Colonialism banzai!!!
See what I said earlier.
I’ll just add that after I wrote that they added dungeon porn to the mix.
- Storytelling – D – Lol. So bad. Not a bit of subtlety nor nuance.
- Voice – D – Feels totally generic aside from the war crime apologia.
- Characters – D – Elf girl is shit. The rest are just bad.
- Attention Grab – C – It did keep my attention… mostly for the wrong reasons.
- Production – C – Looks fine.
- Overall – D+
Recommendations – Mahouka, Outbreak Company
Lelei was all right though.
Definitely Best Girl. I feel bad for her for being forced to live in this universe.
I dunno. I thought Rori and the rest were likable enough. They are, at the very least, defined characters that have some development. Something that lots of harem anime forgets to do, and Itami is at least relatable. Elf girl’s arc was fine, I felt. Doesn’t make sense that she’d act like that? I can’t agree 100%, though it is a bit goofy. People have acted worse than that in reality for less. It does get a little too drama-y for my tastes, though.
I’m unsure if there was apologia for war crimes, so much as dodging the issue in regards to the past. It’s been a while, so my memory is foggy. As for the curbstomps against the empire: I’m conflicted, because people with spears are definitely a lower level threat, but that doesn’t mean an army of them should be thought of as harmless. The scenes with the artillery and the like are goofy and overblown, I must admit.
As for racism: It’s not so much that, though there is a tiny bit of that integrated into what it’s really targeting. It’s aimed at the political side of things, really. Practically all branches of the government that aren’t related to the military are portrayed as arrogant jerks who know nothing. Even the US soldiers shown were not exactly shown in a bad light, but just doing their duty and frustrated with their superior’s lack of intelligence. It’s not so much that “Other countries are scumbags”, but “All politicians are scumbags”. At least, that’s what I got from it.
I, like many others, took issue with the colonialism. Since I liked the characters enough, I was just barely able to tolerate it. Probably one of the cases where censoring the colonialism could be argued to make the overall story better, I must admit.
Despite all that I do think that the show was, at best, a C+ based on my personal tastes. The most I ever got out of the military scenes was the “Ride of the Valkyries” segment, and only because I knew what they were referencing. The fact that I felt the need to type out even this much shows how kinda sloppy the execution can be. And also the fact that it is still pretty blatant a lot of the times.
AN ASIDE
I do disagree about Maoyuu, as you referenced it when talking about GATE, though the anime does muck things up a bit by being compressed. I guess I’ll address this in terms of some of the more detailed adaptations. It’s definitely NOT the “White Man’s Burden”. Yuusha was hidden from all the bad things from society due to his travels. He never stuck around long enough to see that, so naturally he is surprised when he sees people suffering and when he is taught about the disastrous cycle that the Humans and Demons are stuck in. Mao is trying to circumvent the cycle by using knowledge that should be outside the scope of EVERYONE, given her access to this huge archive of knowledge.
To call the architectures rather than characters is silly, as they DO have personalities and goals. The idea that all the characters in the series, other than the main ones, are not considered “human” is defied constantly. None of the knowledge presented if inherent in her race, or their culture. She spreads knowledge because the knowledge itself is good, not because she feels as if her race has anything to do with it. Also, a good majority of characters that know nothing of what she teaches, and still hold on to old values, are still portrayed respectfully. Most of the issues are not borne out of intention, but due to it being a compressed adaptation. The chapters are quite long and detailed, so covering 1 chapter per episode would make sense. Instead, they tried to blend 2-3 together, and missed out on a lot.