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EP. REVIEW: ORESUKI: Are you the only one who loves me?


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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:16 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
That's a valid point but then I'd expect the narrative to give more weight to Pansy's internal thought on that if that was supposed to be a purposeful decision.

When have we ever gotten any of her internal thoughts in this? That almost never happens unless the character is the center of the framing, which she so far has never been.

My feeling about that scene is colored by my own experience with a similar situation at about the same age. The venue was different, and I had no backup within earshot, as Pansy did, but damn it if the dialog wasn't almost word for word (except for the threat to choke me unconscious first). And my reaction was pretty much the same as hers. I agreed that he could do that, but it would be pointless and stupid, and like Sun, he was startled that I didn't react according to the scripts he'd learned from movies, and wasn't sure what his next lines should be. Basically he was bluffing, hoping the threat would yield "consent," and when it didn't, his entire demeanor changed. To be clear, that doesn't make him a good guy. But I didn't feel upset enough for "forgiveness" to even cross my mind (we weren't friends, just acquaintances), and I also didn't feel any need to avoid him afterward.

Pansy is supposed to be practically a mindreader, so I feel like she too recognized Sun's actions as a stupid, melodramatic bluff. Also, again, she had no reason to be afraid, what with all her backup hiding in every corner, even if he wasn't bluffing. She doesn't seem to have any warm feelings toward him, but I can certainly see why his presence doesn't bother her either. He's a jerk (but so is her true love), and he's not a threat to her. Of course, given my track record whenever I see something different in anime jerks, he'll turn out to be an axe-murderer or something.

As for the other girls, I think ThatGuyWhoLikesThings is probably right. They're so self-centered they don't have a problem overlooking Sun's behavior, since it wasn't directed at them and they already adored him, and when you're terrible, you tend to take the friends who will have you. That's the only reason I can see why Joro would forgive him, and he's the only one who Sun has truly betrayed. In Joro's shoes, I'm not sure I could forgive him, no matter how much I missed his friendship.

At any rate, anime about awful people usually isn't my cup of tea, but I'm in this just for the amazing sounds that keep coming out of Joro's mouth. Daiki Yamashita is really outdoing himself. Very Happy
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:27 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
Pansy is supposed to be practically a mindreader, so I feel like she too recognized Sun's actions as a stupid, melodramatic bluff. Also, again, she had no reason to be afraid, what with all her backup hiding in every corner, even if he wasn't bluffing. She doesn't seem to have any warm feelings toward him, but I can certainly see why his presence doesn't bother her either. He's a jerk (but so is her true love), and he's not a threat to her. Of course, given my track record whenever I see something different in anime jerks, he'll turn out to be an axe-murderer or something.


Yeah, that's sort of how I saw it too. I don't have an experience to back it up like you do, but I agree. Despite what Sun thought, Pansy was in complete control of the situation. She had multiple witnesses and seems to understand what Sun would do. She's written as the type of character who can pretty much read everyone's actions and intentions. In that sense, she's pretty unrealistic, but within her character, her choice to just forgive Sun is pretty consistent. I don't think it was even forgiving him so much as the fact she didn't care at all in the first place. When someone acts exactly the way you predicted he would, I think about the only emotion you'd have would possibly be vague disappointment that they were so obvious and acted as badly as you expected them to. And Sun's remarks were probably all just bluffing. We can't say that 100% because he doesn't have a lot of depth beyond baseball and actually a dickwad, but I think Pansy saw him as having a bark worse than his bite.
Plus, Pansy cares more about Joro and Sun being friends still than she does about Sun's tough-guy threat, so she moved past it without much worry.

I wish the other cast had reacted more to it, but I think the observations in this thread that they're just selfish jagoffs is probably about right. "it didn't happen to me so it doesn't matter". Joro didn't care heaps about Pansy at that point, Himawari and Cosmos still just saw Pansy as a rival until Sun revealed his true nature, so they don't have any particular feelings towards her either. It's only afterwards everyone starts growing close, and by that point Sun has already apologised and everyone has "moved on" so, plot wise, it's a bit late to be like "hey wait a sec remember when this asshole threatened to rape you".


I say all this but having read forward in the manga I actually enjoy Sun and Joro's relationship (especially during the flower festival arc), so for my enjoyment's sake it's convenient to just walk past the rape threat and pretend I didn't see anything.


Also gotta say I agree with the voice acting thing! I hadn't really heard Daiki's voice in much (beyond knowing he's Deku and the Yowamushi dude, aka two shouty nerds) so it's pretty fun to hear the change between harem protag voice and Just As Planned voice.
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steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
Posts: 342
PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:00 am Reply with quote
I die a little bit inside every time a show that I really want to like casually throws a rape threat into their show.

Sun was already a jerk. His actions and Pansy's unmasking of his intentions made that clear. From a writing perspective, the assault threat was just a way to have him kick the dog while letting our MC look good by comparison. "Joro might be a rotten jerk who sees women as interchangeable objects who owe him affection, but at least he doesn't threaten to rape anyone!" Wow, what a heart of gold. Rolling Eyes

Dropping the assault bombshell into that situation definitely felt cheap to me, and the fact that everyone forgave him afterward, with no acknowledgement of how serious that moment was, just confirms that the show didn't actually have anything to say with that plot element. It just used it for the edginess/shock value, and then had everyone move on because it's more important to continue with established characters for the sequel LN's than to deal with the can of worms that his actions should really open up.

