Sarazanmai Episode 9 Discussion

Kimurah said:
If this series wasn't ending in 2 more episodes, I would have dropped here at this episode.

The tone is all over the place. It tries to be funny with Sara & Keppi's little adventures for pretty much nothing. And when Kazuki is crying his heart out for Enta it turns the drama into just cheap comedy by bringing Enta in kappa mode.

Enta's sister couldn't be further an anime character even if she wanted to. The complete lack of grasping the situation is baffling, she's more infatuated in comforting Kazuki than losing her mind because her own little brother was shot and the dcotor already stated that he wouldn't make it thru the night. A real person would go haywire and would just think what will her life will be without her brother, or be pissed furious looking for answers from the cops. That's kinda my gripe with other side characters, like Haruka, that despite his condition he only lives in order to make Kazuki happy. None of these side characters feel real, they just live as decoration in order to make the main characters shine.

Lastly talking about anime characters, there's Toi's brother. Yeah, we get it, he's just a psychopath that has no empathy for anyone surrounding him, he pretty much proved that by killing Masa in cold blood just because he was a fanboy and he was making him a favor by stopping his future suffering. That's not enough, he has to show off the audience how much of a badass he is by poiting a gun towards his own brother. And then he gets shot by the other mobster and Chikai in his godlike gunslinger skills kills him off with one shot to the head and then we get the sobbiest most ridiculous dying scene with a flashback on how he was a regular good guy towards his brother before his life changed forever because of the mafia. Am I supposed to feel empathy for this derranged guy just because some sappy music is being played while we see flashbacks of him being a good guy and we I have to ignore all the blood that's on his hands?

Sorry Ikuhara, I just don't buy your bullshit.

lezerman said:
Probably my favorite episode, the piano at the end together with Chikai slow death was very painful.
this show is so underappreciated, i hope it's having some traction in Japan.



Sometimes it's better to just let it go.

Kimurah said:
If this series wasn't ending in 2 more episodes, I would have dropped here at this episode.

The tone is all over the place. It tries to be funny with Sara & Keppi's little adventures for pretty much nothing. And when Kazuki is crying his heart out for Enta it turns the drama into just cheap comedy by bringing Enta in kappa mode.

Enta's sister couldn't be further an anime character even if she wanted to. The complete lack of grasping the situation is baffling, she's more infatuated in comforting Kazuki than losing her mind because her own little brother was shot and the dcotor already stated that he wouldn't make it thru the night. A real person would go haywire and would just think what will her life will be without her brother, or be pissed furious looking for answers from the cops. That's kinda my gripe with other side characters, like Haruka, that despite his condition he only lives in order to make Kazuki happy. None of these side characters feel real, they just live as decoration in order to make the main characters shine.

Lastly talking about anime characters, there's Toi's brother. Yeah, we get it, he's just a psychopath that has no empathy for anyone surrounding him, he pretty much proved that by killing Masa in cold blood just because he was a fanboy and he was making him a favor by stopping his future suffering. That's not enough, he has to show off the audience how much of a badass he is by pointing a gun towards his own brother. And then he gets shot by the other mobster and Chikai in his godlike gunslinger skills kills him off with one shot to the head and then we get the sobbiest most ridiculous dying scene with a flashback on how he was a regular good guy towards his brother before his life changed forever because of the mafia. Am I supposed to feel empathy for this derranged guy just because some sappy music is being played while we see flashbacks of him being a good guy and we I have to ignore all the blood that's on his hands?

Sorry Ikuhara, I just don't buy your bullshit.

bitchassdarius said:

also you completely misread toi's brother's final scenes, which makes sense since you think the "tone was all over the place" bullshit. he's not being depicted as a psychopath, more as someone that really struggles to "connect" so he does the complete opposite by burning his bridges in the most extreme way. the whole episode is supposed to put the viewer in toi's shoes of questioning whether or not his brother cares about him, and toi (and thus the viewer) finds out the answer by the end, which is unfortunately too late. pointing the gun towards his brother was a mislead to set up the post-credits scene which you clearly didn't comprehend. he was pointing it at the guy on the boat the whole time because he always was looking out for toi (toi is on the ground having been pushed to safety out of the way by his brother, an action that led him defenseless). the brother saying "you ruined it" refers to the fact that toi was in the way as a result of him confronting his brother. if he hadn't doubted his brother, he wouldn't have been in the way, the bigger picture being that toi was always in the way of his brother's complete freedom and disconnection because toi was the one thing he cared about (signaled by the picture in his pocket of everyone except toi crossed out).

