| So—I've never done this before: I used to write my anime thoughts over on the Crunchyroll forums, but those being gone now, I've posted in the CR forum refugee group some of us made on MAL. But after episode 4 of Dark Gathering it occurred to me there are topics here—so why not do some analysis? (I've taken some bits from my comments in the CR group): The tl;dr: Dark Gathering, which I started watching only out of a bored whim scrolling through HIDIVE, and my affinity for horror, is better than Undead Murder Farce, which Crunchyroll shoved in my face and which is getting the performative "this is a sleeper/hidden gem/etc." fluff treatment. First let it be said that I am not a fan of pulp or its bestseller successors, or the anime modeled after it; I hated Another and never even bothered to watch any of that Junji Ito stuff. If I'm going to watch something like this it needs to be more like Shiki or Hell Girl, serious and moral. I also hate the detective genre, and approve of Edmund Wilson's literary bludgeoning in The New Yorker in the 1940s—the tl;dr there (though you should indeed read that) being that the genre as it has developed is lazy and manipulative, and wears the skin of intelligence and rationality when in reality its understanding of both is shallow. As it turns out, the primary mechanism behind the detective genre as it exists now is flattery and speculation fodder: Present a situation with the trappings of impressiveness and intelligence and trick the reader to play a game running around for hints. Meanwhile the reader doesn't notice the pieces don't at all fit together with rational seamlessness; indeed, it is only the narrowness of the genre and its community that allows it to miss the biggest clue of all: The stories are not very smart. This is why forums about detective anime are full of impassioned pleas that this or that contrivance wouldn't work in-world because Mecha-Holmes saw the reflection of the bullet in his tea as the clock-mechanism rigged by the villain fired it when it struck 13 o'clock. Get people wound up in these arguments and they'll get invested in them, even though they're shallow; in this way the detective genre is a pawn of capitalist manipulation of the populace, keeping us down, addicted to cheap fare. I mean, come on; The Detective Is Already Dead? You don't need to watch a second of that to know it's stupid, just like you don't need to waste time worrying if the earth really is flat. Note that this was all still the tl;dr of the Wilson link; not everything can or should fit in a sentence-long summary. Since we are here, though, this is the problem with Undead Murder Farce: Though the first episode gave us characters that were clever, twisted, and absurd, the second flushed that all down the Mystery Toilet: Someone who's lived a thousand years must be world-historically dense not to have gotten over detective chuunibyou in all that time. If Undead Murder Farce wanted to save itself, the third episode should have begun with Miss Severed Head disparaging them for their stupidity in not solving the current mystery immediately, preferably while pretending to look at her fingernails and commenting that they should have noticed how the camera awkwardly lingered last episode. Then, when Sherlock Holmes shows up, the maid should suddenly and unceremoniously headshot him, after which Miss Severed Head should make some remark about doing so was the only logical course of action, and absolutely refuse to explain her reasoning. Instead the third episode did nothing, and we had to drag the initial arc into a fourth episode full of the standard speculation and clue-hunting fodder. What is good about Undead Murder Farce? What pulled you in? The characters. What is ruining it is that it is making the characters subservient to the detective genre. If you want standard fare where you argue about whether the show gave you enough hints to solve the puzzle, fine, but don't pretend it's any good, and don't complain when people are sad good characters are wasted. It's entirely possible for Undead Murder Farce to save itself; maybe the next arc will be full of character shenanigans, and the maid will indeed headshot Holmes. Alas, I doubt it. Miss Severed Head deserves better. Meanwhile we have a lesson over here in precisely how to solve this problem, balancing genre, character, and storytelling far better than I'm used to seeing from an anime. As I said, I don't like pulp; foregrounding pointless gore is what ruined Another, and the cute girl tacked onto it wasn't going to fix things. But for Dark Gathering the spooky spirits are secondary; working solely from what we got in the first episode, the horror is not in the thing haunting the phone booth, but the little girl who tortures it at the end. And the way Eiko encourages her, and guilts Keitaro into helping, is also disturbing. This is on top of both Eiko and Keitaro appearing generally as normal people; Dark Gathering even has Eiko a happy person, it seems. But then there are the gloves. With a first episode like that I was intrigued, and the second and third episodes built on it: Somehow, the show has figured out a good balance of pleasant and cute fare and the horror aspects. Eiko driving them around is particularly happy, I think. Dark Gathering even has a straightforward buy-in: The premise isn't needlessly complicated, and the characters' motivations are clear and reasonable (at