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Comments
I'm guessing he's referring to all the associated media. The anime is downright awkward at times on its own without the context of its related media. Like the shocking reveal for Tougou wasn't that the world was destroyed, it's that it was destroyed in a far different way than she thought, but if you only watch the anime you never know what she thought (which actually ties to a cover story on the Vertexes' origins and thus probably what the characters thought of Vertexes) until Sonoko tells her otherwise.
And minor things like Fuu mentioning she's been told that the previous team couldn't kill Vertexes, which I thought sounded suspicious but no, that was actually true.
There's probably more that I don't remember. And this is without getting into major plot points in the current season that look like random non-sequiturs if you don't look outside the anime.
Hero Club activities are portrayed as just them hanging out while the direction tries really hard to minimize any portrayal of how it affects people around them. Which is really stupid for a portrayal of heroism, especially when the 4koma, of all things doesn't do this.
And like I said about the bookending, there's this odd disconnect with how everything they find out about their job and everything associated with it seemingly had no effect on their attachment to the term "Hero" when it came to the club.
What ideas? Just about nobody got to actually go with their beliefs in a way distinguishable from just doing what they're told. Are you heaping praises on lip service now?
It does when you're literally exalting them.
Sunsets for atmosphere have grown so generic as to be comical. example: Michael Bay's habit with them. I don't think I need to defend not keeping track of this in particular. Also you're the one praising minor details but couldn't be arsed to point them out without being prompted.
It takes more effort to link situations together than thinking up the situations without regard for context. That's not subjective.
Also YuYuYu's SOL scenes were just not that interesting. I never hear people saying they want to frame say, a scene of Fuu eating noodles because the composition was so impressive or whatever. I have, however, found this praise for that panel in American Alien where Superman is sitting on top of a skyscraper and eating noodles while dressed in his non-final costume.
As far as storytelling goes, "right place at the right time" puts something squarely into generic rather than contemplative. Spider-Man isn't a hero because he happened to be near an arthropod that grants superpowers. He's a hero because he chooses to do something responsible. "Right place at the right time" is below trite. It's a whole lot of nothing because a coincidence like that lacks anything to analyze or discuss.
People being forced into something also gives less to contemplate about because their beliefs, personalities and whatnot end up irrelevant to what they did.
I remember explaining this earlier, but if I recall correctly, it's something along these lines:
* Karin represents the ideal of heroism through power and accomplishment
* Itsuki represents the ideal of heroism through self-realization
* Fuu represents the ideal of heroism through protecting others
* Tougou represents the ideal of heroism through devotion to duty
* Yuuna represents the ideal of heroism through spreading optimism and idealism
How am I "exalting" anything?
Where did I "praise minor details"?
And if you want minor details, what about the variety of facial expressions and tones of voice that each character uses, giving us insight into their personalities? What about the different ways each of them respond to their disabilities (and don't tell me several of them are the same)? What about the repeated uses of lighting and music to imply not just a theme of sunsetting -- both literally the sun setting and metaphorically the impending end of the world -- but also a feeling of isolation to the struggles faced by the protagonists? (By the way, those sunsets aren't just sunsets when the orange/yellow color extends far into buildings in many parts of the production.) And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the dual symbolism using flowers first to symbolize something familiar, beautiful, and able to climax into something great, and then reusing flowers to symbolize transience and the struggle to stay relevant after a metaphorical bloom?
And oh yes, the music. A strong, strong emphasis on contemplative and comforting tracks when times are good, with some amounts of bittersweet flavor. And when it comes to encounters with the Vertexes, a combination of sometimes intense action and sometimes horror, to varying degrees. Pretty much nothing feels triumphant. How does this relate to the show? Well, pretty clearly to the feel of the story, but also to the theme of heroism -- this, and that sense of emptiness and isolation, and the sense of "sunsetting", the recurring Vertexes, the mechanic of sacrifice, all relate to a feeling of hopelessness and pose the question of whether the actions our protagonists take are all in vain and whether they should continue doing what they do. What does it mean to be a hero? Does being a hero mean anything at all? Is it even worth being a hero?
