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Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Paracelsus posted:

To tie things back into the works of Urobochi for a second, in Psycho-Pass the protagonist declines to publicize the information that would completely undermine the SYBIL system, because she realizes that there isn't a viable follow-up that wouldn't end in disorder and mass starvation. And in that case the autocrat even has a distinct tendency to be portrayed as female. Evaluated in that light, I'm skeptical of the idea that Urobochi considers patriarchy to be the unique source of stifling oppression in the world such that it must be overthrown at all costs and replaced with a more female-centric system. And before you bring up death of the author, RH was willing to look at other statements by Urobochi (although didn't find them), so evidently there's still a bit of life in the author yet.

I agree that Urobuchi's politics are considerably less radical than Requires Hate's. "The unique source" isn't the same as "a source", though; I think you can see feminist themes in Madoka without denying all other themes.

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ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Silver2195 posted:

I agree that Urobuchi's politics are considerably less radical than Requires Hate's. "The unique source" isn't the same as "a source", though; I think you can see feminist themes in Madoka without denying all other themes.

He definitely has a point and there were some feminist elements to the story, but I think RH was over exaggerating it. At the end of the day, his point about Madoka being an embracing of the genre is ultimately what matters most.

Hikarusa
Sep 8, 2011

Paracelsus posted:

Ah, an appeal to consequences, and one that presumes that if you don't criticize something using a particular method then you've foreclosed any possibility of criticizing it using other methods.

Coincidentally, one of my main beefs with critical theory is that its practitioners often evaluate arguments not by whether those arguments are internally consistent or based on even semi-reliable observation, but instead by the extent to which the arguments, if accepted, would justify overthrowing the current system and putting the speaker or someone who agrees with them in charge. Overthrowing a bad system isn't the end of things, and can easily lead to worse outcomes (especially if it's done so under pretenses that were mostly geared to the acquisition of power).

To tie things back into the works of Urobochi for a second, in Psycho-Pass the protagonist declines to publicize the information that would completely undermine the SYBIL system, because she realizes that there isn't a viable follow-up that wouldn't end in disorder and mass starvation. And in that case the autocrat even has a distinct tendency to be portrayed as female. Evaluated in that light, I'm skeptical of the idea that Urobochi considers patriarchy to be the unique source of stifling oppression in the world such that it must be overthrown at all costs and replaced with a more female-centric system. And before you bring up death of the author, RH was willing to look at other statements by Urobochi (although didn't find them), so evidently there's still a bit of life in the author yet.

The other problem I have with this sort of analysis is the "men are like this, but women are like THIS, provided that THIS is always better than the male version" thread that runs through them. If you're claiming that there are capabilities and behaviors that are uniquely female, then it would seem to follow that there could also be capabilities and behaviors that are uniquely male, and at that point the whole notion of workplace equality comes crashing down.

Feminism is not about creating a matriarchy. Where did you even get half this poo poo? Hell, even just looking at the series from a feminist perspective, Madoka didn't completely change the world, all she did was make things slightly less bad for magical girls overall. Madoka's victory is still a relatively huge victory against the oppression, but overall it still isn't worth that much. It's not like requires hate was claiming that madoka magica was super feministic because madoka took over the world and that's feminism because she's a girl or some poo poo. You are entirely arguing against an insane strawman you made up on the spot out of convenience.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax

Kwyndig posted:

Well, I got my box set in today!



Apologies for blurry cellphone pics.

Nice!

I probably won't get mine until early next month. :(

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


The sound track disc must have some kind of copy protection thing on it though, because it didn't even register as a music CD when I tried to rip it the first time. I haven't seen that in YEARS.

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Hikarusa posted:

Feminism is not about creating a matriarchy. Where did you even get half this poo poo? Hell, even just looking at the series from a feminist perspective, Madoka didn't completely change the world, all she did was make things slightly less bad for magical girls overall. Madoka's victory is still a relatively huge victory against the oppression, but overall it still isn't worth that much. It's not like requires hate was claiming that madoka magica was super feministic because madoka took over the world and that's feminism because she's a girl or some poo poo. You are entirely arguing against an insane strawman you made up on the spot out of convenience.

