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The Spring 2014 Anime Preview Guide

Also, everybody.

This is Tatsuya's full power set:

spoiler[>Regrowth - Allows complete recovery of any form of damage/injury. It is not a form of recovery magic; instead, by reverse-reading the records of the Eidos, copying the past information of the target and directly overwriting it, he is able to make the injury "not have existed in the first place".
>Decomposition - Decomposes material into atoms. Has been used by Tatsuya to unarm hundreds of soldiers from their guns at once.
>Material Burst - Decomposes substances into pure energy following E=MC², almost like an atomic bomb. Actually produces more energy than an atomic bomb, as energy is not lost to collisions between electrons and positrons like in annihilation reactions.
>Elite martial artist by world standard. His physical ninja skills are so impressive people thinks they are spells, when they're just his natural parameters.
>Elite class strategist by world standards
>Incredible speed at releasing magic, elite of the elite by world standards. Can essentially eliminate the buffer time completely
>Nearly unlimited magic supply
>Eyes analyze magic, allows him to cancel spells.
>The worlds greatest magic technology engineer
>His crippling flaws are that he's merely "average" in looks and suffers from weakened emotions, making him the cool badass stoic character. He also is bad at baby tier spells, making people discriminate against him.]

Yeah.

This is not an exaggeration in the slightest regardless of what fanboys say.

The reviewers didn't read your fan-translated light novels and thus do not have your secret information that this is a work of staggering genius.

All the "questions" you ask about what's brought up in the first episode as though they're scintillating sound like the most generic light novel plot developments in the world. Some of those "questions" being asked about the story make it sound like you haven't really seen much anime if any of that strikes you as particularly fresh or engaging.

They found the first episode to be an uninteresting slog of poorly-written exposition. You didn't because you already know the story and are already a fan of the show, and can't see it from the perspective of someone coming to this franchise cold.

but it's kind of a waste of time to DEMAND someone like it as much as you did when they're not a pre-existing fan of the franchise and the first episode of the TV adaptation didn't do anything for them.

That doesn't change the fact that he's hilariously broken at everything else.

You don't need to be good at magic when you can annihilate an entire naval fleet by decomposing a drop of water.

That doesn't change the fact that he's hilariously broken at everything else.

You don't need to be good at magic when you can annihilate an entire naval fleet by decomposing a drop of water.

The only problem is extrapolation of "what I think about it" into "this is generic shounen, so everything will go like that and he will get harem" made by some reviews. Look at Hope Chapman, who does this and this is not okay - she is writing review of her expectation what show will become. Rebecca Silverman does pretty much the same. Meanwhile, Theron Martin while giving still failing note was able to perceive series questions and write about series, not his own expectation what it will become. Thats all what I'm asking for.

Daerian wrote:

The only problem is extrapolation of "what I think about it" into "this is generic shounen, so everything will go like that and he will get harem" made by some reviews. Look at Hope Chapman, who does this and this is not okay - she is writing review of her expectation what show will become. Rebecca Silverman does pretty much the same. Meanwhile, Theron Martin while giving still failing note was able to perceive series questions and write about series, not his own expectation what it will become. Thats all what I'm asking for.

How dare a review muse over the direction a series seems to be headed based on the only breadth of material they are privy to - clearly they should've read all the books and used a time machine to see the anime staff's future episode layouts before making any kind of judgement calls. How unprofessional of them.

I just love it how everything must be a work of staggering genius to be just nice to read/watch fun action story.

There is no word "fresh" in my wording. Mahouka is not fresh - this is just good action series, making good use of tropes. As I have written once - tropes are not bad. We use them because they are liked.

I had to read pretty much the same and ask the same questions while reading, so there is not that much difference. I didn't magically know what is later. And I don't have problems with reviews being critical, I find making extrapolations and writing review based on them, not anime wrong. I have written this i my previous post.

