Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

pentyne posted:

I had to actually pause the show, because at this point its been 5 minutes, and the show is spending less then 40 secs per character group before just jumping to the next one and so one. In the time it takes you to read my descriptions you’ve probably spent more time then the show did. This seems like a really lovely format, and I don’t know if the director just doesn’t give a gently caress, but at far as LN to anime adapations going, the actual direction of this episode is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.
This is nothing to do with the direction. This is the fault of the books. You'd get about four pages with one group before switching to the next.

This anime is, all in all, a pretty good adaptation of the source material, it's just that the source material is just this bad

quote:

Oh, and said cop is the red-haired girls brother and brought her some secret sword wrapped up so we don’t know what it is yet.
It's a really big sword, she can cut robots in half now.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

nehezir
Aug 9, 2011

Stalwart Guardian of the Lewd
they namedropped the sword anyway, so everyone was expecting it.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
I think those robots have a design flaw. When facing characters who have names all they can do is slowly move forward until they are destroyed. There were like 20 of those robots that we saw, but there was only one scene where they actually fired that big gun and then they stopped once a named character showed up to give a speech. Another interesting aspect to that scene is how it was shown to be a good thing for a bunch of nameless magicians to run forward in a big crowd to slaughter the inferior chinese troops, but magic in this setting doesn't work like that. A bunch of people firing off magic at once at the same targets will just interfere with each other, nullifying whatever they were trying to do. This specifically came up earlier in the show, even. Oh, and where did they get custom armor for Tatsuya's naked muscle fantasy dude? Did they stop off at his vacation house in town or what? Is there an armory nearby which just so happened to have giant muscle dude custom armor?

The funniest part of the episode was easily something that had nothing to do with Invincible Infallible God-King Tatsuya, though. "Oh, I'm having trouble with all of these summoned monsters, because summoned monsters are a thing that exist apparently? I must find the summoner or else there will be no end to them. Where could he be hidden?" Only, he wasn't hidden. There were like 4 guys standing around in front of him, and his amazing plan to find the summoner was to kill all of them at once until he figured out who it was. Then he stopped killing them all at once in favor of chasing the one guy down and making him explode.

In short, Satou is just the loving worst.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Serious Frolicking posted:

I can't really judge that too harshly. After all, for like a year I avidly played an mmo with anime running on a second monitor. When you barely pay attention, you can end up watching some awful stuff. Though really, 'avidly playing an mmo while also watching anime' is a pretty harsh thing to admit to all on its own.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Serious Frolicking posted:

In short, Satou is just the loving worst.

He's just a fanatical right winger who lucked his way into writing the right kind of hard core Japanese nationalist sci-fi wish fulfillment LN and got an anime out of it, that enough people watch to justify a second season.

cooldude2.0
Oct 12, 2004
Grimey Drawer
I'm surprised at the general sentiment on this show. The politics are jarring and a little disturbing when they're coming from Tatsuya, who is perfect, but generally I've enjoyed the hell out of it as sort of an action comedy like Toriko or Gurren Lagann where things just keep escalating at a ridiculous rate.

The main difference is this series does that by revealing what the MC can do and the others have the MC grow. But I rewatched the first 24 episodes last weekend and Tatsuya does at least grow a bit emotionally through the series.

I suspect the source material is just so bad that it's tainted a great adaptation for anyone familiar with it.
It was in my top four most anticipated episodes this last season, along with aldnoah, zankyou and dandy.

Stall_19
Jan 2, 2013

Prodigy of Victor von Doom
Oh my god this show is so boring. Not since K-On have I watched so much of a show that bored me as much as this one did. I completely checked out. I can't even remember what the entire terrorist attack is even about and I don't even care to.

Chillyrabbit
Oct 24, 2012

The only sword wielding rabbit on the internet



Ultra Carp
Well it is just very boring in that after like 5 episodes you go "literally nothing can stop him" good for villians but not so good for protagonists. There was no tension to be had and any tension that arose felt very artificial because you knew that tatsuya-god will just murder gently caress them.

for christ sakes he can't even die

Srice
Sep 11, 2011

cooldude2.0 posted:

I'm surprised at the general sentiment on this show. The politics are jarring and a little disturbing when they're coming from Tatsuya, who is perfect, but generally I've enjoyed the hell out of it as sort of an action comedy like Toriko or Gurren Lagann where things just keep escalating at a ridiculous rate.

