No Game No Life - Episode 12 (END) Discussion / Poll

[OH&S]

I didn't really mean to start a pointless discussion on trivial observations (especially since I was praising the anime) but perhaps I should elaborate:

*high concept: I thought I may have used the term incorrectly but after checking the definition, I'll stand by it. The high-concept is unoriginal and nothing that hasn't been done before.

*gary stu/mary sue MCs: believe it or not, I actually hate using this term. Yes I acknowledge that they have flaws but the high-concept of them being transported to a different world which happens to be a game all but eliminates most of them. Perhaps it would be better to call them ridiculously and unrealistically overpowered. Not in the sense of actually having power, but always having this ridiculously well thought out plan to defeat the opponent from the very beginning; some that stretch credulity.

*otaku-pandering: Of course there was. This an adaptation of a light novel under the MF Bunko J imprint. It's pretty much guaranteed to have fanservice. The other otaku-pandering element is right there in the story with the MCs being social recluses that have rejected the world but are now being viewed in a positive light once arriving in Disboard. This is not debatable. Also Klashikari has done a excellent job of explaining this point.

*lack of character development: There wasn't any. Or if there was, it was fairly superficial regarding the same basic point of believing in the potential of Imanity.

Now before you reply to this, I want to make one REALLY important point here. Just because I have made the above observations, in no way are any of these actual complaints. Just observations.

The high concept is unoriginal BUT the story has to start from somewhere.

The MCs are ridiculously overpowered BUT that's the point of the entire anime. If they weren't they wouldn't be able to win against any of their opponents. It links back to the high concept. In fact the story at least explored the MC's few faults.

Its otaku-pandering BUT its an adaptation of an MF Bunko J Light Novel; of course it is.

Its lacking in character development BUT that's because of its high concept. Actually, in general light novel MCs rarely receive character development in such a small number of volumes and the high concept itself doesn't focus on character development in the first place. That doesn't rule out the possibility of future character development though.
-----I talk from experience as I read Toaru Majutsu no Index. The main character has only recently received some rather powerful and effective character development; after over 30 novels! Granted said character development called upon every single observation about his character ever made in the series so it was well planned and the high concept also wasn't about character development.

So in the end, all I have made are observations not complaints. Other people who criticize the series COULD use these as complaints, but I'm not since this series is supposed to be fun.

[c933103]

(don't know where had i see some discussion about communication barrier, but able to talk fleurently =\= no communication barrier. see author's earlier twitter messages for examples that these are exampled by author himself (and his wife if i remembered correctly?

[MonkeyDude]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

You are de facto considering any fanservice scene to be "not pandering" the moment it is from the source material, which makes no sense.
Pandering in its inherent sense is simply a trait of the story that is downright indulging to the audience, instead of inherently for the sake of the story writing.

You don't need 'additional' fanservice scene to be pandering, and needless to say, it is a moot argument since it is a LN to begin with it is arguably not as graphic as the anime.
You are confusing filler and pandering aspect, which are completely different stuff altogether, even if they have at times the very same purpose and result.

I must also remind that being "pandering" isn't a major flaw of a story as long as it is played right in a moderate fashion (which is a completely subjective notion). What's silly is to immediately think it is a completely derogative term, despite it actually describes the said point appropriately.

Why are there so many bath scenes and gratutious stripping of Steph in NGNL? Well as Sora so eloquently puts it, he has his needs. Needs that every healthy young 18 year old virgin male typically has and needs addressing. So yes that part of the fanservice isn't pandering as it does in fact serve a purpose in this story. Granted that is more the exception to the norm, but I maintain that it's not pandering so long as there is a reasonable explanation to it besides pure fanservice.

And yes I maintain that's my stance on pandering. If that makes no sense, then we'll just agree to disagree on this one.

Sora and Shiro were never portrayed unable to talk with others. Rather, episode 1 has shown them not accepting society as a whole. If they were that stuck by that element, they wouldn't be able to discuss with the thugs and all.
Of course, Episode 10-11 have shown Sora and Shiro freaking out in a virtual akihabara, but it actually proves my point: what shocked them was the location, and not specifically the individuals. Ergo, they are way more affected by society instead of human interactions. In fact, if they did have character growth, they wouldn't freak out THAT much just by being in "Akihabara".

They have also shown to be completely okay so long as they have the mindset of "being in the game." They're treating the world of Disboard as one giant game. Therefore, their inability to deal with other people is nonexistent as they treat faceless mooks as NPCs. In fact, their ability to deal with people (and the world at large) only exists so long as they are both within the immediate vicinity. They completely break down without the bravado provided by their constant companion in life.

