Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Maerchen Maedchen
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3652 |
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To a certain extent, America's "National Epic," is the founding of the country, and its folklore is around idealized versions of the Founding Fathers. It's not necessarily a universal story, but America has a lot more cultural diversity than most other countries.
The primary driver of American cultural storytelling is the commercialized entertainment industry. So to me, using things like Santa Claus and zombies made perfect sense, and I'm having a hard time squaring Rebecca's objection to this with her idea that folklore changes with the times. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I guess part of the problem is then that the show didn't make much distinction between the idea of "folklore" and "national epic," continually mixing the two in selecting the Origins. Because you are right - the closest thing I can think of off the top of my head is Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America, and that's written by a Frenchman. Although I suppose an argument could be made for the play Inherit the Wind in terms of American ideological battles... EDIT: No issues with Santa Claus here! I really just have a problem with the zombies, because it draws from a singular mythology. Santa's got plenty of equivalents. Last edited by Princess_Irene on Fri Mar 30, 2018 1:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Yeah, I have no idea how machineguns and bazookas fit in with the Santa Origin. Shooting lumps of coal would have made way more sense. But I guess in the minds of the Japanese writers of this show, "Americans = guns, lol".
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wastrel
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I think it was a riff off the Robot Santa Claus from Futurama. (For those unfamiliar, in that American cartoon show, the Robot Santa Claus comes to town each Christmas Eve and, since everyone is naughty, he kills everyone he can find.) They did say America uses 'mixed media', after all. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Loved it how the British school conveniently pulled out because they neither had the time nor the budget to animate another battle, apparently...and i still don't understand what the new character was needed for if Shizuka would return anyhow to save the day?
But well, at least this episode didn't look quite as terrible as the last one... |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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You all have to see the "Adam Ruins Everything" episode about the real American Christmas tradition. American puritans, the core of early America, wanted nothing to do with Santa Claus, paganistic tree decoration, caroling, etc. Most of what we see as "traditional" American Christmas celebration, including an acceptance of good old St. Nick, didn't come into fashion until the early 20th century- brought by the influx of Irish and other European immigrants that insisted on having "fun" during Christmas.
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DRosencraft
Posts: 665 |
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I think the "outrage" over the comment on the US not having an Origin is overdone. The U.S as a nation is only 242-years-old, this year. I see people mentioning Native American stories, or Paul Bunyan, but unlike the "classics" the show focuses on, these are either scarcely known to a broader public, or many, many, years younger than the Origins they are going up against. And, as noted repeatedly in the series, the age and popularity of a story has a significant impact on the power and respect that story gets. The idea, therefore, that America doesn't have an Origin to use makes complete sense.
My suspicion from last week seems to be partially confirmed - episode 9 was so far along when they took their 2-week break (not to mention the issues of being short staffed), they didn't put much, if any, time in going back to work on it, instead putting their effort into episode 10; the difference between the two is like night and day. I feel like a lot of the story issues brought up in the review could have been patched nicely if a fully competent and dedicated team was working on episodes 11 and 12, but at this point I have little faith in the completion of this work. As the review states near the end, it feels like a lot of potential was utterly wasted. Here's to hoping no other anime in the future suffers this sort of total dysfunction - although we know it likely will. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15462 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I had no idea that this was finished, episode 10 did nothing at all to say it was finishing there, in fact it felt like it was just reaching its actual climax. The Encyclopedia has it listed at 12 episodes, though indeed Wikipedia says that it finished at 10.
What happened? |
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Łukasz Kawosz
Posts: 77 |
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It's extremely weird for americans to mention they have "native" culture and stories given that they annihilated almost all of the natives when they came here. Stop being so defensive over japanese cartoon demeaning your sacred country.
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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Finallly got around to watching episode 9. Ouch! 作画崩壊-Sakuga Houkai (Drawing Collapse) indeed. Watching an episode of modern day anime in which nearly every character in every scene is off model is surprisingly cringy in a way that watching poor animated early 80's anime isn't. It's just pretty bad. It reminded me of the infamous "Yashigani" (Hermit Crab) episode of Lost Universe, in which the broadcast version of the episode was completely outsourced to a Korean company, and there were problems, and similar results.
Edit: I see Mike Toole covered that episode of Lost Universe in one of his columns. If he ever does another article on poorly animated shows, the 9th episode of Maerchen Maedchen unfortunately belongs there. |
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Lynx Raven Raide
 Posts: 412 Location: Central Coast, AU |
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Wow, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Samuel Clemens when it comes to American literature here. I'm sure Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn could have easily been used here. This series does have a bit of promise, just let down by poor production and in this case research
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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An Origin power based on the fence-painting scene in Tom Sawyer would have been amazing. 
@Łukasz Kawosz I didn't think anyone was being defensive - just pointing out the pros and cons of two different points of view on the subject. |
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dharlow
Posts: 22 |
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that ep. 10 is going to be the last of the series? That would be a shame, if true.
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Lynx Raven Raide
Posts: 412 Location: Central Coast, AU |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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I'm not seeing any reference to it in this thread, so I'm just posting a link for anyone who is (for whatever reason) unaware.
Crunchyroll Adds Final 2 Episodes of Märchen Mädchen Anime |
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