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EP. REVIEW: O Maidens in Your Savage Season


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Panino Manino



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
Posts: 734
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:04 am Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
MiloTheFirst wrote:
I trust she understands that presentation doesn't equal endorsement so even when she disproves of what is happening around the characters, I don't think she would just lower the score as a statement


You trust correctly. Panino Manino did a good job of explaining (we haven't seen anything like the train tunnel scene in episode one for a while now in terms of symbolism, sound design, etc), and I do feel the show is playing it too safe with both Hongo in general and this week's scene with Niina and the director. I didn't personally want to see the kiss, but I do think we should have. In addition, I feel like each episode lately has been trying to cram too many storylines in. That's probably an episode count issue, but I think splitting episodes between two or three girls each time would work better.

This is a difficult show for me to review (although I'm glad to be reviewing it), so I do tend to spend more time on analysis than I possibly should.


I dislike that scene, with that "cheap symbolism" and that type of music. Why that style of music just in that only scene when the rest of the score is "elevator music"?
It clashes with the tone for the rest of the show, it's inconsistent.

Unfortunately it's a faithful adaptation, a low effort production.
This narrative don't work as well in anime form? They don't care.
And you know what happens when an anime changes stuff even if it's for the better, Vinland Saga is also there right not and there's a lot of people complaining about the changes and additions.
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Panino Manino



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2019 3:50 pm Reply with quote
#8
Izumi saying that despite Saegusa being, in his own words, a creep pedophile, he must really like her if he did as much as... go to their schools watch her little play, and because of this he'll help her (help HER?!) fall pray to him...

Truly a Legend, this Okada.
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Panino Manino



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2019 6:20 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
That the show feels the need to have her spell it out with a speech about how she now realizes that love and sex aren't one and the same, which makes her feel like a mouthpiece for the writer rather than herself

More than that, Sonezaki was explaining to him why she didn't wanted to make their relationship oficial yet and was waiting for that moment during the festival to make it public.

About Momo, wasn't the subs a bit "wrong" during that scene when the boy meets her with his friends? When they're going away they talk "that girl", but isn't this wrong? Shouldn't be "your girl"? Meaning that he had told them she was his girlfriend? Otherwise her reacting feels exaggerated.

Quote:
Niina has unquestionably been harmed by her former director.

At this point I convinced that despite any "harm" he may done to her she was already and would already be a bit crazy. At this point she isn't not even a "real character" for me, she is just an element of caos that Okada put in this story.
Ooooh Okada, how infuriating can you be...
I was literally putting hairs out of my head seeing Izumi saying to Niina that "despite beeing a creepy pedophile Saegusa looks like he really likes her so he'll help her fall pray to him".
What?
WHAT?!!
Unbelievable...

Quote:
That's partially what makes watching the Hongo/Milo-sensei storyline so difficult: we've seen this go wrong and Hongo's running towards it headlong while Milo doesn't do enough to put her off.

Seriously, what people really want from Milo?
He isn't doing everything you want? Ok.
But is he really doing all that much? He isn't taking Hongo all that serious exactly because he don't even image doing something with her, isn't that right?
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2457
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2019 6:58 pm Reply with quote
Panino Manino wrote:
About Momo, wasn't the subs a bit "wrong" during that scene when the boy meets her with his friends? When they're going away they talk "that girl", but isn't this wrong? Shouldn't be "your girl"? Meaning that he had told them she was his girlfriend? Otherwise her reacting feels exaggerated.


