2012-08-14, 14:28 | Link #1001 | |
♪~ Daydreaming ~♪
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Location: Italy
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2012-08-14, 14:33 | Link #1002 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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(So I wouldn't say it's quite "an excuse to gather people", as it does have relevance in more ways than that... but I don't think it's the central focus of the show either.)
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2012-08-14, 14:49 | Link #1003 | ||
Kana Hanazawa ♥
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: France
Age: 37
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Okay, she did tell him she hated him as well, but I'm not putting much weight into her words, and I doubt the writers intend to draw any kind of parallel between Wakana and Sawa. Quote:
They were crucial because Konatsu was the focus back then. The choir is part of her character arc and her alone. None of the other characters care all that much about it. It makes perfect sense for the choir stuff to take a backseat now that we're diving into other character arcs. This hasn't happened steadily. Ep 7 had as much choir content as the past two episodes, which is not much at all. That element disappeared when we entered Wakana's arc as well. No reason for it to be any different this time, and I'm sure it'll be the same for Taichi and Wien (unless the latter finds he enjoys singing a lot). The Choir aspect will only become relevant again in the final episodes, since Konatsu's arc hasn't really been concluded yet.
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2012-08-14, 14:50 | Link #1004 |
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Initially, I also thought that the chorus' events would provide the main overarching narrative of the story.
Then I was stunned by how Tari Tari Season 1 ended epically in Episode 2. We just finished Episode 5 of Tari Tari Season 2, and this season the focus is on character arcs. Seriously, after Konatsu so quickly accomplished her dream of singing well at a high school music showcase, I kind of suspected that the whole chorus thing would become secondary the rest of the way. Really, Tari Tari reminds me a bit of a superhero story. You have an origin story that kicks things off, and that origin does have its own key story (be it about gamma radiation, radioactive spiders, an alien sent to Earth from a dying planet, or a rich 8 year old boy watching his parents get gunned down). And in the origin story you often get introduced to a major recurring antagonist, who gets soundly defeated once, but will return, much like the Vice Principle of Konatsu's school. The origin story sets things in motion, and it's never completely forgotten about, but the stories that come after it are their own stories. Tari Tari is much the same way I think. Perhaps it would help to think of the first two episodes of this as an OVA to advertise the main season, and we're in the main season now.
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2012-08-14, 16:17 | Link #1007 |
Guess what time it is?
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Age: 38
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I appreciate the measured discussion about Sawa and her father's conflicting points of view. They're arguing over the future, which isn't something either of them can be sure of. We as the audience are introduced to the knowledge that Sawa doesn't have the height or build of a jockey, so we know that doesn't bode well for her chances, but she may not be able to accept that.
The problem of course is that her father is approaching the situation logically, while Sawa has a different perspective which I'll get into in a second. I'm not referring to her chances of success when I say he's being "logical", but more in how Sawa views riding. It makes perfect sense from his point of view that you put in the effort at a job that will afford you the leisure you desire. As he sees it, she can have it both ways: Stable employment, and the freedom to keep riding. She doesn't have to give up anything. From the logical point of view, there's no sane alternative. The problem is that Sawa may be one of those people who can't live her life that way. I don't know for sure if Sawa is going through a phase or legitimately one of these kinds of people, but if you listen to folks who do unusual things for a living, particularly creative types, or competitive sports players you'll often hear them asked "Why did you decide to become a ____________?" If you listen to the most common answer, you'll realize that the question itself is flawed: "I had to. I couldn't imagine do anything else." That doesn't mean they don't have any other skills; it would probably be more accurate to say that they can't not dedicate themselves to their passion. It would be against their nature to put something else first. Whether Sawa will always be this way or not, she's certainly moving forward with that mindset, and as a result, her father's reasoning is alien to her. He must seem completely ignorant from her perspective, but it's just that her father is the sort of person who can find happiness in dividing his attention between what he wants to do and what he feels he has to do. On a completely unrelated note, the jump-cuts between Taichi's "swaying" and "shuttlecock juggling" animations in the ED look really bad. I'm guessing it's intentional, but it just looks like someone got sloppy with the looping animations. |
2012-08-14, 16:26 | Link #1009 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Age: 31
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ThereminVox, that was beautifully said.
