Darling in the FranXX Episode 1 Discussion

Marcuswongks said:
I think the first episode successfully introduces the story in a way that made me liked it.

zanquen said:
another one generic shit with a beta-pathetic-shy-shithead-school-boy and forever™alone™demongirl™with-a-dark-past™ searching for a di**. Poor and simplistic graphics as always, ugly character and meha design, stupid and boring fanservice, plot... jeez i have no words. 2/10 so far.

Bawse said:


Ah, finally someone with a decent overview.. First episode is a disaster.

Username23489023 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

UglyBarnacle said:


The amount of hype and attention this show is getting is just baffling.

What on earth do people see in this show? Is the anime community's hard-on for Trigger that massive?

Is this show's similarities to their certain other beloved wish-fulfillment mecha anime making them view it with rose-tinted glasses?

Or is the standard for the "teens piloting giant robots" genre so bad that this is suppose to be above the standard in comparison?

UglyBarnacle said:


The amount of hype and attention this show is getting is just baffling.

What on earth do people see in this show? Is the anime community's hard-on for Trigger that massive? Is this show's similarities to their certain other beloved wish-fulfillment mecha anime making them view it with rose-tinted glasses? Or is the standard for the "teens piloting giant robots" genre so bad that this is suppose to be above the standard in comparison?

While the 3rd point is probably not true, I'm guessing it is a mix of the former 2 reasons, along with some people that genuinely consider the eye-roll worthy characters, fanservice, and plot to be entertaining.

TurboAutist said:
This felt like a battle harem LN adaptation, and that's not a compliment.

I hope episode 2 isn't as bad.

Xion69 said:



unnecessary sexual things like this are one of the reasons people don't respect anime medium or take it seriously.

Otherwise could have been something good.

firemagnet said:

Mind explaining this? We've yet to see the nagging tsundere childhood friend as in infinte stratos, and there are visible consequences to using the system in a male-female pair. Unlike Rakudai Kishi, Asterisk wars, and so on we've yet to see overt deus-sex-machina.

IMHO, given the series its calling on for inspiration, it feels like this may well be a subversion of those particular mechanics.

I came into this series with zero expectations regarding studio and crew, and can safely say that I've been at least entertained so far.

firemagnet said:


And in turn I find the amount of hate that this show is getting to be baffling. It's certainly not as over-the-top as Re:Creators or BnHA in terms of a first episode, but I also don't see why this doesn't have the potential to get very good as well.



Speaking for myself, I can say no. As I stated in my own post, I'm enjoying all the references and inserts from other mecha anime produced by Gainax and Trigger.



You answered your own question.



Well, let's take a look at what company this anime is in, shall we?

2018: Full Metal Panic IV (Spring)
2017: Re:Creators (sort of), Knights and Magic, Gundam Unicorn (TV)
2016: Gundam Thunderbolt, IBO, Kuromukuro, Muv-Luv: Schwarzemarken
2015: Knights of Sidonia, Cross-Ange, MSG: The Origin
2014: Aldnoah Zero, Gundam: Reconguista in G, Gundam Build-Fighters

Notable series before 2014: Gundam, NGE, Daibuster/Gunbuster 2, Robotics;Notes, Muv Luv Alt: Total Eclipse, Valvrave the Liberator, Code Geass, Guren Lagan, Linebarrels of Iron, Zegapain, Eureka 7, Full Metal Panic/Full Metal Panic TSR, Gunparade March, Patlabor, Macross Frontier.


Look at that saturation, and let me know how easy it is for someone to come up with a decent story and characters.

Of everything that was listed, how much of it was truly "original?" Immediately, we can write off most of the gundams except for Thunderbolt, The Origin, and Unicorn; Knights and Magic is literal isekai trash, Cross-Ange was downright cringeworthy, Aldnoah Zero flopped, Valvrave fell flat on its face, Linebarrels of Iron was formulaic, and on and on. That leaves us with:

Full Metal Panic, Kuromukuro, Muv-Luv, Knights of Sidonia, Guren Lagan, Code Geass, Eureka 7, Gunparade March, Daibuster, and Patlabor, Robotics; Notes.

