I mean, you and I know the answer to that. But The Lost Village’s style is awesome and unique and very worth digging into, and so today I’ve got a huge friggin’ article exploring the specific nature of The Lost Village’s charms. I loved this show, and I had a ton of fun talking about it here. The craft of comedy is just really fascinating in general, and I’m sure I’ll return to it again at some time. But for now, let’s just celebrate the glory of Lovepon and Friends one more time.
Is The Lost Village Actually A Comedy?
Wow, I used to really respect your opinion Bobduh. But after reading this article, I don’t think I can respect anyone’s opinion on anything ever again. I’m off to Reddit to take advantage of this new found power.
I talked to so many girls today.
I really enjoyed this piece of writing and would like to see more of you analyzing humor. Thank you <3
If it was a comedy, I have never been so infuriated with a comedy’s final episode in my life.
Great Article, probably had my favourite episode write-ups this season.
Keep up the good work
This essay did a really great job of capturing what made Mayoiga so much fun. Reading your review posts every week made an already strangely wonderful show even more enjoyable.
On a related note, I think Symphogear is successful because of the same sort of absurd writing. Its characters are ridiculously overblown, its plot is absolute nonsense, and the action is a chaotic spectacle of J-pop, explosions, and shoehorned historical references. Yet somehow, the show is so earnestly silly and irreverent that you can’t help but buy into its world. You aren’t annoyed by base jumping 15 year-olds, weaponized music, and the power of friendship because Symphogear never hesitates to ask whether or not it should do something stupid. It just does it. It’s not line upon line of monologues about the characters, history, and mechanics of a world that make you feel a connection to it. Accepting your writing’s own style and internal logic, no matter how ridiculous, will make the audience buy in.
I just want you to know that one of the reasons I keep reading your reviews is that you seem capable of appreciating absurdism. I haven’t actually watched Mayoiga yet, so there’s still time for me to feel horribly betrayed and realize you are the worst, least trustworthy, most pretentious anime reviewer on the internet, but thanks to your writeups (and that one ANN podcast) my interest in it went from “zero” to “measurable.”
Taking these gems from the MAL discussion thread:
“I used to respect Nick’s opinion, but not anymore because his views on Mayoiga have convinced me that his opinions on anime are more fanboyish than critical.”
“The impression that I get from him [sic] is that he inherently dislikes popular anime and plays the elitist by acting as though it takes a sharper eye to appreciate what most would write off as garbage. Like a hipster.”
I didn’t know you could be low-brow, elitist, ascended hipster but ohmygod it’s a thing now.
I say run with it.
They should really see how enthusiastic Bob is about lovelive.
I am looking forward to his FMA:B review, he doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. If he writes anything other than glowing praise, the comments will be worth reading
(I originally wanted to post this on the ANN forums, but it doesn’t seem to show up there for some reason)
A recommendation for people who enjoyed Mayoiga: there’s a wonderful film by Mike Hodges, Croupier, that I was constantly reminded of while watching the show. It employs structural tricks very similar to those Nick described in his piece, albeit to slightly different ends. I’m going to preface my description of the movie with the warning that a significant part of what makes it so enjoyable comes down to an element of surprise. There are no real spoilers as to the plot, but if you haven’t seen it and want to go in completely blind (as I did and usually prefer), I’d say you should skip the next paragraph.
Basically, Croupier takes the shell of a neo-noir film, characters and story beats and all, but deviates from the expected turn of events in this genre at almost every opportunity. It’s intended to be not only humorous, but to also convey a sense of realism that ties into the film’s central thematic concern of life as a game of chance.
And the film actually makes this work! Not only as a parody or reversal of film noir conventions, but as a competent and constantly surprising entry in the genre in its own right. It’s somewhat rough around the edges and can’t quite hide its low budget, but Croupier’s inventive script and its low-key and naturalistic approach made it hugely enjoyable to me. And to be honest, I like it a great deal more than Mayoiga, if only for the snappier pacing.
The reason I wanted to write this post in the first place is to point to a fantastic interview with Paul Mayersberg, the film’s writer. He talks about his approach in writing this film in detail, explicitly saying that “Yes, my challenge in this film was to do everything the other way round”. I highly recommend it to people who liked the film and, more generally, to those who want to know how a screenwriter comes up with and constructs scripts like those of Mayoiga and Croupier. I’m posting a link to it below, but be aware that it spoils basically the whole movie.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080502102840/http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976745090