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I said I was going to drop this after the third episode. Then I decided if he just starts fighting stuff it might be okay so I'll watch the fourth episode. I made a mistake. The fourth episode was far worse than the first three episodes and holy poo poo does this author have problems. Especially after reading the LN spoilers, this is a love letter for elitism and imperial Japan (and also incest). It can't be anti-elitist because the main character explicitly supports elitism. The horrible problem isn't that people are divided into Haves and Have-Nots, it's that the main character is classified as a Has-Not because he Has but in a different way. It's not mad that the Have-Nots are considered inferior, it's mad that the MC is included with the inherently inferior commoners instead of being recognized as the special snowflake he is. I'm sure it exists, but I haven't read or watched anything so blindingly nationalist outside of wartime propaganda. WickedHate posted:No, the Course 1/Course 2 segregation is definitely considered bullshit by the narrative. I'm not even sure. It feels like the author says the segregation is bad, but actually supports it and the real problem is the MC being assigned to Course 2 with the inferior humans. Also the story is downright inconsistent. This is supposed to be the high school for the magical elite, and the Course 1 students are just the best of the best and the Course 2 students are the second best. But then Course 2 students aren't even given magical instruction, and now some of them can't do magic in general? At the magical high school for the top students in the country? It's like the entire country is pooling resources into the top 1% while making the second percent watch. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 02:20 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 02:11
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Serious Frolicking posted:This show is like a poo poo onion. Peel off one layer, and there is always another layer of feces. Well you see when a wisp of cloth covers something it's technically covered, but when it's not covered at all then it's an attempt at seduction by an evil woman and only our protagonist's 
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May 1, 2014 02:49
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If the author wanted an easy motivation for an anti-magic function they should have just made it into a cult, even if it's still funded by the Koreans and Chinese. That way the ideology doesn't have to stand up to a particularly weak breeze. A cult would be much more useful and believable from a narrative perspective, too, since it'd justify the random acts of violence. But no, this is definitely the author going on a soapbox for his extremely naive beliefs with a hilariously exaggerated strawman that isn't even allowed to speak for itself. There are other things in the LNs that I've read in spoilers like the USA selling Hawaii to Japan (in this universe WWII and Pearl Harbour did happen) and being fought off by Japan after regretting the sale. That's so shockingly impossible that it only shows the author's incredibly petty, childlike ideas about Japan (mostly how they're inherently better than everyone else) and the world in general. Full disclosure, I haven't watched the fifth episode. I almost want to watch it just so I can stoke my anger properly but I don't think it's worth it. On the other hand I'm still following this thread.
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May 6, 2014 16:16
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The whole excuse that there aren't enough teachers doesn't hold up. This is supposed to be the elite magic school training the best of the best. This should be where the magic teachers are prioritized, since even course 2 students here are supposed to be more promising than the best students at other schools. With how supposedly critical it is for the best students to be prepared for military or supporting careers it defies belief that they'd allow the second tier (course 2) of students in the country to go without instruction while some students from the third tier (not admitted to the best high school) and lower still have teachers. It's frankly unbelievable that the entire country of Japan only has enough magic teachers for half of one high school. If this were random generic anime magic high school I might buy it, but this is explicitly the best and most important high school in the entire nation and its students are the future elites of society. It should be the one unaffected by any supposed teacher shortages. With how much this society supposedly controls and cultivates its It's a very poorly constructed setting that exposes itself as childish wish-fulfillment for the main character. It just straight up does not make sense.
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May 6, 2014 17:24
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WickedHate posted:There are multiple magio high schools, the one in the show is the First. Doesn't change the fact that this is the most elite and important one with the best students. So teachers should be prioritized to this one over the others. It doesn't make sense to give third tier students (say, the "blooms" of the second magic high school) better treatment than the second tier students (course 2 students at the first high school) when resources are so scarce. The setting as written doesn't make sense. It would have been a much more coherent setting if blanche were a cult and were popular amongst families with weak magic. Add enough variability to magic inheritance that weak families can occasionally produce children with much greater magic potential and then you have students with high magic potential, who are discriminated against for their family backgrounds, and came from a family who buys into the cult. All the motivation you need, without requiring to that the bad guys don't believe in their own ideology or that the spokespeople for it be morons. Of course, making it so "inferior" families can sometimes produce "superior" children would go against the show's love for elitism, so we can't have that. Serious Frolicking posted:I'm pretty sure that's Gunbuster backstory. It certainly isn't from this series. Well poo poo, I guess it is. I must have misread someone's post somewhere and gotten confused. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 21:11 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 18:41
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I'm sure there are worse anime out there - I'm not exactly going to go looking for them - but of the anime I've watched this is certainly in my top 2 or 3 worst shows. I knew this was going to be a stupid gary stu story going into it, but I didn't know it was going to be this lifeless about it. I wanted a dumb power fantasy and, while that does describe this show, it's just too mean-spirited, dull, and stupid about it, along with all the other problems we've been laying out in this thread. I honestly lack good things to say about this except maybe that it looks pretty. I can't recommend it to anyone, except maybe as something they have to see for themselves because otherwise they won't believe me.
