Support NeoGAF

[Yohane]

Being an anime fan is Stockholm Syndrome.

Yeah pretty much.

 

[PdotMichael]

Would also explain Japan's love for Finnish girls.

 

[Theonik]

Being an anime fan is Stockholm Syndrome.

But I like anime deep down.

Would also explain Japan's love for Finnish girls.

I blame it all on Eila/Nipa and the Finnish Embassy!

 

[ibyea]

Re Creators: 1-4
You know, it's not that bad. Fictional characters deal with existential crisis is a good concept, and it does an okay use of it. I like that it shows the difficulty each character faces would be different depending on the source material, whether you are a protagonist from a kid's magical girl show versus one from some light novel action show. It would be a better show without the boring narrator protagonist, and by doing a better job at dealing out exposition, but it is entertaining at the very least.

 

[LotusHD]

Being an anime fan is Stockholm Syndrome.

Ya

 

[Qurupeke]

Fate/Apocrypha 9

The Frankenstein scene was pretty cool.

 

[Ross61]

Jesus.... the entitlement and creepiness Subaru is displaying Re:Zero in episode 14 is downright disturbing. Not saying it's bad tho in a sense. I never thought an anime like this would tackle a subject like self-proclaimed "nice guys" and show their true colors.

Edit: And Rem is really the best. Showing him compassion and understanding even when he's showing himself to be an entitled piece of shit.

 

[ibyea]

Re Creators: 5
I have pinpointed the biggest issue this show has right now, which is that Meteora is hogging so much of the screen time. It doesn't help that she holds all the knowledge, so it's inevitable that she ends up talking for like 5-10 minutes straight. Not to mention this end of the world stuff is the least interesting thing the show has going for right now. The ending of this episode though is very promising.

 

[Narag]

Meteora is a treasure.

 

[Ascheroth]

Meteora is a treasure.

Only re-cap Meteora.

 

[MikeHattsu]

Would also explain Japan's love for Finnish girls.

Stockholm ain't in Finland

 

[PdotMichael]

Stockholm ain't in Finland

You are thinking about the Helsinki syndrome.

 

[Master Milk]

if recap meteora doesn't make another appearance then the show officially sucks

 

[Triteon]

Watched the Gintama movie at the cinema yesterday.

Was better than i expected to be. The new jokes hit pretty well, and the way they use the beetle episode/bit to introduce the main players was smart. I think the casting is a bit off though.

 

[blurr]

Being an anime fan is Stockholm Syndrome.

I have actually been pondering on something along these lines for a while now.

Why did I get into anime vs any other live action medium? (while I didn't always actively avoid them, I wasn't as keen as I was with anime or in some cases they're something I figured I wouldn't "get" or sometimes I was feared I'd be overwhelmed with). After some thought, I understood it generally has to do with the fact that it's animated *but* it's not the craft that attracted me but as someone who grew up watching cartoons and in an environment that generally associates it with something for children - I've subconsciously registered it as something more approachable than any other medium, I feel that's a great thing about anime but that's just my perspective of it maybe.

 

[Jex]

I don't have any particular horse in this race, but I can appreciate why people are confused about the improved critical reception to Re: Creators. Most of the time, a series will start good and then gradually get worse over time. This is the standard trajectory that we are all very familiar with. For a work to do the reverse is a break from the norm and therefore hard for many people to understand. It is, however, something that occasionally happens.

 

[BGBW]

Oh dear, Cheer Fruits went a bit hentai rather than sentai this week.

 

[Clov]

Fate/Apocrypha 09

Spoiler

Sieg better save my fav Astolfo next episode, they're literally the only reason I'm watching this show.

Though it was nice to see more of anime Shakespeare, he's always fun when he makes an appearance. A lot of the servants are really fun to have on screen; I wish I could say the same about the masters.

 

[Jex]

I wasn't referring to that particular point so much as the general complaint of some people, including yourself, that the series is not moving fast enough to cover more of the story. As someone who prioritizes atmosphere over plot density, I'm happy with the pacing of the Made in Abyss anime. A series moving slowly can be a problem when it's not atmospheric at all but simply dragging out banal scenes and reactions, as the Stardust Crusaders anime does at times, but if it's a case more like Flowers of Evil then I don't mind. While I can sympathize with the desire to not leave the anime feeling unfinished, and I hope that Made in Abyss is able to go beyond 13 episodes in the way Flowers of Evil was not, I would rather an unfinished anime that takes its time to explore the emotional landscape than a conclusively finished anime that rushes so hard to its conclusion that nothing is given enough time to breathe. They're both imperfect options, but the first is more worth my time than the second.

I'm glad that you're enjoying the rhythm and atmosphere of Made in Abyss. As you can see, some of us in here are finding the pacing to be a little sluggish. I don't expect this something we'll see eye-to-eye on as its very much a question of personal taste. However, I did feel like there was a couple of issues in your comments that I wanted to address.

