Let's Play Devil's Advocate

[Fox12]

Oh, I like this one.

Things I love:

FF7 is basically the greatest thing ever, but damn, that whole thing with Don Corneo was... weird. Cloud cross dresses and enters a brothel, Aerith and Tifa almost get raped (for laughs!) despite the fact they can basically blow up a tank with their bare hands, and nobody seems to find any of this strange. It ruined the pacing and it wasn't funny.

Elfen Lied had some truly great moments, but the nudity should have been non existant, and the dialogue needed a little work.

Lord of the Rings has a brilliant story, but it was a little dry and the pacing was terrible. Too much fluff.

The Silmarillion: nothing wrong here, this was perfect.

Things I hate:

I despise Game of Thrones since nothing happens, the writer has no idea where the story is going, and he feels the need to ruin character development for the sake of sexy fan service... but his characters do have a unique voice, he can write some very dynamic scenes on the rare occasions that he wants to, and he knows how to make supernatural events as creepy as they should be. Basically it has all the taste of Berserk, minus all the calories and depth.

The Beatles: Paul Mccartney. Seriously, the only non douchebag in that band.

 

[Euryalus]

I love a lot of anime, but I hate the stupidly unrealistic representations of women, like many others do.

Yes, because Goku's SUCH a realis... *starts snickering*

I'm sorry I couldn't finish the lulz.

I almost turned this thread into a war zone!

OT: I actually DO like gender, religious, and political discussions, they're fun to me and you can learn a lot... Unfortunately it's hard to find civility because of how invested people are in them. Entertaining the possibility of other ideas seems hard for a lot of people.

I'm not completely innocent, but still...

I also love Metroid Prime. Love love love it... But I swear to god those doors that load everything piss me off for not opening XD

Especially when I'm trying to run away from the chozo ghosts... Which is another bullshit thing. God damn the infest the whole place to the point where they're just annoying.

 

[Realitycrash]

Twilight-books and movies might be terribly written and with laughable characters and mythos, but they make people happy and encourages reading.

But do they really read outside that block of books? That's the problem I've had with the "got me reading" argument. A lot of these people read one series and that's about it.

Far as Devil's Advocate goes...People should be able to read what they want, regardless of what my opinion is.

...No, I can do better than that.

I know!

Justin Beiber isn't bad.

Every little bit helps. They will most likely try to find similar literature, too. Hunger Games, etc.

 

[BQE]

I find pot smokers to be some of the most insufferable and obnoxious people around but I suppose it has it's benefits for relieving horrible cancer pain.

The story of Arthas Menethil may have been one of my all-time favorites, but it isn't exactly deep and thought provoking. (Especially considering what Blizzard did with WotLK)

This is much more difficult than I thought. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not particularly adamant for specific viewpoints or things, or something else entirely.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I love manga, but...

I hate the way series that are supposed to have an actual plot with a beginning and an end get thir pacing ruined by lots of meaningless filler episodes. You rarely see a manga with the quality pacing of a novel or a movie.

I hate the way so much of it is about young, temperamental and stupid teen boys who shout "I'm gonna be the best!"

I hate it when story arcs go on for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than they should. Like the latest one in Naruto, which made me stop reading that series.

I hate it when I start reading a series that's supposed to have a lot of fanservice and all the girls turn out to look like they're no older than my twelve-year-old sister. You see, the thing is... I'm not a paedophile.

I hate it when a series that's all about silliness and jokes decides to become super-angsty, expecially when series that start out angsty never turn silly. And I hate it even more when it's not even well-written angst. (I'm looking at you, Ouran High School Host Club.)

I hate the way it's so hard to find a series that's a serious drama with people who are realistic both art-wise and psychology-wise.

I hate the way almost no josei is ever published in English.

Sounds like you read/watch way too many shonens, check out seinens: they are designed for a more adult audience (except for NGE, I mean come on) they include the likes of Cowboy Bebop, which I still think has the best writing of any anime I have ever seen.

EDIT: I just noticed your status, apologies if my suggestion seemed patronising, I didn't intent it to be so if it did.

Sadly though, there is an overflow of shonens for the same reason that we have summer blockbusters that are all about "tough, no nonsense men saving the world or acting generally cool" because they are marketed at teenagers(sometimes not directly, but still have a focus on males aged 15-25).

On topic: I really love Drive, but goddamn it is it slow-paced, the first half of the movie is a loooong slog of a "drama", it takes too damn long for the plot to get moving, and when it does, it feels like the director is over-compensating for the long wait with incredibly violent scenes.

