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Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

chumbler posted:

It's not going to be as simple as burn everything revenge, since she could easily do that on her own and hasn't yet. As far as we know she doesn't even interact with normal people in any way.

She can probably cause a fair amount of destruction just by going out and killing people, but her current M.O. gives her a shot at the collapse of reality itself. Seems a rather bigger prize. Plus, it kind of sounded like she's trying to talk Alice and company into a bit of good old-fashioned terrorism to speed things along, so I'd assume the 'directly hurting people' bit is soon to come.

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The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
you have been visited by the sushi-eating selesia

emptyquote this post to have the strength to eat wasabi

The Colonel fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Apr 29, 2017

The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!

The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
anyway there could be a bit more action and i guess the pacing in general could be a bit faster but the stuff in these super chill episodes is so sweet and adorable, even between some of the bad guys, that it doesn't bother me. the cast has so much personality and everyone bounces off each other so well that it's just fun to watch them all just chill out together

chumbler
Mar 28, 2010


Ah, Japari Beer.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



I very much like just watching fictional fictional characters taken out of their story and enjoying a wholly different life for once, and discussing their own existence.

Why don't Selesia try meeting the VA for her character in the anime?

paragon1
Nov 22, 2010

FULL COMMUNISM NOW

nielsm posted:

I very much like just watching fictional fictional characters taken out of their story and enjoying a wholly different life for once, and discussing their own existence.

Why don't Selesia try meeting the VA for her character in the anime?

:aaaaa:

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
The director of this show really likes girls eating.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
I'm usually the guy who wants the show to calm down and have more nuanced moments. But in this case, I'm the guy asking them to shut up and start doing poo poo already. That was a whole episode of people repeating themselves or over-elaborating and it was incredibly boring to sit through.

chumbler
Mar 28, 2010

I am okay with the rest of the show being the cast eating various foods.

The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
other people: when the gently caress are things going to happen
me: gently caress yeah eat more sandwiches and pizza

HerpicleOmnicron5
May 31, 2013

How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?


I hope next episode is devoted to discussion of gunpla over cake.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

The Colonel posted:

other people: when the gently caress are things going to happen
me: gently caress yeah eat more sandwiches and pizza

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

yeah i love seeing the exact same food scenes 2 times per episode while endless badly directed exposition happens. the show treats the audience like idiots, and people loving it is the least surprising thing ever. at least it proves the boredom that was fate zero wasn't urobochis fault, cause this is the exact same trash

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
fate/zero had less food to be fair

edit: and the f/z novels also have a lot of exposition dumps

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Davincie posted:

yeah i love seeing the exact same food scenes 2 times per episode while endless badly directed exposition happens. the show treats the audience like idiots, and people loving it is the least surprising thing ever. at least it proves the boredom that was fate zero wasn't urobochis fault, cause this is the exact same trash

Except I generally found Fate/Zero dialogue exposition to be interesting enough to keep me going. Here I'm just bored out of my mind.

Tekne
Feb 15, 2012

It's-a me, motherfucker

Selesia must first master wasabi eating before she can unlock her true power.

There's nothing like eating sushi slathered in what you think is weak wasabi.

The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
there's about as much exposition as fate/zero but iunno, fate/zero had like three or four characters i liked who ended up not getting much core focus and the exposition felt a lot more dry to me while the explosition here is at least littered with lots of little bits of characterization that make it feel, to me, like it has more meaning than just characters droning on endlessly about boring poo poo

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
You do kind of feel like they could have shown a good chunk more of this rather than telling it - Meteora's emotional experience playing that game, for instance. It doesn't help, either, that the main expositor is the long-winded, soft-spoken stoic, which makes the whole thing a rather soporific experience - if such a huge chunk of your episode is going to be one person talking, at least make them interesting to listen to, or just lighten their burden a little and give them a good foil to bounce off. We actually saw that with the knight and magical girl - there was an interesting conflict there, and significantly more passion and emotion from both parties, which made the whole thing way more pleasant to experience, and they didn't even have to skip out on the cute food bits to make it happen. I could hear my creative-writing professor howling in the back of my head all the way through the first part of this episode.

