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This Week in Anime - Isekai Until I Die


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Stretch2424



Joined: 14 Mar 2008
Posts: 166
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:31 am Reply with quote
Not all Isekai anime is crap. I recommend Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. In Grimgar, half a dozen teenagers find themselves in an adventure party sort of world. The unusual touch is that somehow the kids can't remember how they got where they are, or where they were before. They do have some very vague memories; the word 'game', for instance, is a word that they know they've heard before, but they can't place it. They are convinced that getting killed is just that, and had better be avoided at all costs. The cast does little thinking about how they wound up where they are, since they are now living dangerous, exhausting lives. And, to my surprise, the main focus of the show is on the development of comraderie and friendship among the cast as they struggle to survive. This is clearly a well thought out, intellectual show, not one about little more than how to play video games. The scene where the team finally manages to kill a Goblin was striking; the thought that crossed my mind was 'are humans really any better than Goblins?'. It's as if whoever wrote this show objected to video games which included routine violence without the players having to think about the consequences, and is pointing out that even in fights-of-the-week, people die. Video games are supposed to be all about being able to kill and risk your life without there being any real-world consequences; but here you might say we are being reminded of what an unrealistic view that is. This anime isn't lecturing us in a haughty manner, no, it is pointing out what would be liable to happen if players really did have to take responsibility for their actions.
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Key
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 11:52 am Reply with quote
Generations wrote:
Kind of like the main character of Shield Hero. He was okay in the manga, but for some reason he was just kind of insufferable in the anime. As it turns out, the less you hear your character think, the better.

There are definitely bad cases of this, but it's far from a universally (or even generally) true statement. (Ascendance of a Bookworm's Myne would be an excellent counter-example.)
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Uchay



Joined: 27 Nov 2016
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:31 pm Reply with quote
Generations wrote:
helln00 wrote:
I read the manga for jobless reincarnation only I watching the first ep I just felt like "this is different, I don't remember Rudy being this annoying, this uncomfortable to think about or how sleezy this was".

I reread the first two chapters and like holy shit, manga Rudy and tbh how the manga started is such an improvement on this (and probably the LN) .the manga showed his clear life before the reincarnation (no mention of masturbation to potentially illegal stuff if people needed that) , his fall and his desire to do better, a moment of action and his reincarnation is clearly framed as his reward for that action. cut out most of the baby sleeze part and shows and clearly frame rudy's desire not just for a better life but to do better than his past.

also just from the fact that we aren't hearing his adult voiced monolouge constantly and the distinction between his inner adult and child voice is less clear, Rudy feels less like a grown man trapped inside a baby which makes just watching him really off and more like a child with past experience and memories, like he is a new person.

Straight up I don't like this Rudy and if I keep on having to listen to his internal monolouge imma tap out.


Hilariously, this is actually true for a lot of anime adaptations. Clearly, they believed their budget gave them the opportunity to amp up the horny, and they did.

There definitely was less focus on all aspects of the horny in the manga, but because the anime really REALLY wanted to animate a masturbating loli wizard with good budget, it wasn't going to waste that money.

Despite my criticisms in previous posts, I don't even hate Jobless Numnuts. It's average, but a lot of what brings it down is its focus on wanting to be horny, and at inopportune times. At random times in the manga, it will just turn on horny mode to maximum for a page and then keep rolling along like nothing happened. If it was an ecchi, that would have been acceptable because that's your main sell, but the fact that you have this serious character development going on and then suddenly HEY I WANNA NUT, it really takes you out of it and you're just left wondering if the writer/artist can't go five minutes without thinking of lewding the current situation -- kind of like the protagonist, actually.

Kind of like the main character of Shield Hero. He was okay in the manga, but for some reason he was just kind of insufferable in the anime. As it turns out, the less you hear your character think, the better.


