Forum - View topicREVIEW: Log Horizon Episodes 13-25 Streaming
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Carl writes:
I find the closing scene in the ED annoying for the same reasons. Shiroe looks down at Akatsuki in a rather paternalistic fashion, and she lights up in response. I keep waiting for him to pat her on the head. In real life Akatsuki's player is supposed to be in college and just a year or two younger than Shiroe. Her avatar looks distinctly younger than her real age; I saw her character model as largely otaku bait and not befitting the serious and intelligent young adult behind the avatar. Most of the female characters except for Henrietta, Minori, and to a lesser degree Isuzu and Lenessia are generally poorly served by the staff. That said, I still enjoyed Log Horizon quite a bit and look forward to the continuation in the fall. When I saw the music video for the ED, "Your Song," with Yun*chi in the gogo cage dressed in provocative lingerie, I wondered what NHK-I thought of this directorial choice. I generally don't like that type of J-POP with very high-pitched voices, but the song itself was strong enough to overcome my hesitation. I strongly disliked the OP and skipped over it every episode. I always watched the ED to the end. I once owned an Isuzu Trooper, a large, boxy SUV, and always laugh when I see the name Isuzu attached to a cute and slender young lady. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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One of the biggest highlights of the series for me was Krusty's friendship with Lenessia. Her inner commentary was great.
I'm really looking forward to season 2! |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4085 |
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She's roleplaying the ninja - the inexperienced late bloomer in love?That's her IRL. I can't see it as anything but cute; You have to remember, she's twenty years old and her 14 year old rival in love looks older than she does. Acts older too but again, that's because she keeps retreating back into the ninja/master routine, you know, as opposed to being a real person. I still think Henrietta's better than either of them, mostly because it's a lot harder to tell why she played the original RPG in the first place. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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I get the complaints about the art, it really was halfassed, but this was still my favorite show of the fall/winter season.
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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It's brought up in the novels, but Akatsuki's player really does look that young. She has a younger sister who looks older than she does, and everyone constantly treats her like the cute "mascot" type, and it makes her mad. That's why she went with an avatar completely opposite her real life self. |
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L'Imperatore
 Posts: 828 |
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With all its flaws and faults, Log Horizon is still my #1 favorite show of 2013 hands down. Great worldbuilding, no in-game rules/mechanism breakings, likeable main protagonist (Shiroe is a tactical genius, magically powerful, and above all, badass), the good guys ARE good guys, and of course, there's Akatsuki. Okay, there's Lenessia too.
I *sincerely* hope Sentai does justice with its release... and dubs! (Btw, how big is the chance for English/international license of the novel?) |
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GrayArchon
Posts: 393 |
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Simple. First of all, Krusty said that she reminded him of his younger sister, which puts her into the "sister" category. Second, though the anime omitted it, when her grandfather introduced her, he said "she is turning 15 this year". Meaning that her age is a maximum of 15 years old, and is implied that she's still 14 at the start of the series. Aka, the same age as Minori. So all age related comments about Minori basically apply to Lenessia as well. Leaving her to technically be a 14-15 year old little sister character, that gets some shipping with Krusty. Hence, people bringing up the loli-sis-con label.
Their avatars look as much like the real world them as race, body type, and gender allow. So Akatsuki does look like her real world self after she takes the appearance change potion to correct her gender and height. Omitted from the anime (likely due to time constraints and difficulty converting it from narration), was some background about Akatsuki. She looked like a grade-schooler until college when she finally looked old enough to be mistaken for a middle-schooler. Complete with being confessed to by a middle-schooler who thought she was the same age as him. And an implication that only loli-cons hit on her. And her appearance resulted in her being treated like a kid/mascot. In general it explains a fair bit about Akatsuki's character, why she played a tall character, why she gets angry at Naotsugu for comments about her height, why she's so happy to be treated as an equal or even a valued servant instead of a mascot. Which is fine as far as it goes. The problem being that all her troubles are supposed to stem from 1) her being short, and 2) being cute. Combined they're apparently supposed to translate into her looking really young. Which doesn't hold up very well when you consider that her official height is "about 150 cm", or 4 feet 9 inches. That's all of two inches shorter than my sister, and I've met plenty of women the same height as my sister, or only a few inches taller. Indeed, the average height for women in Japan is apparently 158 cm, or 5 feet 2 inches. So Akatsuki's super shortness that's supposed to have her mistaken for a middle-schooler, is all of maybe 4 inches shorter than average. That's not to say that problems of being mistaken for younger than they actually are can't occur, they've happened to my sister a few times. But they were pretty trifling, and from strangers. And the sort of thing you'd expect to lessen when closer to the average height. So Akatsuki's case is a pretty extreme exaggeration, to the point that it strains credibility for some people like myself. Last edited by GrayArchon on Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Loli-con is relative to look, not "actual" age. This is why Akatsuki IS a loli-con character even though she is college age. Lenessia (no matter what age she is, haven't read the novels) does not look "loli", even when she "cosplays" she is given the more "sexy" costume rather than "cute" like Akatsuki. (in Macross Frontier, Ranka is supposed to be "16" but she's the loli character, Sheryl Nome is 17 (1 year older) but is the "sexpot character and is NOT a "loli" character) As for the sis-con thing, that's ridiculous, considering that a) sis-con is a thing because the girl IS the sister, not "is like" the sister (lots of people are considered to be looking for someone LIKE their mother or father, but that doesn't mean they have n oedipus or daddy complex), and b) in the anime (again, haven't read the novels) it's not definite that Krusty has any romantic feelings for Lenessia. (I admit, I ship them, but just saying) All that said, if you wanna see it as a loli-sis-con thing, "whatever", I'm just saying it's a REALLY strained opinion that doesn't fit with the characters. (again, the show has an ACTUAL loli and might have a sis-con eventually)
I want to say I remember her making a comment in anime about that being her real "look", altho I may need to go back and re-watch and confirm the specifics. As to the height issue. There's a lot noted once you get far enough out of "normal" range (even if only a few inches). I'll note that let's say "about 150cm" = 149cm, Minami Takahashi of AKB48 is 148cm, (that's a difference of just 1cm) she is a real person in real life. Many jokes were made within the group about how short she is. (she's been there for many years now, so it's probably "overdone" but they did play on it a LOT early on) At 4'9-4'10" she'd probably be around the same height as my middle school age niece, and yeah, I could TOTALLY see that bothering a university student. When she's in her 40s, it'll probably be awesome, but its MUCH less entertaining to be taken for a preteen when you're in your early 20s. (usually anyway) And the "she's cute" can mean a much bigger difference than the "height", I know a girl that's late 20s but could EASILY be taken for at least mid-teens, and I even told her once that when she was young 20s she LOOKED like she was 12 sometimes. (and I was not the only person to say that) |
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Dessa
Posts: 4438 |
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I turn 32 next month. I have been asked if I'm graduating high school this year. Not being taken for your actual age (I have had to pull out my ID to prove to coworkers that it's my real age) can be really annoying. Especially if you're rather recently an adult (IIRC, Akatsuki is 20).
