Return of the Naruto Community Derail Thread: Part Two!

It's not the same because that's Kubo or Toriyama playing with their own series. ...Though I do dislike how Toriyama has no sense of scale. The issues is that the spectrum of ability in Fate ranges from non combatant support character all the way up through Gilgamesh/Enkidu/Karna/etc, limiting this to just Servants for the moment. The characters are basically all at their peak, so they need to use the tools they have to cope with the situation at hand. That's how the story is set up and proceeds in basically every installment. Even Apo knew that much: Karna is ridiculously broken and the best the protagonists can field against him is some random homunculus who can only fight for three minutes and isn't really that great at it to begin with. It's a fight he has no business being in and all kinds of plot are needed to make it somewhat reasonable.

But Narita doesn't really want to play by the rules. He just rushes in and says "Behold, my Herk can just sneer through Gate of Babylon! And also Enkidu can perfectly counter Ea. Also, Hippolyta can blow up mountains by punching people into them and Assassin can fight on par with the knight classes and let's summon the spirit of death itself! Also super duper pooper scooper Assassin who gets to be invisible even when attacking." This doesn't mean anything anymore. Everyone is just too strong and it loses all weight. The characters don't even really seem strong anymore either.

Narita's style of writing does not suit this franchise. There's all sorts of other problems with the power scaling that I can't even express properly. Like the inability to really relate. Let's take Atalanta for example. She's not really that strong, but she's good enough that she seems more like something a person could actually kinda do, which makes it more interesting in some ways to watch her. But this story doesn't seem to have any Atalantas or Medeas or whatever. It's just a bunch of massive firepower being chucked around without anyone you can easily connect with.

Edit: It's honestly difficult to express why some of the the issues with FSF are so bad because there's just so many problems one little thing causes. Like you start talking about one problem only to realize it causes so many others, or the problem sounds harmless, but is actually really irritating. Like the fanboying sounds harmless, right? It actually totally destroys reader immersion because you realize that he just couldn't help dropping in another reference.

Edited by Arha on Aug 6th 2020 at 7:17:38 AM

Okay, that does make it a lot clearer thanks (and even when I was asking I did think on Toriyama's poor sense of scale).

I have to say I don't think I like how Nasu handles the power of a lot of his characters though. I've mentioned it before (probably in this thread!) but I really dislike the narrative of a lot of his fights between characters of disparate power levels. I was going to say Shirou vs Gilgamesh, but really it's more like Shirou vs anyone.

Also I'm a little confused on the example of Herc because isn't he one of the top tier heros? Like he's really strong compared to Artoria and isn't Artoria supposed to be one of the strongest? Shouldn't those three be in the same ballpark??

I also remember Shlugo criticizing how FSF Herc totally punks Gilgamesh, aaaaaaages ago. And I still maintain that Gilgamesh sucks and him being punked is always a good thing.

Archer Herk being able to fight Gilgamesh is fine, but the way it went is just irritating.

You know why I think we're all still a part of this thread?

Because... you guys are my nakama.

I love that video.

Also I have to say, I keep getting ads for anime that look absolutely garbage. This Uzaki-chan character is already getting on my nerves.

That's the one about guy getting harassed by this annoying girl, right?

I got out after the first episode.

Yeah that's the one

I felt personally attacked by that one.

It could be worse.

I don't have targeting on, so I keep getting ads for Trump.

Anyone else excited for the Inuyasha sequel?

Or am I the only nerd?

I haven't even heard about it until now.

Ditto.

So how long is that gonna take to finish?

I never finished Inu Yasha myself, and I'm wondering if I should revisit it

Edited by Saiga on Aug 7th 2020 at 7:08:23 PM

Depending on how far you got along, you might be able just to watch Inuyasha: The Final Act and just finish it in 26 episodes or just start where you left off if you can remember it.

Will probably depend on how successful it is. It's not an adaptation of a manga so there's no worries that they'd have to slow the story down for the manga to get more ahead and modern anime tends to be seasonal now versus continuously running.

Edited by MadSkillz on Aug 7th 2020 at 9:07:23 AM

Reminder: hospitals during COVID are not a nice place to be in.

Very true. Or to work in.

On another note:
Filler: >, <, or = Padding. Discuss.

Filler > Padding. Filler can be skipped easily.

I was going to say the exact same thing.

Also, in theory, independent filler arcs/episodes should have better structure and pacing than padded out episodes, and more chance of being interesting to watch in their own right.

Never seems to work that way but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Exactly my reasoning. And there's sometimes good filler. The Shino episode in the Naruto War Arc comes to mind. Padding is just... If there's too much padding in the anime, I just read the manga. If there's too much padding in the manga, I'll just check a wiki page for a summary. If the wiki page is too long without saying anything of interest, like a Triple H opening promo, I lose 99% of interest in the series.

...Glares at One Piece, the inspiration for this post.

Wasn't the question asked under the assumption that you had to watch it?

Oh, guess not. Well, I'm going to pretend that part was assumed and say I dislike filler more because the original content was usually stronger material and therefore more interesting than anime original filler, even if stretched out. If filler doesn't seem as bad it's only because skipping it is an option. Skipping One Piece padding means skipping the entire Marineford arc and so on. But being stuck watching the Bount arc in Bleach can be avoided. If you couldn't? Well, shit.

I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts, made worse by typing on my phone in bed.

Edited by Arha on Aug 8th 2020 at 11:27:42 AM

The question was on a conceptual level. Not necessarily in (y)our experience, but it helps.

Watching the Heaven's Feel's movies, I thought I would have gained some more sympathy for Sakura. It's been a long time since I first played FSN after all and I've become a bit more empathetic since then.

...Nope, I just end up despising her either way. And I hate the entirety of HF's message where coddling one person becomes everyone's responsibility and she can't do anything but murder Shinji on her own.

To be fair killing Shinji is good

Everything Sakura does is wrong. I like Shinji more than her.

Sakura is the worst, but Shinji is even worster