bitchassdarius said:
tone is a really bullshit thing to complain about because being able to blur the line is requires a lot of skill and affects depth. shows that keep a "consistent tone" tend to be one-dimensional and uninteresting.

bitchassdarius said:

comparing an anime character to what a "real person would do" is some serious rookie critic shit. trying to guess how a real person reacts in a fictional situation is a fool's errand because 1) everyone reacts differently, there is no "correct way"; 2) oftentimes fictional situations cannot be replicated in real life, ergo it's impossible to guess how accurate a character's reaction is (this isn't really the case here, but it should be mentioned nonetheless). what matters most is how believable the character's reaction in dramatic context, which i would say it's pretty reasonable in this case. some people cope by transferring the loss on someone else and by attempting to help that person. that's just how it is.

bitchassdarius said:

furthermore, how do you know she wasn't grieving off-camera? or a more pertinent way to phrase it, why would they waste screentime depicting some side character that doesn't actually matter grieving? should the grandma have her own scene too? you would just complain about the show being too bloated by focusing on shit that doesn't matter then.

bitchassdarius said:

also you completely misread toi's brother's final scenes, which makes sense since you think the "tone was all over the place" bullshit. he's not being depicted as a psychopath, more as someone that really struggles to "connect" so he does the complete opposite by burning his bridges in the most extreme way.

bitchassdarius said:
the whole episode is supposed to put the viewer in toi's shoes of questioning whether or not his brother cares about him, and toi (and thus the viewer) finds out the answer by the end, which is unfortunately too late. pointing the gun towards his brother was a mislead to set up the post-credits scene which you clearly didn't comprehend. he was pointing it at the guy on the boat the whole time because he always was looking out for toi (toi is on the ground having been pushed to safety out of the way by his brother, an action that led him defenseless). the brother saying "you ruined it" refers to the fact that toi was in the way as a result of him confronting his brother. if he hadn't doubted his brother, he wouldn't have been in the way, the bigger picture being that toi was always in the way of his brother's complete freedom and disconnection because toi was the one thing he cared about (signaled by the picture in his pocket of everyone except toi crossed out).

Kimurah said:
If this series wasn't ending in 2 more episodes, I would have dropped here at this episode.

The tone is all over the place. It tries to be funny with Sara & Keppi's little adventures for pretty much nothing. And when Kazuki is crying his heart out for Enta it turns the drama into just cheap comedy by bringing Enta in kappa mode.

Enta's sister couldn't be further an anime character even if she wanted to. The complete lack of grasping the situation is baffling, she's more infatuated in comforting Kazuki than losing her mind because her own little brother was shot and the dcotor already stated that he wouldn't make it thru the night. A real person would go haywire and would just think what will her life will be without her brother, or be pissed furious looking for answers from the cops. That's kinda my gripe with other side characters, like Haruka, that despite his condition he only lives in order to make Kazuki happy. None of these side characters feel real, they just live as decoration in order to make the main characters shine.

Lastly talking about anime characters, there's Toi's brother. Yeah, we get it, he's just a psychopath that has no empathy for anyone surrounding him, he pretty much proved that by killing Masa in cold blood just because he was a fanboy and he was making him a favor by stopping his future suffering. That's not enough, he has to show off the audience how much of a badass he is by pointing a gun towards his own brother. And then he gets shot by the other mobster and Chikai in his godlike gunslinger skills kills him off with one shot to the head and then we get the sobbiest most ridiculous dying scene with a flashback on how he was a regular good guy towards his brother before his life changed forever because of the mafia. Am I supposed to feel empathy for this derranged guy just because some sappy music is being played while we see flashbacks of him being a good guy and we I have to ignore all the blood that's on his hands?

Sorry Ikuhara, I just don't buy your bullshit.

Yeah, we get it, he's just a psychopath that has no empathy for anyone surrounding him, he pretty much proved that by killing Masa in cold blood just because he was a fanboy and he was making him a favor by stopping his future suffering. That's not enough, he has to show off the audience how much of a badass he is by pointing a gun towards his own brother.

