Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Megalobox
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
|
|||||||||
|
Since when does two people speak for everyone? Everyone I know in real life and all the other places I go to on the internet for anime discussion has been praising this series for good reason and are already going out of their way to recommend it to others. Don’t lie and say people won’t hold it in high regard when the reviewer on this very site is doing exactly that, or do you know not consider staff on ANN to be actual people? You’re saying that Joe is not interesting, but your treating your opinion as if it’s fact, without fully understanding why others may feel otherwise. I can understand why Joe may not have everyone liking him, but I’ve been enjoying watching him anyway because everything in this show has been executed very well to present the situations and the character’s background in an entertaining way. Originality is overrated, and it never guarantees quality work, so that’s why I’m not so down on the cliches that are presented well and I doubt I’m the only one with that position. The feeling can be mutual, dude, and it may be possible that you may not fully get what other people are saying. You may think you do, but based on your angry-like tone that has appeared at times in this forum for other people stating their stances on the series, I doubt it. You two are the only ones I know who are complaining that it’s not enough, but based on your attitudes, I have a feeling that even if the show did do what you wanted it to do, you still wouldn’t be pleased based on your history. Just agree to disagree, dude, and move on if you’re this riled up.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Scion Drake
Posts: 941 |
|
|||||||||
Clap, clap, clap. Worthy for applause there. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
hattori300
Posts: 52 |
|
|||||||||
|
no worries bro, im out. It was my mistake to think people here actually cared about discourse. I've seen now thats not the case.
Now its all about how im not willing to take other people's tastes and likings, when ironically thats always been what you all did to me. "Oh this type of story isnt for you", or "you want a different kind of story and character you wont get here" All im saying is that not once did people address my criticisms or given me a plausible reason as to why Joe is actually a great character, contrary to what im saying. At this point I dont expect that to ever happen here, so i'll be leaving. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Scion Drake
Posts: 941 |
|
|||||||||
I think people have, its just your treating either it all as nonsense or bad so it doesn't count while propping up your own stuff as the end be all. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
meiam
Posts: 3442 |
|
|||||||||
I'm so glad you borough up Yuri fight, right there that just show everything wrong with the shows writing. Joe goes up against Yuri, the champion (once again the champion went and fought against a no name fighters for no other reason that said no name fighters was the main character) using gear. He lose. So what does he do then? He remove his gear... and start winning. The gear were literally just dragging him down. And of course within 3 month he's already way past Yuri (who need to use gear just to keep up with Joe in there inevitable fight). Cause, hey what's a lifetime of training (couple with an entire company R&D division) and slow grinding up as a fighter without publicity gimmick next to Joe raw talent?
Hum, thank you for recognizing that Joe is only winning trough sheer talent. But I'm not sure why you seem to think "guy win because he's more talented than opponent" makes for a good story.
See here again you come back to the idea that Joe is disadvantaged... but he's not. His punch are just as strong as people with gear and he has super human resistance. Joe opponent are the one who are going up against someone with the advantages, they need mechanical gear just to hope to compete with him (and they'd probably need some amazing helmet to hope to match Joe resistance). Joe is the privileged one, trough raw talent that he was born with. If the show is a comment on privilege, then that comment is that privilege trump hard work. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
musouka
Posts: 707 |
|
|||||||||
So, you literally think that if Joe had removed his gear with his first fight with Yuri, then he would have won that fight in which he got KO'd in the first round? Like, the gear was some sort of limiter and if Joe had just ripped it off his arms from the very beginning he would have won all those fights (that he deliberately threw)? Come on, man. Your criticism in this respect is downright incoherent. Correlation is not causation, and if you got the impression that the series was trying to tell you that it was...well, you are literally the only person I've come across that thinks Joe's gear was some anchor keeping him tethered to the bottom.
I'm not sure how else Joe is supposed to win. I'd love for you to tell me. How would you like to see your ideal, nameless Megalobox main character beat his opponents that doesn't rely on talent?
Joe is a talented boxer who trains hard. I'm glad to see you've picked up on that aspect of the show. He's also so poor that he can't even afford that equipment you say his opponents need to match him, equipment that literally everyone else in the tournament in which he's entered uses and which everyone initially expects him to use as well. (Guess he really would have shot to the top in that case, lol) He had to illegally forge his identity to even have the opportunity to participate in said tournament. As Gina pointed out, he lives on a houseboat and seems to own one set of clothing. I doubt he has access to anything but basic healthcare or other amenities that people in the city across the river take for granted. Yes, he's been blessed with a body that can take a licking and keep on ticking. That's about his only advantage in a series that has been about much, much more than just "I can take a punch." |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
|
|||||||||
|
Hm. I agree with meiam and hattori that Joe's not the most interesting of main characters. We don't know very much about him and what we do know is pretty one-dimensional / predictable from archetype: talented hard-working dude with ambitions beyond his lot in life defies the social order & risks it all to rise to the top and realize his dream. That's certainly not a premise that breaks the mold; we've all seen it a thousand times before, and while Joe's a decent execution on the basic idea, what we know of him outside of him being cast in this archetype is pretty shallow.
