Darling In the FRANXX (Trigger/ A-1 Pictures collaboration)

Pretty much nailed it.

So is there some kind of special interlude episode like 15.5 this week?

The biggest problem with the show trying to be like Evangelion isn't the references or the plot but the narrative.

Evangelion was a slow paced episodic series which focused mostly on characters episodes while a conspiracy happened in the background that the children were helpless to interfere with.

Unfortunately this show ran into the big problem that Evangelion didn't...interestting and complex characters. The closest we get are Zero Two and Dr Franks.

Also what's with all the accusations of alt right propaganda that I'm hearing

edited 2nd Jun '18 5:31:16 PM by Archivist10

Looks like it. I haven't been watching the specials though.

Edit for

edited 2nd Jun '18 5:29:38 PM by KnightofLsama

Again, it was Trigger who assisted with the visuals and a group of freelancers mostly associated with A1 who did everything else. Seriously, check the staff on MAL or something. I feel like I have to mention this every few pages.

I think someone said that the show would take a two week hiatus a few pages back, but I could be mistaken.

I can see that this really is mostly written by A-1.

Cause like I made no secret my dislike of Kiznaiver but even then that show had a certain energy, a certain "Jena Se Qua" that still felt Triggerish if you get what I mean.

This show lacks that, the distinct energy.

I mean, this is written in part by the guy who wrote Plastic Memories which was so distinctly uninterested in examining the show's world of how this futuristic society functions in favor of a bog-standard boy meets girl, oh wait, the girl's dying plot also here's some anime ~shenanigans~ but WITH ROBOTS.

At least DITF spawned some good memes and there are actual supporting characters I vaguely give a shit about.

edited 2nd Jun '18 6:50:53 PM by Nouct

Oh my nonexistent God, I did know that at all.

It all makes sense now, I have heard not very good things about Plastic Memories related to that exact shit.

I mean we had a Goddamn boys vs girls episode with an actual tape down the middle plot used seriously for fucks sake. That's like the most asinine of cliche sitcom tropes ever, says everything about this show really.

edited 2nd Jun '18 6:52:03 PM by slimcoder

Archivist: People have been saying it's right-wing propaganda in a Japanese sense - in that it deals with an aging, stagnating population and is pushing very hard for kids to get married and have children. The idea that kids are better if they're a bit horny (as Dr Franxx says) is pretty much exactly that.

As for alt-right appeal... the alt-right already loves anime (the anime avatar freethinker is a stereotype for a reason), Zero Two is the new waifu flavor of the season, and (as people have pointed out) it's very easy to read gender-nonconforming antagonists smashing a heterosexual wedding For the Evulz as something out of an alt-right fantasy.

Is sad that this ended like that, I still like this show enought to continue watching it. But seriously, it seems like nobody really wanted to really work more.

As someone who is Very left leaning, A lot of us like Anime too. We're just more sensible about it.

It's alright imo, the problem is I just can't stop comparing it to Gurren Lagann or Kill la Kill, both of which I think are vastly superior.

I already gave rants about this show pages ago, sooooo. Yea, I just wanna get this over with and move on to something else.

I'll be blunt. If you don't like it, just stop watching and being annoyed with it.

I'll go to the extra mile and says that being Left Wing is the only moral political learning. I still watch anime, albeit seeing the Uber Strict Japanese schools will be always weird given that where I live, the actual issue is lack of order, so much that people praise the Japanese and Chinese systems because they're the opossite of what we have.

edited 3rd Jun '18 12:20:09 AM by KazuyaProta

After 19 weeks, you think I'll just quit.

Honestly? Yeah. You saw 19 episodes, that's not a big part of your lifetime. You can do better things that watching a show that you don't like and complaing about it

Were in this shit till the end.

And I won't abandon this show lest all those spent 20 minutes will be for naught.

The only show I never not finished was Fate/Apocrypha & its cause that show was fucking Godawful.

Main character was so disgustingly boring I felt suicidal. This show hasn't made me feel that yet.

edited 3rd Jun '18 12:22:28 AM by slimcoder

So you're using your time to doing things that you don't like because you wanna justify that you used your time to do things that you don't like.

Sounds logical

I'm slightly right-wing-leaning. Does that make me a bad person?

Anyways, I'm still not quite sure I understand the criticisms you guys have towards the series beyond the pacing. Care to fill me in?

