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EP. REVIEW: Tsurune


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Dop.L



Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 713
Location: London
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:39 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, it was all very 'by the numbers' in character types and relationships here, including the annoying character who hadn't seen the main character for years but acted like it was just yesterday and nothing had changed. Then there's the whole "We're going to drag you in to this thing you told us you didn't want to do and don't give a toss if you just wind up humiliated" bullshit going on.

It's very nicely animated as you'd expect, but there's a bit of a 'same old, same old' vibe going on here, and while I'll give it a few more episodes I'd hope it can surprise me by breaking the mould.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:42 pm Reply with quote
Yeah this was... disappointing. I'm pretty sure everyone made the joke "Oh it's just going to be free but with archery" but no one expected it to actually be that. You can almost map the character 1 to 1. Visually speaking it's nothing impressive for a kyoani show (many steps back compared to violet evergarden) and free was already not very original, so this feel even less so. Honestly, I'm a bit bummed that kyoani is "wasted" on that, but I understand that Free was there cash cow for awhile that allowed them to do other stuff, so I guess I begrudgingly accept that show like these have to be made.

I just can't believe they're not even throwing some interesting twist in there. Even the writing is lazy, with the professor just randomly bumping into a bunch of veteran archer just like that. Even ignoring there total lack of originality, none of the character came off as interesting. The sport is unique, but has low potential for interesting action scene, there's literally nothing but aiming for the center (I'm not saying that it's easy, but this isn't a process that can be animated in an interesting way, nor is there much strategy to talk about), even dart has more potential since there's at least some strategy involved. You can make something interesting with archery by having various challenge (say shooting at target without clear line of sight, indirect shoot or with interesting geography), but by limiting themselves to a sports that's rigid in tradition they can't do that much interesting stuff. If there's a tournament arc it'll literally just be the same thing over and over again.

This is what I'd expect of a competent rip off of free by some no name studio.
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AA751



Joined: 13 Nov 2017
Posts: 72
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:53 pm Reply with quote
I've actually read the novel and I don't think the story is anything like Free, nor do I think, other than maybe one character there is anyone like any of the characters in Free. They moved things around a little from the novel, so I'm not sure if that made it a little more generic but things should change quite a bit from the second episode.
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sayrrin



Joined: 30 Jun 2018
Posts: 19
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 7:43 pm Reply with quote
This what what I was afraid of. Hopefully we will see the direction change soon like the comment above me says.
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tailor31415



Joined: 04 Jan 2009
Posts: 35
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 8:05 pm Reply with quote
agreed that the novel isn't like Free. maybe they won't adapt it properly, but the novel is good so I'm hopeful for the rest of the series! Very Happy
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rahzel rose
Subscriber



Joined: 19 Apr 2011
Posts: 822
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 8:10 pm Reply with quote
On the flip side, I really enjoyed the first episode. I liked all the characters, and I liked the animation and music. I could feel Minato's panic and heartbreak strongly enough that I got a little teary, and I liked the part where the teacher was explaining pieces of the sport to all the kids that came to the demonstration. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Minato's relationship with Masaki, and I want to know about Shu as well. (Hopefully he won't be antagonistic, but it didn't seem that way from the flashback, at least to me. I could be wrong, though!)

I also really liked Ichikawa Aoi's acting. As a relative newcomer, I thought he did well with the timing and vocal nuances. I'm looking forward to him getting more roles in the future.
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Neko-sensei



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 8:52 pm Reply with quote
Harumi Fuuki is a woman.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 10:37 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Even the writing is lazy, with the professor just randomly bumping into a bunch of veteran archer just like that.

Maybe it's the viewing that's lazy? Looks like Tommy had you fooled too. He clearly had been specifically looking for them. He knew who they were, by name, and later we can see he'd done enough homework on Minato to know he was considered a prodigy. He didn't just randomly grab three kids who turned out to know archery from arch supports.

I admit I was seeing a lot of Free! in the opener too, but the ending changed things up radically, and this looks like its going to be very different once it gets the groundwork out of the way. I don't expect an action sequence every episode, but that's not what I need or want from this.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 11:27 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
meiam wrote:
Even the writing is lazy, with the professor just randomly bumping into a bunch of veteran archer just like that.

Maybe it's the viewing that's lazy? Looks like Tommy had you fooled too. He clearly had been specifically looking for them. He knew who they were, by name, and later we can see he'd done enough homework on Minato to know he was considered a prodigy. He didn't just randomly grab three kids who turned out to know archery from arch supports.


Yeah that's not really what happened, he asked the first guy, sure maybe he knew that this guy practiced archery before, but then it just so happened that his two friend that he hasn't seen since forever also practiced. Oh and this guy and his cousin (?) also practice archery. Gee sure is convenient to find 5 person on the first day of school for this fairly obscure sports.

I reckon in an entire typical high school year there must be 1 to maybe 2 person with some form of experience, not a bunch of them who went to different school.
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AA751



Joined: 13 Nov 2017
Posts: 72
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 11:34 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Gina Szanboti wrote:
meiam wrote:
Even the writing is lazy, with the professor just randomly bumping into a bunch of veteran archer just like that.

