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afinepricklypear · 4 years

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Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 3

**Disclaimer: I love both K Project and Bungou Stray Dogs. I highly recommend watching both of them. This series of Compare and Contrast posts I’m doing is merely for my own sake, to get these thoughts out of my head. If you are a fan of one show and not the other, please don’t read, or if you do, save your bashing comments for like-minded antis elsewhere. If you have not seen both, there are a lot of Spoilers ahead, please don’t read. I am heavily critical of both shows, so if you are someone who cannot handle negative things being said (I try not to outright bash and just provide reasonable evidence from the material to back my stances) about your favorite fandom or characters please don’t read. Thank you! ***

Read Part 1, Part 2

Characters

Both Bungo Stray Dogs and K feature ensemble casts, with large numbers of characters. That being said, the shows have vastly different approaches for how they handle those characters and those approaches impact the way they come across for the viewer.

One of the things that K does a hell of a lot better than BSD, is fleshing out and managing of its characters. This may in part be due to the fact, K doesn’t attempt to give all of its characters a starring space in the story. It’s comfortable letting some characters fall into the background, allocating them to the role of side characters. There are only a few members of each of our main clans (Silver, Red, Blue, and later, Green) that are given attention and the rest of the clansmen (Red and Blue are the only clans shown to have notable clans members who regularly show up and are given names and little else outside of our mains) fall to the background. For some people, this may be frustrating, as we don’t learn a whole lot about the rest of Scepter 4 or HOMRA in the anime, but narratively, I’m comfortable with it because I’m not asked by the show to care about those characters, and the characters that I’m meant to care about are given adequate screen time to develop them into someone who’s story I am invested in. That being said, K does have moments that utterly flop. Scepter 4, for me, beyond Fushimi, is an absolute failure in presenting itself as a likeable or, even, relatable organization of individuals (Full disclosure, I hate Munakata, and while Awashima has potential, she’s treated by the series as little more than a miniskirt and bad boob job obsessed with Munakata). They seem to be there only to be obnoxious. I get the sense they were originally intended to be viewed as villains, but they became so popular following the first season, that the creators tried to treat them more as heroes in the movie and second season. However, it was painfully obvious in the final episode of K: Seven Stories – Nameless Circle, as the surviving members of the Green, Red, Silver, and good Colorless clan members (Yukari and Kuroh) enjoyed their final farewells with their fallen clansmen (I dare you not to cry when Mikoto and Totsuka pour Kusanagi a glass and Yata takes Anna’s hand in the background), that Scepter 4 staring up at Munakata’s lost Sword of Damocles was the least humanized of the Clans. They lost nothing, they felt nothing, their presence in Nameless Circle was nearly pointless beyond fan service. Likewise, K heavily drops the ball in Season 1 with its primary antagonist, the Evil Colorless King, who’s back history, motivations, and even his (her?) name remain a mystery to date.

BSD starts out with an already large cast, and while Atsushi and Dazai might arguably be the “main” characters of the show, starring roles in various arcs and episodes are given to the other characters, as well. Most of those episodes, however, can easily be relegated to the “filler” pile. On top of this, BSD continually introduces increasing numbers of characters, it also likes to bump characters up from side character to more main character type roles, which only serves to take limited screen time from the initial cast of characters and ultimately fails to give itself enough space to flesh out the cast. Time constraints, of course, doesn’t always mean a character can’t be adequately developed (see the first ten minutes of Pixar’s Up for how it’s done right), but possibly, because of this limitation, BSD has a tendency to fall back on telling instead of showing. It also feels like many of its characters were not fully developed in the creator’s minds (this appears to have been confirmed in several interviews with the creators) when they started their story, so that when those backgrounds are revealed, especially in those far too often instances where characters that have interacted in past episodes and given no indication of a history between them are newly revealed to have a connections to one another. It feels tacked on and last minute, and consistency of characterizations is lost. As previously discussed in a past post for this Review Series, this may also be due to the fact that K was envisioned as a self-contained story, and BSD seems to have been developed as an ongoing serial without a predetermined ending.

For these next several posts, I want to do more individualized character analyses, but to keep things simple, I will only focus on the characters of K that are given focus in the story and I’ll try to reference only its anime (just to be fair, because I’ve read all of K’s extra materials, and have not for BSD because I lack access in my country). Likewise, I’m only going to talk about BSD’s characters from the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, as well as, a few key villains like Shibusawa, Fitzgerald, and Fyodor. Once again, I will attempt to keep to only what’s been revealed in the anime.

A reasonable starting point on character analysis for these two shows would be our sort-of main protagonists. Although, BSD and K are both ensemble anime, they do each feature a character that may ostensibly be considered the “main” character, in the sense that they kick off our main events and are positioned as integral to all subsequent storylines. For BSD, that character is Nakajima Atsushi, and for K, that character is Yashiro “Shiro” Isana. Interestingly (maybe), these characters share a similar aesthetic. Both are young males, with white hair and light-colored eyes, they are also both small, waif-like, bishounen that might be better suited to a shojo or even yaoi anime, rather than leads on a seinen series.

At the start of both series, Atsushi and Shiro, respectively, find themselves thrust into a world of supernatural powered people in which they are targeted for reasons to be revealed throughout the story. The greatest similarity between these two, however, is that they are both weak characters. Neither one proves interesting enough to shoulder the responsibilities as main character of the show. You would be hard pressed in either fandom to find someone who would name Atsushi or Shiro as their favorite character. I’m not saying these fans don’t exist, because they do, they are just few and far between.

