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I watched Season 1 and 2 and really enjoyed seeing these group of idiots bumble between success and utter failure. Out of the main four, I probably like Aqua the least though. The other three bring some degree of common sense at times, but Aqua makes terrible decisions all the time to the detriment of the party, to the point I feel like she's a load to the group. It does make her getting some comeuppance a lot funnier though. 
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Aug 28, 2018 08:44
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aqua's terrible and actively drags down everyone else, but she drags herself down even harder.
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Aug 28, 2018 08:45
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amigolupus posted:I watched Season 1 and 2 and really enjoyed seeing these group of idiots bumble between success and utter failure. Out of the main four, I probably like Aqua the least though. The other three bring some degree of common sense at times, but Aqua makes terrible decisions all the time to the detriment of the party, to the point I feel like she's a load to the group. It does make her getting some comeuppance a lot funnier though. Aqua being bullied gives me immense joy. A warm fuzzy feeling, like in a delightful Christmas flick for the family.
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Aug 28, 2018 09:04
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Takoluka posted:I absolutely love the whole "I can make them any age?" bit, because you're like "...Oh boy," and then Kazuma gets really excited about her being an older woman. my favourite part is how you can see the succubus becoming visibly and increasingly disgusted with kazuma even succubi have standards
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Aug 28, 2018 10:11
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amigolupus posted:I watched Season 1 and 2 and really enjoyed seeing these group of idiots bumble between success and utter failure. Out of the main four, I probably like Aqua the least though. The other three bring some degree of common sense at times, but Aqua makes terrible decisions all the time to the detriment of the party, to the point I feel like she's a load to the group. It does make her getting some comeuppance a lot funnier though. You just explained why Aqua slowly surpassed Megumin and Darkness as my favorite.
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Aug 28, 2018 11:23
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Everybody else has something deeply wrong built straight into their character build. Darkness has no offense, Megumin has... nothing but all-out offense, and Kazuma is just kind of okay all-around. Aqua's character build is literally perfect for her role, and so her weakness has to be constant bad decisions about how to actually use her abilities.
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Aug 28, 2018 15:35
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Aqua did nothing wrong.
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Aug 28, 2018 17:31
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She kept trying to purify Wiz, that’s crime enough
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Aug 28, 2018 18:25
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She shouldn't even have been able to, Wiz is already the purest character in this story.
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Aug 28, 2018 18:35
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Agronox posted:Aqua did everything wrong. And I wouldn't have her any other way.
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Aug 28, 2018 18:38
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The Sandman posted:She shouldn't even have been able to, Wiz is already the purest character in this story. Unfortunately she is a Lich (i mean a Rich-e.) No matter how pure Wiz is, she cannot escape the downsides of being technically-undead. Although that brings up another point, Keel was a pretty cool dude despite being a more-proper Lich (rich-e.) While Aqua is Aqua. And the Church of Axel is  Guys I think this is a JRPG what with how cool and awesome the typical bad guys are and how bad an established religion is. Rand Brittain posted:Aqua's character build is literally perfect for her role, and so her weakness has to be constant bad decisions about how to actually use her abilities. Aqua's chief weakness is that aside from things that she High Priest to pieces (via Exorcism/Turn Undeadto) she's 100% blunt damage. And not even the good 'in your face with a mace' kind. Hence her problems with the fat frogs who are too fat to feel God's Blow
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Aug 28, 2018 22:13
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EponymousMrYar posted:Aqua's chief weakness is that aside from things that she High Priest to pieces (via Exorcism/Turn Undeadto) she's 100% blunt damage. And not even the good 'in your face with a mace' kind. Hence her problems with the fat frogs who are too fat to feel God's Blow I took it more as a Smite Evil kind of move and the blunt aspect is minimal. The frogs just aren't evil.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:00
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god blow is just a normal punch that aqua expects to work wonders because she shouts out the name she made up
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Aug 29, 2018 01:06
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amigolupus posted:I watched Season 1 and 2 and really enjoyed seeing these group of idiots bumble between success and utter failure. Out of the main four, I probably like Aqua the least though. The other three bring some degree of common sense at times, but Aqua makes terrible decisions all the time to the detriment of the party, to the point I feel like she's a load to the group. It does make her getting some comeuppance a lot funnier though. Aqua's got the best stats(except int) and most practical build(she had so many skill points that she got every single relevant arch priest spell and still had leftovers for tons of worthless party tricks), so she should be the most useful of all of them. Except she's the dumbest, most selfish, and most arrogant of all of them, so she ends up shooting herself(and everyone around her) in the foot constantly to compensate.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:19
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Aqua is like Inspector Clouseau in that her stupidity is like 2% actually having low intelligence and 98% failure to recognize her own limitations, so that she never, ever, considers doing things differently or avoids making her mistakes a second time.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:38
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As I read volume 6, I feel bad for Kazuma. I don't sympathize with his failures, as his mistakes are just....mind-numbingly bad choices that are gross and not okay, but....jesus, you can't help but feel sad for the little idiot who can't stop touching the hot stove. He's never going to learn, is he?
