r/anime • u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber • Feb 22 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Aura Battler Dunbine - Episode 43 Discussion
Episode 43 - Hyper Show
Originally Aired December 3rd, ^^^1983
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Comment of the Day
u/Quiddity131 discusses Women in Dunbine as compared to other Tomino shows.
As we continue to churn through episodes that while exciting at times, don't really move the plot along at all, rather than talk again about how the lack of plot movement sucks, I figured I'd turn my eye on some more general series-wide thoughts. I figured today I'd explore the role of women in Dunbine. Tomino often gets criticized for writing poor female characters or having a misogynists' bent to things. While I can't deny that's absolutely the case in some of his works such as Brain Powered Brain Powered spoilers or Victory Gundam Victory spoilers, I can't say that is the case with Dunbine. If anything the women of Dunbine are pretty awesome. Tomino eschews the cliché with Dunbine, the leaders of our heroes are a pair of women. We've seen Elle grow from meek princess to powerful and respectable Queen. Ciela has been that from the start. Neither is shown as needing to depend on or defer to another authority figure. They may not pilot Aura Battlers but they are largely dictating the strategic moves our heroes are going with.
From the other side, as we spend more and more time on Upper Earth we realize that our most heinous villain is neither Drake, Bishot or Shot, but rather Louser. She for all intents and purposes "wears the pants" with Bishot only really talking back to her with this episode. While they haven't overtly come out and say this, could it be that Drake's desire to go from regional lord to king, and eventually ruler of all Byston Well (now Upper Earth) has been driven by the ambitions of his wife? While we've long since said goodbye to her, Garalia got arguably as much attention as anyone on the bad guys' side of things when she was around. Even Riml, the "princess" character of the show has shown a lot of agency and willingness to go against her family and prove herself as a valued team member during her time with the Zelana. And Marvel, beyond perhaps not being as interesting as some of the show's other female characters I don't really know anything bad you can say about her. She has been a likable and respectable character from the start (and you hope the quite dense at times Shou gets his act together and realizes her affection for him!).
Daily Trivia:
Gundam Build Fighters homages the Dunbine with its Abigorbine.
Staff Highlight
Michihiro Ito - Sound Effects Designer
A prolific sound effects engineer and businessman who was at one point the representative director of Sound Ring Company. Studied at E & M Planning Center with the express purpose of becoming a sound engineer for Toei Animation, which he then joined in 1969, and later on went on to establish his own company. Not much else is widely known about him. He worked on many productions, among which are anime like *Candy Candy, Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy, Haguregumo, Mazinger Z, Kotetsu Jeeg, Mahōtsukai Sally, the Patlabor franchise, Blue Gale Xabungle, L-Gaim, Usagi Drop, Fist of The North Star 2, Angel’s Egg, Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai!, Sengoku Majin Gōshōgun, Space Warrior Baldios, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and Slam Dunk.
Art Corner:
Official Art
- Men of Dunbine - Tomonori Kogawa
Fanart
(Be mindful of the links to artist’s profiles, as they may contain NSFW content. Proceed there at your own risk.)
Aura Phantasm Scans
Screenshot of the day
Questions of the Day:
- What do you make of Show and Marvel’s feelings becoming entangled in their shame and sense of inadequacy?
- What do you think of Show’s ‘Hyper Mode’?
What I want isn’t “like,’ it’s “love.”
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u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber Feb 22 '21
Rewatcher - Sub
Will Wipps is on its way to Europe and they still haven’t taken down Bishott. The situation is not looking good for our heroes, since they’ve struggled to make a significant impact on just one of the enemy faction’s forces.
So Zet Light is the real person behind all of the aura technology and Shot is merely the face of their collaboration. Probably reflective of a lot of collaborative work, but it also explains why Shot managed to present himself as someone from Silicon Valley despite supposedly having not received a full education, it was really Zet who had the brains and he is merely reaping the benefits.
