The end of the episode has the mans child saying something to the effect of "When I grow up I want to be the one firing the cannon". The point being that perpetual war begets perpetual war.
Wasn't there ambiguous blue light shining through curtains of boy's bedroom in the end along with sounds of siren? It probably shown someone got into the city
Dunno if you'd be okay standing in a cloud of superheated steam, thousands of decibels roaring around you. It would basically shatter your skull, ear to ear.
This extremely long loading procedure creates a really intense mood. Seeing all the steps taken to launch a massive cannon only makes the viewers appreciate the firing scene even more
La Guerra se transforma en la razón única de ser de las sociedades patriarcales. Este corto metraje está basado en una novela de Verne, me contaron. Es el futuro de Europa, tras la derrota en Ucrania, debido, precisamente a su incapacidad de producir suficiente munición de artillería. Ironías de La Historia. 22-12-2023 Valparaíso. b
@@daibo0neI think that kind of the point it is a wasteful, authoritarian, militaristic society that stuck in a perpetual war with could be a none existent enemy and the higher ups keeping this way to remain in power and kept the populace in control kinda like George Orwell 1984 where we not sure Oceania fought actual war or it is just all propaganda to kept the miserable populace in control.
Good to see minds alike that know about that masterpiece of mobile gaming. I still remember the excitement on my first playtrough as a kiddo when I first got the Alastor :D
One of the best details, which I rarely see called out, is that the animation goes to great lengths to show that the commander who fires the gun is both completely unnecessary and a hindrance to their efficiency. His role is purely ceremonial, it slows down the firing a lot, *and yet* he is the highest-status member of the crew. The loader’s son looks up to him, he wants to be “the guy who fires the gun, not just a loader like my dad”. He’s a portly drag on the entire system.
That's true. But I'll at least give the guy credit, at the end of the video loaders are punished by being forced to stay next to the cannon when it fires, yet the officer does it without a hint of fear or injury. Unnecessary and dangerously pointless as he is, he's got balls for standing in that blast radius at the very least.
His lack of expression, stiff robotic movement and adherence to ceremony likely conveys a sense of bureaucracy burden, along with a 'useful idiot' vibe, for me at least. To me, he's the uber patriot locked into the motions no matter how useless or unnecessary, and to the system that elevated him to that position, he's expendable and just an overdressed tool.
This is just pure dieselpunk: the lack of automation, the overly complex mechanisms, the obligatory full-face gasmask inclusion, the massive city flattening cannon
Eh, personally I'd say it feels more steampunk, but I guess it depends on whether you'd consider the WW1 aesthetic to be steampunk or dieselpunk. Personally, I think dieselpunk would be based more on the 30's or 40's, while this has more of a late 1910's aesthetic.
@lolmeme69_ I think the core aesthetics of whatever "punk" is the feeling of alternate history that advanced far more than the technology they have, and somehow, they achieved advanced techs with their limited assets. So that a supercomputer made of supermassive differential engines is steampunk, and by extension, overcomplicated and overwhelming usage of gears without proper transmissions, chains, or other advanced power transfer mechanisms is also steampunk; it suggests they hadn't developed more powerful combustion engines which need such mechanisms. By my perspective, this is not steampunk since they obviously have petroleum tech. This can be dieselpunk tho, since they have no better techs than early 20th century petroleum tech, but somehow made such colossal thing without any magical advanced techs.
@@HOSAS_Gaming That's not just true, I'm pretty sure that's the textbook definition of the "punk" aesthetic. I'd still consider it steampunk, as it has the hallmarks of steampunk technology and primarily use Industrial Revolution style weaponry. You don't have the semiauto rifles and heavy bombers of the 40's, you have something more akin to WW1. Dieselpunk contains steam technology and even may have primitive computers, but that doesn't change it. Fallout may have computers but it's still atompunk, not cyberpunk. It's about what technology is most prominent, and back in WW1, despite having some early planes, it was still very steam-centric. I'm really not sure how this uses petroleum technology, this seems pretty steam-y to me. There's a certain brute brutality to steampunk machines compared to the more sleek look of dieselpunk, and that stereotype implies steam technology.
Oh, if you were there, you knew it was. Growing up with stuff animated like this makes you see right though all the cheap tricks and lack of skill and talent in A LOT of modern day productions. I'm not hating on newer stuff. There's a plenty of great works. But a lot of stuff these days is animated like garbage.
