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[Parsely]

Finished Bokko, what a ride. That manga is absolutely fantastic.

[Flying Dice]

if the fan-service gets in the way of the story, plot, or character development in Konosuba?

story, plot, or character development in Konosuba

I can categorically state that there's nothing to get in the way of.

Otaku is reincarnated in a fantasy/game world. Gets a harem. Daily hijinks ensue.

Okay, this argument prompted me to give it the three-episode test, and that's a deeply misread representation of it. It's a comedy parodying that subgenre of wish-fulfillment. The entire premise is that if you take four socially incompetent weirdos and stick them in a setting where things work like an RPG and they get to use swords and magic shit, they're still going to be socially incompetent weirdos. It honestly kinda reminds me of 8-Bit Theater, except with less sociopathic disregard for the lives of others.

I mean, they don't even try to make it subtle. It's blatantly "no, you otaku trash, if you were transposed into a fantasy world you'd still be a useless loser who sucks at everything"--the guy pissed himself and died of fear while dweebily "saving" someone from an imagined instance of a cliched anime opening scene. The first two episodes are entirely composed of the "my vidya skills make me teh OP winrarz" delusion being relentlessly denied and Aqua constantly mocking Kazuma for being a useless NEET. If I had to guess, it's going to do a series of intertwined character arcs where the core four learn to behave like decently sensible people. If you strip away the surface-level aspects, they each sorta embody an aspect of otakudom: Kazuma is the stereotypical shut-in with a delusional belief that he'd magically be awesome if he was in a different life situation. Aqua is the dunce who fritters all of her resources away on meaningless crap (the only difference being that she spends her skill points on party tricks instead of her money on resin figurines and boxed special editions). Megumin is both a chuuni and that one person (most of us know one) who refuses to make anything of themselves because they're obsessed with an unrealistic dream and leech off of others to support themselves in the meantime. Darkness is the fetishist with family trouble who intentionally seeks emotionally damaging relationships and self-harms because they're incapable of enjoying healthy interactions.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. But this is the show's heart:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Can't speak to the fanservice, since I don't know the minds of the people who animated it. I'd be tempted to say that it's deliberately exaggerated, but who knows these days. Could well be trying to mock otaku trash and pander to them at the same time. Notably, a lot of the more serious character moments are totally void of fanservice (and often have sorta derpy or plain character art to boot).

Most certainly not a harem show, the only way I can imagine someone getting that impression is if they literally just watched the OP. Granted, it's no great masterpiece, but it's a decent self-aware comedy mocking otaku haremshit self-insert shows and poking gentle fun at RPG cliches. Decent popcorn material.

[itisnotlogical]

I recently learned there's a Volume 2 of the Ghost in the Shell manga. I can take the coloring even though it's a style I don't like, what I can't stand is the really hilariously bad CGI in every other panel.

Besides the art, I have no idea what the plot is supposed to be.

[Neonivek]

To give a bright side to the bad Yokai based anime I saw

It is about the only anime I've seen that for exorcism and purification... Actually separates Evil Spirits and Non-Evil Spirits.

For example the Sacred Ash used in it will exorcise evil spirits... but will aggravate, temporarily bind, or banish non-evil spirits (a magnitude of difference)

Evil Spirit being a spirit filled with dark malevolence. So spirits that scare or pester humans aren't evil spirits.

It also in a weird twist... also includes both Japanese mysticism/mythology, while also including Catholicism in a small way since a holy bible is somehow able to actually physically hurt a spirit, though it seems to scoff at it being able to exorcise it normally.

[Reelya]

When I said "harem" it's the typical show where you have the one guy and the X number of cute girls he interacts with, with male characters being very scarce. You can say that's a "parody" of the battle harem genre (those usually don't have romance, just the setup+action), but there are so many "parody battle harem" series these days that it's not treading any new ground at all.

When I said "hijinks ensue" that's exactly what happens. The series is a gag series with an otaku transposed into harem-type setup in a fantasy world. There's really not much more to it. You expect the hero to get humiliated, because that's how those types of series work. Gag harems are all about the hero being humiliated, it's genre-standard. So it's not clever to invert the fantasy setting and have it that he gets treated like dirt and gets nowhere, because that's one of the oldest tropes in this type of comedy.

[Flying Dice]

I've legitimately never heard someone argue that harem series are unrelated to romance. Because they aren't.

Equally, you're ignoring one of the main points: every single significant character is a gormless loser and repeated spazzes out. None of them are primarily characterized by how they relate to one specific other character. And he doesn't get treated like dirt, except by one character taking out anger over a legitimate grievance--his failings, like those of each of the others, are rooted in his distorted worldview and expectations above all else. I'm genuinely questioning if you even watched any of it beyond looking up a clip reel or something, because you're really reaching in your effort to cram it into holes that it doesn't fit. It's a gag comedy with four inept fools becoming friends despite themselves, which happens to draw on a couple topical sources of jokes.

Like, it's okay to not like it. It's a dumb comedy that shoots for laughs at the expense of its characters and setting. (Though congratulations, you've just described basically every parody series ever penned). If you think it's shallow, that's fine. You don't have to invent reasons to not like something.

[Cruxador]

I've legitimately never heard someone argue that harem series are unrelated to romance. Because they aren't.

Although to be fair, a lot of them have only the barest pretenses of romance and no actual romantic developments occur.

