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EP. REVIEW: Isekai Quartet 2


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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 1000
PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 7:47 pm Reply with quote
Gotta be completely honest, while the first half of the S2 premiere was delightful, as soon as Naofumi became more prominent, the episode took a nosedive in quality and charm. It became the "Naofumi is Nice and Amazing and Misunderstood, Look How Epic He Is Show". That sequence of him saving the hapless damsels was played without an ounce of irony, the onlookers portrayed as totally impressed with his fancy heroics. I may hate Shield Hero, but even I wasn't cynical enough to think his inclusion would ruin a series as likable as Isekai Quartet. If he's gonna continue sucking out all the fun like he did here, he may indeed ruin it. You can't just rib on all the other protagonists and then make *him* look like a supreme badass.

A subtle visual gag that went unmentioned here is when Ram is completely confident she'll be able to slack off just as much as she did before the desk swap, and lo and behold even after the students change places she's still sitting behind the towering Cocystus. Her confidence wasn't betrayed in the least lol. I really liked that one.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:14 pm Reply with quote
ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:
Gotta be completely honest, while the first half of the S2 premiere was delightful, as soon as Naofumi became more prominent, the episode took a nosedive in quality and charm. It became the "Naofumi is Nice and Amazing and Misunderstood, Look How Epic He Is Show". That sequence of him saving the hapless damsels was played without an ounce of irony, the onlookers portrayed as totally impressed with his fancy heroics. I may hate Shield Hero, but even I wasn't cynical enough to think his inclusion would ruin a series as likable as Isekai Quartet. If he's gonna continue sucking out all the fun like he did here, he may indeed ruin it. You can't just rib on all the other protagonists and then make *him* look like a supreme badass.

I am impressed at how some people can have so much hatred for Naofumi and in the Shield Hero light novels being a hero that protects people is what he does. The other main characters had plenty of moments in the first season to show off their powers so it is not surprising that Naofumi arrived at the end of the episode to show off his Shield powers. I think the episode did a good job of capturing the broad personal characteristics of the new trio. Filo was content to just play around while waiting for the others, Raphtalia was prepared for an enemy attack but was willing to listen to Subaru explain the situation, and Naofumi didn't even bother talking with the other students and just started searching for Filo and Raphtalia. The characters in Isekai Quartet are exaggerated for comedic effect but that was true for the entire first season.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 1000
PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:19 pm Reply with quote
Richmyster84 wrote:
Ya, you don't sound like a hater the least bit. [sarcasm]


Or maybe playing Naofumi's character so unabashedly straight, with no jokes at his expense, everyone remarking on what an awesome guy he is, completely missing the mark on what made Season 1 of Isekai Quartet work so well is terrible writing? It was a series that paid respect to the franchises that were a part of it while getting in a bit of teasing at their expense as well, with fun and lively interactions. Just based on this first episode, Naofumi offers none of that. He's so dry and lifeless and he doesn't bounce off anyone or have any chemistry with anyone (partly because he only interacts with a single character this episode), we just get characters talking about him instead of him actually doing or saying anything of note. That's *boring*. Maybe his overly serious and edgy personality will have something to add in later episodes, and there was even an opportunity in this episode to do just that, but not so far.

I'd be saying the same thing if it was the case with any of the other four protagonists in his place. Not everyone is out to attack your precious Shield Hero lmao.

Chrono1000 wrote:
I am impressed at how some people can have so much hatred for Naofumi and in the Shield Hero light novels being a hero that protects people is what he does.


It seems you entirely missed the point of what I was criticizing.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18135
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:03 pm Reply with quote
ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:
Gotta be completely honest, while the first half of the S2 premiere was delightful, as soon as Naofumi became more prominent, the episode took a nosedive in quality and charm. It became the "Naofumi is Nice and Amazing and Misunderstood, Look How Epic He Is Show". That sequence of him saving the hapless damsels was played without an ounce of irony, the onlookers portrayed as totally impressed with his fancy heroics. I may hate Shield Hero, but even I wasn't cynical enough to think his inclusion would ruin a series as likable as Isekai Quartet. If he's gonna continue sucking out all the fun like he did here, he may indeed ruin it. You can't just rib on all the other protagonists and then make *him* look like a supreme badass.

If this proves to be a consistent pattern over 3-4 episodes then I'll give your complaint more credence. Based on the first episode alone, I think you're overreacting.

Consider that of the five protagonists, Naofumi is, by far, the most dour. They can't just drop him in the middle of jokes; he's going to have to be set up for them. With people like Subaru and especially Kazuma around and especially given all the different things his shield can do, he'll get dragged into stupid shenanigans eventually. Also, it's entirely possible (probable, I'd even say) that he will loosen up some now that he knows Raphtalia and Filo are with him. Or, for that matter, I could even see him remaining serious and jokes being made about him being too stiff.

Either way, I trust the writing on this series to sort it out.

Quote:
A subtle visual gag that went unmentioned here is when Ram is completely confident she'll be able to slack off just as much as she did before the desk swap, and lo and behold even after the students change places she's still sitting behind the towering Cocystus. Her confidence wasn't betrayed in the least lol. I really liked that one.

