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Information

• Member: Kerydwenn
• Studio: Paradigma
• Title: A Legacy of Sadness
• Premiered: 2005-05-24
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Ashram Nevermore Sorrow
• Anime:
  • Record of School War (Gakuen Senki Muryou)
• Comments: ------------
  Backstory
  ------------
  
  The anime is probably not very well known, so, for a short summary: this series takes place in 2070, in the town of Tenmou, after the existence of aliens has been revealed to the world. Some alien ships/robots regularly attack the planet, and it turns out that some of Tenmou's inhabitants have the ability to use powers in order to repell them - and do so.
  
  This AMV focuses mostly on Mineo Harumi mostly, as well as her father, and the regrets and pressure caused by their heavy duties. A part of this also centers on Kyoichi, the young man Harumi is meant to protect. I unfortunately feel that one would need to know a few things about the series in order to fully understand their relationship; unfortunately as well, this means revealing some information about the series. If you don't want to hear about spoilers, then don't read the section following the Technical Data
  
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  Technical data
  ----------------
  
  This AMV took both more and less time to make than my previous one. Less, because I "only" needed 3 weeks to complete it; more, because during these 3 weeks, I barely did anything else during my free time than reading the guides, learning, extracting, editing and encoding. I've learnt tons while doing all of this, if only because it's the first time I really work while knowing what I'm doing, and not only through my usual trial & error method.
  
  The footage was directly extracted from the DVDs, thanks to the wise advice given in the guides here. Things got a bit nasty at this point, for PAL footage + full-blended frames were quite a hassle to work with at first. I needed to clean quite an amount of frames manually, if only to get rid of some awful blending that would really be seen even when viewing it at normal speed *sigh* Good points, though, are that I'm getting the grasp of Xvid and (it was high time...) audio compression,, which is a relief regarding the end filesize. I've also tried my hand at a few effects, although I'm not completely sure they can be called this way (a few masks, things like that - I guess I'm too used to these being part of my graphic-design basics to really consider them like something "complex" and worth mentioning). I'm pretty sure that I can do more than these, in any case, but in my opinion, this vid didn't need a quantity of effects to carry its point, thus they remain far and few (and discrete enough, I hope).
  
  Regarding the music: I chose to work with something way less long than for my Angel's Egg video. I got this song from a promotional CD sold with the Elegy magazine, back in 2002; Ashram is an Italian band, and this song, when I found the CD back in a box recently and listened to it again, stroke me as really fitting the purpose. To be fully honest, it's the song that actually made me twist what was my first idea for an AMV based on the Muryoh series. (Sidenote: The intro music is the beginning of" GL (Groundloop)" by In The Nursery).
  
  Software found guilty of involvment in the making of this vid:
  - DVDDecoder
  - DGIndex
  - Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0
  - Paint Shop Pro 9
  - VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1
  - AVIsynth and a few hours of sweating on various tests and documentations
  - XviD-1.0.3-20122004 Final Release
  
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  Spoilers
  ----------
  
  A little bit of backstory first: a primary element in the Muryoh series is the "power of Shinguu". Shinguu is usually "invoked" by one person (here, Nayuta), who's the only one able to wield his power; by doing so, she takes the shape and strength of Shinguu in order to fight the alien ships, yet remaining human all the same. In other words, Shinguu can only fight in Earth's atmosphere, and not in space, unless a specific technic is used, called the Chrysalis. This technique consists in uniting the powers of three specific people to support Nayuta, so that she can send her mind in space, where it then "becomes Shinguu" without being limited by her human body. Here, Kyoichi plays an important part, as he's the only one able to channel these powers, having inherited his father's abilities to do so.
  
  The duty of the Mineo family is one of protection, centered on the four people whose presence is necessary to the Chrysalis. As a matter of fact, eleven years ago, Kyoichi's father got killed by aliens, causing the Chrysalis to fail and killing several people in the process. Since that time, Harumi's father, who was meant to protect them while the Chrysalis was leaving them completely vulnerable, has always felt that by failing in this task, he had betrayed Kyoichi's family, and his daughter is now carrying this burden on her shoulders as well. When her own powers awoke, Harumi gained the ability to "live" what had happened at the time of the failed Chrysalis, which made her behavior change pretty much, turning the joyous tomboy girl into a very serious, sad-loooking and obedient student who's mainly concerned with Kyoichi's well-being. During the series, she however evolves, and gain a little bit of peace of mind in the end, when she realizes that she's become stronger, that she won't fail, and when she fully accepts that her feelings and her duty can still go together.
  
  Note 1: The children dancing during the matsuri: in the series, this festival is a mean for Tenmou's people to find who among their children have the needed powers. This is how Nayuta's power got revealed, as well as Kyoichi's and Harumi's. It holds quite an important place throughout many of the episodes, in fact, even when remaining in the background.
  
  Note 2: The crater: this is what's left of the place where the Chrysalis failed. It actually exists in a parallel space, to which only Harumi and her father have access through the use of a "paper device" (can't find a better word for this). There's a very moving episode in which Harumi brings Kyoichi there, and reveals him what really happened and why she and her father have felt this way since then.