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EP. REVIEW: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? II


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TichoSlicer



Joined: 26 Feb 2017
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:20 pm Reply with quote
WTF man, epi 2 doesn't make any sense lol Any Family can just dostroy all the city and do whatever they want with whoever they want and NOBODY will do anything? So whats the meaning of a guild? lol If they don't have any power, just close that shit... This epi was just... strange...
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Amuro1X



Joined: 02 Sep 2009
Posts: 173
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:28 pm Reply with quote
Eh, not really. It's all about bureaucracy. The Guild is the defacto government of Orario. They issue quests, give out rewards for exploring the dungeon, but also tax the various familias in the city. Royman, the elf in charge of the guild, mentioned that Apollo could just pay off any fine they imposed, and as he knew their target was Bell, part of a small familia, he wasn't too concerned about widespread damage to the city. IF a Familia went rogue and became a threat, the guild would hire a larger more powerful Familia like Loki familia to take care of it, but of course that means paying them. Their's just no incentive to issue a quest to Loki familia or Freya familia when their price is so high when they're just gonna fine Apollo anyway. Also, they'd rather avoid conflicts between large familias.

Again, bureaucracy sucks.
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MiloTheFirst



Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 429
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:51 pm Reply with quote
after watching the 1st episode I became really disappointed.

I think I enjoyed the first season because I had gone in with different expectations, back then I just expected a lighthearted fun watch with a bit a somewhat different art style and was surprised by the nice action choreography and the strong emotions in the red Minotaur battle, basically I came expecting for little so they over delivered.

this time around it was the oposite, I came fresh after remembering the highlights of the first season so I felt a harder crash when faced with the sub par writing. the first relevant scene in this episode revolves around a random douche mocking hestia, calling her an unaccomplished goddess that has nothing going for her except her big tits, so we must be on Bell's side, right? except, apparently the show itself doesn't because it introduces hestia for the first time with a shot of her chest, then refuses to give her any personality trait other than being a plot device for going into the party and then just do a generic over bearing jealous love interest routine. then there is the Apollo guy, I just can't respect a show that treats its audience as idiots by making the villain as blatantly cartoonishly douchey as it just did. come on, they don't have to give him a nuanced back story or whatever but they just kicked the overly blatant scumbag smug face™ into over drive. I mean, if they want to make him a dick that's fine but they don't have to shove it in our faces so hard, it makes me fell looked down upon

At least the art retains some of the charm from the first season such as the elegant lines in wallensteins' back and shoulders, and the opening suggest that there are going to be at least 2 more arcs after this one

then there is episode 2. on the one hand there was a good fill of well choreographed battle animation, but on the other the writing became even more nonsensical. I can get behind people not caring about injustice as long as it doesn't happened to their own family, I can also understand major familias not wanting to get beef with another major familia, but bro the way this played out was really stupid, it was as if all of a sudden the city became the wild wild west (while the first season did nothing to suggest that). are there no warranties at all in that city? whats with that "they will just pay the fine"? is that what they do there, fine people for attempted murder? if that's the setting they want to have fine but don't just throw it at us like it doesn't matter, elaborate and make it more palatable, gee. if they want to make us buy this ludicrous prohibition era gangster film scenario at least work harder at introducing it and justifying it. then there were the blatantly shameless inorganic shots of hestia's body admits what was supposed to be a scene filled with tension and thrill.

to be clear, I think the series is still enjoyable, if anything the action alone is enough to keep me watching and hopefully the next arcs will be better written but, oh boy, color me utterly disappointed with the quality of the writing and direction
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steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
Posts: 342
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:20 pm Reply with quote
So far so fun, I finally broke down and watched the first season a few weeks ago at a friend's urgings. Man, was that title ever a terrible turn off! Fortunately I had a lot more fun with the show than I ever expected to due to the title, and I'm glad I watched it in time to catch this season airing.

Hestia remains the most boring part of the show to me, but the side-characters and the story of this ragtag group coming together and -/playing D&D/- I mean doing important dungeon battles for reasons is the best kind of low stakes fun.

