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WickedHate posted:Because, for the purposes of the story, the Course 2 students are just being used as convenient tools. Narratively, the issue is just a means for the students to be controlled. As it's pointed out, the school doesn't actually discriminate against them and when it's asked how they do Sayaka can't come up with anything. It's just a way for the bad guy to get their claws into the school. Again, that's just a convenient in-setting writing excuse plus one heck of a strawman being set up. *Why* would the author write this argument as such that the people who want to put an end to discrimination are either misguided or outright evil? And I don't mean the lame justifications he uses in the story. I mean what do you think is going through someone's mind when deciding that this will be one of the themes of the story? I mean we haven't even gotten to the nationalism I've heard so much about yet, but so far this anime has expressed the sentiments that: A) Poor people deserve to be poor because they spend their time being jealous of rich people instead of working hard (bonus points for having a guy from a rich family say this while having zero sense of self-awareness whatsoever about it, the way it's presented implies we're supposed to agree with him). and B) The oppressed should stop being so emotional about their discrimination and just think rationally about it instead. Get where I'm going with this? Srice fucked around with this message at 18:29 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 18:25
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i especially liked that the one thing that may have even made sense for equality, like, say, sharing faculty was immediately thrown out with no explanation so that the author could make the point that anyone unhappy with the system is an idiot whose beliefs all, without fail, crumple like wet tissue when anyone asks them to list something they're specifically mad about The author is so insecure in his ideology that he can only set it against idiots, terrorists, and petty thugs. I promised myself I would never argue about this dumb show you're a monster.
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May 5, 2014 18:31
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this show is the anime version of that political thriller where dumb but well meaning liberals help the terrorists overthrow America
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May 5, 2014 18:35
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Tarranon posted:this show is the anime version of that political thriller where dumb but well meaning liberals help the terrorists overthrow America "Empire", by Orson Scott Card?
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May 5, 2014 19:00
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Srice posted:
I know what you're saying, and I'm saying that from the author's point of view there just needs to be an excuse for the villain of the story to manipulate people.
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May 5, 2014 19:45
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WickedHate posted:I know what you're saying, and I'm saying that from the author's point of view there just needs to be an excuse for the villain of the story to manipulate people. And from my point of view the entire purpose of that is for the the author to espouse his lovely beliefs with a "debate" against a strawman. After all, why bother engaging the issue when you can just label everyone in your story that disagrees with your "one correct stance" as evil? If he just needed an excuse for the evil faction maybe he could have come up with a stance for our "good guys" that could be even *slightly* sympathetic? I mean, I'll say it again: it's literally impossible for me to sympathize with the main character's beliefs, and despite being written as a bunch of mustache twirling villains, the terrorists are way more likeable than him. Heck it's not too far removed from something like what I've heard about those Sword of Truth books, where the hero murders a bunch of war protestors because of their "hatred for moral clarity" and this is shown to be a good thing. In other words: Tarranon posted:The author is so insecure in his ideology that he can only set it against idiots, terrorists, and petty thugs. Srice fucked around with this message at 19:55 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 19:50
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Some people are better then other people, hold that poo poo.
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May 5, 2014 20:04
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Dick is is my favourite adtrw poster and I didn't listen to him and I made a really bad decision and watched this. Incest, wizards and right wing politics, together at last!
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May 5, 2014 20:43
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Srice posted:A) Poor people deserve to be poor because they spend their time being jealous of rich people instead of working hard (bonus points for having a guy from a rich family say this while having zero sense of self-awareness whatsoever about it, the way it's presented implies we're supposed to agree with him). Here's the reason that the Course 1 and Course 2 students are stratified so differently in story for their school: They expanded the amount of students at the school by twice the current amount to meet international standards, and the new hundred students uniforms didn't have the flower patch added in time. .....that's it. From there it snowballed into people thinking "They are being treated differently because the administration thinks they aren't as good as us" and all that other crap over the years, ultimately being codified because the students looked down on them *anyway* and the stark reality they do not have enough magic teachers in the world. It wasn't meant to be that way in the beginning, they just didn't have uniforms ready in time and the new hundred students were absolutely meant to be the same as the other hundred. It's one of the reasons the show should get so much poo poo thrown at it. If it was 100% beginning to end incest nationalism military awesome murder the Chinese-athon time, who gives a gently caress? Bad show/book is bad. The really weird part is how the occasional good or interesting idea pops up....and *then* is completely squandered.
