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ecargmura · 1 year

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Hirogaru Sky! Precure Episode 1 Review: Hero Girl Sky!

I like magical girls, but I’ve never tried watching Precure in the past. I’ve only discovered what Precure was when my Twitter friends were talking about it. I was curious about Precure, but it did feel hard to get into since it already has an established fanbase with die-hard fans. Was there a place for me in the Precure fandom? That was what I thought in the past. As I got older, I realized that I don’t need to be shy. If I want to make friends, I’ll make friends.

(Also, you can check out my review of this episode on my blog, but if you don't want to, continue below)

My only experience with a Precure show was watching the first five episodes of Delicious Party Precure. I enjoyed them, but they also made me really hungry with all the food shown in those five episodes.

And since Hirogaru Sky Precure got announced, I did get a bit excited for five reasons:

1. I love stationery. Stationery seems to be a prominent theme with how the trailer shows pens and notebooks. As a writer, I am a huge stationery junkie. I love pens, paper and anything cute.

2. Sky aesthetics. I love sky-themed stuff in general. This show is about sky, flying and such, it got me excited.

3. Sora and Mashiro’s designs. I like blue-themed characters, so I was instantly drawn to Cure Sky/Sora Harewataru’s design. However, what drew me in the most was Mashiro’s design. I like the coral pink hair used for her hair color and I like her overall design.

4. Ayumu Murase is casted as a Precure. I like Murase’s voice and the fact that Cure Wing is the first male Precure in a franchise that dedicates itself to female magical girls got me curious.

5. The title is a pun in itself. I love puns. Hirogaru means Soaring in Japanese, but it’s also play on words for “Hero Girl”. The main character, Sora, is a girl wanting to be a hero, hence Hero Girl. My pun-loving self FLIPPED when I learned about this.

This was why I decided to check out this show by watching the first episode. Did I enjoy it? I liked it a lot! It’s fast-paced and it brought a lot of questions, but I’m sure they’ll be answered as the show progresses.

From what I can decipher, the story is about Sora Harewataru, a girl from a world called Sky Land. She’s traveling to the capital for some reason, but becomes involved in an impromptu rescue mission involving the kidnapping of Princess Ellee by a humanoid pig villain named Kabaton which then causes her to get transported to Earth where she meets Mashiro Nijigaoka.

Sora is an interesting lead character from what I can see. From the research I’ve done on Precure, Pink Cures are usually the lead while Blues are like second bananas or so. She’s the first Blue lead in the show’s history. She’s headstrong and is ready to jump in and save the day. The last time I’ve seen an athletic lead for a magical girl show was back in Cardcaptor Sakura—one of my absolute favorite magical girl shows. Her heroic actions are presented well. However, she also has weaknesses as she’s not as physically strong as she wants to be due to her status as a human. She’s agile and a quick-thinker, but that does not stop her from getting caught off-guard from Kabaton’s sneak attacks. It’s only when she transforms into Cure Sky that she finally gets the power she lacked as a human to save the day. There’s a lot of questions surrounding her too. Why was she going to the capital that day? Who inspired her to become a hero? I hope the answers will be told throughout the show. I think her most admirable trait is the fact that she was willing to jump into a portal just to save a crying child. That’s pure bravery right there.

Speaking of transformation, the transformation scene was AMAZING! I was hooked in the moment Sora’s hair changed into pig tails. I think having the little sphere space is a unique idea. I also love the incorporation of “hop, step, jump” because it reminds me of Shugo Chara, another favorite magical girl anime I adore. While I’m more of someone who likes it when shoes are implemented last in a transformation scene, her having her shoes on first makes sense as she’s jumping around. I can’t wait to see the other three transformation scenes.

Mashiro, as a character, is the opposite of Sora. She’s shy, reserved and a bit more hesitant unlike Sora. However, I believe that her character arc stems from the first impressions. She’s shy, but will most likely gain confidence as she spends time with Sora and Ellee.

Princess Ellee is currently just plot device. She has a special power that is coveted by the villains that allows people to change into Precures. However, it adds onto the mystery surrounding her. Why does she have this power? Who wants this power? I’m sure that Kabaton works for someone coveting the powers of Precure. My assumption is that it’s the person Sora admires from the opening.

Speaking of Kabaton, I cannot forgive that pig for destroying someone’s diary. Bruh, that’s a waste of paper and privacy! Unforgivable!

I wonder how Sora and Ellee will return to Sky Land. How will she deal with the nuances and quirks of Earth culture? Let’s find out in episode 2 together! Let me know if you like my review of Hirogaru Sky! Precure! I’ll try to do more and possibly older Precure shows as well!