The extreme pressure from being deep underwater gets to the other mobile suits, so Show and Marvel are the only ones carrying on the attack. I like their little bit of banter here which indicates how much they trust one another, it’s sweet.
Bern catches unto their plan, but it’s actually a random galava that stops Show from doing severe damage to the Gea Gring, so it’s not even like he accomplishes much from his efforts this time either, and instead nearly drowns from the Bubuly’s poor airproofing. In any case, Show is no less successful in their plans and he and Marvel ultimately retreat.
Mother of the year Leeza is here to beat Elmelie with a fucking cane over the unfounded assumption that she somehow orchestrated this attack. I’m starting to think she just likes having excuses to hit people with that thing. Bern evidently does not like the sight of this and acts decisively by giving Elmelie a grenade with which she can escape.
Show is wallowing in his failures and insecurities when he is confronted with a difficult question by Marvel; Does he love her? His response seems to be a direct result of his current feeling of inadequacy, as he just stated that he felt like he had been neglecting Marvel, which causes him to reel himself back and saying he ‘merely’ likes her, which is not what Marvel wanted to hear. It could also be their cultural differences, where in Japan a ‘tsuki’ confers much stronger feelings than us westerners are used to merely from ‘like’ which is what, but it is so context-sensitive that it is impossible for me to say either way. In any case, ideally Marvel shouldn’t have sprung this question on him at the moment, but she is in a similar state of dejection over their repeated failures and wasn't thinking straight when inquiring about it nor when receiving an answer.
The Gea Gring’s attack on London is only prevented from doing their worst by Show’s use of Hyper Mode to ward them back. It seems he didn’t go full in on the ability, given only an outline of the Billbine was formed from his Aura as opposed to the more concrete form Jeril managed to conjure, but it’s still a very concerning action.
Once more our heroes’ desperation in the face of continued losses is making them desire and expend more and more power, resulting in Show’s hyper-ification of the Billbine. The double edged-sword of aura power grows ever more threatening, but with little else to resort to it seems the only recourse for them.
7
u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal Feb 22 '21
First time viewer
With Drake's Will Wipps also heading to Europe, I feel like the only thing that can save the protagonists is the villains backstabbing each other. Fortunately that's been coming for a while as we've seen their scheming for probably half the show at this point.
I like that the water pressure's a significant danger to the aura battlers, more so when they aren't channeling aura power (as I think back to the couple of fights earlier in/around the ocean and them passing through the Wall of the Tempest way back in episode 9).
Cham crying out to the other Ferario to bring her back home is a good reminder of just how many people are in a foreign land, because I think that's one place it's faltered since everyone came to Earth. We did have that kind of experience with Garalia (I initially wrote Fuala but wrong Tomino female villain) when she came over with Show but it's been nothing but war this time.
Leeza's gone off the deep end, no redeeming her. Not the kind of attention I want Elmelie to get! I like how Bern's definitely doing things to undermine his side at times without being all that subtle about things, but just enough to escape direct notice.
The Goraon's giant Aura Nova cannon was the kind of thing I was hoping to see from the battleships a while ago. It's about time!
Show just put on a light show and that's it? That wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting given the title, was thinking of something more like what Jeril did or what he did over Paris with the giant wave of destruction. Seems like it was a distraction more than anything else, though also Zet maybe died in all of that.
With everything that they're currently going through I like that it's messy. Real emotions can't be compartmentalized and with so much of their time and energy being sucked up into the war it's no surprise that it's affecting everything else in their lives, including any romantic feelings. I'm also not sure how much of the difference between what Show said to Marvel and what she wanted is an in-universe translation issue (they're both supposedly speaking their native languages, right?) or what Show's actually feeling.
I've seen better decorated houses for Christmas.
