Forum - View topicSword Art Online: What makes it SEEM so bad?
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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Some of them probably were. Anyways, I wish people would get over the whole Asuna thing. I get it, there's been a heavy emphasis in society today for women to be strong. That's not inherently bad, but when it gets so extreme that women are harshed on for showing any kind of weakness we have a problem. Look at something like Metroid Other M that caused a big stink because Samus *gasps* showed human emotions instead of being a mindless robotic space pirate killing machine. Women can be strong but it's unreasonable to expect them to be strong all the time and in any situation. Back to Asuna, she was held captive by some one who was effectively God. He could change the rules of the game however he saw fit. Against such a power anyone would be helpless. Kirito was helpless before that power. For Asuna to be able to get out of that situation with her limited resources is highly unlikely. But you know what? She almost gets out anyways! She does not deserved to be criticised for her lack of strength, instead she should be praised for her actions despite her weakness. The damsel in distress trope only becomes problematic when 1.) she gets kidnapped every other week, and 2.) she's put in an easily escapable situation but is rendered powerless because the bad guy lightly grabbed her arm. As for the sexual assault business I'm not that bothered by it. And no, it's not because I get off on it. We're dealing with scummy people here and it's not hard for me to believe they'd do a super scummy thing like force themselves on others. It's only happened twice anyways. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5124 |
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Ouch. 
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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Ouch in what sense?
My point is do you really think some one who thinks "It's totally okay for me to trap hundreds of people inside a game so I can run illegal experiments on them, and it's totally okay for me to marry a comatose girl so I can take over her father's company" would suddenly go "But I'd never rape anyone! That's just evil!" Both cases happen under different contexts too. One did it as a display of power (which is actually the motive behind most sexual assaults) and the other did it out of a twisted sense of affection/possessiveness. Both fit their characters and motives so they weren't really out of place. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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YES. THANK YOU. There's a meme of sorts going around that says something like "Screw writing strong women. Write interesting women." Let me see if I can find it. Here's the Miyazaki one. But it's been done with Disney women and 1001 other fandoms. 
Exactly. People give her way too hard a time for this. It wasn't her fault. She did not go OOC. She did very well for being in a hopeless environment. The rape scenes do make me uncomfortable....but they don't make me angry. You want to see me angry, write a rape scene and turn it into something romantic. SAO never did this. Kawahara always treats the act of rape as something detestable and undesired by the victim, which is how it SHOULD be treated, instead of this "girl gets molested by asshole pervert, now she loves him" misogynist bullshit that earns the creator my middle finger. |
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nobahn
Subscriber Posts: 5124 |
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I respectfully -- and cordially -- disagree. But others might not be so cordial in their disagreement. That's what I meant by "ouch." |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5507 Location: Mexico |
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What everyone is missing is not the fact that there are attempted rape scenes, but the nature of such scenes. It's titillating. Particularly with Asuna. In both cases when she's almost raped, the framing makes it "sexy" in a disgusting way. A strong female character is getting humiliated and assaulted, but the frames, the focus on the tentacles writhing over her body, touching her lips, or on Villain McEvil's tongue licking her tears, a close shot of her chest when he starts to take of her clothes, all of it is trying to make the scene jack-off worthy. And that's gross, period.
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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I suppose I did sound a bit dismissive. But compared to other stuff I've seen, yes, 2 attempted rape scenes is a small quantity. Plus, people act like such scenes happens all the time in SAO when they don't. |
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Night fox
 Posts: 561 Location: Sweden |
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@Nobahn
I don't think Vaisaga meant to put a value on the act of rape with his comment. He merely pointed out that there hasn't been an excessive use of it in the series. Yes, it was done twice, but the circumstances around each scene were very different. I also believe that it's sound that people have issues with rapescenes in anime, or in any other medium for that matter. It's an ugly thing indeed, but people need to realize that this is something that happens to women irl and not just some perverted fantasy that the writers came up with. I believe it's fair to address this type of appalling behaviour in our society and the people behind SAO must've thought it important enough to address twice. Kudos to them. @Crowlia Unfortunately fanservice sells, but it's not as if it's only used during the rapescenes. I suppose the animators are so used to it by now that they don't always reflect on it's implications. Yes, they could've handled it better, but I don't think it deserves the level of hate people give it. Last edited by Night fox on Thu Jan 07, 2016 11:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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The only scene that is really nasty is Asuna with Sugou. And yeah, that's what the fast forward button is for. It's a few seconds verses a 26 episode series.
