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EP. REVIEW: Arifureta - From Commonplace to World's Strongest


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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:13 pm Reply with quote
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I foolishly figured Hajime would spend some time reconnecting with these old classmates and giving us some insight into their personalities. But thus far there's nothing doing on that front. They still aren't even named here, and they spend all their time in the background with the camera panning quickly over generic reactions to all the other stuff that happens this episode. They're superficial tagalongs complimenting the idea that Hajime is back together with some of his previous school-chums,


I think you have forgotten, that his classmates are far from school chums. They are rather bullies and tormentors. Except for Kaori who is interested in him and her friend (Shizuku), the rest of the class thought very little about Hajime, and the ones who did think about him, it was only to bully him, or berate him for Kaori's interest in him. Though Amanogawa's spoiler[reasons were more about controlling Kaori] than anything else.

If I remember right Kaori and Shizuku are far away right now. So he has little reason to be friendly to classmates who thought very little of him (and worse) anyway.
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jeckersly



Joined: 13 Sep 2015
Posts: 26
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:05 pm Reply with quote
This piece of shit really is the worst piece of shit in a season littered with shitty garbage.

My Mother’s Multi-Target Attack Tits is [expletive] awful.

Isekai Shit Magic is [expletive] awful.

And on and on.

But despite that, this remains the most embarrassing piece of awful shit of the season.

Just wow.
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 978
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:34 pm Reply with quote
Its just like this series to use lip flap to show a animal speaking like its from the old BBC Narnia series. And turn the enemy monster into a Hot Babe Enema Joke. Its like it wants to be domestic girlfriend but the sexy times replaced with bad cgi monsters. Just leaving the sleaze.
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RegisterJustForComment



Joined: 17 Apr 2018
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:29 pm Reply with quote
Cryten wrote:
RegisterJustForComment wrote:
Summary of the review and the thread: You like the anime? Get out! You like the manga? Hmm, ok. Get out! You like the original novel? Yeah. Get out!


Everyone is free to have their own opinion, several people in this thread quite like the source material. You gotta deal with the fact that people have differing opinions on things. That is part of learning to get along with people. I agree that it can become pointless when 2 sides start rejecting one another but this thread hasn't been to bad for that. Some counter points but in the end it boiled down to interpretation. Though I think everyone agree's the anime has been mostly mishandled, animated badly, choppy story while also lacking focus on anything other then the lolita love story.


Didn't expect someone to take my comment seriously. But I just feel that with how this is going, the whole 'differences' of the original novel will get really drowned. Just a feeling.
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partially



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
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Location: Oz
PostPosted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:11 pm Reply with quote
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There's a story worth telling in here somewhere, it's just buried under a struggling production and baffling directorial choices... There's actually an undercurrent of Aiko being an inspirational figure to lots of people, her students and those in the village they're defending embodying this. A lot of lip-service is paid to Hajime using her presence to motivate all those participating in the big fight this episode, and it's revealed towards the end that the whole attack was in order to try to take her out specifically. But the show oddly glosses over any particular reasons she's regarded so highly.


To be honest this isn't really a baffling directorial choice and reflects directly on the source material. In about 8 novels time there is only like 5-6 lines on why Aiko is an "inspirational" figure for the world. Basically comes down to apparently implementing modern farming methods behind the scenes. At no point does Aiko actually do anything in the novels early on, the most she does in a scene is stand around with her harem of guys saying how wrong things are.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:57 pm Reply with quote
The new name for the series should be Arifureta the Animated Travelogue.

Too much has been cut out of the series for it to make much sense to anyone not familiar with the light novel or manga. Sadly even if they were going to make a second season, they would have to do a ton of flashbacks to cover everything they gutted out of the anime.

The opener is so lackluster and cheap, blatantly bad CGI, and the agonizing cuts and editing have ruined this anime adaptation.

I agree with the reviewer about Aiko. She seems to be deemed important by the kingdom due to her class. It was mentioned in the beginning that her class had not been seen in decades or hundreds of years (not sure which). It should be noted that Aiko had a bunch of skills due to her class, while Hajime only had one skill. If Aiko could level up all those skills, it could quite mean something revolutionary for the kingdom and the world. The personages in the kingdom seemed to think so. But as the reviewer stated it has not been spelled out in detail, not even in the light novels either.

