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

[Polarpew]

we got some bro-love between Hel'el and his demon self Satan. nice nice no Lucifer? we should get a final fusion between Hibiki and Yamato
Overall 6/10
I mean yea my inner fanboy was satisfied, the art was great but the story sucked

[tripleshift]

Hibiki didn't summon the other 2 benevolent animals and Suzaku was pretty much fodder for most of the time it's out. It's basically the "Hibiki and Byakko" show. Ugh.

[Netto Azure]

Well I preferred this Daichi end than the "pure" rewrite of the original Daichi end.

Sadly much of the story was squeezed and was meh. 5/10.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Polarpew

we got some bro-love between Hel'el and his demon self Satan. nice nice no Lucifer? we should get a final fusion between Hibiki and Yamato
Overall 6/10
I mean yea my inner fanboy was satisfied, the art was great but the story sucked

I'm not sure why, but in Megami Tensei, Lucifer and Satan are in fact separate entities.

Satan is an agent of YHWH, whereas Lucifer is, well, Lucifer.


As for my final thoughts. I won't praise it as being the best thing ever, but I was adequately amused by it.

[viperdk1]

Hmmm...kinda felt underwhelmed by this. This was less a circular motion for Hibiki and co - more like a reset, rendering virtually everything that led up to that time as pointless. Sure, that's probably what the characters wanted but all the character development we had seen for these survivors (...yeah, what character development - there was barely any to begin with), bar Hibiki and Yamato, didn't even happen.

The premise of a final episode where we are returned back to similar content of the first episode wasn't possible without a full reset in this instance - and naturally, it works better when such a reset isn't needed (see Psycho-Pass for that crash course).

The fact is that, barring the memories of the two 'main' characters, the last thirteen episodes never happened

5/10. Had unfulfilled potential (possibly down to being only 13 episdoes), but could have been worse.

[eiyuu99]

At the very least, Yamato is left scarred.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by viperdk1

Hmmm...kinda felt underwhelmed by this. This was less a circular motion for Hibiki and co - more like a reset, rendering virtually everything that led up to that time as pointless. Sure, that's probably what the characters wanted but all the character development we had seen for these survivors (...yeah, what character development - there was barely any to begin with), bar Hibiki and Yamato, didn't even happen.

I don't agree that the reset made the character development worthless. Hibiki won through everyone else lending him their strength. While they might not remember this Hibiki obviously does and that is not lost on him.

Also I believe these characters will still have a connection despite not realizing exactly what it is. Although the series only showed it with Daichi/Io/Hibiki forming a friendship again, there is nothing to say that Hibiki and co might also not meet the others in the future as well.

Also I think Hibiki did get through to Yamato. Sure we can joke he rejected him, but to me it is pretty obvious that while Yamato said "they were not friends" his smirk makes you think otherwise. It's most likely Yamato also remembers what happened in the end and was clearly affected by Hibiki's friendship.

[p-kun]

Hibiki's line of argument irks me. Hibiki's dialogue about life = making choices sound so aloof. Choices belong to the privileged. Choices for poor people in my country would be limited to whether they eat grass today or eat nothing. They have few choices that can better their lives. And what does Hibiki do to follow up his words? Probably not much because from the start he doesn't care about the life and death of people whose names he doesn't know (like the poor nameless JP people slaughtered by Lugh).

I will be fine with Hibiki if he uses other arguments, but I suppose I cannot expect good writing from a crap anime.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by p-kun

Hibiki's line of argument irks me. Hibiki's dialogue about life = making choices sound so aloof. Choices belong to the privileged. Choices for poor people in my country would be limited to whether they eat grass today or eat nothing. They have few choices that can better their lives. And what does Hibiki do to follow up his words? Probably not much because from the start he doesn't care about the life and death of people whose names he doesn't know (like the poor nameless JP people slaughtered by Lugh).

I will be fine with Hibiki if he uses other arguments, but I suppose I cannot expect good writing from a crap anime.

Considering Yamato wanted to control everything to make a better world nothing Hibiki says about making choices contradicts anything he did.

You say poor people have less choices and that might be true. But Hibiki was not trying to create a perfect world. He thought humans should be allowed to fail and succeed on their own without one person controlling it all.

Also Hibiki didn't want anyone to die and saying he doesn't care about those deaths is ridiculous. The fact that Hibiki worries about those closest to him the most does not negate that. That is a very human thing to do.

[p-kun]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

He thought humans should be allowed to fail and succeed on their own without one person controlling it all.

In Hibiki's world, humans will not fail or succeed on their own (this will be Yamato's world). After all, families, money, and connections are valued more than someone's merits in Hibiki's world.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I disagree with your interpretation of Hibiki's world.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by p-kun

After all, families, money, and connections are valued more than someone's merits in Hibiki's world.

And where exactly did Hibiki say anything like this?

In Yamato's world only the strong survive. In Hibiki's world people are allowed to be weak and rely on each other.

[Blizzard]

Sorry. Kinda butting in here but Yamato's world is more elaborated on in-game and yeah it's less about only strong surviving and more about talented and hard-working being rewarded and positioned as they deserve. They were just too busy screaming at him for doing what's necessary and at times about things that were not even his fault to sit down and listen to the long version with small prints.