I don't demand from anyone liking it - stop please writing to me as I'm some forum troll, who should be bashed. I want to have discussion, and all I'm getting at this moment from ANN posters are insults and pretty much suggestions to go back to 4chan. The only person who is here discussing with me on series and not how horrible 4chan human being I am for liking Mahouka is meiam.

spoiler[ being incredibly smart, and being incredibly strong in combat, because you know, he has been literally training his ENTIRE life as his job is to PROTECT his sister from ANY threat. he has been training for around 10 years to get this way. it isn't like "poof he's smart and strong". no. this is the culmination of years of dedication.]

another god awful light novel anime with generic mega-badass audience insert wish fulfillment hero with kawaii imouto that also appeases the audience's victim complexes by suffering a lot before showing everyone how he's a super magical martial arts asskicker who delivers the smackdown to all who doubted or mocked him

TehJazza wrote:

tl;dr - I thought the first episode was a little dull, but I'm still going to watch the show for the MC being a badass .

I keep hearing this...oh...oh...OOOOOH, that's why 4chan is losing its mind over this one, it's another barely-disguised male power fantasy ala Sword Art Online.

Daerian wrote:

We all love brooding badasses. Why are Constantine, Fix or Dresden such fun and popular characters?

I find them extremely dull and overdone in fiction and most of the time they seem like they're being written to please self-satisfied teenagers, but that's just me.

Daerian wrote:

I just love it how everything must be a work of staggering genius to be just nice to read/watch fun action story.

The way you're defending it made it seem otherwise.

Quote:

There is no word "fresh" in my wording. Mahouka is not fresh - this is just good action series, making good use of tropes. As I have written once - tropes are not bad. We use them because they are liked.

Cool, doesn't seem like there's any evidence of that in the first episode, or at least the reviewers here didn't see any (except Carl - did you read Carl's preview? He seemed to find in it some of the qualities you're talking about...)

Quote:

I had to read pretty much the same and ask the same questions while reading, so there is not that much difference. I didn't magically know what is later. And I don't have problems with reviews being critical, I find making extrapolations and writing review based on them, not anime wrong. I have written this i my previous post.

You've changed the goalposts on this a couple times - first you seemed angry that people weren't giving it 3 episodes before saying "I don't find this interesting and this first episode sucks" now you're upset that they dared speculate on where they think it might go. Or maybe it's been both all along! Either way you're not giving them any room to disagree with you based on their own thoughts and feelings - they can only disagree with you in ways you deem acceptable, apparently.

Quote:

I don't demand from anyone liking it - stop please writing to me as I'm some forum troll, who should be bashed. I want to have discussion, and all I'm getting at this moment from ANN posters are insults and pretty much suggestions to go back to 4chan. The only person who is here discussing with me on series and not how horrible 4chan human being I am for liking Mahouka is meiam.

Yeah, nobody's bullying you or telling you to go away or anything like that so spare me the victim complex. You came here to argue and defend the show, people are pushing back, you'll live.

Instinctz wrote:

spoiler[ being incredibly smart, and being incredibly strong in combat, because you know, he has been literally training his ENTIRE life as his job is to PROTECT his sister from ANY threat. he has been training for around 10 years to get this way. it isn't like "poof he's smart and strong". no. this is the culmination of years of dedication.]

SCINTILLATING

here is the thing: you can assume all you want, but what happens when your assumptions are wrong? you just made a bunch of incorrect assumptions and told people that this was going to be another god awful harem anime with generic cutout characters who have no development and they won't find it interesting...

and then you find out that you were in fact completely wrong?

JesuOtaku wrote:

TehJazza wrote: tl;dr - I thought the first episode was a little dull, but I'm still going to watch the show for the MC being a badass . I keep hearing this...oh...oh...OOOOOH, that's why 4chan is losing its mind over this one, it's another barely-disguised male power fantasy ala Sword Art Online.

Sadly, this type of awful story seems to be dominating the light novel racks these days. I think it's because of the medium: Light Novels are more niche than manga, so the really successful ones tend to pander to otaku, whereas the really successful manga try to appeal to everyone.

Apparently, the easiest/laziest way to appeal to otaku is to sell them on the fantasy that one day they will be superheroes thanks to their amazing skills at playing video games/playing dating sims/lusting after their sisters. Female characters are written as little more than collectible achievements, and other males are either rivals to be crushed or acolytes who exist to sing the hero's praises.

Judging from the first episode (and yes, that is all I am going to judge it on. Deal with it.) Mahouka is the latest entry in this trend, done with a notable lack of originality and style. In the end it's just a symptom of a larger disease. As you said, we'll just get another show like this next season, so why bother?