Forum - View topicRadiant (TV).
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Radiant (TV) Genres: fantasy Themes: Plot Summary:
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Stark700
Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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I thought the first episode was surprisingly fun to watch with the high fantasy themes and world fiction. I'm impressed by the animation quality (hope they can at least manage this). Opening song 'Utopia' is catchy too.
There's definitely a lot of fantasy stuff going around in the show. Hell, even the MC doesn't look entirely human with the horns. That being said, I think Seth is likable so far with his personality although I have to get used to his voice a little more. Hope they develop his character. They also wasted no time to showcase how daring he can be when facing against supernatural threats. Fun stuff so far. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15462 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 21 (Season 1 Finale)
Yeah, I was watching this, really weird to end at this time though. Was this just where they planned on finishing, part way through the Winter anime season? If one were to wonder why I never posted anything about it, it would probably be because I don't think it was very good, another shounen anime that feels around the same level of Black Clover, with nothing that I would call an understanding of subtlety of character writing, and honestly did not feel very smart. I will say that I was starting to get into it at the end though. Perhaps it bothers me more than it used to, but I have just had little interest in cliché characters who are always just portrayed in the laziest ways, and generally most characters were done in the loudest way possible. To be fare, Seth is far better a character than Asta, it was actually kind of interesting when he seemed to come to realizations of his own ability. I would actually say that it was Black Clover that poisoned me with taking this series, despite not having as much of the grating character voices, awful character tropes things like tsundere, or repeated unnecessary jokes that were not funny the first 5 times. Still wasn't great, and trying to think about what I specifically had a problem with, it might sound a bit off but something about the setting. Not the setting in concept, but things like how it kept doing the debt thing, perhaps because I work in finance, but I wasn't quite a fan of how it did the ever increasing debt thing. Another would be doc always for some reason creeping on the café owner, and also those weird creatures always drinking outside her place, like always doing it and only there to feel weird. Going back to what I said of setting, I think that they felt like cracks of world building. It had the whole pied piper storyline, and it was like they only had one track for the tune of playing a pipe, so they just kept repeating it whenever they wanted it played, when variance probably could have gone a long way. I still don't get how the sorcerers could live in fear of the inquisition people, when they had already created their own state, and should have a lot of political and economic weight that they could levy against the inquisitors. That they probably could turn general people against the inquisition for mindless hunting sorcerers while not being able to deal with the nemesis. Maybe it was the thing about the mentions of debt and extravagant parties that just conflict with my economics mind. That a big splendour means either they are buying from elsewhere that would build relationships, or distributing money amongst certain people that would be building some sort of internal economy. And that if a problem lies in that everyone just does their own things, than the exact reason for the high debts should be like they could force/encourage those with the debts to work for some part of the city that would help it grow. Normally this sort of thing would not be important, it would be nit-picky and not just enjoying the show as it is, but when it has things like themes of debt, state wealth, and a need to improve their image, it kind of feels silly not to expect these things to be relevant. To me at least it feels like they didn't think it through enough. At the end of it, I was not such a fan, but I don't think it was the worst ever. I might have even liked it more if I was not already sick of a shounen that I am watching where it is a dumb kid who doesn't understand magic properly, and kind of blindly wants to achieve the greatest thing ever because he heard it once that it was good. I give it a rating of Not very good (4/10), because it wasn't really, but I can also confidently say that it is not a total waste of time, and has some enjoyable parts. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15462 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Season 2, Episode 21 (finale)
Kind of a travesty that I did not at all talk about the second season while it was on, because it has actually been kind of awesome. You can see my thoughts on the first season to see that I was not the biggest fan of the first, but second season felt like it did a total 180, and I actually became pretty invested. This probably partially comes down to the second season pretty much entirely being within a setting kind of different to the first season, confined to a nation that does not vilify sorcerers, but kind of run by them, the queen such a sorcerer and sorcerer knights the main defenders. The season started off with Seth and Mélie fighting with each other, which can sound like it would be a bit contrived, but the conflict felt kind of believable. Seth did not tell her where he was going, making her feel like he did not see her as the friend she thought they. Seth's reasoning being that he felt really bad about how he went into a berserk mode and could be dangerous to his friends, which sounds like a good reasoning except this plays straight into Mélie's greatest insecurity. Mélie's curse is her changing personality where she has no active control over when she goes into her aggressive mode and could hurt people by not