DO NOT discuss the source material beyond this episode. If you want to discuss future events or theories, please use separate threads. DO NOT ask where to watch/download this episode or give links to copyrighted, non-fair use material. DO NOT troll/bait/harass/abuse other users for liking or disliking the series/characters. DO read the Anime Discussion Rules and Site & Forum Guidelines.
This introduction was so... poor. The girl is so plot conveniently stupid, even the dumbest of children will have learnt to avoid blurting out what they've just learnt like she does if they get spurned and punished every time they do it. It's basics! Negative reinforcement like that even works on dogs! Why is this child so retarded? Oh right, because otherwise this melodramatic situation will have never have come about.
If I'm honest, I actually felt for the mother, even if they did make her massively over exaggerate her inability to deal with it to force down our throats "OMG, look how hard a life she led! Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? ..... WHY AREN'T YOU CRYING YET?!!". Having to deal with someone that incorrigibly stupid would drive me mad. Then again I would have dealt with it better, I suppose everyone in that family was stupid.
Lol what? What the hell was with that random asshole "You were feeding the kitten, what a pain! Never come back!".
And that graceful way they introduced the main character, the guy to resolve her problems:
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!.
This is about as subtle as the Gurren Lagann in the final episode, but wielding a hammer with the word "EMOTION" stamped on it. Yeh, about that subtle.
Anyway, so continuing on with the second half...
So she has become a self pitying idiot who still hasn't learned to control herself. If it weren't for how fake the other girl's reactions were, I'd almost empathise with them.
Okay, I quite like the guy at least, he fits the role he needs to well, and well, I can sort of imagine someone like him trying to cheer up a scrooge just for the fun of it. He is a bit too stupid for my liking, but I'll take the good bits where I can.
Yeh, I should, cause that next scene. "The driver didn't care that the light was red". My god that set up is so stupid it actually made me laugh. So a driver in a lorry was going to skip a red light, running over someone (because he must have seen them) in broad daylight. Yep, sure, that's realistic isn't it?
Overall
It's trying so hard to be emotional, endearing and heart warming, but the writing is absolutely shit, and it has no emotional subtlety, it likes to beat you down with it. Let me put it this way, the subtlety is worse than AnoHana was. Picture painted.
If that was your conclusion, you probably shouldn't watch anything drama, because you don't know how to identify when it's poorly written and when it isn't. And LOL @ your talking about its "writing." Oh, you.
Since you've just gone for the "you don't know anything therefore what you've said is wrong" approach, I can only assume that you can't actually respond to what I've said. Calling me stupid is fine and all, but that doesn't make what I've said wrong does it?
It's almost as if you have nothing useful to say.
Firixizu_Mint said:
InfiniteRyvius said:
mokki said:
InfiniteRyvius said: The premise looked so full of promise.
This introduction was so... poor. The girl is so plot conveniently stupid, even the dumbest of children will have learnt to avoid blurting out what they've just learnt like she does if they get spurned and punished every time they do it. It's basics! Negative reinforcement like that even works on dogs! Why is this child so retarded? Oh right, because otherwise this melodramatic situation will have never have come about.
If I'm honest, I actually felt for the mother, even if they did make her massively over exaggerate her inability to deal with it to force down our throats "OMG, look how hard a life she led! Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? ..... WHY AREN'T YOU CRYING YET?!!". Having to deal with someone that incorrigibly stupid would drive me mad. Then again I would have dealt with it better, I suppose everyone in that family was stupid.
Lol what? What the hell was with that random asshole "You were feeding the kitten, what a pain! Never come back!".
And that graceful way they introduced the main character, the guy to resolve her problems:
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!.
This is about as subtle as the Gurren Lagann in the final episode, but wielding a hammer with the word "EMOTION" stamped on it. Yeh, about that subtle.
Anyway, so continuing on with the second half...
So she has become a self pitying idiot who still hasn't learned to control herself. If it weren't for how fake the other girl's reactions were, I'd almost empathise with them.
Okay, I quite like the guy at least, he fits the role he needs to well, and well, I can sort of imagine someone like him trying to cheer up a scrooge just for the fun of it. He is a bit too stupid for my liking, but I'll take the good bits where I can.
Yeh, I should, cause that next scene. "The driver didn't care that the light was red". My god that set up is so stupid it actually made me laugh. So a driver in a lorry was going to skip a red light, running over someone (because he must have seen them) in broad daylight. Yep, sure, that's realistic isn't it?
