Forum - View topicREVIEW: From the New World GN 1 & 2
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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But because the art LOOKS terrible, I won't buy it. Porn adaptations are never that good. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5493 Location: Iscandar |
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Yes, the From the New World anime is very underrated. I did not expected the Japanese to appreciate it, but I wish more people in North America gave it more love. I am not even sure if anime critics whose opinions I respect because of their high standards (like Zac Bertschy and Justin Sevakis) have even seen this series. It is not a perfect anime by any means, but it does several interesting things. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2266 |
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Wait, did Japan *not* like this? I thought this was adapted from an award-winning novel?! Surely that gave it some oomph beyond the standard otaku crowd? Regardless, I marathoned the heck out of this showing after being teased with a two-episode intro. I liked it a lot, though for me it's such heavy show, I'm not sure I'd rewatch til a long while after. But I thought it's use of atmosphere was top-notch, I loved all the suspense, the character development was mostly pretty good (I found Marie and that one wimpy kid to be a bit underdeveloped, but I can see why, in the wake of the third act), the futuristic setting was both familiar and bizarre, but even the bizarre stuff was handled well, and I never ran into WTF-moments with any of the new tech or creatures. And, of course, the story was quality stuff; I went in expecting some kind of semi-gory telepathy-centric fantasy show, but I really dug the more thoughtful, deep path it went down. It's hard for me to imagine why it didn't do well.  Best guess would be that Western fans passed it up not knowing what the story was about, since that happened to me, and I had to be cliffhangered into the story. 
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shamisen the great
 Posts: 658 Location: Oregon, USA |
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That generally seems to be a given these days. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14873 |
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It's plausible. Japan isn't into sci-fi-ish as they used to be, when they led the world in everything hi-tech, so a novel winning awards don't mean much to them. Trying to fanservice its way to more appeal to the current generation may help sales, but the franchise risks confusion between trying to tell a serious story and just another disposable entertainment. And that confusion within the franchise may lead to be overlooked as Westerners, who are more into sci-fi, won't know what it is. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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Usually that kind of thing bothers me, but in this specific case (the anime) it doesn't, essentially because it was there to show that sexaulity in their society is very different from what we are familiar with, and the presentation wasn't such that it was intended to be lolicon pandering. The anime also had gay scenes (the gay relationships seem to be absent in the manga, likely to pander to the crowd that, upon seeing the anime, would say things like "those 2 guys kissing made me want to throw up, but the 2 girls kissing were hot". Yes, I saw multiple people make coments functionally identical to that  ) and heterosexual scenes. It was there for science fiction and character development, not really fanservice. The manga on the other hand...
Well, the attempt at appealing to both sides seems to not have gone over well, if we take this thread as case in point. Half of the people are saying "Man, I really like this complex and nuanced story, but that fanserice is really stupid." and the other half are saying, "I thought the girls were hot, and the ecchi scenes were good, but then it got all violent and scary."
Seems to have not made an impression on most of the big critics if they've seen it (which I suspect many of them haven't), because I haven't seen any of them talk about it. I think part of that may be because I think this show and this kind of thing in general appeals to a certain very minor third group of fans and neither the people wanting entertaining otaku stuff nor the people wanting filmic or literary stuff. I'm really tired right now so I'm not going to go into the justifications and explanations for that right now. Maybe I'll expound on that and make my arguments tomorrow. |
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Nayu
Posts: 676 |
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Oh think of the poor innocent drawn children~! |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2634 |
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Well it did win several awards including best TV series over at Anime Suki's annual fan poll. I think it got 4th place over at Random Curiosity too.
That being said I agree it was very underrated on this site I believe. I am not sure why but I felt it was completely overlooked compared to other series which frankly I did not think were as good (but I am not going to name which series I am referring to). |
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SthRandom
 Posts: 41 |
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Ashen Phoenix
 Posts: 2932 |
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As much as I've enjoyed the anime (haven't finished it yet. I know, I know) this adaptation just rankles me. The exualization was too distracting, normally I don't mind some titillation even in a more serious work, but it was so blatant in this manga I finally threw up my hands.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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On average, the nine Blu-ray volumes for this show in Japan averaged about 600 copies per release. That's not even close to the infamous "Manabi line." One of the things I appreciated about the anime was how modestly they drew the girls. They had realistic bust sizes for eleven-year-olds, not the absurd bodies I see in that picture from the cover. I was surprised while reading the review that it seemed to make no mention of the anime adaptation whatsoever. While SSY was certainly a niche show, the kudos it garnered from its audience should have brought it to the attention of people at ANN. SSY didn't just win the Best Series award at AS, it clobbered its competition. SSY won 40% of the votes in this category, twice those garnered by the second-place finisher, Shingeki no Kyojin. |
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Oneeyedjacks
 Posts: 307 |
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Hey, I don't particularly care one way or another if a manga, novel, or movie has underage sex scenes in them. I mean hell, the Song of Ice and Fire novels have lots of underage sex in them. They don't really bother me at all. My only real problem with the sex scenes in this are that they seem more for exploitative purposes than anything else. I'd say the same thing if the characters were of age, but them being underage kinda drives the point further. When I first saw the sex scenes from the manga, I thought they were from some ero-doujin. I was pretty damn surprised when I discovered they were actually from the official manga adaptation. A few weeks ago when Ed Chavez was on ANNcast, I asked a question on Twitter if there were any concerns from Vertical about releasing this because of the underage sex. Zac chose not ask it, so I never got a response, but I would have liked to have heard one. |
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fireaxe
 Posts: 503 Location: Trois-Rivieres, Canada |
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That statement is so overstated. I just counted them, off those 192 pages in the 1st volumes, 15 of them has some sort lesbian sex/naked girls in it. So less than 10%, that's it. Barely count has porn, doesn't it? Since I haven't read the 2nd volume yet I can't do the maths on it, but Ed Chavez (Vertical_Ed) told me on twitter that it didn't have any of that. And I sure trust his word on that, so yeah... Having said that, I do thing the artist went a bit overboard with Saki and Maria's outfits... While I think the sex scenes actually helps the story, I found those skimpy clothes to be more distracting than anything else. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Though anime sales for "From the New World" were abysmally low,it doesn't fully indicate whether the anime was a financial success or not. When anime was airing the sales for the novel increased substantially so in the end it could have turned out well for producers.
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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That seemed the justification for the second season of Chihayafuru as well. Sales for the volume of the manga released after the anime first began airing were nearly four times higher than sales of the previous volume. I suspect the bump in novel sales for SSY didn't come close to that, though. I've never seen much merchandise for SSY either; a quick search just now brings up none.
While looking for merchandise sites I happened to come across a couple of images of Saki and Maria in a bath. Are they really from the manga? If so, I have absolutely no interest in reading it! |
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