Kimurah said:

This is some of the most weeb bullshit response I've read in a very long time. Tone is a very important asset of a story in order to make it believeable to a large audience with a wide array of cultural knowledge, rather than impress the most gullible weebs that take everything as credible and granted just because "it's anime" and you have to either roll with it or just get out of it. Lets take off the gloves and agree that Ikuhara works are just cult works worshipped by the same sheepheerd of brainwashed followers.

Kimurah said:
"Consistent Tone tends to be one dimensional" you're confusing tone with depth. A work of fiction or based in real life can have multiple layers based in it's characters and how elaborate the story is. You mentioned it depends on the skill to blur the line, and that's exactly how badly it was crafted in that scene that goes from emotional to a complete 3 ring circus act in less than a second. It's all about time and place, and neither of the two were met in that scene with kazuki and Enta.

Take as an example the recently finished HBO mini-series Chernobyl. It's always grim and devastating, but it managed to fit in some visual dick jokes in episode 3 with the miners buttnaked digging a tunnel to access the underbelly of the reactor. If that kind of joke was presented in the most grim moments when Legasov & Scherbina are assesing the damages and how many men would be required to contain the current situation. But hey, don't take my word up, I'm sure that a series with a consistant tone like Chernobyl will go unoticed by a lot of people, and great pieces of writing with tonal whiplash like Sarazanmai will be remebered forever by that huge 50K number of user who are watching it and rating it here on MAL.

Kimurah said:

"Trying to guess" is indeed a rookie mistake. But a good critic knows how real people react because he or she has lived long enough with different people and has the grasp of how "real" people react to life and death situations and has lived them on his/her own. "Everybody reacts different" is the most retarded weeb response to everything as a defense to bad writing depicting human nature. If everyone reacted in such a different way, writing good beliveable characters would be like a coin toss because every single person would have their own parameters on how to react. There are indeed variations from people to people and cultures, but they aren't that huge that a character that is about to lose her closest relative should remain this passive and caring to someone else who is not next of kin.

Kimurah said:

Oh the irony. You're calling my criticism rookie level, but you're pulling out of your ass the lamest excuses to defend bad writing with hypotethic outcomes. If Ikuhara would have wanted to depict her sorrow, it would have been on camera rather than being vague. That's 101 of storytelling, show don't tell, and in this case it isn't even a tell or implicit, it's a blatant omision in order to give more time to other scenes. Should the grandmother have her own scene too? of course she should, but based on what I already pointed out how tunnel vision this story is being told by making the main characters the only ones that matter, why would Ikuhara bother making the story with more layers? See, this show is pretty one dimensional because none of the side characters matter, they live only to make the main characters shine, their chara design are a waste of good effort, might as well have been drawn like blank cardboard cutouts in the same way the blank cutouts fill up the streets.

Kimurah said:

Psychopath:

noun
a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. Informal: an unstable and aggressive person.

Psychopathy can be thought of as a more severe form of sociopathy with more symptoms. Therefore, all psychopaths are sociopaths but sociopaths are not necessarily psychopaths.

According to the Society for the Study of Psychopathy, psychopath traits include:

Lack of guilt/remorse
Lack of empathy
Lack of deep emotional attachments
Narcissism
Superficial charm
Dishonesty
Manipulativeness
Reckless risk-taking

Yeah, that sounds a lot like Toi's brother, and your depiction of him by "burning bridges in the most extreme way" is just an embelishment of the same traits of a psychopath with no remorse, manipulative, lack of empathy & reckless behaviour. The whole flashback sequence is just cheap emotional manipulation run by the book

Kimurah said:

The whole setup is a typical bait & switch, cut to scene and make an asspull explanation. But thing is you're completely ignoring key elements.

Chikai is pointing his gun in a lower angle in order to put it on Toi's head level (wich btw is standing and is changed to the aftercredits as being on the ground). It's completely impossible to land a shot on the mobster who is in a far place that's also quite elevated, he would have needed to raise his arm in an elevated angle in order to land a hit, wich he does after he's being shot and he has full vision and trayectory of the mobster wich he hadn't seen before. He wasn't "aiming" at the mobster the whole time as you falsely claim.