Stop arguing with him, he has no idea what he's talking about. He didn't even get what an "appeal to consequences" is right, and if he can't spend ten seconds looking something up with Google there's no way he's going to bother making a serious, intelligent argument regarding feminism. The more people entertain his stupid, ignorant, sexist arguments the worse the thread gets.

Anyway, looking forward to the movie. Unfortunately, if it's only shown in the places the last ones were then it's quite a way for me to go. There any more news on that? This is something I am going to have to prepare for in advance, so the earlier I can get things figured out the better.

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya

Silver2195 posted:

I agree that Urobuchi's politics are considerably less radical than Requires Hate's. "The unique source" isn't the same as "a source", though; I think you can see feminist themes in Madoka without denying all other themes.
The problem is that RF's reading of Kyuubey as male relied really heavily on the idea that you could infer from the existence of oppression of women the specific presence of patriarchy. It doesn't really follow unless you have an IFF relationship between the two concepts, which is why I originally posted that RF was way too glib in that part. I'd agree that you can see other themes present, but I don't think the bulk of RF's analysis works very well once you grant that, because the case of Kyuubey as the personification of the patriarchy is rather weak and most of the argument frames what happens to the characters specifically as a metaphor for life under patriarchy.

rvm
May 6, 2013
Feminist reading of Madoka is pretty obvious, it's practically on the surface, and RH isn't the first to provide one. It doesn't mean it's "the one true reading" or anything like that. You can also read it as deconstruction of Western narratives like Faustian bargain (duh), Little Mermaid (it's funny how people read Kyousuke as an rear end in a top hat even though he kind of isn't in the actual show, because his prototype definitely is) and Salvation (a bit reaching, yeah). As far as "dark subversion" vs. "straight magical girls show", I think it's safe to say that Kyuubey is indeed a dark subversion of a magical girl mascot and he's one of the central figures of the story, so there's that. But other then that, I don't think there's anything that would be completely out of place in shows like Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, etc., and the heart of the genre is definitely there.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
And now I just realized that Animate sent their "pay for Madoka movies" e-mail on the 25th and Google tossed it into spam. It probably could've been in the mail by now. :negative:

I really hope that it gets here before next weekend.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
The release for the Madoka Magica films has passed 80K volumes in its first week. That's more than any volume of the TV show sold in its own first week.

Promo art for movie 3 that I found below. With the mix of ribbon-Homura and hairband-Homura in the promotional material and trailers, I'm thinking that half the film will be more previous timelines and the other half will be the events between before/after the end credits of the final episode. Right now I'm just thinking of the third movie as the "Madoka Magica fandisc", so I'm not too worried about it feeling unnecessary.

E: Actually looking at it now, this is promo art for the first two movies I think? There's still a mix of promo art I've seen for movie 3 that mixes hairband and ribbon wearing Homura though.

jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jul 31, 2013

Hommando
Mar 2, 2012

jonjonaug posted:

The release for the Madoka Magica films has passed 80K volumes in its first week. That's more than any volume of the TV show sold in its own first week.

Promo art for movie 3 that I found below.


That's also the box art for the special edition of the first two movies.


quote:

With the mix of ribbon-Homura and hairband-Homura in the promotional material and trailers, I'm thinking that half the film will be more previous timelines and the other half will be the events between before/after the end credits of the final episode. Right now I'm just thinking of the third movie as the "Madoka Magica fandisc", so I'm not too worried about it feeling unnecessary.


I can see there being a few flashbacks to earlier timelines, a half of a movies worth would be a bit much. I hope the third movie wraps things up, I cannot stand loose ends.

Bro Enlai
Nov 9, 2008

Look, obviously Madoka is an allegory for the financial crisis. Consider the etymology of the word "mortgage," from the French for "death contract." Indeed, Kyubey offers contracts to people who are young, vulnerable, and in need. Mature obligations return to the original lender as Grief Seeds (seed = shido = CDO). Now consider the order in which the witches are listed on the Madoka site: Gertrud, Suleika, Charlotte. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup. H.N. Elly? FNMA. Need I say more?

