Forum - View topicThe Spring 2014 Anime Preview Guide
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Mahouka:Oh I love the logic that defenders use,so if introductory episode is dull that is completely okay because they were describing the world.Have any of you people seen any decent show?Seriously, it is possible to balance characters,plot and world-building.Plus,the entire system introduced in this episode is unoriginal and simple ,making the staff's decision to have introductory episode solely focus on it rather puzzling.
Main character and his VA are amazing though.He is probably THE MOST PERFECT BEING IN UNIVERSE!!!Always there to accurately asses situation, kick ass,look handsome and let's not forget that he speaks in a corny sweet manner that seems to have come out straight of seduction manual from Hollywood in 50s.Kirito appears like a wuss in comparison to this dude. |
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TehJazza
Posts: 4 |
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Well, I dunno about SAO, since I pretty much know nothing about it, but for me, it's less about how interesting the main character is (he's a bit flawed in his flawlessness), and moreso about the good feeling seeing a blatantly screwed up system getting torn to pieces, albeit in a way I imagine would take a year or two for the repercussions to show. Still, I found it nice that the people in power were the ones willing to accept change while the masses are too enshrined in tradition and discrimination to be anything more than a source of animosity to the reader. Last edited by TehJazza on Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Instinctz
Posts: 58 Location: Michigan |
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many shows have a dull first episode or two. this is widely known throughout the anime community, if not, why the 3 episode rule? and no, the MC is not the most perfect person in the universe, he is just exceptionally smart and strong (IN HIS OWN RIGHT, he has his own weaknesses). and actually, Tatsuya is not considered to be handsome, but just mediocre. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Not to speak of 4chan as a single collective rather than a collective group with a multitude of different opinions, but on the general level 4chan (or at least /a/ which is the only thing I lurk) despises SAO, and I haven't really seen all that much showing positive opinion of the Mahouka anime. |
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Rederoin
 Posts: 1427 Location: Europa |
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If its anything like SAO, you can be certain 4chan will hate it with the force of a thousand burning suns. Not that 4chan is a united as a group, its way too big for that, but the general opinion seems to put it really low. |
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Daerian
 Posts: 164 |
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First I'm going to answer to bigger picture in your post, then discuss about Mahouka, so bear with me please.
Starting with quoting another user, who as this seems makes your points invalid. And continuing.
I'm not 4chaner. Never was. And I see this as insulting suggestion that my opinions come from 4chan, not my own views. Additionally, the good hint if something would be a big thing in this season would be amount of LN sold in Japan - until recently Mahouka was only LN in the top 10 or something without anime based on it.
And again with 4chan. Could you please stop implying that persons discussing with you must follow their lead?
Thank you for generalisation and personal attacks. In another words, I must like this series because I want to feel manly by self inserting myself as main character. I this seriously level of discussion we want to have? And yes, protagonist and his sister are extremely overpowered Mary Sues. Used by author in concious way - this is story about two Mary Sues. Which is interesting as author is perfectly concious of this and you can find self-mocking in his story. I find it extremely disappointing, that in first response to me you already start with personal attacks, and continue this trend in discussing just anime series. I would like to ask here, are you JesuOtaku from her own site and TGWTG, or is this just a similarity of nickname?
I'm sorry, but after Fate/Zero problems at this site this should really not be seen as argument in ANN favour. Additionally, Fate/Zero is a good argument about "slow start series gets bashed", as first episode has seen scores of 2,5 (Carlo Santos, Bamboo Dong) and 3 (Gia Manry). There were also 4s, I'm not going to lie, but point stands.
Mushishi is special series. This is nowhere typical anime and lets face it, giving it any lower score would case tremendous (rightfully) uproar.
Personally, I prefer slow adaptation to changes made by many companies to "adopt" literally work to visual medium, as this usually ends in butchered version. Additionally, I also don't have problems with slow start and world building - this is not 2h movie which must use every minute to maximum, this is going to be (probably) 26 episodes series. They an take things slow and fill all questions (and there are many of them, as I have shown in my previous post).
I consider many of information as given in good way, but this is valid criticism.
Please don't use "misogynistic" as synonym to "sexist". Those words have different meaning.
I perfectly understand, I'm big enemy of incest in anime and while I was able to ignore one sided sister problems in LN I'm still not sure how will it work in anime.
