Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Izetta: The Last Witch
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L'Imperatore
 Posts: 827 |
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And that's exactly what I'm doing. Sorry, I just can't take my yuri glasses off this time. 
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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Izetta is one of the best shows of the season and I for one believe that the Yuri subtext will come into full bloom over the course of the series.
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3652 |
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Everything about Master Sergeant's existence was a death speech. His age, his grin, his composure. He may as well have been humming a ditty about his impending death. If he had lived more than a quarter episode, it would've been the most surprising plot twist in anime history. |
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Darthtabby
Posts: 21 |
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I actually view that as the weak point of the episode. The heavy focus on the battle means less focus on the main characters, whom we've only had two previous episodes to get to know. Other than that I think the writing for this series is generally pretty competent. Despite his reputation in the western anime fandom, I'd say Yoshino's track record for series he's been a series composer/lead writer far is more successful than otherwise (it's also my opinion that he's rather versatile and adaptable). I'm actually happy to see him working on a new anime original. Last edited by Darthtabby on Sat Oct 15, 2016 11:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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Boy, do I want to love this show, and boy, does it seem intent on stopping me. Finé herself seems to be everything I ever wanted in a princess, anime or otherwise; smart, politically savvy, compassionate without letting it get in the way of sound judgement, and someone who seems to readily understand the cost of war and what it takes to win one. It's actually Izetta herself that's part of the problem.
I get that she and Finé are close, and Fine showed her compassion when no one else would, etc., etc. But Izetta's veering a little closer to dependency than is really comfortable for me. I'm assuming we're going to get some kind of coming-of-age/loss-of-innocence story where Izetta either loses Finé or will have to learn to stand on her own should they go their separate ways, but you'll have to forgive me if I roll my eyes the whole way there. Blindly devoted "friends" just don't work for me--worse still if she's a romantic interest for Finé, as blindly devoted love interests aren't much better. The other big problem I have for this series is the direction. Or maybe the editing? Not sure how to actually describe it, but it seems like the way the scenes are constructed comes off as dispassionate or even clumsy. Like in episode 2, where we get an extended flashback about Finé and Izetta--spurring the latter on to steel herself to kill--followed, not a minute or two later, by an abridged version of that same exact scene. And I get that anime in particular has it real bad when it comes to flashbacks and characters ruminating on them--often within the same episode--but this just felt unusually clumsy. Add to that the almost sterile depictions of war, and I'm just left out in the cold. The show neither seems to revel in the destruction (much like Re:Zero's manga did) nor depict the horrors of it (see any good war movie ever); it's just sort of...there. If a devastating war on the equivalent scale of a faux WW2 is one of your central themes, I'd kind of expect the show to have something to say about it, even if it's just via imagery. At the moment, it feels like nothing so much as flavor text--or maybe just a convenient way to have a large scale battle with that specific level of technology without having to go to the trouble of making it up yourself--and I honestly can't tell if it's on purpose or if it's due to a lack of budget. The eye-roll inducing mustache-twirling of Germania is also pretty laughable. I mean, we get that Elystadt is an underdog here; no need to rub it in our faces, show. 
I hope the show gets better as it goes along, but for now, I think I'll mostly be tuning in just to see a princess do actual princess-y things for once. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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So are the not-german nazi? I mean you'd think so but nothing actually hinted at it, and if there not then that kinda change some stuff. Is defending to the last man to "buy some time" really a smart move, aren't they just throwing away live for no reason, maybe the german would just occupy them but wouldn't be that bad, I mean all we know is that there mustachio villain, but that doesn't automatically make them evil (I never liked when show just goes underdog=good guy, I want some justification, beside maybe there underdog because german are far more advance industrially and they could actually really help by modernizing the country). Is it really worth throwing away live just to save the country? All of which are subjects I don't think the show will ever look into.
I guess I'm saying the magic is starting to take away from the show potential, all the politic and war tactics are pointless because it all come literally down to magic. We have no idea how it actually work either, I'm guessing there's eventually going to be some big moment where Izette can't use her magic for "reason" and it'll be a big important moment but it's hard to take those seriously since there so arbitrary. Why is it even there is my question. |
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Luke's JRPG Channel
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This is a great series.
Izetta was an absolute boss for episode 3. |
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Darthtabby
Posts: 21 |
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The show has made it pretty clear that the strength of Izetta's power varies with where she is. Some places have much stronger magic than others. Yeah, its an obvious device to allow the writer to scale her powers to the situation at hand, but I can roll with it. As for the Germanians, they've been conquering their neighbours and there's a flashback scene of Germanian troops massacring villagers. I'm willing to roll with the idea that they're the "bad guys" in this setting. Last edited by Darthtabby on Sat Oct 15, 2016 11:55 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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1idd0kun
Posts: 62 |
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The main protagonist is Izetta. Fine's the co-lead.
