(L) Kokoro Connect [anime]

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by Lantern

Nope. It's a mystery even to us LN readers.

It's one of those mysteries if you ever found out the truth it'll drive you completely mad.

[frivolity]

Actually, would Taichi's white-knighting be considered selfish actions? In a way, he's not actually doing them to benefit others but for himself instead.

[sikvod00]

^ That's basically the whole philosophical debate of whether or not altruism exists.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

In particular I am starting to groan at the way the series is treating its male characters.

Spoiler for Comparison to Hanasaku Iroha:

Although at this point, it is not as bad as say Hanasaku Iroha treated Enishi or Jiromaru, it's starting to progress there in the way Taichi is beating beaten around by the various girls (kicked in the balls and now he got gut punched in this ep) and Aoki being the comedic sidekick character that everyone ridicules. It's just not funny. There's a reason why I've been avoiding Mari Okada in recent times (and generic B/C grade fanservice/ecchi series which emasculate its male characters all the time), and seeing this start to appear on a regular basis in Kokoro Connect is starting to earn a few more facepalms than needed..

Okada doesn't have a monopoly on emasculating male characters, you know. It's already a pretty common theme in anime generally. Okada just adds her own style to it.

Right now the current anime airing with the most egregious male emasculation would be Rinne no Lagrange. Kokoro Connect is nowhere near that bad.

[Blonto]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

And this episode exponentially magnifies the problem that carried over from last episode. Heartseed continues to be a poorly written character in that his purpose is to be a plot device to drive the story, rather than be a character that forms part of the story.

I defended Heartseed earlier but now I have to agree with you. I liked his introduction to the story, even as a benevolent "bad guy" who has nothing better to do than study the characters. I thought it could work if he was incorporated into the story more naturally, but I'm really not liking how they set up a trend of him coming into a room to explain something and leaving not to be seen again until a need for some more exposition comes up. It's never good when the idea feels less like it's there because it's interesting and more because it makes the story easier to tell. I still don't think that he's that much of a problem or that he's "ruining the show" (he was never set up to be all that important anyway), but he's an element that could've been handled much better.

I'm hoping that the characters' problems will come to surface in a more natural way than in the first arc. In other words, less Taichi-to-the-rescue. I like the lighthearted feel the series has due to its switching between drama and comedy, however, the more subtle way it was handled in the first season worked much better. Also, I don't think Inaba hitting Taichi was that big of a deal. Slapstick violence tends to get very emphasized in animation and what he said was pretty insensitive. I don't like how it reminds me of crappy harems where the males only serve as buttmonkeys so (like with the fanservice) I hope they won't go overboard with it.

Also, I'll never miss an opportunity to complain about the treatment of teenage male characters in anime. For me it shows a very common problem in anime today and that's audience pandering at its worst. Treating a part of your main cast as unimportant and simplistic just because they can't attract the audience with their boobs...that's bloody offensive. The story is already suffering from main-character-centricity. I wonder how creative they could've gotten if they didn't require everything to be taken from Taichi's POV and instead included the whole cast.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

I'm not forcing anything. I believe Heartseed alone is almost single handledly ruining this series for me. It is from Heartseed himself that everything else is being affected.

He's part of the premise. Deal with it. What you're doing is akin to complaining that Harry Potter has wizards and thus its unrealistic and takes away all the tension of child abuse by foster parents and what not.

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

You must be a masochist then . A glare or a punch in the arm I'll accept, a full out gut punch... nope only in the anime medium does that kind beating the male characters exists let alone a kick in the balls. It just isn't funny anymore.

It's pretty common to get punched in the guts for something that raunchy lol. Especially if you're really close. And they obviously are.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

He's part of the premise. Deal with it. What you're doing is akin to complaining that Harry Potter has wizards and thus its unrealistic and takes away all the tension of child abuse by foster parents and what not.

Rather than "Deal with it" comments, avoiding specific issues I've been addressing and making farfteched strawman arguments about unrealism, namely how Heartseed has been used rather than the mere fact that he's a supernatural entity, why don't you explain why you think Heartseed is a good addition to Kokoro Connect other than "because he's part of the plot".

As for bringing in the comparison of Harry Potter which is a British fantasy series where the premise in that is all about wizards, magic ...

It's pretty common to get punched in the guts for something that raunchy lol. Especially if you're really close. And they obviously are.

So it's common to get punched by a female for being a tad inconsiderate? All the guy did was try to speak about the incident

Originally Posted by Blonto

I don't like how it reminds me of crappy harems where the males only serve as buttmonkeys so (like with the fanservice) I hope they won't go overboard with it.

Also, I'll never miss an opportunity to complain about the treatment of teenage male characters in anime. For me it shows a very common problem in anime today and that's audience pandering at its worst. Treating a part of your main cast as unimportant and simplistic just because they can't attract the audience with their boobs...that's bloody offensive.

