He might have been asking for something else when he requested a “fisting.”
Once upon a time, there was a woman who came from the heavens above.
“Lo,” this all-powerful goddess said to her minions. “I decree that you shall each watch an episode of the second season of Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere and write about it!”
“But what if we have not seen this series?” her subjects inquired.
“Fear not!” she said. “Prior experience with the show is meaningless! Even those who follow it know not what is going on! I ask only that you watch no other episode of the series other than that which you have been assigned!”
So it shall be written, so it shall be done.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eyes! I am the flag bearer for the third episode of this most wondrous of projects, and the writer with the least experience yet with the series. While the bloggers who proceeded me had seen at least one episode of the first season, I have watched not a single second of it, nor do I even know the concept of the series! And, after this episode, I still don’t know.
But, dear friends, I believe one of the hallmarks of great storytelling is contextual clues — give the viewers enough to go on and they will be able to infer everything for themselves. If Horizon is a great story (and why wouldn’t it be if it has an entire project such as this behind it?), then an ignorant fool such as myself should be able to figure it out! Let’s go!
Traditionally, filmmakers use an off-angle shot — also known as the “dutch angle” — to express the unease of characters in a certain moment or environment. It’s a hallmark of German Expressionism, which produced films such as M (directed by Fritz Lang), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau) and so on, and those heavily influenced the film noir movement of the World War II and postwar periods. Obviously such an influence wouldn’t slip past this series, but it takes it to the next level — a full 90 degree angle! What does this mean? Well, the context of the conversation is the arrival of food supplies and the throwing of a party. There is clear unease: in which direction should the party go? Yakiniku barbeque is brought up, but there is such hesitation behind the suggestion, and the awkward angle obviously reflects that burden.
Oh, and there might also be some sort of weird gravity thing going on, I don’t know. Who cares about that shit?
Moving on, we have dick punching. It’s straightforward: naked dude wants some giant honkers, but instead of that, he gets punched full force in the cock, and it’s hilarious, obviously. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to punch a man’s dangly bits at least once? Don’t you just despise the way it swings there, so smug and confident in its ultimate purpose? What an arrogant organ. Makes me want to punch my own dick. You go, Horizon!
Next is the part of the episode that concerns these two fellows. Apparently the person on the left is far more established than the person on the right. I know neither, however, so allow me to speculate on their identities! Tenzo (if that is your real name!) looks like Strider Hiryu if he stole Terry Bogard‘s hat and turned it into a mascot character. Given this information, I can assume only that Tenzo traveled back in time from a future world where ninja were cops and mascot characters were their backsassing partners who don’t play by the rules. Tenzo, whose nickname was “Strider” when he was on the force, is a week away from retirement even though he is in a foreign land.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see the plot twist coming — he’s confronted by the Strider of this world, except this one takes after a different Strider, except with magical powers. But that’s not actually the plot twist despite the intentionally leading nature of this paragraph’s opening sentence. The actual plot twist comes as the pair of Striders do battle, because, after all, There Can Be Only One. They go to a field of swords to pick just the right one for battle. A perfect metaphor for what is about to occur: surrounded by weapons but all are dull and unclean. They must be brutally polished, up and down, up and down, for their purity to shine through.
And then the twist . . . other!Strider is a woman! Dun dun dunnnnnnn. But not just any woman, mind: her supernatural powers mark her as the spiritual manifestation of real!Strider’s femininity! To be a true Man, Strider must destroy Woman. Perhaps the best solution would be dick punching, but no, floating AIM allows that only once per episode. The eternal battle betwixt Male and Female will have to wait until next time to be decided. He has hidden eyes, but she has large hoo-has. Nobody has the advantage in this battle.
This lady, I gather, has mechanical arms. Because this is the 17th century, but also a futuristic version of the 17th century, I imagine she lost her arms in a tragic threshing accident because she tripped while carrying some wheat, and everyone thought it was adorable. That desire to take this poor lass into my arms as blood gushes from where hers formerly were, that need to protect that fills my spirit; that, my friends, is moe. Anyway, she was put to the operating table — made of wood, of course, because that was the style of the day — and mechanical arms were grafted onto her, adding +1 to her better stat, +3 to her faster stat and +2 to her stronger stat.
