SatoshiMiwa posted:

But doing a mean spirited series using characters published by the company your working for is probably not the best idea

FilthyImp posted:

There's a movie called Murder by Death that is basically a huge lampoon of a bunch of popular detectives (Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, etc) and the end is a metatextual evisceration of how haphazard the mysteries are handled.

If dude was going for that, they missed the mark by a lot.

Raenir Salazar posted:

One thing I suppose that doesn't make much sense to me is how exactly does their business structure work where an author can go to a meeting room, pitch their idea, submit concept art, and get approved without this at all being brought up and circulated internally first to make sure everyone is on board. There are many heads above the author's here who each had responsibility here, especially the editor who should have been the one to check with anyone else first. Especially before actually going to print.

quote:

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation author Rifujin na Magonote was among the critics of the manga. His tweet is translated below:

"Making the so-called isekai cheat protagonists the villains and making them do vile things" ←Not a problem

"Making characters appear who are recognizably borrowed from characters from other works" ←I'm not going to say it's not a problem, but it's not a huge problem

"Making characters appear who are recognizably borrowed from characters from other works, and then turning them into villains and making them do vile things" ←This is crossing the line

Space Flower posted:

i do think there's a distinction between the manga having actually been re-examined due to reader backlash, but that's a lot y'all writing because Grouchio said "the mangakas were pissed" (im sorry, aren't these all novel-first series?). there were responses from a few writers online after the apology went out but it was measured "yeah, the parodies went a bit far" stuff. but the critical factor in the end is what the reader response was. people didnt want to read a cheap parody where their favorite characters are laughing about rape and murder.

this still sums it up

there were ways cheat slayer could have workshopped itself better and survived as a series that wouldve done decent; i get why some people respond like "the premise is interesting, id like to see a story like that play out" but it doesn't change what the actual content of the chapter was

Space Flower posted:

i do think there's a distinction between the manga having actually been re-examined due to reader backlash, but that's a lot y'all writing because Grouchio said "the mangakas were pissed" (im sorry, aren't these all novel-first series?). there were responses from a few writers online after the apology went out but it was measured "yeah, the parodies went a bit far" stuff. the deciding factor was the reader response. people didnt want to read a cheap parody where their favorite characters are laughing about rape and murder.

this still sums it up

there were ways cheat slayer could have workshopped itself better and survived as a series that wouldve done decent; i get why some people respond like "the premise is interesting, id like to see a story like that play out" but it doesn't change what the actual content of the chapter was

Raenir Salazar posted:

Other examples come to mind that do this similarly were My Disciple Has Died Again and JK Haru as works that engaged with the genre constructively while still satirizing or parodying elements of the genre but without pulling their punches.

Raenir Salazar posted:

There are other things here, I'm not sure how you get that panel as being a criticism of Re;Zero specifically?

Raenir Salazar posted:

But is this in anyway uncharitable towards the authors of those other works? There are too many other works in existence that delve into similarish themes of "this character who is also supposed to be a hero is actually a huge jerk"; Applicability is what comes to mind here. That this work exists in the context of a larger pre-existing genre cultural superstructure; popular examples were picked not to call out those works in particular but because they are representative of tropes, conventions, cliches and archetypes that appear time and time again.

"What if all the protagonists in a bunch of popular isekai works were all in the same world ruling the world as evildoers" is a pretty obvious narrative leap to make and this isn't really the first time I'm seeing something vaguely along these lines.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Addressing Death of the Author though, okay so lets put aside my benefit of the doubt to the author's intent, and just look purely at the art in question. Is it transgressive? Indisputably. Are there depictions that are heinous and unseemly? Definitely. Are there characters that bear a strong resemblance to other works, who are being parodies in a way that depicts them unfavourably, also yes.

But is this in anyway uncharitable towards the authors of those other works? There are too many other works in existence that delve into similarish themes of "this character who is also supposed to be a hero is actually a huge jerk"; Applicability is what comes to mind here. That this work exists in the context of a larger pre-existing genre cultural superstructure; popular examples were picked not to call out those works in particular but because they are representative of tropes, conventions, cliches and archetypes that appear time and time again.