The other thing was that it didn't really feel like the characters had enough information to arrive at the conclusion they did. It's not like we've seen any evidence of reality overstretch yet, after all. It felt less like a smart deduction, and more like they'd glanced ahead at the author's notes.

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Apr 30, 2017

AVeryLargeRadish
Aug 19, 2011

I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO NOT BE A WEIRD SEXUAL CREEP ABOUT PREPUBESCENT ANIME GIRLS, READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE!!!

Darth Walrus posted:

You do kind of feel like they could have shown a good chunk more of this rather than telling it - Meteora's emotional experience playing that game, for instance. It doesn't help, either, that the main expositor is the long-winded, soft-spoken stoic, which makes the whole thing a rather soporific experience - if such a huge chunk of your episode is going to be one person talking, at least make them interesting to listen to, or just lighten their burden a little and give them a good foil to bounce off. We actually saw that with the knight and magical girl - there was an interesting conflict there, and significantly more passion and emotion from both parties, which made the whole thing way more pleasant to experience, and they didn't even have to skip out on the cute food bits to make it happen. I could hear my creative-writing professor howling in the back of my head all the way through the first part of this episode.

The other thing was that it didn't really feel like the characters had enough information to arrive at the conclusion they did. It's not like we've seen any evidence of reality overstretch yet, after all. It felt less like a smart deduction, and more like they'd glanced ahead at the author's notes.

Yeah, I'm still enjoying the show but I really wish there had been more action this episode or at least that there had been some setup for stuff to happen in the next episode. It feels like the characters are sort of adrift, they are just searching for creators and the created, I'm looking forward to meeting mech-boy but I really hope we get some action and plot development next episode because things have been moving pretty slowly.

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya
I enjoyed the jaw-jaw, it felt appropriate for people trying to sort out just wtf is going on.

Alfalfa The Roach
Oct 13, 2012

You need to be a badass first.

The Colonel posted:

other people: when the gently caress are things going to happen
me: gently caress yeah eat more sandwiches and pizza

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Paracelsus posted:

I enjoyed the jaw-jaw, it felt appropriate for people trying to sort out just wtf is going on.

There are definitely ways to present this that are more interesting than an entire episode of monotonous dialogue. There's also not that much to be said, at the end of the day.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
The writers know it's monotonous, which is why they have these food montages while she's explaining stuff.

Allarion
May 16, 2009

がんばルビ!

The Colonel posted:

other people: when the gently caress are things going to happen
me: gently caress yeah eat more sandwiches and pizza

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Clarste posted:

The writers know it's monotonous, which is why they have these food montages while she's explaining stuff.

Wait, I think you mean the other way around, because this seems more like a case of an animation director getting the script from the writers and being like "We have to animate this!?" and deciding to have some fancy food shots to give viewers something to look at while they get lectured to for ten minutes.

A good writer would have cut the script down to half of that, and a good director... well we're talking about Ei Aoki who apparently loves that kind of stuff.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



The Colonel posted:

anyway there could be a bit more action and i guess the pacing in general could be a bit faster but the stuff in these super chill episodes is so sweet and adorable, even between some of the bad guys, that it doesn't bother me. the cast has so much personality and everyone bounces off each other so well that it's just fun to watch them all just chill out together

I'd say there's at least one glaring exception. The milquetoast everyteen is definitely not showing his value.

Everyone else, even though I'm not particularly gung-ho for the show in general right now, has some dynamics that show promise if the show can either get past the endless exposition or play it out smoother, light novel writer and illustrator included. Sōta Mizushino, on the other hand, is just a boring void. We're four episodes in. By this point, there should be enough of a hook to justify his existence, even if he's just being set up for a twist later. He's almost completely empty of screentime, and he hasn't even earned the tiny bit he's still getting!

(Also, if military uniform princess really wants to destroy all reason and logic to reset the world, she should have summoned Inferno Cop. Things would be done inside five minutes.

Of course, it would also probably put her at severe risk of JUSTICE!, but you can't expect to destroy the world if you aren't willing to chance that kind of thing.)