iirc she reacted more strongly to "aitsu", which I feel like is kind of a rude way to refer to someone. I think there was a "kanojo" in there too, but like with Hongo's situation that one can mean 100 things so I'll pass, I don't know any Japanese Laughing
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2019 7:37 pm Reply with quote
killjoy_the wrote:
iirc she reacted more strongly to "aitsu", which I feel like is kind of a rude way to refer to someone. I think there was a "kanojo" in there too, but like with Hongo's situation that one can mean 100 things so I'll pass, I don't know any Japanese Laughing
There was, although its sound got nearly drowned out by the cartoonish sound effect of the word kanojo flying across the screen into the back of Momo's head Very Happy But yeah, the ambiguity of kanojo as both a feminine third person pronoun and a noun meaning "girlfriend" is hard to translate, as is the excessive familiarity of aitsu. This forced the translator to work around it, which they did by writing Momo's scene to make it look like her irritation was at the boys' attitude rather than their specific word choices, as well as by having Milo refer to Hongo with the more loaded phrase "my girl". Ideally it's the boys' language that should have been loaded, considering that Milo didn't seem to imply anything by using the word kanojo whereas their second scene with Momo strongly implied that they were operating under the assumption of Sugimoto and Momo being in a relationship, but the fact that Hongo explicitly ponders the meaning of the word forced the translator to make it the other way round.

Although I do appreciate the way they translated the scene between Niina and Izumi on the staircase, where she shows him "how to make things harder" Laughing It lacks the Okadian morphological brilliance of tatasekata, but at least it retains the double entendre of the whole conversation.
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Panino Manino



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
Posts: 734
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2019 9:26 pm Reply with quote
vonPeterhof wrote:
killjoy_the wrote:
iirc she reacted more strongly to "aitsu", which I feel like is kind of a rude way to refer to someone. I think there was a "kanojo" in there too, but like with Hongo's situation that one can mean 100 things so I'll pass, I don't know any Japanese Laughing
There was, although its sound got nearly drowned out by the cartoonish sound effect of the word kanojo flying across the screen into the back of Momo's head Very Happy But yeah, the ambiguity of kanojo as both a feminine third person pronoun and a noun meaning "girlfriend" is hard to translate, as is the excessive familiarity of aitsu. This forced the translator to work around it, which they did by writing Momo's scene to make it look like her irritation was at the boys' attitude rather than their specific word choices, as well as by having Milo refer to Hongo with the more loaded phrase "my girl". Ideally it's the boys' language that should have been loaded, considering that Milo didn't seem to imply anything by using the word kanojo whereas their second scene with Momo strongly implied that they were operating under the assumption of Sugimoto and Momo being in a relationship, but the fact that Hongo explicitly ponders the meaning of the word forced the translator to make it the other way round.

That's why I asked what's so wrong with Milo that makes people so angry with him. Got to the point that bias is appearing in the translation work.

vonPeterhof wrote:

Although I do appreciate the way they translated the scene between Niina and Izumi on the staircase, where she shows him "how to make things harder" Laughing It lacks the Okadian morphological brilliance of tatasekata, but at least it retains the double entendre of the whole conversation.


Not exactly him that keeps getting "hard" around her.
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Rosiero



Joined: 05 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 4:41 am Reply with quote
This episode was a real doozy. The romance is pretty basic stuff--it has to be, considering the show's subject matter--but I like the characters enough that I want to see everything turn out alright, and that's what makes it effective. That's what has me clutching my heart right up until we know for sure that Izumi and Kazusa are finally getting together.

I don't really agree with the reviewer that Sonezaki suddenly turns into a mouthpiece for the author during her confession. Sonezaki's shown enough of a penchant for dramatic speeches throughout the show that it makes sense for her to do this, and I also think her boyfriend (I... can't remember his name, to be honest) deserves an explanation for her distant attitude until now. It also makes sense for Sonezaki to do this loudly and publically because that was the entire point of creating the bonfire legend--having a conceit in which it's okay for nervous high schoolers to admit to their feelings.

I'm also happy I know just enough Japanese to understand this episode's two different storylines where pronouns play an important part. I don't think the subtitles quite conveyed what was happening, but I really don't blame the translator because it's such a weird thing to work into the dialogue in a language that really doesn't have an equivalent. I think it's most difficult in Momo's story, because the guy never does something that's incredibly explicitly not cool... he's always sort of teetering on the edge, crossing borders he shouldn't be without ever outright stating what's behind it. I think that makes him a lot more realistically creepy.