Firstly, I don't have a general problem with shows or movies that have a slow pace. As long as its a good match for the material, and is executed well, I can certainly enjoy the rhythm of such a work. Heck, I'm loving Twin Peaks: The Return and that might be the slowest paced (or perhaps, most deliberately paced) show on TV right now. My main concern is that this slow material doesn't contain many interesting character development or story development, it just feels a bit meandering.

Secondly, you draw an indirect comparison between Made in Abyss and Flowers of Evil. You don't really go into depth with the comparison, but I would imagine it would be to do with both works having a slow pace and a strong sense of atmosphere. (If this is incorrect please let me know). Another work that springs to my mind is Mushishi, and in the live action space we have the aforementioned Twin Peaks: The Return. I would broadly agree that all these works have a certain distinct rhythm and they all certainly try to evoke a particular atmosphere. However, I feel like the difference between Made in Abyss and all those other works is in the consistency of the execution. In all those other works the quality of the production, the cinematography, the editing and the sound design* all come together to produce a textured and engrossing experience on a consistent basis. Made In Abyss can and does hit those heights from time to time, but I find it to be far more inconsistent. As a result, when the show is ”off" I do feel like the show is just spinning its wheels, rather than smoothly moving between story beats.

Thirdly, I believe there to be more options for an incomplete manga adaptation than ”rushed" or ”slow". I think there is a way they could have chosen to adapt this material that was neither so rushed as to lose the feeling of exploration nor as deliberately paced as the adaptation they made. It feels like they have a stopping point in mind for this adaptation and they've arranged the story beats so that the series will close on that ‘key' event. I think this issue stems from the fact that this adaptations hews quite closely to the original story beats, but at a slightly slower pace. I think that if they wanted to stop the anime at a certain point a more complicated solution was required. For example, if we consider the original FMA adaptation they invented certain events and scenarios out of thin air and I generally prefer to have ‘added' story vs ‘stretched' story. Obviously this solution requires far more effort, extra writing and it can also go wrong if the new material doesn't ‘fit' with the rest of the adaptation. Adapting anything is a very tricky process and I certainly appreciate the difficulties involved, especially in an industry as chaotic as anime.

Our disagreement on this anime ultimately seems to boil down to a question of personal taste (as all things do). I do appreciate that the idea of ‘pacing' is not only ill-defined but highly subjective, and therefore having a debate on this issue might feel somewhat fruitless.

*Interesting to note the extreme importance of good sound design in all these shows, something that both David Lynch and Hiroshi Nagaham are keenly aware of.)

 

[moogs]

It is defiance without penalty but it's not about consequence so much as the choice and what it means to them at a deeper level (regardless of the consequence) which is where it shines.

That's true, but inconsequential stakes made the friction unconvincing, which muted the show's voice. It's great that you were able to extract that viewpoint, but anti-artificial and liberal stances from such a manufactured franchise just don't touch ground with me. The main conceit of the show is exhibiting its idols, and it's fatiguing when many of those characters are dull.

 

[Defuser]

Meteora is a treasure.

I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

 

[blurr]

That's true, but inconsequential stakes made the friction unconvincing, which muted the show's voice. It's great that you were able to extract that viewpoint, but anti-artificial and liberal stances from such a manufactured franchise just don't touch ground with me. The main conceit of the show is exhibiting its idols, and it's fatiguing when many of those characters are dull.

Yeah, I remember having a similar conversation with a friend on this show. He was acquainted with it prior to me through the games and he pointed out similar issues when I told about the show. Perhaps it's a story that would've been more effective in another show/setting.

 

[Narag]

Symphogear AXZ 7

i love all the dumb Illuminati bullshit so much

 

[phaze]

Owari S2 02

It's funny that just a few changes to the usual smug countenance of Ougi made me feel for her, even if I've even less idea of what's her deal now as the Ougi=

Spoiler

Darkness

theory seems to be in tatters. No qualms so far really other than that #2 seemed a step down production wise.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Re Creators: 5
I have pinpointed the biggest issue this show has right now, which is that Meteora is hogging so much of the screen time. It doesn't help that she holds all the knowledge, so it's inevitable that she ends up talking for like 5-10 minutes straight. Not to mention this end of the world stuff is the least interesting thing the show has going for right now. The ending of this episode though is very promising.

I thought the anime staff had provided explanation for why that happened

 

[Ascheroth]

That Appmon insert song is so good. Why didn't they use that earlier instead of those terrible voice-overs during the Applinks/etc....
(Video is from an episode 41 fight + some other scenes cut into it fyi)
That fight was awesome.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Monster Hunter Stories Ride On Episode 47

Wow at Lute and Leolaeus struggling for a bit, I teared up especially when he got his leg.

