• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Spring Anime 2017 |OT| Don't be a SukaSuka for Gacha

Status
Not open for further replies.

Jarmel

Banned
I still don't understand what this attempted redemption is. Like, he literally just made a "KILL HUMANS!! RAWWR!!" speech. What is being redeemed? Humans are shit. Demons are shit. Gods are shit. They work together sometimes, when they can be convinced to stop trying to destroy each other. That's the world of Bahamut.

Let's be real, this season is clearly depicting the humans as bad guys. I mean the last episode had a guy near cackling as he tortured a demon to death. Come on...
 

duckroll

Member
But he's being painted as this bastion of morality, freeing demons from the grasp of humanity. Every interaction he has with Kaiser shows that he and apparently we are supposed to believe that he and his cause are in the right. There really hasn't been much to show demons in the bad light they were shown in during Genesis. I've seen 1-4 at this point and what I'm seeing is Azazel is supposed to be the good guy with humanity being the villains, even though I really can't find too much fault with what the humans have done after the shit they were put through in Genesis. It makes sense to me that they'd want to take on Gods and Demons but were just being shown Demons as victims and slaves.

Let's be real, this season is clearly depicting the humans as bad guys. I mean the last episode had a guy near cackling as he tortured a demon to death. Come on...

I guess I really don't understand why this is an issue. Yes, the current human social structure is clearly evil. It is a developing kingdom built on the back of slavery and abuse originating from genocide. That's clearly bad and the nobles and rich who benefit from it the most are generally bad people. The demons who are enslaved are not given an opportunity for any capacity of good and evil, only survival. So obviously they're seen as the victims here.

....So what? Why is that problematic? Azazel is a freedom fighter for his people, that doesn't make him a good person. It just means his self-interests align with that of the persecuted now. He is only heroic in the sense that he sees his own people suffering because of humans and so his solution is to kill humans to liberate his people. Would he do the same for humans in the same position? Probably not? Does he take extra joy in killing "bad" humans because he doesn't really like humans to begin with? Absolutely. I don't see how that's redemption. It seems simplistic to think that you have to like or respect a person who does the "right" thing in a situation out of convenience of allegiance.

Here in South East Asia, historically the communists and communists sympathizers during WW2 were a vital part of the anti-Japanese insurgents. Post-war their ideology became extremely dangerous for developing nations as the British ceded territories back to the region. Those who could be considered war heroes just as quickly turned into a liability for progress. In the US post-WW2, there were Japanese internment camps for American Japanese who had no part at all in the war.

What is "good", "bad", or "heroic" is all relative to the times and the perspective we have. It doesn't matter how heroic Azazel looks while he rescues demons, we know who he is and we can make up our own minds as to what sort of motivations he has. Reducing it to good or evil seems silly when so much of the fantasy world is about natural affinities and how humans and demons simply don't like each other to begin with.
 

Jarmel

Banned
I really don't care that Azazel is being 'redeemed' or whatever. I just find the cartoonish depictions of the humans to be stale and boring.
 

duckroll

Member
Ultimately, is it really any different from how "bad slavemaster people" are depicted in any "dark fantasy" story? Berserk, Hellsing, Garo, it seems like par for the course. Show big fat rich people who think the world of themselves and consider their slaves as objectives, abusing them while laughing. Then when they get killed by monsters/heroes/their own slaves we cheer because they deserve it. Shrug. What's the big deal?
 

Jarmel

Banned
Ultimately, is it really any different from how "bad slavemaster people" are depicted in any "dark fantasy" story? Berserk, Hellsing, Garo, it seems like par for the course. Show big fat rich people who think the world of themselves and consider their slaves as objectives, abusing them while laughing. Then when they get killed by monsters/heroes/their own slaves we cheer because they deserve it. Shrug. What's the big deal?

Besides being a lazy form of emotional manipulation, it's also super played out at this point. As you mentioned, pretty much every dark fantasy show has to have these scenes. However here it's PG-13 so it doesn't even have the emotional weight of some of the stuff in the works you mentioned.
 