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Heck, it's enough to look at how some anime fans can have a totally twisted view of Japan. Last edited by Blonto; 2012-08-14 at 16:54. |
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2012-08-14, 18:04 | Link #1010 | |
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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Despite the events of episode 2 we still had two large unresolved issues: 1. Wakana had not started singing again because of the aforementioned issues with her mother. Now after her last arc she has gained the motivation to sing, but she has to complete her mother's piece. Again related to the choir. 2. Konatsu has yet to decide an ultimate goal for her choir activities. Wakana asked her what she she wanted from it in episode 1 and that question has yet to be answered. This is related to the choir. Now this is where a sort of disconnect forms in the plot, because so much of the show has already been focused on choir or issues related to choir and we have other characters in the choir club who are not really all that focused on it. Taichi is focused on badminton and there has been a little bit of time devoted to that, but this isn't really related to the choir. Sawa wants to be a jockey and again this isn't really related to the choir. And Wein? Lets not even get into the joke of a character he is. So perhaps it is a good question at this point to start asking what Tari Tari really is about. With this episode it is starting to feel like a formulaic progression from one character arc to the next (Which will most likely result in an inevitable shafting of the male characters ), more so than a show about a choir club. If this show had more than 1 cour, I wouldn't mind a few character arcs that might take a little focus away from everything, but they just don't got the time to have its focus meander like this. That's why this episode is extremely worrisome (Besides some rather silly moments like Sawa fanservice stripping in a dramatic scene) since I highly doubt the show could retain the focus it REALLY needs for a 1 cour show. Yes the choir isn't completely forgotten about, but it's definitely been pushed into a secondary position. This show hasn't set itself up to be a character drama of the week, but now for some reason is going in that sort of structure. Especially considering that Konatsu and Wakana are nowhere near done with their character arcs it is a bit disconcerting. We still have Taichi's badminton and whatever the hell they plan to do with Wein as things to touch upon later too. I'm actually dreading how this is going to end now. This is going to be wasting too much time I fear.
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2012-08-14, 20:54 | Link #1011 | |
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Location: UK
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But perhaps I'm biased, since I find the choir moments to be the most boring bits. I nearly dropped this show by episode 2. But because they kinda wrapped that choir moment up and because we we're given snippets about the other characters, I stayed. And I'm glad I did. Even seeing the choir issues resurface is annoying too. Looks like there'll be more vice-principal crap, original choir club issues and now something to do with the principal himself. Stuff that's way more cliché to me than the character drama (mostly because it seems like people are being asses for the sake of it). And, was I the only one who liked Sawa's outburst at her dad? She's probably the most confrontational character in the group, so it kinda suits her. She got mad at Konatsu when Konatsu dallied on her singing 'passion' to mess around with the Condor Queens (was that the group's name? can't remember). In fact she was the first to help when she saw her friends 'passion' fading by joining a club she doesn't have a real interest in. She was the one who went to Taichi when he lost in his 'passion' too. Which all fits in with how she's acting now. So when her dad made mention of paying for everything (sort of implying she should obey his word), she got mad and did something relevant to the argument, throwing what she was wearing at him. Trying to make a point more than anything. It's barely fanservice too. Plus the dude opened her mail, haha. I kinda like how Sawa seems like her mom more than her dad. So you get the whole spectrum within her family. Strict orthodox dad, laid back mom who is treating her passion as a hobby and then the daughter that wants to take a hobby further.
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2012-08-14, 21:20 | Link #1012 |
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Australia
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Wein's going to be real disappointed come festival day.