I didn't find the Sinon one to be nearly as creepy. It was a little creepy but....the guy was acting the way every single yandere female "love interest" acts. Watch, I SO bet that if those two rapists were both WOMEN, nobody would be freaking complaining at all; hell, they would probably ship it.. 
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Alcyon
Posts: 5 |
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SAO and Mahouka are wonderful examples of wonderful Light Novels really hard butchered in animes. We can say the same about Hunger Games or Divergent, but this isn't the topic.
Let's take SAO : the novels are written in the first person with the main character as the narrator. We think what Kirito thinks, we only see Kirito what Kirito sees, we only hear what Kirito hears : we ARE Kirito. It helps a lot to like the character, but (and the same problems arises in Hunger Games and Divergent), the anime cannot so that. And this is really important for the others characters, we only have Kirito's point of view and never some "3rd person view". Kirito seems a lot less perfect, a lot less badass, a lot more vulnerable, etc in the books. But the anime showed us the story from a 3rd person point of view, and everything seems different. Ah, the harem doesn't exist in the books (that's why Kirito seems so oblivious in the anime). They decided to "make" him a "typical hero" in the anime, that's all. Now for Mahouka. I [expletive] love the light novels, I found them really refrecshing. The writing is really different, with a 3rd person point of view, and it helps a lot : the author can add many disposable characters without poblem and spend a lot of times to explain details about the World, Magic and talks between the protagonists. But in the anime, would you watch Tasuya and Myuki talking during 10 minutes about the new magic he's developping ? Or have a narrator explains how the Magic is working ? They decided to stript that part, and the anime simply became a high school overpowered student in high school. In the novels, he's even more powerful than everything you could imagine, next to the definition of "overpowered", a picture of Tatsuya is enough. But most people don't care, we want to see some new powers from Tatsuya and the World itself is really great. Here is a page of one of the novels, there isn't any real spoilers, but I don't take any risk :p spoiler[ Kazama introducing Tatsuya to Yakumo was more than to introduce the latter to this underground facility. As a master of taijutsu, Yakumo's skill was top‐rank. However, Kazama's expectations were not only to aim for Tatsuya's taijutsu improvement. He did not bring Tatsuya into the military in order to be a “usual” close‐combat specialist. He was expecting, to the very end, the abilities of an extremely powerful magician that could fight on the frontlines. It was a facility where both taijutsu coaching and magic training were possible. As soon as he knew that Tatsuya's house was within an agreeably short distance from Kyuuchouji in the neighbouring town, this temple was Kazama's only choice. And now, Tatsuya was entering into the lowest level of Kyuuchouji's underground training facility. This training room had, from the floor to the ceiling and even the walls, three layers comprising of 10cm thick concrete, 30cm thick lead, and 60cm thick of neutron shielding concrete. This was no nuclear shelter, it was meant as a training room for magic. And as to why such secure anti‐ radiation shielding was required, there was a reason behind it within the history of how 21st century magic was developed. Research and development on modern magic originated in AD 1999, in an incident when an American police officer used an unusual power (at that time it was still called ESP) to take down nuclear terrorism. From those events onwards, R&D on modern magic started out as a means to counter nuclear threats; basically the primary objectives were the control and suppression of nuclear fission, and the isolation and nullification of radiation. With focused research on it being worthwhile, it was at a stage where it was safe to say that neutron barriers and gamma radiation filters were completed. Nevertheless, even today the development and improvement of spells against nuclear reactions was essential data captured in magic ability development. Even so, what Tatsuya was about to do in this room was neither practice for radiation isolation magic nor improving nuclear fission control magic. In some ways, it was the opposite. This underground training room was currently turning into a pool. Even so, it was not being flooded for swimming purposes. With his shoulders just out of the water, Tatsuya was in short‐sleeved training wear holding a pistol‐shaped CAD in one hand. Though he wasn't swimming, both his head and hair were drenched. What his right hand was gripping was not his favorite Silver Horn Custom. It was clear from its plain appearance that it was a prototype. The biggest difference was the bayonet‐like object attached to the muzzle end of the barrel. An imitation, because it was neither sharp nor pointed, and only because the metallic thick plate was constructed to be like a bayonet. With his right hand underwater, Tatsuya pulled the trigger. The “two” activation sequences that generated underwater were absorbed into his right arm. The first one was output from the pistol‐shaped CAD. The other one was output from the bayonet‐like attachment. The magic sequences acted on the attachment. Water bubbled at the tip of the CAD. The groans that escaped from Tatsuya's clenched teeth grew louder and he went down on his knees. His right hand hideously burned deep red due to the severe scalding, Tatsuya ended up dropping the CAD due to the injury. ] How can you add so much details in an anime ? |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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You silly girl. Didn't you know that women can't be rapists? Men are always willing, and between girls it's the purest love of all!
