Forum - View topicREVIEW: Devil Survivor 2 The Animation Streaming
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jymmy
 Posts: 1244 |
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What got me with this show was that it seemed arbitrary which character was stronger than another. It seemed to come down to the stats of whatever demons they were randomly doled out. I thought the characters were written more strongly at the start, but that at least gave them some solid foundation for when the story got all "suddenly the world is ending and everyone is dying" and relationships and characterisation got shafted somewhat. The series started relatively strongly but sort of coasted throughout while ramping up the death count and introducing progressively more powerful demons without a real sense of scale. I guess that's because it's a game adaptation, but it's unfortunate that the show seemed to fall into pure spectacle at the expense of story by the end. The ending itself, after all the battles had wrapped up, was pretty good, though.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2655 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Yes - that's the word I couldn't think of! "Arbitrary." You're right, there wasn't much rhyme or reason to a lot of what happened, like who was strong or what the demons were. I think that's what contributed to my feeling that the game might explain more. It did manage to pull itself together to give us a fairly interesting show, though, which I suppose is kind of impressive.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1035 |
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I'm not sure how I feel about this show. I've played the game, so I know for a fact spoiler[ that very few of the characters got actual character development, and all the characters who didn't were cheaply killed off (it really pisses me off how abruptly Ronaldo was killed). And don't get me started on what they did to Yamato's character.]
On the other hand, they only had 13 episodes, and they still did a pretty good job with what they had. Contrary to what other people believe, having 24 episodes would not have benefitted this anime at all. In fact, I think it would have hurt it more. Not to mention that, even though a lot of the substance the game had was cut out, the SHEER STYLE that was put into this adaptation is astonishing. So yeah, I would give it about a 7/10. [EDIT: Spoiler tags added. -TK] EDIT: Aw man, I completely forgot about adding spoiler tags. Whoever added those for me, thanks. Sorry about that. 
Last edited by ThatGuyWhoLikesThings on Thu Jul 18, 2013 6:27 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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jymmy
Posts: 1244 |
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Even if a lot of it was "yeah, okay, I'll take your word for it", it did always have interesting thing happening.
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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I haven't played the games yet and obviously there's no prequel so I came into the series fresh. The first episode was quite impressive to me and was among my top favorite. But then, the 2nd episode, the one after and pacing seemed to put me to a point of disappointment. I also found many of the characters dull and lacked development. Maybe I guess it could be related to the rushed material? I wonder though since I haven't played the games yet but this series ultimately turned out to be mediocre for me towards the very end.
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2634 |
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This was also a 7/10 for me but going into it I expected to actually like it a lot less.
The plot never did it for me but the characters did grow on me. |
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ShatteredWorld
 Posts: 265 Location: ATL |
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Sooo...yeah. I haven't watched this show, but this line from the review really stuck out to me:
"a few truly unlikeable characters who don't appear to grow and change." Implying that all great characters have to grow and change in order to be good. That's what a static character is... |
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belvadeer
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I feel this show was worth watching and I enjoyed it a good deal. I haven't actually played the game, but I imagine if I did, I'd probably recall how much I enjoyed the show even more. I was hoping to see some of personal favorite demons from the Atlus book of beasties, but of course more focus was put on Byakko, a good handful of the higher level ones and, of course, Jack Frost ("Heeh-ho!"). I feel thirteen episodes was a good count to get through what they could adapt of the game without boring the audience. After all, stretching a week out across thirteen episodes sounds more viable than across twenty-some (though it's much easier for shonen series and their absurd portrayal of five to ten minutes XD).
Last edited by belvadeer on Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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What bothered me the most about the series (my roommate watched it, while I was in the room, even though I'd given up on it after episode 3), is that it completely changed the theme of the story.
