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[JoshuaFH]

So, thought I should mention the ending of the last ep of Mahouka. On top of being near immortal, his body technomagically regenerates in like 0.01 of a second from any possible damage, even losing limbs etc.

I'm imagining him getting injured in a way that amputates a limb, and while you said that it won't hurt him, I'm picturing the then freed piece of him regenerating into an entire new Tatsuya. The process continues uncontrollably until there's a small army of Gary Stu's, but they have to decide once and for all who the REAL Gary Stu is, so they battle it out. This naturally only incurs the creation of countless more Tatsuyas, until the accumulated mass of them swallows the world, outgrows the solar system, and then collapses into a black hole of authorial perfection.

[Sergarr]

Tatsuya confirmed for Super Saiyan.

Soon he'll reveal his unlimited planet-busting powers by disintegrating the moons! ALL OF THEM!

[Reelya]

The worst part is that Tatsuya didn't even get a difficult fight before this massive power-up: it's like "ok you won your last 15 fights against mooks easily with no threat to yourself and without even breaking a sweat, clearly, right now you need to go Super-Saiyan".

Part of the weakness seems to be in the set up. Mahouka is premised where people with magic are the aristocracy, and a common thread in the plot has been that the baddies are non-magically-talented people who want to usurp the "rightful" place of the magicians in society: when Tatsuya was discriminated against for not showing powers, the injustice was NOT that people are discriminated against, his sister pointed out that there's a line, and Tatsuya had been "unfairly" tagged as being on the wrong side of the line. In other words: what was injust wasn't the elitist system, it was that Tatsuya should be counted as an elite, not a pleb.

It's like a story about a prince in rags, and how unfair it is to treat him like a peasant, if only they knew "who he was" he would "rightfully" be treated like a prince, without actually saying that it's inherently wrong to mistreat peasants: they're not "rightfully" princes now are they?

The times he's fought anyone really magical was just sporting events, and that rival wasn't really bad or trying to hurt him. So battles between the magical elite are shown as gentlemanly contests rather than outright combat.

Since the enemies are by definition talentless plebs, the series has a hard time giving any of them any personality or unique traits. Mostly it doesn't bother trying and has mooks in grey overalls for 99% of fights.

But this magic vs non-magic divide creates a big problem for the series, because basically all the enemies are non-magical wimps who use guns to try and tangle with OP wizards. Very few of the enemies have any magical powers.

[Neonivek]

I SWEAR Mahouka must be a parody... Every line people feed me from that show just oozes parody.

Honestly I'd like to know the evidence that Mahouka isn't a Parody at this point.

[Reelya]

No it's not actually entertaining enough to be a parody. It's just a non-self-aware trainwreck.

This stuff about elitism and right-wing logic. That's in the show and it's not a parody. The author has his MC spout Ayn Rand level bullshit about society.

[Darvi]

Well of course, can't be a proper Übermensch without an objectivist philosophy that justifies your being a dick to the lowlifes that is everybody else.

[Reelya]

When we joke about Mahouka, we're condensing it down, highlighting the bullshit in a humorous way. Any parody is totally injected by us. It's actually a painful show to watch with barely a hint of comedy. And what comedy it has is very stale anime shit.

If there's any parody at the light novel level then it's "deep cover" extremely well hidden stuff by the author. And he's just not that smart. He can't pace for shit and none of his characters are interesting. A good writer would at least have one cool named villain for the MC to fight: we got none of that in Mahouka.

[Darvi]

So, what you're saying is, don't watch it, but if for some unfathomable reason (terminal case of curiosity, perhaps?) you are, riff it?

[Spehss _]

Watching Princess Mononoke. Ten minutes in, english dub. Pretty good. Animation style reminds me of anime I watched as a kid. Like, early pokemons animation, early Sailor Moon dubs, that stuff. Dub is meh, but it's meh in a good nostalgia way. Again, reminds me of old stuff I watched as a kid.

Spoiler: minor start spoilers (click to show/hide)

That huge demon thing at the start died fast though. 2 arrows for a boar god? Wimpy god demon thing.

[Neonivek]

Blah

[Reelya]

So, what you're saying is, don't watch it, but if for some unfathomable reason (terminal case of curiosity, perhaps?) you are, riff it?

Yeah, it would be "so bad it's good" but it's way too f-ing slow paced for that. It's veered off into "wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy but fuck it I almost finished it anyway" territory. The middle arc is really what killed me - the 10 episode arc about having a sports carnival. That shit is like 1 or 2 episodes, max, in a normal anime. And it's not like a f-ton of interesting shit happened at the sports carnival either. It's like the entire plot is "day 1 of events. day 2 of events (random pointless terrorist attack today). day 3 of events. day 4 of events ... day 5 ....". It's as exciting as reading a calender.

If you're going to watch it, stop at episode 7. which is the end of the first arc. You can at least laugh at the horrible dialogue and wooden characters. everything is just repeats of the same bullshit after that. But with sport.

[Spehss _]

Blah

Blah? I read your post. Nothing seemed wrong with it. Use the term spirit in dubs instead of demon, seems a reasonable opinion.

[Parsely]

Watching Princess Mononoke. Ten minutes in, english dub. Pretty good. Animation style reminds me of anime I watched as a kid. Like, early pokemons animation, early Sailor Moon dubs, that stuff. Dub is meh, but it's meh in a good nostalgia way. Again, reminds me of old stuff I watched as a kid.

What? Billy Bob Thornton, John DiMaggio, and Keith David.. Are meh??!

Die. :I

[Chaoswizkid]

In my very honest opinion, I greatly prefer the English dub of Princess Mononoke. I think it was wonderfully done, and the voices and tones used communicated to me very well the essence of each of the characters. The Japanese version... doesn't give that to me, and the characters themselves feel less alive. Also, I can't deal with the mother wolf being a bass-y guy in the Japanese version. I really, honestly can't. It weirds me out.

[Flying Dice]

In my very honest opinion, I greatly prefer the English dub of Princess Mononoke. I think it was wonderfully done, and the voices and tones used communicated to me very well the essence of each of the characters. The Japanese version... doesn't give that to me, and the characters themselves feel less alive. Also, I can't deal with the mother wolf being a bass-y guy in the Japanese version. I really, honestly can't. It weirds me out.

Hehe, when I got to that point I just noped out and watched it from the top as a dub.