I won't deny that there're most definitely people who got off on those scenes (personally I was too busy laughing at Takehito Koyasu's wonderfully hammy acting), but just as many had the proper uncomfortable reaction. Maybe they did rub it in your nose a bit too much, but having it all happen off screen would lessen the impact. In Shion's case I'll admit that I found her a little hot (before I wasn't attracted to her RL self) but it wasn't the rape, it was the resulting exposed shoulder that I found appealing. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5507 Location: Mexico |
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^But that's the point. It's not how many people actually jacked off to those scenes, but the fact that they were framed explicitly with the purpose of making them "sexy". It's the disgusting, malicious intent of whoever animated those scenes and decided that the torture and humiliation of the main female lead was supposed to titillate otaku.
@Night fox: I'm not even mentioning the regular fanservice the show has. It's not something I like, but given the target audience, I guess I can't condemn it too much. Since everyone is "justifying" the existence of the attempted rape scenes (that Asuna is literally powerless in both of them because Need I say of course, that I have many problems with SAO, but this discussion went in twenty million circles in the respective discussion threads so I feel no need to go back at it again, I'm just pointing out why many people are so hung up about the rape scenes. It's not because they are rape scenes, it's because something absolutely horrible is turned into the lowest of fanservice
I know quoting oneself is often pretty lame but...
Last edited by CrowLia on Fri Jan 08, 2016 12:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Yes, that's what makes them a lot of fun to read. HOW GREAT would it have been if Kirito narrated the entire anime, the way Kyon did during Haruhi? .......but maybe it would have felt too much like a comedy? Hell, I would still watch it!! I mean, he'll go and say something to a character (take Kuradeel for example) and then to the reader he'll say in his head, "Boy, that was a cringe-worthy line." It's hilarious! Someone making fun of his own cliche dialogue alone.....that instantly makes a character likable.
Koyasu has always been such a ham.....and coupled with those faces he was making....it almost felt like watching Jack Nicholson or Nicholas Cage chewing the scenery. 
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4621 |
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Off-topic here, but Other M raised a big stink because it showed Samus literally reverting into a frightened little girl in front of an enemy whose ass she had already kicked in multiple occasions in the past. Her only viable reaction at seeing Ridley should have been, "Damn, son, how many times do I need to kill you?" Not to mention that despite being an independent bounty hunter, she inexplicably bound herself to strictly following her former commander's orders, when she most certainly should have been the one calling the shots. Couple that with the utterly ham-handed constant mother references, and it was just an utter mess. More to the point here, anything negative I would have said about SAO has already been brought up (seriously, how does a device that includes a powerful microwave source right next to a person's head ever make it anywhere near market in the first place?), but at the end of the day I don't hate it just because it's popular. I hate it because it's both popular and horribly-written. I've said it many times in the past, but it is quite literally the Twilight of anime, both in many of its specific flaws and in the general sense of being bad FF.net narrative being elevated to a smash hit for lord knows what reason. To the person who brought up .hack//SIGN, I would counter that in my humble opinion, that show did whatever SAO was trying to do FAR better more than a decade ago. (Hell, even the vaunted Mother's Rosario arc just left me rolling my eyes at the blatant tragedy-porn stylings.) |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Oh lord, no. It really isn't. Because if it was, I'd hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns. * First of all, Twilight was only popular with very young teenage girls and incredibly bored housewives. Once the girls get older, they recognize how bad it is. The damn thing will be forgotten five years from now. *It was only popular with its fanbase because "self-insert heroine has a "romance" with a supernatural Mary Sue, plus lots of men take off their shirts. *Kawahara knows how to construct sentences and use words intelligently. Meyers does not. I've read one chapter of her crap and it was so mind-numbingly stupid that it made me want to bang my head off the nearest wall.
This requires a bit of 'suspension of disbelief' for some people....but I don't think it's that bad, plus many anime and novels require it. Meyers, on the other hand actually thinks you can bribe the Vatican guards with a thousand dollars in US currency and they'll let you go right in! Yup. An adult woman who writes books seriously thinks this. Is her I.Q. over forty? That's all I want to know. She doesn't f*cking research anything.
If you mean, "make a video game experience that was supposed to be awesome, REALLY boring", yes, .hack did that far better. |
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