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May 6, 2014 06:31
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This show is turning into a conservative chain e-mail. edit: No matter how much they're trying to make us view this organization as the bad guys, they still come off as the underdogs who are forced to use guns and gas bombs against loving literal wizards. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:05 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 06:55
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Boogaleeboo posted:Here's the reason that the Course 1 and Course 2 students are stratified so differently in story for their school: Even thinking about that stuff makes my brain hurt. This show is like an onion, I keep finding more and more layers of terribleness, and it makes me want to cry while peeling it.
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May 6, 2014 07:06
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Ytlaya posted:edit: No matter how much they're trying to make us view this organization as the bad guys, they still come off as the underdogs who are forced to use guns and gas bombs against loving literal wizards. I have no idea why they're starting a school shooting though. Other than "they're evil" and "the plot says so". That "debate" was one of the most painful things I have seen on television. And kendo girl needs to stand the gently caress up and complain about administration if it's poo poo. Yes, hire more loving teachers if that's what it takes! I wish she actually had a point and went through with it, instead of turning into putty like every other female when confronted with Greater Demon Lord Tatsuya.
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May 6, 2014 08:40
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So... is anyone watching this unironically? If the story really is that bad, why did it get animated? Someone who likes it needs to get in here and defend because I really don't understand.
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May 6, 2014 09:12
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MrCinos posted:Wow at such negativity in the thread. So far the first three episodes were quite good. This is the only anime this season which caught my interest. Admittedly, only because I've read a few volumes of the original. WickedHate posted:I recognize it has flaws but just happen to like it. in a sufficiently large group, someone's going to have sufficiently poo poo taste
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May 6, 2014 09:30
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I like the magic, the fights, and yeah, the characters are interesting to me, though I can see why they don't appeal to others.
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I'm guessing it's popular among the Japanese audience for its nationalism and for the batshit insane obsessive sister. You know, the one who regularly murders the object of her affections because she gets jealous of any girl who interacts with him.
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May 6, 2014 09:49
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uuuummm posted:So... is anyone watching this unironically? I am. SSNeoman posted:I have no idea why they're starting a school shooting though. Other than "they're evil" and "the plot says so". The school itself isn't actually doing anything wrong though, the Course 1 students are, and that's addressed. The lack of teacher's also isn't a problem that can be solved by just hiring more. There isn't enough to hire in the first place.
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May 6, 2014 13:23
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I think the school failing to function as, well, a school is a problem that they can be blamed for! I just see the lack of teachers as an extension of the wish fulfillment. Our main character knows everything and is completely flawless, so what could get gain from a teacher? Why, that would imply that there's something he doesn't know! I mean, it's certainly not uncommon for actual highschoolers to think that they already know everything and that listening to a teacher is a waste of time. This is just an aspect that appeals directly to that crowd. Srice fucked around with this message at 15:47 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 15:44
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uuuummm posted:So... is anyone watching this unironically? I don't know how to watch things ironically. Also it got animated because if you go look at list of the top selling light novel series in 2013, the entire top 20 has an anime except Mahouka. Which is #3. The series has been in a state of "getting an adaptation sometime because they've adapted everything else" for years now.
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May 6, 2014 15:54
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If the author wanted an easy motivation for an anti-magic function they should have just made it into a cult, even if it's still funded by the Koreans and Chinese. That way the ideology doesn't have to stand up to a particularly weak breeze. A cult would be much more useful and believable from a narrative perspective, too, since it'd justify the random acts of violence. But no, this is definitely the author going on a soapbox for his extremely naive beliefs with a hilariously exaggerated strawman that isn't even allowed to speak for itself. There are other things in the LNs that I've read in spoilers like the USA selling Hawaii to Japan (in this universe WWII and Pearl Harbour did happen) and being fought off by Japan after regretting the sale. That's so shockingly impossible that it only shows the author's incredibly petty, childlike ideas about Japan (mostly how they're inherently better than everyone else) and the world in general. Full disclosure, I haven't watched the fifth episode. I almost want to watch it just so I can stoke my anger properly but I don't think it's worth it. On the other hand I'm still following this thread.