Mordaedil
Oct 25, 2007

Oh wow, cool. Good job.
So?
Grimey Drawer

Bro Enlai posted:

Look, obviously Madoka is an allegory for the financial crisis. Consider the etymology of the word "mortgage," from the French for "death contract." Indeed, Kyubey offers contracts to people who are young, vulnerable, and in need. Mature obligations return to the original lender as Grief Seeds (seed = shido = CDO). Now consider the order in which the witches are listed on the Madoka site: Gertrud, Suleika, Charlotte. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup. H.N. Elly? FNMA. Need I say more?

Oh thank god I thought it was just me

Mercrom
Jul 17, 2009

Bro Enlai posted:

Look, obviously Madoka is an allegory for the financial crisis. Consider the etymology of the word "mortgage," from the French for "death contract." Indeed, Kyubey offers contracts to people who are young, vulnerable, and in need. Mature obligations return to the original lender as Grief Seeds (seed = shido = CDO). Now consider the order in which the witches are listed on the Madoka site: Gertrud, Suleika, Charlotte. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup. H.N. Elly? FNMA. Need I say more?
You aren't completely wrong though. Kyubey represents evil bankers just as much as it represents the patriarchy, because it represents power and oppression. It is alien enough and abstract enough that you could possibly use it as a symbol for any entity in power.

I disagree with a feminist interpretation of the show for several reasons. First of all, a show featuring 14 year old girls aimed at a target group of adult men is probably not the best delivery vehicle for such a story. It is about female characters, but the reason it is about female characters is arguably unlikely to be for the benefit of any woman. I don't buy the death of the author thing because whether you like it or not context always matters, and to ignore context is to be willfully ignorant. It can be good to be willfully ignorant when enjoying a story, but not when discussing it's social and cultural meaning.

Secondly, Kyubey isn't evil, the universe is. Kyubey is alive at the end of the show because unlike the patriarchy Kyubey shouldn't be destroyed. When faced with a hypothetical Worst Thing, absolutely any means to stop it are kinda by definition acceptable, and I think that it can be argued that the heat death of the universe is the Worst Thing, which would mean Kyubey is completely justified, and probably the best hope all life had until Madoka came along and provided a better alternative. Madoka's victory is not against Kyubey, it is against the harsh nature of reality itself. If you really want you can relate this to the progress of feminism against the patriarchy, but that is only because of the part of Madoka that represents progress itself.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Mercrom posted:

Secondly, Kyubey isn't evil, the universe is. Kyubey is alive at the end of the show because unlike the patriarchy Kyubey shouldn't be destroyed. When faced with a hypothetical Worst Thing, absolutely any means to stop it are kinda by definition acceptable, and I think that it can be argued that the heat death of the universe is the Worst Thing, which would mean Kyubey is completely justified, and probably the best hope all life had until Madoka came along and provided a better alternative. Madoka's victory is not against Kyubey, it is against the harsh nature of reality itself. If you really want you can relate this to the progress of feminism against the patriarchy, but that is only because of the part of Madoka that represents progress itself.

Reading between the lines a bit, Kyubey isn't willfully evil, but he's pretty uncreative/lazy. For example, if he'd been more honest with the Magical Girls to begin with, one of them would have wished away the Witches a long time ago. The Incubators basically think "we have a good enough solution, so let's not look for a better one, even if it means wiping out an intelligent species."

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

Mercrom posted:

I don't buy the death of the author thing because whether you like it or not context always matters, and to ignore context is to be willfully ignorant. It can be good to be willfully ignorant when enjoying a story, but not when discussing it's social and cultural meaning.

But that's not what Death of the Author means at all; in fact it's the exact opposite of what you said. Before the concept, what the author stated the work meant was what the work meant, regardless of context or interpretation. DotA allows for the reader to find a reading of the text that takes into account not only the context in which the work was written (which normally didn't mean poo poo if the author said it didn't) but bring in context from their personal lives or other disciplines.

