×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Drifters


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
chaccide



Joined: 16 Aug 2016
Posts: 295
PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:58 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
chaccide wrote:
And the fact that in real life he was a guy who raped, tortured, and murdered kids

Wait, what? Shocked I admit I don't know much about him, but from what I've read he seemed pretty harmless, and kind of interesting. Are we talking about this Count St. Germain?


No, I was confusing him with Gilles de Rais. Apologies to St Germain, who may be out there reading this... Laughing
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 9:21 pm Reply with quote
SHD wrote:
"Weird. So he (again, St Germi specifically) is not just weird on the outside but on the inside as well."
etc etc. from that point they're talking about St Germi.

So the weirdos, deviants was in singular and not plural? Yes, that's a bit different. I did get that Oda was talking about Germi at the beginning, understanding his motivations, etc. But then Toyo apparently shifted the focus off him, with Oda enthusiastically expanding on the theme and it became problematic.

chaccide wrote:
Apologies to St Germain, who may be out there reading this...

Lol, he may well be. Either way, I'm relieved on his behalf.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:19 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
SHD wrote:
"Weird. So he (again, St Germi specifically) is not just weird on the outside but on the inside as well."
etc etc. from that point they're talking about St Germi.

So the weirdos, deviants was in singular and not plural? Yes, that's a bit different. I did get that Oda was talking about Germi at the beginning, understanding his motivations, etc. But then Toyo apparently shifted the focus off him, with Oda enthusiastically expanding on the theme and it became problematic.

Yes, it's supposed to be St Germi only. That's how it makes sense grammatically, by the flow of the dialogue, and by the flow of the story. I'd perhaps understand if there were no pronouns or other markers to guide interpreting the dialogue but there are: Toyo starts out by asking about St Germi (あの男女), Nobu gives his explanation about amoral backstabbers (ああいう手合~) and then switches the focus back to specifically St Germi (だから奴は信用できる). And from then on there's nothing that would indicate that they're talking about anything other than St Germi, Nobu's line makes it quite clear (あのカッコウはないよな). Seeing how neither of them like St Germi, they're having fun insulting him, that's why St Germi interjects with "hey, I can hear you, y'know!"

I'd wonder how the translator didn't get all this, but having seen some of their other gaffes, I'm not surprised. This is a similar situation as the "I saw a man who had the same eyes as yours. I don't know who he was and what he talked about, etc." scene in the previous episode that made me facepalm so much it still hurts. That was again an obvious case of the translator not only not being able to follow the dialogue but, most likely, not understanding what the characters are talking about. Never mind using "saw a man" when the implication is obviously "knew a man" (seeing as how Nobu is talking about Matsunaga, someone he's had a connection with long enough for Matsunaga to betray him twice), it's so obviously supposed to be "I don't know who you are and what you're talking about", given that he has no idea who St Germi is, while he knows Matsunaga well enough that the "serial backstabber alert" bell is going off in his head, and the dialogue is about how he's assessing St Germi and making mental preparations to deal with yet another traitorous bastard.

Just goes to show that speaking a language doesn't make you a good translator... I wish there was a chance for Crunchyroll correcting these mistakes.

(But then if there was any QA at Crunchyroll this translator would have been off the project in the moment they wrote that Nobunaga was "the former Minister of the Right of the Oda Clan." At best it's screwy grammar and misleading translation, and at worst... holy cow, even if you don't know all his titles, how can you not notice how wrong this is? How can you not know who Oda Nobunaga is?)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 10:36 am Reply with quote
^Well the main reason why they don't seem to have QA is the time constraints they are under. They just don't have time to go through all the lines with a fine toothed comb before sending it out. Although If you are correct about those lines you pointed out (not that I doubt that), they may be wrong enough to be changed for physical release.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Baskerville



Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 1:46 am Reply with quote
So hyped for some Hijikata action!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CCTakato



Joined: 24 Jul 2015
Posts: 514
PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 2:12 am Reply with quote
Even ignoring the controversial nature of the humor in this episode, the humor in Drifters in general is just not very good. It's the typical kind of repetitious "comedy" you see get overused to death in a lot of anime and it's not very witty or original humor. I feel like it's trying too hard to imitate Hellsing's style of humor but it's not quite getting it. Drifters is at it's best when it's focused on fantasy world building and cool action scenes. The humor is probably the worst part of the show.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
diamoundheadx



Joined: 30 Sep 2016
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 9:18 pm Reply with quote
screw drifters it was bad
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Sahmbahdeh



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 712
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:16 am Reply with quote
That was probably my personal favorite episode of Drifters. The action was excellent and so cool it hurts, and the soundtrack stepped it up to god-tier levels. Purely as spectacle, this was a fantastic episode. From a narrative standpoint, however, we barely have anything to work with, and so much ground to cover before we even get anything close to resembling a complete work. This feels like the beginning to a series, and if we hadn't gotten the (tentative) promise of a season 2, I'd f]probably feel pretty gypped. As things stand, though, the style won out for me over the lack of substance, and I mostly enjoyed this series overall, in spite of its many flaws.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:17 am Reply with quote
Well drifter doesn't really have to introduce characters, they all have long biography, just open wikipedia and you can read up all about each character motivation.