This is the most intense anime that people are watching.

Also I wish we got an artbook theres a lot of great scenes especially when the Black Dread is just at the top of the hill and everyone is looking on it as the miasma and aura is around it.

 

[Turin Turambar]

I'm glad that you're enjoying the rhythm and atmosphere of Made in Abyss. As you can see, some of us in here are finding the pacing to be a little sluggish.

For me it isn't that the pace is sluggish, it's that it also isn't that interesting?

For example, Mr. Robot is also a sluggish series, but it's almost always interesting to watch.

 

[Narag]

Action Heroine Cheer Fruits 7

all that steam from the hot springs damn well better be intact in the bds

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Knight's & Magic Episode 9

Those sound effects in the OP, nice.

Die getting his chance at redemption had me hyped, I wish erni was there with him though.

Good smoke effects.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

I'm glad that you're enjoying the rhythm and atmosphere of Made in Abyss. As you can see, some of us in here are finding the pacing to be a little sluggish. I don't expect this something we'll see eye-to-eye on as its very much a question of personal taste. However, I did feel like there was a couple of issues in your comments that I wanted to address.

Firstly, I don't have a general problem with shows or movies that have a slow pace. As long as its a good match for the material, and is executed well, I can certainly enjoy the rhythm of such a work. Heck, I'm loving Twin Peaks: The Return and that might be the slowest paced (or perhaps, most deliberately paced) show on TV right now. My main concern is that this slow material doesn’t contain many interesting character development or story development, it just feels a bit meandering.

Secondly, you draw an indirect comparison between Made in Abyss and Flowers of Evil. You don't really go into depth with the comparison, but I would imagine it would be to do with both works having a slow pace and a strong sense of atmosphere. (If this is incorrect please let me know). Another work that springs to my mind is Mushishi, and in the live action space we have the aforementioned Twin Peaks: The Return. I would broadly agree that all these works have a certain distinct rhythm and they all certainly try to evoke a particular atmosphere. However, I feel like the difference between Made in Abyss and all those other works is in the consistency of the execution. In all those other works the quality of the production, the cinematography, the editing and the sound design* all come together to produce a textured and engrossing experience on a consistent basis. Made In Abyss can and does hit those heights from time to time, but I find it to be far more inconsistent. As a result, when the show is “off” I do feel like the show is just spinning its wheels, rather than smoothly moving between story beats.

As you surmise, I do not feel that Made in Abyss is as devoid of meaningful content or as inconsistent as you do. Personally, I felt like episode 8 went too fast if anything. I would have liked to have had a whole episode devoted to Riko and Reg's survival training.

Thirdly, I believe there to be more options for an incomplete manga adaptation than “rushed” or “slow”. I think there is a way they could have chosen to adapt this material that was neither so rushed as to lose the feeling of exploration nor as deliberately paced as the adaptation they made. It feels like they have a stopping point in mind for this adaptation and they’ve arranged the story beats so that the series will close on that ‘key’ event. I think this issue stems from the fact that this adaptations hews quite closely to the original story beats, but at a slightly slower pace. I think that if they wanted to stop the anime at a certain point a more complicated solution was required. For example, if we consider the original FMA adaptation they invented certain events and scenarios out of thin air and I generally prefer to have ‘added’ story vs ‘stretched’ story. Obviously this solution requires far more effort, extra writing and it can also go wrong if the new material doesn’t ‘fit’ with the rest of the adaptation. Adapting anything is a very tricky process and I certainly appreciate the difficulties involved, especially in an industry as chaotic as anime.

Of course there's multiple ways to handle adaptations (albeit sometimes directors and writers are constrained by the original author or producers in this regard). I'd rather not make a definite judgement on the wisdom of Made in Abyss taking the approach it does until I see how the series ends and whether or not there ends up being a split cour as some people have speculated, but at the moment the pacing doesn't seem like a mistake.

*Interesting to note the extreme importance of good sound design in all these shows, something that both David Lynch and Hiroshi Nagaham are keenly aware of.)

Sound design is indeed profoundly important to me, and that is the single most important element keeping me invested in Made in Abyss, as it is consistently strong even in a more visually imperfect episode such as episode 7.

 

[Thud]

Dragon Ball Super 105

Master Roshi beating all these young whippersnappers.

 

[Master Milk]

Centaur no Nayami - 08

Buy the BDs

 

[duckroll]

Princess Principal - Episode 8

Well, that was a big "plot" episode for sure. I can't really say this is a "return to form" but it was significantly better than the last two episodes. It doesn't have anything entirely dumb, and it reveals the backstory that audiences are probably most interested in. Since it appears that they have gotten all the origin stories out of the way now, hopefully the series turns it up to 11 for the last four episodes. I need the Okouchi craziness.