The main difference is this series does that by revealing what the MC can do and the others have the MC grow. But I rewatched the first 24 episodes last weekend and Tatsuya does at least grow a bit emotionally through the series.

I suspect the source material is just so bad that it's tainted a great adaptation for anyone familiar with it.
It was in my top four most anticipated episodes this last season, along with aldnoah, zankyou and dandy.

Man, I must have been watching a completely different show then because of the 12 or so episodes I watched there was barely any action at all! And even ignoring the fact that there was no reason for me to care about what was going on in the action scenes they didn't even stand out to me on a technical basis. Just kinda alright at best, but with plenty of other shows in the same season that do the job better.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

cooldude2.0 posted:

The main difference is this series does that by revealing what the MC can do and the others have the MC grow. But I rewatched the first 24 episodes last weekend and Tatsuya does at least grow a bit emotionally through the series.

Tatsuya doesn't grow emotionally, he doesn't have any. He never changes, nobody around him changes. All that happens is that a thousand chinese people die.

Stall_19 posted:

Not since K-On have I watched so much of a show that bored me as much as this one did.

You're garbage, K-ON is the best anim of all time.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
Action comedy? It is all completely serious. This poo poo is hilarious, but never intentionally so.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

cooldude2.0 posted:

I'm surprised at the general sentiment on this show. The politics are jarring and a little disturbing when they're coming from Tatsuya, who is perfect, but generally I've enjoyed the hell out of it as sort of an action comedy like Toriko or Gurren Lagann where things just keep escalating at a ridiculous rate.

The main difference is this series does that by revealing what the MC can do and the others have the MC grow. But I rewatched the first 24 episodes last weekend and Tatsuya does at least grow a bit emotionally through the series.

I suspect the source material is just so bad that it's tainted a great adaptation for anyone familiar with it.
It was in my top four most anticipated episodes this last season, along with aldnoah, zankyou and dandy.

If you've been reading my posts then you know the vast majority of the show, even in "action" episodes consists of quick cuts back and forth between people talking. Tatsuya is also the exact same person he is since episode one, there is no growth at all.

Plus, the show skips over animating even the simplest things, like how the Chinese mafia broke out terrorist assassin guy from an armored transport; we learn about it via exposition from a person who is told by a phone call. They might've been saving their budget for the last 3 episodes, but even that is just "mages effortlessly kill terrorists until for some reason the terrorists strike back, Tatsuya shows up and vaporizes them en mass, resurrects a guy who had his heart shot out.

Shows like Toriko and TTGL have a sense of drama because even though deep down you know a shounen series won't kill the main characters (TTGL being a major exception, one that a lot of people lost their poo poo over and claim the series ends after episode 10), the fights are still pitched battles where the outcome isn't apparent from the start. There's none of that in Mahouka, the second Tatsuya decides to do something literally no force can stop him, and people only die/get injured when the plot demands it so Tatsuya can rush in to save them.

Oh, and the politics are more then a little disturbing. It's black and white that Japanese is a bastion of pure culture and power while the rest of the world are dirty barbarians eager to steal noble Japanese secretes and corrupt honorable Japanese students to their way of thinking. And if that doesn't work, they can magically hypnotize them so Tatsuya can free them and they become enraged at how their honor was damaged by dirty foreigners.

pentyne fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Sep 28, 2014

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

The books are more characters explaining how tatsuya did a thing and how amazing it is than him actually doing things.

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


cooldude2.0 posted:

I'm surprised at the general sentiment on this show. The politics are jarring and a little disturbing when they're coming from Tatsuya, who is perfect, but generally I've enjoyed the hell out of it as sort of an action comedy like Toriko or Gurren Lagann where things just keep escalating at a ridiculous rate.

Having a character end fights with a three second explosion is not escalation. It's a cop out. And if you think this is action then Black Lagoon is gonna blow your mind.

cooldude2.0 posted:

The main difference is this series does that by revealing what the MC can do and the others have the MC grow. But I rewatched the first 24 episodes last weekend and Tatsuya does at least grow a bit emotionally through the series.

