May 26, 2015
Absolute Duo
Absolutely Awful.
I only finished it off this weekend because I wanted something short and I only had three episodes left to watch. I hate leaving stuff unfinished, and it was at the top of the list alphabetically.
There was one part though that had me yelling at the screen.
I'm going to assume you've at least heard of it, as if it's not enough of a standard story. If not, I think I started reviewing it below, so you can check that out.
So, there's one girl whose weapon manifests as a spear-like thing that almost resembles a folded umbrella, but it's so damned big, she can't normally lift it. There are also bad guys who wear techno armor, and they start attacking in earnest in the second half of the series. So Umbrella-girl gets captured during a raid, and they convince her to come to their side by promising to make her stronger so our Hero will like her, after he rejected her. This is by means of an exo-suit that resembles nothing so much as a unitard, but shows off her overdeveloped figure quite a bit And the dose of mind-control that comes with it is an added bonus.
So when she shows up for the final battle, of course the heroes are conflicted. "We can't kill our friend, who's trying to kill us". There must be a TVTrope for that. Mostly she's focused on Our Hero, to whom she vows to show she she's strong enough for by trying to kill him, out of love, or something. And that's what had me yelling at them. Think! Turn this to your advantage! You've already figured out that she's brainwashed, but devoted to you. Promise her anything, just to get her to smash the hell out of the enemy forces.
Duh!
Japanese writers just don't think like us though. And there are story patterns to fill, and they followed them to a T.
I only finished it off this weekend because I wanted something short and I only had three episodes left to watch. I hate leaving stuff unfinished, and it was at the top of the list alphabetically.
There was one part though that had me yelling at the screen.
I'm going to assume you've at least heard of it, as if it's not enough of a standard story. If not, I think I started reviewing it below, so you can check that out.
So, there's one girl whose weapon manifests as a spear-like thing that almost resembles a folded umbrella, but it's so damned big, she can't normally lift it. There are also bad guys who wear techno armor, and they start attacking in earnest in the second half of the series. So Umbrella-girl gets captured during a raid, and they convince her to come to their side by promising to make her stronger so our Hero will like her, after he rejected her. This is by means of an exo-suit that resembles nothing so much as a unitard, but shows off her overdeveloped figure quite a bit And the dose of mind-control that comes with it is an added bonus.
So when she shows up for the final battle, of course the heroes are conflicted. "We can't kill our friend, who's trying to kill us". There must be a TVTrope for that. Mostly she's focused on Our Hero, to whom she vows to show she she's strong enough for by trying to kill him, out of love, or something. And that's what had me yelling at them. Think! Turn this to your advantage! You've already figured out that she's brainwashed, but devoted to you. Promise her anything, just to get her to smash the hell out of the enemy forces.
Duh!
Japanese writers just don't think like us though. And there are story patterns to fill, and they followed them to a T.
Posted by: Mauser at
04:23 AM
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The argument above reads to me as the story is awful because it does not follow your preferred route. Am I reading it right?
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 26, 2015 05:13 PM (RqRa5)
2
Nah, that was just about the hero's death grip on the Idiot Ball, and
the strict conformance to Cliche (The solution being "You can talk
someone out of being brainwashed." All you have to do is tell them to
"Fight it!" enough.)
The reveal of the association between the big bad and the Goth Loli who runs the school REALLY makes the whole thing pointless. They're both members of some committee looking to advance humanity, and they have different methods, and the whole conflict is basically the tech guy dicksizing to prove himself against the haughty GothLoli (Who in turn is not exactly believable as the head of her whole organization). Plus there are four other eccentrics on this committee who show up out of nowhere just to occupy additional seats and laugh dryly about the battle going on outside while the other two trade insults.
The main Villain's character and hatred for Our Hero makes no sense either. "I hate you because you say you want to protect people. I was abandoned, so you make me sick." Except he never explains why he came to that position - they have to throw it at us in the end with a dossier on him. And the explanation for his partner's odd power is also tacked on at the end. Which I suppose is a LITTLE better than the little serving of angst Our Hero keeps flashing back to, because that isn't really explained either, he never actually talks about it to anyone.
The whole thing was sloppy and not well thought out.
The reveal of the association between the big bad and the Goth Loli who runs the school REALLY makes the whole thing pointless. They're both members of some committee looking to advance humanity, and they have different methods, and the whole conflict is basically the tech guy dicksizing to prove himself against the haughty GothLoli (Who in turn is not exactly believable as the head of her whole organization). Plus there are four other eccentrics on this committee who show up out of nowhere just to occupy additional seats and laugh dryly about the battle going on outside while the other two trade insults.
The main Villain's character and hatred for Our Hero makes no sense either. "I hate you because you say you want to protect people. I was abandoned, so you make me sick." Except he never explains why he came to that position - they have to throw it at us in the end with a dossier on him. And the explanation for his partner's odd power is also tacked on at the end. Which I suppose is a LITTLE better than the little serving of angst Our Hero keeps flashing back to, because that isn't really explained either, he never actually talks about it to anyone.
The whole thing was sloppy and not well thought out.
Posted by: Mauser at May 27, 2015 02:23 AM (TJ7ih)
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