Hmm... I wouldn't yet go as far as say he's another world traveller like Ernie, but it does feel like he knows something few others do. Perhaps he knows people like Ernie exist or existed, and what they did back in history.
Hmm... I wouldn't yet go as far as say he's another world traveller like Ernie, but it does feel like he knows something few others do. Perhaps he knows people like Ernie exist or existed, and what they did back in history.
I don't understand this contest that the king came up with. On one side, we have a lab that hasn't made a marked upgrade to the robots for decades. On the other, we have a genius who built a revolutionary machine with unheard of concepts in less than a year. Uh, I wonder who will win?
What is even the point of this? The lab team is using a prototype Ernie came up with for crying out loud...
The king should've just used the wasted development costs from the lab to fund Ernie's R&D, or dunno, feed the poor?
Motivating Ernie is a poor excuse considering the little psychopath's raison d etre is blatantly what the king wants him to do too: Build better robots.
Peace.
Maybe it was to motivate their own lab. Like..."Look at what a kid made! What the fuck are you guys doing?!"
I feel like you must have skipped my and David's posts. The geezer's lab is needed for mass production and optimising the design economically. It's a different thing to make a single machine that might or might not work in the harsh reality of war when operated by a hundred different people, perhaps far away from full maintenance capabilities.
The competition is probably just something to motivate people and to teach the old lab a lesson. We immediately saw they looked down on Ernie and thought they could best Ernie at his own game due to their long history of building mecha (with little vision, we know). Like I said earlier, with any luck Ernie might also learn something out of this because a prototype is always a prototype and a vehicle of war needs to be tested in combat to find out the lingering problems. Sometimes a prototype will turn out so poor in practice it needs to be scrapped and only some individual ideas spared.
I already spoke about the motivation reasoning being weak in my previous post. Ernie doesn't need it, and the old geezer is better gone anyway. Teaching him to respect Ernie through a contest is too roundabout and inefficient.
Mass production going to the lab is fine. What I don't understand is why they supposedly needed to fund the new units made by the lab for the contest when Ernie's units will obviously be better in the end.
The lab definitely has its merits, but the contest doesn't. The lab and Ernie should be working together, not against each other, especially because they are funded by the same treasury. Ernie will be the brains, and the lab will provide the tools to build his ideas. Instead, we get the lab wasting valuable resources and time to make a red mech that will get pawned by Ernie's units instead of using that for something else.
Peace.
Ernie's prototypes will probably win, but by a very small margin. That will probably be a lesson for both parties.
Ernie is only interrested in robots, but not in the tedious work needed to optmise a weapon that has to be combat weathered.
A metaphore could be kalashnikov vs M16...
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
A tournament such as this will have its broader uses. It's not a controlled environment like internal testing, so it should reveal more things than Ernie simply having one of his buddies pilot a new mecha model for a bit. It also gave a very solid deadline, without which Ernie might not have been personally satisfied with any model and would have developed them ad infinitum because he would have felt they aren't living up to his dream. Now, however, he absolutely needed to have something working to present after a certain date. Other than that, even in RL military suppliers oft need to compete with each others to get government contracts. Such competition forces them to make more economically viable vehicles and other devices. Ernie normally couldn't care less about such details as he's only chasing his dreams.
I also wouldn't underestimate the publicity factor here. The Silhouette Knights have been weirdly static for a long time, but now a whole bunch of important people in attendance will see superior models in action. That should create public drive for modernisation.
Simulated combat can be done between Ernie's mechs, like they did before with the senpais dueling.
Deadlines can be set by the king. It doesn't have to be a contest.
Budget limits can be dictated by the king too.
Publicity can be done by having Ernie's units fight against each other, like a contest between different models. I do have to admit that for the people watching, having 2 different camps fight is more exciting, like a sports match. Still, I find it hard to justify having an entire research lab work for a long time, funding all the people and equipment there, just for this. It's not like they have sponsors or tickets for this event.