But that was not all! The doctors decided that she did not have enough . . . girth . . . out front and decided to work on that, too. Unfortunately, plastic is not yet a Thing in this universe, so those became mechanical as well. You may think it barbaric and inhumane to mechanize the mammaries without permission. And, actually, it is. What the fuck were these assholes thinking? You just don’t do that sort of thing! But perhaps I should not judge since it is a different culture and all. I think. I can’t tell any of these people apart, actually.
Anyway, the point of this segment is boobs.
The final part of the episode introduces a group of new (to me) English folk. First off is Ben Jonson, who I suppose is like the author but is more like the Olympic athlete, making him Canadian rather than English. Then again, at this time Canada was being colonized by the French and English, yes? You win this time, Horizon. These steroids are for you, England. Next is F. Walsingham, who has puppet strings. A metaphor for being a puppet of the state, perhaps? Impressive. Most impressive.
Then there is Charles Howard, who immediately throws himself onto the ground, prostrate, to get the upper hand in the dull, lifeless negotiations to come. False humility is the key to any bargaining. Unfortunately, England does not appear to be in a position of power because they have to throw a school festival to get shit without pissing off some other group of assholes. The power of the school festival is strong indeed. I remember listening raptly in my high school U.S. History class as our teacher regaled us with tales of how Harriet Tubman used school festivals to mask the presence of the Underground Railroad, and how Frederick Douglass delivered his fiery speeches at the podium condemning institutionalized slavery before announcing which class had the best haunted house cosplay maid cafe.
What follows is a deadly game of back and forth determining how much preparation and festival time will be allotted, which will decide how much food and other goods will be given out. Maybe. When did school festivals get so political? In my day, we expected underage maids selling us overpriced, store bought noodles, and god damn it, we liked it! We loved it! But the ivory tower elitists wish to use it as cover to smuggle meat to the black market. How dare they so brazenly politicize such a beautiful institution. I knew this activist student council would be the ruin of everything as soon as they were elected. Don’t ask me how I knew when I’ve never seen a single episode of this series before and have no clue what is going on, but I know. Oh, I know.
Eventually Japan (this is Japan, right? It’s anime, so I assume Japan) wins because they are the most humble, and because white people are stupid. The natural laws of the world prove correct once more.
There we have it. The final world on episode the third of Horizon. I look forward to all comments telling me how correct I am.
The Cart Driver 
This deserves a smiley. 😀
More than the episode deserves, I’m sure!
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
STICK IT TO THE WHITE MAN, HORIZON! And the horribly stereotyped Indian man from the first season! True equality and can only be gained through downgrading other cultures!
Down with Britannia! Free Area 11! Free Nihon!
I’m guessing the stereotyped Indian dude is that guy in the turban who shows up briefly in the kitchen during the negotiation nonsense? I just stared and decided to forget that ever happened.
So let me get this right: This is basically some sort of circlejerk project with bloggers reviewing one episode of Horizon despite not knowing anything about it so that they can say stuff like “Wow… holy shit! I didn’t get anything! What a surprise! This is so randumb! And who are all these characters anyway? Seriously, I dunno!”? And there some people thought the Aniblog Tourney was moronic.
I just can’t wait for 10 more bloggers to tell us that they have no clue of what’s going on and that the breasts aren’t your everyday affair. If this is about getting a lot of different impressions for the shits and giggles… sorry to disappoint you guys, they will be all the same!
You sure showed me! Keep fighting the power!
I just deleted my post draft in shame.
Oh man, you figured it out, I just started it so I could watch male bloggers jerk each other off! Oo yeah baby, you stroke that, yeah, jerk it out moans
If you’d prefer, I could review how fundamentally awful Horizon is after having seen the whole first season. My reactions were pretty much the same letter for letter, except with “I don’t get it” replaced by “I wish I didn’t get it. The truth makes less sense and sabotages things even more than the enigma it replaced”.
The truth makes less sense than the nonsense I spewed??
“Positive light energy” and “negative dark energy” were combined to create… more kinetic force rather than a net total of none at all.
There was a phalanx with rifemen on the outside corners and spearmen in the middle of the box. In a world where flying airships fire lasers, giant big-breasted mecha fight with jetpacks (and giant wrenches!), and PE students function as artillery by sprinting track and field. Apparently the phalanx had extreme strategic value.
There was a political “debate” where the opposition had to hold the exact opposite view to the other party, on every subject, or forfeit.
