fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2839 ]

[ SECRET POST #2839 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2839 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #406.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Haha, I've heard that show is absolute garbage. This guy's posts on the show are a great read. http://moesucks.com/category/anime/series/mahouka-koukou-no-rettousei/

AYRT

It's so far beyond garbage I don't think there's a word for it. And the really incredible thing is that I keep seeing people defend it! And it's popular in Japan! whyyyyyyy

Thanks for the link - I'm going to go check it out now. And hey, this means I don't have to write my own scathing reviews, which I was considering doing if only to expunge the lingering sense of disgust...

I'd watch it for myself, but the posts I've read on that blog are more than enough for me. I doubt id be able to finish even a single episode. I couldn't stand Kirito and Tatsuya just seems even worse. And with even less of a personality, to boot. How is that even possible? Kirito's a dead fish as it is. How did the author manage to make Tasuya even blander? It is a mystery of the universe.

It's selling rather well on bluray, so I wouldn't be surprised if it got another season. In which case, would you hatewatch it? And tbh, I'd totally read your scathing review on this series. I hope you enjoy! He did the whole series episode by episode so you've got a lot to read. :)

AYRT

Tatsuya... for me, it's not just a case of a bland character (which Kirito is, though admittedly I didn't get through much of SAO - just wasn't my thing). He's actively hate-able. I think I was hatewatching because I was waiting for someone to call him out on his bullshit, but of course that never happened because he can do no wrong, apparently.

I have so many things I want to say about the glorification of violence, the vilification of pacifism (or of even just the reluctance to get involved in bloody conflict), the classism, the victim-blaming, and the pretense of civilisation that masks it all. But let me get through these reviews and then see if anyone else has said them already, in which case I might leave it be. If not... writing scathing reviews can be yet another way of procrastinating on my thesis! =P

I don't doubt it'll get a second season - it's incredibly popular for reasons that elude me (okay, no, I suspect I know why it's popular, but it says nothing good about the people that enjoy it). Don't know if I'll hatewatch it though. I'm the sort of person who loses interest very quickly between seasons, so maybe by the time the second season rolls around, I just won't care anymore? (I can hope.) But then, I was never the sort of person to hatewatch anything in the first place, so who knows...

Unfortunately, Mahouka isn't the sort of series where he'd ever get called on his shit. In the hand s of another writer, maybe they could have done something with it. It could have been a critiwue of the attitude those like Tatsuya have, but nope.

Don't forget the racism and xenophobia. Can't forget that. But yeah, I'd totally still be interested in those reviews. He lightly touches up on some of those issues in his reviews, but not toi much iirc. It would be great to read something that goes more in depth. :) how are you enjoying them so far?

Can't say I'd blame you if you didn't want to go through it again. So maybe it would be for the best if you lost interest if does get another season.

Yeah, I figured Tatsuya would always end up justified in some way, but I was really wishing for some sort of vague acknowledgement that y'know, he's not exactly a healthy and sane individual. The tiniest bit of that would have made me happy, but noooo. That would interfere with how amazing he is how dare you think otherwise you have to either want to be him or fall in love with him there is no other possible outcome.

Tell me about it. Every bad guy is such a stereotype I was cringing the whole way through. They don't even make sense - I mean, the least you could do was come up with a halfway-compelling baddie so that Tatsuya could look even better when taking them down, right? Again, no. Because that would be too much effort when the show can just tell us Tatsuya's awesome! See, much simpler, innit?

I have a lot of feelings about this show, as you may be able to tell. =_= I'm quite enjoying those reviews you linked me to - was afk for a bit, but I'm back to working my way through them now. Only on his review of episode 6 atm, but he's mentioned a few of those issues I particularly hated, so yay! Miiight still put my thoughts down to vent a bit, but at this point I'm still hoping that it'll work its way out of my system on its own, soooo we'll see.