Kimurah said:

Sure, Chikai cares for Toi, that has never been doubted. But the way it's portrayed with "fuck everyone else" but my brother, is still manipulative from the writers perspectvie in order to make a psychopath a loveable character who sacrifices for the one he loves as his "redeeming" act. This is nothing new, in fact Happy Sugar Life did the exact same thing but at least Satou had more characterization in order to explain her psychosis.

Kimurah said:


This is some of the most weeb bullshit response I've read in a very long time. Tone is a very important asset of a story in order to make it believeable to a large audience with a wide array of cultural knowledge, rather than impress the most gullible weebs that take everything as credible and granted just because "it's anime" and you have to either roll with it or just get out of it. Lets take off the gloves and agree that Ikuhara works are just cult works worshipped by the same sheepheerd of brainwashed followers.

"Consistent Tone tends to be one dimensional" you're confusing tone with depth. A work of fiction or based in real life can have multiple layers based in it's characters and how elaborate the story is. You mentioned it depends on the skill to blur the line, and that's exactly how badly it was crafted in that scene that goes from emotional to a complete 3 ring circus act in less than a second. It's all about time and place, and neither of the two were met in that scene with kazuki and Enta.

Take as an example the recently finished HBO mini-series Chernobyl. It's always grim and devastating, but it managed to fit in some visual dick jokes in episode 3 with the miners buttnaked digging a tunnel to access the underbelly of the reactor. If that kind of joke was presented in the most grim moments when Legasov & Scherbina are assesing the damages and how many men would be required to contain the current situation. But hey, don't take my word up, I'm sure that a series with a consistant tone like Chernobyl will go unoticed by a lot of people, and great pieces of writing with tonal whiplash like Sarazanmai will be remebered forever by that huge 50K number of user who are watching it and rating it here on MAL.



"Trying to guess" is indeed a rookie mistake. But a good critic knows how real people react because he or she has lived long enough with different people and has the grasp of how "real" people react to life and death situations and has lived them on his/her own. "Everybody reacts different" is the most retarded weeb response to everything as a defense to bad writing depicting human nature. If everyone reacted in such a different way, writing good beliveable characters would be like a coin toss because every single person would have their own parameters on how to react. There are indeed variations from people to people and cultures, but they aren't that huge that a character that is about to lose her closest relative should remain this passive and caring to someone else who is not next of kin.



Oh the irony. You're calling my criticism rookie level, but you're pulling out of your ass the lamest excuses to defend bad writing with hypotethic outcomes. If Ikuhara would have wanted to depict her sorrow, it would have been on camera rather than being vague. That's 101 of storytelling, show don't tell, and in this case it isn't even a tell or implicit, it's a blatant omision in order to give more time to other scenes. Should the grandmother have her own scene too? of course she should, but based on what I already pointed out how tunnel vision this story is being told by making the main characters the only ones that matter, why would Ikuhara bother making the story with more layers? See, this show is pretty one dimensional because none of the side characters matter, they live only to make the main characters shine, their chara design are a waste of good effort, might as well have been drawn like blank cardboard cutouts in the same way the blank cutouts fill up the streets.



Psychopath:

noun
a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. Informal: an unstable and aggressive person.

Psychopathy can be thought of as a more severe form of sociopathy with more symptoms. Therefore, all psychopaths are sociopaths but sociopaths are not necessarily psychopaths.

According to the Society for the Study of Psychopathy, psychopath traits include:

Lack of guilt/remorse
Lack of empathy
Lack of deep emotional attachments
Narcissism
Superficial charm
Dishonesty
Manipulativeness
Reckless risk-taking

Yeah, that sounds a lot like Toi's brother, and your depiction of him by "burning bridges in the most extreme way" is just an embelishment of the same traits of a psychopath with no remorse, manipulative, lack of empathy & reckless behaviour. The whole flashback sequence is just cheap emotional manipulation run by the book




The whole setup is a typical bait & switch, cut to scene and make an asspull explanation. But thing is you're completely ignoring key elements.