Line_HTX

Member
Regarding someone asking about it, the Kabaneri compilation films were significantly less frustrating than watching the actual TV shows because they finally put in the missing info or dialogue in and thus fleshing out some scenes more with just those minor details. Doesn't make certain characters or the 2nd half any less stupid, but rather easier to go through without dragging like how it was presented in eps. 10 and 11.
 

duckroll

Member
Besides being a lazy form of emotional manipulation, it's also super played out at this point. As you mentioned, pretty much every dark fantasy show has to have these scenes. However here it's PG-13 so it doesn't even have the emotional weight of some of the stuff in the works you mentioned.

Sorry, not seeing it. It's about as emotionally manipulative as Dr Evil. I just see it as another flavor of the world and roll with it. I don't really see any reason to feel for demons or humans outside of their circumstances just being part of the flavoring for the world. I'm more invested in the characters themselves and what they choose to do. Don't know what "PG-13" has anything do it with anything either. Unless you think "emotional weight" and "Hellsing" in the same sentence isn't a funny joke. :p
 

Jarmel

Banned
Sorry, not seeing it. It's about as emotionally manipulative as Dr Evil. I just see it as another flavor of the world and roll with it. I don't really see any reason to feel for demons or humans outside of their circumstances just being part of the flavoring for the world. I'm more invested in the characters themselves and what they choose to do. Don't know what "PG-13" has anything do it with anything either. Unless you think "emotional weight" and "Hellsing" in the same sentence isn't a funny joke. :p

Well that's part of the problem in that the show is seemingly invested in delving into the system of abuse on a larger scale instead of focusing on the suffering of more select individuals. They could be putting more emphasis on smaller stories that center around how particular individuals are suffering under the human regime and actually make the audience invested into seeing a revolution. Instead the viewpoint is largely detached from the suffering occurring and so there isn't much of a reason for the audience to care. This is a problem with the show in that they do want the audience to care about what's happening to the demons but there's no personal stories attached so it just becomes this 'flavoring' that really doesn't serve its intended purpose.

In the case of PG-13 I'm referring to the seriousness or severity of an action occurring. It's a cartoonish depiction of systemic abuse but the show treats it so straight that I can't help but just groan. Hellsing at least has fun with their stuff and it doesn't take itself seriously for the most part.
 

duckroll

Member
Sounds like you're watching a different show than I am. Every time people talk about how "serious" Bahamut is, I just see a silly girl dragon taking her new God-Human friend shopping and doing silly shit. Or Kaiser being all stuffy serious and self-important, then getting punched by a flying fist into the canal. Shrug. Different strokes.
 

Jarmel

Banned
I would be fine if they wrote both Kaiser and Azazel out of the show at this point. Actually I would be more than fine with it.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Grimoire of Zero 4

This is actually fantasy furry dad anime. I think it's already better than Boy and the Beast
 
Bahamut's depiction is so one-dimensional and then repetitive on top of that, it's just awful. We've got like 4-6 extremely similar scenes of 100% evil humans torturing poor demon slaves and not once do we get added nuance or anything else out of it.

Instead of Kaisar feeling genuinely conflicted about these issues for a longer time it's so black and white that he quickly turns towards Azazels side. I mean, it's hard to disagree with him when every slave handler he encounters is a literal torture-murderer, and so is his King. Yet he remains oddly supportive of the latter... Nina and the rest of the previously well known characters are with Azazel too, because he's clearly a good person now.

And then, for how wrong the killing of demons and such is, Nina and co. have no problem with killing soldiers by the dozens, which is totally fine because in this extremely simplified show they're 100% guilty by following orders and their lives are worth nothing, and even devastating larger parts of the town is okay. But then we can also just claim that Nina might not really be killing people because we don't actually get to see anyone directly dying as a result of her.
 

Theonik

Member
2nd you mean:

72b.gif
Only good one you mean.
 

lbsa

Member
The Tatami Galaxy-End

So the shoe finally drops and we see what Watashi's life is really like. A college student hiki who lives in a 4.5 tatami room, having delusions of what could have been had he ever tried to do something in his life. All the side characters in the show are people he knows of but, other than that had little to no contact with them in reality(even with Ozu).

Can't say i was surprised by the reveal as i've expected something along the lines to be the case. But all in all, it did wrap up nicely with the ending of the first episode and the last one.And of course he end up with the girl so he can complete the happy ending circle.

Although
the way that the animation changed with the reveal to a black and white real life setting(kind of), only to be reverted back once the mc gets the balls to finally do something suggests that maybe that also is one of his delusions? Maybe i'm just reaching here.
 