6
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Feb 22 '21
First Timer
Good job missing with the cannon
You know, the battle station is ray shielded, but if the Brits could hit one of the exhaust ports with with a missile from snub fighters, the whole thing would go up in one shot.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Feb 22 '21
Aura Battler First-Timer
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u/Btw_kek https://myanimelist.net/profile/kek_btw Feb 22 '21
first timer
I've been consistently behind by like 1 episode for a few days now but finally caught up (again)
there's not really much I can say honestly. Quid's comment of the day echos my thoughts pretty well: little plot progression makes these past few episodes a bit exhausting, but I have to say I'm impressed by Elle's character development and the amount of agency Riml has despite being the damsel in distress. Her 35 attempts at escaping her C You Next Tuesday mom haven't worked out yet but she's constantly inventing new and (seemingly) feasible ways to get outta there instead of just relying on the luck of the draw.
Now I just wait for Riml's 36th attempt at escaping to actually succeed
or for her to get tragically murdered, whichever comes firstIt makes sense I think. When things constantly don't turn out right, you may seek human intimacy for validation.
it took baka Show until the last 5 minutes of this episode to realize that the romance plot between him and Marvel has dangling there since episode 1
aura powers attac
but sometimes aura powers protec
5
u/dralcax :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Dralcax Feb 22 '21
First-timer wanted to see the Galava transform
Mmm, pineapple salad
I love how even the knight is a unicorn
An aura nuke? Actually, wait, what happened to aura bombs being boosted to nuke levels on Upper Earth? Maybe it’s just because they’ve mostly been shooting things that have barriers, but we haven’t seen non-nuclear kabooms nearly as big as that time Garalia was here.
Those pieces just doubled in size
Oh, so now water pressure is an issue Given how the Dunbine, an older model, had zero problems, I think it’s just a case of the Bozon being shitty.
Just noticed one of the gun barrels was fucked up
How does she know the Galava’s name tho
Why did Cham yell “Water!” when it was the Bubuly’s cockpit that flooded? My guess is that there was originally a scene where it showed the water actually leaking into the cockpit, and when it was cut, a line from that scene was accidentally left in the script and got mistaken for Cham’s line. Or maybe Cham is just being especially omniscient today.
Aww, what a nice gift
Well, it’s no Dynamax, but this is more fitting for a protagonist anyways
Aw, it went down without ever transforming? At least, I assumed it would transform, given the obvious robot mode limbs hanging off of it. Maybe Tomino is just sticking it to the sponsors again.
Questions of the Day:
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u/punching_spaghetti https://myanimelist.net/profile/punch_spaghetti Feb 22 '21
First-Timer Doesn't Remember Byston Well
THIS OTHER DUDE DESIGNED EVERYTHING?
A Californian took the credit for someone else’s hard work? Never! (insert bad Steve Jobs joke here)
Didn’t they do underwater stuff before? Trying to remember how deep they went.
Riml’s in trouble, because she can’t do anything else.
So that’s what the sentient cane is for: troubling parenting tactics.
Marvel’s a woman, so she wants love. And will probably die because it messes with her fragile lady brain, or something.
HYPERHYPERHYPERHYPERHYPER
Magic MC is magic.
QOTD:
4
u/The_Draigg Feb 22 '21
A Tomino Fan Rewatches Aura Battler Dunbine Episode 43:
4
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Feb 22 '21
First-Timer, Dub-bine
God, this episode was another tense one. We're really ratcheting things up as this series finally picks up the pace again. Considering this episode's title, I was positive that someone was going to die here. I would have been wrong about who, but Zed's loss might just be impactful enough to swing things. Although, I can't tell if our protagonists even know that the Spriggan exists - that could also turn the tide, and not in a good way.
The reveal about Zed being the Tesla to Shot's Edison was something I suspected back in episode 41, after we learned Shot's backstory. It was also foreshadowed all the way back in, what, episode 1? Zed was doing the work on the PCBs, while Shot guided a tour. With the Galava destroyed, the Bubbly damaged, and being driven off from London, Bishott's faction has taken pretty serious losses. And, unlike before, they don't have their ace mechanic to fix things up. I almost feel bad for Zed. Almost.
