Low Tier Character Tomozaki #01 — Play More Smash Bros!

January 8th, 2021

 

This show hasn't been keeping up to date on the professional Smash scene's woes, has it?

Impressions:

There is… a lot to take in with this show, and virtually all of it is a bit horrifying. Mostly, it's the long speech towards the end about how life and society are fair for everybody, and nobody is born with anything more than superficial advantages or disadvantages that can be overcome with a little effort. I don't even know where to begin with that one. Whether you want to take it on from a wealth angle, a racial angle, or any of a dozen others, it's… uh, certainly one hell of a central thesis to lay down. Which such impeccable timing to real world incidents too! It's pretty difficult to try to see it in the more charitable light of "we can all change and be better people for ourselves and others" when every single character is a massive jackass. This includes the manic pixie girl. She acted friendly in school, then upon running into him later, starts endlessly rattling off that she thinks he's actually a loser that she actually has nothing but disgust for and her previous friendliness was just an act.

And all of them have Marty McFly brain rot because everything hinges on being called a chicken. The lesson from learning that the person you were worshipping as a god thirty seconds ago is also secretly a massive jackass, but also well-liked, should probably not be "teach me to fake it like you." I mean, it certainly could be, if the show gave any indication that it understood these were all horrible people, but it most certainly does not. She's great and totally right in every way. We should all be more like her, looking down on those we think are dregs. They deserve their suffering for not trying hard enough. …Yeesh.

Posted in Low Tier Character | 5 Comments »

5 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Frank says:

    It always made me chuckle when someone’s ranting angrily about Hinami, about her faking it, she’s a manic pixie dream girl (not true) and so on, but it’s exactly the point that the author made and probably you’d feel like a dumb person after the story getting to “that point” in the climax (of volume 3).

    Anyway, I’m really looking forward to see haters/anime only watcher reaction to the climax, which is a turning point for the series. I expect they will adapt the first three books, which is a perfect place for the ending for the anime.

    • Aroduc says:

      You can round out most antagonistic characters in a single episode. Taking three books/12 episodes to redeem a jerk protagonist by some twist is not much of an own on anybody.

      • Frank says:

        Oh come on… you’re talking like she’s the worst antagonists of all time. A certain mecha franchise have terrible antagonists too right? I assume you’re more knowledgeable about watching some assholes fighting each other.

        Anyway, I don’t get why you feel like you have the privilege to decide what the author should do. That’s laughable, like, who do you think you are? You don’t even read the LN and just imagine and assume bunch of things in your head then get angry because your own imagination.

  • The Phantom says:

    This was not bad I actually kinda liked it, having goals and improving for whatever goal is actually a very good example. this is a very good example actually instead of the imbecile with the cellphone that gets godly powers by taking it out of his pocket. Count me min I want more of this.

  • ToshiroNoRonin says:

    Let me preface this by saying I’ll continue to give this show a chance because it has potential as a story of someone trying to get more out of life. However, I have my misgivings in that it mostly comes across as tone deaf.

    I literally cringed when Hinami said that everyone is born with nothing more than superficial advantages/disadvantages. If there’s anything 2020 taught us it’s that this has never been true (in fairness this was written before 2020 but that’s no excuse since inequality is not something new). Your review is the only place I’ve seen this critique and it’s been driving me nuts that it’s being glossed over. Having Tomozaki wear a mask constantly only served to make it more difficult to shake off what Hinami just said given the whole 2020 package of disparities in race and privilege.

    While Hinami’s philosophy of putting in effort isn’t necessarily wrong, her attitude didn’t do her any favors. She invited Tomozaki to meet, only for her to be immediately disgusted and verbally abuse him the moment she realizes it’s him (also tonal whiplash given that she had just gone out of her way to be friendly to him in school). I know there’s some big twist coming that will help explain her behavior, but we were given very little foreshadowing of that here and Hinami comes across as nothing more than a superficial person trying to make Tomozaki superficial like her in order to be “happy.” Effort is good, superficiality will never make anyone happy. It’s also a little unfair/sexist/cliche that his medium goal is to get a girlfriend in his quest to be like Hinami when Hinami herself doesn’t appear to have a boyfriend.

    I’m not saying Tomozaki is great either, he’s kind of angsty and a little too obsessed with calling a video game godly. He probably could have tried to make a better first impression when meeting NO NAME but he also seems to be comfortable with who he is. He mostly sticks to himself and he’s not wrong that life is unbalanced. Of course the whole idea that life is a game is pretty flawed to begin with since it never has been. So this show mostly feels like Hinami is forcing herself into his life to change him when he never asked for any of that. So yeah, tone deaf.