Stories that did it better

[Fox12]

I recently binge watched the popular Madoka Magica in a single day, and greatly enjoyed its strange demented nature. The fights were stylized and beautiful, and it had great music. And yet, I had a small gripe. No matter how much I enjoyed it, I couldn't get over the fact that it was basically the same thing as the criminally underrated Bakurano Ours. It even had a shout out to the manga. I'm a huge fan of Mohiro Kitoh, the creator of Bakurano and the equally underrated Narutaru. As a result, as much as I loved the show, I felt like most of the ideas had already been explored in Bakurano, and in many ways, had been explored more thoroughly. It was basically the same thing, except it was a magical girl show instead of a mecha story. Despite this, to my knowledge Bakurano isn't as well known.

In many ways I feel like the same is true for Game of Thrones and Berserk, even though the creators of those two works do not seem to know of each other. I always felt like Berserk delivered on what Game of Thrones had promised, and that it was a more sophisticated take on dark fantasy. Despite this, no one in the West really knows of Berserk outside of the anime fandom, while Game of Thrones enjoys great success.

Now, I'm not saying the more successful stories don't deserve their success. I enjoyed both Madoka and, to a lesser extent, Game of Thrones. What I am saying is that I wish Bakurano, Narutaru, and Berserk could enjoy the same level of success for delivering equal or better quality narratives.

So, what books/games/movies/shows do you think got the shaft? What stories do you think did a better job then something else that similar but wildly popular?

 

[TakerFoxx]

Narutaru was one of the first anime I ever watched, and Bokurano wasn't far behind. Mohiro Kitoh is a brilliant man, albeit a very sick one.

As for me, I feel that Dance in the Vampire Bund is criminally underrated. Most people just know it for the creepy loli vampire fanservice, and even those who are familiar with it only know about the anime. Which is a damned shame, as while the fanservice is pretty offputting, it's still probably the best vampire story I've read.

 

[Foolery]

Yeah, no. Berserk and Game of Thrones aren't really comparable. Both have fantasy settings, sure, but other than that, I don't see it. Berserk is a more focused tale that mostly revolves around Guts' misfortune and quest for revenge, redemption, defeating the God Hand, etc. Game of Thrones is closer to Tolkien style storytelling. And honestly, the fact that Berserk is written by a Japanese writer, strongly shows. Just like how Game of Thrones is strongly Western in writing style. Neither one did it better, because they aren't telling two versions of a similar story. They each do their own thing. It's a huge stretch to compare a multi-character focused political war drama with mild fantasy elements to a single character focused action adventure story. Berserk also has a shit ton of fucked-up demon-slaying in it's plot.

I loved Berserk up until the Ganishka arc or whatever, but since then it's been a slow crawl.

You know what did tell the same tale better? Eaters of the Dead, also known as The 13th Warrior if you're seeing the film adaptation. It's my favourite rendition of Beowulf.

 

[gargantual]

While acknowledging its great attention to the problem PTSD, and the ambiguity of modern conflicts, and the compelling visuals.

What took Spec Ops: Line an entire game to sink into your head....

Liquid Snake explained in a mere sentence in Metal Gear Solid.

" You enjoy all the killing. "

 

[Vault101]

this is probably a cop out (a massive cop out) since both were successful and well known in their own right but I feel Bioshock Infinite was the better "dad game" mainly for the fact it was more unique and insane (disclaimer: just my opinion)

honestly I wish I could come up with something off the top of my head but I can't right now

EDIT: I'm talking about Last Of Us

 

[Fox12]

Narutaru was one of the first anime I ever watched, and Bokurano wasn't far behind. Mohiro Kitoh is a brilliant man, albeit a very sick one.

Have you read the Narutaru manga? It was way significantly better than the anime, which I thought was quite good already. The characters are quite impressive.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Narutaru was one of the first anime I ever watched, and Bokurano wasn't far behind. Mohiro Kitoh is a brilliant man, albeit a very sick one.

Have you read the Narutaru manga? It was way significantly better than the anime, which I thought was quite good already. The characters are quite impressive.

I tried, but the only site had scantalations didn't have the whole series, and the ones they did have were out of order. That was a couple of years ago though, so that's probably changed.

 

[Asita]

this is probably a cop out (a massive cop out) since both were successful and well known in their own right but I feel Bioshock Infinite was the better "dad game" mainly for the fact it was more unique and insane (disclaimer: just my opinion)

honestly I wish I could come up with something off the top of my head but I can't right now

Um, sorry, but what's the game Bioshock Infinite is being compared against there?