thinking. While it felt like Mélie was being melodramatic, Seth has no response that his fears can be viewed through Mélie's point of view and how it can feel like a big betrayal. And then that leads into new character of the season, first Myr, who has some great interesting complexes that feel like more than the sort of silliness that plagued the first season a bit, despite initial appearances. And then there is Ocoho, who I think might be the best character in the show, she is a dark skinned girl, that has really strong drive to prove herself, but also super strong empathy for others. I think that it would be fair to say that Ocoho is black, which I don't think is too common in a main anime character, especially one where it seems that her apparent race kind of plays no part in how she is treated. She does not feel like a designated female character that Mélie could at times feel like, she is strong in her own right, but not some Mary Sue that can't be outdone by others, her biggest gift seeming to be how she can control groups of people, and how she uses that with empathy. I in all honesty think that Ocoho is one of my favourite recent female characters, and how I think she and the show managed to round out other female characters, such Mélie herself. which the show did feel like it stopped saying that her character should just be used as a joke about see how funny a girly girly that mostly plays defense is when she suddenly becomes a super aggressive sadist. Mélie felt like she grew as a character with self respect that could be accepted for both sides of her. Next character the largest authority character of the season, the queen, which is self explanatory as a female figure, and an interest mark that she actually talks to Ocoho about despite the fact she is the queen she has to sort of fight in a men's world as does Ocoho, a warning about how she might be seen by people as her trying so hard to achieve. And big female character (not just figurative along with the queen) is Jill, Myr's wife, partial mother like figure to Seth, and pretty much what the climax of the show is built around, a mother nature like figure that I think adds a good balance to the other female characters. There are other characters too, but it really feels like this season was built these in terms of emotional beats, rather than whatever new story Seth and co come across, weird ones like that coffee episode. Second season is certainly more serious than the first, you also have a long line of other villains, such as the other thaumaturges that made brief appearances in the first season, with a good point of the fally of their blind trust that what they are doing is right and not seeing the awful things they do. Similar with the merchant noble characters, who just feel like the worst kind of people that treat everything as how they can profit, treating people like things they can own, they were also generally unpleasant and gross, but it did not feel always clumsy and without good writing like you would get out of Black Clover for instance. Thinking of a rating for the second season... I think that I am going with Very good (8/10), having seen the first season and thinking that I could at least enjoy parts of the second season, I felt kind of blown away that I moved Radiant from the bottom of watch orders, to much higher that I could generally expect myself to feel fulfilled after each episode, because it became that enjoyable to me. Maybe feels a bit drastic that I would say the first half of this show is something that I thought was actually not really good, but second half better than just being good, but I think it reached that, not that it could not occasionally get a bit too silly. I do like it when I can be wrong about what a series could be like this, and so happy I did decide to keep watching. Look forward to future adaptions. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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I saw those complaints in the episode chat too, that Melie blew it out of proportion but I didn't get that feeling at all. This scene has to be nailed down perfectly as its the fulcrum point of the entire second season... What Seth did was not only decide their entire relationship on his own but he also left without a word. No goodbyes, no apologies, not even a "It's not you, it's me", he just left like she did not matter. It wasn't just a betrayal, Seth treated her like he didn't need her at all. Worse was how Seth thought Melie was following him when she was there for her own training. Somewhat odd to note that the main theme of season 2 was empathy Exemplified in Ocoho when it should start in this scene with Melie. Meleie did not change in that scene and it wasn't because it was a matter of drama or comedy, it was because Melie was fully in control of herself at that point. Not angry, not disappointed, she was just Melie by then because she was just that drained and then it hit me that the show as shown from Seth's POV up to that point did not detail what Melie went through while she tended him while he was unconscious. We don't know because Seth doesn't know. Does he even care? Funny how while we're given his POV, he's far too simple to express his own feelings beyond "He wants his friends to be safe". As other comments for that episode said, while other shonen series climax with two characters yelling at each other on a battlefield, this one did it with two characters talking quietly about their emotions. It's also should be noted that what Seth feared did happen, he did in fact lose control and it was only the words of understanding from Melie that brought him out of it. It wasn't even a "You're in their somewhere, fight!" scene, she went into the magical realm and pulled him out personally. Good series that gets better upon reflection and I would like to see it continue as this series gets really funny when it tries, even with something as simple as "Draccoon", and I love how these characters work off of each other. Straight forward Ocoho and determined to stay mysterious Grim? It's pretty obvious who's going to see his face first. |
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