Boring in the BronXX #10 — Manic Pixie Fruit Bat

March 17th, 2018

 

Oh god, yes. I love unending talking heads.

Impressions:

What a tremendously tedious episode. It began with a voiceover against a slowly expanding light from one of the more irritating side characters and astonishingly, only got worse from there. The highlight, and I use that term exceedingly loosely because this episode was approximately 20 straight minutes of talking heads, occasionally totally unanimated because apparently it's the end of the season and we've run out of money, is the reveal that the manic pixie girl may be a manic pixie vampire having that time of the vampire month because her fangs are aching, or maybe getting bigger? I'm about 80% certain she always had fangs, but now they're itchy or something. Since we always take the stupidest of all developments, I'm going to instead say that she's becoming a manic pixie fruit bat. They have fangs too. Look it up. 

Anyway, the main 'focus' of the episode is the kids getting to go on a field trip for an attaboy, the most annoying one wandering off, meeting some random woman, and then having a ten minute conversation with her where he supposedly learns a valuable lesson about partnership. In actuality, it's about a fifty ton bit of hinting for the audience's benefit (since the idiot is thicker than a ton of bricks) that in this dystopia that uses and abuses its children, there may be dire consequences awaiting the children it uses and abuses. You would think the future/current PTSD and constant (supposed) threat of death is enough, but this is Japanese media, so of course not. 

 

Posted in Darling in the Franxx | 12 Comments »

12 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anonymous says:
    March 17, 2018 at 10:10 am

    What _do_ you love in a show?

    Criticism is healthly, but frankly you just seem to complain about everything, regardless of series.

    • abc says:
      March 17, 2018 at 11:05 am

      Well, it is his Homepage here. Hell would freeze before he praise an Show into the heaven

      • Anonymous says:
        March 17, 2018 at 12:46 pm

        Praising a show to high heaven isn’t what I’m asking about – it’s just that he seems to treat everything with apathy, disdain or sometimes both.

        Of course, I could be wrong.

        • DP says:
          March 20, 2018 at 7:40 pm

          well, it’s his basic style – be a curmudgeon. Basically, Tenka Seia is the Armond White of anime reviews. I especially enjoy his season preview in this regard.

          However, often his two minute hate is a bit over the top and the reviews aren’t accurate as a result. For example:

          “meeting some random woman, and then having a ten minute conversation with her where he supposedly learns a valuable lesson about partnership”

          What actually happened was “he’s met by a woman who is probably his mother, and has ten minute conversation which reveals significant details regarding the nature of the dystopia the adults live in”

        • Aroduc says:
          March 21, 2018 at 5:56 pm

          If you want longwinded supplemental material, buy an appendix. That’s where infodumps devoid of narrative and purpose belong.

        • Tiresias says:
          March 23, 2018 at 9:01 am

          Good worldbuilding is nothing without good exposition. And this series, like many anime nowadays, really suck at the latter.

        • Aroduc says:
          March 23, 2018 at 2:44 pm

          “Worldbuilding” is such a cop out excuse. Everything builds the world and adds information. But you can do it as part of a story, character or event driven, preferably the former. Exposition should convey exactly as much information as is needed to move things forward, even better if it can do so on both a direct level for the immediate plot, as well as indirectly for the greater one. Having author mouthpieces list out factoids that may or may not be relevant at any point, especially ones that are already mostly self-evident, is tedious at best.

    • Something says:
      March 17, 2018 at 12:12 pm

      Eh, his garo reviews are pretty positive generally.

      • DP says:
        March 20, 2018 at 7:42 pm

        Yeah. Basically, he will usually pick one under-rated (and sometimes crappy) show each season and give it some interesting coverage. It’s another reason to check out the site.

  • Dave Baranyi says:
    March 17, 2018 at 7:41 pm

    Woody Allen did the same story over 40 years ago with “Sleeper”…

  • Bozika says:
    March 17, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    Tell me Aroduc, have you given up on translation work?

    I know it must have been hard, after being back-stabbed like that.

    However, you must remember that there are still people that appreciated what you did; that loved your work.

    I still play Kamidori from time to time, and I have replayed the first Bunny Black 3 times already.

    Japanese companies speak in the language of money. Eushully themselves should reconsider once you show them the numbers TL companies have been putting on Steam.

    But you don’t have to do that. You can relax, and keep doing whatever you’re doing right now.

    But once I make it big; once I get enough money to persuade companies like SofthouseChara and Eushully, I’ll come get you. I promise.

    • Aroduc says:
      March 19, 2018 at 1:58 pm

      I dislike saying never about anything, but I am deeply skeptical that I would work with any of the primary companies in the visual novel localization industry, or allow them to use any work that I’ve done in the future.