@🗡️The Missing Link🗡️ To be fair, technology has evolved a fairly large amount since then. As a result, the skill ceiling has been vastly lowered, and I do find that a lot of anime do look the same. Then you have fucking Chainsaw Man, which is probably one of the best animated series since stuff along the lines of Spriggan, with that famous little unloading a handgun scene running around on Shorts.
@@OrificeHorus Well Chainsaw Man is certainly one of the examples, but there are many anime and non-anime series that lately have almost excellent qualities at least in the technical sector, One Piece himself after years and years of mediocrity (2005 to 2019), is now having certain episodes which are technically outstanding. Speaking of commercial productions, this spring season of anime has series like Heavenly Delusion and Oshi no Ko. Or in that last autumn season we had in addition to Chainsaw Man , two jewels like Mob Pscyho and Bocchi the Rock .
Honestly I don't agree with the second sentence, there are many animation works, especially niche ones, that are unique. Even speaking of more popular things, to say almost all the works of the 4°C studio are worthy, such as "Children of the sea". The point is that unlike in the past , now a lot more stuff comes out and many times the most mediocre stuff obscures the rest , and even the public itself sometimes doesn't like the most unique stuff , I won't forget the criticisms that there have been at the episode 6 ( if I'm not mistaken ) or another ep of season 3 of Mob Psycho , saying it was a "low budget" episode because the lines of the characters weren't clean or because sometimes you couldn't see the face etc...
I’d just like to say I 100% agree. Though there are works today that come close, nothing has really topped the technical prowess of late 80s and 90s 2D animation. It really was the peak. Akira, The Thief and the Cobbler, Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, The Iron Giant. So many beautiful animated masterpieces You’d think computers would have made it easier for beautiful 2D animation to be created, but it seems like studios used computers to save money rather than push the medium further. Colors look so flat and plastic compared to watercolors on cel animation, though they seem to be slowly fixing that in anime like One Piece
I think it's interesting just how sickly the gunner looks. Being that close to that big of an explosion can't be good for you, and it's obvious that they know that seeing that being forced to stand next to the gun when it fires is a punishment for loaders who screw up, and yet he's standing just feet away from it every single time.
I am sure there are alot of burns on site. Its mention in there they use steam pressure to move that thing around so you know its like a furnace in there.
Sailors weren't even allowed on deck when the Iowa's 16" cannon were fired due to risk of physical trauma, I can't imagine what this would do. That looks like maybe 2m bore given the people standing by the shells?
Always assumed the sickliness stemmed from gluttony. All the hard dangerous and dirty work done before he arrives, even to such a degree that they have to evacuate not ot be in his pressence when he makes a big deal of pulling the tiny string to fire. Which seems like an apt metaphor for army command. Get the medals, food and prestige on the back of the people working themselves sick for him.
Damn this gives me 40K vibes with: 1. The absurdity of the size of this cannon. 2. Seeing all those kids cheering the blast while working in a factor for making more shells.
I suspect it's based in Imperial Japanese Navy protocols. Or at least they do that exact same pattern of command and response in the films featuring them I've seen. Likely intentional. Or rather, they're evoking that sort of mien.
My job employs a lot of veterans and while it’s not necessarily high stress, I think they search for veterans not only to support veterans, but also because soldiers are very organized and do their jobs well.
It's the same ancient ai autigenerated tech used to create stuff today just without the filter I bet. Same as black an white films an photos. Ai today is showing 2 things : ai isn't allowed to exist. But it's artifical ignorance replacement can recreate earth in a second.
@@Sourman1545I’m pretty sure modern animation are still made by human and not AI, unless you mean the CGI which is yes… it doesn’t look good but it still cost a lot. But AI animation are funny as hell bro, check it out it’s so bad it loop around to become so good
The fact that you believe it's cheaper to hand draw animation like this compared to modern standards just shows the internet is full of people who talk shit and don't know what the hell they're talking about, @@Mynameisnotjoe. If you don't know something then keep your mouth shut, or better yet read a book and stop spreading misinformation. Take some responsibility.
Ciertamente. Tenía un estilo más pictórico. La Guerra se transforma en la razón única de ser de las sociedades patriarcales. Este corto metraje está basado en una novela de Verne, me contaron. Es el futuro de Europa, tras la derrota en Ucrania, debido, precisamente a su incapacidad de producir suficiente munición de artillería. Ironías de La Historia. 22-12-2023 Valparaíso.
