Forum - View topicREVIEW: Snow White with the Red Hair Episodes 1-12 Streaming
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
AksaraKishou
Posts: 1415 Location: End of the World |
|
|||||||||
|
A+ (+) A+ (+) A (+) B- (=) B how?
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Barbobot
 Posts: 460 |
|
|||||||||
|
The Overall score isn't just an average of the other 4.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
bibotot
Posts: 79 |
|
|||||||||
Maybe it is the norm here to weigh Story higher than other categories. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
InuKag1
Posts: 122 |
|
|||||||||
|
Not as much as Yona of the Dawn which I'm still hoping will get another season
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
AholePony
 Posts: 330 Location: Arizona |
|
|||||||||
|
I like this series enough to keep following it when its second half airs next year, but feel its pretty middle of the road as far as romance anime goes. My biggest gripe is 12 episodes in and Shirayuki seems like such a shallow character. All we know is she likes plants and medicine, likes Zen, and is troubled by the color of her hair. That's it. I really need some back story from her or real emotions beyond "I don't understand these feelings I'm having", or the few times she gets angry on Zen's behalf. Visually its been a very nice series, I'm just hoping for some real meat of a story to go along with it.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Animegomaniac
Posts: 4177 |
|
|||||||||
|
I'm trying to watch this one but I'm having massive problems with its basic premise- that her red hair makes her super special awesome unique and catnip to princes; Not nobles, not when she was younger, it's like she was taken from somewhere else and just plopped into this world at the age of... 16? "Hey, never saw or heard rumors of her before... Isn't she special!"
Kidnapped because of it in episode one. Kidnapped because of it in episode two. Attracted the eye of a better prince because of her hair and proceeds to go through a series of intimidation tactics from a succession of social betters. Ends up in a situation where she should have been killed. Wants to be a dentist... a herbalist. Good thing there are such things as State Alchemists... dentists... herbalists. All of who work directly in the castle for some reason. And there are tests and passes... why not just call it medicine at this point? Gets involved in a "this is a job for Aquaman!" plot episode just to show how valuable she can be. And then back to the "proving herself to her betters" plot, only now replacing nobility with royalty... And that guy's a ninja, just say it already. It's either a medieval European fantasy or it isn't; You can't just pick the things you like, "princes, swords, nobility!", and combine it modern concepts like personal empowerment and equal employment, especially when your first episode dances around the concept of droit de signour with the peasant in question moving to another country. I can't decide if there's a direct divide between peasantry and nobility or an indirect divide between the sexes. Maybe the author just doesn't care how Shirayuki gets treated compared to the rest; "She's the heroine, she's special. Didn't you get the red hair thing yet?" I can't escape the feeling that the whole story is a delusion from Shirayuki who was left to die in a ditch after being used "used" by that first prince. At least that would make sense. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
|
|||||||||
Yeah, I weighed story higher (to whatever extent there is a formula for this, which there isn't). I've tried to do that across my other reviews, too. I think the story plays a bigger role than, say, music or animation in how much the average person enjoys a series. (Hopefully that isn't blasphemous for me to say, as a film music scholar.  )
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5991 Location: Virginia, United States |
|
|||||||||
|
The beauty of Helena of Troy launched a 1000 ships.
So it shouldn't be a surprise about red hair. Maybe I am wrong, but I haven't seen a natural red headed Japanese women. Probably would have been even rarer in ancient or feudal Japan. Look at Attack on Titan. The men who tried to kidnap Mikasa and her mom, were doing so for human sex trafficking because of the rarity of their race and looks. Also, feudal life was hell on communications. Some people lived their whole lives in a village and never saw the outside world. It is quite possible for Snow (Red) White not to have been known outside of her area and even be known in the rarified circles of the nobility. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
|
|||||||||
Are you quite sure you understand what "fantasy" means? Because yeah, you really can just choose whatever you want in a fantasy. I'm not a huge fan of this show either but your argument sounds like those guys who get mad when people complain about all the rape in GoT because it's "true" to its "medieval roots" when there are freakin dragons flying around. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
TarsTarkas
Posts: 5991 Location: Virginia, United States |
|
|||||||||
Well it is a fantasy, cast in a medieval setting. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Mel Ell
Posts: 1 |
|
|||||||||
|
I loved it, was a nice feel-good anime I think, short, sharp, and I liked that it didn't have irritating love angst dragged out over like 50 episodes.
Was a nice chill session following watching some more hardcore intense anime like Psycho Pass 1&2 I just watched. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Exalted Incarnate
Posts: 283 Location: In the memory of time... |
|
|||||||||
|
Whenever people hear Snow White they think of the Disney movie. But I would like to tell you Disney did quite a lot of editing to the story.
(Like They do for everything) most of the time dark,gruesome, and other things children can't see. But the concept of true loves kiss only existed in sleeping beauty, it's annoying to have that in every edited story. Anyways I found it hilarious how the prince originally woke Snow White. He simply walked over to the glass coffin(where Snow White was in) and he started to shake it, and with that Snow White was revived. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
|
|||||||||
The editing of these old faerie tales started with the Brothers Grimm themselves. They published their manuscript as a scholarly work on folk tales and legends, keeping the nasty, gritty, inappropriate for children parts intact, but when they found out that people were reading these to their children as bed-time stories, they freaked and put out a new version with a kinder, gentler tone to most of the stories. (I have a copy of the original... I need to finish reading that sometime. Fun stuff.)