least, as far as they need to be at the beginning). The exposition is at a good and measured pace, and like Oshi no Ko, each episode is self-aware about how it ends with a satisfying and convincing conclusion, which here takes the form of a step deeper in—into a supernatural morass, and into Yayoi's unnatural, precocious monomania. Finally, there's not even speculation fodder; the only thing remotely near that is whatever is up with Eiko, and the show's playing that entirely straightforwardly: No misleading, stupid games about it. And with the fourth episode Dark Gathering makes things clear: As Yayoi says in the first episode, the spirits are almost like bugs; they flail around, bite us, inhabit random places. But she's the one putting them in her jar and having them fight to the death. It's the people that are dark in Dark Gathering: Dark people experience horrible deaths and become dark spirits, and further people have to decide what to do with the darkness. And this is the meaning and strength of the intensification that occurs at the end of each episode; sure, the spirits in the stuffed animals shiver and scream, but the creepy music is framing Yayoi, and Eiko, not the spirits. And we see Keitaro terrified of those two, and what he will discover about himself; this is what the end of the first episode was doing, or at least a big part of it. Then there's Eiko: Not only is she brilliant, she's kind, cute—and expert at maintaining that pleasant and quirky facade that hides her absolute sadism. And, like, it's not even a facade; it's just her, how she acts naturally. This was a great payoff to the hints given in the first few episodes. I'm not sure I can even think of another anime with a character so motivated by sadism, let alone one this compelling. Without getting bogged down in debates about the existence of the paranormal, we can comfortably say that monsters and such have the sociological, literary function of representing human conflict and urges. It's been a while since I watched Another, but I remember being irritated by the pointlessness of what was going on—I didn't care. Dark Gathering connects the meaning of its terrors back to relationships between people, to the point that it's even sublimated the monster-of-the-week trope: Its episodic monsters serve the purpose of advancing us deeper into what Yayoi, Eiko, and Keitaro are going to do with all this darkness, and each other. In this way the genre serves the work, not the other way around. This is as it should be. It occurs to me that Yayoi is precisely right: When it comes to literary horror, what we ought to do is collect it, tease out its implications, and unleash it against the horrors we humans inflict on each other. And maybe they'll get her new shoes. Man, Yayoi's shoes are distracting. They are so awful that, in the scene where Keitaro carries her on his back because she sprained her ankle, the only thing I could think was that having her bandaged foot there meant that at least one of her stupid shoes was gone for the time being. This is the only flaw of Dark Gathering: Its art isn't the best. But as long as it isn't egregious this is easily forgivable; indeed, often all it makes me think is that such shows are much more deserving of the money and care that more popular, dumber fare gets. Hence my comparison with Undead Murder Farce. That thing has a slick OP; but do you remember any of the music in the episode proper? It is Dark Gathering and the ominous music that accompanies the final scene of the first episode that I remember. Though I shouldn't be flippant, perhaps, as Dark Gathering does have Kana Hanazawa as Eiko, and it's not like I'm an expert in what has what budget. Whoever is voicing Yayoi does a good job as well; her small, whispery voice works for the disturbing things Yayoi says. Also, I should say that what I know of Dark Gathering comes solely from the four episodes up on HIDIVE. I don't even know if there is a manga (and I tend not to read manga anyway). |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
| So u basically annoyed that Undead is getting more popularity than Dark Gathering. Well one is animated way better so that's no surprise. Blame OLM for Dark Gathering's drab animation |
| first of all. before reading all of that, you read the fucking guidelines. Secondly, you're wrong. UGMF is better than DG in every aspect. |
TheCupSlammer said: i disagree, what drew me into undead girl murder farce was the dialogue. i makes me think a lot which i enjoy and reminds me of the scenes abt rampo in bungo stray dogs. the banter in the show is fun to. ps, i didnt quite get through ur thesis hahaha Well, in referring to the characters I meant to include their dialogue, but sure. Isekai-Enjoyer said: This is, like, so objectively incorrect on so many ways. [...]Detective chuunibyou? My man, I dare you to not become this way after passing years as just a fucking head. People need to find something to humour themselves. [..] I am seriously baffled that people are complaining that the circus clown is acting like a circus clown. Objectivity is an interesting thing to appeal to. Anyway, I agree with you about that character; as I wrote over on the CR refugee forum: auroraloose said: I think it works for me because I'm reading at least the parts where half-oni-guy is clowning around as his attempts to troll Aya, so that it's not that his antics are sincere. She is right to act