should probably take a pass.  There are fifty things you should watch first, but that's another story.

Its characters are not terribly original.  Its narrative is far from groundbreaking.  Its humor is not uproarious.  As a work, it does not challenge me to think, either deeply or obsessively.  I don't think much about it at all, except when Monday rolls around.

But, week by week, I watch it.  And, what's more, I find myself excited for the new episodes because, dammit, I'm excited to see what mess Rikuo's humorously precarious position has gotten him into this week.  Yeah, I can usually guess where the plot is going to go with some degree of accuracy, but I nonetheless enjoy it.

I think the reason behind this is that my expectations for the work are relatively low, even after enjoying it for twelve straight weeks.  It is what it is, and I'm content with that.  It doesn't strive to be a work that commands my attention, and I don't treat it as one (inb4 irony).  If anyone reads this and then goes to watch it, they may well be disappointed.

But for me, expectations and quality are balanced rather nicely right now.  And in the end, I think this may be almost as important to enjoyment as actual quality.  Or that's what I tell myself to justify watching a show about a kid inheriting leadership of his wacky demon yakuza family instead of doing a million other more productive things.

-Stormshrug

P.S.:  I think I may be writing a post in the future about recommendations, and how recommending things to people works (and doesn't).  But this is not a recommendation, nor an anti-recommendation.  If you choose to watch Nurarihyon, it's on your head alone, and I wash my hands of the matter.

On Bones and Gainax

Not to be confused with 'Boners and Gainax,' which is a different subject entirely.

Studio Bones and Gainax have been having an ongoing conversation for a while now about giant robots.  I know that the roots of angst and metaphysical examination in the giant robot genre are extremely deep (hi, Amuro!), but I think that we can jump into this particular discourse when Neon Genesis Evangelion came out, earned boatloads of money for Gainax (150 billion yen to date) and left anime with psychological scars that haven't healed a decade and a half later.

Here's a timeline of the conversation, as it has played out (between these two studios) (Here there be mild spoilers):

Neon Genesis Evangelion - 1995

Evangelion was not the first series to deconstruct Super Robot tropes.  Still, NGE so relentlessly took apart Shinji, the world he lived in, and in the end, the viewer's expectations, that its deconstructive aspects shouldn't be overlooked just because it wasn't the first to have giant robots cause giant collateral damage.  NGE is about unmaking.  This theme meshed very effectively with the Judeo-Christian imagery of the series - NGE is certainly an apocalyptic tale.  However, the incomprehensibility of its ending(s) left the series without any sort of conclusive recreation of the world.  There is an apocalypse, but is there a better world beyond the veil?  The series and the films leave this too much to the viewer's interpretation for most people to be really satisfied.  I certainly wasn't.

Neon Genesis Evangelion also helped to propagate the popularity of the Unlikeable Passive Male Protagonist in Mecha series.  This is a subject of much RAGE for me, I admit.

RahXephon - 2002

 To say that RahXephon is merely a clone of NGE is to simultaneously state the obvious and entirely miss the point.  The fact that cloning, and the anxiety of identity that it creates, is a major theme of RahXephon should be a pretty good tip-off that RX knows what it's doing.  RahXephon repeatedly recreates not only aesthetics (the plugsuit, for one thing), but also entire scenes, nearly shot-for-shot, from NGE.  But it does it with NGE in mind, and uses the viewer's knowledge of NGE to twist expectations.  The seemingly evil director of the secret government giant robot program (the Gendo Ikari surrogate, if you will) takes an odd interest in the strange girl with an odd hair color.  Seems familiar.  But, as the series progresses, Bones takes the time to reveal his real motives, and they are quite different from what one would expect, given the formula that NGE set up.  In fact, many characters whose obvious or even explicit counterparts in Evangelion remain largely inscrutable are fleshed out to a far greater extent, in usual Bones style.  They do love them some secondary characters.

RahXephon behaves much the same way with its protagonist - Ayato Kamina seems a great deal like Shinji at first (though he has a different NGE character's looks).  Like Shinji, he remains largely passive until the end of the series.  But, in the very end, when he does finally act, things go quite differently.  The apocalypse still takes place, but beyond the clouds of one reality lies another, better world.

Also, he fights giant face-robots.  This will be important later.

(Thanks for the image, TheSoviet)


Eureka 7 - 2005

Eureka 7 is in many ways Bones' second crack at Evangelion.  While the first time, with RahXephon, Bones took on the universe, this time it takes on Shinji more directly.  There is little to like about Shinji in classic NGE, but there is little not to dislike about Renton when Eureka 7 begins.  Renton is immature, irritating, and largely useless to the rest of the cast for the first half of the series.

But that's the point.  Unlike Shinji, Renton learns, grows, and matures, mostly without backsliding, as the series goes on.  By the second season, he has reached a point of confidence and competence as to be likeable.  By the end of the series, he's damn impressive.  This is the classic hero's journey, but to set it along side the trappings of NGE (emotionless blue-haired girls, giant organic robots, government conspiracies to end creation, inscrutable aliens seemingly hell-bent on wiping out humanity) makes it all the more poignant.  Unlike Ayato Kamina or Shinji, Renton is given some agency from the start - when he chooses to use this agency roughly half-way through the series, he has a real impact.  Much of Eureka 7 is Renton's story, not the story of things happening to him.


Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - 2007

Ah Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Gainax's rejection of Neon Genesis Evangelion, in which the initially mild-mannered and passive Simon becomes the kind of hot-blooded badass who can literally drill a hole in the chest of Eva unit 1... I mean... the Rasengan.

Aside from spiritually slaying Shinji, however, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann significantly features a Christ-figure named Kamina whose actions begin the process of recreating the world (by fighting giant face robots), which I simply cannot believe is total coincidence, given RahXephon's similar use of an extremely different character with the same name.  The idea of the Spiral Nemesis - the over-abundance of energy that threatens to consume the universe, also resonates with the problems of Eureka 7, especially those pertaining to the awakening Skub Coral.  Additionally, Eureka and Nia, although different in personality, are two examinations of the same idea of a heavenly messenger in mortal form - an idea that can also be traced back to Ayato Kamina in RahXephon and even further back to Kaworu, the 17th Angel, in NGE.

Star Driver: Radiant Takuto - 2010

This is the latest contribution to the dialogue, apparently (thanks for the link, GG).

So, where is the conversation going?  I admit that I've hardly scratched the surface of where it's coming from, and now we're already looking ahead!  I'm actually tempted to watch Star Driver purely because I'm curious about this - Bones seems to have a lot of interesting things to say about Gainax, and I'm sure Star Driver will be no exception.  It looks like they're going full-on Gurren Lagann here, ridiculousness and all (but perhaps with a larger dose of fabulousity).  That said, I suspect that this academic curiosity won't be enough to get me over the two major humps of it being a Super Robot Show, and, far worse, a Fanservice-Driven Harem Series, which is my Red Kryptonite (that being the kind that drives Superman into an unstoppable RAAAAAGE).



-Stormshrug


P.S.:  In writing this post, I realized that perhaps FLCL and Xam'd of the Lost Memories should be on this timeline.  However, I ultimately decided that they're more on their own (inscrutable) wavelength than the specific threads I was following, and, honestly, I don't really want to write about either right now (or, in FLCL's case, ever).  I do think they have some interesting parallels, though.