I keep seeing all these people, who haven't played the game, be all "Oh, I'm sure I'd understand it better/like it better/whatever better if I'd played the game." And I look at them and go "I've played the game. I can't see how anyone who's played the game can stomach this piece of crap." The theme of the game, both it and the original Devil Survivor (and, heck, a few other SMT games), is changing fate, and screwing destiny. The whole point is to take control of your situation, and, hence the title, to survive. The anime, however, seeing as how it (full series spoilers) spoiler[took the opportunity to pretty much have every Death Clip come true, not letting them save anyone], completely changed the game's theme to spoiler[you can't fight fate.] Plus, as described above, because of how arbitrary demon assignments and levels were, and how all that happened when someone had a lower-level demon was them a) failing and b) complaining about it, it also took out the whole point of the fact that you were just normal kids, and you had to fight to build up your strength. Heck, I've got my DS sitting next to me, as I'm trying to train for a bonus boss fight in my 2nd playthrough (okay, so I'm really raising money so I can just buy one of my 1st playthrough demons from my Compendium... same difference). I understand that they're crunched for time, and there's not a chance to do any Free Battles. But the way it was portrayed, it was "if you're 'special' you get a good demon, otherwise you're stuck being a loser until the plot deems you worthy of getting something decent." But yeah, I thought this was horribly done. I get that they're doing it to promote the 3DS remake coming out, but there's a manga of the first game coming out they could promote, too, and, with a less-sprawling story and smaller character list, it would've made for a better series. |
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Khooni
Posts: 99 |
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Thanks to the above line i didn't have to go through the review and directly skip to the part where i click "My want to see" button |
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animemaster1
How'd I get here?
 Posts: 106 Location: Beverly Hills |
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Ok. I liked the show. But I have a beef with this review/reviewer. I don't usually feel it necessary to talk in the forums, but I just need to get this off my chest, because I see it in too many reviews here. How can you give the animation a C+. I mean, come on, that is totally not C+ animation. Maybe a B+ or something; just some grade that doesn't say that the animation was crap, since, well, it was far from that. I don't know if this reviewer is just like this with most her reviews and that it is just the way she grades the different aspects, but to say the animation is a C, C+, or anything in that area just doesn't make any sense, especially since she doesn't even explain how she came to feel that that grade would be appropriate. So maybe someone can enlighten me...
...On another note, I feel like maybe this person shouldn't have even been the one to review this series. I get that feeling just by reading that line: "All in all this is a fairly solid bit of entertainment. If you like your stories dark with a glimmer of hope, Devil Survivor 2 should fit the bill." It makes it seem that she is not into shows like that. So...yea. |
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jymmy
Posts: 1244 |
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C+ is about average. I'm not a major animation person, but I don't recall Devil Survivor 2 having particularly great animation, even for a standard TV anime. B+ is very good, I think of the Spring 2013 season really only Aiura had animation that good, and that was a short with lots of attention able to be paid to it. B+ is a whole grade below the absolute top ranking. On this site the Ghost in the Shell movies have been given A+, for example, and Kyoto Animation's Haruhi and K-On! movies have been given A ratings.
This would only be an issue if Rebecca's preferences made her unable to analyse a particular title fairly. This is not the case in this review; it looked at the quality of the plot, characters and audivisual elements fairly. |
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Etrien
 Posts: 525 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I dunno, to me that makes it seem like she was precisely the right person to review it. I quite enjoyed the show - it was up there with Attack on Titan and Flowers of Evil for how much I looked forward to it each week (even if its actual quality wasn't on par), but, I'm also already a big fan of the games and am aware my opinion on the show is heavily biased. So, I'm much more interested (and also find it much more meaningful) to get a review from someone who isn't already a fan of the games. After all, I don't think an anime adaptation should just be fanservice for existing fans. It needs to be able to reach out and appeal to newcomers as well. So, this was a good gauge for that. And, after how lukewarm most responses I've seen have been, I especially appreciated Rebecca's take on it. I thought it was a very fair review. |
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animemaster1
How'd I get here?
Posts: 106 Location: Beverly Hills |
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Well, I see your points, I suppose.
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