(L) Devil Survivor 2 - Anime-Only Discussion (no game comparisons or spoilers)

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Yep. This thread is dangerous for newcomers indeed. I’m glad I didn’t check the previous pages. For those spoiler-spammers: please don’t do it again. This thread is not limited to game-players to spam their game-knowledge. Please learn some net-manners so anime-only viewers can enjoy the discussion here too.

[Destined_Fate]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Apparently "huge otherworldy monster thing attacking a city" = Eva.

You forgot the addition of Teenage Angst and people dying everywhere just because it helps fuel that.

And Angels clearly means EVA Angels because... Angels.

[Shadow5YA]

Good thing the anime isn't really following the game anymore, so any game knowledge people might have is rendered irrelevant!

[TrueDevil]

This episode was meh.
Daichi is still useless and Hibiki becomes more and more like a f***ing Bitch.
But im glad that at least Keita is confirmed dead and didnt got sun rised.
Its also good they keep killing people off and show how desperate and hopeless the situation currently is.
Still, they shouldnt make all characters become useless and only showing Hibiki dashing with no plan and the same demon at the enemy.
Since DS 2 is a RPG Game they should at least keep some strategic points and not simply overpowered demons.

[Destined_Fate]

Only 13 episodes though.

DS2 has far too many characters for them to really develop anyone in that short time frame. Hell 26 and 50 episode animes have had left characters underdeveloped even with smaller cast than this.

So don't expect it to get better outside maybe one or two characters other than the main.

Maybe Io since she's the main love interest.

[duckroll]

Ep4 was really bad. The pace is horrendous (similar to how I felt about ep2, but worse), and it was honestly boring and poorly directed. The production values (which are already kinda low in general) took a huge nosedive too. Characters looked off model quite often in the episode, and when Byakko was first summoned it looked like between ep3 and 4 he had a bit too many kitty treats. LOL. Fatty kitty.

But all that is forgiven when I watched the preview and saw AIRI! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! :P

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

Good thing the anime isn't really following the game anymore, so any game knowledge people might have is rendered irrelevant!

Maybe, maybe not. Nobody knows what they intend to do, so these spoilers are still spoilers until the anime tells us otherwise.

[Angelic Cross]

Originally Posted by duckroll

Ep4 was really bad. The pace is horrendous (similar to how I felt about ep2, but worse), and it was honestly boring and poorly directed. The production values (which are already kinda low in general) took a huge nosedive too. Characters looked off model quite often in the episode, and when Byakko was first summoned it looked like between ep3 and 4 he had a bit too many kitty treats. LOL. Fatty kitty.

But all that is forgiven when I watched the preview and saw AIRI! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! :P

Agreed. Though I probably should have expected the drop in production values when they showed those ugly Angels in the previews attacking Merak.

Ah well, they killed Keita so they get quite a bit of leeway for me. If Justice Dork gets offed early, well, they'll get enough of a pass from me that they could make everyone off model and I wouldn't care. Though I still will be pissed if things continue to drag like they did here.

Also, I'm kind of disappointed that out of the Megami race of demons the anime had Io summon Kikuri-hime

Spoiler for Fate system reward:

instead of Hathor. The latter would have been more appropriate.

[FlareKnight]

Will say I'm glad that Io got a chance to take action here. Has been hard on herself for being understandably upset that the world is going to hell and her family may or may not be ok. Did a pretty good job there being one of the few people to actually damage that enemy. Gave her all and did alright in the end.

I do wonder about Yamato's strategy. I mean just throwing bodies at an enemy didn't exactly work well for Russia in WW1. They were literally just throwing lives away and not getting much out of it. If the plan is to have Hibiki beat it at the last defence line maybe have a group attack that can attack with electricity. Otherwise I'm not sure how helpful it is to find out that this thing can easily attack large groups of people.

Hopefully Daichi picks up some better demons soon. Really can't help his friends out much like this. The weaker others remain the more Hibiki is going to remain convinced that he has to protect everyone.

[MogMoogle1]

Kikuri-hime is one of my favorites, so it was pretty sweet to see her summoned. Things are getting intense, can't wait till the next episode.

[eiyuu99]

After watching the preview, I wonder if Hibiki can eventually summon the 4 Holy beasts
Byakko, Suzaku, Genbu and Seiryuu

[novalysis]

I think this is going to end in a Downer, hopeless, soul crushing ending. And if you want to know the Good Ending, the anime would tease us with "Buy the game".

[Folenfant]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

Nope. They just suck.

As for game mechanics:

Spoiler for game mechanics, story unrelated:

In the game, demons are shared between party members. Anyone can summon any demon as long as it's not higher than the character's level (unless on New Game+).

However, that level restriction isn't really an issue either since EXP is shared, so Daichi would only be a couple of levels under Hibiki at most.

So basically anyone can have a strong demon.


The only real difference in characters lies in their stat distribution (composed of Strength, Magic, Vitality, and Agility). In the game, humans have the ability to attack alongside the demons thanks to the app, so their stats do matter for their personal damage. Since the anime omitted that ability, personal character strength is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, it also cuts some characterization. For example, Keita's profile states that he is a boxer. Since summoners can't fight in the anime, you never get to see that part of him in action.

