Fall’s first ANN episode post is up! Starting off with Log Horizon, where in this week’s post I mainly focus on the conscience choices Log Horizon makes to sacrifice grace for clarity. It’s an interesting choice – most shows (well, most decent shows) aren’t nearly as bold as Log Horizon in overtly infodumping at their audience, but in this case, it actually feeds directly into the show’s strengths. Log Horizon wants you to understand exactly what is going on, and goddamnit it’s gonna sit you down and explain some shit if it has to!
With the revelation that these characters appearances in Elder Tale are not necessarily anything like their real-world selves, I’m starting to think Demikas is actually an elementary or middle school brat. He’s a lot more tolerable as a character that way. lol
Nice write-up as always, Bobduh.
That would make him getting married kind of weird, though.
I think Delicious finally accepted Democracy…
but that beg a question… it is possible a player-NPC hybrid?
Yeah, that would make sense. Although honestly, recent gaming news have kind of proven that you don’t have to be young to act like an entitled child :/
Are you totally ditching the time stamp writeups now for this season? It is really too bad if so, personally thought it was the 2nd best things you did besides the indepth post series talks
Yeah, I can’t really do them right now along with all the other work. Sorry!
Whats wrong with infodumping? I like infodumping.
As for LH… First half of ep3 was really really good. I was genuinely enjoying the ride, going with the flow. If the whole show kept at that level id have a different attitude towards this show. Unfortunately…
At least the focus is not on kids and low lvl characters, which first season was painfully and regretfully about. We actually have a raid (i never played mmo and this was interesting for me) with 24 lvl 90+ characters. Finally.
PS: Shiroe is a dick for not taking Akatsuki in on the raid. She better find someone who can appreciate her better. Shiroe definitely does not escape some of the aspects of being generic harem male protagonist.
I actually enjoyed the focus on low level protagonists. It allowed Shiroe to have a mentor’s role, which makes this kind of characters far more bearable.
And Ruddy and Izuna are some of my favourite characters.
I also enjoy the raid right now. They really tries to explore every part of their world, and it’s a positive point.
The infodumping makes me sometime wonder which public Log Horizon is destined too.
People who already plays MMO already knows all that perfectly (or even regular RPGs. It’s not reallycomplicated stuff.), but people who doesn’t plays them have no real reason to be interrested by this show to begin with.
As a side note, I found pretty funny that Mahouka aired between both seasons of Log Horizon. Because Log Horizon does everything Mahouka does so much better. Infodump that is actually valuable, Shiroe feels far more human than Tatsuya (because he actually feels like a real human being.)…
Isuzu, no I zuna…
I really disagree with you on Mahouka – LH. In fact I could say i have opposite opinion to yours. Although, with Mahouka, I seem to be in a minority.
I see what you mean by the explanations in LH being ‘off’ for both players and non-players, but i dont think infodumping is necessarily there for world building. I feel like in LH, this method is there to create an illusion of the fights having some kind of structure, the characters need to be aware of and follow in order to win. Basically, to seem smart.
For me, unloading all that information is what makes the fights actually interesting, much more than the action. I do not care about the action, i care about the dynamics of the fight, where the raiding group of adventurers represents potentially highly flexible structure, which needs to transform based on situational circumstances in certain way in order to win.
The fight is not about slashing the enemy. Its not even about outsmarting the enemy. It is about outsmarting the system. Thats what i enjoy here. When the show is about low level characters, it doesnt do that, because they are noobs.
A little problem here is that you dont actually need to understand the raid infos to get the same effect. Its like laughing track in comedy to show you when you should be laughing. All one needs to do is let the wow effect do its thing.
As for Mahouka, i think the infodumping there is used differently and that is for the effect of cool. Im ok with that. I like sci-fi and Mahouka hit home. Cool is the definition of sci-fi. Psions and all…
In Mahouka, if you are not fan of the explanations themselves, i think the effect is lost on you.
So i prefer Mahouka’s infodumping to LH’s. Because the former doesnt try to wow people not interested in infodumping and fake science in the first place, while the latter is using it to actually create the experience of the show and its purpose is not as pure.
To add…
I called the raid group a potentially flexible structure. Thats because its flexibility depends on strategy and can only be realized by a skilled leader.
Apart from flexible, it is modular. This is where the infodumping really hits the point. The rules of the system are so the raid can not succeed by brute force or relying on single pattern or strategy. This calls for modularization of the group, potentially chain of command, where each subgroup has its own purpose, goal, and is trying to maximize its efficiency by distributing the players’ skills accordingly.
That is what is so cool about it all. The raid group is no longer monolithic, but rather loosely coupled with its parts working together, but independently. One does no longer see one thing, but many. There is a huge difference between managing a single group and a structure such as this.
My point is that this is what the explanations are inherently about. To create sense of smart by artificially creating something complicated out of something simple. There is powerful illusion cast on the viewer making him think he became expert on raids in under few minutes.
in Nodame Cantabile, there were times i felt like being professional musical critic on classical music. Im not saying its a bad thing, but i prefer the real thing.
The fake will never be real, no matter how much it tries to be. But the real will never be the fake either. Therefore, the fake is just as real as the real if it stays true to itself. And if it does that well enough, it can be more real that the real itself. (Kaiki (Monogatari) anyone?).
To apply the analogy:
Fake experience trying to be real will only work to an extent. If the fake acknowledges itself as fake, additional value can be produced. I could say that uncanny valley is realization of this principle – the more you imitate something real, the more you fail.