I was perfectly expecting such review on ANN, as after few years of following reviews I'm perfectly used to your ways of scoring anime, knowing what will get bashed (hint: all slowly starting series are not good thing to always bash). The only problem are reviews which write about "generic harem shounen series" which was not seen in episode - but they write and bash Mahouka because of what they are expecting it to become, not because what it is at the moment. I hope I phrased it clearly. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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The problem with lack of originality is that because everything has been done before I compare it to the other stuff, and then ask myself "are those events usually interesting/well done" and my answer is "no". That's why I dropped the manga, I figure if it would actually turn out to be good I would start hearing about it again, but I didn't (until now with the anime adaptation). The anime didn't particularly make it interesting either, even if the character have depth, since the first episode focused on world building we haven't seen any of it, right now there just the same characters we've seen hundreds of time. All those question are valid question, question the writer want us to think of, but every shonen and there little brother have those same question, why should I watch this anime rather than one of the countless shonen I haven't watched? Once you've watched a few you also realize this is mostly audience wish fulfillment, MC being badass and having a dark pass to make him "more than just another normal student", girl swooing over him for no other reason than he's himself, his lousy results aren't the results of him being dumb/lazy, he's just purposefully keeping himself down/his ability aren't easily measured by the school system. This usually mean that ultimately all the answers we get are pretty dumb since they don't exist because they make logical sense in the story, they exist to make the MC interesting and make audience insertion easier. I wouldn't be surprise if initially the writer didn't even know what he wanted to do with those, but still put them in thinking he'd figure it out later. First episode review aren't made to judge the entire series, there a guide for people who don't have time to watch every new series every season and want to know right away what's worth starting. If the series turn out to be really good they might make a 6 episode review, otherwise they'll review it down the line and then people can always go back and watch it then. |
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Dr. Cakey
 Posts: 13 |
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I have to admit, when I watched the first episode of Irregular at Magic High School, I was more than a little confused by the scathing scores it had garnered. The little sister was distinctly not terrible, things moved along at a decent pace, and it was all wrapped up in that shiny, delicious Madhouse sheen I just eat right up, because Madhouse-sempai is sugoi.
I have the distinct suspicious this was the best episode, of course, and I'd hardly rank it on the same level as Captain Earth or The World is Still Beautiful, but it could be worse. It could be WIXOSS, after all. But that was just my impression, and I certainly feel no need to defend its honor or anything. Carl basically described exactly how I feel about it. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Okay, well I have zero interest in fighting with you people over why my opinion doesn't count because I haven't read twenty chapters of this godawful thing and am not a true fan or whatever, so I'm done on the subject of Mahouka. As a final olive branch, I cross-my-heart promise that I will watch two more episodes of that show and see what I think. I'll give it your three episode rule, if that's so important to you. If people love it that much, I have to admit I'm curious as to where it's going, because again: first episode is so bland and poorly executed that you can't tell.
By the way, the reason I mentioned 4chan is not because I'm up to date on what opinions the community does and doesn't share. Maybe they don't like SAO (now) or whatever, I don't care. I don't know, because I don't visit, lurk, or look at it in the least. 4chan is shorthand for "collective popular anime opinions enforced by a vocal and toxic minority." It could rise up on MyAnimeList, on Crunchyroll forums, on fansub forums, or anywhere else, but it stems from the trend of smug, insular, circlejerking hivemind 4chan culture and how it has affected the anime community. It's a trend where opinions are adopted by a bullying majority of some online venue that represents such a minority opinion of any kind of cultural zeitgeist that it is and should be negligible to anyone who just wants to enjoy media on their own merits and to their own tastes. tl;dr: Mahouka is judged on the same merits as every other anime in the preview guide. It doesn't get special treatment positive or negative. Our feelings on the material are our honest feelings, just as valid as yours, and railing against how unfair it is that we don't like your thing is futile. Stop pitching a fit.
Okay, "sexist incest fetishism." There, now the story is so much less repugnant!* * sexism (prejudice against women) and misogyny (hatred towards women) aren't really any different from each other, just as than racism is intrinsically hateful toward people of a different skin color by its very nature. Last edited by JacobC on Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:40 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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The reviewers didn't read your fan-translated light novels and thus do not have your secret information that this is a work of staggering genius.