#ecargmura #hirogaru sky precure #soaring sky precure #sora harewataru #cure sky #mashiro nijigaoka #princess ellee #kabaton #review #anime review #winter 2023 anime #magical girl #mahou shoujo

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ellynneversweet · 4 years

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Ok, so I’ve finished Normal People and I have ... thoughts. Mostly about whether it succeeds or fails as a text, and what the relative metrics are by which success should be judged (it’s succeeded in getting me to think about it, for sure). This got long and a bit ranty, and does discuss the mental illness aspects of the book, so I’ve put it below the cut. Spoilers etc.

I haven’t watched the show or read any of Sally Rooney’s other books (book?) or reviews yet, because I wanted to get down what I took away from the book by itself, rather than what other people thought about it. I did see the headline of like, one review that seemed to think it was all about capitalism, which struck me as a significant stretch as a primary theme, but hey. My take was that it was primarily concerned with (many and various) degrees of mental illness and unwellness experienced by various characters, the causes and effects thereof, etc etc, and it’s really because of that that I don’t know whether or not I actually liked the book.

Ultimately I think my ambivalence comes comes down to how the narration is structured, and the way Rooney doesn’t at any point step in explicitly prompt the audience in one direction or another.

So what took me a hot minute to realise was that the book’s written in a very close third person narration, alternating between Connell and Marianne’s perspectives.The thing is, however, that this close third person isn’t immediately obvious, because Rooney subverts the whole ‘show don’t tell’ advice. There’s a lot of phrasing given as ‘she felt good’ ‘he felt anxious’ ‘then they had sex’ etc. The most personal aspects of the plot are constantly elided with this flat, clinical, definitive language that sounds almost like a witness statement in a criminal case. That’s especially the case with Marianne, who disassociates a lot, and slightly less so with Connell, who’s anxious, but the flat description is pretty present throughout. There are moments when the narrative dips into describing sensation, but that seems to occur only with regards to things that are irrelevant and impersonal, like drinking a glass of (insert carbonated beverage here), or feeling the breeze from an air conditioner. The book is all about this very intimate, arguably co-dependant and unhealthy relationship between these two intermittently sexually involved characters, so the aforementioned flatness struck me as an odd choice initially.

However. There’s two things that this does. The first, and IMO more significant, is that is creates an illusion of the narrative voice as omniscient and impartial, rather than biased and unreliable as it actually is. The seeming authority of the definitive statements in the narrative is emphasised by the stock filler phrases that the each of the dual protagonists uses in direct dialogue, and which inevitably mean the opposite of what’s actually said — in the case of Marianne we get ‘okay’ (I disagree but I want this conversation to end) and ‘I don’t know’ (i believe this to be profoundly true but it makes me unhappy), and in the case of Connell we get ‘obviously’ (I’m not sure at all, what do you think?). So the upshot of this is that especially in the earlier parts of the novel the audience is led into thinking the description of a particular plot point is what objectively happened, rather than the biased viewpoint of one of two people who keep talking past each other (I’m thinking particularly of the part in which Connell moves home because he can’t make rent, and each of them was waiting for the other to propose his moving into her flat instead).

So it is really interesting on that level of language structure. I do feel that the section headings (‘two weeks later,’ ‘six months later,’ ‘five minutes later’) were a bit of a red herring — especially towards the climax of the book, when things became violent, I was frankly expecting it to take a schlocky turn towards one or both of the main characters being maimed or killed in a domestic violence and/or drunk driving accident, à la Jodi Piccoult.

It didn’t, which was a relief, but I didn’t subsequently find the ending satisfying, and I think that’s because the way that it ended — a breakup that’s not really a breakup, just a breather — felt like something that had occurred at least three or four times already in the text. It’s always tricky to write a satisfying ending when all the main characters are alive and young and (presumably) going to continue their lives. Why stop the narrative here, rather than there? I think for that sort of ending to work, a story does need to feel like it’s shifting into a different stage of the characters’ lives, one that can be inferred, however dimly, but is distinct enough from the part described in the text to form a natural break. This didn’t feel like a break from what had gone before. It felt like a groove in an emotional cycle that had already been repeated, that had been shown as being repeated, that gave every sign of being repeated again and again, forever and ever amen.

This leads into the part where I talk about what I didn’t like, fyi, and fair warning, mostly what I didn’t like was the characterisation of Marianne. Sorry if she’s your fave.

So Marianne gets the last word of the narrative, in which she thinks about how ‘they’ve [Marianne and Connell] been so good for each other’. And i would argue two things, which is that 1) unreliable narrator or not, this being the last part of the text gives weight to this being read as a true statement 2) this is, uh, pretty clearly not the case. Marianne’s still fundamentally the same, teetering on the edge of self-destruction, and Connell is still anxious (and being made more so by Marianne’s reaction to his small successes).

