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Yeah, it would be best to agree to disagree. I feel we both got our points across. There is probably more that I could say in defense of what you just wrote, but I don't want to sound like a broken record. Thanks for the civil discussion.

Glad to see I at least had a decent response by the way. I probably won’t be going to into detail for all this since we have both presented our thoughts and now it mostly comes down to subjective reasoning and different values we have.

“Edit” This is written after I finished. I rambled a ton here. Not much else to say. So not sure how it all came out XD.

“As you say, my introduction is partly made to sound smart. For me, that's part of the classic role of an introduction”

I can understand the reasoning to wanting to sound smart, but rather than doing that just make your post actually smart. Not saying this post isn’t. I just know tons of people who abuse “complex” words which tend to get them into way more trouble than needed.


“I don't find your justification for the near-hentai scenes:”

I think this only works in episode two with Chtholly. I see this the same way I see Holo walking around naked teasing Lawrence. The other two is way less justifiable and at one point definitely hurt my appreciate of the show. I can only see this scene as different girls have different reactions from him. Showing that Nopht is more childlike than Rhan. Granted as I said I don’t even really like these scenes. As fanservice stuff bothers me a ton. Keep in mind ecchi is in my most hated genres. (Also I wouldn’t say I am over analyzing it as much as you would be. Granted I don’t think over analyzing is a thing. People just have different mindsets from others. Some people only vegetable out to watch some hardcore action)

“I know perfectly well what metatextual means.”

I mean more in context to what the show is doing with them. Ithea’s character is only doing it to wall herself out from reality and pretend that she is the old Ithea.

“I don't give examples because I want my review to be spoiler-free and because it would make it even longer, it's as simple as that.

I myself haven't read the Light Novels yet but I feel some of this needs to be answered while others do not. This is an issue with the anime being incomplete. And while I understand the criticism. It just doesn’t bother me since I don’t feel that was what the anime was focusing on. Now when I read the Light Novels if they haven’t answered somethings than yeah it will bother me. I also don’t understand the important stuff being withheld till the last episode. If anything it just makes us question more. I also dislike saying shows are emotionally manipulating you. Because pretty much any show is doing that to some degree. It more is if you like how it is manipulating you.

I guess to move on to the info dump part of it. I realize the show has info dumps. But that was more around the character development that is fairly subtle in comparison to the show explaining stuff to you. Granted your criticisms such as saying “There are plot holes, as in it is impossible to understand everything that happens in the show without reading a summary of the light novel. The beast-plants, the Gods, how fairies are made, and especially how it was possible to make Chtolly vith Elq's soul, etc., are all unexplained issues.” I think some of this works for adding mystery too the world and letting us try to fill some things in. Not saying the show needs no answers, but making the reader wonder what is going on isn’t inherently a bad thing. Something like Lain does this on a much worse level, but it is interesting to try and come up with your own solutions based off what vague stuff the show gives you. Basically I feel it is a personal preference of mine to not be let in on everything. Sometimes it ruins the magic part of well the world.

“There is also the whole blood thing: how comes that when Ithea changed, nobody noticed it and her blood didn't show it ?”

While my answer isn’t clear there is 2 things it could be. 1 the anime didn’t adapt that from the novel. Which would need to be explained in a future season if it ever got adapated. (granted the anime didn’t sell all that well) Or 2 it happened directly over night for her and it is different for each fairy. Granted I was asking this question too.

“Your justification for Chtolly's action makes sense, though I think you are over-thinking things a bit.”

We watch trashy chinese cartoons and discuss them in detail. We are all over thinking. When we should just enjoy whatever.

Sorry for mixing two of your paragraphs into one thought. I am sort of just rambling at the moment anyway. Hopefully it is coherent enough.

“-In episode 2, the first scene opens on a traditional flashback with altered colors/reverb effect. It follows with an equally traditional establishing shot with children voices as background noise and sad music.”

I feel this is more for Willem’s reaction but personally it just doesn’t bother me. I wouldn’t say it is master class directing but honestly it feels like a normal anime scene. Anime shows tend to have pretty basic directing in scenes like this. The next scene is also after the opening. So I don’t see a problem trying to ease some tension here. If it was right after with no opening I would probably agree. But I have seen way worse tone shifts/clashes with scenes. Just watch 3-gatsu or FMAB for that.

“-The clash between the harem-comedy like passages of the show and its willingness to take itself seriously would also work.”

Personally I like this aspect. The show actually mocks Light Novel tropes such as harem stuff or when the stupid cat guys are attacking them. It plays off this well and shows the characters having fun. I would much rather have that then the show being depressing constantly. This goes hand in hand with how you say the middle of the series is void, but it is about growing the relationships with the characters. If you don’t like that than that is fine, but personally I like seeing the characters interacting and having fun. It also kind of makes it different from most regular trashy light novels that just want to show the main character in cool badass fights.

“-Most of episode 1 is also basically a different anime that the rest of SukaSuka: the scenes in town have nothing to do with each other and with the rest of the show. “

You can call me an over analyst if you want. But I always felt like this was Chtolly's fantasy world. As in an escape for her. So for her this is different from her everyday life. It is something she has never experienced exactly like this.

“I don't really understand how one could find such dialogue good, but hey if you liked it, it's great for you.”

Most anime just has incredibly bad scripting in general. Fudge Spice and Wolf a show mainly about dialogue fails in that department quite well. I can only think of a few anime that get even close to live action stuff scripting wise. Personally I think you didn’t enjoy the characters which in turn make the dialogue clearly not be good for you.

Welp I wrote/rambled way more than I intended too. I might check out your club thing but I can only see so much criticism of something before getting triggered XD. I did enjoy our conversation though.

I have to head to work but I can respond to some of this. In part, it mostly seems like a different perspective on how these tropes actually work. Granted I don't quite have time to respond right now. Thanks for your much better response than some people would give.

Honestly I probably would have just ignored your review if the score wasn't’t a 1/10. That tends to mean a show did absolutely nothing right and for a show on my top 10 which I think handles so much right I obviously had to reply. If I come off heavy handed I apologize. And if anything seems like an insult it was not meant as one. Just wanting to defend this show since I feel quite a few people misunderstand it quite often.

I figured I would respond to your SukaSuka review since I absolutely love the series and I feel you missed quite a bit of what it was going for. Mostly in its tropes. This is obviously going to be a long post since your review is so long, but I felt the need to respond.

First thing is first. I am going to criticize your first post as I feel it is made to just sound smart. It makes you come off in a very arrogant manner especially when in this sentence "SukaSuka, in my opinion, matches perfectly with this definition: its writing and execution lazily follow hackneyed recipes, which prevents the anime from being anything else than a juxtaposition of trite tropes and plot devices. " This sentence repeats the same criticism twice thanks to the word hackneyed. As it literally means what trite means. This might look like a cherry pick, but it makes it look like you are using words you don't understand. Anyway onto the actual review portion.

"For instance, all the members of the main cast strictly follow archetypes like the tragic tsundere, the inexpressive loli or the overpowered protagonist with a dark past."

The tragic tsundere would be Chtholly right? But she doesn't quite fit into this archetype since most of this is all happening due to her feeling like she needs to mature quickly due to her well having a time limit on her life. It also follows the memory problems she has which have been happening to her since the start of the show. In the first episode, we get to see her hair has two strands of pinkish red which confirm that. Basically, the show tricks you into thinking she is just a typical tsundere and than turns it on its head with her memory thing. Which causes her to kind of switch back and forth personality wise. I feel you also miss the aspect of how well the show handles her memory issues. It is scarily accurate to how my grandma is going through dementia right now. One day she will seem super fine. She will be super happy and acting like nothing is wrong, but other days she is completely different. But this is all mute anyway when you consider bringing up tropes as a criticism. Considering pretty much every form of media the main characters can easily be considered tropes. Take Holo as an example. Even though I really love Spice and Wolf. She is practically just a basic Tsundere, but it is her interactions with lawrence that define her. Not her trope.

Obviously the inexpressive loli would be Nephren right? Her character is more than just that if you pay attention. At first it seems like she is just Willem's pet but in reality she is sticking close to him for both his and her own comfort. She is also going through something similar to Chtholly considering in the last episode she also has the same eye problem. It basically boils down to again the show using her trope to actually cause her to be a different kind of character. Her relationship with Willem is basically told through mostly visuals alone. Which is a great use of show don't tell.

