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[Neonivek]

Probably to tell the watcher that these people are not going to show up later or be relevant to the story, so you don't need to remember them (Or to imply they are dead/emotionally vacant from the character's life.)

Except when they do.

I often think it is just leftover from a Manga where the artist just doesn't want to have the burden to create another character so he just fiats and makes their picture hazy. So that if they chose they can add in what they actually look like later.

[Orange Wizard]

Pretty sure it's just cutting out unnecessary stuff from the art budget. Background characters are often faceless/silhouettes/whatever, especially when there's a lot of them, solely because they're irrelevant and no-one really cares that much. Although, as the budget gets bigger, you start to see more irrelevant background characters with faces (and detail in general) because it looks better.

[JoshuaFH]

There's also the circumstance in Jojo where Dio, the big bad, was depicted as being faceless so often that the 90's era fighting game had both Dio and Faceless Dio as their own separate characters.

[Andres]

I decided to continue watching Magical Index so I would know what happens in Index 2. Deep Blood was meh in some places and decent in others, Accelerator was crap because of that HUGE speech that protagonist gave to Railgun, but Angel Fall was good. No stupid, long-winded speeches or introduction of a new romantic interest - just story. It also does a bit of worldbuilding with the various branches of Christianity. Yeah, one thing I like about Index is actually the technical stuff. That to me is surprising. I don't remember ever liking technobabbble (or its equivalents) before.

[ToonyMan]

Anyone have any recommendations for similar games? I've heard Phoenix Wright may be a good place to head next?

Ace Attorney is great. There's like five main games and three spin-offs. The sixth main game just came out in Japan last month.

Super Dangan Ronpa 2 is also great, it improves so much on the first. I believe DR3 is being made? A spin-off also came out recently.

Another good handheld series: Zero Escape. The third game is confirmed.

Handheld adventure games are the best.

There's also the circumstance in Jojo where Dio, the big bad, was depicted as being faceless so often that the 90's era fighting game had both Dio and Faceless Dio as their own separate characters.

Haha

[JoshuaFH]

Anyone have any recommendations for similar games? I've heard Phoenix Wright may be a good place to head next?

Ace Attorney is great. There's like five main games and three spin-offs. The sixth main game just came out in Japan last month.

I think you mean Six main games, Ace Attorney VS Prof Layton is 100% canon I don't care what anyone says.

[ToonyMan]

Anyone have any recommendations for similar games? I've heard Phoenix Wright may be a good place to head next?

Ace Attorney is great. There's like five main games and three spin-offs. The sixth main game just came out in Japan last month.

I think you mean Six main games, Ace Attorney VS Prof Layton is 100% canon I don't care what anyone says.

I liked the Investigation games more than some of the main games. And those are actually canon.

[JoshuaFH]

Anyone have any recommendations for similar games? I've heard Phoenix Wright may be a good place to head next?

Ace Attorney is great. There's like five main games and three spin-offs. The sixth main game just came out in Japan last month.

I think you mean Six main games, Ace Attorney VS Prof Layton is 100% canon I don't care what anyone says.

I liked the Investigation games more than some of the main games. And those are actually canon.

I think you're forgetting the best spinoff period.

[UXLZ]

Super Dangan Ronpa 2

I just can't see that actually working. DR always seemed like a 1-off game to me due to its concept and story, but if they're managing to make new games that don't just retread the same ground with different characters, it sounds good.

[ToonyMan]

I'm pretty sure Dangan Ronpa 3 will just be Metal Gear Solid.

[UXLZ]

Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're suggesting.

[JoshuaFH]

He's saying you're gonna eat alot of snakes.

[i2amroy]

Accelerator was crap because of that HUGE speech that protagonist gave to Railgun

Personally I think that arc carries a lot more weight and works a lot better from the Railgun side of the things in the sister anime, given that it's Mikoto focused and all. A lot more of the emotional moments just work better seeing it from her side of things, knowing all of the things that she knows and seeing what is running through her head during the whole thing. And as for Accelerator himself, he honestly gets enough character development over the next couple of arcs following the Angel Fall one that he's one of my better liked characters in the series at this point.

So I just went back and watched season 1 of Sword Art Online, and I've got to say that it really seemed like a lot of the things that I disliked in the second arc really weren't quite as prevalent as I remembered them to be. I mean it's still rather rushed story-wise, but elsewise:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The "Asuna loses all competence and becomes a maiden in a tower" thing that I remembered fairly strongly really seemed to not be present near as much as I thought it was. Looking at it now I can only think of once or twice where it slipped close to the "competent character is kept locked up because she is a woman" instead of "competent character, who just happens to be a woman, is kept locked up". I mean not only does she successfully escape her cage, but after her attempt to hit the logout button is foiled she tries again with her foot, and even when that fails she still manages to grab the entrance key and hand it off, ultimately allowing her own rescue. That's certainly more than Frodo managed to accomplish when he was captured by the Orcs!

And as for the "fake sister"/cousin love angle, it was definitely still present, but I found it rather tolerable this time around due to a couple of things:
1) It's definitely one-sided. When Kirito actually hears about it, the one time we get to see him react it's given almost word for word the "I just don't know what to think about this", rejection-esque response, and even in the little tease in the epilogue and whatnot I didn't pick up anything more than platonic from his side.
2) Suguha tears herself up about it and tries to deny it. She goes so far that, in fact, had it not turned out that her "replacement" she was looking at happened to be Kirito as well, it probably would never have come to the light. She was totally committed to keeping it under wraps.
3) The occasionally present ReconxSuguha vibes that showed up now and then kinda blunted the blow, I guess I'm just a sucker for an underdog.
I mean it gets teased enough that if it's a hot-button issue for you you might want to avoid it, but from a second run-through standpoint it definitely felt much more like a Tropes are Tools instance of them having fun teasing ship bait for the shippers than anything that was ever intended to seriously evolve.

On the other hand a lot of the things that got me the first time around were just as good (well, bad) as the first time around. The nigh-rape scenes still held just as much of an emotional slime as before, and the seriously-charged moving moments held just as much momentum as before.

Of course the second arc still isn't as good as the first one simply due to pacing problems (~8 episodes vs 16), but it didn't seem near as bad on this run-through than the first time I watched it, which makes me feel like at least a chunk of the anger floating around about it when it first aired was more of the "they changed it from the books!"-type variety than actual anger at it as a standalone.

[Frumple]

To be fair to SAO, the incest thing is much more prevalent in the supplementary materials (games, etc., where there's paths available where K&S just straight up have sex), than the mainline stuff. Same's mostly true with the harem bits, iirc. Definitely more muted in the actual TV/manga stuff.

[Orange Wizard]

I thought the first arc of SAO was too short, myself. There was a heap of stuff that was glossed over in the weird pacing, along with all that wasted potential.
Would have been nice to see more done with people's mental states in (and after) the whole death game thing, rather than completely ignoring the fact that people would probably go bonkers en masse.

I did like the Death Gun arc in S2, though that was more to do with blue hair and trap!Kirito than any real merit on the story's part.