The Colonel posted:

i guess there's the excuse that it took a long time for hf to get adapted...? lotta people who never bothered engaging with the vn at all so they only got janky anime exposure

Space Flower posted:

this still sums it up

there were ways cheat slayer could have workshopped itself better and survived as a series that wouldve done decent; i get why some people respond like "the premise is interesting, id like to see a story like that play out" but it doesn't change what the actual content of the chapter was

Endorph posted:

yes but why did it have to have rape in it

Mix. posted:

i feel like if i were going to write a parody that included a lot of references and jabs at the other peers in my field i would talk to them at literally any point to, if not ask for permission, at least give them the heads up I am doing that, rather than just blazing on through and causing them to be upset/distressed when they find out at the same time as everyone else (and then see how their creations are being misrepresented). maybe thats just me though

quote:

_{(i also wouldnt write like five paragraphs defending a manga that includes a bunch of shock value sexual assault but i feel like that goes without saying)}

Spiritus Nox posted:

I feel like I'm going to regret wading into this because I haven't read the manga and I don't actually care that much, but just on broad principle - I think Mushoten Guy is wrong to say that it's necessarily crossing a line to have characters who are recognizably parodying other people's characters be vile people/villains. I mean, I assume the whole point of the parody using recognizable targets is to make a specific point of "yo this loving sucks." Like yeah they should respect copyright if they wanna sell the thing and their criticisms and/or readings of the target characters might be off-base or even demonstrably false, and people can push back on those criticisms in specific - and I don't have the specific knowledge of the manga or most of its targets to wade in there, nor do I care to. But I don't see any reason why the broad idea should be somehow off-limits. Yeah I'm sure it'll upset the people being criticized, but so what? Author's getting paid to make a manga, not flatter all his colleagues.

Endorph posted:

He's not saying it should be literally illegal, he's saying it's not in good taste. Which I think is a pretty reasonable thing to say. Keep in mind by 'vile things' he's using polite language to dance around specifically sexual assault. I doubt there'd be nearly this much drama if, like I said, wise man's grandson guy had just burned down a village and killed somebody.

Space Flower posted:

there's a level of tact and discretion necessary to make good satire. like watching sister princess and then making drakengard ending b

Lt. Lizard posted:

The one thing I don't comprehend about this whole thing is that the isekai genre does not exactly lack morally dubious protagonists who do vile things on pretty flimsy justifications and would easily work as a despicable villains with pretty much little or no change of their character. So why, instead of using those guys, would you use characters that are traditionally heroic and where you have to basically completely rewrite their personality to make them the monsters your protagonist can dunk on?

Like why turn some guy with Gandalf grandfather into a horrible rapist when the protagonist from Redo of Healer is right there?

Lt. Lizard posted:

The one thing I don't comprehend about this whole thing is that the isekai genre does not exactly lack morally dubious protagonists who do vile things on pretty flimsy justifications and would easily work as a despicable villains with pretty much little or no change of their character. So why, instead of using those guys, would you use characters that are traditionally heroic and where you have to basically completely rewrite their personality to make them the monsters your protagonist can dunk on?

Like why turn some guy with Gandalf grandfather into a horrible rapist when the protagonist from Redo of Healer is right there?

kater posted:

when do we point out that kakegurui was like completely tactless? That that was even the point. Like this sounds like a disaster just from the setup and maybe someone shoulda told them that.

Lt. Lizard posted:

The one thing I don't comprehend about this whole thing is that the isekai genre does not exactly lack morally dubious protagonists who do vile things on pretty flimsy justifications and would easily work as a despicable villains with pretty much little or no change of their character. So why, instead of using those guys, would you use characters that are traditionally heroic and where you have to basically completely rewrite their personality to make them the monsters your protagonist can dunk on?

Like why turn some guy with Gandalf grandfather into a horrible rapist when the protagonist from Redo of Healer is right there?

Srice posted:

Kakegurui being completely tactless is part of the reason why it rules!!

Raenir Salazar posted:

I think you're off base here; I've been on the internet for a fairly long time and I've absolutely seen mean spirited spite parodies of popular things; I don't think its the case this was intended to be mean. You don't put in this much effort into something frivolously if they truly wanted to in a mean spirited way mock these other series.