Shiro spends the first half of the first season trying to avoid being killed by the Red Clan, who believes he killed their Clansman, Tatara Totsuka, at the same time, he is trying to convince his reluctant ally and potential executioner, Kuroh, that he isn’t the Evil Colorless King responsible for Totsuka’s death. Atsushi’s story, on the other hand, begins with him finding out he’s an ability user that shapeshifts into a white tiger, and, subsequently, being rescued and recruited into the Armed Detective Agency by Dazai. Then the Port Mafia begins hunting him because a bounty has been placed on his head, conveniently only after he’s learned that he is the white tiger that he believed had been hunting him his entire life, he’s joined the ADA, and Dazai has the chance to warn him with a picture of Akutagawa “beware of this bad boy” mere hours before Akutagawa attacks him.

The initial drawback with both of these characters is that they are merely victims of the plot and not helping to drive the plot forward in anyway. Shiro only becomes invested in determining why there’s video footage of him murdering Totsuka because Kuroh demands he provide evidence that he’s not the Evil Colorless King or he’ll face justice at the end of Kuroh’s blade. When Atsushi learns about the bounty on his head that Port Mafia is pursuing, rather than show interest in why anyone would want to capture him (alive, to boot), he “nobly” decides to run away, in his naivete believing that it would spare the ADA war with Port Mafia.

Throughout the K story, we do see real change in Shiro’s investment in his own mystery when it’s revealed that his memories, and the memories his classmates have of him, are not real, but fabricated and imposed upon him and those in close proximity by the cat girl that’s obsessed with him, Neko, AKA Official Provider of Fanservice #1. This provides a further explanation for why he’s so lackluster about pursuing the truth, she’s been bending his reality and his perception of it from the start. It isn’t until her ability and how she’s been using it is revealed, and she runs off in humiliation and panic, that Shiro begins to actively pursue the truth. Even before this, however, Shiro is shown to be a wily and clever character who is quite self-sufficient. In his first meeting with Kuroh, he’s able to escape Kuroh’s justice by lying and manipulating the swordsman. He later throws off the Red Clansmen pursuing him by appearing just as Kuroh is facing off against a very annoyed Yata and calling out to Kuroh as though they are allies. This falls in line nicely with the big reveal of Shiro’s true identity as the Silver King, Adolf K. Weissman. In flashbacks to an unnamed great war (FYI, people speculate this was WWII, which, fun fact, would make Adolf a Nazi, but because this story takes place in an alternate history of the world, it’s equally possible Nazis never existed), we see that Adolf was originally researching the Dresden Slate, a mysterious artifact capable of granting people mysterious powers.

As Adolf, Shiro is shown to be a light-hearted, goofy man with no place in war or battle (consistent with what we’ve already seen in the show). Nothing of his character feels last minute retconned, and no previously unheard of connections are revealed to other existing characters in the show that haven’t been heavily hinted at or already explained. He believes that his research will be helpful in granting people their wishes throughout the world, yet when his sister is killed during an air raid, he runs away, leaving his research and the Slate with his friend, a Japanese military officer who becomes the Gold King and curator of the artifact. This turn of events does grant Shiro greater weight as a main character, and an importance in the plot that doesn’t feel contrived or heavy handed. Hints exist early on that Shiro is not who he thinks he is, starting with his high school classmate, Kukuri noting in introductory scene that she feels like he’ll disappear if she takes her eyes off of him. After all, one of the things that K is often praised for is its mastery of foreshadowing, this comes from having a very clear idea of the entire story its creators hoped to tell and a firm grasp of the connections between all of its characters.

That said, Shiro still remains throughout the story as relatively uninteresting, serving more as a plot device rather than a character. After the Blue Clan, the Silver Clan is the second least relatable and their scenes in Nameless Circle also remain a bit ‘meh’ as the “losses” the Silver Clan experienced throughout the anime were far removed from the actual plot. They didn’t resonate. We see, in Nameless Circle, Adolf’s sister and the younger version of his lost friend, the Gold King, enjoying breakfast with the Silver Clan every morning on repeat. Yet, Adolf’s sister was never developed beyond “here’s a tragic thing that happened in Adolf’s past”, so it’s hard to really feel her loss. She isn’t a person but a plot device, used to reveal more of Adolf/Shiro’s character rather than having anything of her own. As for the Gold King, he suffers the same fate as Adolf’s sister, but also, he lived a long life, and died of old age, so his death isn’t any kind of tragedy in the same sense as Mikoto, Totsuka, or Nagare’s deaths. There’s certainly a melancholy to these scenes, Adolf misses his friends, but it doesn’t pull at the heart strings, quite the way the Red and Green Clans losses do.

The real reason that Atsushi is being pursued at the start of the manga is yet to be resolved. We’re given a loose explanation, a foreign organization known as the Guild put the bounty on his head because allegedly his ability is the key to finding some powerful book that can manipulate reality. When the main antagonist of the Guild, Fitzerald, is defeated, this explanation and Atsushi’s importance becomes all but forgotten in subsequent arcs featuring new villain, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Atsushi himself can best be described as whiny and severely underdeveloped. He continues to be a victim of the plot just dragging him along, but worse, he quickly becomes one note with the constant flashback to his Orphanage’s director telling him he’s useless and doesn’t belong anywhere. There are entire scenes dedicated to this refrain causing him to full-scale breakdown into bouts of self-doubt. All I can say is he was eighteen when he was “kicked out” of the orphanage, he had zero work experience, and when we find him at the start of the story, he’s only been on his own a couple weeks and is already considering turning to assault and thievery to survive. Considering that Dazai and Chuuya were sixteen when they became Executives in the Port Mafia, Kunikida is only twenty-two and has already had a successful career as a teacher before becoming a detective with the ADA, Kenji is fourteen when we find him at the ADA and a former hard-working farmhand, Kyouka is a capable fourteen year old assassin before joining the ADA, Lucy is eighteen and comes from a similar abusive background and is already busting her ass to work for the Guild and then the ADA’s favorite Coffee Shop (jobs she got herself, thank you very much, for spending anytime looking for her like you promised, Atsushi, you jerk), and so on…I’m inclined to side with the orphanage director: Atsushi is useless. It’s a good thing they kicked him out, or he’d probably still be a bum surviving off social welfare the rest of his life.

