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Best World-Building Tournament: Concluded!

I feel that I have to accept partial blame for HEA being defeated so ignominiously. Had I been paying attention earlier in the week, I would have refuted Animegomaniac's bizarrely inaccurate statements about that setting and pushed much harder on the merits of the series, which those who have apparently seen both seem to have been ignoring, as it looks like that could have influence at least a couple of votes.

I have seen both series and I seriously considered the merits of both but then realized the most I remember about the Humankind Empire Abh was on a five member spaceship set placed in the lower rung of command and that was the second season. Before that is everyone reacting to representatives from the Abh Empire, the main presentation of the first season.

That's the Humankind Empire Abh as it's staged for the audience, when it's not a meeting between admirals or a strategy discussion between two princes or a war that manages to out perform Star Trek in the "technology marches on! And it's boring!" department {Why mines of all things?}. I've said sometime during this tournament I wouldn't vote for Star Wars or Star Trek for their vague space setting of Empire! and Federation! and I would hardly turn around and say that a mash-up of the two would be a final contender.

And its Bavarian European heritage is a lot more appealing for me than the "Empire that never shows up". My presentation is always flippant but the thinking behind it is not.

I can give points to the series for making them "genetically altered humans" but that's only done so they could have the main characters marry rather than just have genuine alien species come together to produce a genetically viable half breed {Yeah, "Spock" goodness}. And if that is the main reason for making them actual humans with genetically altered cosmetic properties rather than "human like" aliens, it's still not good "world building" as its all done for the benefit of the two main characters getting together in the end.

But really for me, it comes down to how much better the writing is in Wolf's Rain compared to 12 Kingdoms. There really is no comparison and that's what holds 12K back from being a great show for me. It had some great ideas but the way they are put together just feels a bit artificial to me. Wolf's Rain has a world that just makes more sense and has a more natural development, no exposition dumping required.

Nothing WWR supporters can say has even the faintest chance of changing my vote on that match-up, but I am still interested in seeing if a stronger argument in favor of WWR exists than the tepid ones I have seen so far.

(Oh, and rheiders, you forgot to add the word "ponderous" to your critique of its writing.)

Yes, 12K does has periods in it where it mostly just spends time explaining its setting, but this is almost always done in the context of educating characters new to the world (or new to the world beyond her own kingdom, as was the case with Shoukei), so doing so make plot sense. Hence it handles the info dumping better than most.

Actually, FMA:B and Moribito are both series I've re-watched very recently. (Well, to be precise, I've read the FMA manga recently, but it's the same thing.) I'm hardcore judging those who haven't seen both of these series, for the record.

Concerning Amestris: What politics does it have? There is a conflict in the government between objectively good guys and objectively evil guys. That's not politics, nor anything special narratively. New Yogo Empire doesn't have a lot of internal politics, but it does have some and they're stronger than what Amestris offers. And let's be frank here: alchemy is just magic in different terms. That doesn't make the power use in the series all that special.