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Aug 29, 2018 01:58
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Shinjobi posted:As I read volume 6, I feel bad for Kazuma. I don't sympathize with his failures, as his mistakes are just....mind-numbingly bad choices that are gross and not okay, but....jesus, you can't help but feel sad for the little idiot who can't stop touching the hot stove. He's never going to learn, is he? If anyone ever learned anything this whole series would be one volume long at max.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:13
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where the red fern gropes posted:my favourite part is how you can see the succubus becoming visibly and increasingly disgusted with kazuma I interpreted that more as just 'annoyed customer service succubus' because he's making her repeat herself with his 'Is this okay? Is this okay? Can I do it like this?' questions. Maybe I'm projecting, though.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:20
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Wasn't there a side story early on where Kazuma and the bigshot hero with the magic sword end up swapping parties? IIRC Kazuma turns out to be a tactical genius, Ramboing all his low level stealth skills and combining magical elements to produce unique effects that nobody ever thought of before. The bigshot ends up traumatised as he doesn't discover the weakspots of Darkness and Megumin until they end up in the middle of combat, meanwhile Aqua treats him exactly as she normally treats Kazuma and as it turns out Mr Hero is useless without proper support.
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Aug 29, 2018 04:21
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Verizian posted:Wasn't there a side story early on where Kazuma and the bigshot hero with the magic sword end up swapping parties? IIRC Kazuma turns out to be a tactical genius, Ramboing all his low level stealth skills and combining magical elements to produce unique effects that nobody ever thought of before. The bigshot ends up traumatised as he doesn't discover the weakspots of Darkness and Megumin until they end up in the middle of combat, meanwhile Aqua treats him exactly as she normally treats Kazuma and as it turns out Mr Hero is useless without proper support. no.
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Aug 29, 2018 04:30
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Verizian posted:Wasn't there a side story early on where Kazuma and the bigshot hero with the magic sword end up swapping parties? IIRC Kazuma turns out to be a tactical genius, Ramboing all his low level stealth skills and combining magical elements to produce unique effects that nobody ever thought of before. The bigshot ends up traumatised as he doesn't discover the weakspots of Darkness and Megumin until they end up in the middle of combat, meanwhile Aqua treats him exactly as she normally treats Kazuma and as it turns out Mr Hero is useless without proper support. Close, but it was Dust who swapped with Kazuma, not the bigshot. Dust is the blonde guy who gave Kazuma the Free Succ tickets. He actually has his own spinoff that I haven't read yet.
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Aug 29, 2018 04:38
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Verizian posted:Wasn't there a side story early on where Kazuma and the bigshot hero with the magic sword end up swapping parties? There's an unadapted chapter from volume 2 where Kazuma swaps places with one of the normal adventurer side characters (Dust), but it's not with the magic sword guy. efb;
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Aug 29, 2018 04:41
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My favorite part of that swap is Dust's party basically realizing that they would benefit greatly from having Kazuma as a 4th but knowing deep down that Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness need him to survive together.
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Aug 29, 2018 04:46
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Verizian posted:Wasn't there a side story early on where Kazuma and the bigshot hero with the magic sword end up swapping parties? IIRC Kazuma turns out to be a tactical genius, Ramboing all his low level stealth skills and combining magical elements to produce unique effects that nobody ever thought of before. The bigshot ends up traumatised as he doesn't discover the weakspots of Darkness and Megumin until they end up in the middle of combat, meanwhile Aqua treats him exactly as she normally treats Kazuma and as it turns out Mr Hero is useless without proper support. It is part of the actual story of volume 2. It happens at the beginning after Kazuma was killed by the Winter Shogun. He swaps places with Dust for one adventure. EDIT: Super beaten!
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Aug 29, 2018 04:49
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Takoluka posted:My favorite part of that swap is Dust's party basically realizing that they would benefit greatly from having Kazuma as a 4th but knowing deep down that Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness need him to survive together. This point is brought up again in volume 6, where someone threatens Kazuma with a far more terrifying solution: places could be made for Darkness/Aqua/Megumin in a large force, like an army, where there's enough support for them to utilize their strengths while having other soldiers/knights/mages/etc cover for their weaknesses. On the other hand, the same can't be said for Kazuma. He has no lone strength, save for his luck which manifests in ways beyond his control. You could put together an army to finish off the Demon King's forces, and Kazuma would just have to watch from the sidelines, all alone. This shakes Kazuma to the core, as he can't really deny it.
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Aug 29, 2018 05:30
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Shinjobi posted:This point is brought up again in volume 6, where someone threatens Kazuma with a far more terrifying solution: spoiler Those poor bastards. Suggesting that. What are they thinking? Darkness would do well but Aqua/Megumin are perfectly capable of leveling an army by themselves. Also any army with Aqua would have to deal with Undead all the time. I just don't see it working out.
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Aug 29, 2018 06:59
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Aqua being catnip for undead is probably one of my favourite things about this show.
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Aug 30, 2018 05:32
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The problem is more that it assumes that Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness together aren't perfectly capable of destroying their own side's army.
