Forgot to wrote this earlier,
* Message contains spoilers to episodes 6 & 7 *

At 10:22 AM 6/1/96 -0700, deckerd@agcs.com wrote:

>Having now seen Princess Fatora on stage and getting a taste of
>her personality...I'd suggest changing her into a boy and sending
>her to Earth just to learn humility! I certainly wasn't expecting
>her to turn out to be such an unlikable sort.

    Heh heh, interesting.  Though since nobody know how the
dimension/time slip happened, I got the hinch that Fatora would
not be sent back on purpose, and besides, they need someone to
rescue as a plot device! ^o^

>In the case of El-Hazard, the
>creators freely acknowledged Prisoner of Zenda and Burroughs as
>sources (see the liner notes for the first episode), but they don't
>bother to explain why Makoto resembles Fatora so much.

    I mean, when I say there are a lot of instances where characters
resemble each other, I mean *a lot*. -_^  Neglecting anime, a small
little manga on Cyber Formula had the same thing, that's fresh in my
memory, and even a manga by Tezuka had a similar plot if I remember 
correctly.  It's gotten so common that they don't bother explaining them.
Usually sotries are circles around the fact that one resembles another, 
but in this one an adventure story is added to it all.

>Instead,
>the story is based on a loop in time, with Makoto's resemblance
>to Fatora being apparently an accident and relatively unimportant
>in the long run.

    Yeah, "let's just make things more interesting", said the producers. ^_^
Japanese don't really go back to discuss how things are possible anyways,
when time slips, walking bugs, and a floating death star is what you get,
the usual resemblence plot seems irrelavent. ^o^

>Uh oh! Spoiler ahead! Watch out!

    Thanks.

>the newly humanized Ifurita needs him, and apparently the project
>of reforming a killer android with the power of several nuclear
>bombs appeals to him.

    Heh, I guess that Makoto could really feel her heart when he came
in contact with her, that's how he made his decisions.  I was on
the floor laughing when Makoto said "Elfurita" right when the two 
girls were sneaking up on him! ^o^  I thought he was just worried 
about her at the time actually.

>Still, even though Ifurita was under
>outside control and not responsible for her actions when she
>blew up whole cities and killed thousands of people, I just
>wonder how the good citizens of El-Hazard would react to her
>living in their midst even though supposedly reformed?

    I think she hopped into her little cell and waited (very
patiently) for Makoto to arrive again.  Or else it won't be
pretty. ^^;  But then I won't be too surprised if people do
the old "you killed my relatives, but we're friends now" sort
of thing. ^^

>I also wonder how the El-Hazard TV show differs in this regard? I've
>read that Princess Fatora doesn't exist in that continuity (so
>maybe somebody decided the royal impersonation plot was a dead
>end) and Rune Venus is younger (suggesting to me that maybe she
>would be the romantic interest here), but otherwise I don't know
>much about it.

    Makoto chose Rune Venus in this one doesn't he?  I saw a few
episodes (even have LD #1), but the slow developing plot isn't
really my thing.  Character design is cuter, though I'm the type
which likes the OVA design a better.  Story wise, he got sent
to El Hazard by accident with his science project, otherwise I
have no clue, perhaps Hitoshi-san can fill us in.

--
(^_^)Derek Liu, or Lanzer, at lanzer@mindlink.net. Vancouver, Canada! (-.^)
(~_^)Full time student, part time street fighter, author of SFLIU too.(@_@)
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