Overall I'm very satisfied with drifter, I mean it suck that it's not finished, but we knew that from the beginning.

And personally I really like that large part of the story were dictated by logistic rather than what would make the most poignant scene, it's great. I'm pretty tired of show that have just character go stupid to ensure that certain event happen even if they make no sense.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TamenishDragon



Joined: 20 Jun 2015
Posts: 43
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:21 am Reply with quote
I don't get why Drifters doesn't rate more highly this season. It may not feel complete, but that is the point - the story of these misplaced historical figures is only just beginning! I can't wait for another season. The final episode was an epic spectacle of battle and strategy, leaving a perfect opening for season 2. Let's hope 20XX is just a clever disguise for 2017!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Animorphimagi





PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 1:31 am Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Well drifter doesn't really have to introduce characters, they all have long biography, just open wikipedia and you can read up all about each character motivation.

Overall I'm very satisfied with drifter, I mean it suck that it's not finished, but we knew that from the beginning.

And personally I really like that large part of the story were dictated by logistic rather than what would make the most poignant scene, it's great. I'm pretty tired of show that have just character go stupid to ensure that certain event happen even if they make no sense.


I agree SO MUCH. I feel like too many people, especially the reviewer doesn't understand the point to the series. WE WILL GET BASICALLY NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!! These are people who DIED for beliefs and motivations that in this story don't really matter but they won't change because they were stubborn enough to die for those beliefs.
I'm not sure if it could be called a story but the show is about an indepth analysis of how war used to be and how it's changed yet never changes. It's about the different things people want out of war and eventually I expect The Dark King will most likely be Jesus and the show will examine the power that faith can bring in the middle of war. I doubt the technology will improve too much from this point on but the fights between drifters and the ends will likely become more numerous and will happen to pit 2 ideologies against each other. We weren't supposed to know anything about Hijikata before BUT NOW WE DO. I learned everything i needed to know about him in the final episode and i can't wait to see Hijikata fall even deeper into his madness to crush Toyohisa.
Unfortunately it may take some time for people to appreciate this show's views on warfare and the people who enjoy using it for their grandiose schemes, but I'm confident that there will be enough fans to have a sequel in 2020 or whenever
Back to top
SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 2:52 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Yes, you could argue that Hijikata Yoshitoyo should have been introduced and developed much earlier

It's Toshizou. Hijikata Toshizou. (Yoshitoyo is not a name he went by, here he just used it for the formal introduction.) If you're watching a show about historical characters you're not familiar with it's always worth looking them up. Especially when you have a show like Drifters, which uses their real-life history as character introduction. Drifters assumes that you either paid attention in history class and/or at least are interested in it to know who its main characters are, so if you're notb familiar with them, Google helps not only with understanding who these people are, but also with seeing the subtext and connections that are clear to people who know the history behind the characters. It would also help to explain heaps about Yoichi or Yoshitsune, never mind Nobunaga and why he's treated as technically a villain who just happens to be on the "good" guys' side.

In this case, Hijikata being the most famous member of the Shinsengumi should make it obvious that he'll be the designated opponent of Toyohisa from the moment you first hear his name (like Yoshitsune is Yoichi's and Mitsuhide is Nobunaga's). Knowledge of the Meiji Restoration (that the Shinsengumi violently opposed) would also make it clear what his problem is with the Shimazu clan and how it ties into the ghosts he's dragging around (and would help understanding the point of the scene where Toyo said he was sure that the Shimazu eventually took down the Tokugawa as they'd set out to do during his lifetime).

Watching a show like this without knowing the history of the characters is a bit like watching an adaptation of the American Civil War and wondering who this Abe Lincoln guy is and not getting what this John Wilkes Booth guy has against him. These guys are famous.

Then again, this is a reviewer who, after 12 episodes, writes this:
Quote:
Toyohisa, Ichio, and Nobunaga

Yoichi. His name is Yoichi. Come on now, it's been 12 episodes.

Anyway... The finale was very well-done, it was really Drifters at its best. I'm only disappointed that they left out the scenes from the direct aftermath... they add some really nice insight into Toyo and how the other characters see him, and what his ideas of fighting and not caring about his own life means in this larger context. Without these the fight doesn't quite have the weight I think it should have. Too bad...

Animorphimagi wrote:
I agree SO MUCH. I feel like too many people, especially the reviewer doesn't understand the point to the series. WE WILL GET BASICALLY NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!!