Even then, these series rely on common narrative themes and tropes. Moreover, almost all of them are adaptations of existing material (FMP, Muv-Luv, KoS, Robotics;Notes) or have huge brand power behind them (Gundam, Daibuster, Patlabor). Meaning that of As I said, there are only so many ways that you can tell a story.

Out of over 20 entries within the last 15 years or so, just three series--Kuromukuro, Code Geass and Guren Lagan--succeeded in an anime-first scenario.

I urge you to stop and think about that for a moment before you (and others here) yammer on about how a show is "but the latest trash."

With respect to your other criticisms, I can only shake my head and laugh. Darling in the Franxx is hardly the worst offender, even if some moments were somewhat illogical (Hiro picking up 02's panties, for instance). Franxx shares company with every other harem or fighting anime of recent note out there, including this season's Killing Bites, which is worse in every way since the beta male there is quite literally a would-be rapist whose only other purpose is to get the female lead into trouble. At the other end of the scale, of course, we have the two other character tropes: the immaculate hero (see: Full Metal Panic, Aldnoah Zero, Kuromukuro) or the hero-lech whose sheer incompetence somehow wins the day (see, for example, Highschool DxD).

By the metrics you yourself listed, Franxx falls squarely in the middle-ground in terms of character development and narrative setup. Just look at the first episode of NGE, with Ikari Shinji, arguably the ultimate beta male. How, in the narrative environs that surrounds anime today, would you receive something like NGE after its first episode, for instance?

Further, we've only just been introduced to the characters. Hence, I suggest you hold off the rather unwarranted criticism until a few more episodes.



I really shouldn't expect much, though: just like with the ravenous hordes with Re:Creators, i fully expect that an overly large section of the community will continue to mindlessly bitch and moan about the "plot" or the "lack of action" and how [insert overly specific nitpick here] "was done wrong" instead of sitting back and enjoying the show for what it is, and will do so for every episode, instead of simply not watching the goddamn show like every other sensible person would do. Hence, I expect that by the airing of the next episode tomorrow, I will have to wade through several more pages of shit opinions to find people who actually have valid criticisms of the show, instead of "muh art" or "muh beta males." JFC.

UglyBarnacle said:

Sorry, was your intention to argue why this show is not trash and is actually good? Or are you simply saying its not that bad and that people should lighten up on the criticisms for now? I cant tell because you haven't actually said anything positive about the show that would suggest your favoritism, but you also deflect criticisms by using weak reasons like "there is only so many ways to tell a story" and "Franxx is hardly the worse offender" [of cringey anime tropes].

I mean, I appreciate all the insight into the mecha anime genre, but the only real point you have is that we should wait for more episodes before trashing it so much. Which admittedly, is something I normally do but couldnt hold off on for this show because of (in my view) the illogically overwhelmingly positive reception.

Cour_Victor said:


I'd be surprised to see many subversions to be honest. I think tone deaf is a good way to describe the order of events when it comes to this show.

Hiro's dull monologues, side groups attitude and Naomi's death

with the over the top magical mecha henshin sequence

the random sexual harassment

and the unearned fanservice portion(what if the guy next to the lake was not Hiro?)

with a really poor attempt at creating a dramatic impression really didn't mesh well to me.

Next week alongside character drama we're also getting doggysyle cockpit set-ups with ass handles, if the PV is anything to believe.

Now, I'm not going to write this one off since I'm still here to talk about it, but what they are telegraphing to me is that they are trying to create a romantic mystery plot between the characters

while the male pilots are going to be pulling and pushing on their co-pilots butts.

That's not a good first impression compared to Re:Creators, which set the tone and the premise for the rest of the show from the opening episode, and kept it thematically consistent throughout the first episode.

firemagnet said:
And? This is fiction. They can do this. It doesn't mean that the show is promoting it.

Cour_Victor said:


I don't think any of the stuff I listed is a bad thing in and of itself, you can make these things work individually. But it requires suspension of disbelief more than anything. I think the crux my point of view is that the creators have made some weird choices in establishing that, that there are values which are fundamentally different from ours and what these people live in is a different world.