Chikai is pointing his gun in a lower angle in order to put it on Toi's head level (wich btw is standing and is changed to the aftercredits as being on the ground). It's completely impossible to land a shot on the mobster who is in a far place that's also quite elevated, he would have needed to raise his arm in an elevated angle in order to land a hit, wich he does after he's being shot and he has full vision and trayectory of the mobster wich he hadn't seen before. He wasn't "aiming" at the mobster the whole time as you falsely claim.

Sure, Chikai cares for Toi, that has never been doubted. But the way it's portrayed with "fuck everyone else" but my brother, is still manipulative from the writers perspectvie in order to make a psychopath a loveable character who sacrifices for the one he loves as his "redeeming" act. This is nothing new, in fact Happy Sugar Life did the exact same thing but at least Satou had more characterization in order to explain her psychosis.

bitchassdarius said:

also you completely misread toi's brother's final scenes, which makes sense since you think the "tone was all over the place" bullshit. he's not being depicted as a psychopath, more as someone that really struggles to "connect" so he does the complete opposite by burning his bridges in the most extreme way.

WinterEnlighten said:
I feel really REALLY REALLY bad how the scores are so low for such an awe-inspiring show :(

Ventus_S said:


I think that's the whole point?
The author don't want the episode tone to be completely dark and edgy like some other edgy shows, they don't want to make it overdramatic for the whole episode too.

Ventus_S said:

I think the tone is perfect, because then you can get the contradiction of light happy tone contrast to the darker theme . This is how Made in Abyss succeed too.
Before Riku broke his arm, the whole tone of exploration is kinda light/ adventurous, but in that same episode everything went to hell.

Ventus_S said:

You have full right to not like this type of method, and have full right to drop it as you like, but your criticism may not be as objective as you thought you are.

Conclusion: you do you, like it or not.

Ventus_S said:

PS: The sister part complaint is ridiculous. So you put your OWN assumption and what YOU would do in that scenario and assume everyone should act like that?
Maybe the sister knew Enta care more about Kazuki than her? That's why knowing all this he wants Kazuki to be by his side at last moment? Maybe she can't bare to see Enta like that?
Have you consider all the possibility? Or you just assume your own action into it and think everyone should act the same way base on your own perception?

Ventus_S said:

Conclusion: glad you're not the story writer. Just drop it I guess?
I bet this series is 1/10 for you already so why bother continue?

SStrikerV3 said:


Imagine calling people "weebs" when you're literally watching anime, and the worst of all, calling them weebs over defending a series made by a director that absolutely DOES NOT follow any of the current industry's tropes and standards and that does not do what would otherwise be called "anime for weebs" by the same person who made this comment. Ikuhara haters are an absolute joke like always, and the actual brainwashed people when they call others that.

SStrikerV3 said:

We also really see your thing in that bolded part: you actually don't like Ikuhara's methods of storytelling, you're just watching his shows to hate on them (probably having no idea of what actually defines him and why people actually like him just like that papsoshea guy who insisted that "all his anime are the same" as well), you absolutely miss the point severely on why he does everything he does, and also calls literally everyone "brainwashed" for actually understanding and liking it, when you'd have the exactly opposite opinion if you actually went somewhere like the In The Rose Garden forums and saw the countless discussions people do about his work, especially Utena (however, do all of them a favor and actually do NOT go there, because they don't need someone as conceited as you in their middle).

SStrikerV3 said:

Not liking Ikuhara is fine, trying to paint your prejudiced opinion as objective is absolutely something I hate, and that's why I'm going to take time to point out what's wrong in each of your arguments.

Kimurah said:
Have you actually watched the episode? The tone and and its progression are actually consistent and natural, it's just that you're expecting the episode to be pure drama and wanting to force the director to take your intent for the anime as what he should follow and is trying to paint what you think to be better as objectively better when it isn't (there isn't even "objectively better" when we're talking about art anyway, unless you can prove through pure logic that A is better than B, it's all your taste and trying to paint it as anything else is cringeworthy).

SStrikerV3 said:

The thing about this episode specifically but which is true for a lot of Sarazanmai is that you have around four stories going at the same time. In this episode we have:

1) Kazuki's and Enta's drama.
2) Toi's and Chikai's drama.
3) Reo and Mabu's drama.
4) Sara and Keppi's stuff.