superior, but at the same time she is in the surreal situation of being a severed head; clowning around thus highlights the absurdity, while at the same time rubbing it in that they're so much better than everyone else they can look like fools and it won't even matter. This is why Aya finds half-oni-guy amusing, I think. Or at least this is my interpretation, and seems to me part of what the show does best. This is also why I want the maid to headshot Holmes. As to the detective chuunibyou, I do not blame a thousand-year-old for doing whatever she likes because she's bored; I blame her for thinking detective chuunibyou is at all impressive. The rationality showcased by the detective genre isn't real; it's fake, facile, and in reality not very smart. I am saying she should be smarter if she were that old, and also blaming Undead Murder Farce for pushing a naive notion of knowledge. Potatoboy11 said: first of all. before reading all of that, you read the fucking guidelines. I don't see that I've broken any of the guidelines. Also, I don't see the need for obnoxiousness. EDIT: I suppose I am disappointed at the performative complaints about not reading this because it's long. Don't people here, you know, like anime, and like thinking about it? |
auroralooseJul 31, 2023 2:45 PM
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
Cestlavie_ said: So u basically annoyed that Undead is getting more popularity than Dark Gathering. Well one is animated way better so that's no surprise. Blame OLM for Dark Gathering's drab animation Hmm. This is probably my least concern. First, Undead Murder Farce clearly has the ability to be better than Dark Gathering; the first episode was great. The problem is that it's flushed its greatness down the toilet subordinating it to detective shenanigans. So first I am annoyed Undead Murder Farce is not better than it is; I do not see it escaping from the detective curse, though it might. Second, Dark Gathering is much better than it has any right to be, and whenever something interesting like that happens I usually end up with a lot to say about it. I figured here it would be welcome? As to popularity, I am very good at not caring at all what is popular or not, because I like what I like and know when what I like is good. Where popularity comes in is in disappointment that low-quality stuff like detective nonsense is so popular. But then that's exactly how such fare is designed. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
soulresinVEVO said: I ain’t even gonna read all that but it should’ve started with unpopular opinion. Because they are both good but ur wrong. I will say i hadn’t even compared them until now and we’ll they aren’t similar plot wise they do have similar themes I suppose. But murder farce just had a lot more interesting moments Why should I have started with an unpopular opinion? To get more people to comment, or something? I wanted to talk about Dark Gathering, the detective and horror genres, and how people watch anime. I'm not trying to bait people into flaming or anything. Also, why not read all of it? I mean, people are already here on MAL writing and arguing all sorts of stuff, and I can guarantee you this isn't the longest thing I've seen on here. Finally, I see a lot of facial disagreement with what I've said, and no actual engagement. I grant that the first episode of Undead Murder Farce was more interesting than most of what Dark Gathering has done, but after the first episode Undead Murder Farce has almost entirely neglected what it's good at in favor of rote detective stuff. Meanwhile Dark Gathering has exceeded the standard pulp fare by being about people and not gratuitousness and has been incredibly competent in sticking to exactly what it's good at. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
auroraloose said: Cestlavie_ said: So u basically annoyed that Undead is getting more popularity than Dark Gathering. Well one is animated way better so that's no surprise. Blame OLM for Dark Gathering's drab animation Hmm. This is probably my least concern. First, Undead Murder Farce clearly has the ability to be better than Dark Gathering; the first episode was great. The problem is that it's flushed its greatness down the toilet subordinating it to detective shenanigans. So first I am annoyed Undead Murder Farce is not better than it is; I do not see it escaping from the detective curse, though it might. Second, Dark Gathering is much better than it has any right to be, and whenever something interesting like that happens I usually end up with a lot to say about it. I figured here it would be welcome? As to popularity, I am very good at not caring at all what is popular or not, because I like what I like and know when what I like is good. Where popularity comes in is in disappointment that low-quality stuff like detective nonsense is so popular. But then that's exactly how such fare is designed. Expecting majority of people on this site to read something that long and thought out in a forum, and engage with it in good faith was your first mistake sadly. Tho it just seems like you have a distaste for the detective genre as a whole and it isn’t your cup of tea, and that’s okay. There are a large portion of people that do enjoy it however, and that’s just how life is. |
| All I have to say about that is... literally, who fucking cares? |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