Now, neither character is perfect. They’re also not bad people -- but they are struggling people who use maladaptive coping strategies and don’t ever really appear to move past those.

At first glance, on a scale of quantifying unhappiness, Marianne gets the raw end of the stick. She’s a character who’s sympathetic and pitiable, because she starts out as the smart, bullied kid who turns out to have an abusive home life and who is brutally dumped by her first boyfriend. So far, so sad. Connell, by contrast, is much less upfront about the things that cause him trouble (although they’re very much there) and has the initial upper hand. Connell also comes off as much more self-aware than Marianne — the part where he’s lying on the floor in a post-shower depression slump reminds me of that piece that goes around tumblr occasionally, about lying on the floor sobbing about the state of the world, and simultaneously noticing that the last time you painted, you didn’t do a good job with the brushwork in the corner you’re looking at, and thinking about how you should re-do it once you finish crying.

But the thing I can’t get my head around with Marianne is how Rooney feels about her, and it boils down to this: what level of awareness and intentionality is Rooney operating at when writing about Marianne’s mental health arc? Does Rooney agree with Marianne’s self-assessment of herself as ‘better’ and ‘normal’ (ie still acting in more or less the same way as she did throughout the text, but no longer a subject of gossip) at the end of the book, or does she not?

As I mentioned, I haven’t seen the adaptation, but I’ve seen a gif or two, and what struck me as I was reading was that the way that Marianne is described as looking (and styled in the show) is reminiscent of the pop-culture caricature of Sylvia Plath — increasingly thin, indie-fashionista, bangs, statement lipstick, weird but precociously brilliant, magnetic, male muse and male victim, mentally ill in a way that is complex but always sexy and sexualised (of course she developed a cute, posh eating disorder that involved eating half an expensive sugary pastry and a sugarless black coffee every day. Of course she did).

Basically, what I want to know is, is Marianne someone Rooney wrote based on that image of Plath, or is Marianne someone cosplaying as that image of Plath, whom Rooney is consciously deconstructing?

See, I think writing Marianne as someone (possibly unintentionally) cosplaying Plath is interesting. The myth of the hot, damaged girl is pretty pervasive (Harley Quinn, the suicide girls, etc etc) and writing Marianne as a character who has legitimate issues that she has trouble facing, who then instead focuses her self-awareness into this trope of ‘acceptably damaged’ has potential. I feel like there’s an opportunity there to examine the line between struggling with a mental illness vs self-consciously performing that struggle in a way that’s socially acceptable, which is a topic that suits the period when the novel’s set.

Unfortunately though, I think Rooney is probably buying into that myth rather than examining it, because the fact that no-one, in a book that starts in 2011 ever sits Marianne down and goes, ‘yes, I get that people have told you you’re mentally unwell as a tactic to bully you, and that was shitty, but you pretty clearly have a raging case of ptsd which is NOT YOUR FAULT, please accept some help’ — that is frankly hard to believe. Not Connell who seeks out therapy and takes some dubiously successful medication? Not Joanna, who is by all accounts well adjusted and who makes a point of caring in a friendship where she’s doing a lot the heavy lifting? Not Lorraine, parent of the decade? Not some random teacher or professor, looking out for an obviously promising student? Really, no one?

Marianne is supposedly brilliant and a tireless researcher, but she apparently never becomes aware of the possibility that there might be ways to process her past experiences in a way that would allow her some measure of peace. Never wants it, even in the worst of times. Never ceases to wallow in her own unhappiness. And it’s relevant, I think, that in the period of the novel where Marianne is (kind of) happy, when she’s making a success of things at uni, the focus of the book is on how she’s making Connell jealous by dating an abusive man. The closes she comes to self-awareness is recognising her proclivity to seek out unhealthy relationships and decide to lean into that, in what is consistently the least unhealthy romantic relationship she has. That feels like a cop-out.

Like, I’m not suggesting that every story that features mental illness as a theme needs to show recovery. That’s, unfortunately, not always the case. Some people never get better. Some people can’t bring themselves to believe in the possibility of getting better. It’s not even the case that recovery is a straight line, when it happens. I know that. I’ve seen people I care about it struggle with a whole range of problems, I’ve struggled myself. But this felt like 13 Reasons Why for adults, like depression-porn, and I just...am a bit angry, I think, that I can’t tell if that was the intention, it that wasn’t the intention but was the outcome, or if that’s just my take and I’ve misread the thing entirely.

Obviously people can write whatever they want in fiction, but I do think that when you’re dealing with a topic that has impacted a lot of people, that’s been poorly handed in fiction in the past, you do have a responsibility to treat it sensitive and thoughtfully, and not glamorise something that is ultimately destructive under the guise of ‘this is interesting and cool, and a good way to treat yourself and others, actually.’ And I don’t know if that’s the case here.