No, the main difference is that the MC is not an unlikable, cold-hearted cock who has a nationalistic and misogynistic slant. Tatsuya does not grow. The writing improves that he's less of a douchebag, (cutting out the Randian rants probably helps a lot) but it's hardly enough to salvage this show. There is no stakes in anything Tatsuya does. There is nothing fun in what Tatsuya does. And any time he does some super revolutionary thing, the audience doesn't give a poo poo because they are not familiar with the rules of magic in this world and because everyone starts sucking Tatsuya's cock about it.

The only character who is worse than Tatsuya is Miyuki, who is an ammoral, one note stereotype. This is done to distract the audience and stop them from seeing Miyuki as an awful psychopath.
I'm serious, in any other good piece of entertainment, Miyuki would be a villain. There is literally nothing redeeming about her.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012
Here weeeeeee goooooo!

Show starts with Tatsuya’s magic brigade flying over the terrorists armored convery and effortlessly killing them, until said convey decides to fire back and kills almost all of them. Shocker, Tatsuya survives and then you see him resurrect the other members. It’s basically if they were zombie mages who recovered instantly. Tatsuya then whips out his 2 pistols and one-shots the big mechs in seconds. Overall a lovely and confusing scene, especially because they do that weird slow down motion during the action which I’ve noticed repeatedly during this show, and something that must be a money saving trick because it looks ugly as hell next to any other decent anime action scene done in the last 15 years.

So, no surprise that Tatsuya is effortlessly wiping out terrorist brigade after terrorist brigade, this entire show has been nothing but stuff happens, other people get hurt/fail, Tatsuya shows up and does everything instantly.
It cuts to the terrorist HQ, the general is freaking out because they keep losing people. Back to Yokohama and that one guy from the school who rallied all the previously fleeing mages with a single sentence; they are all now fighting back with magic and crushing the terrorists effortlessly. This brings up a really important point in discussion the absolute poo poo quality of this show, that being apparently unless any of the main cast are present, even a huge number of magic users are hilariously weak against an enemy and until they are rallied by a “noble Japanese” (the school guy does the whole stoic noble warrior thing) they will lose. But once they are rallied it’s a loving slaughter because their magic is so overpowered a few guys can wipe out a tank. By pointing at it.

Hahahahahaha holy gently caress I thought the nationalism on this show was bad before, but it JUST. GETS. WORSE!

Head school guy from other show is standing in front the gates to Chinatown with a bunch of people behind him, demanding that they open the gates or they will be treated like the terrorists besieging the city. Now, we as the audience know that some criminal element in Chinatown helped said terrorist, but this guy has no loving clue and basically orders people who are barricading themselves from the chaos going on in the city to open up or he’ll come in and starting killing them for disobeying. I think the assumption is everyone knows that since the gates are up Chinatown must be in league with terrorists, but no matter what is comes off as hilariously racist and nationalistic in a way I haven’t seen in a long time.

Gates open up, a bunch of terrorists are tied up and the head China mafia guy offers to turn them over as proof that the Chinese are in league with the terrorists, but the subtext is yes they totally are and this is a diversion that successfully fooled the moron who isn’t Tatsuya.

Tatsuya’s healing magic is explained, and its apparently reaching back in time to copy the state of someone 24 hours ago and replacing their current wounded state. Oh and he can do it to anything, human, plant, machine, etc. That’s why he’s so bad at “formal” magic, because he has a literal god like power that can bring the dead back to life occupying that part of his brain. Oh, and why isn’t he using this power to hell save thousands of lives? Apparently this god like magic has a downside, where Tatsuya instantly feels the 150x pain as the wounded he had canceled. Yet he does it without sweating, hesitating or missing a beat, and does it to multiple people at once, so apparently the “downside” only applies to him using his powers to save lives that aren’t people he needs at the moment.