Even the pacing of the show's realizations reflects this early investment followed by a disillusionment. The first half of the show is more optimistic, showing the protagonists growing into their powers and responsibilities, and defeating the vertexes. They end up finishing all 12 with half of the show to go. And then it gradually dawns on them that there's a much more morbid bigger picture to contend with.
The show doesn't definitively answer these questions, but it does give the audience a chance to contemplate them, in the light of the characters' experiences.
But simply linking situations together does not create for a more effective story per se. From what I can tell, you value the linkage of individual story elements and details more, while (at least in this case) I value the linkage of larger-scale thematic elements more. Is YuYuYu rather weak on details? Yes. Does it still work despite this? In my opinion, yes, because it's held together by its themes; in your opinion, no.
Non-notability doesn't mean uselessness, though I'll admit that I don't typically look at this stuff from the perspective of (or pay much attention to) the cinematographic mechanics (e.g. scene composition).
The way you've described what you value about a story using heroism as a theme tells me that fundamentally you and I were looking for different types of stories and wanted different things out of YuYuYu.
Sometimes a story is not necessarily about what one does, but about what one feels, the emotional journey that one goes through. Even if one is compelled to do things. Sometimes we DO get put between a rock and hard place, such as being forced to do things that we have serious misgivings about, and we don't have a sense of agency in determining our fate. But that doesn't mean our experiences are meaningless.
I think a similar point underlines a typical criticism of Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion, actually. He's often criticized for not doing things, and for lying/sitting around gazing at things (whether it be the ceiling or whatever). But if anything that just shows that this is fundamentally operating on a different wavelength, where it's those emotions that he contemplates, that are what's important to the story. Sure, Shinji could have gotten in the robot with enthusiasm, bedded all the chicks, and driven the ride to the apocalypse forward at full speed, but then the story would have been quite different; it wouldn't have been a study of a coming-of-age where the protagonist himself desires against that process while everything around him tries to force him into it, causing him much grief.
What they did in-universe is not the same as what the scenes were about. Framing and emphasis are a thing. If "in-universe event that I wanted happened but in a way that undermines potential excitement" wasn't solidly a bad thing, I'd have to be positive about some other shows for doing the same. And the possibility of this still being a plus point for Symphogear AXZ (despite how being a still frame means it doesn't capitalize on any potential excitement) is such a depressing thought.
This isn't really a lot. It's the kind of thing people can (and do) think up from random musings. Hell, I can think up characters who represent different things without giving them the context to act it out.
At the very least you insistently disagreed with fourteenwings about them being pointless. Also:
Which is kind of contradictory when you also say that an interpretation doesn't need to acknowledge them.
These are literally the bare basics of drawing and acting. The rest of that paragraph hardly goes beyond the basics of any particular field.
Though I want to address this specifically:
This doesn't amount to much considering that only Itsuki's really stopped her from doing what she really wanted.
While I don't disagree with what you say about the music, that's a level of effectiveness that I can attribute even to soundtracks that I hate. Especially the part about not feeling triumphant.
Is "putting forth questions" supposed to be a point in its favor? Because that basically amounts to introducing some ideas, which again, is really basic. I can confidently say that Fate/Apocrypha, which is not a show I hold in high regard manages this better because everyone who cares about heroism gets to act on what they think of it in distinct ways,
That's not really true. They still acted like everything will be alright even once the second wave starts appearing. Followed by a definite turning point after Sonoko shows up.
This doesn't refute what I said about having less to discuss. If the contemplations you mention are like these trains of thought that don't rely too much on say, connecting every point to what a character wanted or or felt at a particular point, then giving things to contemplate about is something you can say for basically anything. Which makes it pretty low as a praise.
