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ArchangeI posted:I think I've read this. Is there a scene where the noble JSDF uses attack helicopters to wipe out a giant fantasy army with no casualties, described in loving detail? Because i pretty much stopped reading after that. It is seriously one of the most boring action sequences I have ever seen, like the author has never even heard of the idea of dramatic tension. b-but that's the best part.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:23
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Phobophilia posted:I think there exists a particular strain of author and audience who can't loving bear to put their main characters under any kind of threat, and for whatever reason these people are overrepresented in the militaristic sci-fi/fantasy fandoms.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:32
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 This could've been a Japanese adaptation of Spellcross, but no.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:50
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Paracelsus posted:Standard military doctrine is to whenever possible go in with overwhelming force so there's no chance you lose. Are you saying you want your protagonists to be terrible at their job and risk getting a bunch of their people killed just for bravado's sake? If the only way you can make things interesting is by making people incompetent then you are a bad author. You could, you know, make the other side equally competent. These guys use loving magic. You could easily argue that their specially enchanted armor stops bullets better than a kevlar west, that their summoned lightning bolts interfere with the radios and knock out electronic equipment or that the earth golems are almost immune to direct fire because they have no vital parts that can be damaged. But no, instead its "look at all these dumb savages, let's carpet bomb them out of existence while we stroke ourselves raw about how brave and noble we are". It might be realistic, but it is a goddamn story and if you write a story with loving dragons in it to be "realistic" then you are a failure as a writer. Realism has no place in fiction writing. Internal consistency has, which is what people usually refer to when they say they want a realistic story, but that only means the story can't contradict itself and can't break suspension of disbelief. Which absolutely includes the possibility that a fantasy army can give a modern technological one a run for its money.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:16
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Paracelsus posted:Standard military doctrine is to whenever possible go in with overwhelming force so there's no chance you lose. Are you saying you want your protagonists to be terrible at their job and risk getting a bunch of their people killed just for bravado's sake? There's a difference between having a competent protagonist, and having an untouchable protagonist. If the author is such a prima dona that he cannot let any harm fall to his protag, this will inevitably interfere with the plot, usually by making it lose any tension or stakes. When there are no stakes in the story, the driving conflict loses all meaning. This is the reason Mahouka is so incredibly dull. A good way to stop this from happening is to make the villains a legitimate threat, but that would require causing emotional or physical harm to the protagonist.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:49
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SSNeoman posted:There's a difference between having a competent protagonist, and having an untouchable protagonist. If the author is such a prima dona that he cannot let any harm fall to his protag, this will inevitably interfere with the plot, usually by making it lose any tension or stakes. When there are no stakes in the story, the driving conflict loses all meaning. This is the reason Mahouka is so incredibly dull. ArchangeI posted:If the only way you can make things interesting is by making people incompetent then you are a bad author. You could, you know, make the other side equally competent. These guys use loving magic. You could easily argue that their specially enchanted armor stops bullets better than a kevlar west, that their summoned lightning bolts interfere with the radios and knock out electronic equipment or that the earth golems are almost immune to direct fire because they have no vital parts that can be damaged. But no, instead its "look at all these dumb savages, let's carpet bomb them out of existence while we stroke ourselves raw about how brave and noble we are". Not all the situations in Gate are "fantasy Roman army who have never seen a modern military before vs. said modern military," and I expect that things will change a bit once the locals start trying different (and probably more insurgency-style) tactics. The overwhelming initial victories certainly define a relationship between the sides, but I don't think that's going to (or even has) remain static. Plus iirc the MC has been beaten up on multiple occasions, largely in situations where he's working without an army at his back, so it seems strange to say that he's immune from physical harm, and a lot of the most recent arc has been him wrestling with how to handle a messed-up emotional situation. The central conflict seems to be less about man vs. man "can we win," and more about man vs. himself "can we win while holding onto the principles we like to think we hold, rather than just bringing in more bullets than they have people (also fighter jets v. dragons is  )." That can still work as a conflict even when the balance of power is heavily tilted towards one side.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:11
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It is 100% possible to still have tension in a one-sided military situation. Just make the military situation not the main conflict vs political and economic wheeling and dealing or personal struggles. The problem is Gate's author isn't sane or skilled enough to do this well.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:23
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This manga has some godawful pacing and a complete lack of tension. I'm only 11 pages in and the Japanese almost instantly contained the first invaders through the gate (with our main character appearing in the middle of the battle and giving out orders, with literally no introduction), counterattacked through the gate and have massacred more than a hundred thousand unidentified enemies. The Japanese soldiers are already so bored (despite invading some kind of alternate dimension  ) that they're complaining that the enemy attacks are interrupting the DVDs they're watching.Our first actual look at this other civilization is a bunch of guys dressed like Roman senators yelling at each about how badly they're getting annihilated. I mean, seriously? The introduction of the main character, the appearance of the gate and the initial attack should have taken at least a full volume to explore. Surely the novel version of this story didn't have all this poo poo happen in the first chapter?