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

chiasaur11 posted:

I'd say there's at least one glaring exception. The milquetoast everyteen is definitely not showing his value.

Everyone else, even though I'm not particularly gung-ho for the show in general right now, has some dynamics that show promise if the show can either get past the endless exposition or play it out smoother, light novel writer and illustrator included. Sōta Mizushino, on the other hand, is just a boring void. We're four episodes in. By this point, there should be enough of a hook to justify his existence, even if he's just being set up for a twist later. He's almost completely empty of screentime, and he hasn't even earned the tiny bit he's still getting!

Actually, the entire show seems to be a metaphor about getting him out of his artistic slump and into creating again. I'm not sure that makes his presence worthwhile, but the way I see it the show is ultimately about him and only him. Everyone else is just there to inspire him.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Clarste posted:

Actually, the entire show seems to be a metaphor about getting him out of his artistic slump and into creating again. I'm not sure that makes his presence worthwhile, but the way I see it the show is ultimately about him and only him. Everyone else is just there to inspire him.

That's about as far from an argument in the show's favor as you get before moving to outright insults.

If he's just a narrator and an audience surrogate, it's a mark against the show that he's dull as store brand dishwater, but it's not a fatal one. The show can flesh out the rest of the cast and lean into their interactions, leaving the-man-who-would-be-boring-as-hell irrelevant.

But if the show's about him, it's hosed. We're about 20% in, and I don't care if he lives or dies, let alone if he gets out of his slump. Every other character is more interesting than him right now, and it's not like the cast is all strong competition for Reigen Arataka. I've seen characters whose whole schtick is being boring who are more compelling.

Seriously, we're four episodes in, and what do we have beyond "He used to do drawings. Now he does not."?

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

Clarste posted:

The writers know it's monotonous, which is why they have these food montages while she's explaining stuff.

which is like the laziest possible thing they could have done. 14 minutes of this episode was just the cast sitting around in a room (afterwards we got to 'enjoy' the other part of the cast doing the same), while miss monotone goes through the exposition, but then again that's the entire show so far. its just characters telling you everything. they pick the least creative and interesting option constantly. when saberface or the persona villain talk about their world, why not at least have the decency to show something of the world while they talk, even stills would be better than what we get. when meteora talks about the game, why not show her playing it? you can still have her debriefing to the others, but for god sake actually show her playing the game and making her conclusions, rather than just talking about it. there's been a bunch of times that the characters just say how they feel, rather than showing it. its not like they don't have anything to work with or don't know how, episode 1 was much better about this. the drat op tells us more about the characters and their worlds than the actual show! some of these designs are at least 2 years old too, there's no way rei hiroe didn't work out their worlds in that time.


oh and this show being a double cour is 0 excuse for the exposition, before that gets brought up. if anything, that gives them more time to spread it out or show it rather than just throwing it all at us at the start

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

chiasaur11 posted:

That's about as far from an argument in the show's favor as you get before moving to outright insults.

Well, yeah. I didn't say it was a good thing.

Desuwa
Jun 2, 2011

I'm telling my mommy. That pubbie doesn't do video games right!
I can enjoy a good infodump because I'm a huge nerd but I felt this episode started with Meteora making some wild leaps and everyone else just accepting it all as gospel, and it went downhill from there. It really broke it for me, I saw it as a bad writer having a "smart" character "figure out" the world and infodump it in a very dry manner. Like the latter half of episode three it took twice as long because it covered the same material from top to bottom twice, except it was an entire episode this time.

Really should save explaining the setting for later when there's more reason to care and maybe a single shred of evidence to back up the conclusions the characters are jumping to. It felt incredibly sloppy to me.

Desuwa fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Apr 30, 2017

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
https://twitter.com/hiroerei/status/858334736975970304

The writer apologizes for making the episode too talky.

Darox
Nov 10, 2012


The exposition was made worse by how they did show Meteora playing her game briefly, in silence. If they had just extended that scene and had her monologue over that instead it would have been much better.

When she first started playing the game I fully expected a moment where she mets her ingame avatar and has reactions to that, but instead the scene was cut short for more eating.