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May 6, 2014 16:16
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Desuwa posted:If the author wanted an easy motivation for an anti-magic function they should have just made it into a cult, even if it's still funded by the Koreans and Chinese. That way the ideology doesn't have to stand up to a particularly weak breeze. A cult would be much more useful and believable from a narrative perspective, too, since it'd justify the random acts of violence. The fifth episode has what is probably the worst "debate" I have ever seen in any medium. I mean, even in most insane right wing fiction the strawman is allowed to speak their points, even if the points are intentionally written to be dumb as possible. That is how low the bar is set.
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May 6, 2014 16:22
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aers posted:Also it got animated because if you go look at list of the top selling light novel series in 2013, the entire top 20 has an anime except Mahouka. Which is #3. The series has been in a state of "getting an adaptation sometime because they've adapted everything else" for years now.
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May 6, 2014 16:27
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Good writing could take care of that very easily, no? Show don't tell, and all that jazz? I don't think "it will be hard to adapt" has ever been a reason for delays with LN adaptions. It's usually stuff on the publisher's side of things. I can't think of a single scene where the lengthy explanation of magic has been required to get what's going on, and more often than not it just contributes to the incredibly bad pacing.
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May 6, 2014 16:59
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Srice posted:I think the school failing to function as, well, a school is a problem that they can be blamed for! The school can only hire hire teachers if they exist. Tatsuya's "I already know everything" is because of their hosed up past more then anything, and not just being smart. They're less Holden Caulfield and more teenage Damian Wayne.
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May 6, 2014 17:04
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WickedHate posted:The school itself isn't actually doing anything wrong though, the Course 1 students are, and that's addressed. The lack of teacher's also isn't a problem that can be solved by just hiring more. There isn't enough to hire in the first place. It is something you can absolutely protest as a student. If there's a structural/staffing problem in your school, you can protest and bring it up to the people running it. It's not the students' job to solve such issues, no matter what Tatsuya the Lifethread-Keeper has to say about it. Here's how the conversation approximately went KG: We want the school to improve the conditions and fix the discrepancy between the two courses. Tatsuya: The main difference between Course 1 and Course 2 is the availability or lack thereof of instructors. Do you take it to mean that you want the school to add more faculty? KG: (suddenly embarrassed) I don't intend to go that far... I mean you can read between the lines here, right? Particularly the girl's response? This is the author trying to say that everything about existing infrastructure is fine. If you want to change it, you are wrong and will embarrass yourself.
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May 6, 2014 17:04
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SSNeoman posted:I mean you can read between the lines here, right? Particularly the girl's response? This is the author trying to say that everything about existing infrastructure is fine. If you want to change it, you are wrong and will embarrass yourself. What can the school do if they are already getting as many teachers as they can? It's like asking a farmer to harvest crop from a field that's already barren.