So Plan B starts, terrorists attack the Yokohama center and that one guy, the Lion or whatever attacks but this time he’s wearing armor that makes him invincible and smacks around professional magical soldiers. The same guy taken down in one shot by Tatsuya and held off by 2 of the magical school students is no an unstoppable monster to all the no-names at the center. OH, now he’s unstoppable to the students who’ve held him off before as well. Before he goes down to 1 shot from former school pres.

Oh, and this is another really lovely animated scene. Like really bad.

Head Terror guy has strolled into the center, opens up some random door and faces Miyuki. There’s the typical “talk to the other person for way too long” that goes on in every confrontation in this show. Miyuki does her “effortlessly stop a guy with ice” thing and the scene ends.

More terrible scenes with the blurry slowdown effect and Tatsuya effortlessly wiping out tanks with one shot each. We now learn the enemy ship has hydrazine batteries? What the gently caress are those? Anyways, it doesn’t matter it’s only a random plot to so Tatsuya can’t just blow up the ship normally due to potential marine life environmental harm. Yeah, Japan is apparently deeply concerned with the environmental impact it would have on marine life. Looks like no one in the future is a big fan of whaling.

Some random JSDF officers talk about the raid, makes plans to blow up the ship. They unseal a special rifle, the rifle Tatsuya uses to wipe out islands, and then he wipes out the ship from 80 km away. The scene cuts to the head terror guy smugly insulting the stupid Japanese for their idiotic environmental concerns and how they were cowards too afraid to sink the ship. Ship then blows up.

The Great Asian Alliance is assembling, so Tatsuya and some no name soldiers get on a place to deal with it. Miyuki chats with her Aunt, Aunt wonders where Tatsuya is, banal dialogue between them occurs.

So, the GAA fleet has mobilized and is moving to attack Japan, and for some reason the Japanese fleet hasn’t finished mobilizing, so Tatsuya is being sent to deal with the fleet. He deals with said fleet by nuking the poo poo out of them with his magic rifle. The entire fleet Is effortlessly wiped out.

To be clear, this is a plot conflict brought up in the last 4 minutes of the show then resolved a minute later by another "Tatsuya does something magic" scene. There was literally no need for it to be brought up other then proof that the Terrorists were in league with the GAA and everyone is jealous of Japan.

So the narration over credits is some bullshit about how this proved magic was an effective military tool (loving seriously?) and this began a new dawn of suffering and glory of the race of magicians. Show ends with Tatsuya walking into his house and Miyuki running into his arms for a hug.

Post Credits scene is the Aunt making ominous places for Tatsuya and Miyuki, as Tatsuya turns and glares ominously at the camera.

nehezir
Aug 9, 2011

Stalwart Guardian of the Lewd
it'll probably get a second season.

I'm kind of okay with that.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

nehezir posted:

it'll probably get a second season.

I'm kind of okay with that.

gently caress that, there's not enough liquor in the world for me to write up an entire 26 episode season of this poo poo. Even doing the first 5 burned me out so much I gave up until the "murder dozens of Chinese people from a distance while mocking them on a cell phone" episode.

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Not only was the teenage butcher who somehow got a cute nickname instead of being reviled for his history of making foreigners explode going after chinatown with an angry armed mob, he was totally correct to do so on multiple levels. First, he thought that there were chinese troops there and there were. Second, he thought that they were probably collaborating with the invaders and they were, though three-kingdoms guy decided to turn on them to save his community from a magic pogrom. I wasn't sure what his deal was, but from the context I guess he is a japanese citizen of chinese descent which naturally makes him a spy. What's more, the blood explodey guy's stated purpose was to join up with the group defending the magic office. Instead, a bunch of them decided to burn out those drat foreigners once and for all leaving only nameless characters to defend the place. Hilarious chinese warrior caricature could have simply walked right in if not for the helicopter filled with teenagers from prestigious families coincidentally flying overhead at the time.

Also, I guess Satou's only problems with nuclear weapons are that japan didn't come up with them first and isn't using them right this second.

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax
I was gonna say "Someone should tell Satou about Japanese internment camps from WWII", but given how they suck Imperial Japan's cock they'd probably agree Japanese-Americans were, or should have been if they weren't, spies. What an rear end in a top hat.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

WickedHate posted:

I was gonna say "Someone should tell Satou about Japanese internment camps from WWII", but given how they suck Imperial Japan's cock they'd probably agree Japanese-Americans were, or should have been if they weren't, spies. What an rear end in a top hat.

