2012-08-27, 15:15 | Link #241 | |||||
Me at work
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2012-08-27, 18:16 | Link #242 | ||
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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This is a general problem I have with Okada's writing. She tends to have an idea and then goes too far with it. This is the sort of stupidity that creates omelette rice incidents. Quote:
As for Aquarion, I considered it to be a trash concept to begin with. But I'll stop there, that show clearly wasn't for me. I only point it out because it shows the sorts of things Okada likes to write about I feel, and this is going away from what made me like her originally, True Tears (Not that there weren't SOME Okadisms there too, but not as pronounced). And yes I think what she did to Lupin III was insulting. It destroyed the integrity of the storytelling by interjecting some really forced and contrived scenario to get yet another male character into a drag based upon what I see as her own personal fetish. It's a writer overwhelming the storytelling and I find that obnoxious when I felt the other talent on board in this project was quite good. If there is any reason I find it insulting unlike you it's because I perceive this sort of writing to amount to little more than someone trying to troll the audience and I do NOT like troll writers.
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2012-08-28, 13:12 | Link #243 | ||||||
Me, An Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Age: 33
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And Nagai's coaching didn't prevent it from being worse. It was even there to begin with. Okada wasn't sure what to write until she listened to Nagai for advice. And it's not like Nagai would've been better without her. If everyone thought Ano Natsu was written by Mari Okada then everyone would've probably bashed her for bringing in exhibitionism, sex crazed beach girls, drunk cat girl maids and an over the top alien invasion ending. Quote:
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Last edited by Haak; 2012-08-28 at 13:42. |
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2012-08-28, 15:49 | Link #244 | |||||
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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I'm not going to make a list of all the different okadisms throughout for you. I felt it was rather self-evident and I don't got the time to detail every single one for you at this time. Quote:
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------- Anyhow Haak, I'm sure we hold very different opinions on Okada. You seem to have more respect for writing than I do. I used to think she was pretty good, and I still think there is talent there somewhere, but her focus has definitely been off in the past year or two and the inconsistency of her original worlds speaks for itself IMO.
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2012-08-29, 13:37 | Link #245 | |||||||
Me, An Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Age: 33
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But that doesn't make it similar to Ano Hana, and i never once thought that Ano Hana was melodramatic up until the end. I genuinely thought it was perfect. Quote:
Why on earth did you think it would be self evident? Look through the thread and you'll find that whilst there is a consensus that Okada is a deeply flawed writer, there's extremely little consensus on what her good anime and bad anime are. Hence why the discussion mainly consisted of everyone giving their opinion until we all shut up and just started to bash her instead. There's nothing else to discuss. If we really want to examine her writing then we have to examine all the details of her writing. And that means examining every single anime she was significantly involved in. Remember the wall of text we created on Eureka Seven AO? And that was just one anime that hasn't even finished yet. Hell we've already managed to create a wall of text on her already and we aren't even discussing her anime in detail. Quote:
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2012-08-30, 02:16 | Link #246 | |
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I think a decent case can be made that Okada is becoming increasingly hit and miss (even you admit to the weakness of her BRS work, and this is fairly recent), and I think a lot of that might simply be that she's overworking herself. I vaguely recall reading about some conflicts that were caused due to Okada writing both AKB0048 and Aquarion EVOL at the same time. I never watched much of AKB0048, but maybe some of the writing issues that cropped up in Aquarion EVOL was due to Okada being overworked (overtired?) while she wrote it. Writing is not that different from other professions - When a person overworks themselves, the general quality of their work tends to decline with it. I sincerely do think that Okada's work would probably improve if she took on fewer projects, and was more selective about what she chose to work on. I certainly don't think that Okada should just stop writing entirely - Like you wrote, she does come out with something excellent every now and then - But I do think that her current work schedule isn't helping matters. It would probably improve the quality of her work if she was to scale back a bit.