You should look up "Le roi et l'oiseau" by Paul Grimault. Thing is from the 80's and has that very unique style to it. Dw it's possible to find in english, there isn"t much talking in it anyway ^^
I love the musical difference between the theme for the loading crew working diligently, and the farce that is the Gunner, who at the end of the day gets all of the credit and accolades. A pompous, corpulent man deafening himself for the glory of his country, after all of the actually hard work has been done. I also like how you see the real Gunner first, before the scene with the kid's fantasy, and finally the big portrait, which is just as realistic as the child's doodles.
From what I remember of this movie, the gunner is ceremonial and dies every time the cannon is fired. It's never the same guy firing it. It's why all the workers leave the operating area every time the cannon is fired. I seem to remember a scene where they are cleaning up the pieces of the last guy's body.
Everyone is praising the animation and rightly so. But the sound design is amazing. There’s a lot of percussion and brass to emphasise how heavily mechanised this operation is. A lot of strings and woodwinds are eliminated very early on but a small bit is still kept because they provide the anxiety of the scene because everything needs to be precise. The minor scales add rising tension near to when the cannon is fired and there’s that excellent tension relief seconds before the moment of truth when the canon is fired.
@@ShortArmOfGodtakes about 2 minutes to load what looks like an 800mm shell. An Iowa class battleship could put over 40 400mm shells downrange in the same time
The realism and detail they approached the actual cannon reloading and firing is so respectable to me as a huge cannon fan. In hindsight it would have taken even longer to fire its shots (The largest cannon of all time, Schwerer Gustav, at 800 millimetres, took about 45 minutes to fire a single shot, and this cannon looks even larger!), but I do understand not devoting 75% of a feature length movie's runtime to a single cannon shot. Also I absolutely love this phenomenal shot of this super dystopian looking city-structure with all those cannon barrels poking out *9:35**.*
@@tsm688 Yes, I know that it is not about the weapon itself; I just gave a mention to how respectfully they animated it and noted a couple of technical details.
I saw this years ago in a print comic, can't remember where. The narrator was a kid of one of the loaders, talking about how proud he was of his dad and how one day he hoped to be the one who fire the cannon. I distinctly remember the guy who made a mistake being made to stand there and endure the last shot without ear protection as punishment.
Just watched a nearly 10 min video of a cannon being loaded and fired and it was damn _intense_ . Seriously the interesting art direction, smooth animation and fantastic panning shots. This is the kind of crap I live for and I was genuinely shocked I'd never heard of or even seen a still/screenshot from this until now.
Fondo y Forma. La Guerra se transforma en la razón única de ser de las sociedades patriarcales. Este corto metraje está basado en una novela de Verne, me contaron. Es el futuro de Europa, tras la derrota en Ucrania, debido, precisamente a su incapacidad de producir suficiente munición de artillería. Ironías de La Historia. 22-12-2023 Valparaíso.
I love the complexity and tiny minutiae in this scene for the loading procedure. The fact it takes plenty of people just to set it up hits home for me as someone who has worked with military aircraft where it can take 40 bodies on the ground just to catch a single jet coming from a sortie.
the visuals at 7:40 are so solid: it’s a very provocative image and it works perfectly to the message of “the people born in this city are born as cannon fodder just like the shells they create”
7:01 that little belly jiggle they animated is great. The entire loading and firing sequence is so ridiculous, and this pompous little man covered in medals comes out to push the button.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat Not a button, pull cord. And on the old time artillery this cannon clearly is emulating it really couldn't be in a controll room, did you ever try pulling a wire that has several meters? it gets exponentially harder due to drag.
I’ll always feel that at the end when the kid asks his dad who they are fighting he simply says “someday you’ll understand.” And to me it kinda felt like the dad obviously didn’t like war but can’t really say anything against it to his son either maybe the father fears that his son will have to live a life full of war as well
For all the redcon fans this is probably what inspired hexage the cannon number is 17 the soldiers look like state soldiers and the man who fires it is would be grim also the ost with the crowd is probably when the workers are screaming
This is the first thing you see when you look up Redcon on wikipedia: Redcon - Strike Commander (styled as REDCON) is a 2016 real-time strategy video game developed by Hexage. It is inspired by the Japanese anime film Memories - Episode 3 : "CANNON FODDER"
Quick estimation of the round being fired: Caliber: 1750mm, Shell weight: about 50 metric tons depending on type of munition, thin walled HE filled would be more like 35tons, thick walled AP shell would be much heavier.