I also can’t help but agree with Akutagawa, Atsushi has practically had everything handed to him and yet still manages to pull a pity party routine on the regular. It isn’t long after getting kicked out of the orphanage that he’s taken under Dazai’s wing and handed a job with the ADA. This wouldn’t be so terrible if he didn’t constantly squander it, and consistently prove that he doesn’t earn it. It’s hard to like him, especially when the author seems to be bending the story over backwards to give him some semblance of importance in the plot to the point it hurts the narrative. This is best exemplified in Dead Apple. Throughout the entire movie, we see every other character acting to bring the plot forward, meanwhile, Atsushi spends the entire time whining that they need to find Dazai, because Dazai will know what to do. Bitch, Dazai is busy trying to outsmart two super smart bad guys; he doesn’t have time to also prop you up on your own damn feet. It gets so bad that even Kyouka becomes fed up and leaves him. It really says something that the majority of comments for the movie on CrunchyRoll are complaining about how whiny Atsushi is throughout the movie.

While some people are quick to defend Atsushi by pointing to his abusive childhood to excuse his behavior, it is worth noting, he is not the only character that has an abusive past and he is far from being the character who has suffered the most abuse, and that’s including the odd growth on the side of Dead Apple’s plot that is the inexplicable, unnecessary, and might I add, ridiculous connection that was made between him and Shibusawa at the last minute that only raised more questions than answers and created huge plot holes. Atsushi’s travel companions in Dead Apple, Kyouka and Akutagawa, both have their own history of being abused. Just to underline Akutagawa’s complaint that Atsushi has everything and manages to forsake it all, Akutagawa was abused by Dazai, whereas, Atsushi is saved, fawned over, and praised by Dazai seemingly only for the sake of further tormenting Akutagawa. This continues to contribute to making Atsushi a weak character that I find difficult to really like all that much or see as having anything more than a forced relevance to the plot.

Atsushi does have redeemable moments in his interactions with Kyouka and Lucy. With the aforementioned Dead Apple aside, Atsushi is often at his best when he is with Kyouka. She sees him as her savior, and it reflects in the way that he treats her, being seen that way helps to boost him from pitiful status to someone that may actually have potential as a hero. As for Lucy, because she has a similar life history as Atsushi (abused orphan with matching burn marks), he can’t get away with the same woe is me lines that he throws at every one else. She’s got the same kind of past and manages to stand on her own two feet, forcing him to also rise up to meet her. Both of these girls have tragic histories, but seek to lift themselves up from those histories and stand their own ground, which serves to lift Atsushi as well, unlike with other characters that only patronize, validate, or outright feed into his insecurities leaving me playing on my phone hoping his scenes end quickly. More interactions between Atsushi and Kyouka, Atsushi and Lucy, or all three together would be a welcome addition in Season 4. These babies build each other up, and it’s beautiful to see.

At the end of the day, Shiro and Atsushi are prime examples of the “perfectly innocent protagonist whose only flaw is their own self-doubt” and exemplify why this type of a character is always, ultimately a failure. They’re bright eyed, they’re kind, without internal debate they always make the right choice, everyone is drawn to them because they are light and goodness, I guess, and even when they are clearly the weakest in a fight, they always come out on top without working towards bettering themselves in anyway beyond putting in some old-fashioned good guy gumption. This is so painstakingly evident in Atsushi, who receives zero training upon joining the ADA, and is expected to battle (and is successful) against exceedingly powerful bad guys on the regular. Contrast this against Akutagawa, who we see underwent harsh training from the Port Mafia, yet still manages to always lose in his battles against the untrained Atsushi. Proving yet again, that you don’t need hard work to become the best, when you got the power of good on your side. Self-doubt exhibited by these types of characters never rings true, because we see them always get their way, everything turns out fine for them in the end, they never encounter lasting consequences for their choices (at one point in BSD, Akutagawa mocks Atsushi that everyone around him dies, but we have yet to see anyone he cares about die – the only person’s death that we see him have to deal with is his Orphanage Director that was coming to visit him with flowers and probably apologize for being a jerk, and his struggle there is with whether he’s allowed to still hate the guy or not, I mean, come on), and everyone around them that matters respects and dotes on them even before them being shown to truly do anything that should earn that respect and affection. I still don’t fully understand what compelled Kuroh to swear loyalty to Shiro, if I’m being perfectly honest, when Shiro is a lay-about, coward and liar, that ditches his clan in the end to soul search in his airship. Though, I will note, Shiro does demonstrate this character type a mite less than Atsushi. He’s not often shown to come out on top in battles, he doesn’t actually engage in any physical battle himself (his fight with Nagare at the end of Missing Kings, not withstanding, because he’s really just blocking that whole time waiting for Kuroh to show up and do the heavy lifting), he typically needs to rely on the strength and intelligence of others, and is more often than not shown running away. Also, Shiro is never really put into a position where he needs to make any hard, moral choices which has its own drawbacks for a main character in a show where a lot of hard, gray moral choices are being made around him.

