I am now certain... people do actually DISLIKE show don't tell...

Of course they don't give a shit.
Demon Slayer haters have proven to me, that even if you have something happening on screen and being explained through simple exposition and foreshadowed for the future, they'll still call it a "plot hole" due to either their lack of attention span, media literacy or both. Like... Imagine not understanding something as simple as Demon Slayer.

3 of the 4 shows u mentioned i gave a 9+ of 10... i guess mars red is on my to watch list now? out of all of the shows u mentioned i can see akudama drive being below an 8 just coz the production wasnt quite as outstanding as the others, but thank u soooo much for bringing it up coz gawd damn that show was great. i still dont understand what was happening in sonny boy, there was so much to try to make sense of but thats exactly what i loved about it. same goes for heavenly delusion. personally i think that heavenly delusion would have got a much better score even without its subtlety if the entire transphobic community didnt stop watching after ep 2 lol (not that i want them here anyway). tldr i agree with u. its such a shame that shows that dont treat you like an infant get either no or negative attention so often because its shows like that that rly make you think. another good example is wonder egg priority. i dont believe its low score was rly to do with this topic, it did get worse in the 2nd half, but it does take this same aproach. not to mention the many examples of shows that i think would even benefit from telling us less. for example kiznaiver, still one of my fave shows but if they didnt tell us what the hell was happening in ep 10 it would have been even better imo.

Really? I'm interested in why you think that, cause the production value of akudama drive was top notch. The lighting in particular is some of the most impressive stuff I have seen in anime.

and it's not like it lacked in any area. There was I guess a tiny amount of meh cgi, but I have to put emphasis on "tiny".



Lol yeah there is a lot about sonny boy that is specifically left for interpretation and does not have a clear answer. a lot of the mysteries and plot points had solid straight forward answers, like how they got there, why how could they be

but a lot of it was left for theory crafting, and interpreting. The reason it works so wonderfully is because, the things that are and are not explained are not fully separate. it on a scale.

There are elements with clear answers, elements with likely answers, elements that you can have a fair understanding of by looking at the hints, elements that are vague but there are some information about them to theory craft.... and so on.

which is why It manages to be a show that you are never meant to fully understand, but you can always understand it better and more the more you think about it or rewatch it.

sorry about the rant, I fucking love sonny boy!!



There is a youtuber that I really like called scamboli reviews, and he described my feelings on this whole situation perfectly:

"just want to let you guys know, you devalue the homophobic movement when you say retarded shit like this"


Like honestly, I don't even think these people deserve to be called transphobic, cause they ain't even doing THAT, right. It's like racist guy being racist to a tanned dude, like at that point what can you even tell them?

The funny part is that in that same season, a character from skip and loafer was trans, but I did not see a single complaint about that... funnily enough, because that show was subtle with it, and in contrast, heavenly delusion ep 2 seemed to be saying the mc is trans at face value, even though if you paid any attention to the foreshadowing or watched the literal next episode, you would know that isn't even the case lol




Mars red is really good!

I loved it the first time, and enjoyed it even more after a rewatch. I will have to tell you that it is clearly low budget though. like the show looks great, due to it's art and directing, but you can REALLY see how many corners they had to cut. Again, the staff killed it, so they cut the corners in the best way possible.... but it is still noticeable.

The funniest example of it is a scene where the characters have to move underground and their lighter is about to run out, so them walking from point A to B was just a dark screen with them talking. it wasn't a long scene, but I just found it funny how they had to do that.

@APolygons2 ok tbf i watched akudama on release and i only rewatched the first ep like a year ago and all i remember was the cg bike and robots, so maybe i just dont remember it well enough. its visual style is so sick tho. do kinda love that from memory the general public worships a train. also not sure how i feel abt the op kinda spoiling a lot of important moments.

sonny boi again is one i watched on release and havent rewatched yet so theres only so much that i remember, but its definitly the most lost ive every found myself while watching a show and i love that feeling.


not entirely sure where ur going with this? do u just mean i shouldnt acknowledge them?

