Quarantine Control #86: Thanks for Giving Us Runners and Dropouts

DC Staff | November 25, 2021 | Animation, Features, Television | No Comments

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, a perfect opportunity to have a lede that isn’t about the COVID-19 pandemic in a post not focused on a specific theme like our SNES anniversary celebration. But whoops, the pandemic was mentioned in the last sentence, so it’s too late. It’s also tough not to acknowledge how cases are yet again trending upward in the US just in time for the holiday season, despite trending downward in other more responsible countries. It’s going to be fun to hear all the stories about friends and especially family members who weren’t invited to other people’s houses because they refused to get vaccinated. They might even be out there already.

Geoffrey Barnes

I haven’t done much outside playing Shin Megami Tensei V in the last week. But I did start watching something a little over a week ago. I’m taking it easy here this week thanks to the holiday occasion.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021)
Source: Toonami/Crunchyroll
Episodes: 3 (of 13)

The initial trailers for Blade Runner: Black Lotus made it clear that the series wouldn’t precisely inherit the same vibe as its Blade Runner predecessors. It was an antithesis to Blade Runner 2049, made by filmmakers who understood what worked with a movie that almost single-handedly kickstarted the cyberpunk sci-fi genre. But also different from Blade Runner: Blackout 2022, the anime short directed by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop and Space Dandy fame, which combined the feel of the movies with the stylishness that only Japanese animation can provide. Despite a bunch of fans hoping Black Lotus would resemble Blackout 2022, it’s clear the creators of the former wanted to do their own thing. That’s largely been fine so far — but I can’t emphasize “fine” enough.

The series stars Elle, a young woman with amnesia with a black lotus tattoo who suspects that she might be a Replicant, a human clone whose main purpose is to work as a slave. It doesn’t take long for her, and the viewer by extension, to realize how deadly she is. She takes out a messy group of people at the series’ start with little effort, and her potential only increases from there. Elle eventually runs into a duo willing to help her, and despite her resistance, she has little choice but to listen to their advice after she crosses a line that could get her put in jail for decades, however ostensibly justified her actions were.

Black Lotus indeed has a different feel than the older Blade Runner content. It inherits the look, including the within the dystopian metropolis colors, the gigantic billboards, and the fact that it’s almost always night and infrequently raining. But that’s only a backdrop to a story that feels more inspired by other older anime and manga tales about amnesiac heroes and heroines. I’m not classifying this as a flaw thanks to, well, the trailer preparing expectations for this — and not the subsequent trailers that tried to include more fanservice for fans of the movies even though it was clear which preview was more accurate. It’s different, but still entertaining enough.

Not to say there aren’t flaws, though. The biggest issue with Black Lotus thus far is how it hasn’t done anything exciting or enthralling outside one moment in the second episode. That aside, it’s thus far just going through the motions for a story set in the Blade Runner universe, taking its time to establish the characters and place in the series’ world. We’re only three episodes in, but they have to make something remarkable happen considering this series will only have 13 episodes in total instead of the more common 24-26 episodes for this type of series. Even though it might get a second season like fellow Toonami/Crunchyroll-funded series Fena: Pirate Princess (despite its quality), the first season should at least put on the best impression it can.

The animation style is also unfortunate, but doesn’t detract from the experience quite as much as the previews suggested. The series uses a 3DCG style instead of a more traditional 2D one like its preceding anime short, which lacks the stylishness that could have helped the series’ aesthetics even on a lower budget. The result resembles the quality of a PlayStation 2 cutscene. But I’ll be fair here: It’s considerably better than most other 3DCG anime works that come with viciously low framerates, even when they don’t have production values that make them look disastrous like the infamous Berserk 2016 series.

If I had to sum up Black Lotus in a word regarding where the series currently stands, it would be “intriguing.” The series’ story is glacially progressing, but will have to pick up for a good payoff. I’m past expecting it to be on par with the original movie or 2049 in terms of quality, which would have been a difficult act to follow for them in the first place. But here’s hoping it ends up better than Fena for the Adult Swim/Crunchyroll collaborations, which looked beautiful but was deathly afraid of leaning into its own enjoyable premise.

The series is also making me want another Alita adaptation, which it clearly takes inspiration from. If that was partly the intention here: Mission accomplished. It could use more than a movie adaptation and a nearly three decade-old OVA.

Joseph Daniels

The Endwalker delay has given me extra opportunity to try to achieve some unfinished business in Final Fantasy XIV. Jobs I’ve been meaning to unlock, side content I’ve been meaning to do…

…up until my Internet went to shit. For the last ten or so days, I’ve been having to pray to the Twelve that my time in Eorzea be free from lag and packet loss, and sometimes it’s worked.

On those days, I try to do as much as I can since I can barely do anything when every action can take fifteen or more seconds to do on a bad day. When working on large projects, like converting over a thousand Gazelle Skins into Gazelle Leather (takes up less space in my inventory this way), podcasts are a great way to keep me from feeling like I’m completely wasting my time. One that was suggested to me has helped immensely.

…for only five hours or so, since there are so few episodes, but that’s okay. For once, I’d like to recommend a podcast that I’ve actually been able to listen to all the available episodes of. In the history of this column, that’s only happened just once so far, and now this is the second time.

Sharlayan Dropouts (2021)
Part of the Axe of the Blood God (2015) podcast
Source: Official Website
Episodes: Ongoing (4 so far)

It’s amazing how much free advertising podcasts can be for games like Final Fantasy XIV. All four episodes, so far, have basically been helping to fuel the Endwalker hype train, and episode five is apparently going to be the long delayed Endwalker speculation episode.

This is why you should do more than one episode a month of a podcast like this. Things happen, big news gets announced, and so plans get delayed.

Anyway, I’m not really going to get into the nuts and bolts of this podcast because it’s another Final Fantasy XIV podcast. Like Aetheryte Radio a few weeks ago, if you’re not into the game, then listening to it would be like listening to someone reading a Russian novel to you.

So! Only one week to go! See you in Eorzea!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in America. May your holiday this year be free of any concerns about COVID-19, even if they aren’t free of relatives talking about vaccine conspiracies and 5G mind control, that poor kid Kyle Rittenhouse, the arrival of JFK Jr., or… well, you get it. Make it a good one.

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