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[i2amroy]

Little late, but figured I'd post this anyways.

You'll see. Oh, you'll see.

I went into it expecting a mediocre action series, a role which it filled admirably. For a time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then comes the mood whiplash and genre shift from nowhere (if you didn't read the LNs). As well as adding a bunch of other shit. Let's make a happy, rage-laced list.

1. Abandon the premise that drove 95% of the drama by removing the death penalty.

2. Add magic bullshit and flight to the otherwise actually-mildly-interesting dynamic of pure melee combat where the dilemma was between using system assist for ease and power with the freeze-frame penalty vs. relying on pure skill.

3. Replace the boring-but-not-terrible philosopher/dev/player BBEG with a pedophile executive cribbing off said BBEG's notes while being as stereotypical as possible.

4. Turn an action girl who was actually able to keep up with the in-house Gary Stu into a fucking plot coupon/imprisoned princess who acts blatantly OOC by just sitting around waiting for her man to save her instead of trying to kick boring-evil-lesser-executive-pedophile-who's-so-boring-I-can't-remember-his-name in the crotch when he does his fucking power-game routines and opens her cage, then booking it.

5. GOD DAMN IT JAPAN DO YOU HAVE TO ADD "THEY'RE NOT REALLY BROTHER AND SISTER, THEY'RE ACTUALLY COUSINS WHO WERE JUST RAISED THAT WAY, SO THEM HOOKING UP IS OKAY" TO EVERYTHING!?

6. Actually those two brothers who were Salamander big-shots were pretty cool.

7. The premise that tens of thousands of munchkin MMO players wouldn't figure out that getting unlimited flight requires cooperation and that it isn't actually an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma about two days after release. That's actually possibly the biggest SoD for me out of all of it, the sheer gall to think that Gary Stu Kirito is the only inveterate exploiter in the entire population of players queued up for fucking VIRTUAL REALITY FULL DIVE MMOs. Hell, same deal for the duel wielding skill. He literally only gets it because he's sooper speshul, and people don't call bullshit because unlike Mahouka the power-trip and harem fantasies are broad enough in their appeal for a lot of folks to lap it up.

8. Or, following the point above, that there would really be that many complete MMO newbs who managed to snag copies of SAO on release. Hardcore types would have seen "Full Dive VRMMORPG, Only 10K copies on release" and preordered that shit to 0 copies remaining within a couple days, and they'd be lined up a week in advance for hard copies. I can buy the Asuna situation, but random little kids? Casual games? Unless there was some sort of raffle-style giveaway, I don't particularly buy the population of SAO being less than ~95% long-term gamers.

9. Yui. HOLY SHIT YUI. That might have actually been an interesting plotline, exploring the nature of AI and seeing how a couple teenaged kids handled the responsibility of raising a child -- especially one with that sort of power over their reality. It's pretty much in line with the rest of SAO: hint at interesting paths of exploration, then drop them in favor of Kirito being effortlessly awesome and accidentally increasing the cluster of girls hovering around him.

To be fair they do mention that the skill was awarded to the player with the fastest reaction time, it's just that that so happens to be the protagonist (because history has proven that stories about the underlings of the actual hero tend to not sell as well as ones about the hero themselves).

The genre switch was also indeed surprising (though it was hinted at in the intro), which I'm not afraid to spoil for anyone who feels like watching it, Sword Art Online turns into a bit of a love story. It's something you should know if you are considering watching it, and you shouldn't expect it to be an action-style story the whole way through.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That said I totally agree with several of the other points, the decision to attempt to cram a whole second book into the last four or so episodes really was not a good one. And it pained me to watch Asuna become a plot coupon (though she did attempt escape and came very close to succeeding, which was at least something).

Also it's rather interesting the way the gaggle of girls is handled. Most harem-esque type things might have a particular girl that the protagonist likes, but only very rarely is that couple actually known about. In Sword Art Online, however, the main couple is both word of god and character driven, as well as "the winner" being known about by all the various characters other characters who would normally be competing. As such I don't actually feel that much of the harem aspect about the show overall.

Edit: Fixed the wrong quote.

[Reelya]

I was only really specifically replying to "Point 8" from FD's list, which you don't make any comment on. This confused me until I realized you were really replying to FD's list as a whole, not my comment.

Point 8 was specifically about

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

an eagerly awaited cutting-edge action-heavy online game with a strict user limit on launch. And apparently almost completely filled with noobs. Not very likely.

[i2amroy]

Ah my bad, I seem to have clicked the wrong quote button before making that post, I'll fix it.

[Nightscar982]

Log Horizon is cool, and I think that the second season or the source material for the anime (VN? Manga?) has explained a bit more of what has happened, but hasn't outright explained it yet.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

So.
Uhhhhhhh, Mushishi.
Watch it, now, like seriously, right now.
Tis so weird, I almost feel like talking like LSP.

[Reelya]

Haha, you managed to pinpoint every possible source material for Log Horizon except for the actual one. Light novels. Apparently the author also wrote Maoyuu Maou Yuusha. What did people think of  the anime for that? Overall I liked it, though I think it got very rushed in the 2nd half.

So.
Uhhhhhhh, Mushishi.
Watch it, now, like seriously, right now.
Tis so weird, I almost feel like talking like LSP.