[Reelya]

I never said I didn't like it, it's ok. But it is using the tropes i described. The entire conversation was in response to "what fanservice? There's no fanservice!" and just pointing out, yes, yes there is. I never said anything about liking or not liking the show, or liking/not-liking fanservice but fans do need to be upfront about the material that's in shows we recommend to other people. If there are naked boobs or butts in a show, it doesn't matter whether we can say it's "for realz" sexualization or "just a parody", new viewers are just going to notice boobs and butts.

btw, when people say they don't like harem comedies, it's not the romance-related subplots that they're concerned with. it's the style of show: one guy and his 17+ cute girly friends, comedic antics, ecchi. Whether or not there are romance-related subplots isn't really the criteria such people are talking about. "but there isn't romance in this one, so it's not a harem" misses the point.

"harem" in a loose sense is often used to describe such shows because it does succinctly describe what you're going to get: one guy surrounded by X number of cute girls. e.g. Haruhi, Kanon, Clannad, Stein's;Gate, Konosuba and 100's of other "not a harem" shows which have the exact same setup. (another common trope in all these and romcom harems is the "sidekick" male, who has less luck/connection with the girls than the hero does. This way the viewer can self-insert with the loser hero but feel good that there's someone else who's a bigger loser ).

The structure of "1 guy + # girls" is common enough that it's a trope on par with e.g. "mecha" for describing a type of show. Not all "mecha" shows are classic types like Gundam and Macross, but that doesn't make them "not a mecha show"

Sure, you can say "not a harem" for all those, but the specific "1 guy + # girls" setup is near-ubiqutous in anime/manga/LNs/VNs. It's so pervasive that you'd have to be in complete denial to pretend it's not a thing. It's definitely something you notice as a repeated trope.

If not "harem" then what succinct descriptive term would you use to describe the class of shows that invariably boil down to one guy and his gaggle of girls?

e.g. you could have a show with one guy and 6 girls in a school club and they're all romantically interested in him, and have daily antics, or a show with one guy and 6 girls in a school club and they're not romantically interested in him, and have daily antics. The similarities between such shows vastly outweigh the differences, it would be ridiculous to say they were different genres merely because of the lack of romance subplots. Both are harem comedies, they just emphasize slightly different aspects of the genre. Personally, I use the breakdown "harem comedy" and "harem romcom" to distinguish the two very similar styles of show.

btw the genre itself is built on parody. it's a parodic genre. Parodying older moe/harem/romcom/anime is therefore an expected thing, so parody isn't a thing that separates one show from another in this genre.

[Max™]

Hmmm, I just had a flash of insight: I should stop being so hard on people who reflexively put a "g-as-in-gift" sound in .gif instead of the "g-as-in-gist" sound it's supposed to have, since my reflex pronunciation of "ecchi" certainly wasn't "aytch-ee" but the origin was apparently from saying the first letter of the word hentai.

Also read To You, The Immortal in one sitting the other day up to the current one, so after that I went looking for more from the author and accidentally the whole Koe no Katachi. Anyone read and liked it who has seen the movie here? Is it worth it or a bleh adaptation?

[gogs2]

I recently learned there's a Volume 2 of the Ghost in the Shell manga. I can take the coloring even though it's a style I don't like, what I can't stand is the really hilariously bad CGI in every other panel.

Besides the art, I have no idea what the plot is supposed to be.

Actually there is 3 as well:
Ghost in the Shell 3: Solid State Society (2006)

[Neonivek]

I am starting to think the SAO setting is just... broken.

O_o it is kind of hilarious how easy people can keep getting away with the game crud.

The series reminds me of the time Lex Luthor trapped Super boy by making a sign pointing to a Kryptonite cage that said "Trap"... and because he has to fall for the trap, he runs right in".

It is kind of AMAZING! Not Mahouka amazing though (Why hasn't he been labeled Christ yet?)

---

Let me explain it another way...

Imagine if there was a major incident where a 747 fell out of the air every single month and did so for a year. Then it was discovered that the flaw that caused them to spontaneously fail was actually intentionally engineered computer programming.

So a year passes and they start running 747s again. Then it turns out that someone hijacked a 747 using the same programming issue as the first time.

Then a year passes again and people still love to fly 747s. Then it turns out that someone is causing 747s to fall out of the air and are suspected to be doing so using the SAME DANG PROGRAMMING ISSUE!

HOWEVER... another year later Compact 747s are made and they are insanely popular and have 10 times the government oversight as other planes. Then someone programs 10 compact 747s to fly into each other WITH THE SAME DANG PROGRAMMING ISSUE!

And they still haven't fixed that programming issue.

Seriously...

[Reelya]

Not sure what you mean, unless you're talking about something that's in the books only, that happens after the time period of the anime. Nobody gets "trapped in a game" after the first arc.

[Neonivek]

Not sure what you mean, unless you're talking about something that's in the books only, that happens after the time period of the anime. Nobody gets "trapped in a game" after the first arc.

Well in the second ark someone gets kidnapped (and I am sure there are more stakes than that... But either way someone manages to disable the logout function of someone and uses that to essentially kidnap them... a ability that still exists even in the third arc.).

You would think after the first incident this stuff would end up highly regulated. Yet the opposite seems to occur, the MORE the government is involved the less it is regulated.

[Karnewarrior]

Showed Sprin Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

He's deathly afraid of Kafuka._{As is right and proper}

[Max™]

I'm starting to think anything involving the act of watching, making, or thinking about SAO in non-abridged form is broken, and I haven't even seen the abridged one, I just assume such a huge pile of crap will produce a funny one.