Changing up the order of events could certainly help, the two introspective monologues were dumped one after the other before we got enough information to be able to understand what they mean in the sense of the world they belong.

The lobby scene unnecessarily tried to juggle between establishing side characters and providing context for the "fated meeting" and I don't know a better way to put it, but the writing felt subpar because they did it by the numbers with giving everyone a line of dialogue.

The butt grab is an irritating factor, and I don't have the strong moral values that stand strictly against this. Oh how I wish I could grab butts. In the context of this episode though, it interferes with me getting a feel of this world between all of these monologues.

I can't help it, that's a way too sudden mood change, and it keeps signaling me to look for a statement regarding this show that I can't say I can clearly see yet. That is clearly something for the viewer to see rather than the old doctors character.

Basically at the point where 02 swims in the lake I feel like I am given the wrong set of information and sadly I failed to reach a state where I could say Hiro-kun is speaking for me, since I'm listening to his point of view, so the moment he went on about the "Alluring horns" I'm left wondering about the intent of this scene instead of being immersed in this work.

This is exacerbated by another one of Hiro's monologues overpowering the ceremony scene.

Where the show completely failed to me is that when Hiro "mans up" he references the monologues he delivered as if there was anything to empathize with, but how can I do that when the scene is frontloaded with all that technobabble thrown around and a bunch of cryptic flashbacks.
What the hell is a gard.., klaxowhat, parasite? Who's a parasite? What's with this flower vocabulary? What, he was indecisive? Where did that come from.

We close the episode with him monologuing about how his life changed because he took control. Okay I guess. If I was an expert I would say this is the wrong way to do world building, and that the creators completely botched Hiro's introduction with a loaded episode that I describe as tone deaf and disjointed even.

Now, are there no positives? I give the OST a yes without a doubt, vocals are pretty neat. They certainly could fix the attitude problem that I'm having with this show later on by the pilots properly interacting with each other around the way their mecha functions. But I'm not going to lie, it's teetering on the brink.

firemagnet said:

The way it takes place suggests to me that the professor likely intended it as distraction to let her get away. He has an academic and philosophical interest in everything that's going on that hasn't quite been revealed yet....

.....

The problem here is that unlike so many other shows, Hiro is not meant to be an audience avatar. He's not meant to speak for you. That scene is meant to emphasize how different yet similar they are. Each of them sees in the other something that they need, desire, or don't have. They're playing the parable of the Jian straight here. They both need each other in some way. They're both drawn to each other, and find an escape in each other. There are so many different ways that this is expressed in that scene alone that I don't really know where to begin.

EpsilonX said:
1. The terminology. Why are pilots called parasites? Why is 002 referred to as a pistil? What is this stamen that she devoured? Why do they keep using terms that are ambiguous?

2. What exactly happened betwen Hiro and Naomi? The best I can gather is that they failed their test together (the scene showing it being a flashback) and had to leave, but he got special permission to stay. But in the first scene showing the other pilots, it makes it seem like something much bigger happened. If it wasn't a flashback, then I'm even more confused

3. Why does he get special permission to stay?

GREW said:
More Trigger and I had drop it from the first episode.

But strange enough that the mecha has a mouth and even talks... Feels like old Transformers cartoons.

And good thing that the main male character is spineless fool. Guess we will have many discussion who has less balls, Shinji or him.

zannett said:


1. There will probably a deeper meaning to "parasite" that will get revealed later, but this is by far not the weirdest label. So you need a male and a female to operate these mechas--the female is pistil (referring to the female part of a flower) and the male is a stamen (referring to the male part of a flower). They say 002 "devours" stamen probably because none of them have been a perfect match (until Hiro) so it creates strain on them, which is probably why her partner is all injured.

zanquen said:
another one generic shit with a beta-pathetic-shy-shithead-school-boy and forever™alone™demongirl™with-a-dark-past™ searching for a di**. Poor and simplistic graphics as always, ugly character and meha design, stupid and boring fanservice, plot... jeez i have no words. 2/10 so far.