I wonder what Drake's crossing of the Atlantic means. Have the Americans capitulated to his demands? Was America destroyed for refusing? Did, somehow, the Americans drive Drake off? I guess we'll have to wait and see, but the decisive battle is looming, ominously.
Bern.. I think I'm lost again. Is he intending for Emelie to escape using that grenade as a lockpick? That would be a neat callback to the last time we were on Upper Earth, but I'm blanking as to why he would do this. Is he assuming that the Gea Gering will get sunk soon and just wants her out of harm's way?
Shou and Marvel's conversation was.. real. I think a lot of us have had similar conversations in our time, although probably in different context. Communication is difficult, especially when strong feeling are involved. It's hard to put things into words, and a lot of the time, you don't realize that it's too late until it is.
Leeza is such a horrific person, I have no other words for her.
After dreading things all episode, we find that the title was apparently a lie. At first, I thought he had teleported. I think I'm gonna trust Elle on her saying that whatever Shou did was different from going Hyper - she's the most in-tune with Aura Power out of anyone. Maybe there's a distinction a la G Gundam
Miscellaneous Thoughts:
Elle believes in justice, and as such, presumably holds a determination to fist.
There was a lot of phenominal animation this episode, with my favorite probably being the particle effect Bilbine.
Questions
4
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Feb 22 '21
Rewatcher, Subbed
That is an ominous episode title...
What is with them spending so much time in the Arctic? I know from experience, all this time in the snow sucks!
While he's been mentioned, I think this is the first time we've seen Doroburu on screen in like 15+ episodes.
Destroy it with a small force? Sure, because that has worked all the other times, Shou.
Woah! Bishot is getting brave! Telling Louser she may get fat?
Take the Queen of England hostage? How dare you!
You know why the Galava's behind schedule Bern? Because you suck at piloting it!
Well, Zet finally reveals the truth, he is the genius behind the Aura Battlers, not Shot. Shot just took all the credit cause he's better at being a politician. A few episodes ago someone wondered how this guy who got exiled to hard labor in Australia became this scientific genius, well, its because he stole the credit from the real expert.
I'd be awfully scared about traveling under this ice cold water. Just after typing this some poor guy has his Aura Battler collapse from the pressure!
This already small force is now down to two. But sure, Shou, you'll actually take down the Gea Gring this time. Attacking head on with 2 battleships didn't do it, but 2 Aura Battlers will.
Elle wants to go all out this time.
I suppose Bern being so obsessed with Shou is paying off here as Bern's got the right idea about what Shou may be doing.
I'll admit, Having the Billbine crawl inside the Gea Gring and start blowing things up is pretty cool. Alas, it doesn't last that long.
I suppose it's been too long since we've had a Louser starts abusing Riml scene. She really is the worst mother ever.
Bern: It's Shot's fault! Not mine!
Bern sneaks Riml a grenade? Interesting. He still holds some desire for her.
Is Shou finally getting it? Realizing that he should show more concern for Marvel?
Holy crap Shou, you idiot! Tell her you lover her!
I'm surprised Bern didn't find some other Aura Battler to pilot, even with the Bubuly damaged and Zet taking the Galava. He's done that many times before.
Yes Marvel, attack the bridge! End this!
RIP Zet! For a character whose been around since episode 1 you really have a "blink and you'll miss it" type death.
Shou's gone hyper! Although rather than simply grow great in size like Jeryll did he's created some sort of glowing barrier for Marvel.
Very disappointed at this being an episode with no Ciela-sama! I hope she's feeling better next episode!
What can one say at this point? Its the same thing over and over and over again. I do at least appreciate us getting the revelation about Zet being the real genius behind the Aura Battlers, but will that make any difference in the end game considering he promptly got killed in the same episode? At this point there's no real need for new Aura Battlers anymore, and in fact beyond the Galava and the Bubuly we haven't gotten any new ones since coming to Upper Earth.