I have seen it commented in defense of these characters’ weaknesses that the main character of a shonen/seinen story are always weak. This is not true, and I will point to one of my all-time favorite characters from any anime, as example: Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist (both versions of the anime). Ed is badass, he earns his name as Fullmetal, and he earns his title as the youngest State Alchemist. We see him earn it as we watch him and his brother, Alphonse’s journey to become stronger, yet he also makes mistakes. It is his own arrogance that kicks off the entire anime when, in the Elric brother’s attempt to bring their mother back to life using forbidden Alchemy, Ed loses his arm and then his leg to save his brother who has lost his entire body. Their journey to find the philosopher stone for Ed is entirely about restoring his brother, he doesn’t care about his own body and, in fact, views his missing limbs as his own deserved punishment for challenging God, and throughout we see how their moral failing in the past effects all of their choices going forward. We know why Ed makes the choices he does; it isn’t merely because he is the “perfectly innocent protagonist that exudes light and good”; it is because he has learned from his mistakes. His naivete is not shown as a benefit, but as something to overcome. Ed is always acting on his own motives, while the plot is being driven forward by other characters around him, he is not merely a victim of the plot or being dragged along by it, his own actions and goals also help to forward the story and eventually brings him in direct conflict with the big bad. He struggles under the weight of the choices he’s made, he bears the burden of those he couldn’t save, he doesn’t leave the heavy lifting of gray moral decisions to the other characters, he’s seen to struggle and even lose in the anime, and in those instances, we watch him work to better himself so that he can come back stronger. We know where his power comes from – he trained and studied for it; it was never handed to him. Throughout the anime he is shown to literally and figuratively grow and develop into a powerful hero that we can believe is capable of overcoming our main antagonist, Father, in the end, but not without losses and struggle. This is a protagonist done right. Compared against Ed, the failings of both Shiro and Atsushi is glaring.

That is all I have to say about those two. Next up will be the Black Dog of the Silver Clan versus the Black Dog of Port Mafia.

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dlamp-dictator · 5 years

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Allen Rambles About Three Houses

So last week I finished up my Black Eagles playthrough of Fire Emblem Three Houses. It was... okay. It wasn’t great. I had a few issues with the pacing how quick the plot move to the final battles and the lack of build-up for the big climaxes in the last few chapters, but I had a good time overall. Still, I was left unsatisfied. Between Fates, Echoes, and even Warriors, I think I enjoyed this game the most, but also had the most uncertainty with.

Fates was a fun game with fun mechanics and fun customization options if you were willing to grind for it, but also had the worst stories and narratives. Echoes had the best story out of the three, but had some game mechanics I really wasn’t a fan of like dungeon stamina and enemy AI nonsense. And Warriors was just fun fanservice as a fan of Dynasty Warriors, but was overall boring and repetitive after completing the story mode.

Three Houses honestly succeeds in every category so far. It has an engaging story, fun gameplay mechanics with a lot of customization options, and a lot of fun interactions and cute moments in it. But even so, I still can’t help but have issues with it.

So... I want to talk about that for a bit. I want to cover what I like and what I dislike about this game so far. Just talk a little bit with the fanbase to see where my feelings and thoughts are compared to everyone else’s.

But first, as always, a synopsis for those unfamiliar with Three Housed.

Fire Emblem Three Houses is a strategy game for the Nintendo Switch and the 16th game in the franchise. This game in particular focuses on three heirs to three different nations on the continent of Fodlan. The proud and commanding Edelgard of the Adrestian Empire who has great ambitions for her nation and its people despite how radical and blasphemous her manifesto seems. The kind well-mannered Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus who’s smile and inviting nature hides a dark and maleficent past that still haunts and eats away at him to this day. And the easy-going and playful Claude of the Leicester Alliance who always seems to be planning something more sinister and malicious than his devil may care attitude shows. These 3 heirs all go to the same military academy at the Garreg Mach Monastery, both a religious and military center where the church resides. Together they enjoy school life, interact with students and classmates, compete in friendly competition, and learn the ways of war together. However, as political events, social changes, and possible wars erupting, the three friends are tested and eventually break part, now pointing their blades at each other for their own beliefs and goals. And as violence is all but certain as the years tick by, all the three can do is wait until they’re forced to kill each other for their beliefs, their goals, and their countries.

You play as none of these characters.

Instead, you play as Byleth, a new professor at the academy and former mercenary. You choose one of the Three Houses to teach and become wrapped up in their machinations as the plot thickens. How you train your students and ready them for the real world for the trials to come is all in your hands.

So... with that all said and the plot laid out, I think I should start with my issues first in the say way I did my quick thoughts. Just so I can at least end this on a good note after all my nitpicks and issues.

With that said, I’m going to start small and first cover...

Things That Only Annoy Allen

So last time I tried to write this I had to make my first “small” grievance into it’s own part. I’ll try and keep this short since I really want to keep this to the actual small stuff:

I don’t like Byleth’s female design. I’ll go into detail later but for now just know the lacy stockings are distracting for the wrong reasons.

There’s no female brawling class and it bugs me greatly due to Petra’s and Ingrid’s high speed growths. They could be some extremely high DPS infantry in the right hands with those things, but there’s no really class to take advantage of that aside from maybe Swordmaster.

More for story reasons than anything, I wish there was an in-game limit to how many students you could have join your class. About 3 students per House if I had to put a number on it for reasons I’ll explain later. This isn’t an issue, but it’s something I’d like.

Magic only being accessible for certain classes bugs me. I understand the in-game reason for this as a physical unit that could use some emergency (if very weak) magic after losing weapons or fighting armored units would honestly break the game even further than it can be now, but still.

Something I might mention later, but after watching a Blue Lions playthrough by one of my favorite Let’s Players I feel that the game should had limited which House we could join first, as my Black Eagles playthrough would had been more fulfilling learning of some things I’ve learned in that Blue Lions run.

Class mastery should be tied to levels instead of as a separate experience bar. I understand why that’s done, mostly keep people from really min-maxing classes and abilities, but it’s still annoying in terms of optimization.

Edelgard, the only female lord, is the only bisexual lord. Now I’m not in the LGBTQA+ community, but as a gamer and self-proclaimed degenerate I know that denying the yaoi fangirls a male gay option for a main character is... suspicious, given the lovable bisexual rouge of Niles in Fates, and it clear that Claude could had easily been a bisexual option as well given his personality. Again, not in the LGBTQA+ community or trying to play the social justice card, but it is making me raise eyebrows toward the games marketing and aimed demographics.

Byleth in general just... bugs me as a character, but I’ll get to that later.

...

And now it’s later, so let’s get to talking about the main thing that bugs me with Three Houses, and that’s...