Ooh, missed that one. Nice catch!
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Probablytomorrow



Joined: 04 Aug 2019
Posts: 164
PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:11 pm Reply with quote
Oh c'mon, Naofumi losing his class seat to a cat was funny.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2020 11:36 pm Reply with quote
Just checked the picture for season 2 , and neither Naofumi nor Raphtalia are in it. Presumably they are joining class 1, which as far as I remember I don't think it had anyone from Tanya the Evil, so a rule of four series might be kept to each classroom. My thought is that there might still be new characters that were not revealed yet that would have been spoiled by thew OP.

The obvious rival for Tanya would be Mary Sue, who don't think was in the first season, but perhaps Yunyun will get some new classmates. If Mary does join, maybe some humor about her not exactly being stable. Or other series might actually be joining and they kept them as a surprise.
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AholePony



Joined: 04 Jun 2015
Posts: 330
Location: Arizona
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:03 am Reply with quote
Just a slight correction to the review, it was Mare using his staff to bat, not Aura.

[EDIT: Corrected. I always get those two backwards. . . - Key]
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DavetheUsher



Joined: 19 May 2014
Posts: 505
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 2:11 am Reply with quote
ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:
Gotta be completely honest, while the first half of the S2 premiere was delightful, as soon as Naofumi became more prominent, the episode took a nosedive in quality and charm. It became the "Naofumi is Nice and Amazing and Misunderstood, Look How Epic He Is Show". That sequence of him saving the hapless damsels was played without an ounce of irony, the onlookers portrayed as totally impressed with his fancy heroics. .


I think you kinda missed the joke. Naofumi is being set up as the straight man to everyone elses idiocy. Him taking the baseball so seriously like it's a battle when everyone else is just goofing off.
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2165
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 12:30 pm Reply with quote
ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:
everyone remarking on what an awesome guy he is
In fairness, Kazuma and Ainz called him a hard-to-talk-to tsundere. As for his needlessly dramatic entry, well that's a gag in and of itself.

I'm not sold on him in IQ yet but I'm not bringing out the pitchforks yet either. Emilia and Megumin talking to each other when?


Last edited by FilthyCasual on Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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bennyl



Joined: 06 Apr 2019
Posts: 123
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 2:37 pm Reply with quote
Kazuma and Subaru are largely comic characters in their series. Ains was at times comic, and is more so in quartet. Tanya wasn't a comic character and still isn't, really, mostly playing the straight man to others antics. Naofumi has never been a comic character, and they have played him so straight in quartet that it's almost satire.

If you don't like shield hero because he's on a whole revenge tour because a woman falsely accused him of rape or he had the gall to buy a sick young girl to get her out of the slave masters pen as it offends your woke sensibilities, don't watch quartet. The joke is it's the same character dropped into a high school setting.

Keep in mind Ains tricked a young girl into invading his strong hold, killed her, and let a spider monster steal her voice box from her dead body because it was kinder than the torture he had planned for the rest of her party. But now he's haha funny Skeletor guy.
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Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18135
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 2:46 pm Reply with quote
bennyl wrote:
Kazuma and Subaru are largely comic characters in their series. Ains was at times comic, and is more so in quartet. Tanya wasn't a comic character and still isn't, really, mostly playing the straight man to others antics.

While I agree with the rest of your point, I'm going to totally disagree about Tanya. While not explicitly a comic character, she was either the cause of or involved in most of what humor her series had. (The dress scene, her problems reaching things, her horror when her plans backfired, the letter about the soldier who'd eaten the rotten potato, etc.)
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
Posts: 4884
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:24 pm Reply with quote
I'm no big fan of the Shield Douche but he and his crew make for a good addition to the cast. There were some parts that had me laughing out loud like Wilhelm just casually sweeping the ground while Naofumi was trying figure out his situation. I think seeing the characters interact for the first time is the part I'm always looking forward to the most.
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Replica_Rabbit



Joined: 23 Aug 2015
Posts: 354
Location: Portland
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:49 pm Reply with quote
bennyl wrote:
Kazuma and Subaru are largely comic characters in their series. Ains was at times comic, and is more so in quartet. Tanya wasn't a comic character and still isn't, really, mostly playing the straight man to others antics. Naofumi has never been a comic character, and they have played him so straight in quartet that it's almost satire.

If you don't like shield hero because he's on a whole revenge tour because a woman falsely accused him of rape or he had the gall to buy a sick young girl to get her out of the slave masters pen as it offends your woke sensibilities, don't watch quartet. The joke is it's the same character dropped into a high school setting.

Keep in mind Ains tricked a young girl into invading his strong hold, killed her, and let a spider monster steal her voice box from her dead body because it was kinder than the torture he had planned for the rest of her party. But now he's haha funny Skeletor guy.

I don't like Shield Hero because of the fans, I think Shield Hero is ok but not my cup of tea. But the fans keep overly defending the show causing me to be bitter about the show and character. I can't enjoy him anywhere because of that, it not because I offended.
I think I'll give this another two episodes, didn't find Shield Hero crew adding anything to the show and my feeling about Shield Hero isn't great and I get a Poochie vibe from him.
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Stampeed Valkyrie



Joined: 10 Aug 2014
Posts: 825
Location: PA
PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:22 pm Reply with quote
1st episode wasn't bad. I am hoping they can keep the pacing and feel of the first season.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2857
PostPosted: Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:13 am Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:

The obvious rival for Tanya would be Mary Sue, who don't think was in the first season, but perhaps Yunyun will get some new classmates.


You just made me think about yunyun, the one who desperately wants new friends and shield hero, the antisociable jerk intercating with each other.
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