#textual analysis I guess #ranting about writing #normal people #i'm aware there are five thousand 'i' statements here #but I can't be bothered going back to remove them

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

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RWBY Recaps: The Shining Beacon Pt. 1

This is a reposting from October 4th, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps onto tumblr. Thanks!

Welcome back, welcome back. We're starting off this recap exactly where we left off--with Ruby, Yang, and Jaune approaching Beacon--which gives the first two episodes a cohesive feeling, like they're just one episode sliced in half. RWBY gets better at this as the volumes go on, but Volume 1 in particular reads less like distinct stories and more like one story that was divided up, if only because our expectations regarding form demand it. I'd love to see a supercut of Volume 1 with the credits removed to see how well it all actually flows together.

After getting another shot of Beacon we're treated to a scene of Jaune rushing off the airship and vomiting copiously into a very convenient trashcan. It's a bold way to introduce a character, especially since we've already had four trailers displaying the girls' skills, an episode all about Ruby's moral compass, and a decent amount of time showcasing Yang's sisterly devotion. Making Jaune into "vomit boy" is comparatively cruel--which is largely the point. Though he'll get his character development soon enough (a bit in this episode, actually) RWBY is making sure we're clear about where their loyalties lie, so to speak. Though they're working with a very large cast, they're much more concerned with emulating magical girl storylines (Sailor Moon, Powerpuff Girls, Puella Magi Madoka Magic) than they are the lone, male shounen hero (Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragonball Z). By taking the blonde-haired knight stereotype and reimagining him as the fool, RWBY ensures that we know who the "real" heroes of the story are. Jaune absolutely becomes a hero too as RWBY continues, but his status as "vomit boy" reassures us that he's not going to dominate the narrative.

Instead Ruby and Yang leave him behind as they exit the airship, surrounded by more hilarious silhouette people. I'd actually love it if RWBY came up with an in-universe explanation for this (beyond the great RWBY Chibi skit). Maybe there really is a whole species of people out there made entirely of shadows!

Hell, stranger things have happened in this show.

As they reach Beacon's courtyard Ruby becomes so excited by everyones' weaponry that she turns into a chibi version of herself, another technique that touches on RWBY's anime roots and that will eventually be left behind. As the series gets darker we see fewer of these non-diegetic details, like Ruby spinning with swirly eyes or Jaune geeking out over detective badges with literal stars spouting up around him. Though these techniques do an excellent job of conveying emotion to the viewer, they have a kiddie feel to them that becomes out of place post "Beginning of the End."

For now though Ruby is enthralled. At Yang's insistence that they're "just weapons" Ruby exclaims, "Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves. They're a part of us!"

(Art by Eunnieverse)

This is a fantastic bit of world building. As we learn later in the episode, Ruby (like all Signal students, and presumably most Huntsmen) built her own weapon, designing and crafting it over who knows how many years, suggesting that, yes, in this universe weapons really are an extension of the self. We can thus read characterization in each person's choice. Roman, who uses manners as his decoy, keeps a dapper cane with a hidden pistol inside. Glynda embodies order to contrast Ozpin's more free spirit, so she directs all of her power through a riding crop. Meanwhile Ruby is the "adorable girl" who will continually defy expectations. Thus, she wields a scythe that's taller than she is and that's also a "high impact sniper rifle,” the exact opposite of what we’d expect a cute teen to carry. Despite her sister's teasing that Ruby needs to make some real friends, she's right that in Remnant meeting new weapons is a lot like meeting new people.

Speaking of friends, Yang ditches Ruby for hers... who are promptly never mentioned again. They're clearly just a plot device to get Ruby on her own, but like our silhouette people (of which Yang's group is a part) I'd love an explanation for how she got in good with this Beacon group before ever setting foot on campus. Or whether they’re all Signal graduates who then, presumably, should all be pretty close...

Regardless, poor Ruby is left floundering, wondering where she's supposed to go or what she's supposed to do. I feel ya. She ends up collapsing into a massive pile of luggage.

Ruby: "I don't know what I'm doing."

"What are you doing?"

Nice parallel there! Enter Weiss, the owner of said luggage, who is literally framed as the bossy, dominant personality as she towers over Ruby.

We get more world building/exposition as Weiss yells about what dust is and what it can do. Her anger is, surprisingly, not just stemming from a rich girl having her stuff messed with, but because Ruby is knocking into cases chock-full of an explosive substance. Were any of these cases to break they might set off a rather violent reaction--as we see when Ruby sneezes into a cloud of dust and lightning erupts. The irony is that this only happens because Weiss is shaking the bottle of dust erratically in Ruby's face. I love these little moments that highlight how these girls are still kids in many respects, capable of doing stupid things even as they play at being mature.

