Forum - View topicREVIEW: Oreshura Sub.DVD
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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OreShura is indeed a stinker. For every bit of good writing or good direction there were numerous instances where it should have been pulled up for violating the Geneva Convention. As soon as it went from a love-triangle to a full-blown harem it went down the toilet (although it's not like it was doing spectacularly well before that). So why is its grade a C+ instead of a D+? What does it take for a bad show to get a bad rating here at ANN?
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5527 |
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I actually liked this more than My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. Why? Because the characters in SNAFU were just really irritating and overly negative. I'm really negative, super negative in fact but they annoyed even me. It had it's moments but if I had the choice to watch either one of these two shows again, it would be this one. Hell, I wouldnt even really compare them. SNAFU I didn't even view as a comedy because I never once laughed vs the 2 times I did laugh on Oreshura. SNAFU seemed to more of a "lesson" type of a show. IT wasnt even really a harem either as there was only one girl even interested in the main guy
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zeo1fan
Posts: 1016 |
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And the only one the main guy showed significant interest in was another fuy. 
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Half Life
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I'll say up front that I didn't care for SNAFU much, for me that is a C show... with Oreshura being more of a B+. But I'm not going to waste time going on about a show that wasn't even the topic of the review.
First off, I often wonder if people understand there is source material for this show. I mean the story was in existence long before the anime, so it is not a surprise things turned out the way they did. Meaning, this didn't suddenly turn into a harem show on you -- it always was a harem show. I went into it with my expectations realistically set, so my enjoyment was based on how well I felt they adapted the material (as well as my enjoyment of the material). I also think maybe some of the critics are falsely trying to make a setup that is almost pure comedy into a drama, and it is more than a bit of a stretch. There is no romance to speak of in this show, in alot of ways it is far more fake (by design) than the "fake love" show this season (Nisekoi). Eita says point-blank at the end that he is just as fake as Masuzu. That he does not deserve the real feelings of the other three. And something I think is forgotten by most of the critics: aside from "his fair skinned angel" backstory, he does not want the love of any girls. I would go so far as to say I think he would be very relieved if all of them found other love interests and moved on. Sure he cares for all of these girls (as friends) and may even be sexually attracted them, but he is actively trying to escape from love. His relationship with Masuzu is not one of love, or even like. He is asked at one point what he likes about her, and he can't say anything nice about her beyond her features. But he does "get" her -- in a way that nobody else really does. Because they are both actively trying to hold love at arms length they can actually be more really themselves around each other. His relationship with Chiwa is completely one sided -- and here I am not talking about her love for him. He has done (and is doing) a huge amount for her (out of familial/friend type love), and she does very little in return other than causing trouble for him... which is ironic, since the goal he is working toward is completely for her sake. He cares for her so much that he left his past delusions behind, and took what seemed like a delusion (him becoming the top student and eventually a doctor) and is making it a reality. To say he has done her wrong in any way is absurd. His relationship to Hime is really based on the fact that he wants to help her get past her own delusions and find a rewarding "real" life. He sees his past self in her -- there is nothing more to this than that. The pattern here so far is: while he is not interested in romantic relationships with any of these girls, he is not willing to abandon any of them. In a way he is attempting to "heal" them all. The pattern breaks down completely with A-chan. Here is a girl who does not need saving. She is the Yang to his Yin -- completely love crazy, and (almost) fully embracing it. However, she is not reaching for him from a place of need (beyond the need for love). If there was one girl who could actually bring as much to a relationship as Eita, it would be Ai. All of the other girls see him as a white knight type, coming to their rescue. On the other hand, Ai sees how messed up he is, and is still willing to take care of him... a complete role reversal. As for the notebook being a flimsy construct to justify his helping Masuzu -- a show that won alot of praise from this same reviewer recently had a similar (and similarly flimsy) concept at its origin... yep that's right: Flowers of Evil. A show I have little use for other than to point out the hypocritical nature of this reviewer. As for why I rate this a "B+" instead of an "A" -- I took points off for the lack of a Blu-ray release and the lack of dub, which will limit the potential audience. I am also a bit antagonistic towards Aniplex America releases due to (IMO) over-inflated prices. The fact that I will buy this despite those things speaks to how much I enjoy the show. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4378 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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luckily there is the stream review that theorn martin did and its reviews was much fairer overall. though just because its a harem, doesnt mean its bad overall. sure its no love hina , but at least there is no ecchi/fanservice in this series which have been the theme for the other popular harem series last year. However i am going to skip the DVD release. not because its bad, but because since Aniplex have the license, it usually means the series will have a sub only release and as suspected,this release have no english dubs so its an auto skip it in my opinion |
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Gewürtztraminer
 Posts: 1028 Location: Texas - Its like whole other country. |
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C+ seems about right.
I thought there was enough entertaining there to justify the time spent watching, one time. Owning or even watching again would seem pointless to me, but others might think differently. Finding out for yourself is not too difficult. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5828 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Not everyone reads the manga, light novels, or wikipedia before watching anime. If you need to read the manga or light novels, in order to understand the show, than the show has failed. Also, adaptations of existing material, may not follow exactly, to varying degrees, the source material. Understand existing fans wanting to read and see everything, but for those who aren't, watching something new to them has its own excitement and rewards. |
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Half Life
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Fine, if you want to try to diffuse my argument that way then it is even simpler than that.