All the "questions" you ask about what's brought up in the first episode as though they're scintillating sound like the most generic light novel plot developments in the world. Some of those "questions" being asked about the story make it sound like you haven't really seen much anime if any of that strikes you as particularly fresh or engaging. They found the first episode to be an uninteresting slog of poorly-written exposition. You didn't because you already know the story and are already a fan of the show, and can't see it from the perspective of someone coming to this franchise cold. To put it in perspective, it's no different from someone watching Game of Thrones without having read the books and deciding they weren't interested based on the first episode, and you start shouting them down about how ignorant and uninformed they are because IT GETS REALLY GOOD and HOW COULD YOU NOT FIND ALL THIS INTRIGUING AND CAPTIVATING. It's great that you love the books and the first episode was pure catnip for you, but it's kind of a waste of time to DEMAND someone like it as much as you did when they're not a pre-existing fan of the franchise and the first episode of the TV adaptation didn't do anything for them. It doesn't help that what does exist in this first episode absolutely screams "the worst indulgences of light novels aimed at Japanese 20-year olds: the show". People who watch a lot of anime are really tired of that particular set of self-serving self-insert tropes at this point. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Mahouka fans please stop defending your awful and badly-written racist screed of a story.
Also, JesuOtaku: Mahouka is hated on 4chan as well for being...not very good. |
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Daerian
Posts: 164 |
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You seem to think I haven't watched many anime in my life. I had, I have circa 300 series behind my belt and 200 old, good series waiting to be watched when I get the time. And I read circa 5-10 books a month, mostly historical books, biographies, mythologies, social and cultural ones, historical novels, criminals and fantasy. I consider myself well versed in themes 
I'm perfectly ware that Mahouka is audience wish fulfilment. This is just fun and good done wish fulfilement.
We all love brooding badasses. Why are Constantine, Fix or Dresden such fun and popular characters?
Not really, this is your expectation based on many other shounens - first, there few girls swooning over him. Second, there are reasons to swoon over him (they are spoilers, but spoiler[being very talented magic engineer is practical reason you could look for.]
Thats at the same time wish fulfilment and true statement - look at the history of geniuses, many of them were never really into school system or find praise inside any system.
We got answers for pretty much every of your questions and problems with Mahouka in first 3-4 tomes of LN (thats how far I have read until now). So I think author knows what he is doing.
Perfectly aware. The only problem is extrapolation of "what I think about it" into "this is generic shounen, so everything will go like that and he will get harem" made by some reviews. Look at Hope Chapman, who does this and this is not okay - she is writing review of her expectation what show will become. Rebecca Silverman does pretty much the same. Meanwhile, Theron Martin while giving still failing note was able to perceive series questions and write about series, not his own expectation what it will become. Thats all what I'm asking for.[/quote][/b][/spoiler] |
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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Also, everybody.
This is Tatsuya's full power set: spoiler[>Regrowth - Allows complete recovery of any form of damage/injury. It is not a form of recovery magic; instead, by reverse-reading the records of the Eidos, copying the past information of the target and directly overwriting it, he is able to make the injury "not have existed in the first place". >Decomposition - Decomposes material into atoms. Has been used by Tatsuya to unarm hundreds of soldiers from their guns at once. >Material Burst - Decomposes substances into pure energy following E=MC², almost like an atomic bomb. Actually produces more energy than an atomic bomb, as energy is not lost to collisions between electrons and positrons like in annihilation reactions. >Elite martial artist by world standard. His physical ninja skills are so impressive people thinks they are spells, when they're just his natural parameters. >Elite class strategist by world standards >Incredible speed at releasing magic, elite of the elite by world standards. Can essentially eliminate the buffer time completely >Nearly unlimited magic supply >Eyes analyze magic, allows him to cancel spells. >The worlds greatest magic technology engineer >His crippling flaws are that he's merely "average" in looks and suffers from weakened emotions, making him the cool badass stoic character. He also is bad at baby tier spells, making people discriminate against him.] Yeah. This is not an exaggeration in the slightest regardless of what fanboys say. |
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Instinctz
Posts: 58 Location: Michigan |
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if the author is sexist it is against men, not women. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I find them extremely dull and overdone in fiction and most of the time they seem like they're being written to please self-satisfied teenagers, but that's just me. |
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