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2012-08-30, 02:59 | Link #247 |
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That's sort of the issue. If you loved enough of her works, you can go "Well, can't win them all". But for someone like Reckoner and myself that appreciated True Tears and AnoHana and range from to to on many of her involved productions, there's going to be issues.
It's less "Omg, Okada stop being nub and write the way I want" and more like "not again." Though it is comical in its own way. I mean, she's under no obligation to write what I want, of course. But at the same time, I may have to look twice given certain experiences when she's attached. I mean let's take Gen Uborochi. It's not just him that will define an anime and there's no guarantee that everything that comes out of him will be gold, but it's still fair to appreciate a good amount of stuff if a new work of his pops up.
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2012-08-30, 13:30 | Link #248 | ||||
Me, An Intellectual
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Location: UK
Age: 33
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2012-08-30, 21:25 | Link #249 | ||
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With all due respect, Haak, you're beginning to sound like somebody who's running an "Okada for President 2012!" election campaign. "Everything good Okada is associated with is all her baby! And everything bad Okada is associated with is totally somebody else's fault!" Seriously, that seems to be the gist of your take on Okada. Don't you think that's rather biased, and doesn't exactly constitute a fair or evenhanded take on Okada? You're willing to give Okada all sorts of credit for AnoHana (in spite of AnoHana having a prominent Director), but with Aquarion EVOL you blame all of its writing issues on its prominent Director? You don't see the double standard here? Honestly, you do seem to be trying to have it both ways with Okada (she gets major credit for AnoHana, but she should get a total slide with Aquarion EVOL and AKB0048). And I just don't think that's an even remotely fair or evenhanded take on it. I'm willing to give Okada some real credit for AnoHana. At the same time, that means she should get some real blame for other anime shows that didn't go so well.
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2012-08-31, 13:48 | Link #250 | |||
Me, An Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Age: 33
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When it comes to Aquarion Evol my main problem with it comes from it's plot and it's tone. The characters themselves were all great, varied and full of personality. I thought they were all great (Yes, even Amata) and I loved how they interacted with one another. So for the first 13 episodes I was actually mostly enjoying the show. The only thing that put me off were the ridiculous "Unions" and other weird crap thanks to the tone and aim of the show. It's after episode 13 that the plot starts moving and that's when i start disliking it more and more. It started off with a bizarre mix of drama and stupidity with the funeral training and then Kagura's unwelcome appearance. The main character's interactions become more tied in with the weird plot as Mikono and Amata go nowhere and Zessica finds out about the legends and sulks a lot. Mix and Andy are funny as always until it's totally ruined when she gets turned into a guy (though not when she was kidnapped because Andy was actually cool when he was pissed), and then after that the show becomes more about resolving the plot lines and it just becomes a complete mess altogether. Now as I've already pointed out, based on the rather detailed interviews available, most of those plot developments (and the entire premise) are thanks to Kawamori so I hand Kawamori the most "blame". I'm sure Okada gets some "blame" there as well but I've also pointed out, her writing was dictated by the tone of the show right from the beginning so I can't really blame her for following that. It would've been obnoxious if she didn't. None of these reasons even remotely apply to Ano Hana so naturally there's no contradiction in my opinions of Okada's writing regarding those two shows. I place most of the credit for Ano Hana on Okada simply because it was her script to begin with and the most I know about Nagai's contribution is guiding Okada to a solid premise and adapting her script masterfully, which is why it's difficult to know how much credit to place on him. Of course, I'm certainly not adverse to believing it wouldn't have been as good if not for Nagai: Quote:
I'm not going to give equal "Blame" and credit for Okada on every show Okada's associated with because too me that would just be ridiculous. I base my impression of Okada's writing based on the specifics of each anime as best as I can. And I think that's the only way to truly have a half credible opinion on her.
