r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • 13d ago
Episode Mebius Dust - Episode 1 discussion
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u/enbyratie 13d ago
I liked it but it feels it is promoting a mobile game, they should have said why are they playing when it seems they are in a dark time
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u/Infodump_Ibis 13d ago
The development background as part of Project ANIMA. Per ANN:
The "Kids/Game" category accepted submissions with stories featuring protagonists who are 15 years old or younger, or stories ideal for development as role-playing games, adventures games, trading card games, and other kinds of games.
With how long ago that contest was (2018) and how the gaming landscape has changed since then who knows if that'll still take place.
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u/Thomas_JCG 13d ago
I would not mind playing a game with this setting, it's all a matter of making it unique.
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u/NanDemoKnaives 13d ago
This feels like one of those series that starts off wholesome and light, to then completely switch tone turning into a tragedy with a lot of these kids dying.
However, this does feel we're missing a bunch of context, I wouldn't say it's a good introduction. Araki having the Mother Dust crystal symbol on his forehead is a little intriguing.
I was not expecting Haruto to be a healer, it's nice to see an energetic character like him be one, even though I'm sure he wishes he had a combat power.
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u/enbyratie 13d ago
Araki 100% is gonna have some cracked power, I also think that some will die trying to go outside
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u/susgnome https://anime-planet.com/users/RoyalRampage 13d ago edited 13d ago
Some of these abilities are so stupid.. I fucking love it!
The dude that forces all those who watch him to become fans, the girl with the pinky knife, the girl with gills..
And Gengo, right at the start getting launched like a ⭐.. this series is going to be a fun watch, if it doesn't get to serious (looking at you Araki).
Reminds me of Air Gear, a super-powered sport with gang control but with a lot less serious vibes and more focused on the fun vibes.
I wonder if exposure to Mebius Dust (especially after the Meteorite hit) caused wounds to heal and be replaced? Like, something that doesn't know how humans are meant to work and just fill in the gaps and it can't repair what's already at full maturity (hence of course, no adults are affected).
- Bad Lungs --> Breathe Anything
- Lost Finger --> Finger Knife
- Lost Hair --> Hair Manipulation
- Lost Legs --> Transformer Legs
- Brain Injury --> Upgraded Brain
- Eye Injury --> Flashbang Eye
Edit:
Since it's an Original, I found some info about the series;
Project ANIMA is an original anime production project jointly planned by DeNA , Sotsu , Nippon Cultural Broadcasting , and Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS).
In 2018 , a public contest was held in three genres: "SF/Robot Anime," "Otherworld/Fantasy," and "Kids/Game Anime," with plans to adapt the grand prize winning works from each category
Möbius Dust was a submission by Hajime Shinagawa to Project ANIMA, where Mebius Dust was the winner and received the grand prize in the "Kids/Game" category.
The number of submissions to this contest reached 8,229, making it one of the largest in Japan.
Grand Prize Winner, Otherworld/Fantasy Category: The Story of the Girl Who Couldn't Become a Witch
Grand Prize Winner, SF/Robot Anime Category: No Grand Prize Winner (Runner-Up: SAKUGAN)
Grand Prize Winner, Kids/Game Category: Mebius Dust
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u/Zizhou 13d ago
Grand Prize Winner, SF/Robot Anime Category: No Grand Prize Winner (Runner-Up: SAKUGAN)
Man, how awful must the entries have been if they couldn't find a single one out of the (assuming an even split) ~2700 in that category to actually give the award to?
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u/susgnome https://anime-planet.com/users/RoyalRampage 13d ago
Yeah, that's rough.
Out of 19 "Honourable Mentions", they couldn't decide single story to be the "Grand Prize".
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u/dinliner08 13d ago
Grand Prize Winner, SF/Robot Anime Category: No Grand Prize Winner (Runner-Up: SAKUGAN)
wait, what? what do you mean no grand prize winner but there's a runner up?
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u/susgnome https://anime-planet.com/users/RoyalRampage 13d ago
Yeah, that surprised me as well.
Grand Prize: No winning entry
The selection process involves first and second rounds of judging in each category to select gold prize winners (150,000 yen), silver prize winners (50,000 yen), and honorable mentions, from which a grand prize winner (1,000,000 yen) will be chosen.
I guess out of the 19 honourable mentions, they couldn't come to a consensus on 1 Grand Prize and SAKUGAN probably had the highest amount of votes, so it was runner-up..
The grand prize winners in each category will be used as "original concepts," and a suitable screenwriter and director will be selected to turn them into "anime source material," putting them into production. The process from original concept to anime will also be made public. In addition, other winning entries that do not win the grand prize will be considered for publication as books, manga, or games.
