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rheiders wrote:

Aw, I really loved Hoozuki no Reitetsu. It's dry as a bone, but that tends to be how I like my comedy. Laughing

It's true that it has a high barrier of entry, though.

It's like British comedy. Laughing

(Or those Adult Swim comedies where ya have to be familiar with American geek culture to appreciate - not for the average viewer.)

Gina Szanboti wrote:

I wish Houzuki would have gotten a less literal translation for its title. "Houzuki's Coolheadedness" is as bad as "Big Windup" as far as selling to someone who isn't already a fan of the series.

People don't like it when they deviate. Look at My Monster Secret.
Best not to deal with it.

dtm42 wrote:

You don't need to be a native Japanese speaker to find Hozuki no Reitetsu funny. Case in point: me. I liked the show despite not understanding half the references or knowing the folklore, because it still had an excellent sense of humour and great characters. I'm saddened that Lynzee was so put off by how Japanese the show was that she didn't even try to like it.

I totally agree with this. I have never learned a thing about Japanese folklore and if I possibly know something it's through anime but I still enjoyed the heck out of this show. The characters were funny and it had moments were you didn't really need the knowledge to find it funny. Of course humor is subjective but I really get the feeling that the person who reviewd this got stuck on the fact that you would need to understand the jokes in order to enjoy this. Which I completely disagree with.

The reviewer is not required to like the show, just because some people did. I think it is fair to say, if you are not understanding some parts of a show, that could hamper your enjoyment of the film.

Hozuki was pretty much the mediocre animated Japanese version of the BBC Radio classic 'Old Harry's Game'. The reviewer hits the nail on the head: 90% of the humour found in the anime required deep and very specific knowledge of cultural lore, which is pretty unacceptable when writing for comedy within a modern entertainment medium: even amongst Japanese anime watchers, there would have been many that didn't get a lot of the jokes. When you make a situation comedy, the majority of the humour should arise directly out of the cast and the situation they find themselves in, not from peripheral subject matter.

@TarsTarkas:

Not understanding all the cultural references and jokes might stop you from liking the show as much as you otherwise could have, but it does not mean that you are unable to like the show at all. Even if you knew nothing about Japan and it's culture there was still a lot to get out of Hozuki no Reitetsu. As I said, there were heaps of stuff that flew right past my head and yet overall I still liked it.

And the basic structure of the show is actually quite easy to understand. Japanese Hell is a bureaucracy, its ruler is Enma but he's incompetent, so ultra-competent second-in-command Hozuki does the day-by-day management. The employees of Hell may torture the dead for a living in themed areas but they still watch television in the company cafeteria when on break. You don't need to be a Japanophile to get humour like that.

lizardking461 wrote:

90% of the humour found in the anime required deep and very specific knowledge of cultural lore...

You're flat-out wrong on this. Most of the humour was character- and situation-derived.

lizardking461 wrote:

...which is pretty unacceptable when writing for comedy within a modern entertainment medium

Even if it was true that Hozuki no Reitetsu required a high level of familiarity with Japanese culture to enjoy (which it didn't), why would it be unacceptable? Why can't a fictional story expect that the reader is versed in the same culture as the story is set in? There wouldn't be anything wrong with an Indian story requiring familiarity with Indian culture, or a French story requiring familiarity with French culture, or an American story requiring familiarity with American culture. So why can't a Japanese story require familiarity with Japanese culture?

lizardking461 wrote:

even amongst Japanese anime watchers, there would have been many that didn't get a lot of the jokes.

Are you seriously trying to claim that Momotaro is not known by most Japanese?

And if Japanese viewers didn't get the jokes, why was Hozuki no Reitetsu one of the smash hits of last year? It averaged nearly fifteen thousand copies per volume, making it one of highest-selling anime ever.

lizardking461 wrote:

When you make a situation comedy, the majority of the humour should arise directly out of the cast and the situation they find themselves in, not from peripheral subject matter.

As I said before, that's what the show did. Even if you didn't know anything about Japan you could still find a lot to like about this show.

dtm42 wrote:

@TarsTarkas:

Not understanding all the cultural references and jokes might stop you from liking the show as much as you otherwise could have, but it does not mean that you are unable to like the show at all. Even if you knew nothing about Japan and it's culture there was still a lot to get out of Hozuki no Reitetsu. As I said, there were heaps of stuff that flew right past my head and yet overall I still liked it.

Reminds us looking at it from the reverse, when a Japanese reminisced after hearing Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show:

When I studied in the states from 2002-4, watching this program was a nightly dorm ritual. Everyone on the dorm floor gathered at the floor lounge to watch The Daily Show. It was difficult for me to follow, but everyone around me was laughing and laughing. Something of a culture sock because this kind of political satire show did/does not exist in Japan (as far as I know).

Ah, The Ambition of Oda Nobuna. Loved that series, I really do. But, I agree with it being a rental. My main reason - the ending. Screaming for a 2nd season, and I don't know if we'll ever see one, but it was an ending that was too open for me. Wouldn't rewatch the series due to that.

Quote:

The laws of physics state that no large grouping of anime girls can exist in the absence of a teenage everyman protagonist, and so it is with this series.

