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EP. REVIEW: Yurikuma Arashi

The situation between Ginko and Kureha seems most comparable to the one between Utena and her prince. The Prince is a savior figure who came to Utena as a symbol for unconditional love [etc]

Like in Utena, the entire school might be a trap by the
administration to ensnare and consume girls.

This is just a passing comment, but as someone who hasn't watched Utena and intends to do it soon, I'd appreciate if randomly specific plot points from the series weren't sprinkled in every Yurikuma review. I imagine people who plan to watch Penguindrum would like that too. I get there's a lot of common ground and symbolism in Ikuhara shows that you may want to bring up, but I find it a little upsetting that these random tidbits of specific information are all over the place, I think such comparisons would be better placed in the comments, with appropriate spoiler tags. I'm hesitant about reading more of these reviews for fear that a huge spoiler is going to pop up and ruin the experience for me, please take it into consideration.

As the head of the schoolgirl inquisition, whose main aim seems to be keeping the girls in line with the heterosexist status quo

I think it's pretty disrespectful to the work to forcibly ignore it's roots. Especially so in the case of Ikuhara, as the reviews have shown how much can be drawn from them. Also to ignore them in the name of spoilers for works that are now four and NINETEEN years old is, I'm sorry, but pretty selfish. Think about how ridiculous it is to ask not only other readers to read a split review in the comments, but to the reviewer to essentially have to write out two reviews, of which the one with the most work put into it would be buried in comments. The detailed reviews are great and to ask to dumb them down for such a reason seems pretty unreasonable.

CrowLia wrote:

This is just a passing comment, but as someone who hasn't watched Utena and intends to do it soon, I'd appreciate if randomly specific plot points from the series weren't sprinkled in every Yurikuma review. I imagine people who plan to watch Penguindrum would like that too. I get there's a lot of common ground and symbolism in Ikuhara shows that you may want to bring up, but I find it a little upsetting that these random tidbits of specific information are all over the place, I think such comparisons would be better placed in the comments, with appropriate spoiler tags. I'm hesitant about reading more of these reviews for fear that a huge spoiler is going to pop up and ruin the experience for me, please take it into consideration.

I think it's pretty disrespectful to the work to forcibly ignore it's roots. Especially so in the case of Ikuhara, as the reviews have shown how much can be drawn from them. Also to ignore them in the name of spoilers for works that are now four and NINETEEN years old is, I'm sorry, but pretty selfish. Think about how ridiculous it is to ask not only other readers to read a split review in the comments, but to the reviewer to essentially have to write out two reviews, of which the one with the most work put into it would be buried in comments. The detailed reviews are great and to ask to dumb them down for such a reason seems pretty unreasonable.

you're the people ruining shows for everyone else who didn't watch them the moment they first aired in JPTV

CrowLia wrote:

you're the people ruining shows for everyone else who didn't watch them the moment they first aired in JPTV

First aired. Nineteen years. Totally the same.

I'm nowhere close to advocating that someone should spoil something even close to the air date or even for a time frame after a show has run it's course. The idea that someone should have to tread on eggshells for someone that hasn't found the time to watch a show years after the fact is ridiculous. I thought I was pretty polite about saying that the first time, but since you took that as a slight I'll be blunt. It's one thing to spoil the ending of a movie after someone mentions they haven't seen it in casual conversation, but this isn't that. This is a written review that is clearly not meant for you if you are taking issues with the way it's written. Pretending you're speaking for a majority of people due to your own general selfishness is pretty appalling. I'd imagine the majority of people of haven't seen Utena or Penguindrum by this point would have the self-realization that they should either A) get to it before reading more of these reviews or B) Have the common sense to realize that their feelings are clearly not the priority over more informative reviews. All that said I'm pretty sure ANN is smart enough to have a general idea on what a decent time frame for spoilers is, and that any further hyperbolic nonsense can be disregarded. Until then maybe you can complain about Gundam spoilers in the Build Fighter's thread, or is 36 years where you call it okay?

Selipse: Re-read the reviews. Notice how the information given is written into them. The details from the other shows is given while discussing the relevant parts of the episode. They're not a list of bullet points that can simply be placed at the bottom. Even ignoring the time frame asking for a review to be split to pander to more audiences makes it worse for every audience. Whether from the writing perspective or the awkward layout/extra hassle involved.

I just wanted to say that if you really want to watch it, Utena is available for streaming. The entirety of it is on Hulu (dubbed), and on Youtube on Rightstuf's official channel, both subbed and dubbed. The cost of dvd sets isn't really that big of an excuse when it is available free.

Selipse: Re-read the reviews. Notice how the information given is written into them. The details from the other shows is given while discussing the relevant parts of the episode. They're not a list of bullet points that can simply be placed at the bottom. Even ignoring the time frame asking for a review to be split to pander to more audiences makes it worse for every audience. Whether from the writing perspective or the awkward layout/extra hassle involved.

The idea that someone should have to tread on eggshells for someone that hasn't found the time to watch a show years after the fact is ridiculous.

as someone who hasn't watched Utena and intends to do it soon

I like the point made about how Life Sexy seems to be an avatar of Ikuhara, because I get that feel from him as well. He gives off a rather omnipotent air.

I found the comedy in this episode with Ginko really bad. One fantasy is one thing, more fantasies that are aware that you saw the previous ones is other thing, but here she had like three or four with the same duration of ten/fifteen seconds and punchline ("it's all her imagination! hahaha! comedy gold~") without variation between one and another. At least with the fraticide attemps the punchline was seeing other different ways to kill her brother each time more brutally (and fast) and how the frustration keeps acumulating in Lulu, here no, it's repeating the same joke three times and that's it.

Meh, the show really is not for me because I don't find it good at all. Except episode 4, but even then I'm surprised by how praised as a masterpiece is, it wasn't bad and it had a few laughs but the story was pure cliche "person hates other for X reason [= royal position] but when he/she gets rid of him/her then realizes that he/she's not happy and appreciated the other for Y reason [= love]" where you know the ending from the start.

If reading the reviews requires complete knowledge of the author's previous works, there should be a disclaimer on top. Whiteing-out specific pieces of spoiler information or at least writing a disclaimer on top saying there will be specific details about OTHER series shouldn't be too difficult, given how it's done regularly on news articles. I enjoy reading these reviews because I'm 100% blind to Ikuhara's symbolism, I probably wouldn't understand anything at all if not for Gabby's analysis, but if I have to risk getting spoiled for Utena (the series is lying somewhere on my to-watch pile, I just haven't gotten to it yet, deeply apologize for stupidly thinking I could watch and read analysis of Ikuhara's newest work without having watched his previous one), I'll sit out from these reviews. I enjoyed Penguindrum without understanding much of the symbolism, Yurikuma shouldn't be different.

This story is so much more straightforward than Penguindrum. I was initially discontented after hearing how short Yurikuma was going to be, but Ikuhara, as always, knows what he's doing. This has been such a compact story, devoid of loose ends.