There was a forcefield that murdered everyone except, specifically, those without regret. Which they used to keep a character captive. They were surprised when it didn’t work.
So yes, absolutely. Give me Shinmaru no Horizon any day.
Eh… looks like my choice of words was a rather bad one. I should note that I’m not a native speaker and therefore have trouble with my style, tone and register although that doesn’t excuse anything (l-let’s just say that the circlejerk thing was meant to allude to the title or something. Y-yeah, I’m sure that works out. Or not). I apologize if I offended anyone.
My point, however, remains the same: I don’t see any sense behind this project. If it’s about getting various impressions on something you guys are completely unfamiliar with (which is an amusing idea in theory), it fails. In the end, it all boils down to 10 entries of the likes of “What the hell is going on? This show is weird. Also, breasts!”. There’s no variety to be found which is the main purpose of this whole project (isn’t it?). You also don’t do the show any justice and all too often, such posts tend to contain a lot of mocking with no substance whatsoever since there’s not too much to be said otherwise. I’ve read enough posts like that which enjoy mocking anime but refrain from making any valid points and frankly, I’m sick of them. Granted, there may be some or even a lot of posts contradicting my expectations, but after reading this post, I was basically all like “Uhm… yeah?” and the article on the first episode even ended with something of the likes of “I had no idea what was going on and I never ever want to feel so lost again.”. Seriously, the person in question should have seen that coming, it was all too obvious.
So yeah, I actually prefer Naota’s suggestion. It doesn’t matter whether the show’s good or bad (or whether it is up to my likings or not) – there’s just so little value to this (though I could be wrong) that I can’t help but wonder about the line of thought that went into this.
All I aimed for was to write something silly and fun. That’s it. Not a judgment of quality at all, because, again, this is all I’ve seen of the series, and it would be ridiculous for me to act as if it is a legitimate statement of quality since I’m viewing the third episode of the second season utterly out of context. Basically my whole idea with this post is that I’m having fun with the rap against Horizon that it makes no sense at all.
Obviously I can’t force you to like the post, nor do I think it’s so wrong that you don’t. But I didn’t go into this intending to make a high-minded critique of Horizon. It’s just like with the IMOUTO posts — I could criticize the series and lay out point-by-point what I think is wrong with it, but I think it’s as boring and pointless as you think this post is. I’d rather throw out a few silly ideas and have fun with my perception of the series.
Line of thought that went into this “…hehe, wouldn’t this be stupid?”
It’s not about the destination – it’s about the journey. Of course all the posts will boil down to “this is incomprehensible”, but the fun of this project is seeing how each individual writer chooses to tackle the issue. To say there’s no worth in this is like saying that there’s no point in having multiple newspapers – they’re just reporting the news, right? No, each newspaper has their own political leanings that they lend to their coverage (whether or not certain news outlets allow their leanings to, let’s say, enhance the truth is another debate entirely), so two newspapers can cover the same story very differently indeed. Yeah, this is hardly high culture, but to see it as self-congratulatory nonsense is a gross oversimplification.
Instead of worrying about someone either insulting an anime you like or not providing you with a good evaluation of an anime you’re unfamiliar with, it might be fun to step back and say “that guy wrote an amusing post, amusingly. Also, there was dick-punching,”
No, I didn’t get anything useful in terms of finding out whether I want to watch this anime, but I chuckled. And I highly doubt that all the other posts in the project will look quite like this one.
You are not unique in that.
Thank you for your noble dedication to this divine project. Although I am mildly embarassed that you figured out that I’m a goddess! I tend to prefer to keep that quiet, uguuuu
Sometimes I just can’t help myself.
Bravo good sir! I think you may have gotten a bit more out of the show than I did!
“Next is F. Walsingham, who has puppet strings. A metaphor for being a puppet of the state, perhaps? Impressive. Most impressive.”
This is quite possibly correct. There are too many allusions like this for them all to be accidents. The series is loaded with puns and subtle jokes of that sort.
well its true that its hard to get what the story is about without background information, but one thign i , uhm, think i should point out: you seem to think that the story is set in the past, but actually its set in the future. mankind just tries to re-enact the past by playing it out again, and fails miserably, because they still use their future-tech and also because they thought fictional stories they found would be historical data and used their future-tech to create magic and fantasy-creatures because they kind of assumed they woudlve existed and just died out or whatever.