| Excuse me for a moment. *Bangs head on desk repeatedly* Whloouhg, DARK GATHERING new bG three? Is that more forum-appropriate? MusashiKarlsefni said: Expecting majority of people on this site to read something that long and thought out in a forum, and engage with it in good faith was your first mistake sadly. Tho it just seems like you have a distaste for the detective genre as a whole and it isn’t your cup of tea, and that’s okay. There are a large portion of people that do enjoy it however, and that’s just how life is. Actually, what I was expecting was just about what I got, though it is always disappointing, though hilarious (the files were inside the computer!) when the denizens of the internet are thus braindead. But the point wasn't what I was expecting, but what I was hoping—that maybe one or two people might show some deeper interest; this is still entirely possible. I do have a distaste for the detective genre, and this is indeed okay—but that there is a large portion of people that enjoy it is not, in fact, "just how life is." It is, rather, a historical development of Western capitalism and the culture industry that we accept the detective genre's fake notions of intelligence and constantly run our minds on dumb hamster-wheels of bad entertainment. This being a thing we did ourselves, it can be undone, or done better (or worse). That the average is thus mediocre, therefore, is not something we must develop some adult resignation over. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
| But I should dispose of this one: ktg said: You also failed to understand why people like UGMF. It's not about he characters, we don't even know of they are clever or not after the first episode. It's the dialogues. We got Bakemonogatari level of dialogues here and currently that's highest level. Perhaps this is my fault for not being excruciatingly clear given the apparent expectations here, but my intent was to include the dialogue within my praise for the characters. I'm not sure how you can call characters "clever, twisted, and absurd" without having what they've actually said in mind, but I guess we could be talking about actions and identities. But no, it should have been obvious from what I said that I meant their conversations; this is how we figure out Tsugaru is twisted in the first episode, after all. As to the level of dialogue, wake me up after you've read some of the Peemster's stuff. (AAA I just accidentally read some Infinite Jest spoilers.) The dialogue in Undead Murder Farce isn't even close to the stuff in the Monogatari series; Kaiki talking to himself in the mirror? The courage to do a handstand? Though apparently Undead Murder Farce is stumping the average anime viewer, who seems not to understand (as at least one person mentioned above) why Tsugaru's clowning about is actually funny. EDIT: There is also this: ktg said: All in all, you failed to recognize that the two shows are for different audience. Dark Gathering is for people with less education, that's usually a younger generation, while Undead Girl Murder Farce is aimed for people with higher generation who enjoys the complex dialogues. There are varying types of enjoyment, and there are some simple things one can have even greater enjoyment of if one is highly educated. For example, I love doing ridiculous political, literary takes of harem anime. Harem anime lets me empty my brain of physics and fill it with literary nonsense. If I want to enjoy something more complicated, I read. Anime is not for serious enjoyment really, which is why whenever I try to take it seriously I get a bunch of responses like I've gotten here. Whatever the case, I suggest you read Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton; this will help with the humanities and criticism stuff, so you can learn its variety of technobabble—and, really, appreciate meaning in signals and art more generally. |
auroralooseJul 31, 2023 4:23 PM
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
ktg said: MaroMangas623 said: but saying Datk Gathering is for people with low education is extremely pretentious The more pol. correct answer is, the show is for younger people, but the end of the day it is for the younger people because of their educational level. And we can it's pretentious, but that won't change the facts. Like how there are shounen and seinen shows. What you watch, what you like, what you do, all depends on your educational level. For example, there is a study where they separated people based on if they watch anime or not and tested their critical thinking. It turned out that the people who watch anime have significantly better critical thinking. If you want a more obvious example, watch Godzilla Singular Point. I'm a software engineer and the sci-fi dialogues about science in that show are really entertaining... for me. Most people call it boring because of the "technobabble". Simply because a physicist wrote the script. You most likely won't enjoy it without higher education in specific sciences. Isekai-Enjoyer said: I will have to disagree with you statement about UGMF. The characters are 100% why most people are enjoying the show. It’s their dynamic that mostly carries it. Dialogue is only enjoyable because of the characters. Not the other way around. There I was talking about the first episode, because she mentioned the first episode. In the first episode we did't really know anything about the characters. Okay, so. I am a physicist. I wrote the above. Granted, I wrote the above using my knowledge of literary theory technobabble, and not my knowledge of quantum field theory technobabble, but regardless. And granted, many scientists are not particularly good at the humanities, and some are particularly bad. But maybe there are some varieties of technobabble not accessible to everyone. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
