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ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012


Ikta Solork is a lazy bum and womanizer who hates the empire and its self-serving politics. He also ends up saving the life of the empire's princess, Chamille, after they get stranded in the opposing empire along with a few new and old friends. For his efforts, Ikta is rewarded by being made an Imperial Knight and forced to become a soldier along with the people that helped him. Unfortunately, that's the last thing he wants. But there's nothing he can do about except use his strategic wits to win the many battles ahead of him while cursing the cursing the empire he's being forced to fight for.

This is the life of the man who one day becomes known as The Invincible Lazy General.

Why should you watch it?
Because it's not a moe fantasy adventure. It establishes early on that it is a show about strategic battles and political ramifications. Ikta may be goofy and lazy, but he has strong political opinions and acts on them. His strategic plays are fun to watch because they're well developed and presented. The main cast are all decent, likable, and serious character with interesting social and political relationships; there's no comedy-option character that just fucks around and ruins the tone (though Matthew does get picked on a lot, poor guy). It's a serious show, and I like it that way. It's been too long since something like Twelve Kingdoms or Moribito showed up.

Alderamin airs at 1:30pm EDT on Fridays

ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Aug 5, 2016

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Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Is this based in a freaking light novel

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Is this based in a freaking light novel

Search your heart

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Heroine with pink hair, Genius Lazy Protag, fantasy setting... Crikey I think I cracked this case

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

https://a.pomf.cat/evahrs.webm

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

redhead going berserk was a pretty cool scene, i enjoyed that

i hope that one day ikta gets matched up against an enemy general who isn't called/acts like an incompetent moron every other scene.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Spoilers: Redhead is not, in fact, the main heroine. A few books in, if you think about all the character scenes and development that had happened, this becomes apparent if you stop and think about it. Basically, she gets no development whatsoever until book 7ish. Which is apparently where the teased scene for next episode is from.

I'm also somewhat amused that people thought he should have trouble in this fight. It is literally a mediocre captain trying to bully some cadets in what he considers a practice exercise with a foregone conclusion. By the time he realized the other side was treating it as an actual battle, he was far out of position and off-balance -and it's not like his troops themselves were particularly better. If Ikta had serious difficulty with this fight after those sorts of advantages, it'd be kind of hard to even remotely realistically portray him as a threat if they ever do come up against an actual heavily skilled enemy commander.

There are plenty of issues with this work, both inherent to the LN itself and added in the anime, but the number of things people who watched only the first episode then claimed they "clearly" knew what was coming was hilariously stupid..

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

Lord Koth posted:

I'm also somewhat amused that people thought he should have trouble in this fight. It is literally a mediocre captain trying to bully some cadets in what he considers a practice exercise with a foregone conclusion. By the time he realized the other side was treating it as an actual battle, he was far out of position and off-balance -and it's not like his troops themselves were particularly better. If Ikta had serious difficulty with this fight after those sorts of advantages, it'd be kind of hard to even remotely realistically portray him as a threat if they ever do come up against an actual heavily skilled enemy commander.

There are plenty of issues with this work, both inherent to the LN itself and added in the anime, but the number of things people who watched only the first episode then claimed they "clearly" knew what was coming was hilariously stupid..

it'd be cool if he got to fight someone who wasn't a mediocre captain, was what i was saying.

Lord Koth posted:

There are plenty of issues with this work, both inherent to the LN itself and added in the anime, but the number of things people who watched only the first episode then claimed they "clearly" knew what was coming was hilariously stupid..

who said anything like this??????

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

are you talking about people on reddit or something? i don't get it

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

ViggyNash posted:

Why should you watch it?
Because it's not a moe fantasy adventure.

You mean shouldn't, right?

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010


lmao

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Namtab posted:

You mean shouldn't, right?

Well, there's plenty of that out there already, so if that's all you want then you don't have to be here.

If this is what you want, then be here.

Or don't and watch it on your own.

Or don't watch anime.

There's lots of possibilities.

