Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

I'd feel bad if you really pick up Hidan no Aria, Neonivek. At least watch bad anime that have some unique entertainment value, rather than bland ones. Hidan no Aria is just too bland. There are plenty of more interesting bad anime. Some suggestions:

Symphogear (because singing sci-fi magical girls)
Dog Days (because the dog people vs cat people wars are awesome)
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes the stupidest "detective" themed anime ever. And a villain with super nipples.

Bonus anime I saw recently:
Cuticle Detective Inaba. That was pretty strange.

[Parsely]

Another thing I find being repeated a lot in the manga/animu psychological horror scene is, obviously innocent character is (almost always equally obviously) actually a sicko. And then you see that pycho-ecstasy face:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then they go "eheheh, eheheheh" quietly or they whisper "I love it when [insert chosen sadistic fetish here], don't you [blank]-chan/kun/whatever".

Specifically I have this complaint about Life is Money which, five chapters in, and so far everything's going a very predictable route: 'innocent' character is obviously a sicko, and clueless and innocent main character gets himself trapped in a room with him, everyone's personality is literally worn on their face and pretty much will line up with your predictions before they've even spoken at the start of the contest.

Plus the actual premise is interesting, but very poorly executed IMHO.

Spoiler: Premise, TINY SPOILERS WITHIN (click to show/hide)

So basically there's 10 people and each is worth 5 million yen or some large number. Everyone is wearing a bracelet thing with their number on it that tracks your vitals and if they exceed some unspecified value you get a shot of poison and die. So the object is to go through challenges while controlling your emotions because if you get too excited or scared or depressed you die. When someone dies they get their value split between the remaining contestants. If more than half die the whole payout is forfeit. The main character needs exactly five people to be dead by the end of the contest if he wants to get all the cash he needs to save his sister who is dying from some unnamed terminal condition but this is not his primary motivation because he's too stupid for it to have occurred to him while the rules were being discussed. :v Instead he's just sort of focusing on trying to help the others survive since he has a heart of gold.

So the first challenge: everyone lives in dorms for 4 days that are comfortably furnished and have sources of entertainment and relaxation. The catch is that everyone has to roll a d6 and be deprived of one of their five senses, unless they roll a six which represents 'Spirit' in which case nothing happens (it doesn't make much sense). So out of ten people, two get their noses plugged, one lady is blindfolded, and one guy is gagged. Everyone else rolled Spirit and are totally unimpaired. So.. That's it. One guy can't eat for four days, one lady can't see, and everyone else is fine. Also, they're disqualified if they use violence at all.

I'M ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT. NO REALLY.

Spoiler: MAJOR SPOILERS (click to show/hide)

So straightaway the fat guy dies because he tried to steal all the food for himself for some reason but since no one can use violence everyone called him names until he had a mental breakdown and died..

Then the sicko character who everyone thinks is innocent tricks the protag into letting him into the room where he's talking with the blindfolded lady and starts blasting heavy metal with a boom box he brought with him in order to try and stress them into dying, and when they lock themselves in the bathroom to try and shut out the noise he trashes all their share of the food and then starts messing with the girl's underwear while saying rude things about them aloud in order to try to stress the girl (and they're all visibly being affected by these stupid shenanigans as well)..

Literally the moment they let him inside he revealed he was a serial murderer and was there to try and stress them to death. I really hope this gets better at some point.

[Flying Dice]

I thought Ghost Protocol was pretty good.

Was more in reference to World War Z. S'like if they turned SBY into the first Star Trek movie.

[Neonivek]

I've actually already seen Dog Days...

Which falls under the "Anime with probably one of the most interesting set ups that explores NONE OF IT!" painfully so in fact.

Dog Days is a world where acts of violence are considered so deplorable that kingdoms fight through sports and competition. The main hero being more of a general athlete then anything else. He was summoned to the world to turn the tide of the losing streak the kingdom had.

As soon as I saw that first episode I RAN as fast as I could to watch the rest of the anime... but...

What Dog Days REALLY IS, is a world of wish fulfillment so to speak. Every human who goes there gets to be not only a hero but a great hero but the princess is also a pop star, the child is also a scientist, and a "sexually liberated large breasted chick who constantly gets naked and has a cold domineering personality except when she doesn't" (Aka a Immature Teen's idea of an ideal woman... While the Princess is more of a small girl or teenager's idea of an ideal)

Which honestly has a sort of appeal IF it was something tangible (as in if the other characters noticed) which is why I kept watching waiting for the moment for the characters to realize that this is some sort of fairy tale land that makes your wishes come true... since frankly that has more then one appeal to me, since even I know the appeal of a sort of land of wish fulfillment as well dealing with the implications of such is also interesting. Heck one of the characters was very easy to relate to because she was exactly how I'd feel in this situation, that I am a sort of worthless person around amazing people unable to really join the fun and I really sympathized with her. Heck everything was set up so perfectly for this (heck the fact that no one can actually get hurt helps).

But in the end I realized that no, it was an anime created PURELY to hit demographics as hard as they possibly could with things that would be popular. It was like all my hopes were shattered.

It was probably the anime I waited the longest to get REALLY good that never delivered on everything I projected onto it... but I don't regret it, it actually has some good ideas and characterization in there. I'd even kind of call it a good anime but you have to watch it knowing full well that this is meant to be a Teen-child fantasy land. You watch it with your inner child front and center so to speak, like you were watching Fineas and Ferb. What prevents me from saying it is outright good is that the anime is just a big ball of pandering and clichés (Look lets face it... that Princess is Lacus Cline)

[Flying Dice]

Little Witch Academia 2 was funded. 