Maybe it's the viewing that's lazy? Looks like Tommy had you fooled too. He clearly had been specifically looking for them. He knew who they were, by name, and later we can see he'd done enough homework on Minato to know he was considered a prodigy. He didn't just randomly grab three kids who turned out to know archery from arch supports.


Yeah that's not really what happened, he asked the first guy, sure maybe he knew that this guy practiced archery before, but then it just so happened that his two friend that he hasn't seen since forever also practiced. Oh and this guy and his cousin (?) also practice archery. Gee sure is convenient to find 5 person on the first day of school for this fairly obscure sports.

I reckon in an entire typical high school year there must be 1 to maybe 2 person with some form of experience, not a bunch of them who went to different school.


This isn't how it went in the novel. I think they just put this in as a shorthand, but the teacher knew who they were definitely, you just have to join the dots that's the case, because the anime doesn't spell it out for you.
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Mew Berry



Joined: 02 Apr 2016
Posts: 186
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 9:57 am Reply with quote
Based on what people are saying about the novel, I think I'll hold off til the episode two review. It's nice to see an anime about one of my interests, but not so much if it's incredibly generic.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:31 am Reply with quote
Not being familiar with the novel the first ep. sure didn't look completely unlike Free! to me...which is no need to get all defensive since this was a very successful series with a huge fanbase, there are definitely worse shows to get compared to. Wink

That being said, i wasn't too impressed with the characters or the plot yet (the visuals were very nice of course, as expected), but the mysterious half-naked pretty boy with the (pet?) owl got me hooked. I hope he's going to be a regular!
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:26 am Reply with quote
AA751 wrote:
This isn't how it went in the novel. I think they just put this in as a shorthand, but the teacher knew who they were definitely, you just have to join the dots that's the case, because the anime doesn't spell it out for you.


I mean sure, let's connect them (spoiler[it's weak writing that rely on convenience]). So the principle goes to this teacher and task him with reviving the archery club, an hard task considering it's a little practiced sports that require specialized equipment and club room which wouldn't be available at any school. This teacher then goes trough the entire student list to find out that there's 5 student that have experience (actually I was completely wrong on that, see it's not that this school just conveniently admitted 5 student with archery experience... it actually conveniently admitted 8 of them! I completely forgot about the wallpaper girl club member, so really it's even more convenient that I initially though). So after finding these 5 guys he find out that even more conveniently two of them are cousin and the other three are friends, how does he find that out? Who knows, do Japaneses people use facebook? (Rhetorical question, they were surprised that Ryohei was also at there school and that he had physically changed so much, yet the teacher somehow knew that they were all friend). He's also even more conveniently friend with Ryohei (somehow) so that he only need to invite him to grab all three. Sure is lucky for him that this obscure sports club literally went from 0 to 7/8 members, all of whom have experience, in 2 days.

Well maybe it was necessary for the plot that all of them be invited right away in the first episode... well obviously not. Out of all 8 new members 3 only have a name and 2 have the barest of characterization, only the main character saw a bit of development. If I had to guess I'd say the main reason for introducing everyone right away is so they could let people decide there favorite character (Best guy? Husbandfu?). Oh and also cause Free introduce all of it's main cast in the first episode.

So yeah connect the dots all you want, you just end up with more connection between poor writing and the show.
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Super_M



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 201
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:16 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:

Well maybe it was necessary for the plot that all of them be invited right away in the first episode... well obviously not. Out of all 8 new members 3 only have a name and 2 have the barest of characterization, only the main character saw a bit of development. If I had to guess I'd say the main reason for introducing everyone right away is so they could let people decide there favorite character (Best guy? Husbandfu?). Oh and also cause Free introduce all of it's main cast in the first episode.


I don't understand what's the problem? What's wrong with introduce all key characters in first episode? Series just started there's plenty of time to develop main characters.

English is not my native language.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 7:16 pm Reply with quote
Super_M wrote:

I don't understand what's the problem? What's wrong with introduce all key characters in first episode? Series just started there's plenty of time to develop main characters.

English is not my native language.


No problem with introducing all the character in the first episode. The problem is the lack of care for a proper verisimilitude (crafting a believable illusion of reality for the world) and how this will probably affect the series for the rest of the show. Rather than crafting a world where it's believable that multiple people would all join the archery club the writer just said "I can't be bothered with that" and just snapped his finger and made a bunch of character that all already knew how to be archer (to play archery? to practice archery? Not quite sure what the proper term would be there).

The next time a problem will show up, it might again just be ignored. Narrative are better when they deal with problem that will naturally happen from the theme or story element rather than just ignore them and manufacture some artificial one on the side (which just break verisimilitude even more). There's a lot of interesting aspect that could have been explored. They would have to find some interesting aspect to help recruit peoples which could have been used to naturally explore the subject: any health benefit (it's not very sporty for a sport but it also avoid risk of serious injury)? What are the historical aspect of the sports? How respect and widespread is the sports? Instead of naturally letting this arise from the setting these subject might be introduced in the story via info dumb instead, because the writer just won't be bothered to come up with situation, so why not just have a "as you know" speech.

In short, it's lazy writing, the author think of where he want to get to and just draw a straight line to it.
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