@@necrosteel5013 That's why he's protected with a thick layer of shock absorbing blubber. Obviously the result of some form of multi-generational selective breeding system.
Probably because most games and movies aren’t trying to faithfully recreate IRL cannon loading. In fact most games and movies are normally within a genre where this wouldn’t even make sense like seriously what do you expect?
That was honestly really impressive from an animations and storytelling standpoint, I felt it all the way through, the music, the audio everything about loading the cannon was a well tuned machine that was impressive and awe inspiring due to the work of all those involved in operating it, and then comes the guy that fires it and it crumbles that professional and impressive façade and it shows what it really is, it is just a circus with the one firing as the main clown, the music shifts so suddenly and you realise how pointless it is.
I do recall seeing photos of the backgrounds; they were long enough that they were glued on walls and even ceiling of the studio when animating the camera pans. Absolute mad lad craftsmanship.
i saw this, and i instantly remembered the capital destroyer cannons from Redcon, even the dudes being in suits with gas masks and giant forts makes it even more better. what a great scene.
When i first watched this, my jaw dropped at 3:50 and 5:24. This kind of animation is really hard to pull off. But there was something at the back of my head that made me watch it again at 2x speed. And then my jaw fell off completly. This entire sequence is done without a single cut. How? Just How?
3:50 is done by animating different 'layers', in the physical sense. By shifting them over top of eachother (and possibly by angling the capture camera towards the left over the duration) you get that 3D looking turning motion on the visuals.
Yeah it looks like they didn't draw each frame of the canon at 3:50 but slightly deformed the whole canon and moved its parts on separate layers to give a 3D feel (like in 2D rigging animation). But knowing it was made in 1995, I am not sure there were a lot of software already able to do this.
@@Heide_Knight I doubt this is done with any computer use; This has all the hallmarks of classic animation. It's essentially literal physical layers of plastic with partial drawings on them. It was widely used by Disney since the 30s(?). If you search for it on YT you'll find some fantastic videos on it, and how the techique got more intricate and complex with the movies' progressing.
I love the similarity between this and the other Memories short. Both feature armed forces wasting incredible amounts of effort and resources to solve a Problem that would be already nonexistent if they tried a peaceful approach. Also, the soldiers here look a lot like the ones from the other short too
I like how they have an massive number of people who are all extremely well disciplined and practiced in order to load and aim the cannon quickly, and then they double the time it takes by having the officer walk in by himself and fire the gun prim and proper instead of having him standing in place from the beginning.
The only really ridiculous thing I see is the guy pushing the button right next to the cannon. In WW1 the Germans had Siege Mortars which where no where near as big as this gun, and they had to remotely fire it from 300 yards away while laying on the ground with their mouths open to not rupture their internal organs. Other than that it's a really well animated sequence that shows firing a large scale artillery piece.
That probably has more to do with the shortness of the barrel meaning you're closer to the muzzle and thus closer to the blast. With this long barreled gun it's not as bad so long as you don't stand near the muzzle. There's several ww2 footage videos showing sailors standing on deck or at the railings of battleships as the guns were firing over the side and being fine. If the guns were to be fired over the deck and they were standing underneath the muzzle they'd be killed guarenteed. You can even see this with normal 105/122mm howitzers of the us, if you're behind them its fine but if you were right underneath the muzzle the blast would kill you or at least very much harm you
I thought it was a different officer each time...a "sacrificial" role. The stoic ceremonial motion, full regalia, the only one on the cannon floor, walking past the condemned, etc. showed that it was his "last action" in service to the "war." They look similar, but so do the countless workers.
you can look for the 220mm( i think, maybe little bit bigger) arty made by the soviet and still use nowday( both russian and ukrainian use them in the war) its has a long barrel so its fine
This looks very realistic, like ww1 tech if electronic progress was stunted, the gasmasks so you dont inhale steam or fumes directly, helmets just in case things go wrong, the evacuation, the loading, it is incredible, talent is evolving backwards however and this sequence in a similar scene would just be replaced by aim and fire lazershooteegun
The gasmasks are because the gunpowder they use in the lore of this video is extremely toxic. In the setting, they show people protesting, demanding the government use non-toxic gunpowder. It's meant to be a tribute to how dangerous the job is of the man who fires the gun is, and why that man is shaking so much as he's next to the gun as it fires. The entire point of this is that his child wants to be the next person who fires the gun, thus dooming himself to poisoning.