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Aug 30, 2018 06:23
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Shinjobi posted:This point is brought up again in volume 6, where someone threatens Kazuma with a far more terrifying solution: places could be made for Darkness/Aqua/Megumin in a large force, like an army, where there's enough support for them to utilize their strengths while having other soldiers/knights/mages/etc cover for their weaknesses. On the other hand, the same can't be said for Kazuma. He has no lone strength, save for his luck which manifests in ways beyond his control. You could put together an army to finish off the Demon King's forces, and Kazuma would just have to watch from the sidelines, all alone. I feel like this is badly underselling Kazuma's abilities, honestly. Kazuma's greatest strength in practice isn't that he's lucky(which, as stated, typically manifests in abilities beyond his control and frequently does nothing for him), it's that he's smart and good at adapting to situations on the fly. He's basically always the one who somehow cobbles together a way to succeed with a dysfunctional mess of a group, and his ability to shine in the party swap despite being an unspecialized all-rounder in a weak class speaks very well of him beyond being a lucky mooch on more specialized party members.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:34
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Kanos posted:I feel like this is badly underselling Kazuma's abilities, honestly. Kazuma's greatest strength in practice isn't that he's lucky(which, as stated, typically manifests in abilities beyond his control and frequently does nothing for him), it's that he's smart and good at adapting to situations on the fly. He's basically always the one who somehow cobbles together a way to succeed with a dysfunctional mess of a group, and his ability to shine in the party swap despite being an unspecialized all-rounder in a weak class speaks very well of him beyond being a lucky mooch on more specialized party members. Well, you're not wrong, but you're also not entirely right from my perspective. He's fully capable of all that, but it's always a coin flip as to whether or not his plan will work. Kazuma's strength aside from luck is that he's able to think so drastically outside the box. His plans may not always work out, but usually his luck can at least cover for the rest. I feel like he's like a fountain of "that's just crazy enough to work," with a success rate over 50%. That's not to belittle his achievements; I really don't think anyone else could have concocted some of his schemes, even some of the other resurrected people. Still though, to your point: he is more than just his luck stat. It really can't be overstated just how much of a godsend it was that he learned Drain Touch from Wiz.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:49
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He's got a gamer's instincts to look for exploits. He's frequently working under incorrect assumptions about the world (Orcs, Slimes) but he does notice stuff like 'Oh hey I can learn busted skills from Wiz' or even more mundane stuff like 'these two spells or abilities combo really well'.
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Aug 30, 2018 09:54
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Isn't his luck stat obscenely high, like ... max? Maybe his plans working are actually due to his luck stat. Problem is there might be some Magician Bink poo poo going on (I know that is a self-own) and his luck stat is self-aware that if he succeeds too much he's escape this world and no longer have his luck to help him succeed. Kazuma's failures are to ensure continuing success
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Aug 30, 2018 23:02
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Ranzear posted:Isn't his luck stat obscenely high, like ... max? Yeah, his luck makes him lucky enough not to stand out as too improbably lucky, so he doesn't get targeted over it for one reason or another.
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Aug 30, 2018 23:21
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Holy poo poo, I never realized Xanth is as old as Star Wars and still going. I'll still spoiler tag it because the early books aren't that bad. The best book in the series (Demon's Don't Dream) is totally isekai now that I think of it. It's the coolest thing in the first book of the worst fantasy series ever, because Bink's talent is that he cannot be harmed by magical means, but if someone came to know that they would just run his rear end through with a sword, so it's self-aware enough to prevent magical means of finding out what its nature is as well. So it hides its nature from everyone including Bink (leading to him getting exiled for having no apparent talent.) Magical death barrier? Happens to get swept underwater through the only gap. Try to polymorph him? A swarm of gnats gets in your way and get transformed instead. I forget other instances because I haven't touched that trash in years. A luck stat that is self-aware enough to keep things just barely on the rails is such a nice narrative exploit, but I'm sure I'm overthinking it.
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Aug 30, 2018 23:44
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yes, they really are that bad
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Aug 30, 2018 23:45
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They really are, it's just that the later books are worse.
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Aug 30, 2018 23:48
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The early ones are subtle enough that kids can't figure out why they're wrong. Then eventually you get to, oh, let's say Faun and Games and even at twelve you can see that something is up.
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Aug 31, 2018 00:21
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Ranzear posted:Holy poo poo, I never realized Xanth is as old as Star Wars and still going. I'll still spoiler tag it because the early books aren't that bad. The best book in the series (Demon's Don't Dream) is totally isekai now that I think of it. there was a companion point-and-click computer adventure game that is based on demons don’t dream. that is the only exposure to the xanth series that I’ve had or will ever have
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Aug 31, 2018 03:18
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wasn't this the series with a book called The Color Of Her Panties? That really would bring things full circle
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Aug 31, 2018 03:37
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DKD posted:wasn't this the series with a book called The Color Of Her Panties? That really would bring things full circle It is, and somehow as a tween this did not set off my DANGER alarm. I probably read twenty of the drat things.
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Aug 31, 2018 04:20
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