In disagreement with this, I would point to Koihime Musou, which uses a similar "turn warlords into cute girls" premise and actively cuts out the transplanted-teenage-everyman protagonist from the original games. Though in return, it does make main character Kan'u something of a target for lesbian affections.

DmonHiro wrote:

For the average consumer, Hoozuki is indeed perishable. It takes a more open mind and a lot of knowledge on Japanese things to get most of Hoozuki. It's not for the average R1 viewer.

Of course, that never stopped Sentai before, but at least this wasn't one of those shows they inexplicably decided to dub.

Gina Szanboti wrote:

I don't think I've ever seen a series that provoked this degree of division between staff and forum opinion.

You must've missed out on this little brouhaha, then.

^ Yeah, that's not a review I would have read, let alone the feedback. :)

[edited for over-quoting -t]

@dtm42

I'm not even going to bother replying to your 'arguments' - liking something for inexplicable reasons is fine, but forcing delusions upon yourself that are evidently wrong in order to justify your liking of said thing is stupid. I implore you to seek out a well written sitcom and compare, because evidently you haven't seen one if you think this was an exemplar.

Last edited by CrowLia on Wed Mar 04, 2015 2:52 am; edited 1 time in total

OH MY GOD someone just threw a "My subjective opinion is the correct one because reasons" back at dtm42. This is a brave new world, people!

About Hoozuki, while I agree it may not be for everyone, I think condemning it with a "Perishable" rating just because you don't understand the jokes is weird and kind of unfair to say the least. I also fail to see why both Carl and Lynzee find Hoozuki unlikable, he was my favorite character of the show. Of course we don't see complex relationships or character development throughout the show, but it works nonetheless, and Hozuki's over the top professionality as well as his violent relationships with Enma and Hakutaku, in contrast with his passion for goldfish plants and love of fluffy animals is hilarious in and of itself (btw, you know other character that hardly has any development, if any at all, during their show? Yes, Nozaki-kun, from last year's most beloved comedy series.)

Quote:

The laws of physics state that no large grouping of anime girls can exist in the absence of a teenage everyman protagonist, and so it is with this series.

There are plenty examples of the contrary, but sticking to the historical genderbend genre, Sengoku Otome didn't have a single male character, rather all the girls went lesbian for (admittedly hot and in no way teenage everyman protagonist) Oda Nobunaga

Hameyadea wrote:

While the show Oda Nobuna no Yabō has used the tropes highschool-boy-as-the-protagonist and harem-show, it manages to be an above-average show for me.

A big factor on my opinion is the musical contributions of the composer Takanashi Yasuharu, as well as solid VA from Itō Kanae, Eguchi Takuya (Hachiman!), Noto Mamiko and more.

The animation is quite good as well, and keeps up reasonably well the feeling of 16th century Japan, IMO.

As written in the column, the fact that the show was a 1 cour adaptation of an ongoing source material (IIRC, 19 LN volumes were released to date) didn't do the show's end any good. Also, while the show itself is quite good, its somewhat bland synopsis (teenage boy gets thrown back in time, to meet a whole lot of cute girls) makes it a bit hard to distinguish - at first glance - from most of those "for harem-loving fans" shows.

well its no highschool dxd when it comes to harem series, but there have been worse and fortunately this series isnt one of them.

also it does have some character development for the side characters,but the main will always be oda and monkey which may hinder it from showing its potential. definitely rental shelf. and hoozuki unfortunately is perishable for a reason.its just too unwatchable. i've seen it twice and it doesnt make sense at all. not to mention their aspects of comedy kinda falls flat. so dong definitely is justified for putting it perishable.

EricJ2 wrote:

Quote:

Oda Nobunaga was a sixteenth-century warlord who attempted to unify Japan through military conquest. As far as I can tell, his efforts earned the ire of some vengeful deity who condemned Nobunaga to be forever depicted in bizarre ways by novelists, game developers, and anime directors. Depending on where you look, the poor guy may be a time traveler, a giant robot pilot, a Pokémon trainer, a girl, or several of the above.

As far as I can tell, the real Nobunaga was seen as historically influential for uniting the country, but also seen as an "invading conqueror" for making deals with the Portuguese Christian missionaries to bring in gunpowder and rifles, thus betraying and "destroying" the whole samurai-sword spirit of the country. Which has given him the reputation of the great national boogeyman, and an easy target for cheap nationalistic depictions in fantasy or historical series.
At least it doesn't get much worse than the Ghost Sweeper Mikami movie depicting him as secretly an immortal demonically-possessed vampire all along. Rolling Eyes

True , but at least they didn't made him as a power hungry warlord that sold his soul to demons like in Capcom's Onimusha 2 game. or have his whole history do a complete 180 like in Pokemon Conquest. those aspects were ten times awful than Ghost Sweeper Mikami's take of Oda Nobunaga.

Nice Shelves ...
So who knows the name of the black plushie in
Photo # 10 ... thanks

CrowLia wrote:

OH MY GOD someone just threw a "My subjective opinion is the correct one because reasons" back at dtm42. This is a brave new world, people!

Hah. It's by no means the first time this has happened. Somehow I attract weirdos.

aquadon1963 wrote:

Nice Shelves ...
So who knows the name of the black plushie in
Photo # 10 ... thanks

It looks like it's a Heartless from the Kingdom Hearts games.

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