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Fall 2012 Anime |OT| Meet the new world, same as the old world

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The posts in AnimeGAF about School Days always make me feel like an alien...

I know some people don't like it because of how silly it gets in terms of crazy character behavior, but I'm surprised to hear people found a lot of it boring.
I've watched it three times now and I don't remember ever being bored by any of it.
If anything, I'd expect to be its biggest critic, because as far as I know I'm the only person here who played the game before the TV series existed, and game adaptations usually suck, but I think they did a great job with this one.
I can think of a plethora of colorful words with which to describe School Days, but boring is definitely not one of them. Has anyone actually said that?
I said something about liking the fact that Shizuku was good at calculus but then got scared that people would think I was implicitly perpetuating the stereotype that girls are bad at math, hahah. Can't be too careful.
The Bish signal has been lit. Prepare for cleansing.
 

Narag

Member
I genuinely think School Days is the greatest harem ever made. And Cross Days is the greatest harem never made!

Even though I caught myself after the fact, I think you just gave me a terrible impression of Cross Game I'll never be able to shake.
 

duckroll

Member
There are talented writers working in the anime industry, but it doesn't appear that the industry can support a writer only interested in working good material in the long term. There's a lot of work, but most of it is kinda bad. As a writer, if you want to survive, it looks to me that you either have to have another real job (writing novels, being a playwright, writing for games/VN, officer worker, Lawsons clerk, etc :p) or you have to take on a bunch of work where you will have to compromise on quality/subject matter, and just basically work for hire.

I think that Kuroda, Aikawa, Enokido, Ohnogi, Yoshida, Sato, etc are all capable writers. Capable as in, they understand literature, have good foundations in screenwriting, and are able to do good work if they are matched with a capable director and work on the right subject matter. But to make ends meet, it is unrealistic to expect a writer to pick and choose only projects which they're good at or which interests them. So they "turn into shit" being forced to work on stuff outside their comfort zone, and just writing stuff which pay the bills, or being forced into production schedules which don't result in the best outcome.

Urobuchi is a very interesting writer. I like him a lot, and I'm a huge fan of his works. But it has come to my attention that some people consider him a bad writer. Looking into these opinions and considering the facts have led me to a conclusion. Urobuchi is a writer who does not aim higher than what he deems necessary for a given topic. He is a pulp writer who is more interested in delivering a tight and coherent experience that fits nicely into the concept being sold to an audience, and he is more interested in "pandering" to the satisfaction of the audience and managing expectations very neatly, rather than having something particularly profound or meaningful to say.

And thinking about this led me to realize that the reason I like his form of writing is that for mainstream anime these days, I feel this is exactly what I want and need from it. When there is a solid production behind a concept which I find appealing, the last thing I want is for the creators to be "too smart" and try to out-think the audience, or make their characters so philosophical that they become parodies of themselves. I just want what I was promised, and if there is foreshadowing and teasing of stuff, I expect those to be deliver in the proper proportion that the show is suggesting.

Saya no Uta, Madoka, Fate/Zero, these all fall perfectly under this category. Nothing is promised but under-delivered, if you expect the story to "go there", it will, because if it hints at it, it will deliver. If it isn't going to "go there", it will not suggest it to begin with. The endings are also major game changing events, which walks the fine line between feeling conclusive, and also being bittersweet. Urobuchi also tends to specifically write in moments in the endings which show that the characters who survived or won something "earned" it in some way. This reinforces the audience's satisfaction with how "watertight" the entire story is, and it feels more conclusive and cohesive as a whole.

My point is that I don't think it matters to me that Urobuchi doesn't "aim high" because the important thing for me is that so far when he has been seriously involved with a project, he doesn't "miss the goal". And while he doesn't aim high, he also tends to write in very interesting genres which don't really exist much anywhere else these days. Even something like Blassreiter isn't common at all, and in the hands of a better studio and director, it could have been something really special. His most "generic" work to speak of would be Phantom of the Inferno, and only because Bee Train went out of their way to water the entire "girls with guns" genre down year after year from Noir onwards. When Bee Train stopped, so did that genre.

tl;dr: I dunno... if you didn't bother to read all that text I spent time typing... FUCK YOU!!! Lol. :)
 

Jex

Member
tl;dr: I dunno... if you didn't bother to read all that text I spent time typing... FUCK YOU!!! Lol. :)

I'm disappointed that you wrote this much and didn't even bother mentioning anime's most prolific writer, the Okada-bot.
 

Jex

Member
Why would I talk about someone I actually consider a bad writer in a post about my opinions on capable writers?