Starmyu Season 2 Episode 5 – Act 5

This was a really dramatic episode and kind of scary at times, I thought a fight would really break out (Tengenji seems like he would fight), and then some tears and more eventually from Tsukigami who seemed like he'd be the type to really crey hard.

role change could be good, so that he can no longer be bound by older Haruto's shadow

I hope Toraishi isnt truly giving up. Hes the best.

Didnt have them paired before, but now I do, excellent song with Uozumi as well.
C_TjUN3XgAAzktQ.jpg:small
 

Qurupeke

Member
Favaro will have his time to shine later, I bet he'll appear around the end of the 1st cour. I think it's far more interesting that they decided to revisit the story through someone new while still retaining S1's characters. However, the problem is they have a new, good lead and they're not doing anything worthwhile with her. Maybe it's because of the different pacing, but in any case, it feels that every episode kind of stalls since episode 1 and there's no character progression at all.

And even worse, the characters of S1 that have leading roles along with Nina are pretty much a regression compared to their past selves. Kaiser is completely boring this season, and even though the show kind of recognizes that, his serious scenes suck. And I'm not sure what they're trying to do with Azazel. I'd certainly believe that he's back just because he's fujoshi bait or the director's favourite.

I thought Genesis was enjoyable despite its stupid story because I liked the characters, but Virgin Soul doesn't even have that.
 

Line_HTX

Member
Akashic Records 03

I like how the teacher that supposedly quit was just standing there holding the barrier like he was holding the fuse.

This group really has some fancy mage association name for a group of terrorists though.
 
Favaro will have his time to shine later, I bet he'll appear around the end of the 1st cour. I think it's far more interesting that they decided to revisit the story through someone new while still retaining S1's characters. However, the problem is they have a new, good lead and they're not doing anything worthwhile with her. Maybe it's because of the different pacing, but in any case, it feels that every episode kind of stalls since episode 1 and there's no character progression at all.

And even worse, the characters of S1 that have leading roles along with Nina are pretty much a regression compared to their past selves. Kaiser is completely boring this season, and even though the show kind of recognizes that, his serious scenes suck. And I'm not sure what they're trying to do with Azazel. I'd certainly believe that he's back just because he's fujoshi bait or the director's favourite.

I thought Genesis was enjoyable despite its stupid story because I liked the characters, but Virgin Soul doesn't even have that.


If Favaro comes at the end of the first cour, well, I will drop it before that, so that's a problem :p

They have put another character with the same type of not-having-a-worry-in-the-world charisma in his place, but it doesn't work because it clashes badly with the drab, grim plot of tortured demons, vengeance against humans and kings searching for ultimate power and dominance.
It doesn't even make sense, if you stop to think about it for a second: when Nina was happy worker in the city living an easy life, somehow she didn't see the starved demon slaves in the same streets. Only when the Rag demon and his quests started in the series Nina started seeing them. Before they were invisible?
 

Rymuth

Member
Haha, oh lordy...seems like people already have written the grievances I've come to write.


I guess my biggest problem with this show's backdrop is that Humanity has had a meager 5 years of ruling over the demons that we're supposed to shake our fingers and wish for the collapse of this system. Yes, Charioce is bad but had this been set nearly 100 years in the future, I could sympathize with tearing down the system.

Problem is, it's only been barely a decade since the demons led a siege to exterminate humanity's greatest city and before that, who knows how long mankind has been living in fear of the demons. No matter how many times you make me watch a demon getting whipped (with human on-lookers looking actually sad) I'm just not invested in their cause.
 
Attack on Titan S2 5 & 6

I F*CKING CALLED IT!!! I called that reveal four years ago when this first started airing! I never doubted it! There were too many signs!!!
 
I wonder with attack on Titan Anime. Were there any production errors in s1 such as (spoiler from recent season 2 reveal)
the character appearing at the same time as their Titan form if the information wasn't available back then?
 

Cornbread78

Member
Silver Spoon S1 END

Ahhh, lololol. Dude never learns, but at least he's diving in headfirst again!
The first season was a ton of fun to watch with a great cast of characters, relatable motivations and simple and good plot to follow. It's tough to find a show that can handle introspection and personal drama/motivation in such a great way.
 
I wonder with attack on Titan Anime. Were there any production errors in s1 such as (spoiler from recent season 2 reveal)
the character appearing at the same time as their Titan form if the information wasn't available back then?