For me, the one criticism I have so far is that it focused way too much on the relationship between Mitsuru and Kokoro, whom I feel as basically just a side-pairing. We didn't need to have those two stretched out over the course of several weeks. Maybe it was done to show the consequences these sorts of bonds have in this society, and to show the children rediscovering their humanity through connections, but I still feel that it went on too long. Heck, we already had a perfectly good relationship to focus on with Hiro and Zero Two. Why couldn't that have been the one that the latest few episodes centered around?

edited 3rd Jun '18 1:41:08 AM by LDragon2

Full disclosure, I dropped the show before episode 10 and I only pop in now and again to have a look at what's going on, so you can take my perspective with a grain or a mountain of salt as you please.

For me, and from my point of view, the show just isn't interesting. It clearly wants to be a Big Name Mecha Show - given the Trigger staff credits and all the hype beforehand, it was clearly trying to draw on the appeal of shows like Evangelion, Gurren Lagann, and Eureka Seven, among others. Particularly Evangelion, since it's clearly trying to have A Message. Unfortunately, bringing up other well-known shows as a point of comparison for yourself only works if you have the substance to match up, and FranXX just... doesn't. (People like to brush aside criticism by saying that FranXX 'isn't supposed to be that deep', which is wrong. It's clearly trying to have a message, and it does end up saying a lot, especially about toxic masculinity and how it hurts the boys; but I can't shake the feeling that that's not the message it's trying to send.)

It takes six episodes to reach the initial point most series reach in three (the big dramatic reveal of the central mech and reveal that the protagonists have to be the ones piloting or it won't do The Cool Thing). After that, Hiro has no point - he is a thing for people to chase after and fight over (Zero Two and Ichigo openly, Mitsuru as reflected in his trauma), and for things to happen to (the memory wiping and horns). Hell, the very love triangle itself is dull - Zero Two won the instant the first promo materials were unveiled for the show, and the complications the show throws out just make you feel bad (if you like Ichigo) or annoy you (if you don't). The love triangle ends up as padding for Hiro and Zero Two's relationship, or a sort of crutch to fill airtime with external threats instead of internal developments. Relatedly, the side characters end up as space-fillers instead of full characters; Futoshi is by far the worst, since he's a walking "cuck"/"beta male" meme served up on a platter. Hell, his name is literally 'fat boy', and that's his entire character, too.

Additionally, as far as worldbuilding goes - the show gives almost nothing to work with beyond what sounds like a clunky expodump of an episode, eighteen weeks into the series. And yet, at the same time, it's very obvious with its plots. Like, of course Papa is evil. Of course APE is evil. The blond boy and his crew are practically in Stock Evil Watching Poses when they show up to loom ominously at the end of episode 6. And similarly, of course the Klaxosaurs are almost certainly misunderstood, not just evil monsters.

The TL;DR, again, from the perspective of someone who dropped in the first season - it's just. Not. Good. Maybe it expects you to be less familiar with common anime tropes, so the few plot points and character dynamics it does have feel fresh, and you're not constantly reminded of other shows that have done it better. The whole time I was watching, it felt like a prototype of Gurren Lagann - a less nuanced and less charming show with less exciting action and no real sense of what it is or what it wants to do, aside from convince young Japanese people to have kids.

edited 3rd Jun '18 3:52:17 AM by RedSavant

@slimcoder, Ever heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy? Not that I don't agree with you, the only thing I'm still curious about in this show is seeing how it ends, because I think I figured out the basics back in episode 15 and I want to see if I'm right.

Which is a pity. This show could have been much better. It had all the right ingredients for a nice mecha show, but as it stands, even ignoring all the controversies and discussions, it' still just a mediocre show at best.

Please don't tell me there's going to be a second season of this... Oh, thank goodness. Last thing this show needed was to have a confirmed second season without even ending the first one. Although I suppose Trigger doesn't usually do second seasons.

edited 3rd Jun '18 6:01:14 AM by TheLovecraftian

Sorry, let me correct myself before Knight yells at me again - the first cour, meaning the first 12 episodes.

Oh I understand, I don't necessarily see why people wold get obsessed with that but oh well.

Plus, as someone pointed out, the fact that Zero Two can't have children isn't shown in a negative light, because she and Hiro are still in a loving relationship.

I guess considering Japan is a workaholic society the Franxx are meant to be stand ins for work in general an the show is saying that you can't find more meaning in life than simply work and love and making babies are just one form of that. Now the latter two of those would work better if it wasn't teenagers

@Kazuya Prota: Well, its not like I got anything else to watch lol. And I wanna see if ends as badly. Bile Fascination and whatnot.