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May 6, 2014 17:06
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WickedHate posted:The school can only hire hire teachers if they exist. Tatsuya's "I already know everything" is because of their hosed up past more then anything, and not just being smart. They're less Holden Caulfield and more teenage Damian Wayne. You're treating the work like it's a piece of history. Everything written is deliberate, the author wasn't forced at gunpoint to write a lack of teachers as one of the cornerstones of the plot. But he did, and I'm not seeing anything that disproves what I said about the main character not having a teacher as part of the wish-fulfillment prevalent in the series. I can't see it as a character flaw, and even if it was it's a "flaw" that does not impede him in the slightest. SSNeoman posted:I mean you can read between the lines here, right? Particularly the girl's response? This is the author trying to say that everything about existing infrastructure is fine. If you want to change it, you are wrong and will embarrass yourself. Not only that but as was mentioned earlier, they apparently can't handle that many students because of "international standards". It's literally saying that the Japanese way of doing things is superior and this is what happens when Japan listens to those dirty foreigners. (Let's not even get into how silly an international enrollment quota for your school is) Srice fucked around with this message at 17:14 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 17:08
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The whole excuse that there aren't enough teachers doesn't hold up. This is supposed to be the elite magic school training the best of the best. This should be where the magic teachers are prioritized, since even course 2 students here are supposed to be more promising than the best students at other schools. With how supposedly critical it is for the best students to be prepared for military or supporting careers it defies belief that they'd allow the second tier (course 2) of students in the country to go without instruction while some students from the third tier (not admitted to the best high school) and lower still have teachers. It's frankly unbelievable that the entire country of Japan only has enough magic teachers for half of one high school. If this were random generic anime magic high school I might buy it, but this is explicitly the best and most important high school in the entire nation and its students are the future elites of society. It should be the one unaffected by any supposed teacher shortages. With how much this society supposedly controls and cultivates its It's a very poorly constructed setting that exposes itself as childish wish-fulfillment for the main character. It just straight up does not make sense.
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May 6, 2014 17:24
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Plus they could always just enroll fewer students if they can't actually teach them all. It's not like "we have more students than we can teach properly" is something that's unprecedented in real life.
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May 6, 2014 17:43
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WickedHate posted:What can the school do if they are already getting as many teachers as they can? It's like asking a farmer to harvest crop from a field that's already barren. Like Desuwa says, it's absurd that there are supposedly only enough teachers in the entire country for half of one high school. And like Srice said, it's the author's choice to create a setting where elitism is justified and those who oppose it are dumb strawmen. Given the infinite possible plots/worlds he could have created, he chose to go with one where at least some degree of segregation is morally justified.
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May 6, 2014 17:48
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Ytlaya posted:Like Desuwa says, it's absurd that there are supposedly only enough teachers in the entire country for half of one high school. There are multiple magio high schools, the one in the show is the First. I've been saying the author could have just needed to set up a way for the Course 2 students to be manipulated. Out of universe, you could replace it with anything else. The whole situation is just there as an explanation of how Blanche is loving with the school. [Bad Guy] manipulates students because [Set Up] to carry out their evil plan for [Setting].
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May 6, 2014 17:56
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WickedHate posted:There are multiple magio high schools, the one in the show is the First. so, real talk, when right wing author orson scott card creates a book about liberals helping terrorists out, and liberals are helping the terrorists out because of their beliefs about equality and progressivism, you would say that using liberalism as a way to help terrorists win was just a story mechanic so that terrorists could manipulate people, not because the author obviously has something to say about the belief system stop being daft and use your head wickedhate. you can do it....i believe in u!!
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May 6, 2014 18:06
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That makes the lack of teachers as a plot point make even less sense than it already does, which is kinda impressive because I thought that was impossible.WickedHate posted:I've been saying the author could have just needed to set up a way for the Course 2 students to be manipulated. Out of universe, you could replace it with anything else. The whole situation is just there as an explanation of how Blanche is loving with the school. [Bad Guy] manipulates students because [Set Up] to carry out their evil plan for [Setting]. Nobody is saying that the author wasn't doing so, they're just saying that the way they're doing it makes the "good guys" really hard to sympathize with, and the "evil" terrorists come across as the most sympathetic characters in the entire show. Of all the ways he could have portrayed the villains, he chose to portray them as evil because they want equality. I mean, the show is telling me to root for the guy that talks about how poor people deserve to be poor, and that people who are discriminated against should not try to make things better? gently caress that, I'm rooting for our brave freedom fighters who want to make a positive change 
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May 6, 2014 18:07
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Most people are fine with The Dark Knight Rises basically doing the exact same thing. The people wanting equality are victims too, and the good guys aren't against equality, they think Sayaka and her friends are being hosed with. Which they are. Edit: quote:I mean, the show is telling me to root for the guy that talks about how poor people deserve to be poor, and that people who are discriminated against should not try to make things better? That's an exaggeration. WickedHate fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 18:08
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Yeah and the people who are oppressing others are absolutely not victims. This isn't South Park! (Even though tbh the anime doing a "truth in the middle" thing would...still be really dumb and terrible, at least it would admit that the people who want equality have valid points instead of painting them as terrible people) e: How is what I said an exaggeration? The dude is condescending to a girl who wants to change the system, and the big speech at the end of episode 4 *literally* talked about how poor people would be rich if they stopped being jealous of rich people and just worked harder (ie: bootstrapping).