Because it shows that many people in the industry don't care about bad writing, to the extent where so many different productions will attach the same bad writer to their project. After all

*Translator speaking directly to the audience* You may not realize that Miss Okada is considered the topmost rated scriptwriter in Japan right now, she’s done AnoHana but also AKB0048, which is a tie-in with a very popular idol group, so she’s immensely popular.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Even though I caught myself after the fact, I think you just gave me a terrible impression of Cross Game I'll never be able to shake.
Hahaha. Cross Game is a harem of sorts... maybe? lol

There are talented writers working in the anime industry, but it doesn't appear that the industry can support a writer only interested in working good material in the long term. There's a lot of work, but most of it is kinda bad. As a writer, if you want to survive, it looks to me that you either have to have another real job (writing novels, being a playwright, writing for games/VN, officer worker, Lawsons clerk, etc :p) or you have to take on a bunch of work where you will have to compromise on quality/subject matter, and just basically work for hire.

I think that Kuroda, Aikawa, Enokido, Ohnogi, Yoshida, Sato, etc are all capable writers. Capable as in, they understand literature, have good foundations in screenwriting, and are able to do good work if they are matched with a capable director and work on the right subject matter. But to make ends meet, it is unrealistic to expect a writer to pick and choose only projects which they're good at or which interests them. So they "turn into shit" being forced to work on stuff outside their comfort zone, and just writing stuff which pay the bills, or being forced into production schedules which don't result in the best outcome.

Urobuchi is a very interesting writer. I like him a lot, and I'm a huge fan of his works. But it has come to my attention that some people consider him a bad writer. Looking into these opinions and considering the facts have led me to a conclusion. Urobuchi is a writer who does not aim higher than what he deems necessary for a given topic. He is a pulp writer who is more interested in delivering a tight and coherent experience that fits nicely into the concept being sold to an audience, and he is more interested in "pandering" to the satisfaction of the audience and managing expectations very neatly, rather than having something particularly profound or meaningful to say.

tl;dr: I dunno... if you didn't bother to read all that text I spent time typing... FUCK YOU!!! Lol. :)

Poor Yoshida. I guess she's still being forced to write for SSO before Tamayura 2 rolls around? :p

I've come to realize that the main reason why writers are so marginalized is because so much anime is an adaptation, so you just need someone to hack together a series composition from a certain number of volumes of manga/light novel and then just steal the dialog from the manga/light novel to piece together scripts. It actually sounds as mindnumbing and soul-destroying as being a ramen-eating animator, but with even less of the "fame" because no one cares about the writers in the first place. lol

Pulpiness aside, I suppose Urobuchi has the advantage of doing either his work or original work though.

Because it shows that many people in the industry don't care about bad writing, to the extent where so many different productions will attach the same bad writer to their project.
She's like the ronin American sitcom writer, moving from writing room to writing room turning in shitty scripts for shitty shows because that's all people want. lol
 

Jex

Member
It seems that all of the Crunchyroll simulcasts of From the New World are being delayed until Tuesdays, for whatever reason.

I can think of a reason - they really want their streaming project to be powerfully undermined by fansubbers.
 

duckroll

Member
Poor Yoshida. I guess she's still being forced to write for SSO before Tamayura 2 rolls around? :p

I've come to realize that the main reason why writers are so marginalized is because so much anime is an adaptation, so you just need someone to hack together a series composition from a certain number of volumes of manga/light novel and then just steal the dialog from the manga/light novel to piece together scripts. It actually sounds as mindnumbing and soul-destroying as being a ramen-eating animator, but with even less of the "fame" because no one cares about the writers in the first place. lol

Pulpiness aside, I suppose Urobuchi has the advantage of doing either his work or original work though.

Yeah, I'm sure it can be pretty soul-crushing especially if you're going into it all wide-eyed thinking you can make it better or write stuff which makes a difference. Pro-tip: the only difference it will make is the decline in your bank account balance. >_>

Maybe that's why Nobumoto retired. ._.

As for Yoshida, she's writing Girls und Panzer this season. It's an original show, and it looks cute! C'mon, watch it with me! :D
 

Branduil

Member
There are talented writers working in the anime industry, but it doesn't appear that the industry can support a writer only interested in working good material in the long term. There's a lot of work, but most of it is kinda bad. As a writer, if you want to survive, it looks to me that you either have to have another real job (writing novels, being a playwright, writing for games/VN, officer worker, Lawsons clerk, etc :p) or you have to take on a bunch of work where you will have to compromise on quality/subject matter, and just basically work for hire.

