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Shelf Life - Pitch Men

I watched a few episodes on Anime Network while my only knowledge of the show was from the old Geneon previews where they ran the opening credits. It reached "must buy" status for me when they played the "stairs" episode and I didn't regret my purchase after watching both seasons.

Erin wrote:

It's awfully jarring to watch. Am I the only person who's bothered by this sort of thing?

Even in titles like the Higurashi series, which had perhaps the most radical and intentional shifts in tone between the bloodiest of tragedies and the silliest of antics throughout the majority of its narrative, I felt that having such a contrast was entirely warranted and there were plenty of circumstances that justified it.

Conceptually speaking, the main reason why I am not too bothered by those and other tonal shifts is because most of the time they tend to happen after the crisis or conflict of the day has already been resolved, either during an earlier scene or at the end of the previous episode, or they are just meant to make the audience develop a false sense of security right before surprising them with another development.

Once again, I'd say Higurashi is a pretty good example of the above

I really like the SpongeBob DVDs thrown in there. And what an impressive figure collection!

Animegomaniac wrote:

Moe: Moe is the eye of the beholder and I didn't see it as moe.

Seeing as Suiseiseki won the Saimoe title in 2006, I'd say enough people thought otherwise.

nightjuan wrote:

Erin wrote: It's awfully jarring to watch. Am I the only person who's bothered by this sort of thing? Even in titles like the Higurashi series, which had perhaps the most radical and intentional shifts in tone between the bloodiest of tragedies and the silliest of antics throughout the majority of its narrative, I felt that having such a contrast was entirely warranted and there were plenty of circumstances that justified it. Conceptually speaking, the main reason why I am not too bothered by those and other tonal shifts is because most of the time they tend to happen after the crisis or conflict of the day has already been resolved, either during an earlier scene or at the end of the previous episode, or they are just meant to make the audience develop a false sense of security right before surprising them with another development. Once again, I'd say Higurashi is a pretty good example of the above

I don't know that it's fair to compare Lagrange to Higurashi. Higurashi was intentionally a shock show of the horror genre. Pretty much the whole purpose of each episodes in Higurashi is to set up the audience into believing that it is some kind of Moe show involving fun-loving school children who just like to play wacky games, then shock you with scenes of horrific murders and grotesque torture scenes towards the end of each episode. The show consistently takes the essence of innocence and turns it into something murderously insane.

I don't know that it's fair to compare Lagrange to Higurashi.

The underlying idea is simply that shifts in tone aren't necessarily a bad thing in anime.

I don't know that it's fair to compare Lagrange to Higurashi. Higurashi was intentionally a shock show of the horror genre. Pretty much the whole purpose of each episodes in Higurashi is to set up the audience into believing that it is some kind of Moe show involving fun-loving school children who just like to play wacky games, then shock you with scenes of horrific murders and grotesque torture scenes towards the end of each episode. The show consistently takes the essence of innocence and turns it into something murderously insane.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

I don't know that it's fair to compare Lagrange to Higurashi. Higurashi was intentionally a shock show of the horror genre. Pretty much the whole purpose of each episodes in Higurashi is to set up the audience into believing that it is some kind of Moe show involving fun-loving school children who just like to play wacky games, then shock you with scenes of horrific murders and grotesque torture scenes towards the end of each episode. The show consistently takes the essence of innocence and turns it into something murderously insane.

You haven't actually watched Higurashi, have you?

As for Lagrange, the specific example cited in the article was done to deliberately contrast Muginami's childhood with how she is now. I don't really see how this is a controversial bit of storytelling.

Yes I have watched Higurashi. I also own the box set of season 1. Is there a specific reason you asked?