Spoiler for Reply to spoiler/some game mechanic stuff[/spoiler:

Yeah I've noticed this about the anime, the summoners don't seem to be able to fight much on their own so far besides maybe Makoto and it's kind of a shame. Hinako one of the physical beasts of the game will never get to strut her stuff and like wise for Io the offensive goddess period. Speaking of Io it makes it less likely we'll get to see THAT version of her in the anime or even the attempt at it.

As for the episode itself, part way through I was honestly kind of upset when it looked like they were going to kill off Hinako. It had me thinking, "ah so this is how they're going to do this in 13 episodes, by killing off every other party member besides the core trio so that they don't have to worry about developing them and can just skip their arcs."

I honestly still don't know how or why this only gets 13 episodes cause it still seems to be just impossible to carry forth the narrative and developments of the game in a satisfactory manner without having to make significant and disappointing cuts to the adaptation. 24 episodes I can see them managing it, but I suspect the cracks will start to form in this narrative within the coming weeks. So far it's barely managed things strictly because it's in the opening arcs of the game where there's less characters and the plot points are coming a little slower but once the cast starts expanding even more and it gets to the choice making parts of the game....if they can somehow do this I'll call them masters of adaptation. The best bet would honestly be to continue not even trying all that hard at all and continuing to make the anime more it's own thing.

Originally Posted by MogMoogle1

Kikuri-hime is one of my favorites, so it was pretty sweet to see her summoned. Things are getting intense, can't wait till the next episode.

In the games I've often found myself skipping over her and ending up with Lakshmi and eventually the coveted Amaterasu instead. As far as the Megami race goes honestly nothing beats those two. I hope we at least get to see Amaterasu at some point.

[Dengar]

Spoiler for related to the previous game comparison, nothing story related:

I for one enjoy that the humans aren't stealing away the spotlight from the demons, whereas in the game demons were purely fodder for their racial skills.

Originally Posted by Destined_Fate

You forgot the addition of Teenage Angst and people dying everywhere just because it helps fuel that.

And Angels clearly means EVA Angels because... Angels.

I won't say there is "no angst" I mean that would be ignoring the obvious, but I don't feel like it's typical teen angst though.

There's a guy who feels like doing everything by themselves, another guy who wants to be useful but ultimately lacks resolve, and a girl who also wants to be useful but is slightly better at it.

That's a lot better than Ikari "I mustn't run away" Shinji.

[relentlessflame]

I moved some of the recent game-related posts to the game thread. All game-related discussion should go there, including game-related speculation about what will happen in the anime going forward.

[Polarpew]

So uh, Hibiki has Byakko already and next episode preview shoes him using Suzaku. Gonna take an educated guess that he's gonna eventually have Genbu, and Seiryu. By the last episode he's prolly gonna pull a fuse out and get a Kohryu to beat the last boss

[Angelic Cross]

Originally Posted by Polarpew

So uh, Hibiki has Byakko already and next episode preview shoes him using Suzaku. Gonna take an educated guess that he's gonna eventually have Genbu, and Seiryu. By the last episode he's prolly gonna pull a fuse out and get a Kohryu to beat the last boss

Spoiler for Demon rosters:

Considering they didn't add any demons not in P4 in the animated adaptation for that game, I doubt it's going to happen here.

[4Tran]

Bad. I have no idea what the creators are trying to do with Devil Survivor 2, and this is just the latest expression of my confusion. Is this show supposed to be a nitty-gritty everyone's going to die Evangelion-esque war against alien beings? If so, then it will have to excise any fun scenes in favor of more doom and gloom. It seems to be a very poor trade off as the action scenes have looked ugly and unfun, while the characterizations haven't been very compelling either. I think Daiichi is my favorite character in the show so far, and I really shouldn't be more engaged by his non-participation in the battle than Hibiki supposed heroics.

One really big failing is to not incorporate the human characters into the fights. As it stands, they just end up dramatically pointing their cellphones at the enemy while vaguely suggesting that something exciting is going on. It all feels very artificial and non-immersive.

Will Airi save this show? The smart money says no, but we can all still hope.

[relentlessflame]

I'm closing this thread for the moment because it seems that game players, despite multiple warnings, don't seem to understand the concept that you are NOT ALLOWED to discuss the game in this thread, and that ALL COMPARISONS (to stuff already shown in the anime) must be behind clearly-marked spoiler tags.

Once we've taken the necessary steps to clean-up all the off-topic posts, the thread will be re-opened.

[relentlessflame]

Okay, I am now going to re-open this thread, while pointing out that I created a specific thread just for game comparisons. From this point forward, ALL comments related to the anime that have anything at all to do with the game must go in that thread. This thread is only to discuss the anime itself. If you post game comparisons in this thread, your post may be either moved or deleted, and you may receive a warning, infraction or ban.

This is a different policy than we usually employ, but it seemed to me to be the only way to keep this thread on-topic going forward. Please take note.