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit

Neeksy posted:

I'm really enjoying the show so far, and it's actually really touching to have it be about people and how they relate to their own art and creations, rather than going for the "this is all just frivolous entertainment look at how silly it is when juxtaposed with reality" angle which is kind of an easy if not cynical comedy route that has been fairly well-tread in the past. Additionally, the concept of these fictional characters having to be "adapted" to the rules and settings of our reality, stretching its own diegetic cohesion in such a way that it'll fall apart or contract violently is genuinely fascinating.

this. the show could have gone full edgy, but no, that's restricted to a subset of small-minded assholes, and everyone just chills out and talks about their ontology

also, i watched this ep while eating homemade curry. it was delicious

Hidingo Kojimba
Mar 29, 2010

Darth Walrus posted:

You do kind of feel like they could have shown a good chunk more of this rather than telling it - Meteora's emotional experience playing that game, for instance. It doesn't help, either, that the main expositor is the long-winded, soft-spoken stoic, which makes the whole thing a rather soporific experience - if such a huge chunk of your episode is going to be one person talking, at least make them interesting to listen to, or just lighten their burden a little and give them a good foil to bounce off.

Yeah. I actually liked the substance of Meteora's experience, I just wish they could have found any other way to deliver it to the viewer than a monologue.

There Bias Two
Jan 13, 2009
I'm not a good person

Hidingo Kojimba posted:

Yeah. I actually liked the substance of Meteora's experience, I just wish they could have found any other way to deliver it to the viewer than a monologue.

The exposition was so boring that it seemed like they were going full on NGE budget cut slideshow. Even for someone who usually doesn't mind talky shows, I found myself thinking, "Okay, when are you going to do stuff?"

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

There Bias Two posted:

The exposition was so boring that it seemed like they were going full on NGE budget cut slideshow. Even for someone who usually doesn't mind talky shows, I found myself thinking, "Okay, when are you going to do stuff?"

I actually assumed they were blatantly trying to preserve resources/time when I was watching it. A significant chunk of the episode is just super static shots of people talking, and most of the rest was very short shots of people eating food.

The actual content of the exposition wasn't actually that horrible aside from when it repeated itself, but it really needed to be framed in a more interesting way. Show Meteora meeting "herself" in the game and her reaction instead of her talking about it. Show Meteora's reactions to the game while she's playing it instead of her talking about how cool and awesome it was. Have a scene where Alice busts into her creator's room and begins yelling at him to change her shithole world or she'll kill him and her creator's reaction to being faced by the incredibly angry and hostile protagonist to his story without a (relatively) peaceful introduction like Selesia's creator got.

Lestaki
Nov 6, 2009

Kanos posted:

I actually assumed they were blatantly trying to preserve resources/time when I was watching it. A significant chunk of the episode is just super static shots of people talking, and most of the rest was very short shots of people eating food.

The actual content of the exposition wasn't actually that horrible aside from when it repeated itself, but it really needed to be framed in a more interesting way. Show Meteora meeting "herself" in the game and her reaction instead of her talking about it. Show Meteora's reactions to the game while she's playing it instead of her talking about how cool and awesome it was. Have a scene where Alice busts into her creator's room and begins yelling at him to change her shithole world or she'll kill him and her creator's reaction to being faced by the incredibly angry and hostile protagonist to his story without a (relatively) peaceful introduction like Selesia's creator got.

No kidding. Everyone else has said it so I can only add my agreement, but it's so frustrating that potentially interesting ideas are being conveyed in the most banal way.

Military Uniform Princess manipulating Alice was probably the best scene this time but still felt underdeveloped and too swiftly/neatly handled. I guess we needed to spend that time on Meteora talking until the end of time. It's also just clunky that Meteora makes a series of huge assumptions we have no concrete basis for that are immediately confirmed independently by MUP's dialogue. The show really needs to start showing us things and letting us draw our own conclusions rather than just throwing exposition at us.

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ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Hidingo Kojimba posted:

Yeah. I actually liked the substance of Meteora's experience, I just wish they could have found any other way to deliver it to the viewer than a monologue.

Agreed, and what I've said like 5 times already.

This was a case of good ideas ruined by bad writing and direction.

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