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.

ninjewtsu posted:

i hope that one day ikta gets matched up against an enemy general who isn't called/acts like an incompetent moron every other scene.
It's based off a light novel and the description smacks of wish fulfillment so I kinda doubt it, but I suppose anything's possible.

Lestaki
Nov 6, 2009
The show's pretty good for what it is. It's certainly a power fantasy about the lazy genius protagonist who practices the forbidden art of the scientific method and disrespects authority but it's kept within reasonable limits. Every member of the team has a special skill (except Matthew apparently???) and the protagonist does get restrained and rebuked by Yatori whenever he pops off on an authority figure. I was glad he was smart enough not to disrespect the Emperor. If he'd done that and got away with it, I'd have dropped the show right there. The dialogue is pretty sharp and Ikta and Yatori have a fun dynamic.

The tactics deployed are relatively sensible by anime standards. It was pretty cool to see them discuss defeat in detail, the imperfect nature of information on the battlefield, and so on. I also really enjoyed Yatori's massacre in the latest episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMRkh3jy8-w

There's a certain weight to the act of killing thus far in the show, even in the aftermath of Yatori murdering everything in the most anime way possible. Hopefully they'll be able to sustain that going forwards.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

ninjewtsu posted:

it'd be cool if he got to fight someone who wasn't a mediocre captain, was what i was saying.


who said anything like this??????

It's still basic training, and a war seems to be imminent (or already started). All the known officers with significant strategic/tactical skills have almost certainly been pulled to active fronts, or at the very least to an equivalent to the US War College. Any such major challenge would have only occurred if they were introducing some sort of rival on the same side. Hell, if you want to get into fine details, Yatori herself is almost as good as him at tactics, as well as all the topics she beats him in. It's just that she wasn't in charge, and the one who was basically ignored all advice he was being given.

As for the other point, mainly just skimming the various major anime blog and review sites on the net. Don't think I've ever touched reddit. Just stuff like you can clearly see the harem forming (What harem? The girl he seems to have had a perfectly platonic relationship with forever, with no signs of it changing? Or the girl he seems to be mildly creeping out?) or how his womanizing is clearly supposed to come off as funny and a positive trait (...Yeah, not even touching that one).

But yes, ultimately it is something of a power fantasy - just one well within mostly believable levels for me. And yes, there are truly dangerous tacticians on other sides, both within the Empire and out, it just takes a while to get to there. And the author does seem to follow a natural progression for new cadets, so the military is hardly going to send completely fresh officers onto a perceived truly dangerous front. Whether we get there, given just how slow the show is going (5 episodes for the first book, likely the same for the second), is up for debate.


edit: I get what you're saying, but in some ways him getting challenged at this specific point would have come off as even more unbelievable - just added for that exact reason.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jul 31, 2016

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Bad Seafood posted:

It's based off a light novel and the description smacks of wish fulfillment so I kinda doubt it, but I suppose anything's possible.

I remember someone in the general thread saying that this has so far been different from the LN's in a positive way.

L-O-N
Sep 13, 2004

Pillbug
Read a few chapters of the manga. It was much more lighthearted. I like the more serious tone of the anime so far.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

This anim isn't bad. I hope that ikta gets better opponents, and that viggynash rehosts the image that is meant to be in the op

Belgian Waffle
Jul 31, 2006
I subscribe completely to Ikta's philosophy of Scientific Laziness for the Betterment of Humanity.

I'm also down with him nonchalantly stomping every opponent into the ground and then explaining how he did it in detail.

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

Lord Koth posted:

It's still basic training, and a war seems to be imminent (or already started). All the known officers with significant strategic/tactical skills have almost certainly been pulled to active fronts, or at the very least to an equivalent to the US War College. Any such major challenge would have only occurred if they were introducing some sort of rival on the same side. Hell, if you want to get into fine details, Yatori herself is almost as good as him at tactics, as well as all the topics she beats him in. It's just that she wasn't in charge, and the one who was basically ignored all advice he was being given.

ah yes, ikta and redhair, two first years, are the only competent students in this military training academy, and there's no reason to think that someone with multiple more years of training could even start to put up a fight

i mean it's fine that ikta's better than the other students, but it'd be much more interesting to watch his battles if the enemy could, say, come up with a clever counter-response to his clever plans. an actual back and forth in the conflict would be pretty great, and "ikta faces an upperclassman in the training academy" would've been a good way to establish that worthwile people besides the main characters exist, even if the main characters are better. instead, ikta just stomps the guy effortlessly, which is kind of amusing the first time but it'll be dumb if that's every fight for the rest of the season.