All you need to do is keep your eyes open during the OP and/or ED of the show to see clearly from episode 1 that this is a harem show. Anybody who did not understand this simply did not want to see it. |
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stardf29
Posts: 171 |
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The OP and ED to the show suggests that it's a cute-girls-doing-cute-things-with-hints-of-yuri show. Which it clearly isn't. How about just accepting the fact that some people had certain expectations from the show which the show didn't live up to and thus they didn't like the show? It's not like we're making you enjoy the show any less, is it? |
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Half Life
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Wow. Epic logic fail... I don't even know how to respond. I think I may be getting trolled here.
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stardf29
Posts: 171 |
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Okay, then, explain just how the Oreshura OP and ED are supposed to "make it clear" that it is a harem show.
And "they feature multiple girls" is not a valid answer. There are several shows that feature multiple girls in their OPs that are not harem shows, even if the show does have a male lead, because only two of the girls at most are actually in love with that male lead. |
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Half Life
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"Cute girls doing cute things with touch of Yuri" is an impossible scenario with the description of the show... you don't even have to get far enough to watch the OP to know that it is romantic comedy in nature.
Once you know that 2 of the 4 girls in the opener are vying for the MC (hey look! it's in the title of the show) it is hardly a mental workout to figure out the rest. You are trying to make it seem like a person would have no clue what they are watching, which would be damn near impossible... especially for readers of this website. So all that said, if a person was ignorant this was going in a harem direction, it was nobody's fault but their own. |
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stardf29
Posts: 171 |
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Just because 2 of the 4 girls in an OP are vying for the male lead's heart doesn't mean all four of them necessarily are; the other girls could be significant girls that are not love interests.
But enough about that for now. After all, I did know going in to this show that it would become a harem. And in and of itself, I had no problems with; there are plenty of harem shows that I like. However, being a harem does not excuse Masuzu for being unlikable, or for pushing its more serious moments too hard too early so that the later harem hijinks feel out of place, while the more serious parts just feel even more fake than the expectedly-contrived harem hijinks. I know that not everyone has those problems with the show, but they're the problems I had, and they're not problems that could have been fixed by changing my expectations. Nor does knowing anything about the source material change anything; it just lets me know to completely avoid that source material. |
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Yamato-san
Posts: 12 |
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To be honest, I actually wasn't expecting this to be a harem... but I'm not talking about the anime. No, I'm instead referring to when I started reading the manga adaptation a little over three years ago. The manga's a bit slow-going, being a monthly serialization, so for a while, I really did think this would be a series about just a love triangle as opposed to a full-blown harem. Though, at some point a little before Himeka gets introduced in the manga, I saw a forum post tipping me off to the fact that, in later volumes of the light novels, two other girls apparently get introduced to complete the seasonal naming theme started by "natsu" and "haru".... though, I felt that actually seeing their introduction into the series seemed random as hell.
Nonetheless, I think Half Life makes some great points. As random as I saw the inclusion of Himeka and Ai to be, they really are good foils to what Eita is or what he used to be. Chiwa, meanwhile, doesn't understand Eita at all (despite knowing full well what he went through with his parents' divorce) and has outright deluded herself into thinking that any and all opposite-sex childhood relationships should end up like a cliched shoujo manga. In contrast, Masuzu really is the only one he can be around with both parties acting naturally, which is rather ironic given that their anti-romance stance and their personal acknowledgement as horrible people is what connects them to begin with. Combined with Eita's past experience as a chuunibyou, to suggest that he's trying to help the other three stave off their delusions sounds about right, and put that way, you could say the entire series is exploring what "love" actually is ('cause it sure as hell isn't some mass media-fed fluff, long-time familiarity, kindergarten promises, marriage registrations, or a supposed destiny). I gotta say, though, if I felt this series was worth knocking for anything, it'd be the adaptation... maybe it's just because I'm most familiar with the manga version (which, from what I understand so far, is quite faithful to the novels), but I can't help feeling that the anime botched a few points. For one thing, the very first scene that the series opens up with is a dream Eita's having about being "Burning Fighting Fighter". And then every time Masuzu reads out of the notebook, the anime pretty much shifts into artsy mode, with jazzy music accompanying some brightly colored, highly-animated renditions of Eita's childhood sketches. This sorta says to me that this anime's REALLY trying hard to sell Eita's shameful past (whether or not it's an attempt to bank on the success of the KyoAni series, I'm not sure). In the manga, meanwhile, after a cold opening in which Eita has to suffer through both Masuzu and Chiwa's cooking, the series opens up with him talking about his anti-romance stance in full detail. I recently picked up the first volume of the light novel, and though I haven't had a chance to properly read it, the first chapter seems to open up the same way as the manga did (also worth noting: the light novel illustrations didn't include even one visual depiction of Eita's childhood sketches). So yeah, rather than showing off the hijinks of a former chuunibyou, I think the author was trying to set the tone of the series with a guy who's not even interested in romance. In the first episode of the anime, however, Eita's ideals seem as if they were barely glanced over about 5 minutes in. Some people familiar with the novels have also pointed out how horribly compressed the adaptation of the second volume (Himeka's introductory arc) is, and when you compare the anime to the manga, it really shows; a crapton of stuff was outright skipped over, Himeka's characterization suffered (Eita originally convinces her to start making some friends), and don't get me started on the way Eita stands up to Mana. Overall, if you really wanna enjoy this series, I think the manga's the way to go, but if you don't mind something more text-heavy (and can read Japanese), the original light novel seems good too. |
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angelaria
 Posts: 23 Location: Miami, Florida |
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For me, I either love or hate harem series, pretty much depending on how original they are from the usual formula, and enjoyability.
I dropped this series after 6 episodes. I felt it started out interesting and unique, but after the Chiho arc, just got annoying and uninteresting.. and I hated Chiho. Hopefully there will be less shows like this some day in the future. @__@ |
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