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May 6, 2014 19:28
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:"Gate - thus fought the JSDF" is terrible and is the japanese light novel/manga equivalent of the patriot fiction books that they post on TFR but goddamn if it wouldn't be a better/more entertaining show than this piece of poo poo. Gate is what this show could be if it had good parts to offset the crap. Both are really right-wing nationalist swill, but at least Gate is entertaining when it's not droning on about how Japan is morally superior to everyone else, or being racist. In Gate's case I can enjoy the work as a whole but there aren't enough enjoyable parts in Mahouka for me to do that. Maybe if it switched to a primarily action anime I could ignore the author soapboxing when he did, but not as it is right now.
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May 8, 2014 19:59
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WickedHate posted:one of my favorite recent anime Please stop. I realize that when people argue they tend to take progressively more extreme opinions but this has gone too far. As much as enjoyment is largely subjective there are still good and bad shows. This is an extreme example of the latter. This isn't a show with a few flaws, this is a show with a few positive points in a sea of poo poo. You can enjoy bad shows but to argue that it's a matter of taste is to be so far in denial about the show that most people want to believe you're just trolling.
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May 20, 2014 07:19
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I know, which is why I want to believe but can't convince myself. I liked a lot of bad stuff when I was in my early teens but I want to believe if I had the bad points clearly spelled out for me that I would have at least realized they were bad things. To be in such stark denial after this entire thread astounds me. Phobophilia posted:i recently rewatched oreshura several months ago someone kill me There's a show I should have dropped instead of finishing. At least I learned to drop bad shows in time for Mahouka.
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May 20, 2014 07:39
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WickedHate posted:Most people hate it because of political views I don't see. It's not denial, it really is just "Okay, I don't interpret it that way". Most people hate it because it's a bad show, being disgustingly nationalist is only part of it. Even if you willfully ignore the disturbing nationalism, it doesn't change the fact that everything else about it is crap too, from the characters to the plot. Gate is an example where an otherwise pretty good show is marred by author shoving his political views down your throat. I enjoy Gate as a whole because I think it's pretty good when it's not trying to convince me that Japan is morally superior to every major power in the world. This show does not have that going for it. The main character is a boring, invincible, flawless Gary Stu and every other character is a cardboard cutout that exists to confirm how great the MC is. All the women (except a few select few who realize the MC's dick is too good for them*) exist to verbally fellate him, not that they want to keep it verbal either - especially his sister. I have seen lovely generic harem shows that treat the girls with more respect. Meanwhile the male characters fair little better with the probably most fleshed-out one so far physically attacking a woman with the intent to cause serious harm because her sword had been corrupted - even ignoring the nationalist bent he puts on that corruption, it's stupid as hell. You have an entire thread of reasons why this show is bad. You've fixated on a major one, the nationalism, then made yourself completely blind to it, and now you're claiming the show otherwise has no flaws.
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May 20, 2014 20:27
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WickedHate posted:And I do like the characters. You have terrible taste. I'm sorry. Might I recommend Guilty Crown for when you're finished watching this? I think it's right up your alley. Go read the OP again. It's not tongue-in-cheek or hyperbole, and he isn't just poking fun at the show. Everyone in this thread except you and maybe one other person is in agreement on that. WickedHate posted:Most people hate it because of political views I don't see. It's not denial, it really is just "Okay, I don't interpret it that way". WickedHate posted:A story wherin another country's government happens to be the villain. If 15 pages of people telling you it's bad and explaining why it's bad can't convince you of anything not much else stands a chance. But desperately forcing words into other people's mouths, willfully being ignorant of things ("I don't know what nationalism is, or why it can be a bad thing."), and constructing such obvious straw men so that you can easily tear them down is just sad. Your response to every piece of criticism thrown at the show has been "no it's not" or "I just don't see it that way." You're even downplaying the obsession with incest by calling it an "unhealthy dependence." I'm not even sure if you've actually fired back with any reasons why the show is, supposedly, good. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I had trouble thinking of any good points for the series. Aesthetically it looks nice, I guess, but then crap like the impracticality of the girls' uniforms ruins it. Frankly the only point I can concede is that nationalism isn't necessarily a terrible thing. We're talking about excessive nationalism or chauvinism, which is what this show has in spades. But that's splitting hairs and, again, for you to miss that you'd have to be willfully misinterpreting everyone's posts to make it easier for you to deny them.