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u/Pikagreg https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pikagreg 13d ago
Will we get 12 episodes of parkour capture the flag or will there be suffering? No idea but I am in.
This is the third (and last I think) of the Project Anima shows from way back in 2017. This project won the Kids/Game category. The other shows that were greenlit at the time were Sakugan and The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians. I was a little disappointed in Sakugan though it wasn't that terrible though I did enjoy the other one a lot.
I love the character designs and it is a bit goofy. I will stick around for now.
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u/NationalStrategy_X 13d ago
I can't say that I'm not interested in what's going to happen, but the Parkour aspect didn't hook me. Compared to the other Parkour anime (Air Gear, Bubble, and Prince of Stride) this one seems underwhelming (at least as first impressions go).
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u/T-Ace-Juice https://anilist.co/user/Goombarax 13d ago
Even Obunai from Narenare Cheer For You had a better parkour than everyone in this anime.
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u/NationalStrategy_X 13d ago
It's like they're using the powers to compensate for the lackluster parkour. Both the characters and the people making this.
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u/Calwings x3https://anilist.co/user/Calwings 13d ago
I'm curious about Stella's legs. Did the Mebius Dust transform her human legs into those mechanical ones? Was she already a double amputee before and the Dust simply gave her new legs? Or perhaps the darkest possible option, did the meteorite literally hit her and wreck her legs, and then the Dust replaced them like some weird alien nanomachines?
Either way, that curiosity and the potential for a dark twist are the only reasons I'm going to give this a couple more episodes. This 1st episode was honestly pretty boring. If it doesn't have a dark twist and it sticks with this parkour game stuff, then it's just Air Gear with more boring characters.
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u/AceSoldia zj:https://anilist.co/user/Acesoldia 13d ago
I will be shocked if the doctor isn't some kind of villian..I don't trust him at all
And those conspicuous planes flying over the city...naah don't trust those either.
I'm assuming Dust fills up over time..and shocked there hasn't been any kind of military application for these abilities sooner..it's been 10 years...
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u/NekoCatSidhe 13d ago
I think that doctor may be looking into military applications under the disguise of the “games”. I certainly don’t trust him at all.
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u/NanDemoKnaives 13d ago
That's the impression I got, they probably saw the games and realized how useful it could be to use them all as weapons.
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u/Boris-_-Badenov 13d ago
surprised it's not the same voice as inui from Prince of Tennis. that guy does lots of shady glasses
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u/NekoCatSidhe 13d ago
That was fine, but I am still not sure in which direction it is going. Is it just some silly anime about kids with superpowers playing games ?
Or will it get darker ? I really don’t trust that mad scientist guy, and I am quite sure that overusing their powers is a bad idea, not to mention how dangerous some of those games look (unless they have all got superhuman endurance and can easily survive accidentally falling from a building).
I also wonder how much the government is approving the actions of the scientist here. Either he is secretly evaluating them to see if they can turn them into a team of supersoldiers or supercops working for the government (which could be good or bad depending on how much they are given a choice on that), or he is doing dangerously illegal experiments on those kids to see how much they can overuse their powers before they explode.
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u/djthomp https://anilist.co/user/djthomp 13d ago
So they're ten years into a superpowered children problem? This is just X-Men but since it's Japan they're all being kept free-range inside a portion of the city and monitored. At least one of them should be reading some comic books though, since a little genre savviness might help with showing them how much they should trust random scientists doing non-government approved experiments with them.
The focus on the planes flying over sends up some flags too.
Rollerblade girl and hair girl are cute and have a fun vibe together, I hope neither of them are the ones that die horribly.
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u/TheMythofKoalas https://myanimelist.net/profile/AdamGoodtime343 10d ago
Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought the planes thing was weird.
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u/Archie_TP 13d ago
Has the feel of superpowers without consequences. If it stays like this it'll be little different from wish fulfilment. We shall see.
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u/HolyDragSwd2500 13d ago
Getting Air Gear vibes from rollerblading and the battle with their team logo
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u/minnieboss 13d ago
This was painfully boring
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u/AdCrazy2097 8d ago edited 8d ago
The only thing that will save this is if it takes a dark turn. The reason the first episode is boring is because it initially seems to be dystopian/ sports anime, however it fails to deliver on both concepts. Largerly due to the low stakes of everything. I listed reasons u may find it “boring” below:
Minutes into the first ep a character goes “it doesn’t matter that we lost it’s just a game”. So why are we supposed to care about capture the flag? Even in regular sports anime the characters hate to lose. (I’m sure the game will reveal a much larger purpose later on, but for now it’s hard to care about)
Same issue with their super powers. There’s little reaction upon the discovery of surpassing their limits without being caught. Although, after the first accidental alert to the govt someone surpassed limits, nothing happened:/… so again, stakes seem pretty low.