Right, I keep hearing people say the WN is worse, but I read the WN back in 2013 and I found it bearable. Granted, I did skim through when the writing went on a horny tangent sometimes, but I honestly feel like the horny stuff wasn't as prominient as they are in the anime?? And honestly, arguably Rudy in the WN is a worse person for a lot of reasons, like his worse habits from his previous life being downplayed in the other adaptations, but him being a horny baby didn't receive that much focus before the anime. There were lots of other, heart warming moments early on that sorta made up for the trash and had more focus.

I find Rudy in the anime absolutely unbearable and it's strange.

I don't know, maybe the horny is more bearable when you can skip through it and you aren't forced to hear the character talking about it over and over, or my mindset was just different. I'm really not sure anymore.

Maybe they should've muted his thoughts for the anime adaptation and focused on his interactions.
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FinalVentCard
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Joined: 28 Oct 2018
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
Generations wrote:
Kind of like the main character of Shield Hero. He was okay in the manga, but for some reason he was just kind of insufferable in the anime. As it turns out, the less you hear your character think, the better.

There are definitely bad cases of this, but it's far from a universally (or even generally) true statement. (Ascendance of a Bookworm's Myne would be an excellent counter-example.)


Hearing a character's internal thoughts isn't the problem. The main character being a rotten dweebus and the show framing them as unerringly in the right is the problem.
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Key
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:30 am Reply with quote
FinalVentCard wrote:
Hearing a character's internal thoughts isn't the problem. The main character being a rotten dweebus and the show framing them as unerringly in the right is the problem.

Assuming you're talking about Rudy, in what way are the first two episode framing him as "unerringly in the right"? I have watched both of the first two episodes more than once and only see him being framed as a snide ass with the emotional development of an 8th grader.
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Just clear something up: FinalVentCard is our writer Jean-Karlo. He's certainly watched the material and made his opinion on it known in the column itself.
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Fluwm



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 881
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:23 pm Reply with quote
The whole Isekai genre has been such a shitshow for so long I can't even be bothered to care to criticize it any more. How many decades will it take to move on?

Or, at the very least, evolve past these amateur writers who think the most interesting part of an RPG is fiddling with the menus.
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helln00



Joined: 01 Apr 2016
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:08 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
FinalVentCard wrote:
Hearing a character's internal thoughts isn't the problem. The main character being a rotten dweebus and the show framing them as unerringly in the right is the problem.

Assuming you're talking about Rudy, in what way are the first two episode framing him as "unerringly in the right"? I have watched both of the first two episodes more than once and only see him being framed as a snide ass with the emotional development of an 8th grader.


To me its less "unerringly in the right" and more like "this is acceptable behavior" partly because he is in a child's body and people don't take it seriously. The prime example of this is when the maid first saw him crawl around as a baby with panties on his head(after we saw him take a long sniff of it) and him giving her a pervert's grin and she is seriously creeped out. But then he is picked up by his mother and while the maid tells her something is wrong, the mother just said "oh its fine he is just a baby". Like tat was the moment that made me go "welp they are going down that direction"

Its like that thought experiment of like if a man cries all day and shits his pants its weird, but its ok for a baby. His behaviours are going to be in a sense compensated and considered ok going forward because of his circumstances and power, either because he is young or he is going to get OP later on
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Redbeard 101
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 8:21 pm Reply with quote
Fluwm wrote:
The whole Isekai genre has been such a shitshow for so long I can't even be bothered to care to criticize it any more. How many decades will it take to move on?.


About as long as it took to get away from the moe stage.
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Actar



Joined: 21 Nov 2010
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 7:38 am Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
What's laughable is how predictably bent out of shape fans of these types of hot button shows get when someone dares to insult their trash. You can count on it like clockwork. Just as you can count on those same people to consistently have their heads in the sand and refuse to see how the material in question is rather sleazy, objectionable, icky, insert adjective here, and how they take any criticism of their show as a personal attack and retaliate with personal attacks against the reviewer. Nobody says you can't enjoy a trashy or questionable title. Enjoy that stuff like a happy trash panda raccoon. Go to town man. But don't be blind and refuse to admit that you are indeed watching trash, while you're sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you.