As a fan of the light novel and manga, this has been a very depressing ride. The only bright spot was seeing our favorite characters animated. I firmly believe that the anime has killed (buried and salted the earth) any chance for future seasons (which would be problematic on its own) or a much needed reboot.
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arkhangelsk



Joined: 18 May 2019
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2019 10:42 pm Reply with quote
partially wrote:
To be honest this isn't really a baffling directorial choice and reflects directly on the source material. In about 8 novels time there is only like 5-6 lines on why Aiko is an "inspirational" figure for the world.


Well, even if that's so, there's room to argue that the anime should have taken the initiative to expand on that portion. Let's face it, most Light Novels these days are from Narou authors, in essence FanFiction.Net for Japan. You can't expect perfection from them.

Further, an adaptation is a chance to quietly rethink some decisions and do things better.If the anime clarifies or expands on a point, I don't think many fans would mind ... would they? I remember Full Metal Panic's author literally telling us to go watch the anime for some technical stuff about the Arm Slave, and he worked in an era before Narou.
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CrisGer A.A.



Joined: 26 Feb 2011
Posts: 170
Location: 世田谷区 Setagaya Ward
PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:59 pm Reply with quote
this has been a fun series and I have enjoyed it as much as any in this current quarter. Nicely done in its own way. Glad to see such lively discussion..... thanks for a nice review.

hope to see more

C
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Van the Man



Joined: 20 Sep 2017
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 6:54 pm Reply with quote
This show has done some shots of architecture I really like. Shots from the scene after they drop mer-girl off with guards and walk away sadly, and as they romp around the city to save her, very reminiscient of that descent montage in the early episodes after he finds Yue. These directors do a good job of showing me something that I can imagine would be a fun video game level design. Even if, stylistically, it's just a canned "fantasy setting city".

Maybe I'm just a (insert whatever pejorative you want here) but I really don't need plot to listen to Hikasa Yoko. That she got some solid time on the audio track was enough to make it worth turning the episode on. Could easily see Tio being an intolerably lame character with weaker performances too, but I find her pretty fun to have around.

And yes, agree with the episode review, little-girl slavery plot thing has been plenty cringe in other shows, and Arifureta seemed to dodge all of that (or learn from it maybe).

Animation got especially weak during the rescue scene tho. One establishing still of slave auction room and the rest of the time the crowd only existed as sound effects. Hajime blew the boss guy away in a (fittingly) unglorious way. Girl's glass tank thing was only thinly represented by the visuals. So. Many. Shortcuts. I gets hard to ignore even if you want to like the show.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:18 am Reply with quote
CrisGer A.A. wrote:
this has been a fun series and I have enjoyed it as much as any in this current quarter. Nicely done in its own way. Glad to see such lively discussion..... thanks for a nice review.

hope to see more

We still have 2 more episodes to go, don't we? Plus whatever they release on the BD boxes later in the year?
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arkhangelsk



Joined: 18 May 2019
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 12:12 am Reply with quote
Methinks I'll dissent with the reviewer for Ep 7 and Ep 11.

Ep 7 wrote:
This is a standard, but not objectionable, plot for a show like this, but the problem is that for as much lip service as the writing and dialogue pays to Shea supposedly growing into her role as some sort of front-line fighter, it never demonstrates her working through that learning curve. The pacing is partially to blame. In a more reasonably-paced multi-episode arc, Shea's growth could be seen from section to section, palpably getting better over time.


The reviewer I think identifies the problem, but doesn't give it enough weight. Basically, in the LN, both the equivalent of Ep 6B and Ep 7 serve as Shea's growth arc. However, the fact the Ep 6B also serves as growth means that it is not essential to use Ep 7 for that role. On the other hand, only Ep 7 can serve as Shea proving her worth and integrating into the team.

