[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Arya

I agree with you more or less on everything. And I guess generally speaking that are the basis. Now, what made Okada and Kawamori think otherwise?

I don't think they actually "thought otherwise" - I think they just botched it. For one, it's getting very obvious that Okada (and I'm going to blame her for all this because she is the head writer) just can't keep focus, definitely not among the cast. Maybe she really wanted to do an ensemble cast. Maybe she wanted to be subtle and ended up being too subtle, I don't know. (Actually, there are a number of pretty well-done "subtle" scenes, the problem is that they rarely ever have any follow-up that is not completely disconnected. :/ ) And two, there are all other problems that we've discussed about a million times. ^^;;

When I look at the writing in Evol so far on a characters level, there are two words that keep coming to my mind, and they're "Star Driver". Star Driver had the exact same issues (less atrociuos, though): it started strong, built a nice settei with the three main charas in an interesting relationship... and then eventually the focus of the writing started to meander, getting caught up in side characters (very interesting side charas, but side charas nonetheless), and in the meanwhile the main trio, even the main character himself, did pretty much nothing of particular interest. And so when the end came around and the writers came to their senses it was too late, most people were emotionally uninvested in the main trio, the revelations felt rushed and inconsequential. It was fabulous, though. ^^;; And Star Driver was written by Enokido Youji, the guy who had also written Utena and Ouran Host Club and has my eternal respect for both. Star Driver had so much potential and ended up mediocre because of these issues.

Originally Posted by Arya

More in general anyways I find harder writing/developing a story of two lovers that have already feeling for each other than a story that describe the falling in love (not that I tried myself). ... So from that in mind my previous comment was to say that if they had kept Mikono and Amata relationship at a greener phase in the beginning they would have had less criticism.

I dunno, I think they were pretty green? It's not like they were raburabu from the start (hell, they had exactly two moments of being even near to raburabu level, one was ruined by Kagura and the other involved Shushu trying to poke Amata's eyes out ^^;; and then was ruined by Kagura) Their relationship for most of the first half of the story was Amata pursuing Mikono, and Mikono being, well, Mikono about it. Then stuff happened and Amata got uncertain and took some steps back, while Mikono was confused and tried to figure herself out. And right now we're at the point of Mikono having figured herself out, mostly, but we don't know for certain what she decided; meanwhile Amata, being left alone, has no idea where he stands with Mikono anymore, and so is still struggling with his uncertainities. I think this is a pretty good progression that could have a nice resolution either way - it's just the overall execution that's been lacking, and this is where lack of focus and bad pacing comes into the picture. :/

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But I actually think that might tie into the problem here - There's too many questions, and not enough answers. The balance is off, so it leaves people more perplexed than intrigued. We probably should know more than we do at this point.

Unless, of course, they're planning to do the trendy thing and finish the story off in movies. In which case I'll go and quietly bang my head against a wall. ^^;;

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I think that Aquarion EVOL is falling into the trap of leaving almost all of its best cards/revelations for the final two acts. The problem with that is that it can make things seem rushed/forced at the end, while leaving viewers feeling like their being stiffed a bit by the plot until you get to the end (like GoldenLand said, the plot should throw the audience a nice, fresh bone every so often).

I agree with this - with the addition that this, again, would not necessarily be a problem if there was some well-handled foreshadowing. And there isn't, not really. (Random cryptic asides don't count as foreshadowing...)


...whoa, look at this wall of text....