What's willfully ignorant is ignoring what Death of the Author means for critique and discussion. And not seeing how someone can use a feminist lens to view this work when the primary actors are female, the overcoming power of salvation is feminine and the closest thing to an antagonist is coded as male. Understanding and empathy win the day over masculine aggression (Homu has a bigger weapon-dick than most action movie heroes) and unfeeling exploitation. It's not like they're arguing Queen's Blade or Prism Ilya is feminist because ~reasons~.

Any reading is valid as long as you can back it up.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Mercrom posted:

I disagree with a feminist interpretation of the show for several reasons. First of all, a show featuring 14 year old girls aimed at a target group of adult men is probably not the best delivery vehicle for such a story. It is about female characters, but the reason it is about female characters is arguably unlikely to be for the benefit of any woman. I don't buy the death of the author thing because whether you like it or not context always matters, and to ignore context is to be willfully ignorant. It can be good to be willfully ignorant when enjoying a story, but not when discussing it's social and cultural meaning.

It's a magical girl show. I don't know what your expecting, but this is supposed to be a magical girl show. If you want to take context into account, that is your number 1 point of context. Secondly, the story was written with the magical girl genre as a basis, so saying it isn't the best delivery vehicle is just dumb. Thirdly, how are any of those points mentioned in this paragraph reasons why a feminist interpenetration doesn't fit?

Mercrom posted:

Secondly, Kyubey isn't evil, the universe is. Kyubey is alive at the end of the show because unlike the patriarchy Kyubey shouldn't be destroyed. When faced with a hypothetical Worst Thing, absolutely any means to stop it are kinda by definition acceptable, and I think that it can be argued that the heat death of the universe is the Worst Thing, which would mean Kyubey is completely justified, and probably the best hope all life had until Madoka came along and provided a better alternative. Madoka's victory is not against Kyubey, it is against the harsh nature of reality itself. If you really want you can relate this to the progress of feminism against the patriarchy, but that is only because of the part of Madoka that represents progress itself.

I don't understand your logic. The universe is evil because his(its) species engineered it to be and the bunnycat, along with, I assume, the rest of the Incubators in the world, supposing there are any others, is facilitating the continuation of this evil universe that its species engineered. Its like coming into power in an unfavorable dictatorship and doing jack poo poo to create a better government. It makes you no less evil than the origin of the evil. Madoka is the revolutionary that storms the castle, tears the country to pieces, and then entirely rebuilds it. However, she rebuilds into a more favorable dictatorship in such a way that the country's structure is visibly unchanged and Kyubey remains its "leader".

Kyubey is considered evil because he wholeheartedly accepted the evil structure of the universe and never sought a way to change it. Having said all that, Kyubey is only evil from a human perspective. Considering that Kyubey has no subjective concept of emotion, there's no way for him(it) to understand the concept of morality since he(it) has no sense of shame. His(its) entire being is nothing more than logic and reasoning. Kuybey's only real fault is that he(it) did not make the mental leap to consider any other possibilities.

Mercrom
Jul 17, 2009

MadRhetoric posted:

But that's not what Death of the Author means at all; in fact it's the exact opposite of what you said. Before the concept, what the author stated the work meant was what the work meant, regardless of context or interpretation. DotA allows for the reader to find a reading of the text that takes into account not only the context in which the work was written (which normally didn't mean poo poo if the author said it didn't) but bring in context from their personal lives or other disciplines.
Was literary criticism really that dumb before? Anyway basically the only times I've seen Death of the Author brought up is when someone just wants to elevate their own authority.

MadRhetoric posted:

What's willfully ignorant is ignoring what Death of the Author means for critique and discussion. And not seeing how someone can use a feminist lens to view this work when the primary actors are female, the overcoming power of salvation is feminine and the closest thing to an antagonist is coded as male. Understanding and empathy win the day over masculine aggression (Homu has a bigger weapon-dick than most action movie heroes) and unfeeling exploitation. It's not like they're arguing Queen's Blade or Prism Ilya is feminist because ~reasons~.