Ironically, it is easier to use two minutes to represent multiple days than to use a whole episode. Two minutes means you just show Before, then 2 minutes of montgages, then the After, with the change being so large the brain automatically rationalizes in a time skip. But you can't use montgages for a whole episode and further, you can only show one growth spurt using montgages, not a linear progression. So inevitably, Ep 7 will look a lot more like one day's of work than a week or even a month to the audience.

With only one day of perceived time to make Shea look worthy to the audience (in turn justifying Hajime and Yue's changed reaction), the animation team must have decided to just show Shea in her "after" state, tweaking events along the way to increase her contribution in resolving them. Along the way, they make it manifestly clear to the audience what her contribution to the team will consist of (because you can't use text in anime).
Ultimately, the animators have to work with what they have (13 episodes) to tell the vitals of the story of a designated length (4 books), and this compromise is correct. Come on, Shea is cute. We want to see her succeed.

Ep 11 wrote:
Hajime and Shea are unequivocally against the whole thing.


I suppose this is a poke at Shield Hero, and I don't think it is justified. For one thing, Shield Hero is a more gritty, realistic story (at least in the early parts) than Arifureta (who got rid of most of its grittiness with the end of book 1) and thus is in a different position on the Realism / Idealism scale.

For another thing, Hajime and Shea are much more powerful (and thus massively more capable of bucking the trend) than Shield Hero.

Third, I must point out while Hajime may be anti-slavery, he tends to treat Shea pretty roughly (though he does get better). Shield Hero actually treats her slave Raphtalia pretty well. So, is it better to treat your slave well or your party member badly?
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Problem is they just cut out too much. On the small chance there is another season, all this cutting will come back to bite them. Another season will need a ton more of flashbacks to explain everything they glossed over or cut out entirely.
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arkhangelsk



Joined: 18 May 2019
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Mon Sep 30, 2019 1:15 am Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
Problem is they just cut out too much. On the small chance there is another season, all this cutting will come back to bite them. Another season will need a ton more of flashbacks to explain everything they glossed over or cut out entirely.


Overcutting is a pretty common criticism of one-cour adaptations, but the bitter reality is that they only have 13 episodes to work with, and let's face it do you think they can justify cutting things off before they pick up Kaori?

So if you say they cut too much, you need to think concretely about which scene(s) you want "resurrected", and because there's only 13 episodes of room you'll have to decide what you are willing to give up.
To be fair now that I read the light novels up to Book 5 I have some scenes I would like to see animated too, but it is a zero-sum game and I don't think there's anything I'll give up just to revive them.
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 978
PostPosted: Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:51 am Reply with quote
arkhangelsk wrote:
TarsTarkas wrote:
Problem is they just cut out too much. On the small chance there is another season, all this cutting will come back to bite them. Another season will need a ton more of flashbacks to explain everything they glossed over or cut out entirely.


Overcutting is a pretty common criticism of one-cour adaptations, but the bitter reality is that they only have 13 episodes to work with, and let's face it do you think they can justify cutting things off before they pick up Kaori?

So if you say they cut too much, you need to think concretely about which scene(s) you want "resurrected", and because there's only 13 episodes of room you'll have to decide what you are willing to give up.
To be fair now that I read the light novels up to Book 5 I have some scenes I would like to see animated too, but it is a zero-sum game and I don't think there's anything I'll give up just to revive them.


Well from an outsiders point of view with no relation to the source material the story comes across as horribly lacking in detail. So I think they have over cut just to get to certain points in the time they have. Its resulted in a show that approaches mediocre with a bit of charm at its best moments.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:02 am Reply with quote
They super glossed over the Beast nation, and eliminated the Empire entirely. That is going to have ramifications in the future.

Though,If they are going dungeon action only, I guess you could cut out the Beast nation and the Empire and not suffer too badly.

Problem is, characterization has suffered the most causing viewers to hate the characters, to the despair of fans of the series. On top of that, the editing has resulted in Arifureta mostly resembling an animated travelogue than an anime in certain episodes.

I wanted Arifureta to succeed, I wanted to see the further adventures of Hajime, Yue, and Shea animated. But due to this shoddy production, probably caused by all the production drama, it is a lost cause. Thankfully we still have the light novels to fall back on.
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