Aaaand then there's Niina. Oh boy, Niina. Unless some big things happen, I don't think her storyline is going to be viewed very favorably in hindsight. It's such a shame that after doing so much to subvert the tropes you'd expect to come packaged with her character design, she's now turning into exactly that character because she doesn't know what else to do with herself. And that's where I feel the author shining through--it's like she didn't know what to do with the character either. Izumi's confused attempt to support her really doesn't help matters. It was so weird that while watching the episode I just kind of glossed over what he was actually saying, but reading it again in this thread, it's absolutely baffling and I dearly hope that Izumi really was just stumbling over himself and didn't actually mean what he said.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:04 am Reply with quote
Didn't Isumi friend/sister zone Kazusa? Also, did we not see how Izumi replied to Niina? Am I even watching the same show anymore? I ended the episode thinking "poor Kazusa but that's how she played it, cowardly so she got what she earned" but I was supposed to see it as a declaration of non familial affection?

Quote:
That's what has me clutching my heart right up until we know for sure that Izumi and Kazusa are finally getting together.

Don't include me with that "we". I've been favoring Niina/Isumi since their "not a date" and until Kazusa starts fighting... mostly herself to start with but later, her two best friends ... I'm rooting for her two best friends to hook up.

Kind of a sticky situation, isn't it? No matter what, no matter who you favor, Kazusa looks like the only one who's going to lose something here.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 8:34 am Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
Didn't Isumi friend/sister zone Kazusa? Also, did we not see how Izumi replied to Niina?
I forgot to bring this up in my earlier rant, but this might also be the case of the translation being slightly misleading. I can't speculate as to whether the translator's choice was influenced by the recent debates over the translation of suki in Evangelion, but in the case of this scene in O Maidens I would argue that it really would have been better to go with something more ambiguous than "I'm in love with you". After all, Izumi himself admits that he's not yet entirely certain of the nature of his feelings towards Kazusa aside from it being a vaguely affectionate desire to protect her. It doesn't really matter what exactly he said to Niina after their scene cut off (like I said in the other thread, whatever it was had nothing to with Niina's confession because he didn't realize she'd made one), but yeah the Kazusa/Izumi/Niina storyline is far from over.
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rizuchan
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:13 am Reply with quote
I think Rebecca is being entirely too kind about Niina regarding the way she's been acting regarding Kazusa and Izumi.

I had a bad feeling about Niina from the beginning, and felt terrible about it, because supposedly the whole point of her character is that she's supposed to be misunderstood, and I felt like I was probably projecting my feelings from when I was a teenage girl. And then Niina goes and does every little *#(%& thing I expected her to do.

She had basically no idea Izumi existed until she found out about Kazusa's crush. Then she starts wondering what's so great about Izumi that would make Kazusa like him, fixates on him, until she develops feelings for him too. Then she spends time with him, all while telling Kazusa there's nothing between them, and even pretending that she's trying to help them. And when Kazusa calls her out on it, Niina plays the victim, like Kazusa is misunderstanding her just like everyone else, when really, Kazusa is seeing exactly who she is.

That probably sounds like an incredibly jaded interpretation of everything that's happened, but that's because, as far as I'm concerned, this is a black and white issue. I get it, Niina is messed up, and is having a very rough time sorting through her feelings. That should not excuse her behavior. She is being an irredeemably terrible friend at this point, and I was seeing red when Kazusa was still trying to defend her. I mean, it'd be one thing if the two girls developed feelings for the same guy independently - It's not like Kazusa get dibs on Izumi just because they're childhood friends. I'd even be understanding if Izumi were the one pursuing Niina. But, and this is just my feeling on the matter, if you know your friend likes someone, you leave him alone.