Overall
It's trying so hard to be emotional, endearing and heart warming, but the writing is absolutely shit, and it has no emotional subtlety, it likes to beat you down with it. Let me put it this way, the subtlety is worse than AnoHana was. Picture painted.
it's not trying hard to be emotional. i loved the first episode and i didn't cry or feel sad, but i really enjoyed the writing and i don't think it deserves to be called "shit." just because most of the users here cried or got upset doesn't mean that's what the director intended to happen. i also don't think haruka deserves to be called retarded or a self pitying idiot. she was just a little child when she started hearing other people's thoughts, and she thought they were actually talking because she was a child and couldn't make sense of it. instead of her parents trying to understand and teach her how to control her ability, they abused her and abandoned her. after enduring abuse and abandonment from almost everyone she's ever met or known, including her parents, are you actually getting mad at her being cold and mean towards everyone around her? the writing actually makes sense here.
You don't think it was trying to be emotional? Not even when she finds solace in that abandoned cat, which gets cruelly taken away by some random woman who also tells her to fuck off and never come back, leading her to have an emotional breakdown and scream? Not at all?
I call the writing "shit" because it gives us an unconvincing plot and some really poorly thought out plot devices. It also didn't lead up to the dramatic sessions well, though that's possibly a directing problem rather than a writing problem. I get that the mother and father were both horrible human beings, however you have to ask yourself, how? They are shown as initially loving people, but then they become assholes. Also, they apparently NEVER QUESTIONED her ability. Nope. Didn't take note of it at all. I'm not going to believe that. That is poor writing.
I get how she doesn't want to make friends, but the fact she still doesn't bother to restrain herself from giving responses based on peoples thoughts is.... it's like she's picking a fight with everyone, like she wants to be hated by everyone. There's a difference between having no friends and being hated. This is why I also say she's self-pitying.
Anything else?
The breakdown after the woman took the cat away, imo that happened because of the emotional buildup she experienced after all the horrible things she has received and those feelings just happened to explode when the cat was taken away
The mother and father part, you realized that her mother has tried going to many doctors even she thought that Kotoura is being possessed with evil spirit right? Probably, the parents just don't know that she has ability to read people mind or at least don't want to accept the fact that she has that kind of ability because if they accept it, their secrets will be revealed. That's why they (including her friends) consider Kotoura a threat
Quoted it from the other forum
"But there's a subtler message behind it, and that's the fact that the reason Kotoura-san is such an outcast is because of the gap that exists between people's desires and what they say and do. Of course no one likes to be reminded of that gap, and that makes Kotoura a threat."
And lastly she was just a child, she didn't realized that her ability is abnormal at first and thought that it was okay to let out all of her mind-reading works. And what could she do if her friends know her ability to read mind and end up hating her? If you find someone who can read your mind, what will you do? but, I can't deny that she purposely making herself being hated by her friends to make them get away from her and lacking restraint to not giving responses because she doesn't want the same thing happen again in the future.
Just my thought, can be right or wrong :)
You are right regarding the cat, I never said otherwise, it's just that he said it wasn't trying to be emotional which I thought was bizarre, the scene with the cat was quite clearly meant to cause emotion, they even put on the "this is the time to cry" music when it happened.
The mother, I do get what happened, I'm saying it's hard to swallow. I do think going to all those doctors etc was reasonable, I could easily see that happening. However, it's how it got that bad in the first place that I find questionable. The mother was originally shown as a loving parent, and we saw that Kotoura had the ability from a young age, she must have figured out her ability, how could she not have? This was a time when the family was all happy too, so it wouldn't have been a bitter pill to swallow, she wouldn't have had secrets to reveal (well, not major ones anyway). In any case, the way the episode portrayed it, it's as if they didn't figure it out until a few years later when their home life was on the rocks, and that's when they couldn't accept it. Why did it take them so long?
I should point out at this point that I don't hate the show, I do think it will be an enjoyable show, but it was just so heavy handed and clumsy in the first episode I found it took away from everything. I think it's one of the better shows to start airing this season, but I just think they could have done it so much better, rather than simply instructing the audience "feel sad now".
i'm just stun in all ways like pull biggest curve ball ever on it really no one saw this coming in any form til we just seen it oh my why this happen?!
meet Haruka Kotoura who one time life for her was good til everything went to Break the Cutie in all worst ways.
because she can read minds cause she lost everything from being bullied in school to even own parents don't want her anymore.
cause of suffer that Haruka carryover til now & then all change when she meet Manabe who bit perv & yet wow amaze at Haruka cause she save him from truck.
yet after learning bit of Haruka's past Manabe going side with her to be her friend.