Ikuhara switches between all of those viewpoints at once in order to make the storytelling more dynamic. That's why you think it has constant shifts in tone: he's not telling one story, he's telling four stories at the same time (and that's actually a fucking achievement when you have 11 episodes with 20 minutes to develop everything, Yuri Kuma's main sin was not being as dynamic as this and this led many people to thinking it was tedious), and using the more lighthearted scenes as usual comedic relief. When you actually take the scenes together in their actual chronological progression to each other, instead of the order presented in the episode, however, the tone is kept consistent and natural. But then you're going to argue "the episode's scene progression is what matters!" Well, the episode's scene progression is ALSO consistent and natural. The only place where you have a drastic shift in tone with no reason to happen is before the opening even plays, which shows Enta being taken to the hospital and Kazuki standing in the dark, and then switches to Sara trying to move Keppi and him being broken by a truck (which seems to be a parody of isekai stuff), and it's hardly something to nitpick about since the episode didn't even really start yet.

SStrikerV3 said:

The actual progression of this part of the episode is "dark/dramatic -> neutral -> lighthearted -> lighthearted/romantic -> comedic -> neutral -> tense -> dark/dramatic". It takes about six minutes for all these scenes to happen, the most serious ones generally take more time than the more comedic ones, but none of them except maybe "Sara and Keppi's adventures" take less than 30 seconds. I can't see how this is going from emotional to three circus ring acts in less than one second, nor how this progression in unnatural. Saying the the tone is "all over the place" when there's two fucking comedic relief scenes in the entire episode and one happens before the opening even plays, the other one has a natural tone progression to it as I've demonstrated by actually listing the tone progression and when none interfere in all the other plot threads going on in the episode makes absolutely no sense and there's no way you can argue the opposite other than "I didn't like what the director was going for" which is perfectly okay but just your opinion like always.

Now that "Sara and Keppi's adventures" and the tone being all over the place stuff is refuted, the only only thing left that's supposedly valid about your reasoning is: Enta's sister reaction about her brother's situation, and the shift in tone right after Kazuki discovers Enta is not dead yet.

SStrikerV3 said:

By the way, since we're talking about how real people react to this kind of situation (which I do have the experience to talk about, since I lost my grandma some years ago, a situation in which, ironically, me and my parents tried to act mature in front of my little brother to comfort him even if we were actually sad and, in my case specifically, I only actually cried when I was alone), think about this: what if she had lost someone important in the past (such as say, her grandpa, since grandma's husband doesn't seem to live with them it's easy to infer that he has probably died) and were already used to this kind of situation, and therefore this reaction wasn't as strong, even if it's still there, because she's also used to it? Since there's nothing to go on about what the character's past is (after all, she's a fucking secondary character and there's absolutely no reason to focus on her grieving storywise), you can't really judge her reaction in any way other than "I wanted it to be such even if it's not supposed to be such because my personal experience says that people don't act like this", which is ironic in two ways because: 1) her reaction is absolutely expected from a mature adult person such as a parent or big brother/sister who is front of a child, especially one who has already gone through this; and 2) because it shows that you're the one who's taking your personal experience or what you think to be "human nature" and making it universal in order to criticize a non-existent problem in the episode's writing, which is exactly what you YOURSELF criticized in your own comment, so you're the only one subject to the coin toss you criticized.

SStrikerV3 said:

And then you finish this paragraph by appealing to popularity. Talk about an actual clown act. Are you going to call yourself a certified critic next? If you do, I'm going to laugh a whole lot, because you're literally taking out the most common examples of how to not criticize a show out of whatever book you have to criticize this one.

SStrikerV3 said:

Only thing left now is Enta's revival, but I won't even take much time with that: the entire POINT of the scene is ending the ongoing drama up to that point since Enta isn't dead yet and Kazuki can still save him, so a drastic shift from dark to lighthearted actually makes sense: the audience has just discovered Enta is alive - which leads to a surprise - then Ikuhara holds that surpriseful tone for a bit with Kazuki being confused about why he has appeared as a kappa, before transitioning into a comedic scene that ends on a hopeful tone. If all of this ends tragically or in a bittersweet way, by the way (which wouldn't be really strange, since Ikuhara has only done one ending to this day in his own works that can be categorized as completely happy, and even in that ending the future is still uncertain), things are going to hit with double the impact, because he would have given false hope to the audience.