Still disgusted with Ruby's behavior, Weiss asks, "Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?" which tells us that, yeah, Ruby does look young. It's hard to tell with Rooster Teeth's art style, but here we're explicitly told that Ruby looks like a child compared to the other students. Her age is recognizable. That will impact how others relate to and (in some cases) underestimate her.

We learn that Beacon isn't your "ordinary combat school" (what does that mean exactly? Are there other upper-level schools where the students train but don't fight live Grimm?) and Ruby finally looses her patience with all the lecturing.

Ruby: "I said I was sorry, Princess."

"It's Heiress, actually."

Enter Blake. For a millisecond Weiss is thrilled that someone is showing her the respect she thinks she deserves, until Blake follows that little correction up with a list of critiques, including the Schnee's "controversial labor forces and questionable business partners"--more on that as it develops. Ruby cracks up, clearly more interested in Weiss getting her just desserts than thinking through the implications of Blake's words. She then wanders off before Ruby can introduce herself.

The team is now technically complete, even if the girls don't know it yet. Again, RWBY is rather blunt when it comes to many narrative devices. With the exception of Jaune we know exactly who our protagonists are by order of who the show has bothered to introduce to us.

Ruby is still at a loss though. She hilariously collapses in the courtyard and lies there until "vomit boy" gets his real introduction.

I honestly don't understand why so much of the fandom hates on Jaune (except logically I do: it stems from a dual worry that Jaune will sideline our female cast and that he’s become a full-fledged Gary Stu BUT). He's just a nice guy here, and I do mean literally nice, not a Nice Guy with a capital 'N' and 'G.' Yes, we see his misogynistic views that he'll heap on Weiss with, "Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Ladies love it” and his inappropriate insistence thatt she date him, but Jaune deliberately comes across as someone emulating bad advice about how to make friends/find a date. From the start we’re meant to understand that his perception is inaccurate and he will (as seen) grow out of it. To say nothing of the fact that the narrative undermines his views twice with Ruby's "Do they?" and his more genuine belief that "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." That's the real Jaune Arc.

He and Ruby wander off together and it's here that we get our first glimpse at Pumpkin Pete under Jaune's armor. I'm honestly impressed that Rooster Teeth had that detail in right from the start.

They talk weaponry, with Ruby showing off Crescent Rose--"It's also a gun"--and Jaune getting self-conscious about his hand-me-downs. Besides him staring up at Beacon's statue in the opening credits, this is our first hint that Jaune comes from a long line of prestigious Huntsmen. It also provides a contrast between what fighting Grimm once was and what it has now become. Jaune's weapons are a simple sword and a shield whose only 'upgrade' is that it gets smaller so you can put it on your belt, but of course it still weighs the same. Ruby, meanwhile, has three forms of Crescent Rose: storage, sniper rifle, and scythe, and she can use all three in a variety of ways. In short, fighting Grimm has become incredibly high-tech, suggesting that the fight itself is always getting harder. Swords and shields just don't cut it anymore even if they, like Jaune, are "classic."

They keep wandering, realizing too late that each was following the other and they still have no idea where they're heading. Like Yang's vomit panic last episode, "The Shining Beacon" ends on a lighthearted note with Jaune wondering if there's a foodcourt nearby.

There is and you're both going to help destroy it in the most epic food fight imaginable.

But that's a whole Volume off.

Until next time~

#rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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novadreii · 6 years

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The Ancient Magus' Bride: A Review

Big spoilers ahead.

I’m not often compelled to write full-length reviews on series that I watch, but this one elicited an interesting response from me. I don’t think I’ve ever negatively changed my mind about an anime halfway through. If I like something from the start, I usually like it all the way through to the end. If I loathe something from the start, I try to determine if there’s room for development/improvement before continuing. And I’ve seen a good amount of shows turn it around.

But TAMG was really a strange experience for me. Everything pointed towards this being a quality show. All the signs were there. And I will commend it on what it did right. This show had gorgeous animation, lovely voice acting, and a breathtaking original soundtrack. As I said, all the signs pointed to this being a winner, maybe the best anime of the last 5 years or so.

But sadly, TAMG is, at its core, a reductive escapist fantasy for young girls.

I know, that is a bold statement. But I have evidence to support my claim! Promise.

We start off the show with Chise being bought by the titular Ancient Mage at a slave auction. It’s okay, though, because she willingly sold herself into slavery. Wait, you can do that? I guess. Anyway. This show’s big selling point is Chise’s growth from a sad girl with nothing to live for to...well, someone who is not that way. And it’s a relatable backstory for a main character. So far, so good.