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Nov 11, 2014 01:28
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Well, the author's an otaku, writing for other otaku, so obviously exploring an entirely new world is a poor replacement for the latest episode of whatever generic anime they're watching.
Monocled Falcon fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 02:08
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FallenGod posted:This manga has some godawful pacing and a complete lack of tension. I'm only 11 pages in and the Japanese almost instantly contained the first invaders through the gate (with our main character appearing in the middle of the battle and giving out orders, with literally no introduction), counterattacked through the gate and have massacred more than a hundred thousand unidentified enemies. The Japanese soldiers are already so bored (despite invading some kind of alternate dimension The author didn't want to tell that story of the initial invasion. He wanted to tell the story of the aftermath which is an interesting idea and one I haven't really seen before. He is not a good writer though and is a hardcore otaku in addition, so large chunks (the majority) of the story are painful to slog through. The only reason I keep reading the manga is the concept is just so good and occasionally (sadly not often enough) the story matches the concept in quality.
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Nov 16, 2014 22:45
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This thread is already more interesting than the manga.
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Nov 17, 2014 03:26
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i read this for the cute monster girls and that's about it
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Nov 17, 2014 04:14
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OK, you've got me morbidly curious now. When, where, and how does this manga address Nanking?
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Nov 17, 2014 14:35
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Darth Walrus posted:OK, you've got me morbidly curious now. When, where, and how does this manga address Nanking? By implying it never happened and that if Japan made any mistakes in fantasyland it would be their first crime ever.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:37
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Awwwwwww poo poo, a GATE thread! Finally, I can suffer with other goons through this trainwreck. This is a terrible manga for terrible people, but I gobble down any and all anachronistic poo poo I can get my hands on. I can ignore the nationalistic crap, and have basically given up on expecting the natives to put up a decent resistance, so the main reason I am still reading this is the whiplash I get by the transitions from silly fantasy harem antics to GRITTY REALISM. Paracelsus posted:Plus iirc the MC has been beaten up on multiple occasions, largely in situations where he's working without an army at his back, so it seems strange to say that he's immune from physical harm, and a lot of the most recent arc has been him wrestling with how to handle a messed-up emotional situation.  But the Main Character is not actually the protagonist, he is just the audience self-insert. The protagonist is the Noble JSDF, and there are is no possibility that it's getting in any kind of difficult situation.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:22
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Rexides posted:I gobble down any and all anachronistic poo poo I can get my hands on. There was this one modern day HS mystery, everyone was reincarnations from a fantasy kingdom that carried over their abilities and loyalties once awakened. There were two or three different factions. Can't remember the name though. Jackard fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 18:28
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Jackard posted:Same. Any recommendations that aren't already in the Historical Comics thread? Bokura no Kiseki
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Nov 17, 2014 22:36
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Well here's something I didn't expect to get a thread. I don't really have much to add to the conversation except that even knowing the author was a sexist right wing nutjob the race of scantily clad literal gently caress-bunnies caught me by surprise. At least it's not Mahouka levels of bad, yet, even if every new idea the author injects just brings it closer.
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Nov 18, 2014 04:48
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Desuwa posted:Well here's something I didn't expect to get a thread. That seems pretty unsurprising to me. They sound like a ripoff of the Viera from Final Fantasy, which are catnip to weird Japanese anime nerds.
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Nov 18, 2014 07:31
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Since when is Terraformars racist, nationalist and sexist?
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Nov 25, 2014 06:01
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Since when is Terraformars racist, nationalist and sexist? Oh poo poo
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Nov 25, 2014 09:33
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Since when is Terraformars racist, nationalist and sexist? ahahahaha
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Nov 25, 2014 13:02
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Since when is Terraformars racist, nationalist and sexist? 
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Nov 25, 2014 17:20
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Since when is Terraformars racist, nationalist and sexist? since the poster saw a le funny pic on reddit/4chan
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Nov 26, 2014 00:41
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Man, Gate makes no drat sense to me, for one big reason. Japan isn't a very big logistical power, I mean, they would run out of food and ammo just because they don't have the huge logistics chain that is required to go from ground 0 to "Modern Military Base", even with a free portal. (Also, the fact that every soldier isn't constantly taking pictures of all the ~just like my anime~ characters and uploading them to youtube/facebook/socvial networking site is another unrealistic thing, but I could harp on this thing for hours.