I'm not sure if it's obvious already, but pretty much everything you've said about YuYuYu that's not a point against it I can confidently say features similarly (or to a greater extent with more elaboration/exploration) in stories and media I would not consider good. If not in specific then in equivalent.
The linking of thematic elements is rather weak considering all the ways they easily could've been stronger. Like what I said about Hero Club scenes and their emphasis. Or the bookending that makes things look similar to the beginning rather than highlight how much has changed.
This is literally wrong since he's in an Eva more than everybody else. Possibly about as much as everyone else combined. Reactions to NGE are such a complicated thing that I'm not sure if bringing them into this would make anything clear. More importantly, NGE doesn't have the dissonance of emphasizing grandiose titles for its characters while forcing their characterization into irrelevance.
This is funny because I can't tell whether they're using real world terminology or just making it up.
Also, two minutes within the first episode might be the quickest anything's confirmed my unfounded speculation.
You're posing the question "how skillfully was this story told by the presentation, writing, etc.?".
I'm posing the question "what happened, and what does it mean for the characters, and what does it mean for me?". I criticize the presentation only when it hampers the delivery of these things.
I didn't say that they had to be used in forming an interpretation. Simply, the option exists.
So you're arbitrarily saying that, just because it's not explicitly shown by the story, the other characters suffer no substantial hardships, they and thus their disabilities are inconsequential? What about the fact that people can and do often try their best to cope with a circumstance that at the very least inconveniences them and won't go away?
So this means, just because it isn't special or notable therefore it's not worth considering?
Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't, but Fate/Apocrypha doesn't matter right here.
And why is putting forth questions not a point in favor of YuYuYu, when YuYuYu presents these questions organically and meaningfully as a consequence of the circumstances faced by the characters in-universe?
Incidentally I just now realized that one can draw an analogy between the very clichéd roles played by the characters in the school plays that bookend the show and the notion that the characters have functional roles to play within the story of their lives, and part of their journey involves questioning those roles.
Backing up a bit though...why does this need to be a point "in its favor" in the first place? I'm simply describing a meaning one can interpret from this show. I'm not aiming to evaluate its quality.
That doesn't mean Sonoko is solely responsible for causing that turning point. There is such a thing as a tipping point to opinion, before which one may be willing to mentally paper over a doubt but beyond which one endorses that doubt.
Except, as I explained above, it's not "praise". It's simply finding meaning in something, and understanding why the story felt meaningful to me. But I guess you can consider it "praise" to the extent that this demonstrates that whatever this story did, it worked in delivering that meaning.
Not every little detail has to be explicitly justified in a story for it to be relevant. Things can have metaphorical and symbolic meaning.
What are these stories and media?
And why does it matter what other stories do? (And for that matter, how is there some sort of universally-applicable judgement regarding whether a story is "good"?)
The linking of thematic elements is rather weak considering all the ways they easily could've been stronger. Like what I said about Hero Club scenes and their emphasis. Or the bookending that makes things look similar to the beginning rather than highlight how much has changed.[/quote]Just because the show doesn't necessarily frame it properly doesn't mean we can't see that meaning. We don't need to explicitly see the community service work they do and see how people benefit from it to understand what they do.
I haven't yet found a way to fully incorporate the ending into my interpretation yet but it didn't feel particularly off so there's nothing really too wrong with it.
By "grandiose titles" do you mean the title of "hero"? If so, then perhaps in your interpretation you're seeing it as grandiose, while I'm seeing it as a conceptual framing.
And you can keep saying that the characterization is irrelevant, but that doesn't make it so. Perhaps you don't like the slice-of-life aspect. But I found it meaningful.
----
I get the sense that you're approaching shows with a more intellectual perspective than I do, or perhaps a more "explicit" perspective, with expectations or "rules" regarding the ways a story ought to function or how its details ought to be structured. I prefer to let the story take my emotions whereever it desires, and ideally also taking my cognition along for the ride, and the story's ability to do that determines my enjoyment.