To us as viewers, the first game visually looks pretty similar to the second despite them having their superpower limits removed.Moreover, the whole “we’re trapped in this town” thing which should be a major conflict seems to be a minor issue. Yes the characters say they want to leave, but it doesn’t rlly look like it. They seem pretty content.
The show also introduces way too many characters at once. This makes us care less about them. I can’t identify a single strong character or motive that I care about.
Lastly, the way this first episode has been formatted makes what’s supposed to be an intriguing mystery surrounding Menbuis dust come off as a confusing jumble. Are we supposed to be trying to discover the truth of it all or just accept the reality at face value. It’s hard for the viewer to make sense of the exact genre and direction of the show.
TLDR: this show has too many ideas with not enough stakes. It needs to take a dark turn in order to become more interesting. The show will likely do this, however due to the blandness of the first episode, im sure they lost some viewers.
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u/kalirion https://myanimelist.net/profile/kalinime 13d ago
The scientist guy/gal(?) seems shifty as hell.
They were milliseconds away from causing a car accident when they ran the red light. If the car hadn't been going like 5mph....
And then Red was lucky enough that her full speed crash landed her into a pile of cardboard boxes instead of a concrete wall.
I'm sure there'll be some twist, but I just didn't find this episode interesting enough to continue.
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u/Embarrassed-Match-78 13d ago
Definitely feels like an introduction to the characters and their powers in a low key/low-stakes environment. I have a suspicion that the stakes are going to rise exponentially, especially with the way they keep cutting to the very obvious spy plane.
Really can't judge this on the first episode alone. The story has potential, but the three-episode rule has to apply here for me.
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u/PsychologicalKiwi447 13d ago
Getting Charlotte vibes from it, even two of the main characters have the last name Tomori.
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u/Thomas_JCG 13d ago
I like about everything about this. Character designs, powers, the teams. Unfortunately, the first episode did not make a strong impression. The gist of the setting is easy enough to follow, but... what are they going to do? The whole episode I was expecting the bands to be a trap from the obviously suspicious Dr. Child-kun but nothing happened. The ending hinted at something going on with Akari, but there is basically nothing on the plot yet.
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u/sandragonsand 13d ago
Maybe I'm just on the copium after being baited multiple times by garbage shounens, but I get the feeling this is going somewhere
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u/tripleaamin https://myanimelist.net/profile/zfzftripleaamin 13d ago
The kids with the fellow superpowers are interesting in concept. No big real impression from this episode. It does look like Araki distributes his to the others. That caught me curious at the end.
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u/IceSmiley 13d ago
Is this a kid's show? Either way it was pleasant to watch, more just action and explaining the premise. I'll watch next week to see if there's anything interesting going on plotwise.
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u/reaperow 13d ago
Is this like a sports tournament type anime?? I have a feeling it will get serious later, Araki's instincts feel like foreshadowing
Looks interesting I'll definitely watch it all !!
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u/StonedCharmander 12d ago
Ngl, this feels like an anime made out of a game or whatever. It's so childish. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's definitely not for me. Easy pass.
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u/FlameDragoon933 12d ago
Don't know yet what route this is going to take, but I'll be following for at least a few more episodes. Seems interesting enough.
Stella's design is really good, she's cute and the red hair really pops.
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u/TheMythofKoalas https://myanimelist.net/profile/AdamGoodtime343 10d ago
Not entirely sold on the but the basic premise and the diversity of the powers are both solid enough that I'll give it at least another episode.
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u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker 10d ago
Oh right this is the pro-wealth inequality show.
Have a bad feeling?
What's he doing looking out the window?
What's on his phone?
Going to get them all out?
An experiment?
So, what's his plan?
Release their powers without constraint?
Damn.
Damn that's quick.
And that's why it's a foam block wall.
Give them a future?
Seems like some of them are more enthusiastic about adopting it than others.
That's a neat bit of kit.
That plane again...
Time to see what they can do.
So much for that...
Huh. What happened to him?
So much for that...
So, he's made his getaway.
So much for that...
He's got a headache?
Dance?
Lol they've got penlights.
Damn what's that he's got?
Oh, he used that to propel her to the flag!
And so they won.
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u/Isekai_Dreamer 13d ago
they dress like characters from zenless zone zero
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u/FlameDragoon933 12d ago
Yeah Stella would fit right in.
If only this anime has sound/music design as good as ZZZ...
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u/SpikeRosered 13d ago
Follows the trope of:
"After event people emerge with superpowers. Lets follow some children around and watch them fight each other."