SStrikerV3 said:

I've already explained how Ikuhara actually depicted her sorrow and you just weren't paying attention (also, criticizing Ikuhara for not doing "show, don't tell" is fucking hilarious when he's all about his visual storytelling, when he basically never does infodumps and when this scene is no exception to the rule), but this right here is absolutely hilarious, it's almost as bad as critics wanting Godzilla to focus on human drama.
How in the fucking Earth do you want a 11-episode show to have extraordinary focus on secondary characters, when there's no time to focus on secondary characters in this kind of show and especially when there's an ongoing drama with the main characters being set up for nine episodes now? You can't do that, that's losing precious screentime, no director would do that for a series of this duration. And no, focusing mainly on main characters does not make it one-dimensional or superficial, treating its themes superficially and making cardboard main characters is what does that, which Sarazanmai is absolutely far from doing. The focus on secondary characters here is the exact same level as other shows, even famous ones, of the same duration. See Madoka, for an example, there's like a handful of scenes where any secondary character has relevance to the plot, the only ones that are vaguely relevant are Kyousuke (which gets pretty much no focus outside of Sayaka's own drama itself, so it's still centred around a main character) and Madoka's mother (who also does not get any relevant focus on herself other than giving life advice to Madoka when she's troubled and trying to stop her daughter from putting herself in danger in order to save her friend, so it's also still centred around a main character's drama as well). You have absolutely no reason or time to focus on any secondary character's drama that isn't relevant to the main character's drama in anime with this duration, and Sarazanmai ACTUALLY does that with the secondary characters that are actually important, see how it dedicated an entire episode to Toi and Chikai's past. Now, do you know an anime where secondary characters actually have an entire arc dedicated to them and their personal drama? Revolutionary Girl Utena. Another Ikuhara show. Even though you insult Ikuhara so much, he's the one who has actually done that to extents that few directors do. The entire Black Rose arc is basically that, other than the two episodes focused on Mikage and the usual Nanami episodes. However, Utena has 39 episodes. Sarazanmai has 11. That's about 2/7 of Utena's duration, a little more than a 3 hour-movie duration. Of course it's going to have a focus in the fucking main characters and leave secondaries out of scene unless they're relevant to the main characters. There's absolutely no intention to portray secondary characters having problems, and that's the right way to direct anime like this, otherwise you aren't going to have enough time to wrap up the main plot itself instead.

SStrikerV3 said:

No, you absolutely do not know what a psychopath is, the worst part is that what you just posted refutes your own point. Psychopaths are characterized by callous and manipulative SELF-SERVING behaviors, and a LACK OF EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS. Psychopaths need to be absolutely selfish and not care about anyone else other than themselves. All people are there to be used by them for their own purposes for them, even if they seem to care for someone it's either an act because caring for said person is going to get them personal gain, or if they do actually care, they can simply stop caring about them when push comes to shove (like they have an emotional switch). Tell me how Chikai's actions are like that when he cares more about his brother than himself as demonstrated since episode 3 and by the very end of this episode. They aren't, and therefore he is not a psychopath.

MaahHeim said:
I guess I'm now allowed to mark the SUFFERING on my bingo. Jesus fucking christ, my poor heart. Reo's poor heart. Kazu's poor heart. EVERYONE'S POOR HEART.

And was it Reo also a machine? He touched his heart and there was a ticking and then the machine-heart that he took from Mabu. Also the "cheating" scene was painful. JESUS CHRIST. This episode was... fffffffff UGH.

bitchassdarius said:

tell me how sarazanmai is based in real life. tell me how kids turning into kappas is real, and how they should react, and how all such events that happened in the show thus far would actually play out in real life. this is why this line of thinking is incompetent and restrictive: it's literally impossible and it refuses to understand the story on its own terms. this is what separates good criticism from nostalgia critic/cinema sins bullshit amateur hour. if you can't point out the flaws of a work with respect to its own methods and devices, then you don't deserve to have your opinion taken seriously. you're trying to force sarazanmai into your own frame and justify your criticisms ad hoc, which is the laziest, most pseudo-intellectual nonsense typically perpetuated by weebs in an echo chamber. your criticisms don't stand on their own because they're completely subjective. if someone else claims they actually find the tone consistent, what then? you just agree to disagree because you had different experiences watching the show? why not actually work with the story and make more objective observations, such as outlining what you think is being attempted instead of completely misreading a scene and blaming the show for your own misgivings.