It's not that I don't know these "rules" exist; it's that I enjoy seeing where a story will take me and just letting it do its thing, even if what it does isn't something I'd prescribe it. After all, the story of real life doesn't follow these rules.
Anyway...
https://myanimelist.net/anime/12461/Hiiro_no_Kakera?q=hiiro no
This has a nice trailer song. I wonder if it's the theme song. And if the entire series feels like this I might like to watch it. PTW'd.
https://www.sporcle.com/games/RustySpider/anime-opening-quiz-ultra/
and there are several series I noticed in it that I didn't recognize but seem pretty interesting from their visuals and/or their music.
That's one of them.
You may find me adding a bunch of stuff to my PTW for this reason.
I like how CR's aggressive advertorials always advise against going outdoors.
I managed to score 0/20.
I came close to identifying #4, #10, and #17.
Meanwhile, #3, #11, #13, #15, and maybe #20 sound nice. Especially #11.
Hiiro no Kakera
Vampire Knight Guilty
FMAB
Black Butler
@fourteenwings it's possible that I'll be watching more shoujo sometime in the future.
"From this point on, you exist only for the purpose of killing other people."
"What are you waiting for? Sign up now!"
I'm sorry but I really don't think those two lines ought to be juxtaposed.
----
Anyway, I just did this quiz, and got a score of 15% by identifying 14 and misidentifying 1. The only non-super-famous things I recognized were
Meanwhile I made another list of stuff whose OPs sound nice:
Katanagatari
Vampire Knight
Seitokai Yakuindomo
Mitsudomoe
Shikabane Hime
Toradora
Phantom Requiem for the Phantom
Working!!
Kanokon
Shakugan no Shana
Bakemonogatari
Of that list, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 11th items went onto my PTW.
Just now I rewatched the first episode. This time I watched it dubbed. I felt the dialogue was a lot more engaging. Maybe it's also because I know it's comedic so instead I'm not thinking things like "oh my gosh how can they let someone get away with that level of lawlessness" and so on, but just letting the crazy ride happen and taking in the excitement.
FWIW, the reason this came back onto my radar was because (1) I'd recently decided that I wanted to watch that season with the savage genius theme song anyway, my not having seen early installments notwithstanding, and (2) the OVA's (and subsequent first season's) writer, Michiru Shimada, passed away in mid December 2017.
"Nah, I've done a good job of that on my own."
On another note, the ED reminds me of the theme song of Recettear.
It also added a lot of new new little tidbits of insight because of the scenes that were added from other character's viewpoints. In a few shots, I was able to feel Lacia's motivation more clearly than I had in the book since that scene was initially still through Arato's POV. Snowdrop's wry smile cleared up why she was attacking them, and even Arato himself got a few new lines at the end of the episode (that might have been from a later chapter, though).
The weird thing is that they're keeping Arato's backstory under wraps, even though I'm pretty sure it's mostly irrelevant.
I'm really looking forward to the parts of the story that will be truly "new" to me too, starting with episode 2.
Fushigi Yuugi
Gundam Wing
Hikaru no Go
The Prince of Tennis
Gundam SEED
FMA
Busou Renkin
I should stop doing these quizzes.
I'd like to think that this is for creative reasons, but I'm betting Idol Time didn't do as well as planned. Probably because it was confusing with it's messaging as to who the protagonists were. A lot of the time it felt like the new and old characters were running parallel storylines.
On the bright side, Kiratto Pri☆Chan brings me a new Pretty series to try and watch soon!
anyway this will be an interesting case of where emotional detachment from what's going on is actually something to be perfectly expected because it IS an MMO after all
Watching the Phantasy Star Online 2 anime at all; never appropriate why GMH.
I'm a bit apprehensive, which I wasn't with Stars!, because Friends! has designs that seem way more ridiculously colorful than Aikatsu! has ever had for characters. But now that I'm over the initial shock I'm really looking forward to it.
so in short, our lead protagonist is the ONLY person who made his in-game character look like his meatspace self.