Yep. Teenage male treatment in anime is pretty atrocious at the moment let alone some people thinking it's perfectly acceptable within the medium. It's not -that- infuriating atm, but it hell is annoying.

[Clarste]

Heartseed is the premise of the show. He's an uncontrollable force of nature (basically God) who uses magic powers to tear down the social walls between people and force them to confront their true feelings. That's... the entire show. Take that out and there's nothing left.

Frankly, given that Heartseed is essentially omnipotent and omniscient, I find the fact that he bothers to come down and explain himself at all rather than just sitting back and doing all this stuff without telling them why to be rather endearing.

[Seiryuu]

Originally Posted by sikvod00

^ That's basically the whole philosophical debate of whether or not altruism exists.

Deep question. I'd say everyone's selfish, does what they want to do; the really important part is why. Some do it because they like being the hero, or because they don't like being the bad guy. Compared to that, the way he hates to see suffering even more than he hates suffering himself is far more admirable. What would be better than hating to see suffering is loving to see people happy, but still he's a pretty good guy. I'd say altruism really exists, but it's difficult and Taichi comes closer than a lot of people I've seen.

Concerning this ep, I'm really worried about both Iori and Himeko. Inaba's biggest weakness seems to be that she can't accept others, or herself, enough to put herself forward, instead bottling everything up until it explodes. In a way, this is a good thing for her because the way she's going, eventually her feelings would overwhelm her anyway; this forces her to release them and show herself, so if she's able to accept the good and bad within her a bit from this she'll be far better for it.

Anyway, all things considered, it may be difficult for everyone to get through this one pure. As high schoolers, even Yui must have some strong desires at times, and if they're not careful any one of them may follow Inaba's example to its ultimate conclusion.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

Yep. Teenage male treatment in anime is pretty atrocious at the moment let alone some people thinking it's perfectly acceptable within the medium. It's not -that- infuriating atm, but it hell is annoying.

I’d say “acceptable” in the context that’s it’s the comedic nature of many anime series most of the times. Just like the many times they show some violence in Tom & Jerry. Most of the said violence scenes are played for humor/laughs. I mean, imagine if all audience think too deeply of a scene where Porky Pig pointing a rifle at Bugs Bunny’s head at point blank and threaten to blow his head off .

[AmeNoJaku]

Heartseed, that troll turned the boring high school life of these kids into a show interesting to read/watch

Also horny and then embarrassed "little princess" was presented magnificently! The other two girls were somewhat ditched this episode (particularly Yui), but there are still 6 more episodes to work them out... unfortunately this won't happen with the male duo, not as two-dimensional as most anime male characters, but there their personalities are simplistic and undeveloped.

Another thing the character designs are too blant, but fortunately the director and VAs pulled out some amazing work, especially when taking into account the complexity of the situations.

[Qilin]

Well, it looks like Heartseed still lacks any understanding of subtlety when it comes to writing a plot.

At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that he serves no purpose beyond acting as the author's avatar. That said, I have to wonder how much of Heartseed's speech in the episode reflected the sentiments of the show's actual writer. But in all honestly, it really did make sense. Once the body-switching schtick stopped being interesting, it would have made perfect sense to change it into something that could make the story more interesting.

From a general writing perspective, I'd have to say that this show is pretty bad. However, this show manages to make up for it through the sheer strength of its cast, so it still comes off as rather charming. The characterization of the female cast in this recent episode was particularly impressive. As such, I'm fine with overlooking some of the show's flaws as long as it doesn't strain my suspension of disbelief as much as it did last episode.

As for the episode itself, I absolutely loved it. All the Freudian themes scattered everywhere glued me to the screen for the entire episode. The premise is simple: "What would happen if the 'ego' (and possibly the 'superego') was to somehow become unable to suppress the urges of the 'id'?"

This is a prime opportunity to explore the nature of identity and its constituents. So far, this shows seems to be drawing a distinction between two different "selves" that can be found within each person. One that represents the "self" that individuals create around the standards stipulated by society, Iori in particular takes this to the extreme. The other "self" represents the individual's desires and needs that society deem inappropriate. In Freudian terms, these two "selves" are called the ego/superego and the id respectively.

For now, it's looking like Himeko is under a lot of stress now since she was especially dependent on her surface self to keep her "true" inner self in check. Now, I'm just looking forward to seeing what the show does with the ideas it brings up.

[Vladrave]

I had some serious boner at the intro but whatever.It's really interesting of how the plot is going.This is getting much more interesting than the switching bodies in my opinion.

[AmeNoJaku]

In-universe, Heartseed is not human, and therefore applying human mental processes, like motivation is somewhat inappropriate. In any case, his action (however crude) help a bunch of stupid pretentious kids to grow up by understanding themselves as well as their loved ones.