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2012-09-01, 13:45 | Link #251 | ||
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I don't see why it would be hard to accept that Okada might be doing too much work for the good of her own writing quality. Of the criticisms one can make of a writer, this strikes me as one of the milder ones: That the writer needs to pace himself/herself better. Quote:
And according to those detailed interviews that you keep referring to, Okada basically admitted that she might have went too far in how she set up Zessica to be a tragic character. It's also worth mentioning that Okada encouraged Kawamori to go with a certain plot twist that had a very mixed reception - Kawamori had doubts about that plot twist until Okada encouraged him to go with it. So I think there's plenty of problems in Aquarion EVOL that can be laid at Okada's feet. Kawamori certainly shares heavily in the blame, but some issues should be shouldered by Okada as well (the love quadrangle was particularly disappointing to me given how excellent True Tear's love triangle was).
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2012-09-01, 15:14 | Link #252 | |||
Me, An Intellectual
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Age: 33
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There's no need to explain BRS. It's just one anime. Sometimes shit just happens.
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Besides even if those things are true, neither suggest those are the result of overworking. They sound to me like clear conscious decisions she made.
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Last edited by Haak; 2012-09-01 at 15:39. |
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2012-09-01, 21:50 | Link #253 | |||
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I do think that there is sufficient reason to think that Okada's writing quality has slipped recently, and that her overworking herself is part of the reason why. People can disagree with that opinion, but it's hardly an unfounded one. And it's not mean-spirited, or unwarranted hating, to simply think and say that a writer would be better off scaling back a bit. Quote:
And that's precisely what many Aquarion EVOL viewers didn't like (even some Amata/Mikono shippers!). Many of us didn't like the heavy Zessica focus given that all of that focus was on how Zessica was an angsting romantic loser (and was going into a spiraling descent). Now, was the issue in choosing Zessica to be a somewhat tragic heroine, or was the issue with how that idea was executed? I think at least some of the issue was in how the idea was executed. Okada handled love drama extremely well before (True Tears), so why not this time? Maybe it's because her focus was divided into too many places all at once (due to numerous concurrent writing roles), and that prevented her from giving the love drama of Aquarion EVOL the careful focus that it probably needed in order to come off well. That sounds like a reasonable notion to me. Quote:
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2012-09-02, 01:33 | Link #254 |
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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I'm going to lock this thread because I think it's now just basically people arguing about whether the justifications people have for not liking certain anime are really justified or not. In the end, people can take whatever they want from this thread, and I think they already have. People who wish to continue specific back-and-forth conversations about this issue can do so via PM or VM as well. If there's a compelling reason to re-open this thread at a later time (perhaps when there's some significant new news or analysis to contribute), feel free to PM me or another member of the staff and it will be considered.
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2012-10-04, 16:06 | Link #255 |
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Join Date: May 2004
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I translated the interview at the 2nd post in Okada interviews thread http://forums.animesuki.com/group.ph...cussionid=1992.
This is a long interview. If you're not interested in how she became a scriptwriter, I recommend you to search "How do you evaluate your own part of Sketchbook" and read from there.
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Last edited by thirdlc; 2012-10-05 at 03:34. Reason: Fixed some typos, a link error and a mistranslation |
2012-10-04, 16:21 | Link #256 |
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After reading that, I seriously think that somebody should do an anime based on Mari Okada's life story to date. I think that would be rather entertaining, really.
I'll give this to Okada - She gives great interviews. Impressively candid, and she doesn't seem to hold anything back.
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2012-10-04, 17:23 | Link #259 | |
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It'll be so delicious seeing the tables turned on Pocari Sweat.
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2012-10-04, 18:37 | Link #260 |
<em style="color:#808080;">Disabled By Request</em>
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I'll post more later since I'm at work (can only do so much with a smartphone), but in summary:
Batshit writer confirmed. I almost lost it 3 times when I was jokingly thinking of outrageous theories about her and the reasons why she wrote in the way she does, and in turns out most of them were right! Wait ... I'm supposed to on strike regarding this writer. *insert half-ass rant here*. |
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