Any reading is valid as long as you can back it up.
Literature is an art. Literary criticism is not. Every reading is not valid especially not the dump you just took on my screen in the form of "weapon-dicks" and ridiculous gender stereotypes. I don't know what the gently caress kind of reading that is but it sure as hell is not a feminist one.

ViggyNash posted:

It's a magical girl show. I don't know what your expecting, but this is supposed to be a magical girl show. If you want to take context into account, that is your number 1 point of context. Secondly, the story was written with the magical girl genre as a basis, so saying it isn't the best delivery vehicle is just dumb. Thirdly, how are any of those points mentioned in this paragraph reasons why a feminist interpenetration doesn't fit?
It's a magical girl show made by Shaft targeted at an audience consisting mostly of adult men* in an industry not known for it's progressive feminist attitudes. The show may be in part a product of the patriarchy.

*Not sure about this though.

ViggyNash posted:

I don't understand your logic. The universe is evil because his(its) species engineered it to be and the bunnycat, along with, I assume, the rest of the Incubators in the world, supposing there are any others, is facilitating the continuation of this evil universe that its species engineered.
If they somehow engineered the universe to not include the second law of thermodynamics I wouldn't call that universe evil and I guess that's where we fundamentally disagree.

Flappy Bert
Dec 11, 2011

I have seen the light, and it is a string


We really do need our own SMG.

Or just bog standard SMG, that's fine too.

Mercrom
Jul 17, 2009

DerLeo posted:

We really do need our own SMG.

Or just bog standard SMG, that's fine too.
I would seriously pay money for that.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Mercrom posted:

If they somehow engineered the universe to not include the second law of thermodynamics I wouldn't call that universe evil and I guess that's where we fundamentally disagree.

I guess I should have said re-engineered. In order to counter entropy, they designed a system in which young girls had to die in fear to create energy. That design is, from a human perspective, inherently evil. What Madoka does is re-engineer their design to be more neutral, albeit not entirely so because it would undermine the the legitimately good thing that the Incubators were trying to accomplish.

The fact is that they didn't engineer entropy out of existence, so that's a pointless point to make. My point was that they didn't seem to have even considered any alternatives, such as removing entropy or Madoka's solution. They were content with the system they set in place and did not try to improve it. That is their fault.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

DerLeo posted:

We really do need our own SMG.

Or just bog standard SMG, that's fine too.

Ugh. SMG would end up convincing half of ADTRW that Total Eclipse is a work of genius.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Silver2195 posted:

Ugh. SMG would end up convincing half of ADTRW that Total Eclipse is a work of genius.

I don't even agree with the man on half the films he writes about, but seeing people who were apparently traumatized out of CineD by his posting never stops being funny. :allears:

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I think the gimmick got kind of ridiculous in the Prometheus thread.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
Prometheus is a genuinely great movie by one of the living masters of science fiction.

The Evangelion of American cinema, if you will. :v:

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
If what you're saying is that Scott is to Prometheus what Anno is to 3.33, then I am indeed inclined to agree!

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Nate RFB posted:

If what you're saying is that Scott is to Prometheus what Anno is to 3.33, then I am indeed inclined to agree!

I am: it's awesome, and a giant stumbling block to hapless realists.

Crosscontaminant
Jan 18, 2007

ViggyNash posted:

My point was that they didn't seem to have even considered any alternatives, such as removing entropy or Madoka's solution.
On the other hand, Madoka's solution worked as a result of the energy built up from her countless deaths in Homura's abandoned timelines - it's possible (even likely) that it was utterly beyond the Incubators' level of technology.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Crosscontaminant posted:

On the other hand, Madoka's solution worked as a result of the energy built up from her countless deaths in Homura's abandoned timelines - it's possible (even likely) that it was utterly beyond the Incubators' level of technology.