auroraloose said: Excuse me for a moment. *Bangs head on desk repeatedly* Whloouhg, DARK GATHERING new bG three? Is that more forum-appropriate? MusashiKarlsefni said: Expecting majority of people on this site to read something that long and thought out in a forum, and engage with it in good faith was your first mistake sadly. Tho it just seems like you have a distaste for the detective genre as a whole and it isn’t your cup of tea, and that’s okay. There are a large portion of people that do enjoy it however, and that’s just how life is. Actually, what I was expecting was just about what I got, though it is always disappointing, though hilarious (the files were inside the computer!) when the denizens of the internet are thus braindead. But the point wasn't what I was expecting, but what I was hoping—that maybe one or two people might show some deeper interest; this is still entirely possible. I do have a distaste for the detective genre, and this is indeed okay—but that there is a large portion of people that enjoy it is not, in fact, "just how life is." It is, rather, a historical development of Western capitalism and the culture industry that we accept the detective genre's fake notions of intelligence and constantly run our minds on dumb hamster-wheels of bad entertainment. This being a thing we did ourselves, it can be undone, or done better (or worse). That the average is thus mediocre, therefore, is not something we must develop some adult resignation over. I’m just saying thats how life is because everyone has different tastes, wether you want to call them an uneducated simpleton, be my guest, it could even be completely factual, but people are going to like things that aren’t the height of education and intelligence. I am in fact, an uneducated simpleton cuz I have not a single clue how enjoying Undead Murder Farce ties back to western capitalism. |
| So this is why you should probably stay in that "refuge group." And probably why CR users probably bullied you put of their forums. |
| Keep scrolling |
MusashiKarlsefni said: auroraloose said: Excuse me for a moment. I do have a distaste for the detective genre, and this is indeed okay—but that there is a large portion of people that enjoy it is not, in fact, "just how life is." It is, rather, a historical development of Western capitalism and the culture industry that we accept the detective genre's fake notions of intelligence and constantly run our minds on dumb hamster-wheels of bad entertainment. This being a thing we did ourselves, it can be undone, or done better (or worse). That the average is thus mediocre, therefore, is not something we must develop some adult resignation over. I’m just saying thats how life is because everyone has different tastes, wether you want to call them an uneducated simpleton, be my guest, it could even be completely factual, but people are going to like things that aren’t the height of education and intelligence. I am in fact, an uneducated simpleton cuz I have not a single clue how enjoying Undead Murder Farce ties back to western capitalism. Not understanding the most difficult stuff does not make one an "uneducated simpleton," nor does anything I said imply this. The problem is acting like there are only two options, educated and uneducated. ktg above claims to have studied science; clearly this person could have. This doesn't mean ktg knows everything about history, or politics, or criticism. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
RobertsahDHDA said: So this is why you should probably stay in that "refuge group." And probably why CR users probably bullied you put of their forums. I was not bullied out of their forums; the CR forums died, and we had to come here. I am, uh, still among that crowd. But why exactly is it I should stay there? As far as I can tell, I have just enjoyed myself making some points, like everyone else does. And it seems like people are reacting all over the place? Can't say I was aiming to say anything controversial, but here we are. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
PrasadRT said: Sry I can't read all this, as per title, I guess u are comparing those, but how? Undead Girl is a Mystery Fantasy and Dark Gathering is a Horror... If u are comparing Horror level, then neither of them are scary and Dark Gathering can be a bit creepy tho, but for the plot Undead Girl is so far better than Dark Gathering... I'm a fan of both, so not much like to compare... Both are genre installments, meaning one can ask what each does with its genre affiliation, for example. Literary possibility is enormous. But I guess if you're not going to read it, and it's explained up there... |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
