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That's irrelevant. A government restricting the use of one of their weapons to a certain gender for no good reason is ridiculous. It's bad writing.

The fact that Ichika gets selected to pilot one anyway is even worse. Why did he get chosen? Why did the government decide to finally allow a guy to pilot it? Why did they only select ONE guy, rather than get at least 10 or so to better integrate the males into the school? Hell, why didn't they just make a new all-males school and choose around 50-100 new male pilots?!

That's bad writing. Every story has plot holes, I'll concede, but these are just way too big.

ArsenicSteel wrote:

You not knowing the story the novels cover beyond the end of the anime is not a plot hole of the anime.

Too bad we might not see any more light novels unless Media Factory has it on a super long hiatus.

Anywho...I enjoyed the anime. It was a fun, light, enjoyable show even with it's flaws. I think Theron did a good job with the pros and cons of the show. I can agree with them.

8-bit did a great job animating the show, though. When we did get some good mecha battles they were done very well. I went into the show blank...not going for mecha, but just checking it out and I stayed for the harem (I kept questioning myself why I'm watching this show every week even though it's so mediocre and run of the mill). Which sucks because I had high hopes for Rinin Fang, due to being a childhood friend and her characer design, but then she devolves and takes a back seat through the story.

I guess I'm tolerant to shows with flaws or can be considered bad as long as there's a character or two I like that makes the show enjoyable. In this case it was Houki (tsundere childhood friend? sign me up) and Charlotte.

Oh, right...Houki's sister was amazing too. She was off the wall crazy which was really fun to watch.

Chagen46 wrote:

That's irrelevant. A government restricting the use of one of their weapons to a certain gender for no good reason is ridiculous. It's bad writing.

That's bad writing. Every story has plot holes, I'll concede, but these are just way too big.

Actually the anime covering only parts of the light novel is relevant to your questions and plot holes. The anime never made any mention about government restricting the use of the IS so the anime viewer would never know that.

I don't think the light novel explains what you asked, but it was getting there (some theories from readers are floating around on why Ichika seems to be the only male who can pilot and IS) until the light novel got shelved.

Quote:

That's irrelevant. A government restricting the use of one of their weapons to a certain gender for no good reason is ridiculous. It's bad writing.

It is entirely relevant because you are arguing that the government has done that for no reason even though you haven't read the story for the reasoning.

Quote:

The fact that Ichika gets selected to pilot one anyway is even worse. Why did he get chosen? Why did the government decide to finally allow a guy to pilot it? Why did they only select ONE guy, rather than get at least 10 or so to better integrate the males into the school? Hell, why didn't they just make a new all-males school and choose around 50-100 new male pilots?!

Read the books.
You not liking the author choice to limit who can pilot the mechs isn't bad wiring.

Quote:

Every story has plot holes, I'll concede, but these are just way too big.

You'd have to read the story to determine whether or not a plot hole is there. If the story explains why the world is the way it is then there's no plot hole. You should concede that you have no clue what a plot hole is.

I think the ultimate kicker for me in just how dense Ichika is, was:

Near end of S1:
spoiler[When Houki flatout asks him: Do you recognize that I'm of the opposite sex of you? *Puts his hand on her breast* *Extremely long pause from Ichika* "Uhh....I guess?" *Hallelujah plays* ]

At that point I just about fell out of my chair...

Chagen46 wrote:

That's irrelevant. A government restricting the use of one of their weapons to a certain gender for no good reason is ridiculous. It's bad writing.

The fact that Ichika gets selected to pilot one anyway is even worse. Why did he get chosen? Why did the government decide to finally allow a guy to pilot it? Why did they only select ONE guy, rather than get at least 10 or so to better integrate the males into the school? Hell, why didn't they just make a new all-males school and choose around 50-100 new male pilots?!

That's bad writing. Every story has plot holes, I'll concede, but these are just way too big.

The government didn't restrict IS to only women. The premise of IS is that there is a single crazy scientist (Tabane) that created them. She provides IS cores to all the world governments, but they're a "Black Box" -- unable to be opened or reverse-engineered. And for whatever reason only women are able to pilot them.

Given how cliche the entire show is, I wouldn't put any special meaning into that other than it allows the protagonist to be surrounded by women.