LIVING THE GS-LIFESTYLE
MR.GS
JUST ON THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE ANIME WORLD
THE KLAC OF ANIME WORLD
you either with ANIME http://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=24159 or against the anime
Make me thing of senjogahaara hitagi sama childhood ,Taiga and Ryuji from toradora and that ESPER lv5 girl which who can read mind and maniulate memory damn without Academy city ESP isn't well accept after all and i guess a lustful and powerful guy like araragi or the MC is suitable to save this girl
ApolloFortyNine said: From the director of to love ru and the yuru yuris, and the writer of the yuru yuris, I sure as hell wasn't expecting that. 10/10, hoping the rest of the season turns out just as well.
I don't know if it is because Sasami and Vividred was somewhat disappointing at least for me, but this was a really nice surprise. Sure, the beginning was overly melodramatic, but I'm a sucker for PTSD moments, so I'm willing to overlook it. I kinda like Kotoura and the male lead isn't as bad as most are. Looking forward to the next episode! 4/5.
Kotoura is so moe (in the original meaning of the word).
Edit: I don't believe in violence (especially male on female), but I would organize a cultured dispute between my fist and the mother's face.
InfiniteRyvius said: I should point out at this point that I don't hate the show, I do think it will be an enjoyable show, but it was just so heavy handed and clumsy in the first episode I found it took away from everything. I think it's one of the better shows to start airing this season, but I just think they could have done it so much better, rather than simply instructing the audience "feel sad now".
I agree with you on this, but for whatever reason, it just clicked with me. I recognize that many of the scenes were stupidly melodramatic/cliche: her mother drinking, her mother saying "I wish you were never born", her father meeting another woman at a hotel, her emotional collapse in the rain, etc. When I was watching those scenes though, the critical part of my brain was just shut off and that allowed me to enjoy them. I think that happened simply because I was expecting it to be a comedy and it wasn't, at first at least.
If this had been labelled drama, my drama senses would have been tingling and I probably would have been laughing instead of feels-ing. Interesting how that works.
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian.
Worst and dumbest freaking parents I've seen, how can you not tell that your daughter could read minds after she said what you thought for years? But anyway the extremely sad beginning made the other half waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. Manage ftw, funniest guy I've seen in a while.
I'm about half way through... I'm not liking it...
Will update my feelings when ep ends...
::EDIT::
REALLY FUCKING GOOD! I was pretty sure that they couldn't recover from the soul crushing first act but then... BOOM! Hilarity ensues! Maouyuu and Kotoura-san are gonna be good. I can guarantee that.
That is of course... unless they aren't.
HetlanJan 11, 2013 12:40 PM
When I go for the throat, I go straight for the juggler.
That first part really caught me off guard it was so emotional poor haruka having to endure so much then the 2nd part eases up due to the antics of Manabe it was really funny. I didn't expect it to be this good and I enjoyed it a lot.
Wow such a great way to start the series with the 1st episode. Having the emotional impact right at the beginning, then slowly oozing in the moments of comedy. Closing out the episode with extreme amounts of satisfaction.
This going to turn out to be one my favorites of this season at this rate ^^
SO when I started watching I expected shitty comedy. But what do I get? The most depressing shit I've seen in a long time in any anime. Holy shit the first half was intense. Damn those parents....
The comedy is still a hit or miss, but we'll see. But god damn the first half was incredible.
Oh wow, didn't expect this with that art. The first half of this series was brutal lolol. I'm quite confused why the opening theme is like that though.
EDIT: "Synopsis: A school love comedy." Wow, so it's supposed to be a school love comedy with that first episode? LOL.
The first ten minutes made me cry. Snot, tears and everything. That was super heavy, yet fantastic. I have a soft spot for cynical leads. The fact that this will turn into a rom-com interests me. o_O Can the show keep up its quality, I wonder? Maybe this will be like a darker Chuunibyou, with the whole rom-com twists popping up here and there. So far enjoying this episode a lot. The opening and ending are so full of moe.
I've also taken a liking for Manabe. He's a pervert (but what person hasn't had a few impulsive thoughts here and there? He's not super extreme compared to other pervs I've seen in anime). I won't blame him for being honest, lol. In general, he's very sincere and doesn't seem to have any secrets against others, considering how he hasn't shown one bad thought towards Kotoura through out the entire series. I would like to see more flaws in him so that there can be some sort of dynamic between Manabe and Kotoura later in the series (one could say that I hope to see mixes of drama and some comedy here and there, just like in this first episode).