3 of the 4 shows u mentioned i gave a 9+ of 10... i guess mars red is on my to watch list now? out of all of the shows u mentioned i can see akudama drive being below an 8 just coz the production wasnt quite as outstanding as the others, but thank u soooo much for bringing it up coz gawd damn that show was great. i still dont understand what was happening in sonny boy, there was so much to try to make sense of but thats exactly what i loved about it. same goes for heavenly delusion. personally i think that heavenly delusion would have got a much better score even without its subtlety if the entire transphobic community didnt stop watching after ep 2 lol (not that i want them here anyway). tldr i agree with u. its such a shame that shows that dont treat you like an infant get either no or negative attention so often because its shows like that that rly make you think. another good example is wonder egg priority. i dont believe its low score was rly to do with this topic, it did get worse in the 2nd half, but it does take this same aproach. not to mention the many examples of shows that i think would even benefit from telling us less. for example kiznaiver, still one of my fave shows but if they didnt tell us what the hell was happening in ep 10 it would have been even better imo.

I'd like to bring up 100-man no Inochi no Ue ni Ore wa Tatteiru as an example. It is actually a character driven show with great world building and geniuenly captivating character growth. It's not even that subtle, but people just write it of as "yet another generic isekai trash", while it's literally not if you even peek beneath the surface.

Also, I'm glad you brought up Akudama Drive.
It is upsetting that people think that Ordinary Person/Swindler was some sort of hero who did the right thing at the end. Her whole character arc was about descending into villainy, which is why she eventually became the Swindler and caused more deaths and destruction than anyone else in the series by instigating violent riots.

That is also true for overlord, while many who actually watch the show know it's not generic in the slightest, I have heard a lot people calling it generic op MC isekai, when it's so much more than that it's really upsetting

Ragna crimson also gets the same treatment when it wasn't even out of nowhere powerup to begin with rather the MC trained for decades and losing to villains to even attain that power yet people said it was MC getting bullshit powerup out of nowhere like they didn't even pay attention to the show and the later half of show has such good world and character building too, it breaks my heart how little some anime fans actually care

giving a show a rating of 7 (good) or even 6 (fine) after 1 episode seems pretty normal. you can always adjust as the episodes release if you stay to like ot or dislike it more.

I'm really not seeing that argument being applicable here, this goes way beyond "show don't tell" it genuinely felt like a 5th/6th episode.

At the risk of sounding super smug: I'm not sure what gave you the idea that the "general public" ever wanted "show don't tell".

What are the shows that you consider "show don't tell" that are actually popular with the "general public" for that specific reason?

We all learned in school that "show don't tell" is better, but how many of us actually look for that? We also learned in school that we should all eat our vegetables and exercise regularly. Does everyone, or even the majority, do that?

Meanwhile, on topic of Metallic Rouge:

I personally think the show doesn't do a very good job of "show, don't tell". But I definitely think it's too early to tell after 1 episode, and it's not fair to the show. At least it's trying, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

It's amazing how you think you can extrapolate all that from one Episode and a couple of negative comments.

Amazing and a bit...delusional.

@Merve2Love

Hello "I'm not reading that" guy. It is very nice to see you again!

It's genuinely impressive how confident you are in your words when your rule of thumb is ignoring anyone you disagree with too much.


I actually had blocked you, but I guess mal still got to send me the notification. (fun fact, I have argued with hundreds on these forums, but you are the only one I have blocked, purely due to how pleasant of a user you are to talk to)


Edit:




I couldn't make this up If I tried LMAO

I see freedom of speech seems to be a one way road^^

oh, so you're the one deciding^^ Yup, that freedom of speech stance of yours really makes sense :P

@LostSpectre If you can actually explain why that Is I'll give you some credit.

Because I can tell you why you probably feel that way, and I assure you it is NOT beyond show don't tell.

@APolygons2 Frankly, it simply has nothing to do with it. The issue here is not that you're being "shown" something instead of being "told" something, and braindead isekai watchers can't follow along, the issue is that there's no appropriate context or background information on anything taking place, to allow you to be engaged in what's happening. If this is supposed to be some mind-bending mystery that you have to piece together, then so be it, but I highly doubt that's the case. It's not particularly difficult to follow the narrative, but I don't see where I've been given sufficient reason to give a shit about these characters or the narrative. This first episode feels like a conflict that was built up for several episodes, and we're just now seeing the plan being put into action.

