Infinite Stratos/Headscratchers

• I'm seeing multiple parallels/references to the Neon Genesis Evangelion series. Is this intentional, or is it just Seinfeld Is Unfunny doing its work once again?
  • With the preview of episode 12, I would have to say "partially yes."
• Ok, Charles is supposed to be a Bifauxnen but seriously, did ANYONE honestly buy that? I mean, come on! Who would actually think that she's a guy in that poor disguise?
• The dub partially fixed the issue by making Charles sound more masculine, but a bit less convincing as a girl though.
  • Because in the world of anime it's not unusual for boys to look like girls. Seriously, though, I don't expect the average viewer to be fooled by that. The light novels probably did the Bifauxnen thing better.
  • If you ask me, it's borderline Paper-Thin Disguise. Also what makes things worse is that she doesn't even act well. It's either the students are idiots or they just want to see some yaoi-action...
    • I call it denial. The girls want to believe Charles is a boy.
    • Urgh, as much as I hate to say it but that makes so much sense...
      • Not just the girls. Ichika's case is even worse. He needed to be confronted with the full frontal truth.
  • I think the teachers, at least, knew. It probably went something like this:

Chifuyu: So, apparently there's a new male IS pilot, from France. He's transferring here.
Board: Really?
Chifuyu: Yes. Oh, and he apparently has his own personal doctor, so he won't need to go to the school nurse for a physical or anything.
Board: So...she's a spy?
Chifuyu: Obviously. Let's put her with my brother. He has a way with women.