 

[Vault101]

Um, sorry, but what's the game Bioshock Infinite is being compared against there?

huh?...0_0 ooooohhhhhh

Last Of Us

sorry, its a Tuesday after a long weekend and my heads very fuzzy....weekends mess with my sleep cycle..

 

[sandykumar]

Ya i read that one its very impressive

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I never watched or read Bokurano, but I watched the Narutaru anime, and thought it sucked, then I read about what happens in the manga, and it's basically End of Evangelion. So yeah, not a fan of Narutaru, but I hear good things about Bokurano.

While I can't think of any examples like yours at the moment, I can think of some later stories that try to tell a similar story as a more popular series, but doesn't pull it off as well. I can think of two for Madoka Magica.

There's Daybreak Illusions and Mahou Shoujo Site, which both try to be dark iterations of Magical Girl shows like Madoka, even ripping off certain elements from it, but fail in character and tone. The characters in Daybreak Illusions are incredibly trope-y. While the characters in Madoka can be placed in certain character tropes, they're written in a way that still makes them believable and not just character tropes. Here, it's amped-up considerably to a rather annoying degree. Also, when something dark and shocking happens, it never properly follows up on it. It ends positively, but you feel as though nothing has been learned or gained. It's not a terrible anime, as it does have some neat ideas, but it's still a weak one.

In Mahou Shoujo Site, outside of the main protagonist, all the characters are completely unlikable. I always hate stories that do that. Also, it loves to revel in it's cruel, violent, dark, and nihilistic world it created. Madoka was good at balancing out the light and the dark, but MSS likes to focus exclusively on the dark stuff, being overly violent, mean-spirited, and unpleasant throughout, going against everything we know about magical girls, and not in a good way. Madoka was dark, but it was never mean-spirited. It still kept the underlying themes of magical girls intact while simply putting a dark spin on it, and still retaining a positive message. In fact, you can say the dark stuff just made the message all the more powerful. You can tell it respected the genre it was deconstructing, unlike here where it seems very vicious and exploitative towards it.

Also, the main character is one-dimensional as hell. The manga literally begins with her being horribly (yet unrealistically) bullied without much context or explanation, and while bullying sucks, they have yet to establish anything with her character, relying on your sympathy to make you care about her. Hell, in the 10 chapters out so far I still know very little about her. And like I said, every other character is just unlikable. Other than that, besides a few pretty interesting ideas, the manga feels pretty amateur. It always felt like it was written by an angsty 14 year old rather than an adult. It feels like something I would've written in 10th grade.

 

[Super Cyborg]

Funny how the OP mentions Game of Thrones compared to a manga. I've recently started up the manga Kingdom, which to me is a Game of Thrones if it was really good. It's a fictional story that takes place during the time of China's unification. While it focuses on one character more than others, there is a lot of political intrigue of taking over the throne, while waging war with the various states. I'm only a little over 200 chapters in, and there have been a number of great battles, lots of great characters, and lots of planning behind others back.

Lots of people love Chrono Trigger. I thought it was good, but nothing great. A game that did the whole time traveling aspect, or using the aspect of going to different points in time, was Radiant Historia. While it was more two different timelines rather than different time periods, the story and characters were a whole lot better. Also the villains were very good.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...

Odd example, but The Island was supposed to be a serious sci-fi film, only it was much less successful it what it did than Seeing Double, which was about a British band being very silly, that had a surprisingly similar story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah, no. Berserk and Game of Thrones aren't really comparable. Both have fantasy settings, sure, but other than that, I don't see it. Berserk is a more focused tale that mostly revolves around Guts' misfortune and quest for revenge, redemption, defeating the God Hand, etc. Game of Thrones is closer to Tolkien style storytelling. And honestly, the fact that Berserk is written by a Japanese writer, strongly shows. Just like how Game of Thrones is strongly Western in writing style. Neither one did it better, because they aren't telling two versions of a similar story. They each do their own thing. It's a huge stretch to compare a multi-character focused political war drama with mild fantasy elements to a single character focused action adventure story. Berserk also has a shit ton of fucked-up demon-slaying in it's plot.

