Forum - View topicThe Stream - Monsters in the Attic
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2234 |
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K's problem sounds like it just doesn't take the time to sit down and explain itself. It's often a problem with a LOT of light novel writers in that they're far too enamored with creating these worlds that they forget to settle down for a moment or two.
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Kohii
 Posts: 428 |
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I was like that at first. Never liked Kirito much, though. And Asuna isn't exactly my favorite heroine of all time. But it was still entertaining seeing how people reacted and the variety of cliques that formed. Now it's just "Let's get this mother---- over with". I'm REALLY enjoying Chu2 Byou, though. And I haven't checked out Little Busters. Not yet. BTW, it just occurred to me: did Kirito ever visit Sachi's grave or at least made showed any intention of doing so? Very cold. And Oniai is my guilty pleasure. I also like dissecting all the bad qualities and plot holes in the show. I'm a terrible person. I did the same thing with Nakaimo. They are both equally terrible. Akiko is fun, though. Like her silly t-shirts. |
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getchman
 He started itPosts: 9122 Location: Bedford, NH |
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there is a two month gap between him waking up and finding out Asuna is being held hostage. he might have |
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zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
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I don't mind that in a story, if the pieces are there to put together and figure out what's going on. K seems to be close to doing that, but not with the characters, because there are just too frickin' many of them! The Neko thing was well done, but it did make the character development situation worse, since it totally tossed the essential nature of the protagonist up in the air. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Yes, he might have. Just as he might have done a bunch of other shit. That's the problem with SAO. Kawahara just skips ahead and leaves us to assume that shit will happen. Isn't that just so easy? Screw actually taking on the challenge of writing good and impacting scenes, just skip it and your wave of apologists will defend it to the grave. Screw character development, just use stock tropes for everyone (there isn't not a single character in SAO who isn't a trope played entirely straight)! And then we reached the imouto incest crap and Kawahara lost all pretensions of being even a decent writer. Ugh this show is the biggest dissappointment in a while. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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He was never a decent writer, not until Accel World. But he has always had a great knack for business. Pandering to his audience with awful tripe such as the imouto incest and the Harem setup has made Sword Art Online the most successful Light Novel franchise for the year. It's clear that he doesn't have any pride as a writer (okay, Accel World ain't so bad), but he's too busy rolling around in piles of money to care. |
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getchman
He started it Posts: 9122 Location: Bedford, NH |
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you say that like i actually care |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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Sometimes you have to write trash that sells in order to make a decent profit so people will want to hire you and market said trash "I'm not saying SAO is trash I've only seen a small portion of it, i can not give a fair over view to the series". Later down the road you can write things later down the road people will actually recognize you for such as compelling characters, deep plot, have a meaning to what's going on etc. The only person I think that didn't do this was r7 that did higurashi, umineko, higanbana and now gun rose days but I could be wrong, after all that is just a pen name. |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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Why do you always think that people writing this stuff are only doing it to pander to others? The entire light novel market is full of otaku writing their own novels. They are creating material based on what they love, not just to pander to others while not liking it themselves. Just taking a quick look on Sad Panda of any popular light novel artist, and you'll see that almost all of them have done lots of doujinshi of popular otaku series even before getting into doing light novels. I doubt Reki even thought of it being a big anime or anything when he started writing it 10 years ago when he was only 16. He was just writing something he thought was cool. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Cool and popular. Especially popular. He did start writing Sword Art Online for a competition, not merely because he felt like writing a story to show to some friends. He may or may not have been thinking of financial success at the time he wrote it, but he sure wanted it to be popular. And popularity leads to financial success. So whether you are going for popularity or the money, the easiest way is to pander to your audience. Reki reminds me of the dude who wrote Eragon at fifteen. Not a good writer, not a good book. But because it pandered to its audience (boy learns he's more than he seems and gets to ride a dragon) it became popular, and he became rich (although his parents were already quite well off). |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Eragon pandered to whom? The extremely broad "I like the monomyth" otaku? You're starting to kill the definition for pandering. Eragon doesn't pander to anything, it's just a juvenile fantasy story that fits in well with the expanding YA book section.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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That over-generalisation is like saying Fifty Shades of Gray panders to the crowd who like older-man younger-woman romance. Eragon isn't as tightly focused in its pandering as Sword Art Online, I'll give you that. But it still is a case of a young inexperienced author relying on mashing together plot elements suited for a certain demographic and taken from better works to gain popularity. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I haven't read Eragon so perhaps I'm mistaken here but I would think, given that the author was 15 years old, it would not be a case of him deliberately trying to gain popularity by wedging in elements that pander to a certain demographic but rather, simply a result of him being part of that very demographic and therefore finding all those elements naturally very appealing. Add to this that he's apparently a hack and it seems like he would easily wind up writing exactly what you're describing despite not deliberately pandering for popularity. This seems contrary to your claim about Reki. |
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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Lately, I usually pass on anime that is an adaptation of a light novel, and this is the reason. They feel like they were written by 15 year olds for 15 year olds. I see a lot of decent stuff in light novel lists, but nothing recent. All the recent stuff has not been to my tastes. I don't even bother trying a few episodes until I see reviews and get a feeling of what people in forums are saying. It saves me a lot of time. In the case of SAO, I saw endless complaints about it from the very first episode, so I never even started on it. The complaints have continued, to the point that many of its defenders have become detractors. It makes me feel kind of glad I never started, seeing how betrayed some of these people feel after becoming invested in it and then being so disappointed. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I'll jump into the conversation for this one.
Speaking as someone who has read 2 of the books, I'd have to agree that he didn't set out to pander. (My god, I'm getting flashbacks to forcing myself through that second book...) Paolini was really into the genre, it seems. I think he even drew the fictional maps. I remember reading an article where it talked about how he made it big. Eragon was originally self-published, and Paolini toured around a bunch of schools giving talks about writing a book, often wearing medieval-ish (?) clothing. It wasn't until the son of some guy in the book industry brought it to his father's attention that Paolini was published by a company. Not that it makes the books any better, but I'll give him credit when it's due. I honestly don't think he consciously meant to pander. He was young, probably held a few select interests that fueled his imagination (Lord of the Rings? Star Wars?), and enjoyed writing. The results weren't great and the movie was horrific, but I never got the sense that he was approaching the Eragon series in an 'inset crowd pleaser here' type of way. Maybe editors convinced him do things later down the line, though. As I haven't read his latest book, I can't say anything about his current writing, but I wouldn't be surprised if his writing ability was stunted by a lack of criticism. It happens--company doesn't push its editorial department on an author when they're making them big bucks. But, again, I don't know what's going on with him currently. |
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