Byleth

I don’t like Byleth. I don’t like Byleth at all. I namely don’t like how they were executed, but the fact that we have another avatar character after how well Echoes worked as a story without a self-insert character, I’m just... baffled. I’ll try and break this down a little.

Byleth’s Design

I really don’t Byleth’s design, namely the female design. The male version looks fine, if a little too black for my tastes, but the female version is trying way too hard to look sexy. This only makes me mad because both Awakening and Fates had female avatars that didn’t look overly sexy or obviously pandering to the male gaze. They were just the female version of the male version’s outfit. Maybe there was some more boobs and hips because female, but it was mostly forgivable.

And look, I’m not prude, far from it. Senran Kagura is one of my favorite video game series (cautiously hyped about Yumi being in Cross Tag BTW). Rumble Roses is a guilty pleasure I play every so often. One of my favorite anime is freaking Koihime, aka ‘Ikkitousen but better EVERYONE is a girl.’ I’m not saying you can’t have a sexy character or a bunch of sexy characters in a game or piece of media. However, that character should at least have a sexy personality to go with it. And with Byleth, who has the personality of cardboard has been with her mercenary father all her life fighting for her life, it doesn’t feel like she would actively be trying to look sexy since she doesn’t have the personality for it, or a personality at all. She looks less like a mercenary or teacher and more like Manuela forced her into some lacy stockings to make her branch out...

Huh, that would be a good paralogue/support conversation, but I’m not about to rewrite the game just for my satisfaction... yet.

If you want my quick armchair redesign ideas in terms of design I’d just stick her in Male Byleth’s armor, maybe have a more pronounced/noticeable skirt instead of a long shirt, and dear God get rid of those lacy stockings. Byleth is suppose to be a mercenary that’s only known battle with her father, the Ashen Demon that rarely shows their emotions, not a sexy fashion model. The Enlightened One model is it’s own mess, but this section ate up enough of my time already so I’m moving on.

Byleth’s Personality

Again, Byleth having the personality of a damn rock really kills my attachment to the character. They don’t speak or emote beyond generic level up phrases and crit quotes.

Which is a shame because Byleth has some really good crit quotes.

However, from what Jeralt and other students say about Byleth I can gather that their someone that’s often quiet and standoffish. They don’t speak unless prompted to or needs to interject. They tend to observe more than act, even more so after they gain the ability to rewind time, but have a razor-sharp and deadly focus when in combat. And despite their distant nature, they do care about their students, friends, and family quite a lot, willing to break the emotionless Ashen Demon persona to crack a smile even now and then, even completely showing deadpan shock when something surprising or appalling is said, as rare as it happens.

This is literally Yu Narukami’s personality in Persona 4 the Animation.

And that anime not only gave Yu Narukami more agency and personality than the self-insert the game made him out as, it also gave him a lot of a good back-and-forth with his friends and cast at large.

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Seriously, this could had been Byleth if they bothered to let them speak and actively interact more independently, and it would had been great.

But that aside, I’m moving on to something a little more important, which is...

Byleth’s Importance

[Spoilers for the Black Eagles Route Ahead]

Again, I’ve only played the Black Eagle’s route, so maybe this changes in the other Houses, but Byleth seems way too important for his own good when we have 3 other “main” characters. He’s the crux of a lot of events and it doesn’t feel deserved or built up to well enough. In the Black Eagle’s path, you’re the one that convinces the class to work with Edelgard instead of Edelgard just explaining herself before the class of her goals. You’re the one leading the Black Eagle Strike Force instead of Edelgard or Hubert taking command and leading after years of not having the professor around and having to survive the war on their own. You’re the one that Rhea has a personal vengeance for instead of the woman that torn the church apart with both words of steel and blades of iron. And you just randomly find out that your the progenitor god from Edelgard and Hubert toward the very end. It feels really anti-climactic, but I also get the feeling that we were suppose to play Edelgard’s route last, something I’ll save for later.

Among other things, I just feel that the focus on Byleth stagnants Edelgard’s character a lot. I want to see Edelgard struggle with the fact that her ideals, while noble in concept, are dragging the world in the flames of war and that she’s seen more as a tyrant than a savior, but instead we focus on Byleth’s mysterious birth and power after being gone for five years. This game, at least on the Black Eagle route, was so damn close to telling a really good war drama, but backpedals due to Byleth’s existence and perceived importance.

Sothis

[Spoilers for Mid-Game Ahead]

I wish she was more active in the story. Nothing too big, but if I had to deal with emotionless rock that is Byleth, I’d like to have seen Sothis sprinkling her commentary on everything they did. Just imagine Sothis sassing Byleth about how their always eat lunch with their students. Her commenting on the fish they catch. Her giving additional small hints about who owns certain lost items after failing so many times to give the right item to someone. Her sassing every student in their support with Byleth on C-rank. Her telling you to go to sleep when you run out of activity points. It’d add a lot to her character and it’d make the moment later in the game when you no longer have her voice around feel more impactful. Imagine catching a big fish after fusing with her and... hearing nothing about it how big a catch it was. Imagine trying to give Ingrid a lost sword for the fifth time, hoping to hear a hint from Sothis and... you hear nothing.

Again, just an armchair idea, but at least that way when Byleth is being a plank of wood we’ll have Sothis to add some literal flavor text to everything they do.

Ah, but that’s enough about Byleth, let’s move on to something a little more important. Like...

The Gameplay

Thankfully, my issue with the gameplay are more nitpicks if anything, and I can actually have this in list form too.

As I mentioned in my quick thoughts, I feel like late-game/master classes are more of a pain to gain than most others. A lot of them need to have some heavy grinding in a stat you didn’t likely need to worry about before. Mortal Savant requires you to heavily grind either a physical class in magic or a magical class in swords, something that you likely didn’t do. Speaking of magic, it’s annoying that for all the customization in this game only certain classes can use magic. It makes raising a Mortal Savant or a more physical Holy/Dark Knight a nightmare. Again, I understand why this was done, but it’s annoying all the same.

