Amazing what one can realise on a bus

[puddingcat]

The scene where Omi shoots his brother bugged me since I watched the episode at the weekend, and not *only* because of Omi's appalling hand position.

He uses a compound bow, but not a trigger release.

Considering (a) the detail in the animation of all other technology (identifiable cars & bikes, accurate brake systems, etc - if I still shot I reckon the bow would have been an actual model as well), and (b) the whole character / storyline thing, that just doesn't fit. An assassin should use the most accurate tool for the job; i.e. a trigger release, not fingers. And if he's skilled enough to hit someone through the windscreen of a fast-moving car, he should be skilled enough for his hand to end up by his shoulder, not flopping around in midair.

I reckon he should have used a bow sling, too - but I shot recurve and can't remember whether compound archers use them.

< / archery geek >

Comments

[mami-san.livejournal.com]

Ehh, I like this discussion about Omi. It's interesting, as is the talk about the bow. The only bow I halfway understand is the Japanese kyudo bow, so I accepted Omi's weapon in a tra-la-la sort of way. His kiddiness was a little harder to swallow after a while.

If you still can't get the Gluhen eps 12 and 13 from somewhere and want them, I could up them to a different file sharing thing for you, but they're .rm format for realplayer. Would that be okay? I'm afraid if the "those few in the middle" are between 1 and 6, I couldn't offer them, because I don't know how to rip VCDs. *is dumb* 7-13 are all .rm format.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oo, I haven't heard of the kyudo bow. Is that the one where the limbs are different lengths?

In short, a longbow is a stick (straight when unstrung); a recurve covers everything from the Mongolian horse bows to modern Olympic ones (unstrung, the tips curve forward from the vertical; strung, they're the vertical bits when the body of the bow curves forward); and a compound has pulleys at the top & bottom with cables, to take most of the strain of pulling it back.

Omi uses a compound, which makes sense as they're the most accurate, send the arrows fastest, and are most technologically advanced. In modern competitions, the 10 ring of the target is smaller for compounds than for other bows, because people were getting perfect scores. Hence not using all the available gadgets (trigger release, to stop his fingers fouling the string, peep sight to aim better, stabilisers to absorb the recoil) he really did make the shot hard for himself. The more I think about it, it would have been the perfect solution for him if he'd missed - he'd have tried, so Aya would be happy (well, as happy as he ever gets!), but Hirofumi would still be alive as well.