Slight spoiler that is another reason:
spoiler[Tabane is Houki's sister, who was childhood friends with Ichika. So for all we know she intentionally coded a pass for him into the one core's system. Convoluted way to get Ichika close to Houki so they can hook up by placing them in the same class? It's a silly harem, who cares. ]

Quote:

Read the books.
You not liking the author choice to limit who can pilot the mechs isn't bad wiring.

Ugh, you're nearly as dense as Ichika himself.

Look, all stories run off of logic and consistency. You hear that? The things that happen in a story have to be believable. The government's restriction is illogical, unprofessional, and completely unbelievable for a government to do.

You hear that? That's the sound of my Willing Suspension of Disbelief flying out the window.

Authors are not kings. They can't write whatever they want and get away with it with "I'm the author". I know that from being an amateur writer myself.

Aereus: That still doesn't explain WHY the IS cores can only be piloted by women. That just means they can't. There's no canon reason for why only women can pilot them.[/quote]

Last edited by Veers on Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

How do you know there's no complex, multi-layered reason? Just because it wasn't explained in the anime, which is an adaptation of an existing franchise and therefore produced primarily for those fans, doesn't mean there's no good reason. Stop being retarded, Chagen. Also, stop looking for sensible consistency in a show like IS. Down that path lies madness, as you are plainly proving.

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There's no canon reason for why only women can pilot them.

But there is. They were made that way. You don't have to be satisfied with such brevity, but the answer to why only women can pilot them is there. The anime doesn't make a big deal out of explaining the whole story behind that because it doesn't matter. If anything, going out of the way to explain all the reasoning behind this would be bad writing. I applaud the story for not wasting time trying to explain every recursive question away. It's a perfectly serviceable, albeit dumb, piece of the setting. Deal with it.

ArsenicSteel wrote:

You not knowing the story the novels cover beyond the end of the anime is not a plot hole of the anime.

Of course it is a plot hole of the Anime. The Anime should be a self-contained unit, I shouldn't have to go read the Light Novels just to find out what the hell is going on.

If the Anime doesn't explain why males are incapable of piloting them then that is a plot hole in the show. End of story.

Zalis116 wrote:

Given how often you throw around claims like "awful writing" without anything specific to back them up, I have to conclude that it means "stuff happens that I didn't like."

Are you really incapable of seeing the writing flaws? Are you really that biased?

Okay, from the first episode (the only one I've watched):

1): Physical assault against a cadet by an instructor. Note that this is not the military so instructors do not have the right to strike their subordinates. But it is a formal paramilitary school, so being related by blood does not give her an excuse. Can you imagine for a moment what would happen if one of the classmates told the media (who must be very interested in Ichika's case) that his sister - the best pilot ever - verbally and physically abuses him? Instant media circus and public relations nightmare.

2): Males are not able to pilot the IS' except for Ichika. No reason is given. I don't care what the Light Novels say in the future, this is such an obvious ploy to artificially create an instant harem. Even other Harem shows spend a little more time actually justifying why there is a harem in the first place.

3): Ichika and the Tsundere girl have been mistakenly assigned to the same room. You would think that with only one male on campus it would extremely easy to avoid such a mistake in the first place. Like in #2, this is another clumsy attempt to have harem hi-jinks.

4): I may be misremembering but isn't one of the minor characters a girl in a pikachu outfit? How does she get away with wearing that.

That's four that I can remember, and trust me, I've been doing my best to forget. Though I have heard in later episodes that there are only so many IS' in existence. Why? Why can't they build more? Do they run on Rare Earth Metals and the global stockpiles have run low?

Zalis116 wrote:

And of course, every single last one of those elements was on display in that one episode?

No. They didn't have to be.

Zalis116 wrote:

So unsheltered flight is bad, but huge bipedal mechas (which would collapse under their own weight as per the Square Cube Law, and are impractical from a military standpoint) in other shows like Gasaraki, your all-time favorite RahXephon, Gundam, Evangelion, etc. are completely okay?

Apples and oranges.