If they're going to have any real meaningful character development, then it has to start with breaking their severe case of dependent personality disorder. Anything less would be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean they aren't developing as characters. The first step would probably be to increase their inner circle besides their brother/sister, and they are well on their way on that first step.

That's irrelevant. However short a series is, I see absolutely no issue to expect some character development, and that's up to people to think if it was enough or not. And in the case of NGNL, it is arguably not the most notable for the main characters, who are the driving force of a story.

Well what exactly do people expect in terms of character development for Sora and Shiro? The sort of personality disorder they have typically takes intensive therapy to fix. The fact that they are expanding their immediate circle is a good sign they are developing as characters. And quite frankly that's the most you can expect at this point in time.

I see no reason to think someone who points out flaws for a series would ignore its merits.

Not when you make unreasonable demands without taking into consideration the limitations of the show.

Simply claiming it was like that for the original story is ignoring the core issue at large: the writing was done to indulge the readers, so did the anime for its watchers. No more, no less.

What's the point of all this if everything is done to indulge the readers? They're pandering to the readers/watchers for sales so everything is done to indulge their audience.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by OH&S

*high concept: I thought I may have used the term incorrectly but after checking the definition, I'll stand by it. The high-concept is unoriginal and nothing that hasn't been done before.

Aside from maybe the protagonist pair being a rather original combination, IMO, I'd say you are right with this. The whole concept of "violence resolved through games" is nothing new, though sometimes I wonder if this direct use of this concept is to make fun of those situations in other anime/manga/LN, where people with physical advantage still chose to play games instead, for plot(armor) reasons.
The exceed races are also mostly the generic fantasy archtypes with one or two small changes.

Originally Posted by OH&S

*gary stu/mary sue MCs: believe it or not, I actually hate using this term. Yes I acknowledge that they have flaws but the high-concept of them being transported to a different world which happens to be a game all but eliminates most of them. Perhaps it would be better to call them ridiculously and unrealistically overpowered. Not in the sense of actually having power, but always having this ridiculoulsy well thought out plan to defeat the opponent from the very beginning.

True, true, though speaking for myself, I see it as refreshing that the "weak, useless and dense MCs with heroines that are mere sexual objects" are being replaced by 2 competent protagonists, that are neither "weak, useless and dense", nor "mere sexual objects" (though some people may disagree about the latter, but I won't go further into that). But that is just me. I respect different opinions of others about this and I agree that in general "gary stu/mary sue MCs" need some kind of compensation, or else the story will become boring and repetetive quickly.

Originally Posted by OH&S

*otaku-pandering: Of course there was. This an adaptation of a light novel under the MF Bunko J imprint. It's pretty much guaranteed to have fanservice. The other otaku-pandering element is right there in the story with the MCs being social recluses that have rejected the world but are now being viewed in a positive light once arriving in Disboard. This is not debatable. Also Klashikari has done a excellent job of explaining this point.

I agree with the first part, but strongly disagree with the bolded part. For such an argument to work, you would have to have them be potential "self-insert characters", but they are not. Otakus in general are NOT super intelligent geniuses like Shirou and neither are they overly self-aware, perfect readers of human minds and manipulative like Sora. You could as well suggest that animes with MCs that are doing a part-time job off-screen are animes that are pandering to a part-time jobber audience...
But I cannot deny the possibility that the LN author/anime producers bet on the chance that Otakus are not observant enough to notice this, which, if it was true, would make my argument kind of moot... but I guess this is left up to discussion, so I leave it be for now.

Originally Posted by OH&S

*lack of character development: There wasn't any. Or if there was, it was fairly superficial regarding the same basic point of believing in the potential of Imanity.

They are actually complex characters with a "mysterious past", that are not explored forwards, but backwards, via flashbacks. But I am not sure if this is made clear in the anime adaption, since I cannot really "unknow" my LN knowledge, while watching the anime, so yea... up to debate, I guess?


And yes, I am aware that those were just observations, as I mostly agree with those, it's just that when I agree with something, there is not much to add there, but when I disagree with something, I have to explain why.

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

I agree with the first part, but strongly disagree with the bolded part. For such an argument to work, you would have to have them be potential "self-insert characters", but they are not. Otakus in general are NOT super intelligent geniuses like Shirou and neither are they overly self-aware, perfect readers of human minds and manipulative like Sora. You could as well suggest that animes with MCs that are doing a part-time job off-screen are animes that are pandering to a part-time jobber audience...
But I cannot deny the possibility that the LN author/anime producers bet on the chance that Otakus are not observant enough to notice this, which, if it was true, would make my argument kind of moot... but I guess this is left up to discussion, so I leave it be for now.