Also I never bought the fact that the driver was up against an actual mob, I mean, what kind of mobster tries to 1v1 fight a guy who has destroyed all of his operations and has been known to have an incredibly high tolerance for pain(nigh un-killable at times).

 

[Queen Michael]

Sounds like you read/watch way too many shonens, check out seinens: they are designed for a more adult audience (except for NGE, I mean come on) they include the likes of Cowboy Bebop, which I still think has the best writing of any anime I have ever seen.

EDIT: I just noticed your status, apologies if my suggestion seemed patronising, I didn't intent it to be so if it did.

No offense taken, mate. Though I don't watch anime. I stick to reading manga.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh, ho ho ho. Caska. Yeah.

So which was your favourite part?

- Where she was assigned the duty of jumping in bet naked with a wounded and unconscious Guts to keep him warm. Because campfires and blankets totally don't exist.
- Where she "sacrificed her femininity" to join the Band of the Hawk.
- Where a character who had previously mistaken her for a guy (somehow) sees her a second time and instantly realises she's a woman on account of her having lost her virginity in the intervening time.
- Where (my personal favourite) she gets her period mid-battle and is suddenly rendered completely helpless. Was she suffering the the worst cramps in history or something? She later apologizes for compromising the band by not informing everyone of her terrible, debilitating condition.

I hate to pull a white knight act, but the author seems to have some questionable notions regarding women.

I'd harp on the getting almost-raped like six times thing, but given the setting and her chosen profession, that's actually kinda-sorta justifiable.

Well, I can understand certain things, because this is a medievil setting where women aren't regarded as much more than baby factories. Like where she's told to keep Guts warm. Griffith tells her it's her "womanly duty" and it really pisses her off that her gender is being used against her. It also makes for some good animosity between her and Guts.

Her "sacrificing her femininity" is because, again, there's a strict distinction between men and women in this world, so she had to become what is perceived as manly to fit in. In a Joan of Arc sorta way, I guess.

It's really when her and Guts start getting along that suddenly her entire attutide changes from being fiercly loyal to Griffith, to just being a girly girl hanging around with the Hawks. I know that's kind of the point, that's she's no longer blindly devoted to Griffith and becomes her own person, but the way the story handles this is a bit shallow.

But then even at her best Casca never had any real depth to speak of. Farnese however, now she's a really good character... who then got turned into Guts' love interest #2. *sigh*

 

[Daymo]

I can't stand pop music and don't much like dancing at the best of times, but most Kesha songs I actually enjoy quite a lot. There is no deep message, it's lets get drunk and have a good night. Nothing about being super rich or trying to have a deeper message, Blah, Blah, Blah is probably my least liked of her songs becauseit's all about random sex instead of just having a good night.

 

[MHR]

We all like to stick to our views on the things we love and the things we hate, so I thought why not have a game of Devil's Advocate, whereby we give out a criticism of something you love and say something good about something you hate.

I love Game of Thrones to death, but I will agree with one main criticism, the nudity, as at times it's uncalled for and can be completely distracting as well e.g. Robb and Talisa discussing tactics.

I find game of thrones is much less distracting when you've watched so much porn that a naked body becomes boring. I'm actually listening to what they're saying.

 

[Abomination]

I love, and I mean fucking adore, Berserk, but the moment the ice between Guts and Caska breaks, Casca quickly turns into a super girly love interest type character. Eventhough before she was all tough ice queen *****. She also suddenly aquires rape magnetism.

Oh, ho ho ho. Caska. Yeah.

So which was your favourite part?

- Where she was assigned the duty of jumping in bet naked with a wounded and unconscious Guts to keep him warm. Because campfires and blankets totally don't exist.
- Where she "sacrificed her femininity" to join the Band of the Hawk.
- Where a character who had previously mistaken her for a guy (somehow) sees her a second time and instantly realises she's a woman on account of her having lost her virginity in the intervening time.
- Where (my personal favourite) she gets her period mid-battle and is suddenly rendered completely helpless. Was she suffering the the worst cramps in history or something? She later apologizes for compromising the band by not informing everyone of her terrible, debilitating condition.

I hate to pull a white knight act, but the author seems to have some questionable notions regarding women.

I'd harp on the getting almost-raped like six times thing, but given the setting and her chosen profession, that's actually kinda-sorta justifiable.

Hell, I'm probably known on this forum for being a... I don't know "Closet MRA Member" or whatever but even I found Berserk's depiction of women damn right off-putting.