Isekai-Enjoyer said: So we are left with your one and only first argument: “I don’t like the detective bit” Unfortunately, the detective bit is literally the entire damn plot. At this point, you simply don’t like the premise, and that’s fine. Still, I just didn’t grasp how in the nine hells would that make such a well crafted work somehow worse than Dark Gathering. It just doesn’t add up. Thank you for engaging reasonably. And knowing how many hells there are. So, in listing your assessment of Dark Gathering, and comparing it to Undead Murder Farce, I notice you don't mention the themes, which you do include in your list of "things that aren’t as objective" one can assess. Aside from tone, plot, theme, and such being very easily rigorously assessable if you do the literary work—this is what literature and literary criticism are about—objectivity is a weak distinction, because just how much of a removed perspective can we have? How would extraterrestrials assess Dark Gathering? How about Attila the Hun? Those are perhaps out there as examples, but what about if we lived in an alternative history in which Napoleon won at Waterloo? How would culture, science, history, art, industry change? Further, objectivity is an easy category, because we all take science as our paradigm. But a literary critic assessing a work is going to have so much greater knowledge than the average person that what might appear "objective" on the surface could turn out contingent given the critic's special knowledge. Such a critic has much better claim at "objectivity," though even then it is still just not a good category. So: I would say that, considering your category of character complexity, Eiko is possibly more complex than everyone in Undead Murder Farce, because she has displayed complex behavior. You could debate between her and Tsugaru; he after all hatched that plan to kill all the spectators when he went full demon, and manages to pull off some clever humor with Aya. But nothing surrounding the rest of the show has been complex: Oh, look, she's a thousand years old. Oh, look, Raoul is whiny; yes, that's a motive. Oh, look, clues; why was the bottle there? The problem with Undead Murder Farce is that it gave itself an impressive setup, and then just ignored it entirely for rote detective stuff. Was The Detective Is Already Dead any good? I don't know, but I doubt it. If we gave The Detective Is Already Dead the animation and whatnot of Undead Murder Farce, all that'd do is make it a golden chalice full of ordure, as Luther called Erasmus in Bondage of the Will. And rote detective stuff, yes. I am in fact making the claim that bad plot setups and devices are bad. If the detective bit is literally the entire damn plot, Undead Murder Farce has a bad plot. Further, I don't believe that; maybe I could even say it's not "objective": As I've said, if, after all the rote setup in episode 2, Aya just took care of it all dismissively and snarkily in five seconds in the third episode, we spent some time gaping at her disdain, with Tsugaru making fun of them, and we moved on to the next arc, that would have been better. It would have better managed the uniqueness and goodness of the characters. Undead Murder Farce has wasted its good characters the past two episodes. Plot also isn't the whole point of a work; the characters of Undead Murder Farce would be great in a show about nothing, as it were. It would be entirely possible for something like Undead Murder Farce to mock the detective genre, and indeed, its characters would have been perfectly suited to do so, with their immortality, brute strength, banter, and silent-maid-tropeness. But back to theme: Is Undead Murder Farce doing anything worth thinking about in its most recent arc? The whole thing was—again—rote detective stuff. I can get that anywhere. Dark Gathering is far superior on this point; what do we do with the darkness? How does it seep into our relationships? Undead Murder Farce gestured towards human cruelty with Tsugaru, but other than that it's just paranormal people solving mysteries. And again, it has the setup, and the opportunity, to do quite a lot. But again, the mystery toilet. Oh: I see you say Undead Murder Farce is "well crafted"—and I wonder if this again is a failure of objectivity. Anna Karenina is well-crafted. Les Miserables is well-crafted. These things count as "ACTUAL amazing" works; Undead Murder Farce is a mediocre fantasy installment that wouldn't survive as an actual novel. Dark Gathering is just as mediocre. Objectivity requires a sense of scale; the scale of creative works might start with "See Spot Run" or some scratches of a bull in a cave, but it sure as hell doesn't max out at Bakemonogatari. That which is truly amazing squashes Undead Murder Farce, Dark Gathering, and every other anime in existence like bugs. But—when it comes to actual storytelling, I do in fact maintain that Dark Gathering is better. Because it knows what it is doing and can do, it executes its story very competently, and it doesn't throw itself in the toilet. Undead Murder Farce just wasted two to three episodes on nothing, and ignored its best assets while it did so. This kind of thing makes a work worse. Perhaps all this is a bit intense, so know that I don't bear you any ill will, of course, Isekai-Enjoyer. It's just, go to grad school and people are fanatical in their intellectual loves. That's how it adds up, if that makes sense. |
auroralooseJul 31, 2023 6:16 PM
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