Gender-restrictions, as I also said in my Quick Thoughts, are just dumb. Fates had removed this and it was great to have the freedom to give my male units the ability to become Falcon Knights, or my Female units to be... Okay, I only played Fates and Echoes, but the fact still remains that not being able to make a female Grappler/War Master or a male Falcon Knight really sucks and limits me quite a bit. Especially the inability to make Lysithea a Dark Mage. It’s practically wrong.

A lot of these maps have the same issue that Echoes had. They’re big and have a lot of enemies, but not much creativity to them. Okay, they have some thought put into them, more than Echoes anyway, but a lot of them still just feel like big fields that need at least three flying units to be manageable. Again, I’ve only played the Black Eagle route so there might be some more interesting maps in the other routes, but from what I’ve played there was no real strategy to these maps outside of baiting enemies and maneuvering around traps. I think there were probably only two maps that weren’t giant mazes or an empty field with a lot of enemies in them.

To the point above, this made slow moving armored classes almost completely useless. What point is there in having a slow tank on maps that span to what feels like 60X60 tile maps? Plus the maze-like design? Yeah, I don’t know how these maps were meant to be interesting.

And that’s it for gameplay issues. Moving on to...

The Story

Again, something that can be put into list form due to the story having more nitpicks than actual issues:

[Spoilers for Black Eagles Route Ahead]

The split decision to join Edelgard or not is dumb, as is the requirement to have the option available. I think it’s foolish to think we wouldn’t agree with her after listening to her manifesto for so long, especially if you played a Blue Lions route and seeing how Sylvain and Ingrid were screwed over due to their Crests, or just... Lysithea’s background in general. I can’t argue with her beliefs, only her execution.

The Flame Emperor reveal was... really anti-climatic. As if, again, they assumed we’d do Black Eagles last. Playing this route first just leads to a lot of anti-climatic reveals, especially on Edelgard’s route.

I just really wish Edelgard came clean with her classmates and commanders at some point in the story, to just tell them all that she was experimented on as a child and had two Crests as a result. That she wants to eliminate the nobility and Crests as a symbol of statu because of the harm it does to people both on top and on the bottom of the social food chain. It’d give a lot more weight to her cause.

Again, most of my issues with the story come from Byleth having too much screen time and importance compared to Edelgard as a whole. Especially when I did the route where I chose to go with her.

Alright, I think that’s it for all of my nitpicks, all the major ones anyway. I think I finally move to...

The Good Things

Again, this will be in list form since a lot of the nicer parts about this game don’t need as much breakdown as the bad parts.

But anyway...

As much as I don’t find the late game reward in terms of class advancement, the mid and early game are great for experimentation. I've had a bunch of fun on my second playthrough with some creative builds. I might suffer a little in the late game due to not optimizing everything, but that’s managable.

As I also stated in my quick thoughts, dismounting is hilariously broken. The amazing amount of utility you get from being about to dismount once you reach a destination and then mount at the start of the new turn for free while also being safe from arrows and horse-effective weapons is hysterical. I honestly think this was a bug that just didn’t patch and that dismounting meant you were stuck with the lower movement for the rest of the turn, but God am I going to use it until they eventually patch it out.

I’ve got... issues with the Black Eagle route, at least the route I went through, but I’ve been watching a playthrough of the Blue Lions route and it’s everything I could have wanted in a Fire Emblem game and more. If you want to play a good story I recommend the Blue Lions as your first route.

But to cut the Black Eagles route some credit, a lot of Edelgard and Hubert’s A-Supports were probably some of the best I’ve seen in the series... though I’ve only played Fates and Echoes, so...

Speaking of supports all of them were done very well. Like I said, Edelgard and Hubert had great supports, but Lysithea, Petra, Caspar, and Dorothea had great supports as well.

A lot of the supports and voice acting are great. It’s a key reason as to why I like the supports so much. The Lords are especially great to hear and were directed well.

And... yeah, that’s all the good things. Don’t let the short length fool you, folks. Like I said before, my issues are more nitpicks. The game as a whole is just fine.

That said...

In the Future

As much as I want to, even as a fun little project, I think it’s a little arrogant of me to be making any rewrites or “improvement” to the current story of Three Houses. I have various reasons for this that I might go into depth to in a later Rambling, but the short version is as someone that’s struggle to write their own story I feel like a hypocrite for trying to “correct” another’s. However, I think it’s far game to make requests and bring forth ideas for a future title, especially since this one is selling so well. And so, before concluding I’d like to present a few things I hope to be in the next Fire Emblem game:

No Avatar Character

Like I said, I feel Byleth’s entire presence can ruin scenes due to his lack of personality and engagement. And as easy as it would be to give him one that would also mean the play losing their use self-insert character. To this I say it’s probably best to just not have an avatar/self-insert character to begin with. You can easily make a character that has the stats of an above-average all-rounder as your main character/lord while still having a personality. I think Echoes did this well enough with Alm and Celica, especially Celica if we’re talking stats and utility as a healer/magic/swordsman hybrid.

No Gender-Locked Classes

This is more of a personal desire than something that needs to happen, but if the next Fire Emblem game is going to give us this much customization then I’d really like to have complete control and not be restricted by gender, especially when we’re talking stats. A War Master Hilda would be wild. As would a Hero Petra, a Gremory Linhardt, a Dark Mage Lythesia, and so on. To restrict us is not only screwing people who want to make quirky builds, but also those that want to make optimal builds. Either remove the gender lock, or have these characters with more straight-forward classes like in Fates.