Lord Koth posted:

edit: I get what you're saying, but in some ways him getting challenged at this specific point would have come off as even more unbelievable - just added for that exact reason.

how would this make it less believable?

Lestaki
Nov 6, 2009
Sometimes nobles who get into military academies are driven, focused, and talented individuals ie Yattori. Sometimes they're impulsive idiots there on nepotism who get by because their younger brother is clearly more competent than they are. Ikta picking up an easy win here without being able to wipe out the enemy force entirely is not unreasonable.

What will be unreasonable is if every battle going forwards is that easy. Truthfully they probably will be but I'll complain about it then, not before.

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

it's not unreasonable but it doesn't make for a terribly interesting clash of wits either

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

It's like this is a power fantasy or something.


Op image status: still hotlinked

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya

Namtab posted:

Op image status: still hotlinked

I can see it just fine and the post isn't saying it was edited.

Tamba
Apr 5, 2010

Paracelsus posted:

I can see it just fine and the post isn't saying it was edited.

You can see it if you have the image in your cache, because you visited the crunchyroll page it comes from. Everyone who hasn't can't see it.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
I changed the OP image, is it still broke for the people it was broke for?

Amstrad
Apr 4, 2007

To destroy evil you must become an even greater evil.

ViggyNash posted:

I changed the OP image, is it still broke for the people it was broke for?

Here, I rehosted it for you. It took me less than a minute.

Belgian Waffle
Jul 31, 2006
I like this scientist who would denounce god over ice cream.

drilldo squirt
Aug 18, 2006

a beautiful, soft meat sack
Clapping Larry
Just finished the episode and I'm p sure those two scientist got eaten. Though the wording was kinda ambiguous.

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya

Belgian Waffle posted:

I like this scientist who would denounce god over ice cream.

I didn't know you could make ice cream in a fedora.

Major Ricardo
Jan 30, 2001

drilldo squirt posted:

Just finished the episode and I'm p sure those two scientist got eaten. Though the wording was kinda ambiguous.

I took it that they became wolf food as well

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

That's some... interesting screenwriting going on. Take four episodes to adapt the first book, randomly adapt some character development from book 7 as the fifth episode, then move right into the second book with this episode while skipping possibly THE MOST IMPORTANT SCENE IN THE ENTIRE FIRST BOOK - the one that sets the stage for everything that happens after that. I'm actually somewhat suspicious of the director now. I cannot see them not eventually showing that scene, simply because it IS the most important one, but by shifting it somewhere else and tossing episode 5 in, they've completely screwed up objective character importance.

Major spoilers mixed in: Ultimately, Chamille is the main heroine, not Yatorishino. Yatorishino served as a decoy main heroine until the seventh book, having a significant amount of facetime, but if one actually looked at the overall plotline as a whole one might have noticed an interesting trend. Specifically, every other character, whether it be Ikta, Chamille, Haro, Matthew, Torway, or even some side characters, all received significant amounts of character development over time, but Yatori never did - she was an almost completely static character until the seventh book. She does indeed receive character development, a significant amount at that, as well as background between her and Ikta in the seventh - but in terms of her plot importance it doesn't matter, because by the end of the book she is DEAD. And dead in the "took multiple bullets to center mass and bled to death," so there's no "never saw the body" possibility.

There apparently was a decent amount of outcry over the end of the seventh - though whether it was legitimately a decent amount or just a vocal minority I've no clue(I suspect the minority) - as the author had done something they hadn't expected. They felt that "clearly" the prominent redhead was the main heroine and love interest, and exploded when book 7 happened and the author did stuff they didn't expect. This is what I'm actually suspicious of - that the director may have been one of those butthurt readers or, more cynically (and probably more likely), that the producer wanted it rewritten to theoretically get extra sales since they're almost assuredly not going to get any further seasons - and thus never get to a point in the main plot where changing this stuff around will bite them.

dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

Lord Koth posted:

That's some... interesting screenwriting going on.