Contrary to what my rant probably suggests, I don't hate the show for using this lazy, disgusting plot device. It's a mark against it, but like I said to start, this sort of thing unfortunately happens A LOT in anime. But a decent, or even good show that includes dumb stuff doesn't somehow transform that "dumb stuff" into "good stuff", so I still agree with the reviewer in calling out this crap when it happens.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:48 am Reply with quote
steelmirror wrote:


Contrary to what my rant probably suggests, I don't hate the show for using this lazy, disgusting plot device. It's a mark against it, but like I said to start, this sort of thing unfortunately happens A LOT in anime. But a decent, or even good show that includes dumb stuff doesn't somehow transform that "dumb stuff" into "good stuff", so I still agree with the reviewer in calling out this crap when it happens.


So you're insinuating that this, Oresuki, is a good show? This show lost me when Sun sucker punched Joro in episode 2, you know, PHYSICALLY assaulted him...

That doesn't mean as much as a threat? Cool.

Anyway, it's a series of unlikable people doing unlikable things to one another.... but by title and a random description I saw of it, it was supposed to be a series about a main character who is actually the side character in a harem anime. I sensed that was what it was supposed to be in my post about the first episode in the other thread but it wants to be "edgy" and "cutesy" at the same time.
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steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:28 am Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
So you're insinuating that this, Oresuki, is a good show? This show lost me when Sun sucker punched Joro in episode 2, you know, PHYSICALLY assaulted him...

That doesn't mean as much as a threat? Cool.
I don't really want to get sidetracked on a competition between which bad things are worse. I think it suffices to say that the rape threat and other issues really put me off, but overall I'm trying to look past it so far and enjoy whatever other entertainment I can find from the rest of the show.

On the other hand, I totally get that some people will drop this one like a brick, and I sympathize. It's definitely made a lot of stumbles already.

Honestly for me, the scene at the end of ep 3 where Pansy undoes her shirt, takes off her glasses, and lets down her hair and suddenly becomes Hotpants McHugetits provoked the most eye-rolling from me at how thoroughly it embraced the cliches it was supposed to be lampooning and undercut what might have been a decent character arc for Joro. If I were pointing to the thing most likely to make me drop the show, it would be that impulse the show has to make fun of some anime RomCom cliches while actively and uncritically embracing even trashier cliches in their stead.
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#844391



Joined: 09 Sep 2015
Posts: 517
PostPosted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:46 pm Reply with quote
haha, bench-kun even had the darth vader breathing this time. Definitely the main villain in this series.
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steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
Posts: 342
PostPosted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:57 pm Reply with quote
Ep 5 confirmed to me that the less Pansy has to do in a given episode, the less I can find it within myself to care about the rest of these characters. Also some of the recurring jokes, like the baseball game of fate or the President's inability to lie without becoming a kabuki character are starting to get a little stale.

Darth Bench still got a smile out of me though, as did the Kaiji art shift.

I guess the rest of the season will just be 2 episodes per additional harem member or so? Not super excited for that prospect, but I can't say the show's promotional imagery wasn't honest about that.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 10:00 am Reply with quote
I guess tanpopo will have an even more interesting role later;
Dandelion has got a bigger significance in shoujo manga, it represents the hurtful love, you know, the typical shoujo abusive love interest that hurts the main character; I ahve been reading the manga of this one, so I ahve yet to watch the anime, but if they are going to add a dandelion to the mix, now that increases my interest.
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steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 1:54 am Reply with quote
I kind of hated episode 6, but not for any of the heavier issues of exploitative content that we've been quibbling about in the comments before. Instead, I hated it because it was just not funny or even interesting.

It's looking to me like the show is basically just repeating itself at this point, without any of the novelty that it had the first time around, and spreading itself thinner as it adds more girls to the roster. All of episode 6 was tedious and predictable to me, and the few lines that Pansy (as established before, the best character) got were completely humorless and uninteresting to boot.

Also it continues to annoy me that Pansy's figure is drawn completely and ludicrously differently when she is wearing her "hot girl" outfits compared to any time she is in uniform. I refuse to believe that those two illustrations could be the same character barring years of difference or some fairly radical surgery.
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Gray Lensman



Joined: 17 Mar 2019
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 2:55 pm Reply with quote
One thing I'll note is that from what I read is that the Asunaro confrontation scene had a little more to it IIRC. She specifically called out the fake feelings Cosmos and Himawari had shown in earlier episodes (and uses it as a justification for her actions since she is isloating him from fake friends and her feelings are 'real') and is able to recognize that Pansy's feelings are genuine - and has a dislike that she is unable to fully conceal as a result. It doesn't make her a good person nor her actions justifiable, but it does provide more depth to the character and shows that the masks everyone wears are by no means perfect.