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May 6, 2014 18:11
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WickedHate posted:Most people are fine with The Dark Knight Rises basically doing the exact same thing. The people wanting equality are victims too, and the good guys aren't against equality, they think Sayaka and her friends are being hosed with. Which they are. actually lots of people had problems with how the dark knight went from people wanting money/jobs to turning into an insane lynch mob!!
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May 6, 2014 18:13
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Srice posted:Yeah and the people who are oppressing others are absolutely not victims. This isn't South Park! But they did have legitimate complaints, with how the Course 1 students act towards them, which was brought up as fact and put in a heavily negative light that the main characters(mostly Course 2 students) are against. It's been like that the entire show. Srice posted:
She didn't know how she wanted to change the system. Tatsuya wasn't railing against the poor, he was just pointing out how Blanche is misleading people(ie that magic people are keeping others down). WickedHate fucked around with this message at 18:15 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 18:13
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Srice posted:You're treating the work like it's a piece of history. Everything written is deliberate, the author wasn't forced at gunpoint to write a lack of teachers as one of the cornerstones of the plot. Sure, the author chose the setting, but it can be interesting to force constraints on resources in a setting to challenge people's notions of how things should be done, even (or especially) if doing so forces them to consider ideas that run counter to what they're comfortable with. Not that the author here is actually good at doing so, but the process itself isn't illegitimate and can help people examine what they believe and why they believe it. Plus, stories that assert that all problems are solvable by sufficiently rigorous application of the current preferred political orthodoxy tend to be tedious exercises, so introducing ways that cause cause that orthodoxy to come up short can make for a better story by forcing the author to depart from talking points.
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May 6, 2014 18:15
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Desuwa posted:If the author wanted an easy motivation for an anti-magic function they should have just made it into a cult, even if it's still funded by the Koreans and Chinese. That way the ideology doesn't have to stand up to a particularly weak breeze. A cult would be much more useful and believable from a narrative perspective, too, since it'd justify the random acts of violence. I'm pretty sure that's Gunbuster backstory. It certainly isn't from this series.
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May 6, 2014 18:16
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You know what I'm wondering? I know that back when I first started posting in ADTRW, Lucy Heartfilia and a bunch of other knowledgeable goons basically spelled out the fact that the retarded long-rear end names most LN's are mostly the work of the editors, but here's what kinda eludes me: If Light Novels are supposed to be aimed at teens and young adults, does this mean there's a sizable chunk of the readers who sympathize with the retarded bullcrap the dipshit author is peddling regarding this watered-down “Yamato-Damashii” and such? I mean, I could almost understand the dumb appeal of the incestuous nonsense because the author probably never had a younger sister or cousin. But is there a lot of budding right-wingers or something within the demographic? Or am I reading too much into it?
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May 6, 2014 18:17
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WickedHate posted:She didn't know how she wanted to change the system. Tatsuya wasn't railing against the poor, he was just pointing out how Blanche is misleading people(ie that magic people are keeping others down). Yeah, and the author wrote her as a naive idiot just because she wanted to change the system. She doesn't have to be dumb, but the author made it so because, again, the author's beliefs are such that he can only pit them against idiots and literal terrorists instead of letting a legitimate debate happen. (Real talk you should legit respond to Tarranon's post about Card up there, I think he said what I'm trying to say in a better way) As for the poor thing, how else is a viewer supposed to interpret the main character bitching about how poor people don't work hard enough, and that's why they're poor? Srice fucked around with this message at 18:29 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 18:26
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