Cube Law is explained away by the machines being super advanced. You know, like the Xephon and RahXephon which are respectively demi-god- and god-class machines. If I can accept that the RahXephon can tune two dimensions together then I can accept that it can stand up and walk. In the case of MS and TA's, well the former come from the future where everything probably use carbon nanotubes and the latter are quite small and wouldn't really suffer from being too heavy.

However, how do you explain away the pilots of IS having no goggles? Have you ever ridden a motorcycle at 100km/h without a helmet and been able to see and breathe normally? Then there's hypothermia, frostbite, insect and bird strike . . . yeah.

Zalis116 wrote:

Which of course is 100% realistic and scientifically plausible, right?

Well duh, of course not. Mami creates flintlock rifles out of her massive mammaries. But the show has its internal rules, justifies them enough for me to willingly suspend my disbelief and then applies the rules consistently. The only thing which even comes close to irking me is spoiler[the entropy business,] but when a show is as well written as PMMM it earns the right for me to overlook instances of questionable writing.

Zalis116 wrote:

As I said in my previous post, I won't pretend IS is an all-time great anime or anywhere close to it. But these criticisms based on one single episode and arbitrarily selective standards are close to absurd.

You keep on being defensive about the show. Go on. Somebody has to be.

Well,I haven't seen "Infinite Stratos" but I think the creators missed something here. I wished they put in a representative from the United States,like a Chinese or Vietnamese-American girl to sort of round out what was going on. That would have been interesting to see.

Every. Story. In. The. World. Relies. On. Internal. Consistency.

I don't know how many times I can say it before it sticks.

Quote:

But there is. They were made that way. You don't have to be satisfied with such brevity, but the answer to why only women can pilot them is there. The anime doesn't make a big deal out of explaining the whole story behind that because it doesn't matter.

YES IT DOES.

It does matter, because not doing world-building is not good in a Sci-Fi story like this. And "they were made that way" is utterly circular logic and an ass-pull from the author. We read books/watch shows to learn about the characters and the world they live in. Not answering the viewer's basic questions with answers that actually are substantial is BAD WRITING.

But hey, I tend to expect terrible writing, awful-world building, and the like from generic harem anime with beta protagonists.

Screw this, time to go watch a show that doesn't suck.

Chagen46 wrote:

Every. Story. In. The. World. Relies. On. Internal. Consistency.

I don't know how many times I can say it before it sticks.

Quote:

But there is. They were made that way. You don't have to be satisfied with such brevity, but the answer to why only women can pilot them is there. The anime doesn't make a big deal out of explaining the whole story behind that because it doesn't matter.

YES IT DOES.

Indeed it does. Reasons like why Ichika is the only male pilot matters to anyone who is not watching the show just to be titillated. Okay, well, that's a generalisation, I'll admit. But it seems there are people who don't care if the writing is as bad as your average porno just as long as the show caters to their needs for vapid wish-fulfilment, so what's the difference (between this and a porno)? Lack of actual sex is the only one I can think of, which for many masochistic people is probably a turn-on.

I mean, if you're going to have a plot and characters who are designed solely to make a harem situation happen then why not show the harem 'in action', so to speak? Or is that what Doujins and fan-fics are for?

Last edited by Veers on Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

Chagen wrote:

But hey, I tend to expect terrible writing, awful-world building, and the like from generic harem anime with beta protagonists.

This is precisely why I say it doesn't matter. The primary audience for this kind of show isn't looking for the level of detail you are. Look at the bigger picture. IS has sci-fi elements but it's a harem comedy at heart. Am I saying that I think the lazy and inconsistent elements in the IS anime are good? Nope. As I mentioned, I found its attempts at being serious very tiresome for the same reasons you're bent out of shape (that it's inconsistent and not well explained). I'm just saying your expectations are way too high. You are taking something that's meant to be ridiculous and hold it up to standards that it was intentionally never trying to reach. If you can't enjoy IS for its being dumb, that is fine, but I think it did what it set out to do mostly fairly well.

Quote:

Not answering the viewer's basic questions with answers that actually are substantial is BAD WRITING.

Why is it a substantial question? No, really. What would change in the story if you knew the answer? Nothing. IS frames would still be magitech, the plot would still be pointless, Ichika would still be a moron, and Charles would still be the best girl.

