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Animu/Mango General

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Comments

  • edited 2017-12-23 06:46:08
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    how do you fave this character
    this is like saying "i really like the character that the protagonists walked past in the middle of the fifth episode, never to be seen again, with no plot significance whatsoever"

    https://myanimelist.net/character/101623/Female_Student
  • edited 2017-12-23 08:00:05
    It's not nearly as weird as say, making a character out of two continuity errors. Like, somebody needed to care enough about those errors to write them into a character.

    Even weirder/more obscure origin: Apparently this guy started out as a mention on some packaging proofs. His origin might have just been filler text on an internal document since it was removed from the finalized/released version of said packaging and never explained.

    edit: also, if you look at far more popular things, the old Star Wars Expanded Universe added detailed backstories for so many random crowd fillers, so the basic concept isn't exactly unheard of.
  • Now that 2017 Kino's Journey is over, I soooo want a Gakuen Kino anime. From the one volume I read it's an isekai story with horrific amounts of unhelpful self-awareness, so it's a perfect fit for current trends.
  • edited 2017-12-25 16:55:03
    My favourite example of a character with pointlessly unimportant origins is Mortal Kombat's Ermac.
  • edited 2017-12-26 01:27:22
    That pointlessness is downright amazing.


    qZFrgUx.jpg

    6BV4OSD.jpg

    fsN7u5K.jpg

    deb0CbK.jpg

    It's ridiculous how the last shot in the OP keeps getting more cluttered. Maybe by Symphogear Vrains I wouldn't even be able to see everything on my laptop.

    h3HVfJh.jpg

    Also, the phone game's OP looks like someone thought they were directing for a different franchise instead. It would be hilarious if it weren't kind of depressing.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I'm kind of shocked that the "Gears vs. Enemies" thing only started with GX. I must have been thinking of that one key visual when it came to G.

    I like that Shirabe is in the exact same pose at the end of the OPs for GX and AXZ.

    That shot from the XDU opening looks like something from the late 2000s.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    I was just about to comment that the casts are expanding the way Nanoha casts did.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I'll always insist that Nanoha was super-bad at introducing new characters, but I'm basing this off of how Dog Days treated it's cast.

    Plus, Symphogear villains don't tend to stick around once they've been punched into submission.
  • I was just about to comment that the casts are expanding the way Nanoha casts did.

    It's kind of going the opposite with how AXZ's last episodes insisted that Hibiki is more important than previously established.
  • qoet7Rq.jpg

    I wonder if they'll address how Elfnein so quickly decides to use drugs for every problem.
  • Naas: this sure is some unhealthy manipulation
    fourteenwings: Yeah that got weird
    Naas: this is even weirder than Elfnein's attitude on drugs
    Naas: since at least that gets /results/
    fourteenwings: Is this where we are now with magical girls
    fourteenwings: comparing drugs to threats of suicide
    Naas: do you mean we as in the two of us or "we" as in the subculture itself
    fourteenwings: the subculture
  • edited 2017-12-29 02:53:07
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
  • edited 2017-12-29 04:51:30
    Why does at least one post (#5) report far fewer members than the animes' actual pages? Am I reading something wrong here?
  • edited 2017-12-29 04:58:53
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    A spike in viewership from this thread might explain something for the first one, but I'm not sure about the second because it's much longer.

    Stats pages:

    https://myanimelist.net/anime/7528/Kujira_1952/stats
    https://myanimelist.net/anime/9228/Wan_Wan_Chuushingura/stats

    Presumably we're only counting "Completed".

    By the way even though I don't care I'm still maximum hipster:

    https://myanimelist.net/anime/35510/Seizei_Ganbare_Mahou_Shoujo_Kurumi/stats
  • Am I more hipster because I started it before you did?
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I also just started watching this though.
  • edited 2017-12-29 07:20:39
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    People sometimes say that Yurippe from Angel Beats resembles Haruhi Suzumiya, but the resemblance is relatively superficial. They do both serve in leadership positions, and have a less-weird male character as a foil, and both also sometimes suggest strange ideas (and one might even argue that Yurippe, based on her setting, has a hand in making them real through her own desire for them to be realized). However, Haruhi clearly does what she does for her own entertainment, and is surrounded by a set of not-particularly-enthused acquaintances, while Yurippe does what she does in the capacity of a military-style commander with loyal followers acting on her orders. Accordingly, she's far more strategic and analytical, to the point of overcomplicating things, while Haruhi is more about following and indulging whims.

    Meanwhile, I'm noticing a possible resemblance between Yurippe and Nao Tomori of Charlotte. Both are strong-willed leaders with a capacity for complex schemes and with loyal underlings to implement them.
  • edited 2017-12-29 08:01:56
    Both are strong-willed leaders with a capacity for complex schemes and with loyal underlings to implement them

    That describes a lot of random fantasy evil overlords.