Really excited about this season, it's been a good set-up so far and Lili is my favorite character, so I'm looking forward to a little attention paid to her!
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4369
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:22 pm Reply with quote
i wonder why did the reviwer called the war games arc the best of them considering that the one most fans are extremely intrigued by is the xenos arc aka vols 9-11 of the light novels
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:46 pm Reply with quote
MiloTheFirst wrote:
after watching the 1st episode I became really disappointed.

I think I enjoyed the first season because I had gone in with different expectations, back then I just expected a lighthearted fun watch with a bit a somewhat different art style and was surprised by the nice action choreography and the strong emotions in the red Minotaur battle, basically I came expecting for little so they over delivered.

this time around it was the oposite, I came fresh after remembering the highlights of the first season so I felt a harder crash when faced with the sub par writing. the first relevant scene in this episode revolves around a random douche mocking hestia, calling her an unaccomplished goddess that has nothing going for her except her big tits, so we must be on Bell's side, right? except, apparently the show itself doesn't because it introduces hestia for the first time with a shot of her chest, then refuses to give her any personality trait other than being a plot device for going into the party and then just do a generic over bearing jealous love interest routine. then there is the Apollo guy, I just can't respect a show that treats its audience as idiots by making the villain as blatantly cartoonishly douchey as it just did. come on, they don't have to give him a nuanced back story or whatever but they just kicked the overly blatant scumbag smug face™ into over drive. I mean, if they want to make him a dick that's fine but they don't have to shove it in our faces so hard, it makes me fell looked down upon

At least the art retains some of the charm from the first season such as the elegant lines in wallensteins' back and shoulders, and the opening suggest that there are going to be at least 2 more arcs after this one

then there is episode 2. on the one hand there was a good fill of well choreographed battle animation, but on the other the writing became even more nonsensical. I can get behind people not caring about injustice as long as it doesn't happened to their own family, I can also understand major familias not wanting to get beef with another major familia, but bro the way this played out was really stupid, it was as if all of a sudden the city became the wild wild west (while the first season did nothing to suggest that). are there no warranties at all in that city? whats with that "they will just pay the fine"? is that what they do there, fine people for attempted murder? if that's the setting they want to have fine but don't just throw it at us like it doesn't matter, elaborate and make it more palatable, gee. if they want to make us buy this ludicrous prohibition era gangster film scenario at least work harder at introducing it and justifying it. then there were the blatantly shameless inorganic shots of hestia's body admits what was supposed to be a scene filled with tension and thrill.

to be clear, I think the series is still enjoyable, if anything the action alone is enough to keep me watching and hopefully the next arcs will be better written but, oh boy, color me utterly disappointed with the quality of the writing and direction


Familias going to war or attacking each other has been established though. The Freya Familia attacked Ais after one of her training sessions with Bell (don’t recall if this was in the first season but this was in Sword Oratoria), and there is Ryuu’s backstory where her familia was murdered by another (group of) familia, and she killed one of the familias involved in revenge (as was introduced in the first season). The Soma familia’s shady dealings are also of a piece of this Wild West esque lawlessness. I don’t really get why this came out of left field for you.

As for the Guild, they don’t have their own military force, so if a larger familia goes on a rampage and the other larger familia aren’t inclined to intervene, they would have no way to enforce any punishments on them beyond financial. Even if they were to hire a larger familia, unless that familia is vastly stronger than them and can suppress them quickly, that would probably just make for a longer and more destructive war.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:50 pm Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
I wonder why did the reviwer called the war games arc the best of them

She didn't. She said it was "one of the most exciting storylines" and I imagine she said that because that's how she feels about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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MiloTheFirst



Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 429
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 12:33 am Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:

Familias going to war or attacking each other has been established though. The Freya Familia attacked Ais after one of her training sessions with Bell (don’t recall if this was in the first season but this was in Sword Oratoria), and there is Ryuu’s backstory where her familia was murdered by another (group of) familia, and she killed one of the familias involved in revenge (as was introduced in the first season). The Soma familia’s shady dealings are also of a piece of this Wild West esque lawlessness. I don’t really get why this came out of left field for you.


familias constantly being a dick to each other was indeed established, what wasn't established was for this town to be completely lawless, and that's what I find issue with

zrnzle500 wrote:
As for the Guild, they don’t have their own military force, so if a larger familia goes on a rampage and the other larger familia aren’t inclined to intervene, they would have no way to enforce any punishments on them beyond financial. Even if they were to hire a larger familia, unless that familia is vastly stronger than them and can suppress them quickly, that would probably just make for a longer and more destructive war.


lets break it down.