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Nov 26, 2014 01:28
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Ugghghghghgh I can't believe I am going to post something in defense of Gate's "believeability", BUT! The portal is situated right in the middle of the capital. Getting material to the construction site for the new base is as simple as getting it to the industrial center of the nation, which shouldn't be that difficult. That was my Gate post, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Rexides fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Nov 27, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 23:57
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So I started to read this and... what happened between chapters 9 and 10? At the end of 9 they just entered Italica and at the beginning of 10 they're already helping defend it and suddenly they can understand the language.
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Nov 27, 2014 00:09
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Rodyle posted:ahahahaha Captain Invictus posted:Oh poo poo Thanks for the answer!
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Dec 9, 2014 17:21
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In all fairness, since it's manga the burden of proof actually lies on you to demonstrate how it is anything but racist, nationalist, and sexist.
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Dec 9, 2014 17:31
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Thanks for the answer!
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Dec 9, 2014 23:21
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Thanks for the answer! It's sexist because there are only male cockroaches. Nationalistic because the most poisonous animals (the best forms) are Australian And racist because they draw the Japanese Giant Hornet with squinty eyes.
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Dec 10, 2014 02:04
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trucutru posted:It's sexist because there are only male cockroaches. I think you got the wrong racist, nationalist and sexist manga. The one you're looking for is two racist, nationalist and sexist mangas to the left. edit: Nevermind. Didn't see we got off on a terraformars tangent. organism fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 03:36
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Literally The Worst posted:There's a sequel where they blow up God. No, I'm not joking. Apparently there was going to be a third book but I have no idea who they'd kill in that one. Actually, God was blown up by Michael. After we nuked Jesus and the Army of Heaven, Michael launched a coup against God to keep us from turning the City of Heaven (which is roughly the size of the continental US) into radioactive wasteland. He and his allies beat God in an Anime Laser-beam battle using the groundbreaking human tactic of firing in volleys.
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Dec 11, 2014 17:37
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So I'm well into volume 3 and I have a question? How is this series supposed to be worse than Terraformars in any category other than Nationalism? I mean gate has racism in it but not the same kind as Terraformars did. This racism is presented within the framework of the story, fantasy races hate other fantasy races. bog standard stuff. Terraformars' racism was more readers comparing the presentation of the terraformers to racist caricatures and stereotypes of black people in popular culture. The other two categories are equally subdued compared to cockroaches the manga. Unless this stuff doesn't sink in until later in the series it doesn't compare to the kind of shenanigans Terraformars gets into chapter 1 of that rollercoaster. Edit: I would get to the hot spring chapter right after posting this 
Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Dec 13, 2014 |
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Dec 13, 2014 10:35
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Brought To You By posted:So I'm well into volume 3 and I have a question? How is this series supposed to be worse than Terraformars in any category other than Nationalism? I mean gate has racism in it but not the same kind as Terraformars did. This racism is presented within the framework of the story, fantasy races hate other fantasy races. bog standard stuff. Terraformars' racism was more readers comparing the presentation of the terraformers to racist caricatures and stereotypes of black people in popular culture. The other two categories are equally subdued compared to cockroaches the manga. Racism isn't really the biggest issue with this series, it's pretty much non-existent except for rare occasions where heroic Japanese Man is better then other nations and the weird "Black people!? It's the US because only they have black Spec Ops!" The nationalism is off the loving charts. The politicians shown being against the Gate-Ops or whatever are cartoonishly moronic who are portrayed as extremists who will destroy the country with their petty spiteful attempts to halt the noble Japanese military from doing their Gate stuff. It's really more of an overall tone to it where noble Japan is basically a superpower and all other nations are super jealous and try to steal from them.
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Dec 13, 2014 18:54
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I don't find nationalism to be that offensive actually. Racism is another matter, but nationalism is more 'my dad can beat up you dad' level. I'm American and I don't find the portrayal of America in Gate anything more than really funny.
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Dec 13, 2014 20:02
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I found Gate to be pretty enjoyable.
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Dec 13, 2014 20:07
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Petiso posted:So I started to read this and... what happened between chapters 9 and 10? At the end of 9 they just entered Italica and at the beginning of 10 they're already helping defend it and suddenly they can understand the language. No one? I just want to confirm if there's a missing chapter or if it's supposed to be like that.
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Dec 13, 2014 22:40
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Petiso posted:No one? I just want to confirm if there's a missing chapter or if it's supposed to be like that. Bad pacing in a bad manga
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Dec 13, 2014 23:28
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Petiso posted:No one? I just want to confirm if there's a missing chapter or if it's supposed to be like that. I remember that too. I doubt there's a missing chapter; it's probably just a time skip. KaneTW fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Dec 13, 2014 |
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Dec 13, 2014 23:39
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