I think it was an attempt at a "rough" parody, by someone who felt they were in a position to do so; like how very close friends often insult or punch each other or pull pranks. I think it was likely that they made the likenesses of the characters so close was probably from a misidentified desire to pay their respects; like a comedy roast where you make jokes at the expense of yours friends.

So I don't think it was written in an attempt to be mean, but because it saw a opening to engage with the genre constructively.

Other examples come to mind that do this similarly were My Disciple Has Died Again and JK Haru as works that engaged with the genre constructively while still satirizing or parodying elements of the genre but without pulling their punches.

As for the authors being mad; putting aside that we disagree for the moment as to the author's intent (which we'll apply Death to the Author to in a moment), while I can understand the very flawed and human desire to get upset when someone criticizes your work in a way that can come across as blunt or mean, but if we really think hard about this though, I think we should both realize that this anger (if it exists, I'm not sure if I read anywhere that any of the mangaka's in question expressed an opinion, but I may have missed it) is misplaced. People have a right to express themselves and parody is a well protected principle of free speech and discourse and even if this were completely in bad faith and gross, transgressive art has a right to exist to inform the dialogue. People are going to parody or insult your works, for every person that likes your works there's probably several that don't. SAO the Abridged Series literally exists and I don't think from what I've heard its as affectionate as DBZ is to its source material.

If some of the mangaka's were mad I guess they're allowed to be mad but it shouldn't have gone so far as to have a work be put to a stop. I'm not really sympathetic when Loss as a meme exists as a normal everyday thing and I don't really see a difference.

There are other things here, I'm not sure how you get that panel as being a criticism of Re;Zero specifically? It seems more like its deconstructing the isekai genre by describing the mindset of weak spiteful people suddenly being given overwhelming power over others would act and internalize it. I think its just a reference to the subsubsubsubgenre of "I died and went to another world and now I just want to kick back and relax" LN's and just adding a darker twist to it.

All I'm saying is though is I thought at its core, a battle manga where one of the people who live in the Isekai goes head to head against cheat-skill reincarnations using wit and psychology would have been interesting and wish I got to see how it played out. Maybe you're right and the rest of the series would have made its degree of mean spiritness more apparent but I don't think that's clear from just two chapters and maybe it would have shifted its focus more on that aspect I found interesting with the parody characters just serving as a sort of familiar foil for the reader. "Ah I know how Subaru's Return by Death works this will be interesting, how do you stop that?"

It seems like, just like in Slime Isekai or One Punch Man or Overlord the villains are overthetop irredeemably evil to provide an antagonist to the protagonist to put aside their doubts for the task they are pursuing. You had multiple parts going into this concept that on their own wouldn't have been at all objectionable but together became contentious.

Addressing Death of the Author though, okay so lets put aside my benefit of the doubt to the author's intent, and just look purely at the art in question. Is it transgressive? Indisputably. Are there depictions that are heinous and unseemly? Definitely. Are there characters that bear a strong resemblance to other works, who are being parodies in a way that depicts them unfavourably, also yes.

But is this in anyway uncharitable towards the authors of those other works? There are too many other works in existence that delve into similarish themes of "this character who is also supposed to be a hero is actually a huge jerk"; Applicability is what comes to mind here. That this work exists in the context of a larger pre-existing genre cultural superstructure; popular examples were picked not to call out those works in particular but because they are representative of tropes, conventions, cliches and archetypes that appear time and time again.

"What if all the protagonists in a bunch of popular isekai works were all in the same world ruling the world as evildoers" is a pretty obvious narrative leap to make and this isn't really the first time I'm seeing something vaguely along these lines.

Again, you could be right; but I don't think we'll ever know for sure with just two chapters and I think it is a shame.

Raenir Salazar posted:

I think you're off base here; I've been on the internet for a fairly long time and I've absolutely seen mean spirited spite parodies of popular things; I don't think its the case this was intended to be mean. You don't put in this much effort into something frivolously if they truly wanted to in a mean spirited way mock these other series.