Meta-thinking though of course Heartseed's actions are the starting point for the girls' character development, but IS THE WHOLE PREMISE OF THE SHOW... simple and effective.

Originally Posted by Vladrave

I had some serious boner at the intro

You and Inaba too

[ThereminVox]

Something else that occurred to me watching this week: Yui is REALLY strong. Like, even stronger than I realized before. Smashed hand aside, she split that table clean in two. The same table had just moments before easily supported the weight of an amorous high-schooler.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Yeah, I completely agree with you on Inaba. I honestly feel sorry for her. She either doesn't have it in her to compete against her good friend Iori for Taichi, or she's convinced that Taichi would reject her if forced to choose between her and Iori.

I think you pretty much sum it up. While I don't doubt that Inaba and Taichi would make a good pair, Taichi's pretty much already chosen for now. So if it's the latter, she's sort of right. She probably doesn't feel the need to put him in a situation where he has to choose, especially if he's the type to pile enough guilt on himself to spoil his own happiness.

Even so, I can't help but feel that her primary motivation is related to her apparent belief that Iori is more emotionally fragile than her, and needs to be shielded from anything that might lead her to think that she has competition.

It could also just be a self esteem thing, putting others before herself. Like Taichi, she's not above degrading herself in front of her friends for their sake. The "I was looking at dirty pictures" dodge reminded me of his "I've masturbated to you" confession in that both were done with the goal of bringing some measure of comfort to a friend at the cost of potentially serious damage to their own reputations.

It's exactly this lingering reputation stuff that really drives me nuts about Heartseed. Is there really no one at home or school who questions the likelihood of Iori "accidentally" taking a tumble off a bridge? What kind of delinquent rumors were Yui and Aoki risking when they tangled with the law? What if Inaba hadn't been there when Fujushima started toying with Iori? Would Taichi have punched his class rep? His much smaller, female, glasses-wearing class rep? Can you ever recover from something like that?

[evil|plushie]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

Yep. Teenage male treatment in anime is pretty atrocious at the moment let alone some people thinking it's perfectly acceptable within the medium. It's not -that- infuriating atm, but it hell is annoying.

You should watch Toradora or ZnT, then you'd really rage

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

And this episode exponentially magnifies the problem that carried over from last episode. Heartseed continues to be a poorly written character in that his purpose is to be a plot device to drive the story, rather than be a character that forms part of the story. It's extremely silly and far-fetched that the purpose of making the cast suffer is for his own "personal enjoyment". Sure, I've seen antagonists that derive pleasure from the suffering of others, but it was more in the grand scheme of things such as revenge at the world for making that antagonist suffer in the first place, or as a side element to world domination.

To be fair, there are some prominent antagonists in fiction that are like Heartseed.

Star Trek has Q, as well as a host of lesser one-shot antagonists that liked to toy with and test humanity.

Superman has Mr. Mxyzptlk.

Heartseed isn't hugely different from Q and Mr. Mxyztptlk. The main differences are:

1. Heartseed's less charismatic about it, so maybe that makes him less entertaining for some people. Q is a joy to watch for his scenery-chewing alone.

2. Heartseed's messing around with everyday teenagers, rather than the likes of Jean-Luc Picard or Earth's mightiest hero. This can make him seem somewhat more cruel, as the people he's toying with aren't as well-prepared for handling this sort of thing.

3. Heartseed never goes away for long.


So ultimately the basic character/plot concept is much the same, although Heartseed does take it to new heights by never going away for long. And I suppose that might be why some viewers dislike his presence in the show - It gets in the way of more naturalistic character development.

Still, that would leave Kokoro Connect as no different than dozens of other slice of high school life shows, wouldn't it? If Heartseed needs to be there in order to differentiate Kokoro Connect from dozens of other slice of high school life shows then Heartseed probably should be there.

I suppose you could have left the cause behind these body-switchings, and now these Id Mode moments, a complete mystery. But I honestly think that would infuriate more viewers than Heartseed himself does. I can just imagine all the viewers going "When are they going to explain what causes all this bizarre stuff?!" Honestly, I'd probably be singing much the same tune myself at this point, if not for Heartseed.


All of that being said, I do get your issues with Kokoro Connect. But I also think that those issues are kind of a hurdle you simply have to clear in order to enjoy Kokoro Connect. Once you get used to the "anime-ness" of Kokoro Connect (the audience-winking ecchi mixed with serious drama, the conventional anime comedy mixed with heartwarming character moments, how the two genders are treated way differently and in conventional anime style), I think you find a nice gem of a show.

It's not flawless, of course, but it is a genuinely ambitious show that executes it well-enough to give us very compelling and interesting characters. At least right now I think that Kokoro Connect's strengths greatly outweigh its weaknesses.