[Parsely]

Do these shows with laser-targeted demographics actually please anyone at all? I don't understand how something so worthless and awful could appeal to anybody ever.

[Neonivek]

Do these shows with laser-targeted demographics actually please anyone at all? I don't understand how something so worthless and awful could appeal to anybody ever.

Well just ask Monster High or Ever After High

[Reelya]

Do these shows with laser-targeted demographics actually please anyone at all? I don't understand how something so worthless and awful could appeal to anybody ever.

Neonivek didn't outright say it's "worthless and awful". This is Neonivek remember. Most of his complaints are about what it didn't have rather than what it did: comparing it to some non-existent show that theoretically could have been better. You could do that for any show on Earth.

I wouldn't say it has "laser targeted demographics" either. You can't really make that call without watching it. Neonivek said:

I don't regret it, it actually has some good ideas and characterization in there. I'd even kind of call it a good anime but you have to watch it knowing full well that this is meant to be a Teen-child fantasy land. You watch it with your inner child front and center so to speak, like you were watching Fineas and Ferb.

So it's a good show (even according to Neonivek) if you don't take it too seriously. Which I kind of find hard to believe you COULD do after the first episode. It's basically a world of catpeople vs dogpeople wars with padded swords and jumping castles where the "wars" heavily resemble tv shows like Wipeout. It's meant to be silly and childish. That's the appeal.

People from Earth are considered to be superhuman by the residents of this world, no matter how mundane they are. That in itself is really silly, and is in fact an inversion of the normal trope where the "outworlder" (e.g. Superman) is always superior to people from Earth. Complaining that it never gets deeper into analysis of the tropes it contains isn't really a valid complaint. Why derail it's own set up? Trying to tack some analysis level onto a fun show would just make it ... not the same fun show you're watching. Ok, so a show derails and deconstructs it's own concept. Then what? The last two episodes of NGE maybe?

It's targeted at anyone who likes cute stuff, comedy, fantasy and action. Which is a hella big demographic. The best description is to say it's like Zero no Tsukaima, but without the sadomasochistic violence and perverted main character tropes. So I'd say this has more potential for cross-appeal than Familiar of Zero did, enough for this anime to be greenlit for a third season starting in 2015.

[Neonivek]

It isn't exactly that Reelya.

Think of it like Digimon where the digimon you are paired with is essentially your perfect "best friend" who likes you unconditionally and you do too.

People from earth in Dog Days are not "better then normal people" but the narrative always twists it where it happens. Yet nothing "makes this true", it isn't a real force. (It does have the consequence of making everyone else feel... incompetent... Then again most people are sort of playing for fun and likely don't practice or train)

I wouldn't say it has "laser targeted demographics" either.

But I would, it is pretty apt for the series. Everything in it feels designed to be popular at all costs.

Yet at the same time it goes so far it has this child-like innocence about it. The Princess being a Popstar DOES feel like something they added just because people would like it with it being a female power fantasy, but it also feels like something that fits the sort of for lack of a better word dreamland vibe the anime gives off. The land of Dog Days is a child-like place, so even when it is pandering it feels like it fits.

You really do feel like if you jumped into this place that YOU would be special. In the same way that you feel like if you had a Digimon it would be a special friendship that could last the ages. The "You really could be part of this world" aspect to me the driving appeal of Dog Days...

[Reelya]

In Dog Day's it's probably more apt to say that off-worlders are like celebrities due to their rareness and novelty. So you're right they're no better than the locals, but it is understandable that they're given the spotlight. In real life, we have the phenomenon of celebrities, which is quite similar. Celebrities aren't any "better" than normal people but the public obsesses over them in a quite similar fashion to Dog Days reaction to humans. The Dog Days society is heavily media-driven like our own, so that isn't necessarily too unbelievable as a set up.

The princess being a pop singer, that was probably added purely so they could include insert songs as part of the set up. So I would see that as a production decision, rather than "female power fantasy". It works towards the aesthetic they wanted for the show. Nothing inherently wrong or "pandering" with including aesthetics unless they're totally jarring to the setting. We're back to where we were in the Tropes vs Women thread, where everything is "pandering" because it was put in there to appeal to the people watching the show. By that argument there isn't a single non-pandering element in any show.

So what does "laser targeted demographics" even mean then? Targeting a narrow specific demographic or going for blanket appeal to everyone? If the second, i can't see how a "laser" is a good analogy.

[Neonivek]

Basically think of it like them going over a check list of "What kids like" and making sure that their show has all of it.

[Reelya]

Basically think of it like them going over a check list of "What kids like" and making sure that their show has all of it.

And then adding shitloads more stuff to make sure it's entirely not kid-appropriate. Which kind of blows that theory up: let's make the perfect kid's show. then add as much M-rated stuff as possible.

[Neonivek]

Basically think of it like them going over a check list of "What kids like" and making sure that their show has all of it.

And then adding shitloads more stuff to make sure it's entirely not kid-appropriate. Which kind of blows that theory up: let's make the perfect kid's show. then add as much M-rated stuff as possible.

M-rated stuff? You mean boobies?

It isn't going for 4 year olds.

[Reelya]

I mean the near constant exploding clothes and near nudity.

[Neonivek]

I mean the near constant exploding clothes and near nudity.

And are they not allowed to make a check list for two demographics? Kids who have and do not have puberty?