TL;DR: I’m not really feeling this season of DanMachi. What should I do instead? Comment on this post and let me know! Read past the break if you care to know more.
So this season of DanMachi is shaping up to be all the wrong things about the series. I guess not ALL (there isn’t excessive service), but the plotline is definitely taking more of a side-story/movie type approach. There’s sad flashbacks, heavy CGI, doom, gloom, sadness, blood, and…skin? All together – I can already tell this isn’t going to be my favorite season by any means.
So that brings us to what to do now. Fall 2022 had a ton of quality, Winter 2023 has a ton…of shows. Literal minutes of anime to watch per week is significant (like hours kind of significant). I’m happy to take the season off and just watch the massive amount of decent (good, not great) shows available. Or I can write about something – you tell me.
Here are the options that I’m seeing:
-
If people really want me to do DanMachi, I’ll do DanMachi. I think it’s more of a pet project though, so I can imagine folks won’t be too sad.
-
Since there are so many seasonals, I can do kind of a bi-weekly summary of the 30 odd shows I’m watching (the ones that stand out).
-
I did In/Spectre S1, and season 2 is looking decent (episode 1 wasn’t great, but 2 was good – so many Yuki Ona this season)
-
MHA is looking pretty good after that banger of a season. This part might be a bit more chill, so more interesting to write about then just “OMG FIGHTS”
-
Bungou Stray Dogs is lowkey nice so far, so I’d be interested in that
-
Whatever else you guys want me to write about (so help me if you make me watch that dog show – I’ll just post Shiba pictures every week in protest)
-
Do nothing and be a lazy bum
Time to let the masses decide! Comment and let me know what you think!
The next few episodes of MHA will explore the backstory of hawks and the tragedy of the todoroki family so I say it is well worth a look.
Why exactly don’t you like Dannachi having tension and drama? Things had to get serious at some point so what’s the problem?
I didn’t say that well. I have no problem at all with DanMachi getting serious. The Xenos arc is the best storyline by far – I get annoyed when the slapstick aspects are pushed too far and interfere with overall plot. The tension and battle between allies Ais and Bell is fantastic and quite plausible.
My issues are twofold here: excessive flashbacks that don’t serve a purpose and violation of established rules.
The flashbacks from Ryu, which are hinted to be extensive this season, are tricky. Flashbacks tend to reduce the overall dramatic tension, in that the viewers already know the end of the story. Shows like Bungou Stray Dogs this season do a good job with flashbacks to introduce relevant characters and information to the present time. Unless one of Ryu’s “dead” familia memebers comes back to life in the lower floors to help out, hers really aren’t that relevant. If there is some kind of Deus Ex Machina like that, it leads me to the second point.
DanMachi is starting to violate some of its own basic rules. In the latest episode, for example, Ryu managed to be quite mobile on a very broken leg. Mikoto fired off an intense spell underwater, being eaten, that landed on top of her own head. Neither should reasonably survive there. I think the plot armor thickness is excessive, to the point where it’s removing the dramatic tension. Even if the plot armor is later taken away, and a main character dies, it doesn’t strike the right chord, since why are they dying now when they survived so many things improbably?
So what would I have done differently? First of all, I’d include the Xenos somehow (the mermaid from last season really doesn’t count). Secondly, I’m happy to have Hestia Familia fight a floor boss, and I’m happy for Bell to be separated, but we can tone down the scale a bit. I don’t even mind Evilus and Ryu getting back involved, but at least make the odds a bit less unrealistic. Just fighting Juggernaut was a large enough problem, dropping down floors isn’t necessary. I wouldn’t have minded Bell getting seperated then having to fight his way out with another Familia or something like that.
I’m just not in love with how things are going this season. To me, there are only two outcomes for Ryu: survives or dies. Surviving is too much plot armor, and dying at this point feels contrived – she should have died several times already. The writing just doesn’t feel as crisp as the Xenos arc. I’ll still be watching all of it though, and I hope I’m proven wrong!
Oh OK.. I agree. It is very annoying when characters survives several attacks that should have killed them. It takes away the tension. It is why in dislike the fake out deatgs jn OP, because no one dies during big dramatic moments (except in flashbacks). I understand.
I understand that. I started Throwback Thursday purely to have an excuse to watch older-ish shows.
Here’s a thought – you could do some retrospective movie reviews. There are quite a few movies associated with series that are already on this blog (e.g. the Shirobako movie).
I’d go with 2. I prefer these small info dumps about a bunch of ongoing stuff, since I have most likely dropped them first episode, and could be nice to see if anything changed.
2