Especially the whole period thing. The rape and objectification I can write-off because that was essentially par the course of the setting... but for the author to actually write that a woman became completely ineffective because she was on her period is just downright sexist. Now if that fat fuck of a general who taunted her because of it was the only one who mentioned it - and who, eventually, got his arse handed to him on 3 different platters - it would have been fine. But the fact that the main character holds the same sentiments and she is physically rendered CRIPPLED by the ordeal just shows the authors seriously need to actually have a proper relationship with a woman.

So yeah, loved the setting but hated the whole women period = cripple and when demons start getting involved because of some fucking creepy egg necklace.

 

[Dark Knifer]

OT: I actually DO like gender, religious, and political discussions, they're fun to me and you can learn a lot... Unfortunately it's hard to find civility because of how invested people are in them. Entertaining the possibility of other ideas seems hard for a lot of people.

I think its just people feel insulted when someone disagrees with them. Which I do from time to time, that's why I avoid those things >.>

I also love Metroid Prime. Love love love it... But I swear to god those doors that load everything piss me off for not opening XD

Especially when I'm trying to run away from the chozo ghosts... Which is another bullshit thing. God damn the infest the whole place to the point where they're just annoying.

Fuck them ghost.

OT: I really like one piece but by god do I wish the plots would move faster. Maybe its just the format of manga but a chapter a week is a really slow pace and sometimes they introduce far too many characters, not all of them good (Rebecca needs to go away).

 

[EternallyBored]

Hrmm let's see, I really like the Dark Souls, Demons Souls series, but a lot of its lauded difficulty comes from its poorly explained systems and mechanics. From Software is famous for doing this, and in almost all of their other games it's seen as a negative, but they managed to make their usual kind of half-assed programming work in this case. From playing other games they make, it seems like a lot of the systems that Dark Souls implements should be as frustrating and non-intuitive as they are in their other series, but like some kind of twisted Rube Goldberg machine, it works despite itself. From there, people seem to excuse a lot of the UI clunkiness and lack of information on key game mechanics (the item find and elemental resist buffs from banked humanity have no excuse for not being explained better in game), because the vaunted "difficulty" has become memetic at this point and even suggesting something be changed that could increase the intuitiveness of the controls and stats, is seen by many as a blasphemy against video games.

Also, the internet's hate boner for entertainment aimed at girls (especially teenage girls) is completely overblown. No, Twilight and Justin Beiber are not that bad, they are pretty standard for pop entertainment and trashy romance novels respectively, their popularity is the only thing that really stands out for them. People on the internet just can't seem to stand anything they don't like being popular, and obsess over justifying their dislike of it. People are way too quick to call anything even vaguely popular, "overhyped" to the point that the word has pretty much lost all meaning.

 

[Euryalus]

I also love Metroid Prime. Love love love it... But I swear to god those doors that load everything piss me off for not opening XD

Especially when I'm trying to run away from the chozo ghosts... Which is another bullshit thing. God damn the infest the whole place to the point where they're just annoying.

Fuck them ghost.

Truly, this is the soundtrack from hell.


But really, they were just over used as all get out. They became like the only enemies at all for vast swaths of the ruins

The only other enemy I hated more were the fission Metroids, but at least they were only in one room of the game (and may have been version specific I think).

 

[KennardKId5]

ASCII roguelikes need to be modernized. There is no excuse for not having tileset support, at least.

 

[siveon]

Hmm. Nice topic.
Okay, something I love. Well, Fallout 1 is a great game but most of the time the combat is an off-shoot of who has better luck and armor.
Something I hate now. I liked the expansive lore of WoW. I didn't like anything else about it though.

Lemme go two for two.
Castlevania is fantastic but the newer games (the GBA and DS ones respectfully) make the enemies so easy to kill. Other than the bosses, the games have little to no challenge.

I suppose I can can give a hand to Patapon for the music. Sadly, I don't care for rhythm games.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I love Minecraft, but it lacks that direction I desire from games, so I never play a single world for more than a week.

I hate escort missions, but they... are... fucking terrible in every respect. Sorry can't do it. They are slow, unreliable and useless in almost every situation.

Nothing else I hate about games. Hate is such a strong word.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

Big O, though it's one of my favorite animes, does suffer significantly from Lost syndrome. It's creators seem to love creating this great intriguing world filled with mystery, but they seem to have no interest in answering any of those questions. And when they do get the chance to finish the story and answer every question, they answer it in an extremely unsatisfactory manner. They pull off Lost before even Lost. Also, most episodes degrade into a monster of the week plot, featuring giant robot fights out of nowhere. Also, the second season is severely lacking compared to the first.