But the rest of plot fails to sufficiently develop the rest of the world, lore, and characters in a way that makes Chise’s development interesting enough. Side characters are given at most one (1) episode of backstory before being utterly forgotten for the entire rest of the series. Plot points that you think will eventually loop back for an interesting game of Raise the Stakes just kind of wander out to sea and never come back (aka Chise’s family...um...her dad and brother are still out there!). The lore of the fairies and magic is just kind of there and never properly explored or utilized. Chise is supposedly there to learn magic from Elias as her teacher, yet we don’t really ever see him instructing her in the theory of it, or her magical skills progressing. All we’re really told is that Chise is both incredibly strong and weak as shit as the same time. Makes sense.

Elias’ origin is completely ignored, even that could have been an amazing addition to the story as it’s so shrouded in mystery and intrigue and often hinted at by several characters. So, at about the rough halfway point of the series, I had all these loose ends and unexplored areas of the story in my head that I was really excited about, but they never materialized in the second half. The main “villain” in the show was kind of sad and easily defeated.

The second cour of the show was focused almost exclusively on what is, in my opinion, the most mundane, cloying, and dull part of the story: the relationship between Elias and Chise. Yep, sorry friends. I don’t find these two even remotely well suited to each other in any capacity, least of all romantic. Try picturing them together when Elias is in human form; that creeps me out more than his usual form. From the very beginning, I have disliked Elias. I find him boring. Oh boohoo, you’ve been wandering around Earth for hundreds of years and still haven’t figured out what “sad” “happy” “jealous” and “angry” feel like? Are you stupid as well as inexperienced, or just willfully ignorant? Because he managed to study and become proficient in the art of magecraft, but never could figure out why watching Titanic made his eyes leak? How many times do we have to watch Elias clutch his heart and say, “Is this what _______ feels like?” Just shut up. I find it hard to believe that in between all the magic and failed cooking lessons with Lindel, they never talked about how they felt in the hundreds of years that Lindel was taking care of him? *Dr. Phil voice* Really now?

Elias’ cluelessness about basic human emotions is the basis for about 99% of the personal conflicts/drama in the story, and it gets tiresome and feels cheap. Why does anime love to center on characters who don’t know how to feel? Does it give them more agency to act like a dick? Do young girls swoon after men who don’t really care about anything? Elias is frustrating, because we never get to see him break through that monotonous “teach me how to feel” crap, except for when he’s having a rage tantrum. But we never see him buckle down and really unload on how he’s feeling in an open and communicative way. He’s very selective with what he shares, and when he does it’s because Chise is prodding him to do it.

What I found essentially disappointing about this story is how everything in it was just there to further the drama between Chise and Elias without actually furthering the story itself. Everything Elias does to Chise, from how he constantly touches/grabs/picks her up without her permission, how he looms over her menacingly in his monster form when he’s jealous, how he calls her diminutive pet names, irritates me. Chise is a child who has nothing; of course she is going to gravitate to someone who offers her the only thing she wanted: a place to call home. What’s his excuse? He is the one in the position of power, and does he ever use it to his advantage.

How many times do we witness Elias withholding information from Chise, policing her, acting shady, throwing a giant temper tantrum, and being generally creepy and possessive? The anime is masterful in that it succeeds in writing it all off as romantic and cute, because “Elias doesn’t know what emotions he’s feeling! It’s cause he must love her LOL” Again, this was a lame excuse so that Elias could have license to be an asshole. All they needed was a cool/handsome/monstrous character design and a smooth af voice actor to make it all okay. But it isn’t. Chise did not, and still doesn’t have the agency to choose differently.

And I almost fell for it too; that’s how good it is. Because it ropes you in with great production value. I admit that instinctively I am just a dumb ape who will go gaga over anything shiny and pretty. And this anime certainly is those things, but it doesn’t capitalize on the amazing potential it set up from its very beginning, choosing instead to focus on relationship drama between two people who really should not be involved romantically at all.

I ask this: would it have detracted from the story at all for them to have had an adoptive parent and child relationship, to which both characters’ age, experience, and power dynamic was a lot better suited? Would it have been less meaningful? Why did they have to be set up as husband and wife from the get go? What was the point, other than to provide a weak and frankly disturbing plot point? If parent/child is a no-go, how about we make the female main character older than 20 years old for once? Even that would have been preferable.