• • • Thank, YOU! This has been bugging this troper for a while until you put it that way. Now things makes a whole lot more sense.
• On the subject of Charles, this is more of a minor nitpicking but...how the hell did she hide her...ahem, assets without binding her chest?
  • There are a ton of ways to pull off breast binding. How she was able to breath normally though is another story.
    • Stomach breathing. You breathe with your diaphragm instead of using your ribcage
• I'm pretty sure it's a typical Harem Anime Rule of Funny but when Yamada-sensei crash landed on Ichika...in a goddamned IS suit, with a force strong enough to create a f**king crater, not only he survived, he somehow ended up ON TOP of Yamada-sensei in a Thanks for the Mammary situation. Keitaro, eat your heart out.
  • Yamada-sensei could grab him and do 180 degrees turn with him in last second. Considering how she is skilled and her reaction, she could "crash land" on him on purpose.
    • Especially since she doesn't seem to mind having Chifuyu as a sister-in-law...
• I know it's just comedy, but Cecilia actually SHOOTS at Ichika and Rin throws her BIGFUCKINGSWORD at him when they get pissed at his Accidental Pervert moment. Rin made a comment on how it would have been dangerous when Houki took a swing at her with a kendo sword. People freaked out when Houki was about to get shot by the drone. And no one, not even Chifuyu-sensei, wants to reprimand the two for almost killing Ichika?
  • Well since they saw him surviving an IS crash-landing on him and maybe they overestimated his durability?
    • Actually, that was explained right after he crash-lands. The IS produces a shield that prevents the pilot from being harmed while wearing it. In other words, having the shield seems to give the pilot a form of Nigh Invulnerability.
    • I was refering to the incident in ep 5 where Yamada sensei lost control and crash-landed on top of him...which also somehow resulted in Thanks for the Mammary.
• How much the school staff allows the students to get away with continues to boggel the mind. So far we have destruction of property, hospitalization of students, use of illegal tech, ATTEMPTED MURDER, and disruption of classes! What the hell is wrong with the IS Acadamy? Is it because control of an IS is such a big deal that governments put pressure on the school to keep students in?
  • It's a national representative's very nature to have a lot of pull with the school, seeing as how they're officially backed by the governments of their respective countries. It's highly doubtful that any other student at the school could get away with it. And yes, I.S. tech in this universe is Serious Business, especially with many nations not so subtly considering military applications for them.
• Then there is the Hammerspace that the IS suits emerge from. How does that work with even the loosest understanding of physics?
  • I just applied A Wizard Did It and figured that the suits are actually summoned, of course, not that this supposedly magical explanation will do anything in this science fiction series, but all in all, MST3K Mantra is the way.
• 2341 missiles from all over the world just got hacked and fired off at Japan, triggering the White Knight incident. Pray do tell how exactly did they hack the missiles all over the world targeting at one specific location, and how can one I.S. suit can even stop them!? Sure, if we take into account that Chifuyu may be the White Knight or not, but you'd still want to know how the hell she (remember, I.S. can only be piloted by women at this point) stopped them with nothing but a BFS!?
  • Frankly, it's all Technobabble; just roll with it as long it doesn't contradict itself. So yes, missiles all over the world can be hacked, and in regards to the IS suit, well, there's something called badassery.
  • It already contradict itself. Take a look at some of those missiles, they are short range ones. The only ones capable of travelling such distance would ICBMs and perhaps guided missiles. The ones White Knight was destroying were just some small ones which should NOT be able to even reach Japan even if they were shot from or Korea not to mention the other side of planet.
  • This might be an example of Unreliable Expositor. Not to slide into the realm of Wild Mass Guessing here, but it could just be that hacking is the official story, and something more sinister happened. As for how they were stopped by just a BFS, we don't know what the white knight is capable of yet.
  • In the 12th episode, Chifuyu subtly implies that Tabane was responsible for the mass hackings, since she's probably the only person smart enough to pull it off, and it was all just to show off White Knight's capabilities.
  • Two thousand missiles vs. one IS seems very lopsided, but slightly less so if the ICBMs were not armed with nuclear warheads. Non-nuclear ICBMs are being designed by the U.S. military, so in this slightly more futuristic setting it's possible countries have developed a stockpile of these. If the ICBMs were nuclear, than this is inexcusable, as not even an IS could survive a single nuclear blast (whose temperature can exceed the core of the sun).
• Ok How come no one Points out the fact that I.S. was built BY a woman FOR women? I mean come on only women can pilot it? If it was tech discovered in ancient ruins, extra dimensional Universe, Alien tech, est., then I could believe it, but built by humans? And no one can figure out how both sexes can use it? Really?! And the fact the main lead who is the only guy on the planet that can pilot an I.S. happens to be the love interest of the inventors little sister? Coincidence? I think not! Seriously the plots got more holes the Swiss cheese. Not trying to be sexist here I"m jusy saying, this is some really bad writing.
  • Tabane discovered the gender limit late in the development of IS.She can fix it but it didn't interest her.
  • It's also Black Box technology. You ever heard how programmers don't even know how their own code works? Yeah, its like that. Whatever part that limits it to females is buried so deep in the structure that you'd have to re-engineer the entire thing from the ground up to fix it (and Tabane obviously didn't notice since when she tested it herself, it would've worked fine). Plus Tabane is insane and probably doesn't care about that sort of thing--she has better things to do.
  • there is also the fact the Ichika is able to pilot IS in general, not only the Byakkushiki. It's hard to believe that Tabane made all 460 or so IS cores to be specifically compatible with Ichika.
  • I'll give you that. The anime just isn't doing the novels justice at this point, and is putting the series itself in a bad light. 8-bit had better get their asses in gear for the final.
  • so Basically what your saying is that she intentionally made the IS core ONLY for woman just so woman can take over as the dominate society making men pretty much second class citizens and made sure that Ichika would be the only guy to operate an IS because of her little sister, is that what you’re getting at? If so then I can see where you’re getting at with the sexist undertones of the show, but I wouldn’t get too much into it though, it’s all just played for comedy.
    • That and the fact that it's the writers excuse for Surrounding Ichika with lots of woman, it's a Harem Anime after all.
    • ...so much wrong with that. I'm just gonna start with: It's not peace and love. It's basically a Cold War. If any country starts using IS suits for combat, everyone else is going to do the same. Note the Black Rabbits, Laura's military IS squad...despite the fact that using them for war is completely illegal. These things are under a decade old, its just that no one wants to be the first to break the treaty. But when someone does, everyone else will be ready.
    • The use of IS is just like the situation of JDF(before the change of policy).Using it for war is prohibited but every country can mantain an IS force to deter and defend against armed aggression involving IS.Most IS in the national property under the control of military,the IS champion tournaments are mostly fought between military test pilots. If you read manga, you will see Rin in military uniform press her superior to let her come to the Academy
  • In episode 12, Tabane states outright that she doesn't know how Ichika can use the IS--even after Chifuyu hypothesizes that the whole thing was an intentional set up, as a sort of gift for Ichika.
• So let me get this straight. Some IS is on the loose and Japan decides to send two inexperienced teenagers, one of whom just got her IS, to fight this menace instead of experienced users (i.e. Chifuyu and the other teachers) who are just left to create a blockade. None of the other countries besides Japan cares either? Like you know... the US since it's their IS going amok. And they have high tech cameras to track and follow the enemy IS which is in hypersonic as well as follow Ichika and Houki's IS but they FAIL to notice a fishing boat?
  • Houki's IS is the only one that can match the speed. That's just the way it is, and its locked to her. Now, there is the question of why they sent Ichika instead of Chifuyu (since she has the one-hit-kill sword too), but I've been getting the impression that she might not be able to fight anymore, since we haven't seen her do anything during the anime. If that's true, then Ichika's the only choice. If not, then I suppose it still makes some tactical sense: If Ichika and Houki fail, then Chifuyu will be ready as the last line of defense.
  • It's implied at the end of that episode that Tabane deliberately engineered the whole thing as an excuse to show off Houki and Akatsubaki's abilities.

---

Back to Infinite Stratos