I expect we should see 3 more girls - the toxic dandelion, the two twins from the theme song who I shall call Not!Rem and Not!Ram since they have exactly the same hair colors, and it wouldn't be complete without the girl who started Sun-chan's jealousy back in middle school making an appearance. Plus it's a well worn plot point for someone in the main male character's past who actually wants him to appear, show a potential threat to the main female character, and still somehow amount to less than any other female character in the series.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:55 pm Reply with quote
Gray Lensman wrote:
One thing I'll note is that from what I read is that the Asunaro confrontation scene had a little more to it IIRC. She specifically called out the fake feelings Cosmos and Himawari had shown in earlier episodes (and uses it as a justification for her actions since she is isloating him from fake friends and her feelings are 'real') and is able to recognize that Pansy's feelings are genuine - and has a dislike that she is unable to fully conceal as a result. It doesn't make her a good person nor her actions justifiable, but it does provide more depth to the character and shows that the masks everyone wears are by no means perfect.


Was this in the novel and/or manga? So far no one has called Himawari or Cosmos out for being fake in the anime as far as I recall.
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Gray Lensman



Joined: 17 Mar 2019
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:16 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
Gray Lensman wrote:
One thing I'll note is that from what I read is that the Asunaro confrontation scene had a little more to it IIRC. She specifically called out the fake feelings Cosmos and Himawari had shown in earlier episodes (and uses it as a justification for her actions since she is isloating him from fake friends and her feelings are 'real') and is able to recognize that Pansy's feelings are genuine - and has a dislike that she is unable to fully conceal as a result. It doesn't make her a good person nor her actions justifiable, but it does provide more depth to the character and shows that the masks everyone wears are by no means perfect.


Was this in the novel and/or manga? So far no one has called Himawari or Cosmos out for being fake in the anime as far as I recall.


I had to go and double check, it so much as her calling them out as claiming they didn't love him in the slightest during her breakdown, which is far more intense in the manga - hitting peak yandere territory (shouting that she is the one who loves Joro the most and all the other girls 'should just disappear.' I was expecting a carving knife to come out when that was paired with the facial expression she had).
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:56 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
Gray Lensman wrote:
One thing I'll note is that from what I read is that the Asunaro confrontation scene had a little more to it IIRC. She specifically called out the fake feelings Cosmos and Himawari had shown in earlier episodes (and uses it as a justification for her actions since she is isloating him from fake friends and her feelings are 'real') and is able to recognize that Pansy's feelings are genuine - and has a dislike that she is unable to fully conceal as a result. It doesn't make her a good person nor her actions justifiable, but it does provide more depth to the character and shows that the masks everyone wears are by no means perfect.


Was this in the novel and/or manga? So far no one has called Himawari or Cosmos out for being fake in the anime as far as I recall.


It was in the manga for sure, but the manga also differs from the novel in some ways, so it's entirely possible what that poster is describing doesn't even happen in the novel. The novel writer is directly involved with the anime's script, that much I know.

Anyway I'll be a bit disappointed if this goes in the direction of a traditional harem, but if it can keep up the excellent comedy and even the surprisingly effective moments of sincerity, and as long as we never let up on the treachery, I'll still be greatly enjoying this most likely.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:22 pm Reply with quote
Not the sort to complain about spoilers but the thumbnail for this ep's review is kinda a spoiler... an obvious one but still.

I really liked Cosmos when she knows everything. Like, how she's like "the plan has moved forward more than I thought" or whatever, and when she calls out Asanaro it's well done. I really like that she continuously asked her "are you sure you want Joro here"; it showed she's not there to like publicly call out Asanaro and would really rather avoid the emotions and embarrassment that comes from the truth being told while Joro is present. It was good that Joro didn't just forgive her straight up though.

I also really liked Cosmos line about "the idea that effort will always be rewarded when applied to love is a lie". Not only calling out Asanaro but also those Joro and his Nice Guy "If I'm friendly to these girls they'll love me" view. You could see it hit him a bit too which was good.

The animation for the dance was also surprisingly nice. I thought they'd cop out more and just do still shots but it was pretty well done. The dresses were really pretty, tho Pansy's massive boobs and dress that is practically falling off her chest were uhhhh hm.

I haven't read the novel so idk which was more faithful but in the manga Sun bows out because he was given expired food and got sick.

idk how much I'll keep watching it because the harem is kinda tiring but I'm still enjoying it enough I guess and I'd like to see the characters develop
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Gina Szanboti



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PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 5:28 am Reply with quote
One thing still bugging me - did Asanaro orchestrate, as in rig, the vote for the Flower Dance? Because otherwise I don't see how Joro could've been voted in for the honor given all the suspicion and rumors still flying around about him, even before the "accidental" release of the article and Asanaro's ongoing gossip mongering. I either missed it or forgot if they explained who was even doing the voting, since none of the main characters seem to have voted at all. They were just informed of the results.

To tell the truth, I find the whole notion of this Flower Dance to be pretty creepy as a high school tradition. Let's pick a guy and give him 3 girls to choose his bride from!
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