I think that Kuroda, Aikawa, Enokido, Ohnogi, Yoshida, Sato, etc are all capable writers. Capable as in, they understand literature, have good foundations in screenwriting, and are able to do good work if they are matched with a capable director and work on the right subject matter. But to make ends meet, it is unrealistic to expect a writer to pick and choose only projects which they're good at or which interests them. So they "turn into shit" being forced to work on stuff outside their comfort zone, and just writing stuff which pay the bills, or being forced into production schedules which don't result in the best outcome.

Urobuchi is a very interesting writer. I like him a lot, and I'm a huge fan of his works. But it has come to my attention that some people consider him a bad writer. Looking into these opinions and considering the facts have led me to a conclusion. Urobuchi is a writer who does not aim higher than what he deems necessary for a given topic. He is a pulp writer who is more interested in delivering a tight and coherent experience that fits nicely into the concept being sold to an audience, and he is more interested in "pandering" to the satisfaction of the audience and managing expectations very neatly, rather than having something particularly profound or meaningful to say.

And thinking about this led me to realize that the reason I like his form of writing is that for mainstream anime these days, I feel this is exactly what I want and need from it. When there is a solid production behind a concept which I find appealing, the last thing I want is for the creators to be "too smart" and try to out-think the audience, or make their characters so philosophical that they become parodies of themselves. I just want what I was promised, and if there is foreshadowing and teasing of stuff, I expect those to be deliver in the proper proportion that the show is suggesting.

Saya no Uta, Madoka, Fate/Zero, these all fall perfectly under this category. Nothing is promised but under-delivered, if you expect the story to "go there", it will, because if it hints at it, it will deliver. If it isn't going to "go there", it will not suggest it to begin with. The endings are also major game changing events, which walks the fine line between feeling conclusive, and also being bittersweet. Urobuchi also tends to specifically write in moments in the endings which show that the characters who survived or won something "earned" it in some way. This reinforces the audience's satisfaction with how "watertight" the entire story is, and it feels more conclusive and cohesive as a whole.

My point is that I don't think it matters to me that Urobuchi doesn't "aim high" because the important thing for me is that so far when he has been seriously involved with a project, he doesn't "miss the goal". And while he doesn't aim high, he also tends to write in very interesting genres which don't really exist much anywhere else these days. Even something like Blassreiter isn't common at all, and in the hands of a better studio and director, it could have been something really special. His most "generic" work to speak of would be Phantom of the Inferno, and only because Bee Train went out of their way to water the entire "girls with guns" genre down year after year from Noir onwards. When Bee Train stopped, so did that genre.

tl;dr: I dunno... if you didn't bother to read all that text I spent time typing... FUCK YOU!!! Lol. :)

No, I read the whole thing and I pretty much agree with you. Urobuchi seems to have a very solid grasp of the fundamentals of screenwriting, such as the three-act structure, a clear protagonist, and a climactic dramatic question which revolves around the protagonist's own character. He's also good at establishing the motivations of major characters. These all seem like relatively simple things but the terrible writing in so many anime shows that it's not. And he's much better at writing convincing melodrama than certain people.
 

Jex

Member
The first four episodes of School Days are some of the most predictable, boring, garbage trite you will ever see in a school romance anime.

Then things... happen.

You can't skip to the 'meat' in School Days. That would be like skipping ahead in Blood C - the intended effect is far too diluted.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Yeah, I'm sure it can be pretty soul-crushing especially if you're going into it all wide-eyed thinking you can make it better or write stuff which makes a difference. Pro-tip: the only difference it will make is the decline in your bank account balance. >_>

Maybe that's why Nobumoto retired. ._.

As for Yoshida, she's writing Girls und Panzer this season. It's an original show, and it looks cute! C'mon, watch it with me! :D
Fuck man. I guess I have to watch that show. :(
I suffered through that Sheep Harem anime... I can't even remember what it was called. :p

(Is Sato working on anything this season? And not related to writers, but where is Kobayashi!)

I kind of wish there was a push to make anime a writer's medium, but I have to imagine that the people who want to be "real writers" move to real television instead. Honestly, I'm surprised that anime has any writers willing to work in the industry at all unless they do it out of some (misguided) love of the medium.
 
The first four episodes of School Days are some of the most predictable, boring, garbage trite you will ever see in a school romance anime.

Then things... happen.
Makoto is already
groping and pressuring Kotonoha to have sex with him
in episode four. It's also the episode where
Makoto and Sekai "practice" on top of the school and get to second base
. Now, I don't watch a whole lot of school romance anime, but I really doubt that's standard fare. It's certainly not boring.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
Who, the girl from Oh! Edo Rocket?

V0H8D.gif


credit to atsushi nishigori for pushing the sueness power levels to maximum
 
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