And Natsume Yuujinchou. And Aria. And Hidamari Sketch. Watch them all right now, along with Mushishi. Quarter screen each.

Natsume Yuujinchou is a great series though it contains one element of unintentional "fridge horror" because of the way the plot is set up (this spoiler is very minor and only deals with the basic setup but skip it if you prefer to go in completely blind):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the MCs grandmother was a psychic who went around binding spirits and sticking their names in a book. The grandson then has to go around and free the spirits, who are apparently in a fuckload of agony because their names got taken away and were bound in her "book of friends". the series always tries to say what a great person the grandmother was. selfish bitch is the way it appears to me. Some fucking "friend" this grandma was, going around selfishly binding spirits who then were forced to wait around suffering for decades for her to come back, which she never did, preferring to move away, get married and have kids rather than remember to free all the "friends" she bound when she was young.

Other than this glaring plot hole (which is integral to story) the the series is really beautiful. Note: i have not finished all the seasons, nor read the manga, so maybe they justify this later.

The manga author also wrote Hotarubi no mori e before this series. The themes are very similar, so recommend the OVA of Hotarubi no mori e and then the series if you liked that.

[Nightscar982]

1/2 thru mushishi now. I like it, but I find it hard to watch alot of it i a row like I can do for other anime.

[Flying Dice]

We all know there are different "types" of making sense. Log Horizon is a fantasy series, so unexplained magic to kick things off is "allowable" fiction. But there's a type of truth you have to have in all good fiction - it's the truth of how people think and act.

So we don't tend to complain "magic couldn't really work" or "dragons don't exist" but we do complain "nobody would ever react like that if this was real".

Oh, I know. Beginning with A Wizard Did It-esque shenanigans is acceptable to set up a plot, and I actually sort of respect LH for not even pretending it was anything else (and, indeed, quickly moving past that to more interesting things). Heh, one of the things I'm actually most reluctant about is how it's quite likely that sooner or later the "WTFBBQHAX How is game world into real world" subplot is going to stumble over a pile of thaumaturgibabble.

[JoshuaFH]

 Hey Neonivek, I can't remember if you've ever watched One Outs before, but I think you'd like it. The main character is basically Akagi.

------------------

I started playing Fire Emblem Awakening again, just on the side while I play Prof Layton Vs Phoenix Wright. This time through though, it's a Casual Lunatic run. So that means that the game is incredibly, punishingly, frustrating, bullshit hard, but it's OK because killed characters come back to life every fight. Except for the MC's, if they die then it's game over.

And HOLY SHIT is this way harder than I had anticipated. I spent more than two solid hours trying to beat the second mission... that is, until I found the winning strategy. You see, the game has morphed from "Fire Emblem Awakening" and into "Frederick carries SUPER HARD -Awakening". I mean, seriously, normally I'd toss the Jeigan character aside so that my actual characters could level up, but no, that's not possible here. Frederick needs to be eating the brunt of every battle, cause enemies will chew up and spit out every other character with ease. Besides Frederick, the next highest level character is Lissa, the healer. No duh, heh?

Finding ways to game the system to actually level up my guys is going to be FUN!

[Leafsnail]

Yeah the first few levels of lunatic are very hard and require you to lean on Frederick very heavily (it was even more annoying when I was playing Hardcore and trying to avoid any deaths) but if you focus all your efforts on leveling the main characters it becomes easy somewhere around the mid-game.  The fact that the "two-man army" approach works so well is kindof a flaw with FE.

e: well really you should probably make it a one couple army

[Darvi]

It's telling that "Frederick Emblem" is an actual fan-term for Lunatic(+).

[Parsely]

Hey Neonivek, I can't remember if you've ever watched One Outs before, but I think you'd like it. The main character is basically Akagi.

@FlyingDice  See, Akagi is the perfect example of a protag with talent who knows he has talent and takes advantage of it super hard. Next to Legendary Gambler Tetsuya it's one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen in my life.

Joshua, give me more Akagi. I need more.

So.
Uhhhhhhh, Mushishi.
Watch it, now, like seriously, right now.
Tis so weird, I almost feel like talking like LSP.

I've already completed it. I'm a big fan. I seem to recall there being a new season coming out soon..?

[JoshuaFH]

Hey Neonivek, I can't remember if you've ever watched One Outs before, but I think you'd like it. The main character is basically Akagi.

@FlyingDice  See, Akagi is the perfect example of a protag with talent who knows he has talent and takes advantage of it super hard. Next to Legendary Gambler Tetsuya it's one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen in my life.

Joshua, give me more Akagi. I need more.

Well, I just finished reading the latest chapters of Gamble Fish, which I've been meaning to do for quite a while now. You can read any chapter of Gamble Fish and be flatout, knocked-on-your-ass stunned by how audaciously awesome it is.

How it's not already an anime is beyond me, but the MC there is simply the best. The best. The very best.

[Darvi]

Also, Josh, pair-ups are super-vital for lunatic, if you couldn't tell by now. I hope you paired up Crom or Joshua with Fred so far.

[JoshuaFH]

Also, Josh, pair-ups are super-vital for lunatic, if you couldn't tell by now. I hope you paired up Crom or Joshua with Fred so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, I was going with Sully, but I can honestly not remember which mother births which child, and referring to guides is the weak way out.