I'm just saying, Niina's behavior is the kind of thing that creates lifelong trust issues for girls like Kazusa. (Nope, I'm definitely not projecting...)

And I really doubt that Niina is going to be content with just sitting back and having an obsessive crush on Izumi - it's just not in her nature. I can almost guarantee she's going to be trying to "steal" him in the next episode.
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Megiddo



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 1:42 pm Reply with quote
Even if the wording of Izumi isn't particularly clear, the fact that he boldly steps directly onto Kazusa's shadow before his declaration should easily cement his intentions. There's no possible to way to perceive that as a 'friend zone'.
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Panino Manino



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:18 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:

She had basically no idea Izumi existed until she found out about Kazusa's crush. Then she starts wondering what's so great about Izumi that would make Kazusa like him, fixates on him, until she develops feelings for him too. Then she spends time with him, all while telling Kazusa there's nothing between them, and even pretending that she's trying to help them. And when Kazusa calls her out on it, Niina plays the victim, like Kazusa is misunderstanding her just like everyone else, when really, Kazusa is seeing exactly who she is.

At first Kazusa thought she was seeing something that wasn't really happening, it was really a misunderstanding. But just in the beginning. Then Niina started to do on purpose and you can say "fair, she didn't wanted to be developed feelings for Izumi", the problem and that got in this race and lost. She lost but still didn't gave up, the problem really for me is from here on. After this episode she has no excuses, she is just being a shitty person and not only with Kazusa.
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 3:25 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
I think Rebecca is being entirely too kind about Niina regarding the way she's been acting regarding Kazusa and Izumi.


Okay, you're probably entirely right. Not projecting my own (horrific) high school experiences is another one of the things that makes these reviews a challenge to write, but in this case, it's something I didn't experience because romantic situations weren't part of my life. But maybe that's me making an excuse for not wanting to see that Niina is precisely who she seems to be because I feel badly for what she went through. Physical abuse was much more in line with what I had to deal with - kids ganged up on me and broke my left arm in the sixth grade, as an example. I wanted Niina to be better than becoming a mean girl herself.

Although now that I phrase it that way, there's an interesting contrast between Niina and Sonezaki's new blonde friend.
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rizuchan
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:26 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
But maybe that's me making an excuse for not wanting to see that Niina is precisely who she seems to be because I feel badly for what she went through.

Yeah, that’s what makes this so complicated. If you could assign a trauma score to these girls, Niina’s would be way higher than anything Kasusa is going through (as far as we know). That’s also why I really wanted to believe I was reading into it wrong, because I didn’t want to believe that someone who knew what it’s like to be taken advantage of would turn around and take advantage (albeit in a different way) of a girl that she called her friend. It also seems like it sends kind of a bad message about abuse victims. But it also makes Niina an interesting, flawed character, and I think that she could easily be redeemed if she realizes how hurtful she’s being, because I think right now, she’s too caught up in her own head to really realize how unfair she’s being to Kazusa.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:44 am Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
Even if the wording of Izumi isn't particularly clear, the fact that he boldly steps directly onto Kazusa's shadow before his declaration should easily cement his intentions. There's no possible to way to perceive that as a 'friend zone'.


Even ignoring translating errors/blunders/not getting what you want to have him say, the fact he said his entire speech before he stepped into her shadow unlike Rika who used the notion she loves her guy as the starting point of her process would indicate there's something different going on here. The only thing Izumi is fully certain of is that he loves Kazusa, he's just not a 100% certain on how he loves her?

And I'm supposed to ignore that one of those ways is not as a man and a woman because "It's implied but it's not in the subtitles"? He says that he sees her as something he wants to protect. He talks more about loving her than being in love with her... ah, he's know different than the vilified director in that regard. He wants to keep Kazusa at arm's length least she ruin that image of a sister he has in his mind.... which is how the episode ends, Kazusa in tears and running... perhaps toward or perhaps away but there's no payoff has in this episode, it's just implied.
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