Honestly, I don't think people get bent out of shape because "someone dares to insult their trash", but that people think that their opinions on a show are the objective truth and use their opinions to justify applying value judgement to the people who watch them. There's also the issue of how something is framed. I mean, there's a clear difference between saying "I don't think the show is for me." and "The show is trash and anyone who enjoys it is a happy trash panda raccoon who's sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you."

Frankly, I don't understand how your comment is not supposed to be a personal insult.
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ATastySub
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Joined: 19 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:05 pm Reply with quote
Actar wrote:
Psycho 101 wrote:
What's laughable is how predictably bent out of shape fans of these types of hot button shows get when someone dares to insult their trash. You can count on it like clockwork. Just as you can count on those same people to consistently have their heads in the sand and refuse to see how the material in question is rather sleazy, objectionable, icky, insert adjective here, and how they take any criticism of their show as a personal attack and retaliate with personal attacks against the reviewer. Nobody says you can't enjoy a trashy or questionable title. Enjoy that stuff like a happy trash panda raccoon. Go to town man. But don't be blind and refuse to admit that you are indeed watching trash, while you're sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you.


Honestly, I don't think people get bent out of shape because "someone dares to insult their trash", but that people think that their opinions on a show are the objective truth and use their opinions to justify applying value judgement to the people who watch them. There's also the issue of how something is framed. I mean, there's a clear difference between saying "I don't think the show is for me." and "The show is trash and anyone who enjoys it is a happy trash panda raccoon who's sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you."

Frankly, I don't understand how your comment is not supposed to be a personal insult.

If you think “a happy trash panda raccoon who’s sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you” is an insult then I feel really sorry for you.
Signed-
a happy trash panda raccoon sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around me
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Redbeard 101
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:52 pm Reply with quote
Actar wrote:

Honestly, I don't think people get bent out of shape because "someone dares to insult their trash", but that people think that their opinions on a show are the objective truth and use their opinions to justify applying value judgement to the people who watch them. There's also the issue of how something is framed. I mean, there's a clear difference between saying "I don't think the show is for me." and "The show is trash and anyone who enjoys it is a happy trash panda raccoon who's sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you."


You're certainly entitled to think people do not get bent out of shape over that, but I've been around the dumpster block many times and yes they do. It has happened repeatedly over decades with hot button shows that are critically panned, but still enjoyed by others. Those types of shows by far tend to have the highest percentage of fans who take criticisms of their shows as personal attacks. As in they are being insulted personally because the reviewer, other anime fan, whoever does not "get" their beloved show. By far those are the shows with fans who simply cannot grasp why others find the material sleazy, distasteful, boring, poorly written, or just downright disgusting. It's simply beyond them how anyone could dare think that about their precious trash pile. The only other situation where it's as bad, or worse, is when it comes to "shipping" and people getting up in arms over their precious 2d waifus being insulted. There are countless fans who take that shit far too seriously. But that's another topic (the shipping). Suffice to say that while yes there is a clear difference between saying a show is trash, and saying you're trash for liking this show, far too often fans of those shows act as if you're saying the latter when you're simply saying the former. It's why reviewers get so many colorful and cheerful (sarcasm) personal attacks thrown their way when they criticize a show.

Actar wrote:
Frankly, I don't understand how your comment is not supposed to be a personal insult.


For starters I didn't say anyone who enjoys these shows is trash themselves. I said that they should embrace their inner trash panda and just admit they're watching trash. Enjoy the trash. I watch plenty of trash shows. I love Ikki Tousen and other clothes exploding fighting girl shows. I however know full well I am watching trash and do not pretend it is anything other then what it is. I don't get my knickers in a twist and start insulting people because they think the show is hot garbage. I simply tune them out and go back to watching my hot garbage.

That is one of the core problems with the 2 big hot button shows this season. Many fans simply are refusing to admit the shows are trash. One has a literal pedophile, and one has a literal rapist. Those are not allegories, hyperbole, or fact less insults. That is in fact what the MC's of those shows are. Their behavior (the MC's) is reprehensible. Yet despite the facts sitting right there in their faces many just stick their head in the sand and say it's a marvel of storytelling. This has happened time and time and time again with similar shows. Look, some movies win oscars, and some win razzies. Some anime is awe inspiring, some belongs in a dumpster. Don't act all indignant when your precious show is insulted. Enjoy that hot trash like a happy trash panda.


