Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata Episode 6 Discussion

Maerow said:


Literally perfect.

AaaaaaKun said:
If this episode isn't meant for us otaku beta male to self-insert into Tomoya during his scene with Utaha then this series would not be completed. The camera angle from our hero's prospective, the dialogues, those unnecessarily shots of Utaha's body and you know why they exist, and what he said pretty much sums up the point of the series. Fumiaki Maruto sure knows how to write a story cater to a specific demographic with his refined skills learned from all those years of writing VN. Yes, the director probably doesn't have much to do with how this episode is presented because if those fanservice wasn't in the script in the first place, there won't be any. It's not trying to be something, it's just the way it is, embracing its mediocrity cause it knows there'll always be a market for that.

b1GZZ said:
We also got the first pantyshot. Gogogogo look for it, you pervs.

Chelizzle said:

This is so true.Couldn't have phrased it better.

Another cringeworthy,boring and unfunny episode for me.My inner masochist is satisfied so overall an episode that served its purpose,again.

fst said:
spoiler alert: common sense isn't all that common.

Maerow said:


Literally perfect.

Skullcrusher said:


Amen. This is all I need to say.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
So the producer is begging people to watch this specific episode of the show and the impression is it must be some major game changer episode that lifts it up out of pure mediocrity when really all it is just some dumb fanservice stuff. Why am I not even remotely surprised, it's always a lowest common denominator thing in these cases like every single time. Anime just has nothing this season, like absolutely nothing. Not even a mere hint of creativity or entertainment or something even remotely off the beaten path aside from some second halves of some things and carryovers from Fall. Really brutal.

Also voice acting now apparently means screaming absolutely every single dumb line (and this script is REALLY dumb) at your co-star like Matsuoka which is totally not annoying to listen to at all after a minute or so. I'm beginning to see why a lot of people don't like this guy much, he really doesn't have any range and is just starting to become annoying the same way Yuki Kaji is for very similar reasons of just being loud and annoying a lot of the time in his roles.

For every aspect of WA2 that felt so genuine when it came to the characters and their interactions and where so many anime that try to do romance anime fall incredibly short this is about as insincere as they come. What the fuck happened to this author that seemingly turned him into another dime a dozen LN author who just seems cynical and way to self-impressed with their own mental masturbation.

And honestly this shit that tries to be so bloody serious and self-important over discussing the merits and demerits of moe characters and otaku stuff all while fanservice stuff is happening on camera is just pathetic. Like every fiber of my being is screaming that these disparate elements should not be going together like they're trying to make them in these anime yet studios keep doing it and for some reason people actually seem to like it and think it's quality storytelling and character development and it just boggles the mind.

Enternal said:
Just writing here for those who don't fully get what's going on since a few more details were omitted (the details are taken from the manga also by Maruto, Koisuru Metrenome).

Basically Utaha wrote her character into the book as Sayuka. Sayuka's character is very attractive but dark and as a result, the 2nd heroine is actually a lot more popular amongst the fans. Tomoya is one of the first fan that she knows who actually loves the depth of Sayuka as a character (which is basically Utaha herself since that's who she identified herself as). As a result, she starts to develop feeling for Tomoya. She then later wants him to work with her on the ending that she wrote. Basically she wants to know "their" ending and what he feels. However, he does not get it at all and "rejects" her. It is what leads to her calling him Rinri-kun (Ethical-kun) since then. And every time he talks great about Katou, it's like a knife that drives her crazy because of the past events. But she treasures those past events (also pains by them) at the same time which is one reason why she was really upset when Tomoya sounds like he wants to throw it all away during this episode.

It's funny if you think about how she's such a great writer but at the same time, she communicates her feelings across in a very odd way and unfortunately Tomoya never really picked it up.

Anyway, all those Utaha-sempai moments is great!!

Nequam said:


After watching around 200 anime or so, I think the most rational way of going into any given anime is to simply have no expectations. You can judge every anime on a preconceived notion at first glance merely by its title nowadays along with its source material genre, premise of the plot and studio combined.

When I read the title "Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend", what came into my mind was My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute and The World God Only Knows and related animes. The allure of such anime always boils down to the formulaic usage of sexual inneudos and archetypical ENFJ-based protagonists (except TWGOK which has an INTJ protagonist, albeit the tropes are still rehashed).

Leading -Extraverted Feeling - Connecting and considering others and the group
Supporting - Introverted iNtuiting - Foreseeing implications, transformations, and likely effects
Relief -Extraverted Sensing- Experiencing and acting in the immediate context.
Aspirational -Introverted Thinking -Analyzing, categorizing, and evaluating according to principles

I disdain these characters not solely because of their popularization but because they lack any meaningful depth beyond some immediate conception of "friends matter", "I got to act impulsively based on how I feel based on whatever preconception I ought to have based on some societal standard, illogical, irrational and do things all over the place while many subservient, effeminate women get attracted to me with no actualization of development of any substantial relationship that confers to some degree of meaningfulness beyond a superficial generic backstory".