One/Limited Routes

Again, I haven’t played Blue Lions or Golden Deer yet, but the Black Eagles route had a branching path that I honestly think shouldn’t have existed. Maybe this was for reasons I can only guess at, but the story of the Black Eagles Route I was on felt very rushed, or at least it assumed I had played either the other Houses or the “canon” Black Eagles route first. That left the actual story, while I personally found engaging, very rushed and underwhelming at the end. In the future I’m hoping for either one path, or for alternate paths to be locked until you complete the other “main” ones that give a fuller story, because a lot of what I’m seeing in the Blue Lions playthrough I’m watching would had been nice to learn in the Black Eagles route to see Edelgards view of things.

Smaller Maps

Like I said, the maps in Three Houses are a little too large, especially with slower armored/magic units in the early game with only 4 movement. In the next game I’m hoping for either smaller maps or at least maps that accommodate for that slow movement of early game and saving the bigger maps for when you’d naturally have some cavalry and infantry units with 5 movement. I think Fates’ Conquest and Revelations maps did this perfectly.

Brawling Weapons

No real critique here. I just really like the gauntlets and I hope they come back in the next game.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Three Houses is a good game, despite all my nitpicks. I hope the next game will be even better and hopefully have some of the things I want to see. I recommend this for anyone with a Switch wanting to play a decent strategy game.

Anyway, I got a draft to make on that story I’m writing, as well as draft up another Rambling. See you all later!

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #your dictator is speaking

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pinkcatsy · 7 years

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i fucking hate fair game

tl;dr There are too many words – a majority of the words in this story build up to obnoxious and redundant/otherwise unnecessary sentences, paragraphs and thoughts.

Fair Game by Monica Murphy is a New Adult Romance that is largely about how badly cliche insecure lead Jade Frost and cliche rich playboy Shepard Prescott want to fuck each other and, occasionally, how much Jade Frost and Shepard Prescott enjoy fucking each other. There’s some hubbub at the begin about Shepard “winning” Jade in a bet but it’s largely of little importance to the plot besides being one of the many little bits of misogyny.

Fair Game currently has largely positive reviews – it’s not very many reviews, I doubt I’ve seen more than 10 either Goodreads or Google Play, but they’re not just positive, it’s 4.4/5s. This is initially confusing to me and anyone else who’s had to listen to me talk about how much I hate this book and its characters (especially Jade, seriously fuck her). But it makes some sense once you consider fanfiction.

This is not a knock on fanfiction, I’ve read many incredibly good fanfiction. Some of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read were fanfiction. I wrote fanfiction from the age of 12 to about 16/17 – I wasn’t mega popular but I had reviews blowing up my inbox at my peak. From experience, I can tell you that it’s not really difficult to write enjoyable fanfictions. It’s not hard to write fanfics that people will like. Because someone else has already done most of the heavy lifting for you – it’s not necessary to work especially hard to establish characters or develop relationships, most of your readers are already know all of it and, most importantly, most of them are already emotionally invested in them. I got by writing romances by just hitting a few beats; I didn’t need to know why Inuyasha and Kagome would fall for each other or think especially hard about what they like about each other, Rumiko Takahashi sorted that shit out and it’s just safe to assume it carried over somehow.

I don’t think this covers all of the positive reviews or all fans of Fair Game but, personally, I assume some of the emotional investment people have in Fair Game, its core “romance” and its characters are not a result of anything that’s actually in Fair Game. I’ll admit to you right now that there’s tons of manga, anime, books etc. that I have read and enjoyed because the characters hit on archetypes I was already invested in or because they reminded me of my characters, not because of the writing of the material itself because sometimes it was kind of garbage.

Another thing I will talk about is yaoi – I’ve recently gotten particularly into yaoi, especially reading it off the ebookrenta site. Most of them are pretty trashy – some of them are honestly, kind of garbage, some of them know what they are and know that engaging characters and romantic developments are absolutely not necessary. I can tell you I’ve read a lot of garbage, although I’ve read some really interesting, emotional and complex stories, most of it is just finding a way to get two hot guys to fuck each other. And, to be completely honest, that’s all I’m reading it for anyways. So it’s not particularly important that their relationship seems fairly shallow or contrived; that if I really thought about it, I couldn’t tell you what the characters like about each other or even much about them at all – the art is cute and the sex scenes are decently drawn. And maybe I would’ve felt that way about Fair Game if they’d spent less time talking about fucking and more time actually fucking and if they also spend less time thinking stupid, obnoxious and redundant stuff during the sex scenes so that I could focus on what they were doing and not how much I fucking hate Jade, how douche-y Shep is and what a misogynist Monica Murphy almost certainly is.

There’s also the likely fact that the other readers probably have a higher tolerance for all of the absolutely hokey sounding shit that’s in the book, a lack of well developed anything and MISOGYNY.

Let’s talk about the misogyny for a bit, actually. There’s nothing that’s out and out women are dumb stuff, there’s just little things like:

· all the obnoxious, unnecessary moments of slut-shaming like:

o Jade describing her roommate jumping from relationship to relationship while stressing that she wasn’t a slut

o Shep remarking that the revealing top Jade wore to a party is revealing but not trashy

o Shep lifting Jade about as a natural beauty by putting down all of his previous sexual partners as being fake or deceitful by wearing heavy makeup and dying their fucking hair

o Jade’s use of the word skank

o Jade’s roommate (Kelli) use of the word whore (which could be a sort of friendship thing if not for the rest of the fucking book)

o the fact that Jade is adamant on not having sex with Shep purely because she seems to think she’ll lose something by just having a one-night stand with a guy she finds sexually attractive - up until they actually get to having sex, then she’s scared to catch feels

o and the following aren’t centered around women but it’s actually slut-shaming all the same:

§ the use of the word man-whore to describe Shep

§ the pervasive idea that there’s anything inherently wrong with Shep being uninterested in pursuing romantic relationships – he’s hooking up with girls who are also only interested in hooking up, that doesn’t make him a fucking asshole or even a playboy so you fucked up your archetype here Monica