"As for the Guild, they don’t have their own military force" then why don't they? if they are not supposed to have it then who is the one supposed to have it? how could this city had been founded without any mechanism to hold citizens accountable? do you see where I am getting at?

"so if a larger familia goes on a rampage and the other larger familia aren’t inclined to intervene they would have no way to enforce any punishments on them beyond financial" you are basically saying "if a group of people goes out an assault some one in a whim then the victim must depend on another large group of people wanting to intervene also in a whim of their own" and we are supposed to imagine everyone agreed with that when the gods sat down to decide the rules for coexistence

"Even if they were to hire a larger familia, unless that familia is vastly stronger than them and can suppress them quickly, that would probably just make for a longer and more destructive war" so the logical solution is for them to let the big mafia go rampant as they please? that's just stupid. it doesn't even take going to war to subdue them, even if Apollo familia happened to be stronger than any other single familia it couldn't possibly be stronger than all the other familias combined, all it would have taken to subdue them was a pact of ethics in which if a familia shamelessly assaulted someone as they did (hestia had not agreed to any war or competition) all the familias would band together in order to cast out the rogue familia from the town, and they would have to either behave or leave because they are not idiots and simple math says they couldn't win a war against the whole town

if they want me to buy into the world building they need to treat this society as something more functional. also, I really appreciate your concern and efforts in trying to fill me in, but you are forgetting that te real issue is that you are not supposed to make these justifications, the show is, and it didn't
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
Posts: 4884
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 3:50 am Reply with quote
Did Miach and his animal-eared archer girlfriend appear in the first season? The way they were introduced was like we were supposed to be familiar with them already, but I have no recollection of them.
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Soulwarfare



Joined: 10 Dec 2017
Posts: 525
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 7:05 am Reply with quote
Season 1 was okay but very rushed considering they did 5 volumes in 13 episodes. This season seems to be focusing on just 2 (or 3 volumes) and the pace is definitely much better
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Nordhmmer



Joined: 11 Feb 2017
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 7:20 am Reply with quote
MiloTheFirst wrote:
.......why?what? and how?...,



Your answers lie within the light novel series or the DanMachi Wiki site.
But expecting an LN adaption to go beyond just being a primer- you're also asking for information provided in this current arc(episode 3 will provide the ground rules for a "war game") and future story lines reveal,what they reveal....


.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 8:23 am Reply with quote
MiloTheFirst wrote:
familias constantly being a dick to each other was indeed established, what wasn't established was for this town to be completely lawless, and that's what I find issue with


I dare say a familia getting murdered by another group of familia and the lone survivor murdering part of them in revenge is more than just "being a dick to each other" and if anything more extreme than what Apollo had planned, brazen though he may be in going about it.

MiloTheFirst wrote:
lets break it down.

"As for the Guild, they don’t have their own military force" then why don't they? if they are not supposed to have it then who is the one supposed to have it? how could this city had been founded without any mechanism to hold citizens accountable? do you see where I am getting at?


The city was formed around dealing with the threat of the dungeon, and the guild manages the dungeon. They aren't the government. If they had a military, they wouldn't need the adventurers. While I admit I don't know all the specifics on its founding, I don't think it is that hard to figure out how the town could have formed without an overarching government beforehand. The gods come down and marshal some forces to deal with the threat of the dungeon. They are gods and come from various pantheons, so I imagine they are not keen to form a single military that would ultimately have to be led by one of them, so they have separate forces. They get the dungeon under control, but it is not completely subdued, so they need to stick around, and that means their forces need to be fed and housed, so they build encampments which eventual become a town. They have their own forces, so they aren't inclined to submit to a single government authority, but there is still a need for an organization to oversee the dungeon, so the guild is formed with the latter but not former function.