As long as I burst into an emotional outbreak of intensive feelings, everything will be okay - the epitome of any generic male + female romantic-comedy/harem plot nowadays

As said before and many times by other posters everywhere ubiquitously, the authors take a keen predisposition to making these visual novels, animes, mangas and light novels as such in the hopes of appealing to a wide audience or demographic (13 - 25 male) who like having an impetus drive being fed with dopamine-inducing images of erotica and sub-second level sexual innuendo joke on joke with likable protagonist characters because it does pander to their inherent nature of being human after all.

For individuals like us, there really is no reason why we really should judge these animes for what they are, because the nature of these animes will be inherently definitive of what they are. It's like criticizing porn for having no plot, or an action movie for being so out-of-likelihood in the realm of probability or out of touch of reality. There's no meaning to it. You watch it for the guns, the large mammary glands and emotional shock that is sensationalized to the highest degree, without a care in the world, because it is the state of nature of human being to be as such. This [specific anime] is no different with respect to the aforementioned criterion.

Some individuals are just able to control that level of impulsivity and execute, arguably, some executive control level over their brain to see long-term, think on a meta-cognitive level and see things objectively, or externally from their own feelings. I might love it for what it is because I recognize it satisfies my needs as a human being of wanting another X character that likes Y me who has no distinctive personification of interest, but from a cognitive level, it leaves me dissatisfied and cringing at every second.

So while I think your efforts of critically judging the anime were agreeable, its efforts were ultimately futile as one's heuristics would be more than capable of filtering, and anticipating that nearly all anime made will not be on par of the level of quality that you consider to be top-notch or interesting, there might be some animes less mediocre than others, but when thinking in retrospect, animes will rarely ever be made on the level of significant depth of cognition because it doesn't sell, and this preponderance of such a recurring formula will only repeat in time until the demographics of anime viewers (buyers of Blue-Ray collections, etc) change to one that is more congruent with your own mind, which as statistics likely to show, is never (if we model a population's K quality with a standard population bell curve with [A,B] dimension in some abstract sense of some metric that you consider to be correlative of accurately judging an anime's quality). If you and me, or people related as such suddenly become the biggest consumers of anime, and generate the most revenue for these companies, then yes, anime directors and their related staff would have a vested incentive to make more intellectually stimulating, or better characterization or story development based anime like Ping Pong The Animation, LoGH, SSY, GTO, etc but these are far and few in between and are usually toned down for increased palatability (PP, DN, SdS).

Nequam said:
I saw this a few miles ahead, or kilometers (outside of US). I always found it funny how she would always react badly whenever he rejected her "writing", I guessed that she internalized her past, traumas and anything related to her history as related to her series/novel like how one would say "What were you to do if... you were a friend... and so and so.. happened?". Considering the statement "So what's wrong with having a character that is burdened by his/her past?" which is congruent with what you are saying. Utaha is certainly a likeable character though with respect to her quirks, kuudere nature and playful/teasing nature hinted near the end with a questionable selfie picture.

Actually I feel the most compelled and emotionally involved whenever I write something that is self-reflective about my values and my life history, and I could on some level empathize with what it is like to be negatively judged from an outsider's perspective. I usually don't share my feelings or personal thoughts from my first-person perspective, in a historical sense, so when I do, it would be quite intimate, albeit she does this as a novel under the pretext as such which sorts of dis-identifies her in some regards but nevertheless this feeling of disattachment, apathy and disdainment from the rejection of her character is something I can relate to (she also says something earlier about how she hates it when her nemesis critics make some blog posts about her novel in past episodes).

Kaioshin_Sama said:


Well this week the producer claimed this was a much watch pivotal episode that would be a game changer that viewers would never forget so I just had to see what he meant. Of course I figured it'd just be something loaded with fanservice and that's indeed what it pretty much was so no real shocker there. This is the level that a lot of anime producers are operating on these days (especially Aniplex's with their inflated sense of self-importance and creative drive that is in reality pretty much non-existent) and the best that they have to offer so if this is your kind of thing awesome, if not it's pretty damn worrisome that these people continue to think their putting on anything particularly special.

seal308 said:
Really was not getting this show, didn't understand what was going on, the message, or the character's rationale.
But this episodes really clears things up.
I feel as though it has been such a slow build up to get to this point and the rest of this series so far pales in comparison.
But i also feel as though this show is polarizing due to the sudden shifts in tone emphasized with the use of fan service.
It is threading that line between taking itself too seriously and laughing at themselves and anime/visual novel tropes.
The material has to be perfect in order to maintain balance between the two. However, at this point I don't think the show is at that level.
The mirroring of the Tomoya's game with the plot of the anime is still a little gimmicky and feels clunky, hopefully by the end of the series they will be make it work.