Fair enough. I wasn't particularly attached to that point anyway; aside from the fan-service. But others have criticized the anime for being a power fantasy of sorts for otaku (or was it gamers?) so that's why I mentioned it.

They are actually complex characters with a "mysterious past", that are not explored forwards, but backwards, via flashbacks. But I am not sure if this is made clear in the anime adaption, since I cannot really "unknow" my LN knowledge, while watching the anime, so yea... up to debate, I guess?

If I didn't see it, I don't know.

And yes, I am aware that those were just observations, as I mostly agree with those, it's just that when I agree with something, there is not much to add there, but when I disagree with something, I have to explain why.

Rational discussion normally tends to (and is expected to) work like that.

[teja208]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

-There is no "character development" so to speak. Shiro and Sora didn't have any development whatsoever, as there is no personal progression on their part if you compare how they were at the start and the end of the series. Both have the very same mindset and absolutely didn't gain anything in term of character growth.
Steph possibly got some "faith" in Imanity due to Kuuhaku prowess, but she is still the ol' same. Only Jibril got some development, but that's rather because she admires Sora and Shiro, not really having a character Growth.

I do acknowledge the lack of character growth form the siblings, but develpment is a different thing for me. I don't really think this series' MCs needs to grow as of yet, since we still don't entirely understand much about their past as for who they are and their background, although we were given a few glimpes along the way it's still not enough to draw a clear picture. As the story unfold, through verious hints from their conversations, we began to learn a bit more about the MCs past, and why they become the person they are now, I consider this as a form of character development, because by learning a little more about their backstory, as vague as it may be, our impression of them began to change from what we know from the first episode. For example, in the first episode I used to assumed that Sora is a heavy siscon, but after episode 2 I see that he doesn't feel that way about his sister. It's indeed ironic that they can't live seperately despite that, but my perspective of their relationship began to change and that's what I called character development.

But of course this is just my opinion, and I believe that they need to grow at some point, but not now, not when you barely understand much about them and how they came to this point, so it's not easy to imagine where they need to grow. One more problem is that the only way I can imagine for them to grow is to have them lose in a game but before this episode, I don't think Elkia can afford to lose anything, but now that they joined forces with the werebeast nation and form Elkia Federation, I think at this point maybe it's ok for them lose a bit.

Anyway, since you were the ones thinking that MCs needs to grow, surely you must have some rough idea of which direction you think they need to grow up. Perhaps you can share some opinion regarding that, but if you don't feel like it then that's ok.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by MonkeyDude

If they're going to have any real meaningful character development, then it has to start with breaking their severe case of dependent personality disorder. Anything less would be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean they aren't developing as characters. The first step would probably be to increase their inner circle besides their brother/sister, and they are well on their way on that first step.

The LN actually touched on this when Sora had disappeared thought the anime had cut out a lot of Shiro's thinking. She went over every line of what Sora said. To put it short the two of them don't think they need or want character development, they aren't "heroes of a shounen manga" as the series put it, the two of them, codependency and all, are perfect the way they are.

Basically if you're thinking they'll ever develop to be fine without each other than it is very, very, very, very, extremely unlikely.

[MonkeyDude]

Originally Posted by Xacual

Basically if you're thinking they'll ever develop to be fine without each other than it is very, very, very, very, extremely unlikely.

And that's the dilemma when it comes to their character development. That milestone needs to be reached for them to progess as characters, but it's extremely unlikely to happen in a short amount of time (and it didn't). So the best we can expect is for them to lay the groundwork for potentially reaching that milestone. And expanding their inner circle beyond each other is a great way of earning exp to eventually reach said milestone. It's not much, but it's a start considering their extreme codependency. I consider this character development, but evidently I'm in the minority here.

I mean who knows? Maybe they first need to change the perceptions of their acquaintances/friends before they in turn help Sora and Shiro change theirs.

[Xacual]

Why do they have to do that though? Sora and Shiro don't see their codependency as a problem. Like I stated before they consider the two of them being together as the perfect scenario for both of them. Separating them or getting them to develop to be fine on their own is not something either of them wants.

[kukuru]

Basically a lot of armchair authoring in which a semi anonymous argument is made to make them feel they can write it better then a published author.

Again the author itself perfectly makes it clear. Screw your shounen-hero mentality guide book. Growth sucks, [ ] doesn't want to change, and they can win without needing to do so.

It's like a person arguing about grammar with the author about writing poetry.

What constitutes as a "perfect" or "better" story telling, is boil down to a lot of mud slinging of the losing side.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by Xacual

Why do they have to do that though? Sora and Shiro don't see their codependency as a problem. Like I stated before they consider the two of them being together as the perfect scenario for both of them. Separating them or getting them to develop to be fine on their own is not something either of them wants.

