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Summer 2012 Anime |OT3| Where All the Waifus Are Made Up and the Points Don't Matter
- Thread starter Branduil
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Jex
Member
dakkumauji
Member
Sengoku Collection 25
So, General Underboobs takes up fishing and goes onto a wild space ride with a dragon.
This was basically Tsuritama condensed into 20 minutes removing the boys and instead with underboobs and a glowing dragon.
Still wasn't that bad of an episode.
So, General Underboobs takes up fishing and goes onto a wild space ride with a dragon.
This was basically Tsuritama condensed into 20 minutes removing the boys and instead with underboobs and a glowing dragon.
Still wasn't that bad of an episode.
All I care about is OrekixChitanda. That's it.
Jex
Member
Not everyone can be as good as Mayaka.
Such a prude.
I don't think it's nitpicking as it's a fairly valid problem for Chitanda as a character in the show.
I figured everyone knew already, no need to state the obvious.
I dunno, even in the early episodes every character in the show was more interesting to me than any character in Sword Art Online has been.
Jex
Member
That's an artificially low bar to set, Branduil.
It's not my fault the most popular show in this thread has the most boring characters.
I don't see how that's relevant to the topic at hand. I never said characterization of characters in SAO was great nor did I say anything positive. My point that Chitanda's character development being so late into the series and it being a problem still stands, regardless of SAO.
The development starts very early in the show. You just see its culmination in the end.
Okay. Then the problem then becomes that the pacing of the development is uneven and erratic.
I was just making a point that I don't find the characters in Hyouka boring by comparing them to a baseline of other popular shows.
Not really. I've come around to see what Kyoto Animation was trying to achieve, and taken as a whole it's very hard to actually criticize any of it. At the start of the show, Chitanda is someone the characters don't really know. On the other hand, Oreki, Satoshi, and Mayaka have been friends for years and were previously from the same school too. The audience on the other hand isn't expected to know this. So the decision was consciously made to depict Chitanda as a more shallow character from the start, simply because that is how the other characters would see her. The growth and development of her character is not a result of her changing anything in herself, but rather how people view her with more perspective and context, as she grows closer and is more willing to let them know about who she is. It's really pretty impressively done.
I think episode 6 is really the only one I can't say is good. And even that episode has the usual KyoAni polish, it's just a really weak mystery and setting, and it contrasts poorly with the previous episode, which was exceptional.
Well I think there are two fundamental types of character development, both of which depend on the perspective of the audience. The first is that the character changes over the course of the show such as Oreki. The audience watches his transformation from being a passive nobody to actually being proactive. The second is the type where the character remains relatively static in their overall personality but the audience's perception of the character changes. I think a perfect example of this in general is Fate/Zero where the characters don't change that much but the audience at the end has a much better understanding of the motivations that drive said characters. Chitanda falls in the latter. I think part of Chitanda's problem is that she really isn't an interesting character to the extent that Oreki or Satoshi is. Both of whom have serious personality flaws and the show really delves into that. Even Mayaka's personality flaws are deeper and more interesting.
Episode 6 was shit, but that has nothing to do with the character development being bad. It was just a retarded story.
The thing is that she becomes instantly attached to them and grows close to them in a short amoutnt of time. Yet all that development is still relegated to the end of the series rather than slowly developing them or even foreshadowing. In all honesty I thought Satoshi was the perfect development in terms of pacing.
Satoshi had the most screentime into discussing his flaws and issues. Oreki's they kinda threw to the side after the film arc. Satoshi's issues to be fair though are the most interesting of the four.
But that is her flaw. Her flaw is that who she is and what is expected of her by her family defines what she can or cannot be. She carries an aura of artificial perfection because she has the responsibility of protecting the honor of her family's name. She cannot be seen as inferior or imperfect in public, even though she's a bit of a klutz and she makes mistakes and poor decisions like anyone else. She's not an "interesting" character because she cannot afford to be one, and in the end, that is her character depth.
I so want to get to this. So many other things to watch at the moment though.
Aren't they still behind on Kizumonogatari?
Alright. I can buy that.
I don't think that's true at all. I never felt the characters were truly close to Chitanda until the final arc of the series. Just because you're friends in school with someone and you hang out with them in a club room doesn't mean you really know a person. That's why the final episode was so fucking perfect. She was finally willing to deliberately go out of her way to open up a private side of herself to Oreki, and that changes everything.
Well I did specify some things I don't like
Also THANK YOU to all the people recommending stuff.
Jex
Member
I suppose this isn't surprising after they announced that they'd be doing the whole series.
I think Chitanda is quite interesting, it's just that the story hasn't fully explored her character yet. The tribulations of the rich and powerful can always make for good drama. And I think, like Oreki, what makes her interesting is that as we get to know her and what makes her tick throughout the series, the more we realize how much we don't know about her or the world she was born into.
True. But now that the series is complete, it really does stick out as the ugly duckling of the show.
That idea though of being restricted by your social class isn't exactly new and they didn't really bring any interesting points to that component. Being boring because your position demands it, doesn't make your character interesting. It's also not a really relatable personality flaw compared to Oreki's or Satoshi self-confidence issues.