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May 20, 2014 21:29
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WickedHate posted:I know what nationalism is and how it can be bad, and I'm not downplaying the incest, more then her just being in love with him she seems like she can't do anything without him. Except you have shown you don't know what it is and you can't recognize it when it slaps you in the face. Miyuki isn't a proper character, she is a wish-fulfillment tool created by the author for lonely shut-ins who don't actually have siblings. WickedHate posted:I like the show for it's animation, action, and the characters themselves, who I think are pretty cool, except for Takeaki, who's flip around is weird. The animation is standard and unremarkable for any show with a respectable budget in 2014. The action would be a decent point except there's actually so little of it; if there were a lot more, say if the show were just Tatsuya beating up people, it would fill a niche as a juvenile power fantasy and I might have stuck with it. It wouldn't be a great show but it could be entertaining in its own way. The characters are garbage and there's no salvaging them. At this point I'm going to drop all pretext - if you think these are good characters you have terrible taste and you are just plain wrong. You should go into the recommendation thread and pick out a few really good anime and watch them or do the same thing in TBB or TVIV. I remember my early teens, where I watched and read crap and liked it because I'd never seen anything better; I can't honestly say thirteen year old me would have taken it any better than you have but my thirteen year old self was thirteen and stupid. WickedHate posted:I don't think the show is necessarily chauvinistic, because if Tatsuya and Miyuki switched roles people would fawn over her just the same, but it's definitely mostly girls laying praise on Tatsuya and that can't be denied, so there might be a point there. Perhaps you should look up what chauvinism actually is, it has nothing to do with men or women. It's often used in the context of male chauvinism but, again, from the context of how I used it it was painfully obvious I wasn't referring to that. Again you are willfully misinterpreting what people are typing to serve your own ends. On the other hand in the case of male chauvinism this show definitely deserves more than "so there might be a point there" but it's already been covered.
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May 20, 2014 23:13
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WickedHate posted:Alright, then. I think they are interesting, but others don't, and I get that. A lot of other anime I like is beloved and would be recommended, so I don't need a crash course in "good shows everyone likes". There's nothing interesting about a bunch of cardboard cutouts eternally singing praises to their god, who himself is one of the worst of the lot. I could pick up whatever generic harem anime are airing this season and the characters would be better, in the sense that they would be varied and have token hobbies or quirks to differentiate each other for the purpose of appealing to different fetishes. There would be a little sister type and an older sister type, neither would actually be blood related, some tsundere, a childhood friend or two, and a few other archetypes, probably with some overlap. That's already a more interesting cast than this has; hell the generic MC would also show more character even if that characterization is a simple pick from the stock dumb, spineless, or perverted harem MCs. You have terrible taste, but if you can recognize that instead of claiming it's a good show that just doesn't appeal to
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May 20, 2014 23:48
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WickedHate posted:Because it's a terrible analogy and a terrible comparison. There are real life tensions between China and Japan. As another poster pointed out, among countries that could threaten Japan, China is clearly the most fit for the role. Yes it is a terrible comparison - but only because Germany doesn't deny the Holocaust and has taken steps to make sure it's never forgotten. On the other hand this really doesn't help portray Mahouka in a better light.