He probably thinks since they were "Japanese-Americans" they had been polluted by the American culture and were too stupid to know how to properly resist.

This is a great show finale to discuss on the back end of the recent news that high ranking Japanese officials have been caught backing right-wing Japanese groups using the Nazi Swastika and trying to pretend like it's not a big deal.

Right wing nationalistic Japanese more or less live in a country that allows them to express their views because they were beaten so horrifically badly in WW2, and said right-wingers immediately sidled up to the US to keep their power and after a decade or two move back to their extremism while the public figure heads where tried and executed and since prior to WW2 dissenters were shot in the street the new government is avoiding killing the agitators and flash forward to 2014 the right wing has grown drastically and still honestly believes Japan could easily arm up and overwhelm any foreign country trying to stop them.

pentyne fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Sep 28, 2014

nehezir
Aug 9, 2011

Stalwart Guardian of the Lewd

pentyne posted:

gently caress that, there's not enough liquor in the world for me to write up an entire 26 episode season of this poo poo. Even doing the first 5 burned me out so much I gave up until the "murder dozens of Chinese people from a distance while mocking them on a cell phone" episode.

but I do.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

pentyne posted:

Head school guy from other show is standing in front the gates to Chinatown with a bunch of people behind him, demanding that they open the gates or they will be treated like the terrorists besieging the city. Now, we as the audience know that some criminal element in Chinatown helped said terrorist, but this guy has no loving clue and basically orders people who are barricading themselves from the chaos going on in the city to open up or he’ll come in and starting killing them for disobeying. I think the assumption is everyone knows that since the gates are up Chinatown must be in league with terrorists, but no matter what is comes off as hilariously racist and nationalistic in a way I haven’t seen in a long time.

The books out and out say that everyone knows that chinatown is literally groaning with spies who they can't kick out for some reason (prob to avoid restarting the war with china).

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
Is there, at any point in this show, a roughly evenly-matched fight with good back-and-forth? Or anything remotely approaching it?

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


Darth Walrus posted:

Is there, at any point in this show, a roughly evenly-matched fight with good back-and-forth? Or anything remotely approaching it?

Noooope!

It's a carry-over from the original LN series, apparently.

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying

pentyne posted:

Apparently this god like magic has a downside, where Tatsuya instantly feels the 150x pain as the wounded he had canceled. Yet he does it without sweating, hesitating or missing a beat, and does it to multiple people at once, so apparently the “downside” only applies to him using his powers to save lives that aren’t people he needs at the moment.
I love this. It's the very essence of giving your Mary Sue's ultimate technique a drawback that isn't really a drawback and actually only shows what a self-sacrificing badass they are.

Also, if anyone made it this far in the novels, why did the president's ice shot disintegrating knock wacky tiger armor guy out?

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
Personally, I was fond of how hours later at a military base everyone else had changed into normal uniforms, but only Perfect God-King Tatsuya was still wearing that ridiculous bodysuit. It wasn't a disguise, because he had his helmet open. And then he got on a little platform and pointed his great big gun at a tv without anyone laughing at how absurd the situation was. I guess they were too busy furiously masturbating to the idea of killing millions of chinese people.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

Darth Walrus posted:

Is there, at any point in this show, a roughly evenly-matched fight with good back-and-forth? Or anything remotely approaching it?

That one fight between Erika and kendo girl is a little more even in the books until erika stops loving around.

That's about it.

\/\/haha

Namtab fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 28, 2014

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
There is actually an even fight. Tatsuya's continuing resistance to his all-consuming love for big burly men.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Mary Annette
Jun 24, 2005

pentyne posted:

Apparently this god like magic has a downside, where Tatsuya instantly feels the 150x pain as the wounded he had canceled. Yet he does it without sweating, hesitating or missing a beat, and does it to multiple people at once, so apparently the “downside” only applies to him using his powers to save lives that aren’t people he needs at the moment.

Kira loving Jesus Yamato, eat your heart out.

  • Locked thread