Are you kidding? Has anything in this show ever hinted at the contest being something other than a stomping by Ernie? That's what's been happening every episode since this started. The most danger Ernie has ever been in was when his own unit blew up because he wanted it to fly.
Peace.
If I was the king, I'd feel better to have multiple places develop the mecha, not just a single dude and his team. I suppose even the king only had his eyes opened by Ernie, otherwise you'd think the geezer and the others responsible for Silhouette Knights development would have been replaced a long time ago by people who actually get things done in a time shorter than 50 years.
What comes to Ernie, I seem to recall him saying it's not only mecha but also mecha fights that he enjoys. Perhaps the king saw through him.
What's the problem with the King wanting to be entertained?
None at all. I like that answer.
Peace.
Episode 7
- - -- - -
A draw was a nice, if kind of safe and stale, compromise outcome, but otherwise the underlying reasons were exactly as expected, as well as the kingdom's further plans of making Ernie produce prototypes and the old lab make production models.
No idea who the relaxed lady at the very end was, but I wish she was the main girl, not the utterly boring girl who's always sticking to Ernie. She's so uninteresting I still can't remember her name. Ernie should go for the onee-san type. Otherwise Ernie surely has things going for him, even getting a whole new castle to serve as his base.
Yeah, I don't care for the chick that sticks to him... would prefer more interaction with the blonde one, and certainly curious by whomever that was at the end.
That said, the series keeps circling in its developmental phase, while they keep introducing new aspects to this world. What's this Village they mention? The bordering countries? The woman at the end?
If they keep introducing these aspects, while not advancing the story further (aside from the mecha developments) I really hope this is at the very least a 24 episode series, 12 episodes won't do.
I did like how that old man from the Lab wasn't as cliche as I thought he would be. Man old man trying to outdo a kid because he's a kid. He seems genuinely passionate about it like Ernesti is. But yeah, who knows who that new chick is. From the glowing eyes I'd say a faction that sides with demon beasts?
Woah woah woah, what´s with all the trash-talking of my Addy?! She´s best girl-material ;>
It was another nice episode indeed, except the same problem remains: no real story, yet. The ending of this episode hints at a real story-development, at long last, though.
btw maybe its my dirty mind, but i found the positioning of Addy and her brother inside the centaur-robot reeeeally unfortunate. "Yo, bend over, sis, I´m gonna rock your world!" ;>
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
Could the village be where the reactors are coming from? The lab also had that different looking guy who, if I understood correctly, is from the village or is some kind of a proxy in connection with it. At some point I wondered that perhaps the mecha were originally brought to that world by a person or people like Ernie, who came from elsewhere. They could have withhold the secret to the reactor within the village. When they showed the lady, I thought maybe she's a descendant of such world travellers.
Although it's also possible the reactor core is in fact extracted from the monsters and the village is the slaughterhouse for that. In that case, maybe the lady indeed is partially a monster like NeoCybercoin said.
Either way, I wish Ernie associated with someone interesting like that.
Regarding the story, it's totally possible that it's only about building robots. Feels like it was from the beginning.
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
Episode 8
- - -- -- -- -
Too bad the new "girl" turned out to be some 400 years old elf who does nothing but sleep and meditate anymore.
I don't really understand why this show insists on such a breakneck speed. 3 months to master the ancient art of making the reactors, despite all the different techniques and vast knowledge it requires. The only explanation I can think of is that the show wants to keep Ernie a shota, so he can't take a year to learn something as that would make him eventually grow up. At the very least they could have made him simply spent half a year there to only learn the fundamentals and then suggest some modern mofications to the reactors, while the alvs would still do all the actual work. But no. I haven't particularly cared so far about his super hyper ultra uber genius, but doesn't this make the whole Alfheim totally unnecessary from now on? What was the point of even having it in the story? If there had been an elf princess to make a decent love interest for Ernie, it would have saved a lot.
I'm still enjoying this show quite a lot, but I can't help but begin to wonder.
Despite it being fun to watch, I´m still waiting for a real plot.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court