I think she needed that literally earth shattering amount of energy because she needed to rebuild the system from the ground up. Remember, she destroyed the entire universe and then rebuilt it. When Homura, after the world was rebuilt, mentioned how energy was harvested in the original world, Kyubey's response made it seem like it was just another possibility that they hadn't considered. That suggests that they could have opted for Madoka's version and built that system just as easily as they build the Wtich/Magical Girl system.

veekie
Dec 25, 2007

Dice of Chaos

ViggyNash posted:

I think she needed that literally earth shattering amount of energy because she needed to rebuild the system from the ground up. Remember, she destroyed the entire universe and then rebuilt it. When Homura, after the world was rebuilt, mentioned how energy was harvested in the original world, Kyubey's response made it seem like it was just another possibility that they hadn't considered. That suggests that they could have opted for Madoka's version and built that system just as easily as they build the Wtich/Magical Girl system.

QB mentions in the new world that if the old system worked, it would be a lot more efficient than the new one for the Incubators. Huge bursts of energy from each contracted magical girl, and as long as they survive to 'maturity', eventually hatch into Witches for a big payout.

Which brings me to some interesting speculation upon rewatching:
-Mami mentioned Witches tend to appear in areas such as traffic accidents, hospitals, red-light districts and isolated suicide spots.
-However, when the girls actually go hunting for Witches(as opposed to one running into them), they tend to show up in remote places. Gertrud in the abandoned building, Octavia in the abandoned factory, Elsa Maria in bumfuck nowhere behind oil refinery, etc. This is kind of weird, since the areas are either deserted or packed.
-Witches don't like being discovered, so they hide in Labyrinths.
-Grief Seeds hatch immediately when a magical girl overloads, Charlotte then, couldn't be a new witch.
-Filled Grief Seeds may hatch into Witches, with the process accelerated by the presence of magic.
-QB collects filled Grief Seeds, the girls assume he eats them, but we also know he eats with the mouth on his face. The back looks more like an extradimensional container or transport.
-Gertrud appears only moments after Madoka discovers QB conveniently falling out of a hiding place. Neither Mami nor Homura sensed the Witch ahead of time, implying it wasn't active.
-Charlotte appears in plain sight, on a building with a magical girl candidate's love interest inside, and with two of them just walking past.

It seems to me that in all the listed areas, except for the suicide spots, girls are likely to be present and negatively affected by a witch manifesting. This happens more in girls with magical potential. At this point, the potential candidate is under great stress, and then a cute bunnycat shows up, offers to fix it all and give them awesome powers, while also fighting for Good. As he said, they almost always take the offer immediately.

So, an Incubator plants the ready-to-hatch Grief Seeds, the victim will contract under duress, defeat the Witch and hand the resulting Grief Seed right back to the bastard after charging it. Sometimes the Witch wins, and that's not good, because the magical girl never hatches into a Witch(and now someone needs to go subdue it to reclaim the thing). Sometimes the Witch doesn't leave a Grief Seed, presumably because the magical girl accidentally destroys it in the process of fighting the Witch.

If it all goes well, then all QB has to do is slowly dial back Grief Seed plantings once the magical girl reaches the peak of their power, while using more difficult Witches on them, forcing the girl to use more power to win, eventually starving the girl of power and poof, fresh Witch. While of course he couldn't recycle the same Grief Seed in an area while the same girls patrol it, there are likely a LOT of Grief Seeds banked.

A hell of a scam isn't it?

veekie fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 1, 2013

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Reading your post it does seem quite plausible. Makes me wonder if that was an intentional design.

As far as your response to my post, that does explain why, from a purely logical perspective, the Incubators chose the Witch system, but that also hinges on the assumption that the Incubators place no other value on the human race since QB's plan from the start (when he realized the potential Madoka had in the final loop) was complete armageddon. It seems that the Incubators care only for the continuation of their species and sought to perpetuate the universe's existence through the most effective means possible. Since they did not care what happened to the human race they accepted the xenocide of the human race in favor of accomplishing their goal.

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

DerLeo posted:

We really do need our own SMG.

Or just bog standard SMG, that's fine too.