I did read the manga, and the author tries to dance around the issue by once again using Elias’ inexplicable lack of emotional intelligence as an excuse. He doesn’t know what a bride is, he doesn’t understand the concept of marriage, he means it innocently etc. Okay, BUT, Chise, the rest of the characters, the author of the manga himself, the readers, and literally everyone else understands exactly what marriage is and what it implies. That is the connection the author intends us to make with all the symbolism and mushy dialogue between the two of them (as well as other characters’ observations about them both). It doesn’t matter how ambiguous the author is being about something; if it’s there, it’s there. Let’s call the spade a spade.

So the story revolves primarily around the romantic development between an indisputably adult male who also holds all the resources/power, and an emotionally broken child who can’t refuse. TAMG did not develop the rest of its story enough to distract me from this point, and I was just never able to look past it. It was glaring at me with each episode I watched.

Sure, Chise gets mad sometimes, and Elias eventually comes around from pouting when he realizes he could lose her. He eventually offers a monotone apology and all is right as rain. Chise eventually develops into the Needlessly Self-Sacrificing Main Character that anime relies on just a touch too heavily. It feels disingenuous and not at all relatable. It’s tiresome.

Towards the end, Chise gets some resolution from an old painful memory during an arc where she finally breaks free of Elias so she can act of her own accord for once. Which I really liked. But then she just ran home, forgave Elias a little too easily for all his bullshit, and ended up “marrying” him (again, everything is shrouded in an infuriating layer of ambiguity because nobody wants to call it what it is, but alllllll the right symbolism is there, we can figure it out ffs). That came completely out of left field for me and solidified my hunch that this is meant to be a teen fantasy and little else: leaving everything behind only to be saved, controlled by, and obsessed over by an ominous, rich, handsome, and overbearing man who just won’t keep his hands to himself.

There’s so much more I wanted to know about, and I get that you can’t fit everything into 24 episodes. But people like Silky, Ruth, Renfred, and Alice were utterly forgotten about even though they had solid, developed stories in the beginning of the anime. It’s like they hooked me in and left me hanging; the whole time I was waiting for MORE from those characters. For Silky to say even one word or to have more of a relationship with Chise other than hugging her dramatically from time to time, for Chise and Ruth to have another mage/familiar moment (or even arc). Things like that would have added so much more depth and significance to the story than even one more minute of Elias and Chise awkwardly and needlessly cuddling (or sleeping in bed together....honestly, wtf).

So in conclusion (am I writing a thesis or something?), The Ancient Magus’ Bride felt something like a betrayal. It drew me in with the promise of a gorgeous and heartfelt story, only to focus on what I thought was an inappropriate and forced relationship. I’m sure 16-year-old me would have eaten all of this up like a six-course meal. It’s a Japanese twist on Twilight (therefore also reminiscent of the even worse Fifty Shades franchise). As I get older and automatically tend think a lot more critically about why I like or dislike things, something like this isn’t going to cut it for me. It pulled at the heartstrings with emotive music and pretty visuals, but left me wanting so much more. I don’t want the media I consume to make me feel like I should like it; I just want to.

To any teen girls who adore this anime, I’m not telling you what to personally like/dislike. But I do hope you’ll think about why you do, and contemplate the fact that just because something is wrapped up in pretty packaging, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harmless. Love doesn’t have to mean being dominated, stalked, policed, or controlled. And you don’t have to be married before you’re 20 or it’s game over. Healthy relationships are balanced, with an equal flow of power, love, and trust between parties involved. They can happen at 17, 45, or never, and that’s all okay. My fear is that this anime will reinforce the exact opposite message with its audience, in a manner that is honestly kind of insidious. It was so well-made, the tone and ambiance they created is so lovely that the harmful messages will just fly over your head; like they almost did to me.

Or...just enjoy it without a second thought and leave me to my over-analyzing. I do admit I look very closely at things, but I don’t know any other way to be.

TLDR; A lot of style, not a whole lot of substance. 4.5/10

#review #the ancient magus bride #mahoutsukai no yome #beware if you liked the series you may not want to read this lol #diary of nova #i'm not even trying to be a contrarian or anything #this has been my genuine emotional and critical response and honestly i'm a bit sad #i really wanted to love it

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somevestrit · 6 years

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Radio Romance | Ep 1 & 2 Review

So I have attempted to watch Radio Romance and I barely finished the first two episodes. I wasn't interested at first because the description on Viki makes it sound really bad, but then I found out Kim So Hyun is in it and became interested. She's been in so much that she's definitely had her fair share of duds, but she's a really strong actress and has been in some really good stuff as well (Moon Embracing the Sun and everything she's been in written by Park Hye Ryun to name some).