    And "with loyal underlings" isn't really a character trait. Probably a good number of Megatrons have underlings ranging all the way from "unconditionally loyal" to "takes every possible opportunity to undermine him".
  • edited 2017-12-29 11:58:18
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Yurippe from Angel Beats resembles Haruhi Suzumiya

    I think usually they just mean they look like each other somehow? I think so too, actually.
    I'm noticing a possible resemblance between Yurippe and Nao Tomori of Charlotte

    Two characters from Key original anime are sort of like each other? Quelle surprise.

    You can't be serious.

    It seems two of the main characters in the English dub are played by one person, which is kind of surprising.
  • edited 2017-12-31 06:09:01
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Yes, I know, Maeda wrote both.

    If the thing about two characters played by one person is about Maedomari/Oikawa or Sugimoto/Konishi...well, I don't know about them yet but I don't know why you'd call any of them main characters.

    However, there's a reason the two Kurobane characters share a voice actress; they do in Japanese and German too.

    Also, does Jun Maeda like baseball a lot or something?
  • With Toji no Miko coming up it's been a weirdly good several months for someone looking for things to associate with YuYuYu.

    I don't know if those people exist.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    [01:03:01] just that i don't really see an objective truth to a description like "written well" either
    [01:03:20] There is though
    [01:03:26] I mean you don't have to give [Madoka Magica] a 100/100
    [01:03:33] But you can agree it's an 80/100 work
    [01:03:48] By the way if I were being kind YuYuYu overall is like a 35/100 work

    Follow up to a not-hugely-meaningful thing in chat, but FWIW if I had to give a grade out of 100 points...well, I guess I'd start by giving it a grade, so I'd give YuYuYu a B and MadoMagi a D, so going by a 90~100 = A etc. scale, and using midpoints rounded up, I'd give an 85/100 to YuYuYu and a 65/100 to MadoMagi.
  • Remember when we had regulars who studied media stuff, and would mention how you could analyse aspects of works objectively, and would out examples?

    Those examples always struck me as super subjective.
  • edited 2018-01-03 05:36:51
    It's not hard to see why a story that spends so much time on the characters' involvement with inane everyday things only to render them pointless by forcing them into situations where they can't decide anything is bad. What you said about"humanizing" the characters is pretty hollow since it's not hard to actually keep the mundane aspects of any character's life relevant to the bigger stuff. Which PMMM actually has with how Sayaka's romantic pursuit is both a motivation and a factor in her self-hatred.

    There's enough media that manage to keep the mundane things actually relevant to the characters' more important actions that I can confidently say that anybody with a half-decent imagination can write this up. Symphogear GX never gave any reason for Maria being any good at volleyball or even allude to past experience, but her advice on it foreshadowed her opinions on her own superpowers. Matoi the Sacred Slayer is kind of terrible with the whole idea of personal happiness versus responsibility since everyone does the same thing regardless of which they choose, but it never allows you to forget any of it since Matoi and Yuma like to remind you of their reasoning. YuYuYu's fixation on characters' favorite foods just about disappears when anything important happens.
  • And there's another problem I hadn't noticed until the most recent prose spinoff: the bookending on YuYuYu's first season is kind of stupid since it doesn't reflect how affected they are by what they find out about what Heroes actually have to do. They keep about the same fixation on the term "Hero" in their normal lives despite the job that came with the title and the people who gave it to them having grown way more unpleasant (and the Hero Club was just the Taisha's setup to get the five of them together in advance).
  • edited 2018-01-03 10:06:10
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    It's not hard to see why a story that spends so much time on the characters' involvement with inane everyday things only to render them pointless by forcing them into situations where they can't decide anything is bad. What you said about"humanizing" the characters is pretty hollow since it's not hard to actually keep the mundane aspects of any character's life relevant to the bigger stuff. Which PMMM actually has with how Sayaka's romantic pursuit is both a motivation and a factor in her self-hatred.
    My point is that it doesn't actually need to be directly relevant, for it to have emotional meaning. It doesn't have to be used as any particular story device like foreshadowing or whatever. The relationship doesn't need to be spelled out for the aspect to contribute to an overall sense of atmosphere.

    A tightly-written story, where every little detail has its place, doesn't necessarily do that atmosphere, that emotional ride, any better than a story where a lot of details seem extraneous to the specific justification of the plot. Extraneous details can form part of an interpretation of the greater meaning of the story -- like how YuYuYu can be read as a contemplation on the meaning of heroism, one that goes beyond simply understanding the fictional setting of YuYuYu but is something that we can compare/contrast within our own lives.

    And incidentally that's how I appreciate YuYuYu which is why I like it without being particularly interested in the setting or the rest of the franchise. I'm not sure what to call this value -- maybe "symbolic" or "legendary" -- but this is what I appreciate about it. And as in the same vein, I can see a story even just from listening to the soundtrack, or heck, even just listening to the twelve stars/flowers tracks and hearing how they differ from one another.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I like it without being particularly interested in the setting or the rest of the franchise.

    It feels unfair if I have all the information and you refuse to accept it exists.
    It doesn't have to be used as any particular story device like foreshadowing or whatever.