And the trash panda comment is not a personal insult. Raccoons are known affectionately as trash pandas. They eat garbage. They go into dumpsters. The 2 shows in question are garbage and belong in a dumpster. Therefore by all means enjoy them, but since they're garbage you'll have to go dumpster diving to enjoy them. Hence enjoy them like a trash panda in a dumpster surrounded by garbage. And while they are dirty, have poor service, and generally are where you go to eat when drunk, or hung over, Waffle House's do make mighty fine trash. Hence being a happy trash panda in a Waffle House dumpster watching your trash show.

Frankly I think you just don't understand or appreciate trash pandas enough. They're glorious creatures. They also like fried potato wedges and will take them from you if wait patiently.They're very smart and resourceful too. And for god's sake one was bio engineered and then helped save the damn universe from Thanos. You should wish to be as cool as a trash panda.


Last edited by Redbeard 101 on Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:27 pm Reply with quote
This is art.
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AmpersandsUnited



Joined: 22 Mar 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:21 pm Reply with quote
Actar wrote:
Honestly, I don't think people get bent out of shape because "someone dares to insult their trash", but that people think that their opinions on a show are the objective truth and use their opinions to justify applying value judgement to the people who watch them. There's also the issue of how something is framed. I mean, there's a clear difference between saying "I don't think the show is for me." and "The show is trash and anyone who enjoys it is a happy trash panda raccoon who's sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you."


Yeah, I don't think it's hard to really see why trying to say a show is "objectively trash" would rub people the wrong way. And condescending comments like "just admit you enjoy watching trash" just implies the problem is with the person who enjoys things rather than the detractor. Obviously people are going to push back against that.

I think the root of the problem lies with people taking it personally that so many ''awe inspiring" anime tend to underperform and get ignored by the general fanbase like last year's Stars Align or 2019's Carole & Tuesday. At some point someone's going to have their Skinner moment of "Am I so out of touch"? No, it's the anime fans who are wrong" and become jaded that their critically superior tastes aren't being shared. That's going to lead to lashing out at shows that have what they perceive as unwarranted praise and popularity by calling them trash.
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ATastySub
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:59 pm Reply with quote
AmpersandsUnited wrote:
Actar wrote:
Honestly, I don't think people get bent out of shape because "someone dares to insult their trash", but that people think that their opinions on a show are the objective truth and use their opinions to justify applying value judgement to the people who watch them. There's also the issue of how something is framed. I mean, there's a clear difference between saying "I don't think the show is for me." and "The show is trash and anyone who enjoys it is a happy trash panda raccoon who's sitting in a dumpster behind the local Waffle House with garbage all around you."


Yeah, I don't think it's hard to really see why trying to say a show is "objectively trash" would rub people the wrong way. And condescending comments like "just admit you enjoy watching trash" just implies the problem is with the person who enjoys things rather than the detractor. Obviously people are going to push back against that.

I think the root of the problem lies with people taking it personally that so many ''awe inspiring" anime tend to underperform and get ignored by the general fanbase like last year's Stars Align or 2019's Carole & Tuesday. At some point someone's going to have their Skinner moment of "Am I so out of touch"? No, it's the anime fans who are wrong" and become jaded that their critically superior tastes aren't being shared. That's going to lead to lashing out at shows that have what they perceive as unwarranted praise and popularity by calling them trash.

We get it. You’re mad that people like other things, and want what you like to be seen as the height of art. I guess Psycho explaining the merits of raccoons is lost on those that think being anything but the top of the food chain is an insult. The reason you see a lot of praise for stuff like Stars Align and Carole and Tuesday is because those things aren’t pretending to have mass appeal. They’re stories that want people to relate to them. But I guess if you’re the type of person that gets mad about trash being called trash you really don’t care about relating to others and understanding why they feel the ways they do about shows at all.
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