I think it was an attempt at a "rough" parody, by someone who felt they were in a position to do so; like how very close friends often insult or punch each other or pull pranks. I think it was likely that they made the likenesses of the characters so close was probably from a misidentified desire to pay their respects; like a comedy roast where you make jokes at the expense of yours friends.

So I don't think it was written in an attempt to be mean, but because it saw a opening to engage with the genre constructively.

Other examples come to mind that do this similarly were My Disciple Has Died Again and JK Haru as works that engaged with the genre constructively while still satirizing or parodying elements of the genre but without pulling their punches.

As for the authors being mad; putting aside that we disagree for the moment as to the author's intent (which we'll apply Death to the Author to in a moment), while I can understand the very flawed and human desire to get upset when someone criticizes your work in a way that can come across as blunt or mean, but if we really think hard about this though, I think we should both realize that this anger (if it exists, I'm not sure if I read anywhere that any of the mangaka's in question expressed an opinion, but I may have missed it) is misplaced. People have a right to express themselves and parody is a well protected principle of free speech and discourse and even if this were completely in bad faith and gross, transgressive art has a right to exist to inform the dialogue. People are going to parody or insult your works, for every person that likes your works there's probably several that don't. SAO the Abridged Series literally exists and I don't think from what I've heard its as affectionate as DBZ is to its source material.

If some of the mangaka's were mad I guess they're allowed to be mad but it shouldn't have gone so far as to have a work be put to a stop. I'm not really sympathetic when Loss as a meme exists as a normal everyday thing and I don't really see a difference.

There are other things here, I'm not sure how you get that panel as being a criticism of Re;Zero specifically? It seems more like its deconstructing the isekai genre by describing the mindset of weak spiteful people suddenly being given overwhelming power over others would act and internalize it. I think its just a reference to the subsubsubsubgenre of "I died and went to another world and now I just want to kick back and relax" LN's and just adding a darker twist to it.

All I'm saying is though is I thought at its core, a battle manga where one of the people who live in the Isekai goes head to head against cheat-skill reincarnations using wit and psychology would have been interesting and wish I got to see how it played out. Maybe you're right and the rest of the series would have made its degree of mean spiritness more apparent but I don't think that's clear from just two chapters and maybe it would have shifted its focus more on that aspect I found interesting with the parody characters just serving as a sort of familiar foil for the reader. "Ah I know how Subaru's Return by Death works this will be interesting, how do you stop that?"

It seems like, just like in Slime Isekai or One Punch Man or Overlord the villains are overthetop irredeemably evil to provide an antagonist to the protagonist to put aside their doubts for the task they are pursuing. You had multiple parts going into this concept that on their own wouldn't have been at all objectionable but together became contentious.

Addressing Death of the Author though, okay so lets put aside my benefit of the doubt to the author's intent, and just look purely at the art in question. Is it transgressive? Indisputably. Are there depictions that are heinous and unseemly? Definitely. Are there characters that bear a strong resemblance to other works, who are being parodies in a way that depicts them unfavourably, also yes.

But is this in anyway uncharitable towards the authors of those other works? There are too many other works in existence that delve into similarish themes of "this character who is also supposed to be a hero is actually a huge jerk"; Applicability is what comes to mind here. That this work exists in the context of a larger pre-existing genre cultural superstructure; popular examples were picked not to call out those works in particular but because they are representative of tropes, conventions, cliches and archetypes that appear time and time again.

"What if all the protagonists in a bunch of popular isekai works were all in the same world ruling the world as evildoers" is a pretty obvious narrative leap to make and this isn't really the first time I'm seeing something vaguely along these lines.

Again, you could be right; but I don't think we'll ever know for sure with just two chapters and I think it is a shame.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Davincie posted:

ASMR or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is the nerve-tingling or relaxing response and sensation one gets to stimuli such as certain sounds or sights. As the title indicates, the anime will let viewers experience ASMR in 180 seconds. In the story, the heroine challenges her classmates to share in her hobby of recording ASMR works.

Erg posted:

Idk I didn’t read past the first four paragraphs but did you ever say why it’s cool and good to draw your colleague’s light hearted parody raping someone