I really hope these next 12 episodes are promising! I wouldn't mind the rom-com bit, as long as it doesn't go borderline in terms of episodic "moe" shenanigans like other 4-koma anime I've seen.
Lots of hope for this new series! Very refreshing compared to other shows airing this season.
better not show the mom ever again...god she pissed me off.
this is going to be a good show i can tell, did not see this show starting off like that, looked cheery and it did turn out that way( had a smile the whole time, after the whole depressing events). catchy OP and ED. good main characters, just don't show the mom again :D even though they will.
Potatoboy27Jan 11, 2013 4:00 PM
Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines.
it was a great episode in my opinion, i didn't think that it would start out like that. i don't think that many of us did, i found the transition and manabe's thoughts pretty weird, but nice. it made wonder if anybody has thoughts like that during my classes. the rest of the episode was enjoyable, i wonder how the interaction between kotoura and the rest of the class will develop.
on a side note kotoura looked more busty than usual in manabe's fantasy.
InfiniteRyvius said: I should point out at this point that I don't hate the show, I do think it will be an enjoyable show, but it was just so heavy handed and clumsy in the first episode I found it took away from everything. I think it's one of the better shows to start airing this season, but I just think they could have done it so much better, rather than simply instructing the audience "feel sad now".
I agree with you on this, but for whatever reason, it just clicked with me. I recognize that many of the scenes were stupidly melodramatic/cliche: her mother drinking, her mother saying "I wish you were never born", her father meeting another woman at a hotel, her emotional collapse in the rain, etc. When I was watching those scenes though, the critical part of my brain was just shut off and that allowed me to enjoy them. I think that happened simply because I was expecting it to be a comedy and it wasn't, at first at least.
If this had been labelled drama, my drama senses would have been tingling and I probably would have been laughing instead of feels-ing. Interesting how that works.
I forgot to turn the critic off.
I could have enjoyed it a whole lot more, but in the end, poor writing and heavy handed melodrama is poor writing and heavy handed melodrama, no matter how much I wish to ignore it.
I sadly think it's impossible for me to ignore flaws like that now, thankfully since it'll be all comedy from now on I imagine I'll start liking it.
Wow, my hopes for good interesting anime were kinda low for this season, but you can count this show in it. With Oreshura and Tamako I'm good for this season. I had a lot of emotions throughout this episode. The beginning was very sad but the ep ended in a very warm, soft and comedic way. The comedy is delightful and I can't wait until next week.
Too bad though that there aren't any good fansub groups picking this show up. Guess I have to stick with HorribleSubs for this anime.
What I really liked was that we got all the important backstory for Kotoura done with straight away so we know what she is capable of and why she is the way she is.
Lots of anime, whether they are decent or not tend to have a strange character and not explain why they are like that until the last couple of episodes. This is a refreshing change.
Really enjoyed it. Kotoura is really cute and Im sure I will like her more and more as the season progresses.
holy crap..my heart wasn't ready for that only saw a PV for this so that was unexpected reminded me of the beginning of UP just Darker, mindreading an power to this day i would never want causes more harm then good
hope the rest of this is good doesn't seem like the drama is over since her bitch of a mom is still around judging from the OP.
OMG the beginning T____T Kotoura-san TwT. Everyone hating her. Friends, family( except for her grandfather) Even at her new school but... Yoshiisa will save her from her turmoil. I can't wait to see more episodes.
InfiniteRyvius said: in the end, poor writing and heavy handed melodrama is poor writing and heavy handed melodrama, no matter how much I wish to ignore it.
Could you please be more specific and provide a simple list of issues? What I got from you so far is that it was not realistic and cliche.
And I think that it was perfectly fine considering the goal - to quickly (within half an episode of the entire show) build up the drama level to the max, reach the climax, and resolve, thus completely setting up the characters and the situation they are in. It really didn't need to be "smart" and realistic because the whole show is not about how one person becomes hated by his parents and the rest of the world, but rather enduring the everyday school issues given the specific properties of the main character. I also think that it was directed amazingly well, with perfect timing for the right angles and cuts, artistic colouring, and well executed drama and comedy parts.
I mean, in the end, the show or the episode is good because it is good, not because of some clever and non-cliche plot elements. Of course, I'd love this to be another penguindrum or something of that kind, but I think it never tried to be one. And it doesn't mean it's bad. It's just different. And the quality's waaaay above the average. Just read the responses above, people were crying, laughing, enraged, and smiling. Isn't it amazing? Really, I just don't get your concerns.