I always hope for some gender balance/focus in these shows, but I think Tari Tari's been pretty consistent on focusing on the three girls. The boys have always been subservient/gone along with what the girls want. As for the couple of choir practice scenes, I dont think you should make too much out of it. It was mostly just showing us how friendly and in sync the girls have become, and furthering Konatsu's misunderstanding with Sawa. Although I'm sure Wein's going to get some attention soon, because they're setting up his isolation from the others - hes the only one in the supplementary classes now, and doesnt have a goal like the others. As for the Choir club, yeah the first episode is responsible for misleading us into thinking the club was going to be prominent in the story. When it turns out it's just a narrative frame for bringing these characters together, and leading us into each characters individual stories. Still, it'll come into play for the ending, since we haven't gotten to the Vice Principles bitchiness or Wakana's mother's song.
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2012-08-14, 21:37 | Link #1013 |
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@Reckoner
I know that you were critical of the lack of focus on music in K-On!, and in that case, I can totally see why. There's loads you can do with a band that plays at least 4 different types of instruments. But a choir is just pure singing. How much can you do with that, really? Show people working on their voice-pitch, and learning how to hold certain musical notes? Well, we actually are getting that, at least to some degree. I guess we could get an insert song every episode, although I almost have to wonder if people would get bored of that after awhile. I know that slice of high school life anime has this annoying tendency to use their series premises as mere pretexts for being the 67895th take on the basic "character-driven story about high school friends". Yeah, it would be nice if more of these premises really counted for something for a change, instead of simply being the latest coat of paint applied to the same old story that anime has been telling at least as far back as Azumanga Daioh (and probably even further back than that). But the choir premise didn't strike me as one brimming with great potential as it was. Even when I did think that Konatsu achieving her singing dream would be the main overarching narrative, I thought it would be more about character drama (i.e. Konatsu and her friends vs. the Vice-Principal, basically) than music per se. I guess Tari Tari was a case where it really was the characters and overall atmosphere of the show that brought me in rather than the series premise. Well that and me honestly being curious about what a HSI-esque anime would be like if not wrote by a certain writer who shall not be named. I will say that I hope that the last few episodes of Tari Tari shows the plot thickening, and the character arcs dissipating, and things heading towards some sort of compelling conclusion that ties everything together. But for now, I'm honestly fine with the character arc approach (especially since, as Sphire wrote, they handle it without ignoring all the other characters entirely). Admittedly, Sawa's issues are entirely separate from the rest of the club (equestrianism and archery have nothing to do with singing in a choir, of course), and that is part of the reason why I hope Sawa's arc is only two episodes long. But shifting the choir into a background position doesn't bother me that much, as long as it comes back into focus later on.
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2012-08-14, 21:59 | Link #1014 |
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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Sorry I must not have communicated what I was trying to say well enough, so I'll relaborate.
I am fine with character drama, but the character drama has to have a sort of focus. Like the stuff with the vice principle and Wakana's mom, Konatsu and her little drama with the original choir group, Wakana's issues and her resolve to complete her mother's song... This drama accentuates the main topic of the show, the choir club. The reason I think the drama needs a focus, and I'll repeat, is because they don't got a lot of time to wrap this story up. We're now 6 episodes in, basically almost half or just about through the run of this show and presumably next episode will be taken up by more Sawa drama. While it might be nice story and all, which I actually thought there were just some general execution issues in this episode so I don't, it does not exactly help us in getting to the finish line from our initial setup. There is still so much more to explore with the idea of the choir club and I fear we won't receive the satisfactory conclusion to this story if we keep up with these "character drama arcs." Especially since it raises the issue that now to balance out the development they'll have to develop the guys properly. If they don't this is blatantly unbalanced writing. But if they do would they have time to wrap this up even? I don't think so. So almost a damned if they do damned if they don't situation. This isn't even a K-ON! issue for me, I'm not expecting Tari Tari to have choir sequences every episode or something. Also, K-ON's issues for me were not solely limited to what I considered false advertising, I just though it was bad at what it even did attempt to do, but probably best to not derail this thread with that . And btw, an example of a show that took something that seemed relatively uninteresting and made it exciting with excellent characters and balanced development was Chihayafuru. They definitely could do it here, no excuses. @Sphire My point was that we haven't even finished up their character arcs, and we're delving into even more of them in a show that doesn't have the time to give this much attention to every character if they their dramas are totally unrelated to the choir club. At this pace we may be heading for either an unsatisfactory rushed ending or a show where the males get shafted yet again with imbalanced writing and a kinda irrelvant character arc for Sawa. Of course Tari Tari can prove me wrong, but that's why I am worried.