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Jun 4, 2014 03:01
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WickedHate posted:Nope, though pretty much all the other anime I'm into is well liked, except for maybe Kyokai no Kanata. I guess Mahouka is too though, outside of this subforum. Funny, Mahouka is one of the few anime that's been panned everywhere I've seen it discussed, not just here. Even /a/, which is usually tolerant of incest garbage, seems to lack anything good to say about it. There's even a good parody involving Tatsuya explaining how money works to a cashier kicking around. I should probably go back and look for it, I think it deserves to be posted here. Ytlaya posted:Part of the reason why the response in this thread is both universally negative and interested enough to sustain a thread this long is that most of us remember liking horrendous anime when we were younger, but realize that even then we wouldn't have liked this. I feel like I would have watched this when I was ten or eleven because all the really repulsive traits (incest, nationalism, lack of any tension) would have gone over my head and it would seem like a "smart" and "adult" show. As a dumb kid even the false sense of something being "mature" would have been pretty overpowering - I mean they talk so much, it must be a show for adults, not children, and I'm not a child anymore. That being said, as far as faint praise goes, "my ten year old self was really dumb and might have watched this" is pretty damning. Also, when you claim this show has good or interesting characters I can only ask you to please be less obvious in your trolling. fake edit: In the time it took me to write this post you jumped off the deep end. You sound like how I was when, as a young teen, I "discovered" anime for the first time and everything I watched was amazing, even if it was poo poo. Anything can seem good when you have nothing to compare it to. I have my problems with Evangelion but comparing the nuanced characters in eva to the cardboard cutouts in Mahouka is a complete farce.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:33
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WickedHate posted:You can make Evangelion sound bad too if you reduce characters to superficial ideas like that. It's like if I said Rei was flat and uninteresting despite the deep and complex issues surrounding her and why she doesn't express emotion. Same with Tatsuya. The difference is if you did it with Rei you would, as you said, be doing it despite the issues surrounding her. I can do it to any of the characters in Mahouka without having to unfairly dumb them down or ignore any issues. If I were given a skeleton of Mahouka without Miyuki and asked to "write her back in" without any description more than "obsessed with her brother," the result - after following common anime cliches - would be relatively similar to Mahouka. Miyuki reads like someone went down a checklist of imouto-fetish cliches. If you did the same thing with Shinji, Rei, or Asuka after boiling them down to one sentence (like "is a wimp" for Shinji or "passive and uninteresting" for Rei) you'd end up with something wildly different in tone. WickedHate posted:There's plenty of anime I don't like. There's at least one too few.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:46
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WickedHate posted:I'm actually despairing over this show being so liked and accepted in Japan right now(going by more polls). Is it too much to hope for that possibly most viewers haven't read the LN and don't know how amoral Tatsuya is? I find it hard to believe that one excerpt of your LORD AND SAVIOUR TATSUYA-NII-SAMA being a not-nice person is the straw the broke the camel's back. It's not like this was a good show before being tarnished by a few moments of amorality, it's garbage through and through and this is just one more thing. WickedHate posted:What's wrong with Miyuki? She talks too much about her brother and is too dependent on him but otherwise she's not so bad. Outside of Tatsuya I'd say Miyumi and Erika are, for the "You are a dick, if only all men were like that" thing. You know those character's who only exist in a show as someone's parents or something? Like they're one-dimensional, minor, often don't even have names, whatever, and they only exist because they have some form of relationship with a main character? Miyuki is that. She's what happens when you take a character with only one dimension, who only exists as "part" of another character, and make her a main character. Now make creepy incestuous love for her brother her one and only defining characteristic. She's barely a character in the first place and what is there is abhorrent. Not that any of the other characters are good, but when you've got one dimensional characters and you make their one dimension into incest fetish material you get something even worse.
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Jun 16, 2014 21:29
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WickedHate posted:This was the only place I'd seen it getting bashed all that much, also. I don't know what hugboxes you frequent but it's been panned everywhere, not just here.
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Jun 21, 2014 03:56
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WickedHate posted:Killing hordes of Koreans isn't really excused just because there isn't any civilians there. Even if it's justifiable in universe the author is the one creating the situation where helpless foreigners are slaughtered time and time again, military or not. But you were perfectly okay with it for like 27 pages when we were talking about him killing tons of Chinese people?
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Jun 27, 2014 11:45
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WickedHate posted:I hate the show now so there's not really any point in doing this same conversation over and over again. Phobophilia posted:You are a literal child. Not much has changed.
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Jun 27, 2014 21:06
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WickedHate posted:I never said it wasn't before, even when I liked it. If it is or isn't doesn't change what a poorly handled element of the story it is, I'm just theorizing about what the author intended Miyuki's role to be when she was first created. I'm not defending anything. The author intended her role to be exactly what it is. He succeeded at making his otaku pandering character, which is what he set out to do. The only reason that they're not actually loving is that making it 18+ would cut out his prime demographic, dumb teens who don't realize how stupid everything is. I do not understand why you find this hard to understand.
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Jun 28, 2014 23:54
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