While is true that Fine has a stronger personality, Izetta has more room for character growth while Fine is a static, already fully realized character. In fact, with all her virtues and little to no character flaws, Fine's more a representation of an ideal than an actual character. She's a source of inspiration for Izetta, but Izetta chooses to fight of her own accord, and is Izetta who changes the course of the war and becomes actual hope for the people. Fine represents hope for them, but can't offer actual hope as she lacks power of her own. Izetta is actual hope, for the people and for Fine herself. Plus Izetta is credited first in every episode and the show's website. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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I imagine most people living in countries under military occupation by another country wouldn't describe the situation as not that bad. Even if these guys aren't Nazis, through most of history and definitely this time period, such occupations were not known for being nice to the citizens in occupied areas and making good faith efforts to improve those countries. As to technological development, Eylstadt seemed to have its own unique industries so overall technology is probably not drastically different enough that takeover by another country would be desirable from a development standpoint, and that's putting aside all the bad things done in the name of "development". At most, Germania has a larger and better military and better tactics, not unlike WWII era Germany, not significantly higher level of technological development. Not thinking they would do bad things to the Eylstatites(?) and be welcomed by the population as saviors belies a naïveté about how the conquerors treat the conquered and how even a "nice" occupation weights on the collective psyche of the occupied country. |
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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Izetta had a really good first episode, because all about it was with Finé, there were other side characters but Finé would easily steal the scene every time. Izetta literally killed this for me.
Like, episode 2 had Finé literally on the bed for almost the whole episode and I could predict from minute zero how this episode would go and it went the same exact way. I'm not the kind of guy that says "Anime is not original anymore!" but, dude. Episode 1 already foretold that the backstory was literally Finé running around, finding Izetta and be like "Ah, no, witches are really cool!" and that she defended her somehow of the villagers. If they already mentioned how that situation resolved then I forgot, but whatever. The entire episode I was like "Now they're going to trip up and laugh at the same ti-damnit" all of Izetta's actions and the way the episode was constructed felt like an ordeal to watch, I couldn't get immersed into the world. Episode 3 was similarly the same thing, except Finé had more screentime and that was awesome. I really don't care about Elystadt or however it's written's citizens, I care about their princess. It's really hard to make a story about war because you really have to care about these two sides militarly, however all we can care about are the political actors, like that...German dude who is totally not Hitler, Finé, and that's it. I don't feel like we have, like, THE military guy who commands their tropes, or their tropes being kind of unique. And that's wherein Izetta just kills the mood, she's like the only important thing in the battlefield, we don't even care about the bad guys, or the good guys, it's just Izetta being relatively badass (her voice is really undramatic), but I really don't care if Izetta literally overthrows history and makes Elystadt win the war, because I don't care about her like I care about Finé. I do get that Izetta's power varies from place to place but all I saw was telekinesis, and I quickly got bored of her taking a bunch of...whatever and throw them at the enemies, perhaps the only cool part in episode 2 was the use of ice but that'd be it. I hope I can try for one more episode but I just don't see myself watching it until the end. |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2245 |
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Just a stab in the dark, but I'm gonna' guess it has to do with being tied to the land. Not necessarily to Elystadt itself, just maybe in terms of specific natural resources. I'd wager that Izetta's powers are linked to being able to control things "of the earth", hence why she can manipulate snow and metallic objects. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Agreed. And while attacks from the enemy seem to leave some actual bodies behind at the very least, when Izetta kills dozens, it just looks...pretty? We even get pretty music to go with it. Also her being troubled by killing people from ep.1 seems to have completely vanished within an episode... |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2442 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Well, like Jake said on ANNCast, kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop here. The leering sexualization of Izetta in the battle scenes -- particularly in episode 3 when she briefly parks her butt in a tank window, or various shots of her crotch from below -- should land with my cishet male gaze, but damn, there's so much of it that's it's distracting. I suppose with the gratuitous nudity in the OP, the show is at least honest about its intentions. But I can't help but worry this is eventually going to get in the way of the story.
I do think they do a very nice job of mixing 2D and 3D when Izetta joins the battle (same as with her fighting the planes early in ep 2); freeing up the camera really helps give a sense of speed and excitement. Another thing they do surprisingly nicely is make the battles easy to follow -- establishing shots convey where each side is, how many planes Izetta is going to need to take out, etc. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Ironically, the thing I'm finding most predictable here is not the show, but the above (negative) reactions to it. Yes, folks, you're right, it hasn't done anything wild and unexpected yet; that's because it's been slow and deliberately-paced so far. Worldbuilding, more than plot advancement. These first 3 episodes were only the introduction; we just got to the point where anyone other than Fine and some evil higher-ups knew about Izetta. The story will likely speed up from here on out.
As for the war depictions not being brutal enough... also an unsurprising complaint because we all know that darker = better, but still, I'm not sure what you're asking for. More gore? Screaming? This doesn't really seem intended as an all-out War Is Hell piece, but there was still a lot of death, much of it sudden and bloody, on both sides. Izetta killing people was depicted more positively, but again, this is only the introduction; give it time. She wasn't exactly proud of killing people in the previous episode, so I doubt that issue will be ignored forever. The bits of sexualization/male-gaze are annoying... but Flip Flappers, as much as I've liked everything else about it, has been at least as bad in that respect (the robot activating tentacle mode in the first episode, for one thing) and no one seems to have noticed. On the whole, most of the complaints here seem kind of forced, like you're looking for things to criticize to justify disliking it, possibly to preempt the expected Guilty Crowning. Can't we at least give it a fair chance? If you find it dull, you're allowed to stop watching it, you don't need to rip it apart when there's very little to rip into so far... |
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