MiloTheFirst wrote:
"so if a larger familia goes on a rampage and the other larger familia aren’t inclined to intervene they would have no way to enforce any punishments on them beyond financial" you are basically saying "if a group of people goes out an assault some one in a whim then the victim must depend on another large group of people wanting to intervene also in a whim of their own" and we are supposed to imagine everyone agreed with that when the gods sat down to decide the rules for coexistence

"Even if they were to hire a larger familia, unless that familia is vastly stronger than them and can suppress them quickly, that would probably just make for a longer and more destructive war" so the logical solution is for them to let the big mafia go rampant as they please? that's just stupid. it doesn't even take going to war to subdue them, even if Apollo familia happened to be stronger than any other single familia it couldn't possibly be stronger than all the other familias combined, all it would have taken to subdue them was a pact of ethics in which if a familia shamelessly assaulted someone as they did (hestia had not agreed to any war or competition) all the familias would band together in order to cast out the rogue familia from the town, and they would have to either behave or leave because they are not idiots and simple math says they couldn't win a war against the whole town

if they want me to buy into the world building they need to treat this society as something more functional. also, I really appreciate your concern and efforts in trying to fill me in, but you are forgetting that te real issue is that you are not supposed to make these justifications, the show is, and it didn't


If a larger familia presented a persistent threat to the safety of the whole town, I think they would be able to band together the larger familia to deal with them. But considering that they are going against a small familia, by the time they organize the other familia, the smaller one would already 1) be defeated, 2) flee the city, or 3) accept the duel with the other familia, which is the option Bell took. Regardless of which one happened, the threat to the town would quickly pass over even without their intervention. Besides you said yourself that you understand why the major ones wouldn't be inclined to get into a fight with another major familia. Why does that change with the Guild asking them to get involved. Then there's the fact that at least nominally, the Apollo familia is just holding Hestia's familia accountable for beating up some of their familia (regardless of how played up the injuries may have been and how they were provoked by those familia members). They offered to resolve it in a relatively peaceable way with the War Game, but Hestia refused, so they decided to enforce the punishment in other ways. So not only do they have the force to get away with it, they also have a pretext to both use that force against Hestia's familia and also to discourage other major familia from butting into their business.
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aaa1e2r3



Joined: 16 Apr 2017
Posts: 102
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 2:30 pm Reply with quote
Cam0 wrote:
Did Miach and his animal-eared archer girlfriend appear in the first season? The way they were introduced was like we were supposed to be familiar with them already, but I have no recollection of them.


Miach was present in the first season, can't say the same about the archer
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3629
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 3:36 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
thus far Loki Familia – who might reasonably be expected to help out, given that Loki and Hestia are sort-of friends – is trying to stay out of it.


It makes sense though in terms of scale. As you said, Miach and Takemikazuchi are small and don't really increase the stakes much. If a large familia like Loki joins in it will turn the city in to a war zone. On the other hand though, considering Loki's members power levels, Apollo couldn't really do much against them. On the other other hand, even if Loki put a stop to it in the streets, they couldn't protect Bell 24/7, so he'd still be at risk in the dungeon, so another solution was really needed.

aaa1e2r3 wrote:
Cam0 wrote:
Did Miach and his animal-eared archer girlfriend appear in the first season? The way they were introduced was like we were supposed to be familiar with them already, but I have no recollection of them.


Miach was present in the first season, can't say the same about the archer


I only know about her from the mobile game (which has a great series prequel story going on now), so unless I'm forgetting her appearance in Sword Oratoria (which I've only seen once), I'd say, no, she hasn't appeared before this season.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 5:15 pm Reply with quote
Covnam wrote:
I only know about her from the mobile game (which has a great series prequel story going on now), so unless I'm forgetting her appearance in Sword Oratoria (which I've only seen once), I'd say, no, she hasn't appeared before this season.


Naza had a small silent cameo in season 1 (when they were planning a rescue party for Bell) but that was it. Her original focus arc was a side story novel if I recall.

But yeah, playing Danmemo has given me a greater appreciation for certain characters (Chigusa and Tiona most of all) so seeing them pop up feels pretty nice. The game was also my first encounter with the concept of War Games. The side with more money crushing the side that's weaker? Yeah, sounds about right.

Considering the promo images, opening and ending don't really care about this arc I wonder if it'll get short changed at all.
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