noteDhero said: It amazes me that I can explicitly say one thing (in this case, ask the question "Is this a plot?") and have that be misunderstood to have me saying, declaratively, "There is no plot."
Looking back at the post to which I originally replied:
noteDhero said: Here's my problem:
What is HSotD's plot? Everyone keeps saying it has one, but they won't say what it is. I say that it is "Survive," but is that really a plot? We know that they are trying to get on the others side of the bridge to meet their families, but then what? As it is, the goal of the show is very unclear, except to paint the picture of a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested Japan and to show fanservice. That makes it more slice of life than anything else. And the bad kind of slice of life that tries to excuse not having a plot, because I like slice of life the most.
1. You ask, "Is survival really a plot?"
2. You mention it is "the bad kind of slice of life that tries to excuse not having a plot."
"Is survival really a plot? Highschool of the Dead is the bad kind of slice of life that tried to excuse not having a plot." Not having a plot. That's where I picked up your idea that you didn't think it had a plot.
You could easily wiki the storyline of Pitch Black, but I used it as an example of a simple survival plot. You could throw in any generic movie/series with survival as a theme. I mentioned it because HOTD is not the only show with survival from a ______ (epidemic) (attack) (etc) as its plot.
On to the Godfather example. I'm assuming you mean just the first move. If you take a 175 minute movie and decide to turn it into a once a week 30 minute (22 minus openings, endings, and commercials) televised show, that's enough content for 8 episodes. So, say the show is 12 episodes long, and you have 4 episodes of filler and fanservice. I think that greatly diminishes the quality of the series. One thing you're missing though, is that (I assume) you still have compelling characters and a definite story that is clearly going somewhere.
Don't forget that you need to fundamentally change the story in order to have a Michael Corleone harem of women as lead characters. I would agree that it would probably be diminished, but still 'going somewhere.'
So I would still definitely call it aimless if there is a recap in the fourth episode designed to fill time, but I agree that the plot is still there.
Yes, using a recap that early on was odd, and definitely a waste of time. I would have laughed if it only recapped fanservice.
That's not HSotD. You're asking me to compare it to The Godfather in terms of story content, and that's laughable.
No, it's not laughable. I'm asking you to compare an imaginary harem Godfather TV series to a current zombie harem TV series. Would you prefer an imaginary harem Night of the Living Dead instead? I was approaching the concept of 'plot' on a basic level: Does Example A have a plot? Does Example B have a plot? Whichever series is better is irrelevant; the whole point was to show that even if you take a series with a plot and fill it with extra scenes of fanservice & whatnot (like HOTD and many other animes), there's still a plot. That's my point: You asked, "Does HOTD have a plot?" and I said, "Yes, it does. It's contrived and laughable at times, but there's still a plot." We obviously don't know the ending, but to me, it's certainly going somewhere.
We're at the point now where we could have filled the running time of the Godfather, and we don't have anything near the storyline. Now if I said the story would be aimless and largely diminished by if this were The Godfather, how should any rational person feel from HSotD?
That why I ask the question, "is there a plot?" It's a very valid discussion, and I see no logical reason to be dismissive of it.
*shrugs* The fanservice scenes do slow things down, and there are numerous scenes that could be cut in order to better flesh out a gripping narrative, but I still see a storyline. |