Nope. Isayama gave them directions about what's important and so on to begin with and the manga was roughly at the point we're now anyways when it aired (of course had a few chapters less when it went into production). In addition the adaptation is damn close anyways. Outside of the action scenes hardly anything is left out or added.

The opposite is the case, you know, with everything being properly foreshadowed in season 1. There's a lot of scenes that dropped more and less subtle hints towards this reveal.

edit:
Here's an imgur album posted on reddit containing most of those scenes. http://imgur.com/a/aP1zh
 
Yeah (Attack on Titan spoilers)
the signs were there from the beginning but the anime made it more obvious. Maybe its just because when something cuts to Bert and Ernie in the anime its more obvious, but Bert, Reiner and Annie were pretty much ALWAYS together. It was clearly thought out from the very beginning. There are a lot of distractions, mostly from Reiner because he becomes conflicted about what his actual goal is here, concluding with his half-assed revelation and plan because he's so conflicted.
 

John Blade

Member
kamichu-530e2e2e59589.png

You're a 11 year old girl. A normal girl who is very naive and simple-minded but like to help people when she can. Also, you have female friends you always talk to in class about what girls talk in school and have a crush with a boy in class but never have the courage to tell him what your true feeling even though you got help with your friends. You also have problems in your life range from your studies in school, your younger brother, your parent, etc. None of this problems you have in life is big when you found out you're GOD. That's is the story of Kamichu!

Kamichu! might be one of my favorite supernatural, slice of life drama anime I have watch for a while and love it from beginning to the end. You follow Yurie Hitotsubashi, a naive and simple minded school girl who found out she is GOD. This didn't make her life any easier as she knows nothing of what been a god is and at the same time have to deal with issue she have as a middle school students while trying to take more responsibilities as a God.

What makes Kamichu special is how it try to show Yurie grow as a person. In the beginning of the show, Yurie knows literally nothing about been a God. The show pushes Yurie in different situations where she has to make a decisions and then take an action based on the problem she have to deal with.

kamiband.jpg

Another thing which make Kamichu special for me is the likable casts of characters. The first one are Yurie's two friends, Matsuri and Mitsue. Both of them are opposites character. For Matsuri, she is very outspoken and charismatic while Mitsue is more reserved and cynicism. Both are connect with Yurie friendship and they bring out some interesting situation between them which you notice in every episode. Also, you got Matsuri's quiet younger sister (who can see sprit which normal human can't see) and Yurie's younger brother (who have the same cynicism personality as Mitsue), Kenji who is the guy who do calligraphy and Yurie crush, and Tama the cat who is Yurie cat. who bring in they own personalities in the show mix.

Character designs are adorable to watch mostly at Yurie when you see it when she make different expression. As for the other characters (Matsuri, Mitsue, and Tama the cat), they look fine and have its own style which is fine to see. For the spirits which you see in the show, it have this endearing look of weird design which remind me a bit of Ghibli's films spirit. The music is nice to listen as it have this orchestrated pieces which give you a warm feeling when it's use for the scene. You notice this quite a bit in important scene which make the mood more gushing

Overall, Kamichu! is a great show to watch. The simple fun story of watching Yurie trying to understand her responsibilities as a God and the character development between Yurie and her friend is what make me liking the show quite a bit more than I expected.

Some pics from the show
tumblr_o6bstvxMok1sh2sn1o1_500.gif

tumblr_nim0dvx0MI1qmpg90o1_500.gif

Kamichu!+23.jpg

Kamichu!+21.jpg
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
She has nowhere near favaros charisma and her whole schtick of boys got old after 1 episode. I bet censoring hands is still too lewd for her

The first did well, largely because it was following Favaro who was a charismatic as fuck lead. Kaiser was more of a stand up man too. Dead Loli girl said it best, I liked you better before.

But now? Everyone is extremes of everything. First season did it much better solely due to the leads being more paragamatic in their views. Kaiser is defending what.... Pedophiles? Rapists? etc. You ain't getting sympathy.
 

phaze

Member
Bahamut's depiction is so one-dimensional and then repetitive on top of that, it's just awful. We've got like 4-6 extremely similar scenes of 100% evil humans torturing poor demon slaves and not once do we get added nuance or anything else out of it.

.