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2012-08-14, 22:23 | Link #1015 |
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@Reckoner
Well, I do see what you're saying from a basic time management perspective. You're right, it's going to be difficult for Tari Tari to pull off these character arcs with some degree of "fairness" for the entire main cast, and still have the time to do justice to the overarching plot. One thing that I think might help here is how Wien is a relatively blank slate compared to the rest in that he has no real "life passions" moving him onwards. Yes, he's clearly into sentei heroes, but it seems to be more an interest than an overriding passion for him (like what equestrianism is to Sawa). So since Wien is a blank slate, I could see any episode(s) focusing on him being effectively fused with the overarching plot as well. In other words, what Wien ultimately brings to the table might touch directly on the choir. I'll admit that Tanaka is trickier though, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see very little, if any, badminton the rest of the way. I can certainly understand people being concerned here, and thinking that Tari Tari probably can't pull it off. Maybe it can't, but I'm going to take a wait and see approach for now.
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2012-08-14, 22:59 | Link #1016 |
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Well, it's definitely a cause for concern, since the 2/3rds point is the scariest point in all the PA works anime I've seen (aka, it blows up in my face).
However, Tari Tari may be different, since I feel it has incorporated several elements from its previous shows but did them better, so perhaps experience has proven extremely useful. At least for me, it contains True Tears' slow paced, and dramatic flair without becoming too detached, it contains elements of Hana Saku Iroha's fast paced and energetic, lively atmosphere without the overindulgence, and like Angel Beats, it also actively incorporated an active music element, but Tari Tari manages to make it more relevant to the thematic elements of the story. This is of course, just what I think.
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2012-08-14, 23:17 | Link #1017 |
Home of Silent Prayer
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I know this will be chaotic and unrealistic, but sometimes I wish that we can do away with the rigid 1/2 cour system for anime. Of course, a good enough director/storyboarder can deal with that just fine, but often it just seems to cause pacing issues to me. Either they end up doing filler to make it to reach the quota, or having to compress stuff to be able to fit in stuff. That way, they can just do away with 8 eps if they've told enough of a story, or 16 if they feel one cour isn't just quite enough....
I don't know, maybe I'm hit by nostalgia when I was a kid watching TV, with no internet to check how much episodes are left, and is left with a sense of anticipation when each episodes end instead of speculating how the story will unfold in the future. Well, both has its merits, I guess. To be more on-topic, I'm amused with how similar the arguments raised here are to the ones Konatsu received from the Vice Principal and her old choir-mates in this episode: "So now that you got your own Choir AnimeClub, are you actually going to do something with it? Do you have a plan or purpose that you're going to focus on with this thing you have, or are you just using it as an excuse to hang out and goof off with your friends?" A bit familiar, don't you think
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2012-08-14, 23:26 | Link #1018 | |
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With Tari Tari, I get a definite sense that PA Works has learned from its own past. Tari Tari has a better sense of where to draw the line than HSI did, and I think it feels more balanced/less chaotic than Angel Beats! did.
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2012-08-14, 23:38 | Link #1019 | |
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Last edited by relentlessflame; 2012-08-14 at 23:48. Reason: fix typo |
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2012-08-15, 02:02 | Link #1020 | |
Sharing my world thru art
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Anywhere I can draw inspiration from
Age: 41
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Man, sucks to be Wien now. Everyone has goals and here he is still trying to find a way to fit in.
Spoiler for character comparisons from another anime:
I feel like Wien is trying to catch up with everyone else. I don't remember, but did Wien say why he came back to Japan after being gone so long? Quote:
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drama, music, original anime, pa works |
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