I feel like I started this show with reasonable expectations. They might have been low because the premise sounded bad or they may have been a little high because of Kim So Hyun, but either way my opinion of the show in the beginning sharply nose dived not long after it started and did not plateau until I stopped watching. Kim So Hyun, who is 18, is playing an old and tired heroine archetype that was finally left behind only a couple of years ago, and seems to be part of a weird trend to bring back old elements of K Dramas that were left behind for a reason and should never be brought back, but I won't get into that here. She's driven, brazen, and fighting to keep her head above water. Or in this case, to stay in her chosen field. Also she has the super curly, wild, and unruly hair that not so subtly represented her personality. Did I mention she's brazen?

Putting this aside since I've never liked this caricature of a strong and independent woman and the fact that even though she started off pretty weak I had faith that Kim So Hyun could layer the character and do her well, I also had issue with the age range between her and the male lead. Now, I don't have an issue with him per say, I only know him from the movie Splash Splash Love which in spite of its terrible title was actually pretty cute. The problem is that he, Yoon Doo Joon, is 28. A full ten years older than the lead actress which wouldn't be so terrible if only Kim So Hyun didn't still look very much like a teenager, maybe just turned 20, and Yoon Doo Joon didn't like very much like he was in his late twenties, maybe just turned 30. What makes it even worse is they are both apparently supposed to be the same age. The Same Age. But this is also something I could over look. Like I could over look how Yoon Doo Joon's character's friend/therapist is awkward and cringey and hard to watch and not at all funny like he's so clearly supposed to be (I'm chalking this up to bad writing or possibly a miscast or a mixture of the two because I've seen the actor, Kwak Dong Yeon, throw out some decent performances). I could also, possibly, maybe, ignore the fact that Kim So Hyun's character keeps getting mad at Yoon Doo Joon's character for always smiling even though I was always initially confused by this because I couldn't tell he was supposed to be smiling because whatever emotion the actor was going for he was most definitely not getting at.

However all these little problems, together with other things like the cheesiness that is Kim So Hyun's character's love for radio shows, together make it progressively harder to be forgiving and really distract from any good the show had to offer. Because I was interested, and part of the reason I'm frustrated is because the show had legitimately good elements that were heavily brought down by bad ones.

But honestly, the biggest offense this show had for me was something so obvious and brazen, something they didn't even try to hide, something I cannot begin to fathom why they would do it, is that Radio Romance is, at least so far as the first two episodes go, a cheap knock-off of Uncontrollably Fond. What's weird to me is I recently saw this happen with The Bride of the Water God being a cheap knock-off of Goblin: The Lonely and Great God, and while I was annoyed with Habeak (The Water God) for assassinating its source material in an attempt to get name recognition from the Manhwa and also ride off the waves (I honestly didn't mean to make that pun but since we're might as all own it) of the success of Goblin by lifting elements of it, it was at least its own story with its own characters. Radio Romance, so far, essentially lifted the bare bones of the story of Uncontrollably Fond, the characters, and the relationships between the characters. So while I can forgive one story lifting elements from another, such as a male "god" that's a couple of centuries old being magically bound to a mortal woman in modern day Korea and the woman is struggling for whatever reason, as pretty much all heroines tend to do as has been touched on previously, it's not quite the same as regurgitating the same set up for a story and characters and back story for those characters.

What's worse is once I realized just how much Radio Romance is like Uncontrollably Fond I also began realizing the elements of Radio Romance I liked were things lifted almost directly from Uncontrollably Fond. There were definitely elements lifted that I really hated, like Yoon Doo Joon's character picking up Kim So Hyun's character to carry her to his car, but most of the elements from the show that elicited any response from me were from Uncontrollably Fond.

But this is observation from the first two episodes, and maybe they get better as the series goes on. But these are serious foundational issues that I don't believe the show could recover from hardly at all in the remaining 14 episodes because the issue is the foundation itself. What's weird about this show for me, though, is I don't think they were trying to capitalize off of Uncontrollably Fond or were intentionally being lazy. There's a lot of sincerity in it already, albeit misplaced and pretty over done—and this from someone who loves a lot of sincerity in her stories—but it seems like the creators are trying to tell a well constructed story with fleshed out characters. It never felt like it was assumed the audience had watched Uncontrollably Fond so Radio Romance was building off of it.

I have absolutely no idea what the creators were thinking making an Uncontrollably Fond 2.0, nor why something that seemed to have had a lot of care put into the script was produced so poorly. Because a lot of my issues stem more from bad production than bad writing. All I do know is that if I, or anyone else, want to watch Uncontrollably Fond, then just watch Uncontrollably Fond. And this from someone who has attempted to watch the show twice and always starts off loving it but then unable to watch past episode 10 or 11. And some people will like Radio Romance. The main script wasn't terrible, if you can look past the blatant plagiarism, and there are some solid actors on the main cast, Yoon Doo Joon's and Kwak Dong Yeon's respective performances so far not withstanding. I just doubt I'll ever watch more of it.

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