Edit: Alsooooo...

dtm42 wrote:

Well duh, of course not. Mami creates flintlock rifles out of her massive mammaries. But the show has its internal rules, justifies them enough for me to willingly suspend my disbelief and then applies the rules consistently.

dtm and I may disagree on the merits of IS, but I think he's in the right about this bit. However, I don't think it's fair to simply draw a line and say "consistent / inconsistent".

IS is actually quite consistent with what it lays down from the very start of the show. The "problem" (problem that I think dtm and Chagen have with IS, and that I would have if I tried to take IS seriously) is that that consistency is very fantastical--things in the IS world work within the bounds of its own setting, mostly, but they don't relate to our reality very well, which is in contrast to a lot of the things PMMM does, where there may be some fantastical elements at play, but the themes of the story are mostly down-to-earth ones that are easier to relate to reality. Things like struggling with questions of morality and actions having consequences (and the story following through on those consequences) play a big role in giving Madoka's magical and fantastical elements an anchor to reality. IS really doesn't have anything like that, for better or for worse.

dtm42 wrote:

Of course it is a plot hole of the Anime. The Anime should be a self-contained unit, I shouldn't have to go read the Light Novels just to find out what the hell is going on.

If the Anime doesn't explain why males are incapable of piloting them then that is a plot hole in the show. End of story.

The fact that Ichika can pilot an IS suit is a major mystery in the show. It's quite possible that the author of the light novels will answer that some time in the future.

The anime hasn't even gotten that far in the story either. There is something sinister brewing at the end, but it ends there. I don't even think the light novel has gotten to the point of explaining why Ichika can pilot one, but there are theories out there.

If an anime adaptation of a light-novel should be a self-contained unit then it'll be a totally different story with only characters from the light novel. Since the show was created in Japan for the Japanese audience, one can easily go to a book store to read the source material if need be.

Veers wrote:

Quote:

But hey, I tend to expect terrible writing, awful-world building, and the like from generic harem anime with beta protagonists.

This is precisely why I say it doesn't matter. The primary audience for this kind of show isn't looking for the level of detail you are. Look at the bigger picture. IS has sci-fi elements but it's a harem comedy at heart. Am I saying that I think the lazy and inconsistent elements in the IS anime are good? Nope. As I mentioned, I found its attempts at being serious very tiresome for the same reasons you're bent out of shape (that it's inconsistent and not well explained). I'm just saying your expectations are way too high. You are taking something that's meant to be ridiculous and hold it up to standards that it was intentionally never trying to reach. If you can't enjoy IS for its being dumb, that is fine, but I think it did what it set out to do mostly fairly well.

Quote:

Not answering the viewer's basic questions with answers that actually are substantial is BAD WRITING.

Why is it a substantial question? No, really. What would change in the story if you knew the answer? Nothing. IS frames would still be magitech, the plot would still be pointless, Ichika would still be a moron, and Charles would still be the best girl.

Okay, I see your point now.

However, I have to wonder why the show constantly tries to he serious and fails. It should've just stuck to one genre--the whole military academy thing gave me way too high expectations for it.

Last edited by enurtsol on Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

RyanSaotome wrote:

Funny enough, it got into the top 35 anime on that NicoNico list made by Japanese reviewers, top people in the industry and other important people in the industry did last year for the top 50 anime since 2000.

Any Top List that has IS over One Piece is not worth considering. Laughing

Veers wrote:

Chagen wrote:

But hey, I tend to expect terrible writing, awful-world building, and the like from generic harem anime with beta protagonists.

This is precisely why I say it doesn't matter. The primary audience for this kind of show isn't looking for the level of detail you are. Look at the bigger picture. IS has sci-fi elements but it's a harem comedy at heart. Am I saying that I think the lazy and inconsistent elements in the IS anime are good? Nope. As I mentioned, I found its attempts at being serious very tiresome for the same reasons you're bent out of shape (that it's inconsistent and not well explained). I'm just saying your expectations are way too high. You are taking something that's meant to be ridiculous and hold it up to standards that it was intentionally never trying to reach. If you can't enjoy IS for its being dumb, that is fine, but I think it did what it set out to do mostly fairly well.

Heh, IS and Twilight have dumb writing, and both are quite popular. Laughing

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