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

[Kakkou]

The OP is bland, both the song and sequence. ED's kinda nice though. So far so good. I haven't played the game and don't intend to until the anime's over. A bit sad to hear that Daichi's truck driving was made to look pointless in the anime though. Oh well

Kamiyan as Hibiki still doesn't feel right to me, but it's not as bad as my initial worry. Pikorin is perfect as Daichi. Speaking of Daichi, I think he might be my favourite lol. What's with me and liking the protag's best friend in both Devil Survivor games?

[HandofFate]

Played the game already, so a majority of the episode didn't grab me much.

But the battle was pretty cool.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

What's the point in crashng that truck again? I was hoping for more actions in fighting that anti-piracy septetrionne but it's still good so I won't complain much.

The only thing that made me complain is the choice of words in translating 'Shining One' as 'Sparkling One'.

Dubhe is supposed to be invincible until Daichi drives the truck off the upper road behind them into Dubhe's puffball explosion thing.

They changed that into Daichi ramming into it at ground level head-on, so yeah it does look like a pointless suicide attack.

[p-kun]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

On a lighter note, I laughed at Hibiki having 64000-something Macca on his phone I guess he's on New Game+.

This will actually be an awesome plot twist.

[Netto Azure]

I played the DS game a while back. I think the first Devil Survivor had a better story and plot. But Devil Survivor 2 has better character development and depth.

As for the anime itself, looking good. I like seeing demons being summoned. I wonder if they'll bother with the Fusion mechanics.

Originally Posted by p-kun

This will actually be an awesome plot twist.

I wonder if they'll animate all the endings. LOL

[jeroz]

Nah they won't have the time. Though it would be easy to just put in some symbolic scenes within a few seconds

[Om Nerabdator]

oh seems like they are following the manga, i cant really remember the first day in the game so i cant say anything about that.

Pretty good first episode the MC has a personality from the first ep which is a huge bonus compared to p4

[LKK]

I would like to remind everyone who knows the game that future events from the game are not allowed to discussed. Spoilers are bad!

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I give him a pass for Natsume, but Hiroshi really does sound preposterous doing this character. The industry needs to get past this idea that guys can play 16 year-olds forever.

Slight nitpick here! Hibiki isn't 16, he's 18. (As are Daichi and Io.)

[eiyuu99]

If Hibiki is on new game+, does it mean he went for

Spoiler:

restoration and
History repeated itself
Don't you think?

[DoomRavager]

Maybe I'm slow to say this but I'm guessing that since the manga was called "Devil Survivor 2 The Animation" as opposed to plain "Devil Survivor 2", that they released it ahead of the anime to promote said anime and preview its plot, so it's not really a case of anime following the manga.

Which might dash some anticipation for what's to come in upcoming episodes but I guess presentation is everything.

[Netto Azure]

IDK now that I think about it, the only reason Hibiki could have 60k Macca and a Byakko so early on is cuz this is a New Game +.

I do agree it would be funny as a plot twist. xD

[justsomeguy]

Not bad. The episode did a good job of depicting the first day, except with no grinding battles or wandering around. Assuming the pacing doesn't get screwed, this might turn out better than P4A.

[Dengar]

Finally watched the episode!

Manga
I have only read the first two or three chapters or so, but it seems like it's going to be pretty much identical. So... I guess there's no real need for me to read the rest of the manga.

Characterization
Good to see that so many people enjoy the characters. Although not enough love for dear, sweet, Io Nitta <3.

Differences from game
Inevitable, I can't really 'refute' any claims of "it's different now it sucks", but I can at least try to explain away the differences. Whether you like it is up to you, but it's my belief that there wasn't a better way.

-First of all, this never would have worked as an anime if they -didn't- defeat Dubhe in the first episode. Remember that this series' audience is twofold: It's both for fans of the game, but also aimed at people unfamiliar with the game and maybe make them interested. Either way, the Dubhe fight -has- to be in this episode, so they are going to skip over some things. This is likely the reason that Joe's introduction was postponed. They also skipped over the Bai Suzhen fight, although the Dubhe fight took its place, so to speak. Let me get to that in a bit.

-Summoning is totally different, yes. I am fully aware that in the game, the humans also join in the fight. Which works just fine in the game, but in anime form it becomes a bit... Weird. Especially since in the game, battles are fought in stills and nothing is animated. Having the humans fight also pulls the spotlight away from the demons (the same reason why the humans' combat roles in Persona 4 Animation were downplayed). Of course, since they chose an approach that emphasizes the combat roles of demons, of course it immediately becomes impossible to have the humans combat their summoned demons to form a contract. Instead, they chose an approach where demons appear to be summoned based on either their spiritual power or their will to live, or perhaps those two are one and the same in the context of this story.