I dunno, I haven't read the books but dismissing complaints about that as just being "butthurt", especially accusing the director of that seems kinda weird. Yatori owns bones and imo absolutely should be the main heroine (not a love interest, tho) so I'm honestly not complaining about this. Having opposite-gendered main characters that have a deep, platonic bond without any romance isn't the most common thing in anime, and the relationship between Yatori and Ikta is honestly most of what kept my interesting in the show up to this point.

Even discounting all that, choosing to elaborate early on a prominent character's backstory that otherwise wouldn't be touched on doesn't seem like a bad decision at all.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

dmboogie posted:

I dunno, I haven't read the books but dismissing complaints about that as just being "butthurt", especially accusing the director of that seems kinda weird. Yatori owns bones and imo absolutely should be the main heroine (not a love interest, tho) so I'm honestly not complaining about this. Having opposite-gendered main characters that have a deep, platonic bond without any romance isn't the most common thing in anime, and the relationship between Yatori and Ikta is honestly most of what kept my interesting in the show up to this point.

Even discounting all that, choosing to elaborate early on a prominent character's backstory that otherwise wouldn't be touched on doesn't seem like a bad decision at all.


In all seriousness, after slightly more reflection I doubt the director as well and heavily suspect it's more towards that second reason. As for everything else, you have a point that developing them isn't necessarily a bad thing, one I tend to agree with, which is why I wasn't actually bringing this up after the last episode. I was waiting for this one to see if they actually showed the crucial scene - and they didn't, either removing it entirely or pushing it back to some undefined point in the future. That was what set off the alarm, as it's not really one that should have been pushed to the end of the series - which is presumably what they're doing with it now.

One other thing, and that is that presentation of the story in an adaptation can radically affect the audience who starts with the adaptation rather than the original work. Like, you mentioned that the only thing keeping your interest is the relationship between Yatori and Ikta, but I can tell you they've been cutting scenes and both emphasizing and de-emphasizing traits of certain characters. Which can radically change how characters or events come off.

Lestaki
Nov 6, 2009

Lord Koth posted:

That's some... interesting screenwriting going on.

If the show is 13 episodes long it will never get to book seven so it doesn't matter. It probably will be. If it's 26 episodes long they might just be able to get there but they're not going to get any further anyway.

Ranting about 'objective character importance' makes you sound like a 'butthurt reader', whatever that even means. It's okay for people to have opinions about fiction.


Putting all of that tedious and spoiler-filled guff aside, this was another fun episode. I just wish our protagonist hadn't stumbled on Big Plot Relevant Thing by complete accident at the end.

krnhotwings
May 7, 2009
Grimey Drawer

Lestaki posted:

If the show is 13 episodes long it will never get to book seven so it doesn't matter.
I just read what little wikia spoilers were available, and I think it's gonna happen. Remember that short scene where Ikta returned to Yatori after he and his mother had gone missing? I'm guessing they're saving the other half the story for vol 7 adaptation..

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

After reading all that I hope the director is a "butthurt reader" just to spite you.

Fellis
Feb 14, 2012

Kid, don't threaten me. There are worse things than death, and uh, I can do all of them.
Is it worth reading the LN or should I just watch this. Really like this show so far even if it is just blatant power fantasy, it's been entertaining instead of eye-rolling because the characters are decent and the setting is interesting.

I like how all the little spirits are just :stare: all the time.

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
im just happy that they gave the genius lazy-badass self-insert main character a proper foil

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Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
they changed things around vs the manga, and the princess finally gave the seminal speech that sold me on the series

in a way, this series was a way for the author to reexamine and take agency for the events of world war 2. which differs from the almost mindless nationalism of garbage like gate

though who knows if another cour gets added. its not like the themes were unexpected, they were tabled quite early

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