You know, I probably would have a problem with Tatsuya if his ideals were absolute shit and he was actually an interesting character. Overpowered characters can be absolute fun to watch. For example, I'm watching Hellsing Ultimate and Alucard is a damn boss. But he has charisma and personality. He's hammy as hell. It also helps the characters don't exist to fawn over him and the characters he fights against are interesting personalities as well. Tatsuya and the characters that surround him are just one-note. Cardboard cutouts.

Mahouka is just basically a Mary Sue power fantasy and like a lot of those, the villains are strawmen. Just with more racism and xenophobia. It's way easier to just forgo developing yhe villains and have Tatsuya defeat them without any effort to show how badass he is. Don't forget to have a little sister character who does nothing but sing his praises. Moreso than the rest of the cast.

I don't mind! I'm enjoying the chat and hearing your thoughts on it. I'm glad you're enjoying those recaps! His recaps of SAO are what got me through the first season. They're pretty good too.

His ideals weren't absolute shit*

Ugh, time for bed. Hope to chat with you some more in a few hours anon.

I wouldn't even care if an MC had ideals that were absolute shit, if the narrative didn't also fall all over itself trying to validate those shit ideals. I can even get the appeal of power fantasies (not a huge fan, but I can at least get the desire for that sort of escapism). Mahouka rubs me the wrong way because this particular power fantasy, at its core, is driven by amorality and violence to varying degrees.

It's Tatsuya beating up people who've been shown to be different from him (and of course, Tatsuya's views are always right, largely because the narrative cannot be bothered to have any intelligent discussion about opposing viewpoints), and the narrative praising him for it. It's not content to have Tatsuya recognised as superior in some fashion to his peers - which it does unfuckingendingly - it has to hammer the fact home by Tatsuya destroying his opponents. It starts with him pinning combatants to the ground in the first couple of eps, and escalates to him essentially throwing a bomb at the bad guys in the final episode.

That escalation of violence is one of my main problems with Mahouka. Tatsuya wins arguments by literally destroying his opponents. (Not that a verbal win would be difficult, given his opponents are usually allowed about two brain cells apiece.) Okay, fine. I like plenty of characters who have dubious morals. But then, see, the narrative goes on to praise him for it. It goes on to say, well, sure, that's the only way you can deal with these things. There was absolutely nothing else you could have done, and it's their fault for not seeing you were right, Tatsuya.

We're meant to sympathise with Tatsuya, but... what do we have to work with? A character whose first response to problem resolution is "blow it up"? A character we barely learn anything about other than his ability to blow things up (and of course his tragic, mysterious past). A character the narrative tells us to sympathise with, instead of giving us reasons to do so?

Mahouka has amoral characters presented to us as moral. It's bad characterisation, bad pacing, bad story-telling. It praises every sort of "ism" there is, and honestly sees absolutely nothing wrong with its stance. Also, the more I ramble on about this, the more I'm realising I've got Things to say about this piece of shit. *sighs* Go, me. I suppose if there's one thing Mahouka's successfully done, it's to make me actively hate it to the point of ranting - I usually plateau at indifference!

Sleep well, nonny. I'm usually on late for FS (timezones!), but I'll keep an eye on this thread and tomorrow's GC, so feel free to comment if you want to keep this going. And if you feel like answering: I don't suppose you've watched any anime you really liked this season? I haven't found anything myself - Mahouka, ironically, is the only thing I watched all the way through!

Sorry it took so long, anon.

It's really frustrating when a narrative doesn't call out a character's shitty ideals, especially if they're as bad as the ones in Mahouka. I would be fine with the series if it was campy as hell and didn't take itself so seriously. Or feel like bizarre propaganda But unfortunately, it does and it is utterly ridiculous.

It might have been a bit better if the opposing side wasn't a ridiculous set of straw men. But the authir only seems interested in pushing an ideology, one that involves putting Tatsuya on a pedestal and his showcasing his views as being absolutely right. Don't forgot yhat he plowed through people and murdered them with his own body. Literally using his arms and shit to slice through them iirc.