We do, though, it's just fairly low-key. Not with Toyohisa, sure - but with Toyo the point is that he stays true to himself whatever the situation is. But other than that there's Nobunaga's spiral into villainy as he gets more and more heated up on his power trip, and is only held back by Toyo and Yoichi providing a sort of moral grounding for him. This will definitely cause some issues down the road, especially with Mitsuhide skulking around. And there's Yoichi who started out aloof and wary of Nobunaga and Toyohisa, seeing them as the same as his old master, until he got to know Toyo more and realized that Toyo is different, that they're equals and the other two are not treating him as just a tool. Which is one of the reasons why I miss seeing the aftermath scenes, they show how much Yoichi got attached to Toyo. (It's not obvious in English but in the beginning he also spoke in a rather rigid and formal manner, and has loosened up a lot during the course of the story.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
jutsuri



Joined: 14 Aug 2015
Posts: 49
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 11:28 am Reply with quote
Just wanted to chime in to agree with those saying that the knowledge of the characters' history makes all the difference. I was sad to see Hijikata cast as an End but it's totally understandable, and his clash with Shimazu was clearly meant to be and filled with extra meaning if you are already emotionally invested because of a love of history and historical figures. I thought Hijikata's little smile at the end was particularly poingent, knowing how hard he fought to preserve the samurai lifestyle he couldn't help but be happy that Shimazu called him a samurai.

The humor also works better too; I was very amused when Yoichi and Nobu were making fun of the Shimazu clan for being provincial for so many generations, I loved Germain's reaction to finally hearing Hannibal's name, and Hannibal's timely, if odd, advice about warfare.

I would also like to mention that the characters in the manga come off as not homophobic. The Sacred Band of Thebes is seen as a whole squad of shudou pairings, and Nobunaga's alleged lover Mori Ranmaru is brought up more than once. This could be a translation issue, or maybe those parts were cut for a different reason, but I definitely found the manga to be more even handed (and historically accurate) regarding homosexuality.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
James_Beckett
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 23 Nov 2015
Posts: 274
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:34 pm Reply with quote
jutsuri wrote:
Just wanted to chime in to agree with those saying that the knowledge of the characters' history makes all the difference. I was sad to see Hijikata cast as an End but it's totally understandable, and his clash with Shimazu was clearly meant to be and filled with extra meaning if you are already emotionally invested because of a love of history and historical figures. I thought Hijikata's little smile at the end was particularly poingent, knowing how hard he fought to preserve the samurai lifestyle he couldn't help but be happy that Shimazu called him a samurai.


These are fair points to make, to be sure, though I would still argue that the lack of context within the actual narrative still hurts the story in the long run, if only for reasons of pacing and emotional impact. It's true that I am no historian, but to toss around characters from different time periods as loosely as this show does makes for uneven characterization and a needlessly protracted pace of storytelling, since a lot of time that could be spent further developing the actual story is spent on protracted "Wouldn't it be cool if X and X fought each other" battles.


Granted, as I stated in my review, that doesn't make Drifters a bad show at all! You'll notice I gave the finale a B, which is a good score, and I think I'd extend that grade to the season as a whole. It's a fun show, and fairly consistent in its entertainment factor, but it lacks a lot of cohesion for folks who aren't history buffs, such as myself. I imagine that a second season would help with a lot of these issues, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from there.

SHD wrote:


Then again, this is a reviewer who, after 12 episodes, writes this:
Quote:
Toyohisa, Ichio, and Nobunaga


Yoichi. His name is Yoichi. Come on now, it's been 12 episodes.



You can thank my device's autocorrect on that one, though I should have caught it, you're right. Blame the rush and tumble of the holiday season! And I'm glad to see that so many people enjoyed Drifters. Again, I did too, as I would like to stress, but the historical learning curve obviously didn't affect many people as much as it did me. That's good!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
jutsuri



Joined: 14 Aug 2015
Posts: 49
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 1:49 pm Reply with quote
James_Beckett wrote:


Granted, as I stated in my review, that doesn't make Drifters a bad show at all! You'll notice I gave the finale a B, which is a good score, and I think I'd extend that grade to the season as a whole. It's a fun show, and fairly consistent in its entertainment factor, but it lacks a lot of cohesion for folks who aren't history buffs, such as myself. I imagine that a second season would help with a lot of these issues, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from there.



I hope I didn't come off as argumentative, I just wanted to say that I was able to enjoy the show a lot because I already have some knowledge about and affection for the characters.

On the other hand I think some tweaking of the manga content could have made it work better as a stand alone story, or at least a more complete feeling prologue to the greater story that is yet to come. The anime stuck pretty closely to the manga, which feels like it's still in the set-up phase of the story, so I don't think there was any way for the anime to feel complete. With luck the second season will alleviate that, but my fear is that the entire story is going to be far too long for the anime to cover. We might get a second season that closes out the prologue to the main story in a satisfying way, but I doubt it will be able to reach the end of the conflict that has been laid out.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next
Page 9 of 10

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group