In the end, maybe it's all subjective, but I don't feel any desire to learn more about the characters/story, I'm just completely disengaged because of how utterly this fails as a first episode to establish the framework of the series. I'm also not convinced you're using this adage correctly, as it's primarily a literary "rule" to not over narrate things that you could allow the viewer to experience, instead. It doesn't apply to situations where you're simply lacking context or relevant information altogether, and not because you can't read between the lines at what was "shown" instead of "told" but rather that nothing was told or shown to you. You're simply being kept in the dark, and don't have the tools to put what you're seeing into proper context.

Again, these aren't necessarily flaws in a well constructed mystery, but AFAIK that isn't the case here.

Look, for everyone who makes statements such as "this is not a show that for any reason would ever get a 7.2 on mal" and questions why this series would initially receive a 7.2 or any series ever would initially receive any other rating, whether 8 or 7.5 or 6.9 or 5.5 or whatever, I'll just say this:

Rating a series which hasn't even finished airing, let alone which hasn't even come close to finishing airing and/or which you intend to drop, or, worse still, after one episode is released, is completely ridiculous to begin with. It will never cease to be wholly nonsensical and illegitimate to me.

That said, as I do not rate anything ever until I have seen it in its entirety, which of course cannot happen when something is still airing, I obviously haven't actually rated this yet either, but if I had to give a hypothetical rating for the purpose of conversation and debate, just going based off of that first episode alone, I would probably give it a 6/10 or less. No more than a 6. Why? Because, just preliminary instinctive reaction, it comes off as another series which will likely trend toward having some good, even great and fascinating ideas, but not sufficiently capitalize on and explore them, have rather shallow and generic writing, not adequately develop its characters, and being ultimately more style over substance. More flashy spectacle and less in-depth dive.

I could end up being completely wrong, and if it so happens that I wind up continuing and completing the series, then I'll know then whether that is the case or not when I'm in the position to judge, but because that is my gut feeling based on the limited exposure to it so far, I can't blame others for having that reaction, for those who formed a negative impression of the show based on the same or a similar sentiment.

I cannot condone or agree with rating any series prematurely, but as far as just making verbal criticisms of it like in the discussion thread topics on the sub-forum here, there are plenty of valid and accurate ones.

Interestingly, three of the series you mention in your OP - Sonny Boy, Mars Red, and Tengoku Daimakyou, are some of my favorite and higher-rated series by me in their respective years of 2021 and 2023, but I have seen nothing thus far from the one episode of this to substantiate the idea that it will carry similar weight. Again, early days, but that's after all what first impressions are quite literally for and about.

@LostSpectre The show don't tell here is all in the setting, world and parties.

There is no scene where the state of the world gets explained, nor there is a guy telling you what each party does exactly and why they are at odds with each other, you just kind of have to figure it out through the interactions and dialogue.

which isn't anything hidden, it's just asking the audience to put 2 and 2 together.

you don't need the background, it has thrown us into this world and expects us to catch up and follow along.



Why do you care about anything happening in any story?

The characters already have decent enough characterizations, and there are already hints at what each of them are standing/fighting for.

You say you don't care, fair enough, but why is that?

where is that lack of care coming from?

@APolygons2 Yeah, I still think you're confusing proper context with being "spoon-fed" information. Unless this is a legit mystery you have to piece together, then I want my shows to actually provide enough information for me to give a shit about what's happening on screen. Again, this is literally not what "show don't tell" means, that does not refer to leaving the viewer in the dark about things that would help them contextualize the events taking place. If you're trying to tell me that everything I need to know here was "shown" in the episode, then we'll simply have to agree to disagree. I don't care because I don't believe the writing is sufficient to justify any personal investment in these characters or the story itself.

All of this could potentially be justified if mystery is a core aspect of the series, but I don't see any corresponding tag for that.