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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If Akatsuki is so concerned with her height and childlike cuteness in real life, why did she adopt her avatar when given the opportunity spoiler[via the changing potion in episode one]? She explicitly says she chose to be represented as a small woman, and spoiler[says that her original choice of a male form was because the game allows you be someone you're not in real life]. You'd think she would choose a form closer to her ideal.
Now maybe this is just the way things were presented in the novel, but it does seem like her character design reflects "fanservice" more than plausibility. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that the Apocalypse somehow forced the players' avatars to look like their human selves, but that makes no real sense. All the rest of the characters look like they did before the Apocalypse. I have both male and female avatars in Final Fantasy XIV. Trust me, I look nothing at all like any of them. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I do know there's at LEAST one character later that does NOT look like they do in real life. (even ignoring that I highly doubt Nyanta looks like that IRL) That said, I agree that Akatsuki's design is TOTALLY to appeal to fans (since the whole thing is fictional anyway), BUT that doesn't mean anything in terms of the fictional mechanic.
#1. There is a HUGE difference (at least to me) in terms of how I'd represent myself in a limited game setting vs. how I'd represent myself IF I thought it was permanent. (Note, Shiroe explicitly notes that his character IS taller (altho only slightly) than IRL and that causes him some adjustment issues) #2. I think there is some manner of "adjustment" just based on self-image. Considering that "Elder Tales" was not a super advanced game (it was not VR like SAO, it was a keyboard and mouse game like you could play right now) I assume that every character would not be as "unique" as they are after the apocalypse. #3. It's pretty clear that Akatsuki wants the change potion so that she isn't a MAN. With that in mind, since it seems to run off an immediate mental choice, I assume she'd just frantically wish to be "herself" rather than her "ideal self". spoiler[Just to note, it's also pretty HEAVILY implied that Minori's brother is in a wheelchair in real life. I don't know if that's been revealed or not in the novels.] |
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teferi
 Posts: 400 |
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The game itself is played on regular monitors so they don't really have the VR excuse that SAO/.hack had. They're pretty clearly in another world. It could even just be written off as part of the spell that triggered the apocalypse. Rudy seemed surprised when his HUD popped up so maybe it's just an Adventurer thing. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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So far, the story has gone to GREAT pains to show things in terms of "how it would feel/appear on the OTHER side of the screen. The menus are one item, the MP=Soul connection is another. I'll point out two things that don't make ANY sense if it actually IS "another world". Firstly, the timetable for events as laid out matches EXACTLY with when the "Elder Tales" game started up to the present day. The "shady" mage lays out the timing of events and as Shiroe notes it matches with the game start time PERFECTLY. That just seems HIGHLY unlikely if this was another world that just happens to mimic the game. Secondly, The NPCs talk at one point about how the adventurers have "changed" since the Apocalypse. They discuss how previously the adventurers behaved one way and now behave entirely DIFFERENT. This implies that it was the EXACT same people the NPCs were dealing with before and they've noticed the change in how they were when just behind a keyboard vs. now "in the game". One could argue that someone has somehow found a way to turn the game itself INTO a new "world", one where the scientific principles and basic concepts of reality do not apply ("telepathy chat", "HUD menus", "respawn from death", "magic", etc.). But If THAT is the case, then I don't see how it is functionally different from just saying they are "in the game", except possibly as a philosophical question about the nature of reality. (ala, the matrix) |
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FlamingFirewire
 Posts: 461 |
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Considering that she has feelings for Shiroe, wouldn't it make sense that she'd want to look more like her real self so that she doesn't have to feel like she has to put up a fake idealized appearance to make him like her? I mean, she doesn't know how long she'll be stuck in the game, so it makes sense that she'd want to look more like herself, and since she's not really treated differently by Shiroe, it makes sense she wouldn't regret that choice. |
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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It's not obvious to me that she has feelings for him in episode one. They fought together a few times in parties when spoiler[she was a man]. Maybe she developed some feelings for him then, but it's certainly not apparent in their meeting at the beginning of Log Horizon. She does submit herself as his bodyguard, but I saw her reaction as a mixture of gratitude for spoiler[the potion] and perhaps a bit of hero worship. I think her feelings develop over the course of the story, but I'll admit the timeline isn't clearly drawn. |
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