Haha, don't worry about it. I'm enjoying your thoughts on it. I wish I could comment on it more, but I'm only familiar with it through those blog posts. Did you manage to fibish reading them? What do you think?

I didn't check out anything during the summer season. Nothing really interested me tbh. This season, I'm going to check out Garo and Shingeki no Bahamut though. Heard good things about them.

No worries about lateness! If you ever want to start a new thread to me, you can always address it to Rambly!Anon, which I've called myself on a few occasions - I'm sure you can tell why XD

I feel like I was already writing an essay on Mahouka just in these comments~

That's absolutely why the writing in Mahouka's terrible. Nothing is convincing because it's shoved down our throats in an "I said so, therefore it's true" fashion. Or rather, Tatsuya said so. There's not even the slightest attempt at fleshing out the characters, their beliefs, or the ideology of the world in any way. Just... believe what I say because I said it. That's all. Flat characters have their uses but god, it's like Mahouka doesn't even know what the words "flat" and "round" mean in relation to characterisation. Mahouka's flat characters are shit, and its round characters... uh, don't exist.

There's this one bit in the show that really frustrated me - surprisingly, not one revolving around Tatsuya. There's another character who's equally as amoral and violent (unsurprising, since he's obviously set up to be a mirror for Tatsuya), and his specialty battle spell basically involves literally blowing people apart. Same effect as if you put a bomb into someone's body, then set it off - they blow apart from the inside. So there's this scene where a bunch of bystander students have just seen him doing this to the baddies, and in the aftermath of it the students are all cringing, terrified and sickened by what they've just witnessed.

Then the narrative outright tells us that those students are wrong for feeling that way, and that they just don't understand this character. He suffers greatly from these people's misconceptions! How dare they be scared of him and of what he can do?

It's exactly what the narrative does with Tatsuya as well, but that one moment just really pissed me off. How do you expect anyone to react after seeing you blow up multiple people? Why are you presenting this like it's moral and that - it's not even that the students disapprove of the killing itself, we're not talking debates on the ethics of war/the death penalty/etc - they're just normal kids who've seen people get messily blown apart in front of them, and they're wishing really hard they didn't see that, and also kind of on the verge of throwing up, and you know what? That doesn't make them bad people! They are not villains for being horrified by what they've just seen! Why is this so hard to comprehend, Mahouka?

That reviewer mentioned how the baddies are totally flat characters with not much intelligence between the lot of them - which is entirely true, but I think you've really hit a new low when even the bystander characters get co-opted into your strawman arguments.

I finished the reviews, and the reviewer mentions a lot of the things I noticed (don't think I go for his style of humour though - dick and fart jokes, meh), so there was a lot of vehement "yes, exactly!" while pointing at the screen as I was reading them =D His reviews are actually the first I'd heard that fans were protesting it's not a harem show? To which I say what planet are you living on and how do we break off communications.

Also there are some issues he didn't mention, and some he only just glossed over, so now I find myself in the strange, strange position of pondering whether I should seek out Mahouka meta analysis. The depths to which I have sunk!

I watched Mononoke earlier this year (it's an older anime though, released around 2007 iirc), and that's the last time I remember watching something I really enjoyed. ... Oh, and Mushishi! Buuuut that's about it. Shall try out the two you mentioned though - I'm basically just going to watch a couple of eps of everything to see if anything catches my attention. We shall see!

I'm not sure if you're still checking this, but I'm not going to be able to reply tonight. I'm not feeling well. I don't want to leave you hangaing, so check back here later today and I will reply them. Or we can start a new thread on the next post. Sorry, anon! I've been enjoying our chat! :)

Aw, sorry to hear that, anon! Take care and don't worry - come back whenever you're feeling better! I'll keep an eye out for you =)

Still feeling sick. I've not forgotten about you! Sorry, anon. Thanks for the well wishes!

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[ SECRET POST #2839 ]

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