We've got also scenes of people who don't care at all or even if they feel it's wrong, they don't air their misgivings given the general climate. I dunno, are we a basically expecting medieval society of all things to suddenly turn, even in small part, into proponents of demon rights and freedoms ? Especially since they used to be on receiving end of their ire for a long time ? What we have seems to me like a more realistic depiction of a situation where humans get themselves into the position of power.
Instead of Kaisar feeling genuinely conflicted about these issues for a longer time it's so black and white that he quickly turns towards Azazels side. I mean, it's hard to disagree with him when every slave handler he encounters is a literal torture-murderer, and so is his King. Yet he remains oddly supportive of the latter...


I would imagine, on some level he's appreciating of the order and prosperity the king achieved though not the means.It's hard to turn your back on your country and even species and he's still confused, not sure what is the way he wants to follow or what is an attainable modus vivendi that he would welcome.
And even worse, the characters of S1 that have leading roles along with Nina are pretty much a regression compared to their past selves. Kaiser is completely boring this season

This is something that I've to disagree with. For a lot of S1 Kaiser's character could almost be summed up as "FAVAROOOOOO" IIRC. Good riddance.
 

Paltheos

Member
Kabaneri was as good and as dumb as your average zombie video game (or average zombie fiction).

I still don't know what else people expected. Even Biba's crazy deal fit right in with that mold.

A plot on the level or at least close with the rest of the production's amazing values. Kabaneri's an absolutely gorgeous show It has moments of some of the most beautiful TV art I've ever seen (if not, the) and exciting, action set pieces that are composed together into a very digestable product. It was never smart, but those first couple episodes are great stuff and even those next few episodes of "let's all cave to the stupid, purple-scarf dudes" are ok stuff. They're not really any better than Biba but they're not the central-focus of the story like he is; they're just cheap tools to get our characters to the next plot point or action scene. For a show this gorgeous, I could let that fly. Even with Biba, I still might recommend Kabaneri.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Grimoire of Zero ep.5
As sheltered as Zero has been, it's surprising to see her so casual about that town being completely destroyed from all ends. The summoning scene was actually really well done as she got him out of it.

White tiger and Zero continue to both be awesome characters and fun to watch explore. I'm interested to see how they end this conflict next week!
 
Yeah same, the shock for me was in the way how they just casually dropped that bomb

Yeah. Lol. I was entertained about how casually they went about it before it got super intense.

Nope. Isayama gave them directions about what's important and so on to begin with and the manga was roughly at the point we're now anyways when it aired (of course had a few chapters less when it went into production). In addition the adaptation is damn close anyways. Outside of the action scenes hardly anything is left out or added.

The opposite is the case, you know, with everything being properly foreshadowed in season 1. There's a lot of scenes that dropped more and less subtle hints towards this reveal.

edit:
Here's an imgur album posted on reddit containing most of those scenes. http://imgur.com/a/aP1zh

Yeah. The signs were all there. There was a moment of doubting myself for like a half an episode, but there were too many signs.

Episode 6 Spoilers:
Although, the biggest obvious giveaway for me was the hair of both the character and the Armored Titan.
 

blurr

Member
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar 10

Getting into the meat of the remaining conflict within the group - Ranta. There's some compelling introspection going on with Haruhiro during his confrontation with Ranta.

I don't see much merit in telling people the specifics of the skills they acquire, at least I haven't found any use for it so far. It's a brief summary but considering it holds no story telling value, an explicit description feels unnecessary. It makes sense from a world building perspective but there are more subtle ways to put it.
 

JCG

Member
A plot on the level or at least close with the rest of the production's amazing values. Kabaneri's an absolutely gorgeous show It has moments of some of the most beautiful TV art I've ever seen (if not, the) and exciting, action set pieces that are composed together into a very digestable product. It was never smart, but those first couple episodes are great stuff and even those next few episodes of "let's all cave to the stupid, purple-scarf dudes" are ok stuff. They're not really any better than Biba but they're not the central-focus of the story like he is; they're just cheap tools to get our characters to the next plot point or action scene. For a show this gorgeous, I could let that fly. Even with Biba, I still might recommend Kabaneri.

Fair enough. It's the sort of thing I'd only recommend to people who are fine watching dumb zombie stuff that works as popcorn entertainment with all of the implications derived from this.

I've heard the movie compilation makes things more palatable for some of those who had issues, but no clue if that's actually true or if it just works better in marathon form.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom