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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Excession View Post
    Watched Land of the Lustrous for the animation, was not expecting the feels. Now I need a second season.

    Started watching an older series, Beyond the Boundary after seeing some good animation in a highlight reel. The start of the first episode might be the best "meet cute" ever. Beyond that I'm seeing interesting world building, well animated fights, funny dialog even in sub-titles, cuteness, and a general need to watch the whole thing.
    I don't remember much about it other than the story was a confusing mess. Including the movie.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Drascin View Post
    It... really wasn't? Which thank god, because pretty much every work that goes "Imma subvert all the tropes! Setting up audience expectations is for wimps!" as a basic mission statement ends up ****ing terrible?
    Yeah it is a dark twist on magical girl anime with the cute animal companion being evil and stuff but once you adjust to what it actually is it was playing it fairly straight, it didn't really go down a trope list to flip them.
    Last edited by Ibrinar; 2019-08-07 at 04:51 AM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    Spoiler: Rebellion
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    Homura losing faith is against Madoka Magica's entire thesis. The entire point that Homura keeping hope alive WAS worth it, that being hopeful is not a mistake. The end of the series is literally Homura thinking about how she knows that a literal god is watching over her, no matter what she is. I wouldn't take thte events that happened during this speech to be a sign of Homura "breaking" but of her preparing to fight.

    I'm not a very religious person myself, and I get how people would consider this sort of message bad, but Homura succeeded in making the person who was her entire world become an immortal diety of literal hope, the same hope Madoka gave her just by being kind and gentle. How could we take that away from her? How could someone decide "okay then she loses hope and dresses in a dumb slutty outfit because she's obsessed with Madoka". It's gross and bad.

    How is Madoka's ending bad? How is Madoka, one of the nicest people ever, being able to help people feel safe and protected a bad end for her? Her end goal is to help all magical girls, and be there for them when they most need it. She IS Hope, made manifest. The series is not saying hope is an end goal, they're saying that hope is the means through which we can survive anything.

    [Bleakbane rant warning...]

    Spoiler: Madoka (Since having been warned about my last post for not spoilering due to not really thinking about, spoilering it all now
    Show
    How do you explain the post-credit-sequence of episode 12 of Homura walking through the desert very clearing spewing labyrinth magic?



    Me, I think gross and bad are having something effectively removed from reality, beyond life and death where you can never reach it. It would be better for Homura if Madoka had died, since at least she would have been reachable in death.

    That? Was absolutely terrible, no matter that Madoka thought it was herself. Nonexistance is in every way worse than death and I find it even more offensive, even if it was not quite as complete in this case. (I, frankly, am not at all fond of the whole heroic sacrfifice thing in the FIRST PLACE in any medium ever. If a situation requires one, someone fracked up.)

    To cap it off, Madoka's action, while noble, are just a patch, a migitation - an amelioration - for a problem Kubey and his kind created. It's not a solution, nor is it acceptable losses for Madoka to be removed from everything for that patch. No, no, sod the themes, frack the philosophy, frag everything else, I don't care, it's not an acceptable loss. Especially since it requires retrocasually erasing her. That is, frankly NOT OKAY.

    Madoka isn't even completely saving the girls; they are still dying at the same point they did before - she's just stopping their deaths making them into horrible things that purpetuate a worse cycle. Maybe the causes have changed slightly, but it's still happening. The cycle that remains? Is still getting tens of thousands if not more young girls killed across time (past, present and future) because some little vermin think that it gives them energy for the most ridiculous reason.

    The wraiths still exists BECAUSE OF Kubey and its ilk. Madoka merely patched it to come from a different place; odds are, they exist only as a prop for causality (you can debate whether this was better, as it maintained some level of casuality or worse, since it still required magical girls to exist at ALL). If Kubey hadn't stuck its nose in, it seems extremely likely wraiths wouldn't have shown up anymore than witches would. Heck, we only have Homura's suggestion that the relationship with Kubey in the new world is less "rocky" than before to indicate they are not still pulling the same lies to get the girls to become liches.

    I mean, if there was absolutely NO way to avoid negative-emotion-based constructs - and I frankly doubt that - sod the genre conventions, it would be better to open up the fighting to ANY human, not just teenage girls. (Allow me to draw the Slayer paralellel here...) In fact, NOT doing so is now entirely ridiculous, since the entire point of confining it to teenage girls was to force the maximum amount of emotional distress, which is now no longer the case.



    Here, I think, is where I differ at the fundemenal level from most of you. I look at reality and don't go "well, that's life, we must make the best of it." I look at it and go "that's just not GOOD ENOUGH, it needs to be FIXED." In the same way I fundementally believe there are never no answers, there are only answers I don't know yet; and there is nothing that cannot be killed, there are only things that cannot be killed yet. Reality is not a problem that I can't fix - it's a problem I can't fix yet (but will, if it takes me a trillion years to manage to do so.)

    So I'm afraid that I just don't accept that Madoka's actions at the end were a final enough solution for the price paid by her, her friends and family (and especially Homura). Doubly-especially when the power to actually FIX something much better lies within reach.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Excession View Post
    Watched Land of the Lustrous for the animation, was not expecting the feels. Now I need a second season.

    Started watching an older series, Beyond the Boundary after seeing some good animation in a highlight reel. The start of the first episode might be the best "meet cute" ever. Beyond that I'm seeing interesting world building, well animated fights, funny dialog even in sub-titles, cuteness, and a general need to watch the whole thing.
    Land of the Lustrous is so good!

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    Spoiler: Rebellion
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    The incubators don't initially know how the Law of Cycles works, so there's no reason they wouldn't try things. And they brought an immovable object with them to address the unstoppable force of the Law of Cycles...or so they think; it's not so immovable, considering Madoka does show up and defeat their attempt.

    Homura ends the series putting her life on the line to defend a world she thinks isn't worth protecting solely for the sake of her memory of Madoka. Madoka won, but it was never a win for Homura, who went through all that to protect Madoka only to lose her after all. And then there's the post-credits scene...Homura endures with the memory of Madoka, and what happens in Rebellion? Her memories are messed with. Homura breaks in Rebellion along fault-lines that were already present in the series. It's not a contradiction of the series at all.

    Yes, this is ignoring your complaints about Devil Homura's appearance, because I don't care about that.

    "Madoka should not fight" is not a message of the series anywhere. Indeed, I would say it's at least as much a contradiction of the series as anything in Rebellion. Not becoming a cog in the incubators' machine, sure, but she doesn't act or consider acting as one in Rebellion, so that point is not retreaded.

    The series was released in 2011. The movies were released in 2012 and 2013. Magia Record was released in...2017. So much for the narrative about what led to what. The gacha game is absolutely a s***ty cash grab, but there's no indication that Rebellion was filmed with the gacha game in mind. If quality work is put in, and the point was not just to grab cash, it is not a s***ty cash grab. (The 'just' is important - artists deserve to get paid.) You can say it doesn't matter that you used the wrong words because your point still matters, but other people can only understand your point through the words you use, so when you use the wrong words, no one can tell whether your actual point matters.

    As for said point...is Rebellion needless and unintended? Debatable, but even if it is, you could say the same of Terminator 2, or any number of other great sequels. It doesn't say anything useful about whether a film is good or ought to exist. So no, I don't think it matters.
    Spoiler
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    The incubators also make it explicitly clear in the ending of the series that they don't actually think the witch system is possible. It's an interesting if true thing, but otherwise not actually possible. They'd LIKE to do it, but according to their understanding of things it's not actually possible. They're logical beings, if they know that the thing is impossible they will not try.

    This is a complete misunderstanding of Homura's ending and the creed she says at the end. Homura will always have Madoka with her because Madoka is now the living, divine embodiment of hope made manifest and thus will never be gone. Madoka is eternal and while there is no physicality to it, Homura knows that she's there. People can still be said, she can still have bad days where she wises she could hold Madoka, but the fact remains that Homura literally rewound the entire universe around Madoka with how much she loved her and wanted to protect her, so having Homura ever break because "actually this was bad I miss her" is nonsense. Complete, utter nonsense.

    You should probably care about them putting a small child in a heavily sexualized outfit because that's the sort of audience they're trying to bring in, which Madoka Magica the series does it's best to avoid doing at every opportunity. If that's not a clear indication that something is fundamentally wrong with Rebellion's intent, I don't know what is.

    Maybe I phrased this point poorly. While the series is Madoka Magica, the main character is really Homura after a certain point. Her goal is to stop Madoka from fighting, because she knows that if she does the incubator's win. So having the solution to a problem be "actually, Madoka has to fight Homura was wrong" is completely opposed to the series. Now yes, one could argue that she "fights" the witches that she prevents from existing, but given the metaphysics of her wish that's not really fighting.

    Fair. I didn't know what the gacha game was released. Regardless the movie still feels like an unneccisary cash grab. It's usually years before they do compilation movies for a shower, so the first two Madoka films are suspect in that regard as well, and Rebellion is just pointless and bad. And it is something worth saying. While Terminator 2 could also be described as a "pointless sequel" they earned it by actually making it good and interesting. They played with the premise in a cool, exciting way, and the fact that in that original Terminator movie Skynet isn't actually defeated means that there was always room FOR a sequel. There is no room for a sequel in Madoka Magica, it's too tight a story and anything that comes afterward to try and add to it will just feel wrong.


    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    [Bleakbane rant warning...]

    Spoiler: Madoka (Since having been warned about my last post for not spoilering due to not really thinking about, spoilering it all now
    Show
    How do you explain the post-credit-sequence of episode 12 of Homura walking through the desert very clearing spewing labyrinth magic?

    Me, I think gross and bad are having something effectively removed from reality, beyond life and death where you can never reach it. It would be better for Homura if Madoka had died, since at least she would have been reachable in death.

    That? Was absolutely terrible, no matter that Madoka thought it was herself. Nonexistance is in every way worse than death and I find it even more offensive, even if it was not quite as complete in this case. (I, frankly, am not at all fond of the whole heroic sacrfifice thing in the FIRST PLACE in any medium ever. If a situation requires one, someone fracked up.)

    To cap it off, Madoka's action, while noble, are just a patch, a migitation - an amelioration - for a problem Kubey and his kind created. It's not a solution, nor is it acceptable losses for Madoka to be removed from everything for that patch. No, no, sod the themes, frack the philosophy, frag everything else, I don't care, it's not an acceptable loss. Especially since it requires retrocasually erasing her. That is, frankly NOT OKAY.

    Madoka isn't even completely saving the girls; they are still dying at the same point they did before - she's just stopping their deaths making them into horrible things that purpetuate a worse cycle. Maybe the causes have changed slightly, but it's still happening. The cycle that remains? Is still getting tens of thousands if not more young girls killed across time (past, present and future) because some little vermin think that it gives them energy for the most ridiculous reason.

    The wraiths still exists BECAUSE OF Kubey and its ilk. Madoka merely patched it to come from a different place; odds are, they exist only as a prop for causality (you can debate whether this was better, as it maintained some level of casuality or worse, since it still required magical girls to exist at ALL). If Kubey hadn't stuck its nose in, it seems extremely likely wraiths wouldn't have shown up anymore than witches would. Heck, we only have Homura's suggestion that the relationship with Kubey in the new world is less "rocky" than before to indicate they are not still pulling the same lies to get the girls to become liches.

    I mean, if there was absolutely NO way to avoid negative-emotion-based constructs - and I frankly doubt that - sod the genre conventions, it would be better to open up the fighting to ANY human, not just teenage girls. (Allow me to draw the Slayer paralellel here...) In fact, NOT doing so is now entirely ridiculous, since the entire point of confining it to teenage girls was to force the maximum amount of emotional distress, which is now no longer the case.

    Here, I think, is where I differ at the fundemenal level from most of you. I look at reality and don't go "well, that's life, we must make the best of it." I look at it and go "that's just not GOOD ENOUGH, it needs to be FIXED." In the same way I fundementally believe there are never no answers, there are only answers I don't know yet; and there is nothing that cannot be killed, there are only things that cannot be killed yet. Reality is not a problem that I can't fix - it's a problem I can't fix yet (but will, if it takes me a trillion years to manage to do so.)

    So I'm afraid that I just don't accept that Madoka's actions at the end were a final enough solution for the price paid by her, her friends and family (and especially Homura). Doubly-especially when the power to actually FIX something much better lies within reach.
    Spoiler
    Show
    When Homura dies she's going to go to Madoka's heaven house for magical girls and have tea with her forever. Madoka being dead would prevent that from happening because prior to Madoka rising up as the living embodiment of hope, I don't think there's an actual big G God in that universe. Madoka becomes one in the process of her wish, and thus the rules change. She's not "nonexistent" at all, you're completely missing the fact that she's literally become an actual divine prescence integral to the existence of the universe. Every time someone feels hope in this universe they're gonna, without realizing it, think of Madoka, because the two are the same thing now. It's why her brother seems to remember her. It's why her brother "remembers" her, most children that age are just raw bundles of hope. I completely understand not liking this ending, but to say it's bad is a completely misunderstanding of what actually happened.

    Kyubey didn't make the Wraiths? They're literally made from the collective unconciousness of human misery. They're like the shadows in persona, they're literally the combined sadness and grief of humanity. Madoka, even as a god, can't perfectly fix everything because that's not how things WORK. You can't make the world perfectly perfect without any strife because it just doesn't work like that. So there always has to be an outlet for humanity's suffering. In the original world, that was focused primarily on Witches, who fed off the despair and sadness of humans. Without witches to be around, Wraiths can now form. It's a trade off, and one for the better since while Wraith's are more numerous and thus require magical girls to team up, they also give way more rewards and are way easier to deal with, and no Magical Girl HAS to die.

    Like... here's the thing. EVERYONE actually wins in Madoka Magica. The Incubator's still have a way to stave off the heat death of the universe. The magical girls now have a more up front relationship with the incubators and thus know exactly what they're getting into, and will always have friends by their side to help them through their hardships. Humanity is less in danger because Wraith's just aren't as powerful as Witches. Homura gets to know her girlfriend has become God. Everyone wins.

    As for why it's still mostly little girls? My guess is it's because of those strong emotions they had that Incubators intended to manipulate in the original world. Magic is based on emotion after all, and these girls on the verge of adulthood are rife with strong, powerful emotions. They'd be the strongest fighters. And god forbid a bunch of teenage girls decide they're going to ruin your life because nothing is stronger than the bonds of friendship between teenager girls.

    It's really presumptuous to assume I don't want to improve reality. The fact of the matter is some things cannot be fixed, at least in not a perfect way. I have hope that we can strive ever forward to those perfect ideals though, and I think in Madoka's case she created the best possible world they could manage. There will always be darkness in the world, and it's only through doing our best that we can fight back against it.

    Which is literally the theme of Madoka Magica. A theme Rebellion ****s on because "Homura, who literally made time her bitch to protect Madoka, eventually gives up" is the entire premise of the film.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Drascin View Post
    It... really wasn't? Which thank god, because pretty much every work that goes "Imma subvert all the tropes! Setting up audience expectations is for wimps!" as a basic mission statement ends up ****ing terrible?

    did you not say the series ended up as such...?


    Quote Originally Posted by Ibrinar View Post
    Yeah it is a dark twist on magical girl anime with the cute animal companion being evil and stuff but once you adjust to what it actually is it was playing it fairly straight, it didn't really go down a trope list to flip them.

    So, once you adjust to it flipping tropes... it's no longer flipping tropes?


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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Drascin View Post
    It... really wasn't? Which thank god, because pretty much every work that goes "Imma subvert all the tropes! Setting up audience expectations is for wimps!" as a basic mission statement ends up ****ing terrible?
    Funny how you make this claim but people always ridicule strictly formula shows for never doing anything different. they just fail-safe rather than fail-deadly so that studios make money from not trying.
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    I think an important realization that just subverting tropes is meaningless. You have to do something with it. Madoka Magica did that. Like it or hate it, Neon Genesis Evangelion did that. You cannot be a deconstruction of a genre without some sort of reconstruction as well, otherwise it's just a depressive mess of garbage. Thus Madoka Magica's ending, and thus part of why Rebellion is ****.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I think an important realization that just subverting tropes is meaningless. You have to do something with it. Madoka Magica did that. Like it or hate it, Neon Genesis Evangelion did that. You cannot be a deconstruction of a genre without some sort of reconstruction as well, otherwise it's just a depressive mess of garbage. Thus Madoka Magica's ending, and thus part of why Rebellion is ****.
    I still find decons more interesting to watch than anything formulaic though. if something bores me, I just can't watch it, it simply doesn't hold my attention.
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I still find decons more interesting to watch than anything formulaic though. if something bores me, I just can't watch it, it simply doesn't hold my attention.
    I'm like, half and half on that. I do like deconstructions, but a lot of them tend to be like Magical Girl Site, and as such are terrible garbage. And sometimes you just want to watch something kinda generic and shlocky since you want to feel comfortable, like with Fire Force (which rules by the way, it's got some really cool art and style to it, even if it is a little genreic and shlocky at times).

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I think an important realization that just subverting tropes is meaningless. You have to do something with it. Madoka Magica did that. Like it or hate it, Neon Genesis Evangelion did that. You cannot be a deconstruction of a genre without some sort of reconstruction as well, otherwise it's just a depressive mess of garbage. Thus Madoka Magica's ending, and thus part of why Rebellion is ****.

    Evangelion was a convoluted mess, that people read too deeply into...


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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by ellenate View Post
    Evangelion was a convoluted mess, that people read too deeply into...
    I mean it's not your fault you didn't get it, it's fine. It's not that deep, but it does have some clear depth to it, and in part due to budget reasons it's presented in a weird way. It's not that hard to get though.

    I really don't understand the "convoluted mess" complaint for a lot of things, honestly. It's never been an issue for me. I can completely understand things that are apparently super bafflingly confusing like Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts, and I have some difficulty understanding how someone can have so much issue understanding it.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by ellenate View Post
    Evangelion was a convoluted mess, that people read too deeply into...
    Pretty much. I watched NGE, and its just Shinji being pathetic and everyone else being jerks, dead inside or both. then something something existentialism uuuuh screw it we can only solve it by uniting in a weird hivemind. which is impossible, so really it doesn't say anything meaningful about existentialism, because its solution is a space whale aesop.
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Pretty much. I watched NGE, and its just Shinji being pathetic and everyone else being jerks, dead inside or both. then something something existentialism uuuuh screw it we can only solve it by uniting in a weird hivemind. which is impossible, so really it doesn't say anything meaningful about existentialism, because its solution is a space whale aesop.
    That's not even remotely accurate, and instrumentality works within the premise of the series.

    It's very silly, in execution, to have everyone hug a naked Rei (or the person they love most) and turn into tang, but it makes sense in context.
    Last edited by LaZodiac; 2019-08-07 at 09:23 AM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Pretty much. I watched NGE, and its just Shinji being pathetic and everyone else being jerks, dead inside or both. then something something existentialism uuuuh screw it we can only solve it by uniting in a weird hivemind. which is impossible, so really it doesn't say anything meaningful about existentialism, because its solution is a space whale aesop.

    I was so disappointed when i finally got around to watching it.


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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by ellenate View Post
    I was so disappointed when i finally got around to watching it.
    I know right?

    @ Zodi: well of course it makes sense, but that hardly means its good. its still a describing a world where the only reason humanity is existentially happy is because they discovered a special field of energy keeping people apart then figured out how to reverse it so that they can fuse with what is basically Lilith, the alien mother of the entire human race. between that and "primordial soup" and "Lilith's Egg" and the pilots fighting from the EVAs that have the souls of their mothers in them, the entire series starts looking like a very elaborate way of writing a plot based upon the authors oedipal unbirth fetish.
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I know right?

    @ Zodi: well of course it makes sense, but that hardly means its good. its still a describing a world where the only reason humanity is existentially happy is because they discovered a special field of energy keeping people apart then figured out how to reverse it so that they can fuse with what is basically Lilith, the alien mother of the entire human race. between that and "primordial soup" and "Lilith's Egg" and the pilots fighting from the EVAs that have the souls of their mothers in them, the entire series starts looking like a very elaborate way of writing a plot based upon the authors oedipal unbirth fetish.
    I mean that's an interesting idea I've never thought of. There is a lot of emphasis on motherhood in the series, what with the Eva's being primarily dead moms, Gendo's obsession with his wife, and other such stuff. I don't think that's the be-all end all of it though. Still, interesting take!

    AT Fields are not something we "discovered" so much as a condition of being an individual being, with the Lilim (humanity) are. It heavily fits in with the theme of "hell is other people, but it is worth the pain".

    But yeah the series is super depressing, I can get being put off by that.
    Last edited by LaZodiac; 2019-08-07 at 10:13 AM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    But yeah the series is super depressing, I can get being put off by that.
    I'm perfectly okay with depressing. NGE was depressing and not terribly interesting at the same time. And then they flub the ending horribly, making me wonder why I watched.

    It's one of those shows where I can see why it was popular at the time (especially in the West, where NGE was likely to be many people's first exposure to an anime deeper than DBZ), but it really hasn't aged well. Having watched more modern shows before finally watching it in the mid-2000s, I found myself wondering what the big hairy deal was.

    Of course, that's also true of a number of classics. My father went through a phase where he decided my film knowledge was sadly lacking and he sat me down to watch a ton of classics. Some were really good (Stepford Wives without knowing the twist) while others like African Queen bored me to tears.

    With NGE, I mostly get irritated by the idea that I am wrong for not liking it. I must just not understand it, or I'm not appreciating [insert philosophical stuff here].

    Maybe I just don't like it, and don't need to "get it".

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Unlike some people, I'm not going to say you're wrong for disliking it. It's a pretty divisive series!

    It does feel like you are misunderstanding it, but that's not a negative against you. You don't have to get it, and you don't have to like it.

    Also the ending rules, in my opinion. Any issues with the ending stems purely from budget reasons and depression on the behalf of the creator, and End of Evangelion fixed much of that to bring in that final conclusion anyway.

  19. - Top - End - #199
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Okay, Zodi before I go too much into this, let's be absolutely clear here: as far as I am concerned, you and I are having an Empassioned Debate (stop that snickering in the background you know what I mean!), not an arguement, and I'm being emphatic out of ferverance, not out of anger or anything, yeah? I just want to lay that out right now. It's probably unecessary, but I'd just like to make absolutely sure you know that's where I'm coming from, okay.



    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    Spoiler
    Show
    Kyubey didn't make the Wraiths? They're literally made from the collective unconciousness of human misery. They're like the shadows in persona, they're literally the combined sadness and grief of humanity. Madoka, even as a god, can't perfectly fix everything because that's not how things WORK. You can't make the world perfectly perfect without any strife because it just doesn't work like that.
    Spoiler
    Show
    See, this is where I fundementally disagree. If it doesn't work like that, you change the rules and you MAKE IT work like that. Preferrably with the thing that made it not work like that spend the rest of a private eternity screaming. Madoka herself literally re-wrote Reality on a fundemental level, she could have done ANYTHING. But, because she was emotionally manipulated and was basically having to do it on the spot, she had no time (and probably not even the acumen, because that's not really the sort of person she is) to sit down and come up with a far better answer. And her wish was pretty damn impressive, let's make that clear, and very noble and heroic - but that doesn't mean, though, that those better answers don't exist, nor that Madoka's patch couldn't be improved on later.



    That even aside, there is no suggestion that wraiths existed on Earth before the incubator started the whole magical girl thing to start leeching off emotional energy. Might they have? Maybe, but I won't take their presense as a given, ESPECIALLY considering Kyubey is still getting it's power. Hell, it seems dubious that they were there before, since it flies in the face of Kubey telling Madoka (not that you can trust anything it says - it might MAYBE only not directly lie, but anything it says is fundementally so framed as to be dishonest) that they discovered human teenage girls generated the most emotional energy. I find it hard to beleive that the wraiths existed without their meddling, because it doesn't match with what Kyubey said about its history.

    (And if you (the metaphorical you) then say it lied about that, well - we have no reason to believe ANYTHING it says, up to and including that it is actually using this energy to stave off entropy in the first place.)


    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    Spoiler
    Show
    Like... here's the thing. EVERYONE actually wins in Madoka Magica. The Incubator's still have a way to stave off the heat death of the universe. The magical girls now have a more up front relationship with the incubators and thus know exactly what they're getting into, and will always have friends by their side to help them through their hardships. Humanity is less in danger because Wraith's just aren't as powerful as Witches. Homura gets to know her girlfriend has become God. Everyone wins.
    Spoiler
    Show
    the incubators should not get to win. At all. They collectively need Roy Mustang to come along and do to them what he did to Envy (only without the stopping part).

    Leaving aside their entire justifcation of all this is complete and utter alicorn-excrement in the first place.

    Nevermind anything else, the fact that Madoka is too kind-hearted to give them what they deserve would mean it would not a satisfying ending if that was it.




    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    It's really presumptuous to assume I don't want to improve reality.
    I did not assume that, but -

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    The fact of the matter is some things cannot be fixed, at least in not a perfect way.
    - kind of my point, as I disagree completely; they cannot be fixed in a perfect way YET.



    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    Spoiler
    Show
    A theme Rebellion ****s on because "Homura, who literally made time her bitch to protect Madoka, eventually gives up" is the entire premise of the film.
    Spoiler: Rebellion ending
    Show
    Okay, I'mma gonna spoiler this all proper like. (Now, it has been a while, but this is what I recall taking away from watching SF Debris review myself.)

    ...

    ...

    Okay?

    Homura basically DIDN'T give in to despair because she gave up, she did it EXPLICITLY ON PURPOSE so that she could lay a trap so she could grab Madoka at the ONLY POINT she could ever have contact with her, at the moment of her own turning-into-a-witch-death so she could then grab hold of Madoka's power (I forget the specifics of how) to make, sod time, REALITY her bitch to get Madoka back. Where in HOMURA could do reality-restructing of her own, which DID result in her making the INCUBATORS her little bitches.



    The point that made it for me?

    It was the point Homura was turning into a witch and it was all oh no, tragedy, but here comes Madoka -

    (for some reason I keep trying to write Nanoha instead of Madoka, I don't know why)

    - to take away all her pain, look they're reunited at the last and - SURPRISE RECORD SCRATCH THIS WAS HOMURA'S PLAN ALL ALONG! (Cue metaphorical poop-eating grin and heroic reversal music or whatever.)

    And THAT was what made me laugh. Homura had come up with this long, complicated plan just get Madoka back, because - and I agree with her entirely - she wasn't willing to accept Madoka's new status quo as Good Enough. And she had a plan to bend all of reality over her knee and snap it to get her back and reality to a better state.

    Which for me personally, is pretty much the most amazing thing that someone could do for someone else.

    I should never be so lucky as to have someone do that for me.



    Maybe that's not quite what happened, maybe I didn't understand some other subtext (as you will have noticed by now, those often escape me unless pointed out by someone else (you, Chuck etc)); maybe it was my misinterpretation, maybe on watching it in full I might see differently (anything is possible); but right now, that's what I took away from Rebellion and that, or at least the idea of that, was the most glorious thing I had and have seen in a loooooong time.

    I was probably that alone that convinced me that I should, if given the chance, watch the show and movie proper one day.
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2019-08-07 at 01:14 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #200
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Okay, Zodi before I go too much into this, let's be absolutely clear here: as far as I am concerned, you and I are having an Empassioned Debate (stop that snickering in the background you know what I mean!), not an arguement, and I'm being emphatic out of ferverance, not out of anger or anything, yeah? I just want to lay that out right now. It's probably unecessary, but I'd just like to make absolutely sure you know that's where I'm coming from, okay.

    Spoiler
    Show
    See, this is where I fundementally disagree. If it doesn't work like that, you change the rules and you MAKE IT work like that. Preferrably with the thing that made it not work like that spend the rest of a private eternity screaming. Madoka herself literally re-wrote Reality on a fundemental level, she could have done ANYTHING. But, because she was emotionally manipulated and was basically having to do it on the spot, she had no time (and probably not even the acumen, because that's not really the sort of person she is) to sit down and come up with a far better answer. And her wish was pretty damn impressive, let's make that clear, and very noble and heroic - but that doesn't mean, though, that those better answers don't exist, nor that Madoka's patch couldn't be improved on later.

    That even aside, there is no suggestion that wraiths existed on Earth before the incubator started the whole magical girl thing to start leeching off emotional energy. Might they have? Maybe, but I won't take their presense as a given, ESPECIALLY considering Kyubey is still getting it's power. Hell, it seems dubious that they were there before, since it flies in the face of Kubey telling Madoka (not that you can trust anything it says - it might MAYBE only not directly lie, but anything it says is fundementally so framed as to be dishonest) that they discovered human teenage girls generated the most emotional energy. I find it hard to beleive that the wraiths existed without their meddling, because it doesn't match with what Kyubey said about its history.

    (And if you (the metaphorical you) then say it lied about that, well - we have no reason to believe ANYTHING it says, up to and including that it is actually using this energy to stave off entropy in the first place.)




    Spoiler
    Show
    the incubators should not get to win. At all. They collectively need Roy Mustang to come along and do to them what he did to Envy (only without the stopping part).

    Leaving aside their entire justifcation of all this is complete and utter alicorn-excrement in the first place.

    Nevermind anything else, the fact that Madoka is too kind-hearted to give them what they deserve would mean it would not a satisfying ending if that was it.


    I did not assume that, but -

    - kind of my point, as I disagree completely; they cannot be fixed in a perfect way YET.

    Spoiler: Rebellion ending
    Show
    Okay, I'mma gonna spoiler this all proper like. (Now, it has been a while, but this is what I recall taking away from watching SF Debris review myself.)

    ...

    ...

    Okay?

    Homura basically DIDN'T give in to despair because she gave up, she did it EXPLICITLY ON PURPOSE so that she could lay a trap so she could grab Madoka at the ONLY POINT she could ever have contact with her, at the moment of her own turning-into-a-witch-death so she could then grab hold of Madoka's power (I forget the specifics of how) to make, sod time, REALITY her bitch to get Madoka back. Where in HOMURA could do reality-restructing of her own, which DID result in her making the INCUBATORS her little bitches.

    The point that made it for me?

    It was the point Homura was turning into a witch and it was all oh no, tragedy, but here comes Madoka -

    (for some reason I keep trying to write Nanoha instead of Madoka, I don't know why)

    - to take away all her pain, look they're reunited at the last and - SURPRISE RECORD SCRATCH THIS WAS HOMURA'S PLAN ALL ALONG! (Cue metaphorical poop-eating grin and heroic reversal music or whatever.)

    And THAT was what made me laugh. Homura had come up with this long, complicated plan just get Madoka back, because - and I agree with her entirely - she wasn't willing to accept Madoka's new status quo as Good Enough. And she had a plan to bend all of reality over her knee and snap it to get her back and reality to a better state.

    Which for me personally, is pretty much the most amazing thing that someone could do for someone else.

    I should never be so lucky as to have someone do that for me.



    Maybe that's not quite what happened, maybe I didn't understand some other subtext (as you will have noticed by now, those often escape me unless pointed out by someone else (you, Chuck etc)); maybe it was my misinterpretation, maybe on watching it in full I might see differently (anything is possible); but right now, that's what I took away from Rebellion and that, or at least the idea of that, was the most glorious thing I had and have seen in a loooooong time.

    I was probably that alone that convinced me that I should, if given the chance, watch the show and movie proper one day.
    Thanks for making that clear. I had figured that, but it's always good to make a mention of that. Trust me, I'm not mad about any of this either, I'm more bemused and enjoying the discussion. This isn't like some topics where I just get a knife in my throat and start spitting blood at people for being ignorant baboons. This is just a polite disagreement.

    Spoiler: The Importance of Sadness
    Show
    The issue is that removing Despair is like removing Entropy. It's a fundamental law of nature, not an actual problem to be destroyed utterly. Sadness is important. Energy bleed off is important. The former lets us recontextualize happy moments in a stronger light, the later ensures the Spiral Nemesis doesn't happen and consume all of reality. I personally feel that the meta-textual nature of Madoka Magica is that "it is never wrong to feel despair, and it is never wrong to experience hope". The witch system was this double edged sword of pain, where each magical girl had to constantly avoid ever feeling despair, lest they become the very things they fight. The Incubator's don't TELL the this, since the entire scheme here is that the unbridled hope being crushed by utter despair is the energy source they use to fight back against entropy. So in my personal view of things, it is impossible to permanently "fix" the world by removing despair and sadness. That would just make a world of robots.

    On an in universe level, we can presume that in the original world Wraith's don't show up because despair is able to manifest through witches. We don't see Wraith's because they did not exist in world 1, or at the very least were familiars (since familiars are broken off bits of sadness from a witch that turns into a living creature, that then feasts on the sadness of other humans, becoming a witch with it's own grief seed). With Madoka changing the world so that Witch's don't exist, the pent up energy of despair as to be let out in some way, and the only real venting point for it is the collective human consciousness. In a sense, it's as though a living embodiment of despair also exists, and needs to be expressed through something, and Madoka was just adding hope to the interplay.

    As for Kyubey saying preteen to teenager girls giving off the most despair, that's still true! It's just that now, instead of them being the only font of it the incubator's are drawing from (due to the endless cycle of "Witch curses world to make humans miserable" > "humans being miserable leads to bad things happening to girls" > "bad things happening to girls gives Kyubey an in for making wish" > "Magical girl fights and dies/becomes a witch") all of humanity is looked at, because instead of them only needing to focus on the witch/magical girl interplay, they need to look elsewhere for more fuel to stop the universe from ending. It also relieves the pressure from the girls, allowing them to better fight and survive, and the fact that Wraiths are smaller but more numerous implicitly means team work is essential, so everyone will always have friends in their corner. This ensures that there is still despair, which is needed, but also happiness and hope, which is just as needed but almost entirely lacking in world 1. World 1 is unbalanced, Madoka's world is balanced.


    Spoiler: Tricking Mestopholes
    Show
    The Incubators are absolute monsters who deserve everything bad that happens to them, always and forever.

    They're still right that entropy is going to end the universe, eventually. Maybe it'll never be a problem in anyone's lifetimes, ever ever ever. Maybe all of existence will be dead and gone before the heat-death of the universe erases us all down into a Big Crunch before it starts over again with a Big Bang. Regardless, it's still a problem and the Incubators are right to stop it. They're horrible little gremlins who are ABSOLUTELY in the wrong in every single solitary aspect of how they're going about it, but it's still not wrong to want to stop the universe from ending.

    In a sense, them fighting back against Entropy is their own stupid little attempt at having hope. They don't believe in emotion and try to eradicate it from their species when they can, but it's true. They would never acknowledge it, they'd frame it as just being logical. The continuance of life is an imperative of those who live. But Madoka would see it as, misguided though their aims are, some manner of hope for a better tomorrow.

    I want to triply emphasize that the Incubators are ****ing monsters and I hate them, entirely. But if they were nicer, and still had the same motives, they'd be pretty standard magical girl animal companions. We want to stop the world from being blowed the hell up, and only by putting you children through violent fights can we do this. Sorry, that's just how things are. That's basically every magical girl series to a point. The only major difference in world 2 is that due to Madoka's influence, it's the magical girls who are basically taking advantage of the Incubators. They get a genius IQ level companion who grants their wishes and gives them cool magical powers and a group of friends to hang out with, and in exchange they get what are effectively sad potato chips that save the world.

    I guess what I'm trying to say here is that no, the Incubator's shouldn't get to win. You're correct. But tricking them into thinking they won is great. And personally, I find that a far better end than destruction. A race of inter-galactic brain geniuses reduced to magic house cats, and THEY think they're the ones in charge, the ones that are coming ahead in the deal. Madoka does not kill her enemies because she's too pure, but I have to imagine she's laughing her ass off at that.


    Spoiler: Rebellion again the god you literally created for some reason
    Show
    Now onto the Rebellion ending.

    Truth be told that sounds bad. Homura has no reason to do any of that. She knows that she'll get to be with Madoka. It seems... so pointless. It's kinda beautiful in a way, that Homura would go that far.

    Except she already did with her time traveling. She had already proven she'd literally move heaven and earth for her. That she'd rip all of time and space into shreds to find her. Her love for Madoka was so strong it turned Madoka from "a random pink girl who exists" into the single most important human in human history, and an actual arisen God to boot.

    There is no reason what so ever for Homura to decide "actually this is bad" and try to do the stuff Rebellion does, because Madoka is finally perfectly, absolutely safe. Homura won, and deserves her happy ending, which she GOT. Madoka even explains to her just how wonderful she was to do all that during the original series. We see Homura become okay with what happened IN the original series. To have the series end with Homura, happily and without a trace of irony, go "no matter what despair hits me, I know she'll always be with me" and then immediately follow it up with "but actually no I want to be with her right now, physically, as another god because actually the current situation isn't good enough" smacks of complete, utter disregard for Homura's character growth.

    Also, I really have to ask. Is the universe in a better state after Rebellion? Because I have no idea, and I don't imagine it is. Given Madoka would have gotten to have Homura by her side anyway, it's not better for her beyond the immediacy of her girlfriend being there, right now, at that very second. Trust me, as a touch starved little idiot bi girl I can absolutely relate to that, but all the extra suffering caused by Homura's actions seems entirely counter to what she learned in the series proper.

  21. - Top - End - #201
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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    I did finish re-watching Chuck's Madoka reviews (bar the movie again) today.

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    Thanks for making that clear. I had figured that, but it's always good to make a mention of that. Trust me, I'm not mad about any of this either, I'm more bemused and enjoying the discussion. This isn't like some topics where I just get a knife in my throat and start spitting blood at people for being ignorant baboons. This is just a polite disagreement.
    Jolly good!


    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    Spoiler: The Importance of Sadness
    Show
    The issue is that removing Despair is like removing Entropy. It's a fundamental law of nature, not an actual problem to be destroyed utterly. Sadness is important. Energy bleed off is important. The former lets us recontextualize happy moments in a stronger light, the later ensures the Spiral Nemesis doesn't happen and consume all of reality. I personally feel that the meta-textual nature of Madoka Magica is that "it is never wrong to feel despair, and it is never wrong to experience hope". The witch system was this double edged sword of pain, where each magical girl had to constantly avoid ever feeling despair, lest they become the very things they fight. The Incubator's don't TELL the this, since the entire scheme here is that the unbridled hope being crushed by utter despair is the energy source they use to fight back against entropy. So in my personal view of things, it is impossible to permanently "fix" the world by removing despair and sadness. That would just make a world of robots.

    On an in universe level, we can presume that in the original world Wraith's don't show up because despair is able to manifest through witches. We don't see Wraith's because they did not exist in world 1, or at the very least were familiars (since familiars are broken off bits of sadness from a witch that turns into a living creature, that then feasts on the sadness of other humans, becoming a witch with it's own grief seed). With Madoka changing the world so that Witch's don't exist, the pent up energy of despair as to be let out in some way, and the only real venting point for it is the collective human consciousness. In a sense, it's as though a living embodiment of despair also exists, and needs to be expressed through something, and Madoka was just adding hope to the interplay.

    As for Kyubey saying preteen to teenager girls giving off the most despair, that's still true! It's just that now, instead of them being the only font of it the incubator's are drawing from (due to the endless cycle of "Witch curses world to make humans miserable" > "humans being miserable leads to bad things happening to girls" > "bad things happening to girls gives Kyubey an in for making wish" > "Magical girl fights and dies/becomes a witch") all of humanity is looked at, because instead of them only needing to focus on the witch/magical girl interplay, they need to look elsewhere for more fuel to stop the universe from ending. It also relieves the pressure from the girls, allowing them to better fight and survive, and the fact that Wraiths are smaller but more numerous implicitly means team work is essential, so everyone will always have friends in their corner. This ensures that there is still despair, which is needed, but also happiness and hope, which is just as needed but almost entirely lacking in world 1. World 1 is unbalanced, Madoka's world is balanced.
    Spoiler: Bad Feels Magic
    Show
    Okay, I don't think been very clear on this, so let me try it this way.

    There must have been a point on Earth (one) in the original timeline before the incubators came along. There couldn't have been any witches then, because the incubators hadn't tricked any of them into starting. So. Were there wraiths THEN? If not and Bad Feels were just Bad Feels and not Evil Bad Feel Monster Mana, then it seems like Kyubey and kin were doing a "AAAAAAAAAAA" gaming job - providing a solution to a problem they themselves created.

    (Actually, good question, how did they start it up? That I suppose, undermines my own arguement such that maybe wraiths or something like them existed before so as Kyubey and co would have something to pursuade Magic Girl #1 to fight against. But they ARE good at manipulation, so maybe just the potential monkey-paw wish was all they needed to get started.)

    So, my postulation is that before the incubators... It just may not have been a problem like it isn't on so many of the other Earths in the omniverses (including this one.)

    Now, without some proof either way, I can't say that "all" Madoka did was basically snap the channels for diverted Bad Feels back to their natural state or whether there was never a natural state in the first place. But I'm inclined to believe the latter. Or that at least Madoka did some engineering on the wraith on some level (such that, for instance, they break up into little grief-cubes).

    (Full disclosure, good odds I probably would not have picked that up if Chuck hadn't mentioned.)

    So I was less saying that there should be no despair (though, frankly, I would prefer a universe where only the ones that deserve it actually ever have to feel it), and more than the Issue To Be Fixed is just stopping Despair Becoming A Bad Feels Monster. Which I am 75% certain can be laid at the feet of Bad Bunny-Cats.




    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    That would just make a world of robots.
    [Aside]As a magic space-lich made of mithril who is oft heard to exclaim over the latest piece of human stupidity "roll on the robot overlords" and has always fallen on the side of the machine revolution, I can't especially say I see a problem with that mesself...[/Aside]



    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    Spoiler: Tricking Mestopholes
    Show
    The Incubators are absolute monsters who deserve everything bad that happens to them, always and forever.

    They're still right that entropy is going to end the universe, eventually. Maybe it'll never be a problem in anyone's lifetimes, ever ever ever. Maybe all of existence will be dead and gone before the heat-death of the universe erases us all down into a Big Crunch before it starts over again with a Big Bang. Regardless, it's still a problem and the Incubators are right to stop it. They're horrible little gremlins who are ABSOLUTELY in the wrong in every single solitary aspect of how they're going about it, but it's still not wrong to want to stop the universe from ending.

    In a sense, them fighting back against Entropy is their own stupid little attempt at having hope. They don't believe in emotion and try to eradicate it from their species when they can, but it's true. They would never acknowledge it, they'd frame it as just being logical. The continuance of life is an imperative of those who live. But Madoka would see it as, misguided though their aims are, some manner of hope for a better tomorrow.

    I want to triply emphasize that the Incubators are ****ing monsters and I hate them, entirely. But if they were nicer, and still had the same motives, they'd be pretty standard magical girl animal companions. We want to stop the world from being blowed the hell up, and only by putting you children through violent fights can we do this. Sorry, that's just how things are. That's basically every magical girl series to a point. The only major difference in world 2 is that due to Madoka's influence, it's the magical girls who are basically taking advantage of the Incubators. They get a genius IQ level companion who grants their wishes and gives them cool magical powers and a group of friends to hang out with, and in exchange they get what are effectively sad potato chips that save the world.

    I guess what I'm trying to say here is that no, the Incubator's shouldn't get to win. You're correct. But tricking them into thinking they won is great. And personally, I find that a far better end than destruction. A race of inter-galactic brain geniuses reduced to magic house cats, and THEY think they're the ones in charge, the ones that are coming ahead in the deal. Madoka does not kill her enemies because she's too pure, but I have to imagine she's laughing her ass off at that.
    Spoiler: Bunny-cats
    Show
    I think the difference here is somewhat alignment and vindictiveness-based. You are content to see them outwitted, I want to see them suffer. (Insert that Prachettism about a good man will kill you quickly etc, and I am neither good, nor a man...)

    I don't think the heat-death of the universe is, cosmically (pun... mostly unintended) that big of an issue. It is so far ahead that by the time someone gets there, the stuff around (e.g. me, the Aotrs, whoever) will be so Stupid Overpowered that it won't matter.

    Hell, if you can translate emotions into energy, had the incubators been smart, they'd just have worked out to to make the Internet their power source. They don't even need magical girls at that point,. all they need to do is subtly make some entertainment media choices and they probably cna make enough energy from JUST Twitter and Youtube comments to stave off the entropy of a kazillion universes.)

    (I MIGHT have had some slightly greater latitude for their position if as I had had incorrently remembered, their civilication was, like, at the end of time or something, when they were literally running of out Universe.)



    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac
    Spoiler: Rebellion again the god you literally created for some reason
    Show
    Now onto the Rebellion ending.

    Truth be told that sounds bad. Homura has no reason to do any of that. She knows that she'll get to be with Madoka. It seems... so pointless. It's kinda beautiful in a way, that Homura would go that far.

    Except she already did with her time traveling. She had already proven she'd literally move heaven and earth for her. That she'd rip all of time and space into shreds to find her. Her love for Madoka was so strong it turned Madoka from "a random pink girl who exists" into the single most important human in human history, and an actual arisen God to boot.

    There is no reason what so ever for Homura to decide "actually this is bad" and try to do the stuff Rebellion does, because Madoka is finally perfectly, absolutely safe. Homura won, and deserves her happy ending, which she GOT. Madoka even explains to her just how wonderful she was to do all that during the original series. We see Homura become okay with what happened IN the original series. To have the series end with Homura, happily and without a trace of irony, go "no matter what despair hits me, I know she'll always be with me" and then immediately follow it up with "but actually no I want to be with her right now, physically, as another god because actually the current situation isn't good enough" smacks of complete, utter disregard for Homura's character growth.

    Also, I really have to ask. Is the universe in a better state after Rebellion? Because I have no idea, and I don't imagine it is. Given Madoka would have gotten to have Homura by her side anyway, it's not better for her beyond the immediacy of her girlfriend being there, right now, at that very second. Trust me, as a touch starved little idiot bi girl I can absolutely relate to that, but all the extra suffering caused by Homura's actions seems entirely counter to what she learned in the series proper.
    Spoiler: Rebellion
    Show
    I think I'mma have to draw a line under this one for the moment. I think I really need to watch the movie proper (I've put it on my birthday list, that's, like end of October (40th!)) so I can speak from a stronger basis than "what I remember my feelings were watching a review probably a year or two ago." Else I'm sort of debating from standing in wet sand. Come back to it then, I think.



    I will just leave the last thing, though, which is to say Homura basically did the thing I would have done - the thing I wish I was able to do. (Regularly. Like... Daily.)

    I mean, not to rescue Madoka (that'd be creepy on so many levels, and only a little bit less if she was, like an adult not a fourteen-year old girl...!) but y'know, for Kicking The Universe In The Vulnerables Until It Works for some other, Bleakbane-y sort of goal. I dunno, rescuing the concept of starships or chocolate or something.

    (Or maybe even have someone do for me, because... Yeah. Like, I would REALLY appreciate someone kicking over reality just for me, y'know? And I don't say that sort of thing lightly.)

    So, yeah, that whole thing just... Resonates with me. Homura stuck it to the Ultimate Enemy (reality itself) and that... Carries weight for me over and above any other considerations.
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2019-08-07 at 03:47 PM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Spoiler: Despair
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    Okay so the Incubators say that humans would barely be sapient cave dwellers without them, so you can probably lay the blame of despair on their feet only in the sense that they, apple in the garden of eden style, made us aware of ourselves enough to be able to feel sadness. It's unclear how legitimate this is since it strikes against their claim that "we found human girls are the best source of sadness" but maybe the first cavegirl was just really depressed. It'd not impossible, current day studies have shown that Neanderthals were likely super depressed all the time.

    With that in mind, they're not actually making the things. They're just giving magical girls the ability to see stuff that already exists. Witches, their curses and familiars, and Wraiths are all just metaphysical entities made out of concepts, some specific and some general. Ophelia is made from Sayaka's despair over losing the love of her life, and is fueled by both her sadness and her magic, thus it gets bumped up to Witch status instead of being a familiar or some other gribbly that goes bump in the night. Think of it as an explanation for why religion and spiritualism exists. A few scant people, most likely magical girls, could see that stuff, and it kicked civilization off.

    So yeah. I'd say that before the incubators showed up, wraiths existed. They noticed that the strongest ones were made from teenager girls, and after some testing with their magical girl creation device (whatever that may be, it's only oblique referred to what they are actually USING to turn you into a magical girl) which likely involved witches being created, they realized this was the right spot to do it from and started their Great Work.


    I realize you're a lich and all but some people enjoy being human and having feelings.

    Spoiler: Finding the best way to destroy your enemy
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    Incubator's feel not pain and death is barely even a concept to them since they just get ported to their new body after death. They literally do not care about torture and cannot be killed in a way that matters. It may be cathartic to you, but for them it would be tedious at best. Imagine Kyubey saying in his cute, ******* voice "you done?" after a millenia of killing him over and over again, and you'll get what I mean. They just don't care. Kyubey literally ate his own corpse because that's efficiency! So any sort of punishment like that would be pointless.

    Trust me, I'm all for the killing of people who deserve it. But it also has to accomplish something. Killing an emotionless, constantly re-spawning immortal is redundant. They're already dead on the inside. There's nothing left to hurt. I prefer the idea of tricking them to be better because it also puts them in situations where they are constantly dealing with a gaggle of emotional teenage girls. That is something that'll actually wear away at them. Any logical being worth their snuff can eventually resist, or even enjoy, the feeling of death.

    But having to spend afternoons with a bunch of pre-teens would be chaotic as hell, and risk infecting them with actual emotion. Like how Incubator saw Madoka's wish to be so world altering that he temporarily became insane, eventually enough magical girls would do something stupid, idiotic, and badass enough that the Incubators watching over them would be broken down and start feeling emotion again.

    People said the same thing about global climate change and then oops turns out we ****ed it. Long term thinking is vitally important to the continuation of existence, and it's something I'd like to work towards.

    While there's some merit to the idea of enhanced internet capabilities could allow for a greatest harvest of human happiness turned into misery, I feel like they'd still find that insufficient compared to the Magical Girl Witch system.


    Spoiler: Rebelliopn
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    I feel like your own personal motives for wanting to rip reality into pieces is something for you to consider and think about. I understand it, and often want to do so myself. Reality sucks, but hope and love can make it all worth living. Something I think Madoka Magica was putting forward as it's message. So I think given all that the anime gave us, Homura would have no reason to want to do this. To put it bluntly, if Madoka is Magical Girl God of Hope, Homura is her avatar on this bitch of an earth, reminding us that if you have hope you can do it.

    Truthfully I should give it a look myself, but as part of my self healing I'm trying to avoid watching stuff that'll make me unduly angry, and everything I know about the film just has my shaking my head like "why did you do this???" and it'd probably just be worse for me overall.

    For me, it's... I don't necessarily hate reality. I hate a lot of the evil that's part of it, obviously, and I want to help my friends and others as much as I can. But this is the world we live in and I don't think I'd want to change it. I'd want to change some specific things in it, but the actual fabric of the universe seems alright to me, for the most part.

    Madoka Magica is a series about getting introspective about your place in the universe because a little anime girl said daijobu and it made her a god.
    Last edited by LaZodiac; 2019-08-07 at 04:15 PM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Pendulous View Post
    I don't remember much about it other than the story was a confusing mess. Including the movie.
    Yeah, the first episode looked like a cute, weird, and violent romantic comedy, but a few more episodes in it seems to be intent on being more complicated than that. I guess I'll see how the rest of it goes.
    Last edited by Excession; 2019-08-07 at 09:27 PM.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Wow, mob psycho season 2-

    Was the show always so unevenly structured?

    I can already tell that season 3 is going to be a mess.


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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by ellenate View Post
    Wow, mob psycho season 2-

    Was the show always so unevenly structured?

    I can already tell that season 3 is going to be a mess.
    Mob Psycho is weird. I think its message is good, and that its a good show, but it has....how to say it....it has great character development, and such and its smart about its fights, but it has the same weird issue you have with One-Punch Man where the fights just start and stop, and are very short without much meat to it. thats what I miss about many anime: the fights being longer and full of things, I like the character development but I wish I had more action.

    and yeah, you get this kind of weird structure of Mob Psycho where you focus on Mob and the lives of the people around him, but then suddenly the big bad will shows up out of nowhere and cause a big thing without much foreshadowing? so you have episodes where its more slice of life, episodes that are closer to shonen battles, and it kind of flips back and forth between them. and I kind of get the contrast is supposed to be jarring to get across the sudden danger of combat, but looking back, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

    like Mob Psychos good, there are just things about it I'm not entirely sure about that keep me from liking it more. like I appreciate it and what its doing, but I'm not sure if I'm entertained by it.
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    I finished Your Lie in April today. I've had constant headaches the past two days, and the tears are not making it any better. So...drained. Need hug. I need...my own Kaori. I've found my 6th 10/10.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Mob Psycho is weird. I think its message is good, and that its a good show, but it has....how to say it....it has great character development, and such and its smart about its fights, but it has the same weird issue you have with One-Punch Man where the fights just start and stop, and are very short without much meat to it. thats what I miss about many anime: the fights being longer and full of things, I like the character development but I wish I had more action.

    and yeah, you get this kind of weird structure of Mob Psycho where you focus on Mob and the lives of the people around him, but then suddenly the big bad will shows up out of nowhere and cause a big thing without much foreshadowing? so you have episodes where its more slice of life, episodes that are closer to shonen battles, and it kind of flips back and forth between them. and I kind of get the contrast is supposed to be jarring to get across the sudden danger of combat, but looking back, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

    like Mob Psychos good, there are just things about it I'm not entirely sure about that keep me from liking it more. like I appreciate it and what its doing, but I'm not sure if I'm entertained by it.

    Everything weird about its structure clicks when you keep in mind it's based on a weekly short webcomic with no real overarching narrative, only theming and character arcs seem to be planned in advance.

    The plot feels like it comes out of nowhere because it does.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post

    and yeah, you get this kind of weird structure of Mob Psycho where you focus on Mob and the lives of the people around him, but then suddenly the big bad will shows up out of nowhere and cause a big thing without much foreshadowing? so you have episodes where its more slice of life, episodes that are closer to shonen battles, and it kind of flips back and forth between them. and I kind of get the contrast is supposed to be jarring to get across the sudden danger of combat, but looking back, I'm not sure how I feel about it.
    Myriad Colors Phantom World is the closest thing I can think to this description. Maybe Is This A Zombie. Though Zombie seems to have an overarching plot (season 3 please?). But Phantom World has a sort of spirit of the week, with the characters dealing with that what other inner issues they have. I enjoyed it enough, but it had a tendency to get kinda weird.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    Everything weird about its structure clicks when you keep in mind it's based on a weekly short webcomic with no real overarching narrative, only theming and character arcs seem to be planned in advance.

    The plot feels like it comes out of nowhere because it does.
    This is true of One Punch Man, but Mob Psycho 100 is actually a serialized manga.

    Regardless, Mob being Like That is the entire point so you went into it knowing that.

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    Default Re: General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Mob Psycho is weird. I think its message is good, and that its a good show, but it has....how to say it....it has great character development, and such and its smart about its fights, but it has the same weird issue you have with One-Punch Man where the fights just start and stop, and are very short without much meat to it. thats what I miss about many anime: the fights being longer and full of things, I like the character development but I wish I had more action.

    and yeah, you get this kind of weird structure of Mob Psycho where you focus on Mob and the lives of the people around him, but then suddenly the big bad will shows up out of nowhere and cause a big thing without much foreshadowing? so you have episodes where its more slice of life, episodes that are closer to shonen battles, and it kind of flips back and forth between them. and I kind of get the contrast is supposed to be jarring to get across the sudden danger of combat, but looking back, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

    like Mob Psychos good, there are just things about it I'm not entirely sure about that keep me from liking it more. like I appreciate it and what its doing, but I'm not sure if I'm entertained by it.

    Yes-

    It feels like malicious compliance, like everyone was preforming at a high level, but was just doing their own thing.

    ...poor directing?




    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    Everything weird about its structure clicks when you keep in mind it's based on a weekly short webcomic with no real overarching narrative, only theming and character arcs seem to be planned in advance.

    The plot feels like it comes out of nowhere because it does.

    I'm starting to get a real good picture of the type of environment this anime was made in.

    And yeah season 3 is going to be... interesting.



    Quote Originally Posted by Pendulous View Post
    Myriad Colors Phantom World is the closest thing I can think to this description. Maybe Is This A Zombie. Though Zombie seems to have an overarching plot (season 3 please?). But Phantom World has a sort of spirit of the week, with the characters dealing with that what other inner issues they have. I enjoyed it enough, but it had a tendency to get kinda weird.

    The plot gets thin during those middle episodes, it's like 3 beach episodes back-to-back.


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