[Arya]

ahh, my ship already sank
Anyways, is Heartseed's system following an escalating pattern or is more targeted at a specific person? Because if it were the former what will gonna happen next arc?

Anyways letting aside the "side characters" Aoki and Yui, Iori seems to be the most difficult to read. I mean, Aoki role reminds me of Nobuse from TT, except for the dumb and annoying stubbornness of the latter. If I have to guess he masks himself with dumbness that could imply that his problem is to not be taken into consideration. but it's hard to say given he is the less developed and on-screen character of the show.
Yui uses, well I don't know, kindness, naivety as a mask, but in her inner self she needs to vent out her anger.
Iori is the hardest to read, because it seems that she fakes cheerfulness and even silliness to hide herself, but she is the most thoughtful, rational and apparently cold (?) of the group, what confused me was her last line about not screwing up things this time, which things? And Why that unhappy creepy-like face? Or are they hinting at some more serious disease?
Taichi is another matter, because he suffers of less build-up given his male character status, but after the PV I guess that what could crush him little by little could be seeing his friends not being worth his efforts. Betraying him, or better, disappointing him in some way or another. The next episode already showed us something about Inaba. Like every white-knight'd actions he made were meant to be rewarded with a sort of loyalty or subtle gratitude (i.e. praising him) in his mind or something along this line. Anyways so far I had no problems with Taichi white knight persona, if he wasn't lacking in sensibility. I mean, if you are a white knight you can't be dense like a common harem MC. (don't you see how Himeko is suffering???) ehm, that's the aspect of him that in a bit jarring.
I guess there's nothing more to add, because about Inaba, well she is the most developed character of the five and the most interesting and cute and... well since I'm totally devoted to her I restrain myself because I would be surely biased, and plus right know I'm trying to come to terms with her "ero queen" side that I wasn't expecting Joking aside, I guess that Inaba is not fighting over Taichi because she feels not being worthy for him (and even for her friends) because she doesn't trust him so how could he love someone like that? But HS screwed up his plans. And she is like a perfect self-defense machine, she acts and reacts sharply to close every open a situation would create. She is like a nut, the only way (or fastest way) to reach her is crack her, so the direction HS is pushing things seems to be the right one. Even for Iori, who is instead more condescending. And this new "threat" seems to be more favorable to her and in fact more overwhelming for Himeko.

Talking about HS, basically I came up to terms with heartseed-plot-device figure, I see him like a game menu that I open when I need to check something out. This time he popped out simply to explain us the new rules, that were quite clear to be honest, but as I said, every time he pops up I'm kinda able now to remove him from the scene, sort of. He still chills my enjoyment down when I see him, because I find him disconnected from the show. What I don't like is that his role could have been replaced by a most complex, and surely hard to write, natural chain of events instead of embody it into a character. Not a real complain here, but so far I haven't seen nothing strong enough to justify the supernatural element (if not for the convenience of the writers and lack of time). Again don't get me wrong I'm quite satisfied with the show, but HS figure is like watching behind the scenes while watching the episode and not later.

I'm starting to worry about the number of episodes, iirc this show is supposed to have 17 episodes, but be aired only the conventional one cour number, right? Did they will finish at least the main plot (supposed triangle love)?

[Blonto]

Originally Posted by Sphire

To be honest, I don't think issues I have with the story would be gone if Heartseed was gone. Taichi would still be the White Knight. Aoki would still be irrelevant. At least Heartseed brings some comedy with his stone face and cruel ways. I still think he's doing it to better everyone, in a cruel to be kind way. A bit over-the-top, but meh. It would be crazy though if Yui blows up and attempts to rape Aoki

This. The girls were also in danger of following anime cliches (tell your whole backstory and issues to the MC currently taking your route) but at least they're doing ok so far. Iori and Inaba got their own share of development and I'm happy with it so far.
Yui the rapist? I can't even imagine it since she looks so uninterested in boys, but then again she did blush quite a bit when Aoki started stripping in the manga.

Originally Posted by Sphire

Although why Taichi is called 'selfless freak' is beyond me. He's not doing anything especially awesome. More like being a normal friend. The others seem to be more dumb-clueless as how to help others. Nothing was stopping Aoki from helping Yui, or Inaba to help Iori in the first arc. They were just clueless it seems.

I like it when people comment saying stuff I was thinking. Taichi is really just a good friend. He's not doing anything that special and everyone else could've done the same if the story wasn't so bent on making Taichi do everything. He mostly just talked with the girls and while he did kick himself in the balls, he didn't expect himself to have to experience it. I really don't get what's so selfless about him. Maybe the author just has really lousy friends?

[Sumeragi]

Wait, wasn't it just Inaban who called Taichi a selfless freak?