bitchassdarius said:

for example, where did i say ikuhara "wanted to depict her sorrow?" i'm saying the complete opposite; i'm saying he didn't want to at all because it would be a waste of time to show some nobody character that doesn't fucking matter having an emotional reaction. showing the sister grieving advances the story in no way, so why would you even include it? the fact that you don't even realize this shows you've got a lot of learning to do. including scenes of minor characters grieving isn't adding layers, that's the most reductive and pigheaded conception of complexity i've ever heard. why the hell would adding scenes of characters, who would obviously be sad, being sad add "layers?" what the hell are you actually talking about? do you actually read what you write? you think adding obvious shit makes something complex????

you have no idea who these characters actually are besides their relation to the main characters, i.e. they're not important characters. if you think bloating the story with trivial shit and slogging the pacing is "adding layers," then it suffices to say you're an amateur lmao. i can just imagine the type of story you would write: a hundred pages of "characterization" for a million "characters" and nothing interesting. "b-b-b-but it's layered!!!" lol

bitchassdarius said:

by the way, here's another good lesson for you. "manipulative" is not a criticism, it's an observation. in fact, all art is manipulative, because all art attempts to make its viewers feel something, otherwise it's not good art. don't try to sneak "manipulative" in as a critique, because people will laugh at how uninformed you are. you've clearly never watched a puccini melodrama (that's opera since you probably don't know who puccini is). puccini is about as manipulative as you can get, but sure if you think that's a valid critique, a century of opera will laugh at your face for how dumb you sound. you ever read hamlet? ever read macbeth? romeo & juliet? nah, dude, shakespeare is too "manipulative" LMAO kid, you're out of your depth here. don't bother responding, i've already erased your legitimacy from existence.

Kenchiin said:
In the after-credits scene, when the piano version of "Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo" kicks in... flawless.

Kimurah said:


I never stated that this piece of fiction was based in real life, I made a comparisson with a real life incident that was rewritten and shown in a very hollywoodesque matter but still manages to send a very clear message to a wide variety of viewers rather than derail from human nature and easy to please niche Ikuhara fanboys just based off his name. Also I did point out what I believe are flaws and for you comparing me to nostalgia critics I really can't get a bigger praise if contemporanean criticsm is carried on by a name solely. And no, I'm not posting my thoughts expecting someone to agree with me, I just do it because I can.



So you're saying that it all it matters is to move the story forward? characterization from minor roles don't matter? wow, you must be a huge fan of 4komas an other short stories with vapid storylines. Forgive me for being a Nostalgia Critic and wanting some time off to fleshen out side characters and have a more complete piece of fiction. Carry on.



All pieces of entertainment are manipulative it's true, but the good ones can mask their threads and the viewer feels really attached to the characters in a natural way. Their suspension of disbelif isn't challenged. Your own statement that YOU particularly find some authors easier to tell off their manipulation skills just agrees with my statement that I found this episode manipulative. So I really don't see why you're laughing off if you agree that blatant manipulation is real.

Kimurah said:
All pieces of entertainment are manipulative it's true, but the good ones can mask their threads and the viewer feels really attached to the characters in a natural way.

Kimurah said:


Again, you're just pulling out theoretical scenarios to patch up lack of characterization from the writers. If Ikuhara wanted to depict a mature onseesan, she would have had an episode to tell her story. Good stroywritting fleshes out support characters and gives them motivations to stick with the main cast and in the best scenarios they get enough detail in their stories and their ambitions are show to the audience that they could even get a spinoff. With Enta's sister we got an episode, wich was pretty shallow and depicted her like a girl in the need of a boyfriend (she didn't even had a good eye to pick a good boyfridn, he was a 2 timer) and when the boyfriend vanished a reset button was pressed. You're whole rant that she could have been a caring and mature onesan went out the window with episde 7.

Also it's ridiculous that you state that since she's a secondary character she doesn't need more time before this for characterization and her emotionless griefing is just fine. Toi's brother got a bit of time on the story in order to cement his character and be relevant to Toi's story. Same with Haruka and Kazuki. But Enta's sister just got the short end of the stick.