· the way all the other girls interested in Shep are treated (which is probably also slut-shaming) and, in fact, the way any girl that is not Jade or Kelli is described in this story

· the PMS stuff on both Jade and Shep’s part

· the way Shep sexually objectifies Jade every time he talks about her and I mean literally every time

· the way Shep just plain objectifies Jade and how the story doesn’t seem to think of it as problematic – he suggests that she be thrown into the pot during a poker game, he tries to use “winning” her in the bet as a way to get close to her at least twice which is two times too many, he calls her a fucking prize near the end

· the fact that Shep “changing” just means he’ll tone down the misogyny and douchebaggery when it concerns Jade and only Jade

· the fact that Jade suggests Shep should go and hook up with a drunk girl instead of with her

· the fact that Shep thinks Jade being on her period is a test from God and this is allowed to continue without any hint whatsoever that it’s a disgustingly self-centred notion or douche-y thing to say

Additionally, there’s little bits of actual misandry because Jade is the fucking worst:

· she says something to the affect of “you’re a man, of course all you think about is sex”

· she literally says “men are so pathetic”

· she’s disgusted by a toilet purely by thinking of all the specifically male butts that have been on it

And just as a bonus, here’s things I hate about Jade:

· she’s not strong or defiant – she’s just rude for no reason and blatantly dishonest about her feelings throughout the whole story for also no reason really; it’s treated not like a major character flaw but it’s actually something Shepard likes about her

· the way she thinks – just the way she phrases things sometimes just piss me off

· she says repeatedly that “[Shep] confuses me” but Shepard is actually pretty straight-forward and honest about his feelings the entire story – he’s not confusing, you’re just insecure and projecting that onto him which is something you should be at least a little aware of, given that you’re a fucking psychology major

· her insecurity feels like it’s there because of the clichés anyways

o she’s had 2 boyfriends – 1 was pretty long-term and they only broke up because they didn’t want to do long distance once they picked different schools and the other one tries to get back together with her but apparently neither of them ever said she was beautiful

o even though her performance anxiety is driven pretty hard before she has sexual intercourse with Shep, it’s barely there immediately before she has sex with Shepard, it’s almost as if she only has performance anxiety so that sex with Shepard is that much more special and unique

· the story tries to act like she’s a strong character but she just does whatever she’s told after saying no maybe once or twice – and despite Shep saying “she doesn’t fall for my shit” every thing she does in the story, with few exception, is motivated by him in some part and she’d been taken with him since chapter one

· even though she’s only had 2 boyfriends, she later talks as if she’s very experienced

· it’s later strongly implied that the only reason she’s never successfully orgasmed during intercourse before is because she wasn’t willing to communicate her needs or wants with her previous sexual partners yet somehow it’s their fault – Shep doesn’t have “magic” fingers, he just asked what you liked and you actually fucking told him, it’s not hard you fucking dolt

· Jade: "Has he been keeping tabs on me? I hope not, I'm infinitely boring, especially by Shep standards."

Jade, literally on the next page: "Not that I care what this man thinks of me anymore."

· "I'm supposed to hate it when he calls me baby, but I don't." – who told you that Jade? Why are you supposed to hate it, JADE???

Things that annoy me about Shep (besides the stuff under the misogyny list):

· every time he says or thinks something and then goes BOY AM I DOUCHEY or WOW EVEN I THINK I SOUND LIKE A RICH ASSHAT

· the fact that he thought Jade being on her period was a test from G O D

· the fact that he didn’t immediately follow the “maybe she’s on her period because God is trying to make me fail to hook up with her” with one of those BOY AM I DOUCHEY moments

· every time outside of a sex scene that he told us his dick was twitching

· he’s not really funny

Yeah so this book is terrible. If I’d paid money for it, I would be furious. If I could give it negative stars, I actually would. Monica Murphy seems like she doesn’t know how to convey things subtly so whenever she can, she makes sure to spell it explicitly in some of the most obnoxious cases of telling instead of showing that I’ve seen in my entire life. Every time something about the characters, their feelings or their relationships are referenced, it is like it is the first time it’s ever been mentioned.

Also, there’s a superfluous “plot” point tacked on at the end about Jade’s mom selling their home and Jade needing a place to stay. It serves no real point and is wholly unnecessary as what little it does do could be done in literally any other way. In fact, Jade’s relationship with her mom is talked about a few times but it adds nothing to her character or the story so it’s also totally unnecessary.

I didn’t buy their romance – I don’t think these characters know much of anything about each other because I don’t know much of anything about either them besides what establishes their archetypes and their physical appearances. When they do start to learn about each other, aside from one scene, it’s all basically “off-camera” and we’re told about it after the fact. These are not two people falling in love with each other, these are two people who wanna fuck each other and love fucking each other. It was also extra annoying whenever the story acknowledged that these are two character who barely know each other falling for each other for apparently no reason.

Also stuff like this was actually written and (self-)published:

· Guys like to watch. They're visual beings. Hello, porn.

· I come face to penis within a few shocking seconds.

· Damn he's so strong. I'd really like to see him naked.

· God, look at me. Yes, me. Straight-laced, good girl Jade Frost is hanging out with a billionaire spoiled sexy brat who runs an illegal freaking casino in a house just off campus. What have I done? Who am I, for God's sake?

· I need to be able to handle all of her moods. Is this some sort of test? Is God upstairs laughing at me, throwing me one obstacle after another in the hopes that I'd fail? (this is the PERIOD thing and no I’m not over it)

· She slowly shakes her head, all those wayward strands of hair tickling her cheeks. Her hair is like fire. Vibrant and bright, wild and free - I sound like a fucking poet in my head. Jesus.

· "Five minutes," I tell her, leaning in so I can press a quick kiss to her surprised lips. Who knew lips could be surprised? And they would taste so damn good?

#pinkcatsy reviews #fair game #monica murphy #shitty review tbh #whatever

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