Actually they just shaved off the whole "what to do with the world to make it right" aspect and Yamato really was the only one who thought about it. Hibiki's reasons for rewinding too were more NG+ "Let's try again.." instead of "We've grown as people now." and kinda off from the game version at least for the triumphant ending he got but that whole philosophical aspect was a pretty darn big part of the plot with like four factions I'm just- *bitch bitch* gonna excuse myself to complain to my pillow.

[Breimoon]

as a non-gamer i can only say this. I wanted yamato to win. I don't understand what is so scary about a world where people who are good at governing, govern the world. It is way better then stupid people with power who can only ruin things. Could have written a lot of things of the situation in my country but i will just say two of the more famos names of uselness Renzo Bossi and Maria Stella Gelmini.

[frodonk]

Originally Posted by Breimoon

as a non-gamer i can only say this. I wanted yamato to win. I don't understand what is so scary about a world where people who are good at governing, govern the world. It is way better then stupid people with power who can only ruin things. Could have written a lot of things of the situation in my country but i will just say two of the more famos names of uselness Renzo Bossi and Maria Stella Gelmini.

hmm, what I got from that was that humanity will eventually fix itself, and yamato's way of using that power to rewrite everything into his version of a perfect world is forcing that evolution, hence, humanity won't be able to grow and go into "the right direction" and everyone will still be unhappy because their situation was forced by just 1 person into the rest of humanity. or something like that.

what hibiki wanted was a way to fix things with everyone's help, which meant that the current bad world will have to continue on until they develop into a not-so-bad world. as that detective said, if somebody does the right thing then everyone will follow. looks like hibiki will the one who will lead the others into doing the right thing or whatever.

anyway, the battles were fun to watch, and those hunks of rocks were decent enough enemies for various demons that the mcs kept as virtual pets.

that demon fusion mechanic was very nice though they didn't elaborate on it, i figured they just threw that in so that game players won't whine that the higher tiered demons and how to get them weren't shown. that's just what I think, i haven't (and probably won't) check out the game.

I expected more out of the hibiki and polaris meeting but it just showed a light coming out of the sky. that disappointed me somewhat, in the end, it was a decent show, doesn't stand out much except for fuumi's boobs

[Angelic Cross]

Originally Posted by Blizzard

Sorry. Kinda butting in here but Yamato's world is more elaborated on in-game and yeah it's less about only strong surviving and more about talented and hard-working being rewarded and positioned as they deserve. They were just too busy screaming at him for doing what's necessary and at times about things that were not even his fault to sit down and listen to the long version with small prints.

Actually they just shaved off the whole "what to do with the world to make it right" aspect and Yamato really was the only one who thought about it. Hibiki's reasons for rewinding too were more NG+ "Let's try again.." instead of "We've grown as people now." and kinda off from the game version at least for the triumphant ending he got but that whole philosophical aspect was a pretty darn big part of the plot with like four factions I'm just- *bitch bitch* gonna excuse myself to complain to my pillow.

Pretty much. The anime's ending isn't very convincing in its argument that the underlying problems that made Polaris decide to wipe out the universe would be fixed when only two people in the universe were left to actually make the "We've grown as people" realization (though, when was it again that the reason Polaris wanted to wipe the universe out was mentioned?).

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Blizzard

Sorry. Kinda butting in here but Yamato's world is more elaborated on in-game and yeah it's less about only strong surviving and more about talented and hard-working being rewarded and positioned as they deserve. They were just too busy screaming at him for doing what's necessary and at times about things that were not even his fault to sit down and listen to the long version with small prints.

Perhaps but that isn't how it comes off in the anime. The anime does not equal the game. And from the little discussions I've seen of the game character's did change. Hence saying this was his philosophy in the game does not mean he had the same philosophy in the anime. Personally I don't care what the game says because that is not the story I was following.

To me it seems that in the anime Yamato is meant to be the final "villain". Of course he isn't really evil but Hibiki had to get through to him which I believe he did.

[Angelic Cross]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Perhaps but that isn't how it comes off in the anime. The anime does not equal the game.

I.E. DeSu2 the Animation version's a shittier, Saturday-morning cartoon supervillain motivation :P

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Angelic Cross

I.E. the Animation's version a shittier, Saturday-morning cartoon supervillain motivation :P

I didn't see Yamato as a super villain at all. Good intentions, just misguided but a good person underneath. So no not one dimensional at all.

I won't say this anime was the best thing ever but as a non-gamer I enjoyed it. I don't really care if the game was "better" especially since I have no interest in playing video games. So I will just be content with the anime version.

[Angelic Cross]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I didn't see Yamato as a super villain at all. Good intentions, just misguided but a good person underneath. So no not one dimensional at all.

Read that again. I said the MOTIVATION was Saturday-morning supervillain-esque, if you think the anime is just reducing to "ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE". Not Yamato. :P

After all, you're the one who said that was what the anime presented his motivation as, instead of what Blizzard said it is.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Angelic Cross

Read that again. I said the MOTIVATION was Saturday-morning supervillain-esque, if you think the anime is just reducing to "ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE". Not Yamato. :P

After all, you're the one who said that was what the anime presented his motivation as, instead of what Blizzard said it is.

No I think his ultimate motivation was to create a "good world" but he just decided what that was based on having the capabilities to govern, so no I fail to see how that is Saturday morning cartoonish.

I can believe Yamato was wrong and not see him as evil.