I think focusing on Joe's lack of singular, deep characterization is kind've missing what's great about the series, though. Megalobox is fantastic because it 1) executes the danger, themes, and pacing of its fights well, 2) has materialized its world as a rich, believable dystopia with relatable struggles & obstacles (and a charmingly goofy obsession with robot-man boxing), 3) has a sick-as-hell soundtrack, and 4) most importantly because its supporting cast are fully realized characters---often more fully realized than its main character, as a lot've this argument seems to have revolved around. Arguably secondary characters like Nanbu, the kid, Aragaki, Mikio and his sister are actually the show's primary cast to date, with Joe just serving as a vessel to explore their stories on his way to the top, so it's good that their stories were all really interesting and well written. We might finally get a somewhat meatier characterization of Joe in the final four, dunno. If so, that would actually seem very fitting, since Megalobox's vibe & tone are so reminiscent of 2000ish classics, and that treatment of Joe would would be very similar to Cowboy Bebop's handling of Spike Spiegel (who we only learned much about at select, long-separated intervals in a series otherwise episodically driven around its secondary characters as often as its main cast). But whether the final four gives us a deeper dive into who / why Joe is or not, I think Megalobox thus far reads nicely as a high-quality, well-executed set of short stories that're primarily about the world of Megalobox and its non-main characters, even if the MC still serves as the roving the camera through which the viewer explores the world. (Also, sick-as-hell soundtrack.) |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||||||||
No, it's not. All of his challenges have been related to his boxing, except the citizenship thing (which was still tangentially related in that it's been his only means of survival because he's not a citizen and has no other skills, unless you count being a badass on his bike, which probably doesn't pay much), and that was beyond his means to remedy alone.
If sports outcomes were determined solely by mathematical calculations, no one would gamble on it. They'd just plug in the stats on their computer and always pick the winner. This is another problem with your analyses of series: your absolute unwillingness or inability(?) to factor human emotional variables into your equations. For you, all characters must always act with Vulcan logic and choose the optimum strategy and robotically obey the dictates of cold, hard math. If they behave irrationally in any way, like fallible humans are wont to do, to you it's bad writing. Again, I realize trying to change your mind on this is hopeless, so I'm done on this score. 
Hmm, I thought you quit reading before the last paragraph in which I expressly addressed your comment, but then you asked this, so you obviously knew I didn't ignore it. Yukiko's driving motivation is achieving success for her father's company by proving her latest Gear is superior and the future of Gear. Hence Megalonia. If it became known that Mikio had gotten into the final four by blackmailing a publically-adored (no, that doesn't make him a M-S either) contender out of facing him, and that Yukiko had even allowed a non-citizen to get that close to her precious event, it would be perceived as incompetence, cheating, and nepotism to the public, since Mikio is her brother. Even worse, it would appear that she'd let him slip in in order to fix the final fight in Yuri's favor (assuming Yuri won, which is her default position - she can't even imagine another outcome at this point). That was a PR nightmare that could undo everything she was working for, namely demonstrating the superiority of Yuri's Gear. As for why Mikio didn't spill the beans on stage, it was pointed out earlier that he didn't actually have any evidence for his accusations and was bluffing. That Joe's slum fights were fixed may be suspected by some, but obviously no one can prove it or Joe and Nambu's scam would've been over long ago. And outing Joe in front of the reporters wouldn't have done his own position any good at that point, for the reasons stated above. It would just make him look scared of Joe and willing to use intimidation to get into the finals by default rather than by skill. I believe that was her reasoning, and I'm sure you can find some logical flaws in it, since that's your thing. But it's not an unrealistic calculation for a fallible human to make on the spot. Even she revised her thinking between talking to Nambu and Joe's confronting her under the glare of the public eye. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||||||||
I've addressed your criticisms several times, but in areas where it comes down to personal preference, I'm not here to change your mind. If your complaint is based on misperceptions, I might try to clarify that if I have the time and am in the mood, but mostly your problem seems to be you just don't like Joe, so the series can't do anything right when it comes to him. As I said before, what you say you want them to do instead are changes that would make me dislike the show, so I don't know what to tell you beyond that. Do you want me to huff and puff until you see things my way? That's not going to happen, since I just don't have the energy for that. But no need to leave on account of it. I dunno, are your ideas of what "discuss" means different from mine? We seem to be having a discussion, even if none of us has changed anyone else's mind.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
meiam
Posts: 3442 |
|
|||||||||
I agree, it's incredibly dumb that Joe without gear is doing better than Joe with gear. You can see why I think the show has bad writing then... I mean I didn't make that up, unless you think Joe is going to fight against Yuri and the match is going to be even more one sided than the first time they fought.