Then we have the overpower protagonist with a dark past. You mean Willem of course. Did you miss how his back story is all about him being some overpowered dude who has to fight the demon king? Doesn't that seem pretty fudging generic? Well you would be right. It was meant to be. That is the story we are not really experiencing though. Instead we are watching the story of someone who basically failed in his mission to save the world and if he literally fights for even a few min it starts destroying his insides to where he could kill himself. Instead of having an overpowered main character who always saves the girl. We have a character who used to be overpowered but is now forced to watch on the sidelines while the girls have to fight for him. That is the exact opposite of what a normal overpowered light novel main character would be. And it makes me feel like you were just looking at him at face value. Now add Nephren to his story and you can see his reliance on her even more. Especially after she falls and he is willing to sacrifice himself to save her. Which of course he is than saved by Chtholly. What about him is actually OP. He basically fails constantly.

“The often out of place otaku-bait that are the couple of borderline hentai scenes and Ithea's metatextual jokes undermine any suspension of disbelief even more, and are representative of another one of SukaSuka's writing issues: it's lack of coherence.”

If you are talking about the massage scene it has relevance too. Even if I kind of hate it myself. This scene is showing how Willem doesn’t see Chtholly in a sexual manner. Since at this point we are seeing everything from Chtholly’s point of view. In this moment she very much has a crush on him in an immature way while he still views her as any other kid. It is done this way so we can see how he slowly falls for her and see her actually maturing over the case of the show. It makes their relationship have more layers to it.


Now to get to Ithea here I guess. You say that Ithea’s jokes are metatextual but either you misinformed about her character or don’t understand the word. Metatextual stands for when one text makes critical commentary on another text. But that isn’t what she is doing. Her comedy/jokes do two different things. One it shows you how she is just trying to be the old Ithea and hiding from her own reality. Two it shows how Willem is just brushing off jokes about him being a creeper/pedo because he knows she is just teasing and he doesn’t care. Which in turn shows his affection for the kids is genuine.

“Indeed, the anime's plot is both full of holes and extremely unequally distributed between the episodes. It generally is developed through some unclear and heavy exposition scenes, and most of it is only explained in the penultimate episode.”

All this and no examples? I can’t defend or even agree if you are giving no examples and just saying stuff. I can say said show has 10 plot holes, but if I don’t say what they are it is just a blanket statement that means nothing.

“The main female character, Chtolly, also acts and thinks very inconsistently; it almost seems like her personality was rewritten several times during the anime.”

Yeah and that is when you find out she is having emotional problems because of her memory and situation. She feels inconsistent because she sort of is. Read above what I said about her. No need to repeat myself.

“SukaSuka's story doesn't make much sense: its historical context and its magic system seem like they exist only to justify the fact that children are used as weapons, that the main characters are special and that they find themselves in tear-jerking situations despite being overpowered. The romance between the two protagonists is as banal and mawkish as it is unrealistic, and only adds to the impression that the writing of the show is deplorably superficial.”

I mean most of the characters don’t understand the magic. Do you want them to spend a whole episode info dumping you? I think I also went over why Willem isn’t OP, but neither are the main characters. In the last episode we see Nephren struggling just to hold up due to her condition. In one of the episodes Chtolly and the rest fail to save a whole island from being destroyed. What makes these characters OP? Is it the fact in the back story Willem defeated some beast? Well that is kinda the point of subverting expectations. If we followed that story and that was that. Then yeah he would fit what you were saying, but that isn’t what is going on in the main story.

“This tendency to clumsily blend different kinds of atmosphere is a recurring feature of the anime, which is at its worst at the end of episode two, when a scene which is supposed to be sad and emotional is immediately followed by an especially distasteful fan service moment. The presence of fillers even though the series is only twelve episodes long goes to show how badly its screen time was allocated.”

I ignored the first part of this paragraph since well it doesn’t actually provide examples and just says it does all this poorly, but I am not explaining why. I think I already covered this fanservice moment. Most people missed why this was important for character development.

Can’t say I need to say much about your last three paragraphs. Personally I found the ost voice acting and dialogue great. It felt incredibly natural at times and when I compare that to most anime that feels very awkward. It makes SukaSuka’s dialogue stand out.

No problemo!

Here you go:
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