Even if it's not something they want, it could be something they need. Being unable to go more than a few feet away from each other isn't really healthy, you know?

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by kukuru

Basically a lot of armchair authoring in which a semi anonymous argument is made to make them feel they can write it better then a published author.

Again the author itself perfectly makes it clear. Screw your shounen-hero mentality guide book. Growth sucks, [ ] doesn't want to change, and they can win without needing to do so.

It's like a person arguing about grammar with the author about writing poetry.

What constitutes as a "perfect" or "better" story telling, is boil down to a lot of mud slinging of the losing side.

You make it sound like being an author automatically makes you immune to criticisms. "Go write something better" sounds like crap fanfic writer mentality.
You're not doing the author, his works, or the fandom any favor and could be selling them short with that.

[Hitenma]

Character development is something created for the sake of the readers, not the characters.
I'm pretty sure that I don't need to have any "growth" or "development" whatsoever for myself and my life is still just fine.

Character development is there to make the story more interesting.
It is the mean, not the end.
So don't ask for character development just for the sake of character development.
If the story is interesting enough without it, then the story doesn't need it.

[Newprimus]

Well remember that Sora and Shiro have a history, and we've gotten glimpses of it through the series in flashbacks and references. Perhaps they've already done all their character development in their pasts, and instead we'll be seeing snippets of it through the story.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Newprimus

Well remember that Sora and Shiro have a history, and we've gotten glimpses of it through the series in flashbacks and references. Perhaps they've already done all their character development in their pasts, and instead we'll be seeing snippets of it through the story.

Exactly this. Putting the whole interdependence thing aside, I am sure they made a lot of progress regarding other aspects in the past.

[teja208]

I personslly enjoy how Sora and Shiro are the ones going around inspiring and developing other characters instead of being they themselves getting the development, but I also realize that it doesn't work for everyone. However, I still think the author plan to develop them at some point since he won't just kept teasing us about the siblings' backstories. I don't think we are given the exact event that caused then to become codependent. While we can only form assumption based hints that were given so far, but nothing specific. I think this is the key to their development once the author feels like it's the right time to reveal it.

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

An anticlimatic finish to the epic fight that makes the usual "keikaku doori" seem tame, and more random bath scenes just because.

Yeah.. I'm kind of noticing this myself and became uninterested in the conclusion of the fight. Just enjoying the awesomeness during the fight. Well, I enjoyed the series personally and would watch a season 2. Just hope they don't keep pulling this stunt of "all according to plan" forever. I like how they brought use to Steph in the end, with how much she's been thrown away. Just wish it was done even a little bit better then just "We had it all planned out this entire time. We even took into account your special ability"

8/10

[c933103]

Originally Posted by Hooves

Yeah.. I'm kind of noticing this myself and became uninterested in the conclusion of the fight. Just enjoying the awesomeness during the fight. Well, I enjoyed the series personally and would watch a season 2. Just hope they don't keep pulling this stunt of "all according to plan" forever. I like how they brought use to Steph in the end, with how much she's been thrown away. Just wish it was done even a little bit better then just "We had it all planned out this entire time. We even took into account your special ability"

8/10

The ability is documented...just that it is not expected to be that super

[MonkeyDude]

Originally Posted by Hitenma

Character development is something created for the sake of the readers, not the characters.
I'm pretty sure that I don't need to have any "growth" or "development" whatsoever for myself and my life is still just fine.

Character development is there to make the story more interesting.
It is the mean, not the end.
So don't ask for character development just for the sake of character development.
If the story is interesting enough without it, then the story doesn't need it.

Just have to say...you do know the very concept of being a living, breathing individual means you go through stages of growth and development right?

Character development is there not to make the story more interesting, but to show the natural progression of characters as the story progresses. People aren't asking for character development for the sake of it as it's natural to expect change based on their experiences and interactions with the world.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by MonkeyDude

Just have to say...you do know the very concept of being a living, breathing individual means you go through stages of growth and development right?

Character development is there not to make the story more interesting, but to show the natural progression of characters as the story progresses. People aren't asking for character development for the sake of it as it's natural to expect change based on their experiences and interactions with the world.

Such changes are usually subtle though. "Character development" in fiction are often sudden 180° personality turns. We have a completely weak-willed weakling who never showed a glimpse of being strong... 5 in-universe-days later said character is a super strong person who takes anyone on... that is what people often want to see as "character development". I actually have no problem with such scenarios, but I definitly don't think that it is a requirement... I mean do people in real-life ALWAYS change recognisably in the span of 2-3 months? I'd say not.