 

[Sterok]

Princess Principal 8

Back to serious time. The backstory went about as expected after all the hints, but it was good to see it fleshed out. Impressive that both managed to adapt to completely new circumstances when they were so young. Beato noticing Ange/Princess's closeness is probably going to come up eventually. With the backstories out of the way it's time for full on spy drama.

 

[Szadek]

Being an anime fan is Stockholm Syndrome.

Naa, I just love Anime.

 

[Andrew J.]

Knight's and Magic 09

The best fighting animation the series has had yet. Now that there's real combat with fast, agile machines on both sides Orange seems to be ramping up their efforts.

 

[dimb]

I would have liked to have had a whole episode devoted to Riko and Reg's survival training.

I was surprised to not have an episode like that, but really the show has never been detail focused like that, so I guess I shouldn't have expected it. Passed opportunities like this are what I would reference to actually push an argument than Made in Abyss has a very brisk pace, so it's sort of amusing to me that others identify the content as being slow. There's not much in the way of mapping out every step of the journey, and entire layers of the Abyss just felt like they passed by without having defining intricacies openly assigned to them.

I feel like the series has moved along at the pace one would expect an adventure story to progress.
Ep. 1: Set up/First meeting
Ep. 2: State of the surface, position of heroes established in relation to other adventurers.
Ep. 3: Departure/Initial Escape
Ep. 4: Escape trial/Heroes are cut loose completely from the world they know
Ep. 5: First life threatening conflict/Arrival at Outpost
Ep. 6: Introduction to Outpost characters/Connections to the backstory of the heroes set up
Ep. 7: Limits of heroes tested/Mentor motivations established
Ep. 8: Heroes grow/closure and departure with mentor figure

Abyss is not really meandering. If people don't find the specific events tied to each story beat engaging that is a different problem unrelated to pacing.

 

[duckroll]

I feel like the series has moved along at the pace one would expect a 25-50 episode adventure story to progress.

Ftfy.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

at this point I can safely say I give zero fucks about Fate anymore. I'm not gonna watch F/A anymore.

Maybe I'll watch the Ufotable films when they come out, but outside of playing the games some years back when I was able to tolerate that shit and Fate Zero, it seems like every other show starts promising and then starts drowning in waifu and weird loli shit that takes away from any of the possibly cool characters that might be in it.

 

[Deadly]

Knight's and Magic 09
Wow show is finally progressing somewhere. I'm guessing the show is only one cour since it's a LN adaptation though. Bummer, it was just getting interesting

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Princess Principal 08

I liked the backstory reveal and how it ties into a lot of the stuff we've seen, it was pretty well done.

 

[PdotMichael]

at this point I can safely say I give zero fucks about Fate anymore. I'm not gonna watch F/A anymore.

Maybe I'll watch the Ufotable films when they come out, but outside of playing the games some years back when I was able to tolerate that shit and Fate Zero, it seems like every other show starts promising and then starts drowning in waifu and weird loli shit that takes away from any of the possibly cool characters that might be in it.

You should watch Red Saber's show this Winter though.

 

[phaze]

I too have faith in Miyamoto.

Though Fate might be too big of a hurdle even for him.

Incendies

That sure turned into an anime in the last 15 minutes ... And I'm no expert in Lebanon Civil War but that twist strikes me as totally unrealistic.

 

[Kyuur]

I think when the majority of complaints about a show comes down to "there's not going to be enough of it at this rate!" then it has done pretty well for itself. You see the same sort of criticism for Berserk (the source, lol) and Hunter X Hunter.

 

[dimb]

Ftfy.

Successful storytelling that spans a run of twelve twenty minute episodes is virtually nonexistent so I don't know why anyone would expect that.

 

[Qurupeke]

at this point I can safely say I give zero fucks about Fate anymore. I'm not gonna watch F/A anymore.

Maybe I'll watch the Ufotable films when they come out, but outside of playing the games some years back when I was able to tolerate that shit and Fate Zero, it seems like every other show starts promising and then starts drowning in waifu and weird loli shit that takes away from any of the possibly cool characters that might be in it.

Learning with Manga FGO is the only flawless Fate property.

 

[Infinite_Respawn]

Learning with Manga FGO is the only flawless Fate property.

*cough*Carnival Phantasm*cough*

 

[duckroll]

Successful storytelling that spans a run of twelve twenty minute episodes is virtually nonexistent so I don't know why anyone would expect that.

You're right. The masterpiece Ping Pong was only 11.

 

[MartyStu]

I don't have any particular horse in this race, but I can appreciate why people are confused about the improved critical reception to Re: Creators. Most of the time, a series will start good and then gradually get worse over time. This is the standard trajectory that we are all very familiar with. For a work to do the reverse is a break from the norm and therefore hard for many people to understand. It is, however, something that occasionally happens.

While true, I cannot actually remember the last time this happened.