The Golden Age arc is basically Game of Thrones though. The only demon that makes an appearance is Zod, and the rest is all political disputes, wars, and nobles scheming against Griffith. Guts is still the main character, but he feels more like a cog than a driving force in that story arc.

 

[Squilookle]

Hmmm...

Odd example, but The Island was supposed to be a serious sci-fi film, only it was much less successful it what it did than Seeing Double, which was about a British band being very silly, that had a surprisingly similar story.

Good example there. I always thought The Island was pretty good until the halfway point, where it just became another Bay chase-fest.

There's a wonderful story of a robot with a heart of gold coming to terms with a big scary world out there.

It's not Wall-E, it's Short Circuit.


There's a moving retelling of the Titanic tragegy that explores the dire situation's effect on all people rich and poor.

It's not Titanic, it's A Night To Remember.

A fascinating look at what happens to a group of kids thrown into a deathmatch arena and told to kill each other.

Nope, not The Hunger Games, we're talking about Battle Royale


There's a brilliantly researched and presented movie chronicling the events leading up to and including the strike on Pearl Harbour.

It's not Pearl Harbor, it's Tora Tora Tora.


There's a grim post apocalyptic tale of a time traveller seeking to prevent a virus from crippling the human race.

It's not 12 Monkeys, it's La Jetee.

There's a psychological thriller about a relentless chase through the minds and dreamscapes of it's characters.

It's not Inception. No, that movie wishes it was Paprika


There's a rollicking heroic fable of a group of ragtag soldiers of fortune defending a village from a bandit and his men.

Sorry, Seven Samurai. The Magnificent Seven simply did it better.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea...

 

[Lugbzurg]

This is going to sound really bizarre, but I actually like the plot of Serious Sam 3: BFE a lot more than that of Half-Life 2.

You've got this one guy with tons of guns who's the main driving force of the resistance against an organization (The Mental Hoard and The Combine) that is oppressing humanity. Aliens are involved. Plenty of people are willing to help the hero get from place to place, there's this one woman talking to the main hero a lot, and both plots end with a scene involving a portal.

The thing is... Serious Sam 3: BFE's plot is just conveyed a lot better. Half-Life 2 is very muddled. There's not much of a goal set in mind, virtually everyone knows who Gordon Freeman is for no reason, The Combine come after him early on without a reason (at the time), and it seems every other partner he teams up with throughout the saga just serves as a reminder of how unnecessary Alix Vance is. She can't take any extra weapons (aside from a shotgon once), she can't shoot uber lightning out of her hands, she's not infiltrating Combine intelligence... Frankly, all the other characters can already do anything she can do and they can do it better. The whole plot could've done without her and would've been better with her removal. All the other partners are actually more concomitant, plus there are other characters who would work better as well, such as Eli, Judith, Dr. Cleiner, Barney, and even that pet headcrab! Not to mention that the protagonist actually has a personality. I'll take silly one-liners over perpetual dead silence any day.

 

[Erttheking]

Any story that tries to be a Dark Fantasy I feel simply can't compare to Dark Souls. Now I'm not saying it's better than every Dark Fantasy story out there, there are plenty of Dark Fantasies that I think have great stories and characters, but when it comes to the Dark Fantasy part, Dark Souls is the best. One thing that always irritates me about Dark Fantasy is that horrible stuff happening to show how lousy the world is just becomes stale and boring. It gets to the point where I'm barely phased by people getting killed or there being rapists, because I've seen it happen so many times before. And some series end up repeating themselves, having MORE RAPE AND KILLING to the point where I just want to facepalm. I've gotten to the point where I can't help but think "Oh boy, killing. Oh boy rape, yeah you get that out of your system, wouldn't want me to not take you seriously. Oh goodie, racism, didn't see that coming. Oh look. SEX!) Not saying that all of them do this badly, but a lot do.

Dark Souls on the other hand avoids this pitfall through game play and atmosphere. No rape, most of the violence is between you and a disorganized hoard of enemies that seem slugish at times, only attacking if you get near and not bothering otherwise. The world around you feels like its falling apart, there's just nothing left. No authority to make it better, no people to protect, only a few allies and eventually most of them just get swallowed up by an uncaring world. Because their goals fell apart, because they lost hope. Because there is NOTHING! Nothing left. No country to fight for, no loved ones to protect, no master to serve. You have to march forward against the horde, forcing yourself to do it over and over again, to do what you can to save this miserable little world. No sheer amount of people getting raped or murdered can compare to that.