It's not the only episode that had a shit mystery in it.
I disagree. While she doesn't tell much about herself in detail or at great length, she goes out of the way to describe how she feels deep inside. Take for instance when Oreki and Chitanda were walking back from the hot springs and they talk about sisters. I found this conversation to be very interesting.
PdotMichael
Banned
Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb
Sasami-san
Prism Nana
Madoka
Kizumonogatari
Nekomonogatari
I guess you can't say that Shaft has not enough work.
Indeed. And it was quite nice how they built up to it with the events of the preceding two episodes, where Oreki begins to realize what an odd couple he makes with Chitanda, while at the same time he becomes increasingly aware and respectful of her feelings and desires.
That was interesting, but sharing perspectives on siblings between someone who has them, and someone who doesn't, isn't exactly the same thing as sharing your goals and fears in life.
A character does not have to be "interesting" to be a good character. The most important requirement is to be natural. I also do not believe all characters have to be relatable, because it is impossible to do so. There are certainly people who can relate to Chitanda, just as there will be people who find Satoshi or Oreki to be unrelatable. What you can relate to depends on what sort of life or experiences you have, since people don't have the same experiences, there is no need to make characters deliberately relatable, they only have to feel authentic.
True but it's quite a glimpse into how a person feels and that alone is pretty insightful. I felt that Chitanda would get more scenes like these and eventually expand upon it but it didn't really happen until the end. Well... at least majorly.
There's no such thing as a new character type. Chitanda is interesting because she feels like a believable person with goals, desires, and responsibilities and her life isn't defined solely by her relationship with the protagonist. That last one seems kind of obvious, but when you look at the number of anime where females exist solely to compete for the right to be the protagonists' arm candy, it's really not.
Sounds like a Takahashi work.
She got quite a lot of development in the School Festival arc.
What does, Hyouka or the generic harem series I'm comparing it to?
Well I disagree on that. They don't need some sort of quirk or eccentric personality but they do however need something that sets them apart and not make them generic. Obviously there needs to be some sort of realistic, natural as you state, component to them otherwise it feels forced and artificial but there also needs to be something that separates them as well. Now as for relatability, I think that's a crucial component for characters as it creates empathy on the part of the viewers and thus allowing them to more immerse themselves in that world. Thus the more relatable you can make your characters to a general audience, the more likely they are to respond on an emotional level. Chitanda's issues of being limited due to her societal position is, I would say, a much less relatable issue than something so fundamental as self-confidence.
There however are interesting and novel ways of approaching said character type.
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
The Houkago Tea Time Tribute Concert 20
First I was like this. Then I was like this. Then I ended like this.
Banal boring trite my arse. Fuck you all.
at the end of Card Captor Sakura, and that was almost twelve years ago.
First I was like this. Then I was like this. Then I ended like this.
Banal boring trite my arse. Fuck you all.
I totally called the denouement the moment Yui-chan started giving her thanks with everyone, but that didn't make the punch any less impactful. I'm not gonna chalk it up to wonderful character development or whatever, but if you have been watching this long you at least feel something for these characters. Hopefully nothing sexual, but still.
I haven't been this heartbroken since Sakura and Syaoran parted ways
I haven't been this heartbroken since Sakura and Syaoran parted ways
The thing is that it was kept to just herself and it wasn't expanded upon very well. It was just stated that Irisu's style didn't suit her and Oreki noticed that Chitanda was acting odd. That's about it. Which sadly disappointed me.
The one where female characters have lives of their own.
I think she was pretty interesting.
Well, it's not just the female characters. One of the things that makes Hyouka enjoyable is that even though Oreki has some impressive skills, the universe of the show does not revolve around him. Every character in the show, even minor ones, has their own motivation which does not necessarily involve being part of the protagonist's otaku-insert life. It makes the world feel believable and real, especially when you combine it with KyoAni's meticulous art direction.
If you aren't from the US, then I'm sorry for assuming wrong, but I've heard that of most tourists, Americans seem to be the most ignorant of class hierarchy and etiquette when traveling abroad. Maybe it's less of a problem with her character and more of a problem with cultural barriers (aka you).
I disagree. While the narrative does have elements that act real and things still go their own way, Hyouka still pretty much revolves around Oreki.
I think you missed some things.
We see Chitanda's desire to be responsible and her frustration with her inability to get things done. We see that to some degree she envies Irisu's skills, and she attempts to learn from her. We see the humorous results of these lessons, and we see her own self-awareness of her limitations.
Don't confuse the show being about Oreki with the setting being about Oreki. This is made especially clear during the Festival arc, which is a masterful depiction of a fully-realized, small-scale society. It becomes a true slice-of-life anime, if you will.
There are class restrictions everywhere including the US. Hell due to my family's position I actually can relate to Chitanda's position fairly well. However the point of it impacting and restricting a person's personality compared to the person just adjusting is something I would say is less common than self-confidence which influences pretty much everybody to a certain extent.
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