Una muy buena analogía del complejo militar industrial... no importa la guerra, no importa contra quien disparan, ni siquiera importa si existe alguien contra quien disparar, lo importante es mantener la maquinaria de guerra activa y a una sociedad cautiva que viva para ello.
about what you said about it being a single flowing scene, in the Memories making-of documentary they showed that the background, the phisical background sheet was this huge super complicated single piece with all the settings of the short painted onto xD
No, but maybe there were at some point. They follow orders regardless of how pointless it is. Quite like North Korea, everyone celebrating the cannon firing as if it is a religión.
@@aniquinstark4347 Its an old anime trilogy the whole release of Memories. This is the last story of all three, althought they are not connected. It never explains why they have a cannon at each house but you have to assume certain things. The extensive use of olive green against red, the fear in the operators, the mustache of the main character, the seemingly forced cheering after firying, the picture hanging like they had with Stalin. I watched it about 5 years ago so i dont remember everything.
The end of the Movie kind of led me to believe that this was an allegory for Civilian life in WW2 Imperial Japan. Told the Enemy was near defeat, never seeing the enemy- Then *SPOILER* Nuked at the end.
I find it interesting that the entire loading process is, for the most part, largely utilitarian in its approach, yet such emphasis is placed on ceremony for the moment of firing. It probably wouldn't be hard for them to remotely fire the cannon, saving time and improving accuracy no doubt, yet they maintain that a man of honor should ultimately pull the trigger. This man is probably deaf from being so close to the blast every day.
That was my assumption. They've been 'at war' for so many generations, none remember who they fight, if they still live, or anything other than make shells, load shells, fire shells, live another day, repeat. They are cogs in a perpetual war machine that exists to keep existing. None question why things are the way they are, or why they do what they do. They make the shells, load the shells, fire the shells and get to live another day, for the glory of the State. That was my impression anyway.
I'm pretty sure the nondescript "enemy" had already been shelled to oblivion some time ago, and they're just going through the motions because it's all they know.
The size difference between the barrel and the actual shot and powder charge is so large that It really ticks me off when I see it. Otherwise; a good looking artillery piece.
5:30 This sequence alone, took months of work. It's easy to do now with computers, but back then they had to paint dozens of backgrounds, all perfectly matched to one another, to pan the camera over to make it look like one solid frame.b
I dont know if anyone can answer, I haven't seen the movie - the kaiser guy who fires the cannon, is he killed? They make and it seems like the cannon floor is deadly if you're there, and they evacuate each sequence, so is it just simply not as fatal as I'm thinking? Is he just like, permanently deaf, or is my theory that they have a sacrificial lamb to actually fire the cannon, to put more weight and life behind each shot, symbolically correct? Is the crew that had a shell slip and punished by remaining on the floor dead? That guy was super terrified so that was my assumption.
@@stormtempterf8058 I think, they are forced to stay here because if something went wrong because of shell falling (like cannon explosion) their death will be their punishment for this mistake.
Maybe it is the only time a commadant of such rank is there to fire the great cannon (special occasion?). The workers on the other hand have to work there every day. It is for their saftey over time that they evacuate the hangar. Alteast that is what i think. In any case, the films are ment to show off the animators artistical prowess, more then story. The stories are there for the visuels.
I think it's one of those things that you decide for yourself. Ultimately, these works are meant to be interpreted. If the authors wanted to communicate a precise idea, they would've picked different methods.
I’m pretty certain they based it off the Gustav yeah, you see a lot of German ww2 vehicles repurposed in Japanese animation for some reason like the gold hetzers in nausicca
@@Gabriel-he6ih well technicaly this is not the anime we've known and used to see today. Back in the 1970's or 1980's this is actually a high quality tv show. And damn that gave me nostalgia when I used to play redcon. Imma re-download it and fight some monsters of concrete and steel!
I cannot begin to describe how much I love this animation, but I have to admit, I laughed incredibly hard when the one guy appeared to fire the cannon. Not because of his outfit or demeanor, but because after I saw everyone clear the deck, I totally thought that dude was going to die horrifically when he fired the cannon. I thought to myself, "Do they all know he's a dead man? Does he know he's a dead man?" Also, he probably has the best, "Ute!" I have ever heard next to that one scene in Attack on Titan
Making the team that might have screwed up during the loading procedure stand next to the breach while firing is a brutally efficient way to make sure everyone is doing their best.