Well use gear for one. That's pretty simple, I've said so many time (so you don't need Joe to have super human punching strength). Not have him spent the first part of every fight he's in eating punch without suffering any consequence for two (so you don't need Joe to have super human resistance). Having the series happen over a longer period would also greatly help (maybe 1-2 years). Nanbu being a competent trainer would also help quite a lot (I mean, a kid is literally shown to be a better trainer than him).
... It's boxing... it's literally all about two things, can you take punch and can you give punch. (I mean there's also dodging but Joe barely does that, I'm pretty sure if you go back and count every fight has been in he's taken far more punch than he dealt, but anyway he doesn't need to dodge because of his aforementioned insane resistance). His only advantages are the only advantages he need. You talk about access to healthcare, well once again Joe doesn't need fancy healthcare he just regenerate by himself. Could have an interesting episode where the team need to figure out how to get Joe access to the care he need. But nah, just chain him in his room, he'll be good.
Well first, plenty of people are trying to develop computer model to plug in stats to determine outcome, we'll get there soon enough (with machine learning on the rise were probably only 10-20 years away from that). Human emotion, sure sound nice, but that doesn't stop your brain from rattling away in your skull when you get punched by mechanically enhanced professional boxer. And this always get to the same problem, what about Aragaki? His emotion weren't strong enough to fight against Joe? Did Mikio not want to win his tournament enough to win against Joe? And I really don't see what logic has to do with it all. I'm not saying Joe is making illogical decision in the fight or anything like that. I'm saying Joe has super human characteristic which fundamentally change the story from the intend message to one that's all about natural born ability trumping everything else.
Well Mikio was one of the favorite to win even before Joe was even in the competition (he did beat the other boxer who was rank 7 or something like that), so I'm not quite sure why him getting into the tournament would be suspect. Hell he didn't even have to fight Joe anyway, he's the one who challenged Joe, not the other way around. Joe is ranked far below Mikio and the last match he won he only did so because his opponent was wounded. They'd also have literally no proof that Mikio tried to blackmail Joe. As far as the non citizen things, how does that reflect badly on her? She doesn't run the ID system, that's the government job. And if she's really worried about that, allowing him to get into the final 4 is the worse decision ever. People are constantly leaving huge data trail, tax, school, registration and such. Joe ID is tied to someone else and he presumably had to actually enter it into the tournament system to get in (otherwise the ID problem is literally not a problem). All Mikio has to do is drop an anonymous tips to a sport/gossip journalist with Joe ID, they could then just look into the school that the real ID holder went to, look into the year end book and they'd quickly find out that Joe never went to that school (and that's just one of the millions of way they can easily find that out). Of course, the more publicity Joe is under, the more scrutiny he'll face. Maybe that would work if she really was forced in a situation where she had to take a split second decision... But that's not how any of this happened. Nanbu went to her with all that information and she said "no". Then Joe shows up, says "I'm awesome", and that changes her mind? He doesn't present any new information, he just show up. She already made her decision, in a situation where she wasn't under pressure and had all the time she needed to make it, why would she change it? |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
|
|||||||||
|
How is Joe "doing better without gear than with it"?
We've only seen him fight with it when throwing fights or fighting Yuri, and he's only fought Yuri the once (with gear). He has also trained quite a bit since then, but we have yet to see him fight Yuri again to see the result of that training. I don't think there's any textual evidence that Joe is a better fighter without gear than with it, ceteris paribus, and I think any suggestion otherwise is probably suffering from a serious misunderstanding of causal inference. Last edited by NeverConvex on Sun Jun 03, 2018 12:50 am; edited 2 times in total |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||||||||
No matter how good the algorithms and data-in are, it won't be successful as long as the players are people and not machines.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
|
|||||||||
I think this argument is a lot more complex than it is being made out to be here. Philosophically, meiman is right; there is no real reason to believe humans can't be predicted as well as everything else in our universe. But practically speaking, the situation is complex. Machines are currently great at messy but reasonably definable tasks like vision, but they struggle with linked chains of decisions over qualitatively separate domains. In both cases, there are limits, though. Not in boxing, really---eventually, a machine will kick the shit out of an equivalent humanoid boxer, no question. But in other domains, it is not clear that machines will outperform us; we don't yet know if our energy profile is for some reason uniquely suited to complex information processing in multiple qualitatively distinct domains. No one does. Because we don't know how to machine-learn that. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||||||||
Yes there is, because humans are almost by definition unpredictable. A machine doesn't get distracted on the playing field. A machine doesn't have a bad day from having a fight with their spouse the night before. A machine doesn't worry about getting hurt. A machine doesn't get bursts of adrenaline. I could go on, but there are more variables at play in any sporting competition on any given day than anyone could ever figure out how to code. I mean, how do you predict a bird flying into a pitched ball? (weirdly enough that's not even a once in a lifetime occurrence)
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
|
|||||||||
This is missing the point, though. We already predict systems in which we know there are limits to our ability to forecast; this is what forecasting the expected behavior of probabilistic systems is all about. The deeper issue is whether there is any room for 'free will' inside of the unpredictable variance in human behavior... |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group