I'd like to think I'm the closest thing to ADTRW's SMG, buy I'm actually right :smug:

SMG doing MadoMagi or the Eva movies would be fun. Or some of those old school OVAs.

Mercrom
Jul 17, 2009
Honestly I don't think too hard about the science mumbo jumbo. When I heard Kyubey say heard "we harvest the energy of the suffering of magical girls to counter entropy" I laughed out loud ten minutes straight. When I got over how ridiculous it was I just realized it's a pretty good, although exaggerated, representation of awful things that need to be done because that's just how the world works and the world doesn't care if you don't like it.

In real life though there's absolutely nothing that can ever be done about entropy, and the death of all things is inevitable. Though we can take comfort in the fact that at least we don't ever have to use teenage angst as an energy source. :v:

Failboattootoot
Feb 6, 2011

Enough of this nonsense. You are an important mayor and this absurd contraption has wasted enough of your time.

Mercrom posted:

It's a magical girl show made by Shaft targeted at an audience consisting mostly of adult men* in an industry not known for it's progressive feminist attitudes. The show may be in part a product of the patriarchy.

*Not sure about this though.

I don't particularly disagree with this, but to play devil's advocate for a second; if someone asked me how to introduce feminism to otaku creeps, a magical girl show is probably what I would come up with.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
I don't really think an SMG style analysis of Madoka would be all that interesting, to be honest. SMG style analysis of Eva 3.0 would be hilarious though.

Full weekly sales are in for the Madoka films. With the addition of the regular edition of the Bluray release the recap films sold over 87 thousand volumes in their first week.

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

jonjonaug posted:

I don't really think an SMG style analysis of Madoka would be all that interesting, to be honest. SMG style analysis of Eva 3.0 would be hilarious though.

Full weekly sales are in for the Madoka films. With the addition of the regular edition of the Bluray release the recap films sold over 87 thousand volumes in their first week.

It would be interesting in the sense that he has a very strong grasp of his critical lens and could use it to great effect on something like MadoMagi, but that's only interesting to fellow lit-crit nerds.

What makes SMG interesting to the average Goon is him using that critical lens to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics that makes people mad because they are unwilling or unable to engage with the material on the same level or even in the same time zone that SMG does. In that respect, Eva 3.33 would be more interesting as a function of how many more people he could piss off with it.

Flappy Bert
Dec 11, 2011

I have seen the light, and it is a string


MadRhetoric posted:

It would be interesting in the sense that he has a very strong grasp of his critical lens and could use it to great effect on something like MadoMagi, but that's only interesting to fellow lit-crit nerds.

What makes SMG interesting to the average Goon is him using that critical lens to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics that makes people mad because they are unwilling or unable to engage with the material on the same level or even in the same time zone that SMG does. In that respect, Eva 3.33 would be more interesting as a function of how many more people he could piss off with it.

Has there ever been a thread where SMG's actual analysis was more interesting than how people reacted to it? The reactions and then SMG making fun of people are the best parts.

For example, Prometheus.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
I got my copy of the limited edition BDs for the compilation films in today. I was wondering before why Sayaka was on the promotional art for the box art. Turns out I forgot that some people on the staff for the show like to ship Sayaka and Kyouko.



Anyway, the packaging is really well done and the production booklet included is pretty dang cool. Even the main menu for the BD is really well done even if it is spoiler-y as gently caress (not like that matters...).

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

jonjonaug posted:

Anyway, the packaging is really well done and the production booklet included is pretty dang cool. Even the main menu for the BD is really well done even if it is spoiler-y as gently caress (not like that matters...).

I kind of felt that the opening for the movies was kind of spoilery considering how its basically two minutes of Homura and Madoka being adorable together, which kind of ruins the whole twist between them for people going in blind.

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MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

DerLeo posted:

Has there ever been a thread where SMG's actual analysis was more interesting than how people reacted to it? The reactions and then SMG making fun of people are the best parts.

For example, Prometheus.

"You Know, I Actually Kind of Appreciate the Transformers Movies" thread. Granted, that thread is predicated on an earnest attempt at doing SMG's shtick.

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