ktg said: auroraloose said: As to the level of dialogue, wake me up after you've read some of the Peemster's stuff. (AAA I just accidentally read some Infinite Jest spoilers.) This is just a fallacy. Educated people don't commit those. Sigh. You learned to argue from Ben Shapiro, I suppose. There is a great intellectual world out there. Try that literary theory book; it'll introduce you to it. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
ktg said: Can you tell me what's his favorite food? His type of woman? Wat you call compassionate here can be also explained as want to get revenge on people who make use of his scars and that's interpretation is not deep, because that's how the most shallow man on Earth would think. No, after the first ep, we can't say that "He hates people who enjoy seeing others suffering". After the first episode, there's too many questions and up to the audience to interpret it and give meaning to his words, but the show itself didn't make it clear at that point. I loathe combing for clues so much I deliberately ignore details in anime, but even I remember Tsugaru protecting that cat from the villagers. Everything about your perspective makes it obvious you are blinkered by brute "facts." There is nuance in the world; really do read that literary theory book. And Isekai-Enjoyer is trying to help you, you know. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
ktg said: ű Exactly, that's why you made zero arguments and I did. It's just hilarious at this point. You can't refute me so you started pointing to other stuff. What is that ű thing? I can't tell if this is sarcasm or honesty. Like—did you actually learn to argue from Ben Shapiro? Behold Poe's Law. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
ktg said: auroraloose said: What is that ű thing? I can't tell if this is sarcasm or honesty. Like—did you actually learn to argue from Ben Shapiro? Behold Poe's Law. That's a letter that sits next to my enter. Oh—I thought you might have been intending to type some sarcasm emoji or something, because I really need some context here. Are you like, truly a Ben Shapiro fan or something? EDIT: I should say, I have no desire to start any political arguments. There are far better ways to be conservative than Ben Shapiro, and better formulations of it. But there is another toilet besides the Mystery Toilet, and it is the "facts don't care about your feelings" toilet. This kind of stuff is the opposite of intellectual. |
auroralooseJul 31, 2023 6:36 PM
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
Isekai-Enjoyer said: So, you see… There’s no other way to say it… But half of your points are completely redundant and the other half is just delusional. Of course I take everything I said seriously. And of course Dark Gathering is about a loli murdering ghosts. It is also about darkness, human relationships, and whatever else I said. The loli murdering ghosts part, along with a lot else, is why Dark Gathering is also mediocre, just as Undead Murder Farce is. Though it is not as if great literature cannot be silly, absurd, or childish. Do you—read? Like, really read. Like Dialectic of Enlightenment read, or The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman read. That latter is a novel. Undead Murder Farce is a manga or something, I don't care. A light novel is not a novel; the preceding modifier cannot be removed. When we talk about great novels, we do not include in the discussion No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm not Popular! (the only physical copy of a light novel I actually own). It seems like you're espousing the incorrect and facile understanding of critiques of objectivity, as if I were saying everything is "relative." No serious philosopher thinks this. And it is Derrida himself who said that this misunderstanding is what happens when you don't read. Of course, the misunderstanding is rather entrenched in our discourse, which is why it always pops up, and part of what feeds the objectivity nonsense. The problem, as all such philosophers always, tirelessly explain, is that we tend to claim objectivity for things that are very much historical or contextual—and we also tend to do so blithely and lazily, without knowing much philosophy, such that we run into trouble because we're just not being all that careful. It used to be that eugenics was objective, and that quasicrystals were scientifically impossible—and these are just famous examples in science; imagine how much trouble objectivity run amok has caused the average person. And if anything, what I'm doing here is generating far more categories of rigor by which things are not just subjective whim or opinion; this is far different from just whining about things being subjective. Our societal notion of intelligence is such that the hard sciences crowd everything out, and people end up being absolutely terrible at anything having to do with the humanities. Like critiques of objectivity, or understanding the contextuality of online rating systems (which you clearly do). Finally, I adamantly do not believe things like beauty, quality, taste, and whatnot are subjective. There is good and bad art, and there is good and bad taste. It is bad that the detective genre is so popular, because it keeps people in the intellectual slums. I'm not sure how we got around to me siding with relativism when I started by claiming one anime is better than another. |
| I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour and who then asks: Am I then a cheat? – for he wants to perish. |
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