-They downplayed Daichi's role in the Dubhe fight / they overemphasized the main character as being 'special'. Yeah the former is definitely a thing that happened, but the latter... I'll get to that in a bit. As for why they chose to downplay Daichi's role has to do, in part (about 40% I'd say), with the fact that the Dubhe fight also doubles as a replacement for the Bai Suzhen fight. If you recall, in the game, there was a Death Clip of Daichi being killed by Bai Suzhen, and that battle was meant to illustrate that demons can be used to change whatever happens in the Death Clip. In this case, there was a Death Clip showing that Daichi died in the crash, but Io's Pixie managed to prevent that from happening. The other 60% of the reason is probably to give Hibiki more room to shine. While I guess this can be subjective, from a writer's point of view, you can't have your main character be outdone by his side kick when he's supposed to be something special. And yes, he IS supposed to be something special. Anyone who has played the game -knows- Hibiki is something special. The writers HAVE to make this apparent in the first episode.



On a side note, those JP's guys mentioned article 404 of some random law, and the workers had no idea what they were talking about. I wonder why?

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

Devil Survivor 1 is completely separate from Devil Survivor 2. There are similar game mechanics and plot elements, but there is no direct connection that would spoil the other. You don't have to worry about that.

Oh, that's good. Thanks.

[shmaster]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Finally watched the episode!
Differences from game
Inevitable, I can't really 'refute' any claims of "it's different now it sucks", but I can at least try to explain away the differences. Whether you like it is up to you, but it's my belief that there wasn't a better way.

Your points are actually pretty fair, as someone who loves the original game a lot, I find them to be reasonable changes. The problem is, they kinda went too far in their execution of them.

Say... it is fine to omit the human from the fight, but do they have to make Nicaea revive the dead? That website was never that much of a deus ex machina.

As for the Dubhe fight, even they have to shaft Daichi's moment to shine (which he already had little in the first place), it is simply ridiculous to have Byakko to god stomp Dubhe like this, which completely sabotaged the tension of the fight from the original game. This also underplayed Dubhe's uniqueness, when each of the Septentrion has their own unique trick that makes them distinct.
I really can't agree that making the first major fight in the game into a joke like this.

[DragoonKain3]

Oh now I remember why I didn't play Devil Survivor 2... I don't like the chara design of any of the women. Which is weird, considering DS1 I liked all of them. So I'm glad for the animation adaptation.

Thing is, I feel something is lacking in the battle scenes. Like some sort of in-game mechanic that can't really be translated to the screen is missing, I dunno. Story is good though.

[Taynis]

I really liked the first episode! So this is a keep for me. I never played the game, so, nothing to complain about the battles and stuff.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by shmaster

Say... it is fine to omit the human from the fight, but do they have to make Nicaea revive the dead? That website was never that much of a deus ex machina.

Revive the dead? Oh you mean what happened after they got the death clip.

I don't think they actually died. They apparently were never actually crushed by the train. "Something" happened when Nicaea confirmed their will to live, and that's what saved them. I dunno, maybe cause and effect were tampered with a little? Or maybe the demon just came out and saved them and went back into the cell phone? Either way, there are no signs of them actually having died.

Maybe I'm just weird for not questioning things like this. Seriously, the notion never even occurred to me until you pointed in out.

Originally Posted by shmaster

As for the Dubhe fight, even they have to shaft Daichi's moment to shine (which he already had little in the first place), it is simply ridiculous to have Byakko to god stomp Dubhe like this, which completely sabotaged the tension of the fight from the original game. This also underplayed Dubhe's uniqueness, when each of the Septentrion has their own unique trick that makes them distinct.
I really can't agree that making the first major fight in the game into a joke like this.

Dubhe's "gimmick" was the fact that it could repeatedly explode. The so-called "invulnerability" thing was just a gameplay gimmick to illustrate the hopeless power difference, and prevent the player from defeating Dubhe before Daichi got to play the hero.

I mean think about it, if Dubhe really was invulnerable, then it'd have no business being the first Septentrione.

Don't try to consolidate gameplay gimmicks with how the story works. It never works.


Furthermore, Byakko (or Baihu, as he is known in the US version of the game) is level 53. That is FAR beyond what anyone would be at this point in the game. So really it's no surprise that he could take care of Dubhe. And it's not like it was EASY either. He had to specifically target the exploding bit to make it go unstable (like Daichi did in the game).

[ChampDream]

watched first episode, like the OP and ED, so far verything seem ok, I only read the manga, I never play the game.