    No, seriously though, I'm pretty sure if there's no point to a scene it has to be cut because if something can happen before and after a scene that makes the in between bits feel like nothing you have an actual narrative problem.
    like how YuYuYu can be read as a contemplation on the meaning of heroism

    Could you explain to me how YuYuYu's first season did that? Like, no, seriously, I genuinely think it didn't and I'd like to be proven wrong if possible.
    one that goes beyond simply understanding the fictional setting of YuYuYu

    Isn't this like reading one opinion piece and then deciding you have all the facts on a geopolitical situation happening halfway across the globe?
  • edited 2018-01-03 12:46:02
    Extraneous details can form part of an interpretation of the greater meaning of the story
    You don't even talk about those details. I doubt you even remember things like the random canned drink Tougou handed Yuuna that one episode that I can't remember either but recall hearing was actually consistent with Yuuna's beverage preferences. Or the logos on the moving truck which are actually part of the worldbuilding (or at least retconned into such).

    YuYuYu definitely has more detail than I can properly remember, but it's kind of ludicrous for you to exalt such things even though you point out anything specific less than I do.

    Though even if you can remember more that doesn't actually address my criticism that none of this is exactly good writing. Having random scenes where somebody does whatever is far less impressive than making them relevant to something important.
    like how YuYuYu can be read as a contemplation on the meaning of heroism,
    It's a really poor one when every decision to actually do something besides one boiled down to "do what you're told because none of us have a choice in this". This is literally spelled out in episode 9.
    one that goes beyond simply understanding the fictional setting of YuYuYu but is something that we can compare/contrast within our own lives.

    You can do that with literally any kind of story if you're willing to stretch things. Which I guess in YuYuYu's case would be "I'm sure glad people have choices beyond just doing as they're told and ignoring any objections one might have".
    I can see a story even just from listening to the soundtrack,

    Are you just doing that thing where you're just going on about how you're attached to a mental image you developed rather than anything that happened on-screen?
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    I like it without being particularly interested in the setting or the rest of the franchise.
    It feels unfair if I have all the information and you refuse to accept it exists.
    ...how?
    I'm pretty sure if there's no point to a scene it has to be cut because if something can happen before and after a scene that makes the in between bits feel like nothing you have an actual narrative problem.
    um...what?
    like how YuYuYu can be read as a contemplation on the meaning of heroism
    Could you explain to me how YuYuYu's first season did that? Like, no, seriously, I genuinely think it didn't and I'd like to be proven wrong if possible.
    They mention it a bunch of times, for starters, and it literally bookends the show, and the story clearly draws a contrast between the "heroism" of the club's mundane deeds and the "heroism" of saving the world, and on top of that the characters also display different ideas of heroism which can be compared and contrasted.
    Isn't this like reading one opinion piece and then deciding you have all the facts on a geopolitical situation happening halfway across the globe?
    I don't know how you're making this analogy, but we're talking about fiction here, not real life.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    Extraneous details can form part of an interpretation of the greater meaning of the story
    You don't even talk about those details. I doubt you even remember things like the random canned drink Tougou handed Yuuna that one episode that I can't remember either but recall hearing was actually consistent with Yuuna's beverage preferences. Or the logos on the moving truck which are actually part of the worldbuilding (or at least retconned into such).
    An interpretation need not discuss all such details. In fact, no interpretation does.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    YuYuYu definitely has more detail than I can properly remember, but it's kind of ludicrous for you to exalt such things even though you point out anything specific less than I do.
    1. Good for you; you can remember logos on trucks.
    2. Meanwhile, you may have neglected the strong use of yellows, and sunset scenes, through the course of the show, which is something that contributes heavily to the atmosphere.
    3. Let's not make this a e-peen contest to see who can remember more trivia.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    Though even if you can remember more that doesn't actually address my criticism that none of this is exactly good writing. Having random scenes where somebody does whatever is far less impressive than making them relevant to something important.
    And you may be more impressed than I by having a tightly-written story where everything is linked to something important. So you call it "good writing", which just goes to show that it's a subjective description.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    like how YuYuYu can be read as a contemplation on the meaning of heroism,
    It's a really poor one when every decision to actually do something besides one boiled down to "do what you're told because none of us have a choice in this". This is literally spelled out in episode 9.
    Not all heroism has to do with making heavy choices. In fact, a good number of people in real life who are regarded as heroes of various sorts often say that they were just in the right place at the right time or that they were simply charged with certain duties that others regard as heroism.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    one that goes beyond simply understanding the fictional setting of YuYuYu but is something that we can compare/contrast within our own lives.
    You can do that with literally any kind of story if you're willing to stretch things. Which I guess in YuYuYu's case would be "I'm sure glad people have choices beyond just doing as they're told and ignoring any objections one might have".
    And it seems you're basically reading a different theme from the story than I have. Which is perfectly fair.
    Naas_Human wrote: »
    I can see a story even just from listening to the soundtrack,
    Are you just doing that thing where you're just going on about how you're attached to a mental image you developed rather than anything that happened on-screen?
    I watched the entire dang show and saw everything that happened.

    The only possible difference is that I watched the American English dub and presumably you and fourteenwings watched the Japanese dub.
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