Actually, I would place the setting closer to renaissance or possibly even later. There haven't been any firearms or artillery that I recall, but we haven't really seen any organized military operations other than the garrison at the fort where Shirayuki figured out what was causing their illness. The level of development of medicine, in the form of herbalists and the part about Zen developing an immunity to poisons over time, and some other tidbits like the enclosed lantern that Shirayuki uses and such suggest a later time period. Of course, the strike-to-light matches are entirely anachronistic. (While there are reports in Chinese histories of sulfur based matches as far back as the sixth century AD and experiments with phosphorous based matches were done in the 17th century, it wasn't until the 19th century that matches could be produced cheaply enough that someone of Shirayuki's social class could have afforded them.)
I don't view the overall as a sum of its parts, but as an "Overall Enjoyment" rating. There are some shows that have significant deficiencies in art, music, and story, yet the overall impact is entertaining and engaging. I sometimes refer to shows like this a "Glorious Train-wrecks". Sure, it crashes and burns on several technical or artistic measures, but it never fails to entertain. In the case of this review, I think that Rose is saying that the overall impression the series leaves is diminished by the lack of an overarching storyline that compels you to come back and see what happens next. Personally, I didn't find that to be a problem. I am withholding judgement on the overall placement of the series in my "Top 15" list until after the 2nd half is over, but the fact that it will end up in that list is practically a given. I actually do find the overall conflict of how a Royal and a commoner will be able to live their lives together in a stratified society that obviously has some very firm societal norms about social class to be compelling. Sure, we know that love will win in the end. How Zen and Shirayuki will manage to overcome the barriers placed in front of them by social class and societal traditions, not to mention the type of obligations Zen will have based on being a member of the Royal Family in terms of expectations for political marriages and the like, is an interesting question to me. The fact that the people they must "overcome" in order to win the day are not all sneering villains, but good people with good intentions and genuine concern for the people involved helps. I am referring, of course, to First Prince Izana. He seems like he cares for his brother, but he also cares about their country. There are realities that must be dealt with and restrictions on the behavior of Royals that must be followed. (For instance, if Zen merely wanted to "keep" Shirayuki as a concubine, like Raj wanted to originally, that would not be a problem. However, wanting to have something more than that is a problem. Of course, being a concubine probably WOULD be a problem for Shirayuki.)
Even in Europe, red hair is relatively rare. There were actually many superstitions about redheads in traditional cultures, suspecting them of being unnatural or possibly demonic in nature. I'm sure that a large part of this is because of the fact that the gene for red hair is recessive and if both parents possess the gene, they can have a child with red hair despite neither of the parents having red hair. When something striking is "different" about a baby, that always brings up the question of fidelity. Why did my wife give birth to this redhead? Is she having an affair? Of course, the guiltless wife can only fall back on divine or demonic intervention as her explanation for the child who has this strange difference from the rest of the family. The child must be the work of the devil! As for why she hadn't been noticed up to that point, that is easily explained. There is a clear divide between nobles and commoners in this story. Shirayuki often speaks of her grandparents, who evidently raised her in her parents' stead. (I assume her parents died when she was young.) Up until her grandparent's death, there is no reason why anyone SHOULD have made note of her. She was a child of a commoner. She did not attend a school, but was taught the art of the herbalist as well as the tools she would need to ply the trade by her family. She would have spent a great deal of time in the forests studying plants and learning about their properties. When in town, she was likely hunched over her studies, learning to read, do arithmetic, and how to identify plants from field guides and the like. It wasn't until she took over her grandparents' shop that the townsfolk would have really come to notice her. In addition, there is something else that happens to a young lady in her teenage years that would lead to her standing out more and attracting the attention of people outside of her immediate neighbors: puberty! She went from a non-entity, a child, to a beautiful young woman with a startling difference from the rest of the women her age. The story does a pretty good job of painting the noble class as having its fair share of depraved individuals. Rank and privileged don't always corrupt, but it happens often enough for it not to be something that stretches suspension of disbelief beyond its limits. It is suggested that, even in Zen's more enlightened kingdom human trafficking of women is not unheard of. One would think that it would be an even bigger problem in a kingdom that produced a depraved prince like Raj. In fact, I would suggest that Zen, and Izana most likely, are actually more of the exception rather than the rule when it comes to royals and nobles. So the kidnapping plots aren't a big problem. I would argue that her hair is NOT what attracted her "better prince", but her personality. Sure, it made her stand out, but it was getting to know her that lead Zen to fall, HARD, for the plucky young heroine. Your problems with the herbalist storyline really make no sense. She was working as an herbalist in her home country. Her grandparents before her were herbalists. It is made quite clear that Clarines is a richer, more powerful, and more advanced country than most of those around it, Other rulers seek their favor and obviously fear them. In addition, it is made clear from the first episode that the royal family is concerned about health, including the systematic desensitization to common poisons for the princes as a standard practice. For this to be the case, there would have to be an official governmental organization to carry out these type of activities. So having Court Herbalists, who are, yes, pretty much physicians, isn't a stretch. I'm not even sure where you were trying to go with the whole Aquaman thing or the problem you have with her having to prove herself to the FAMILY of the man she loves when their social classes pretty much forbid them from having close relations beyond the type that would place Zen in the "worthless prince" category that Raj has exemplified as a problem in other kingdoms nearby. I really don't understand why using a faerie tale setting to address modern concepts is a problem. The message a story gets across and the setting of the story have no bearing on each other. This is FICTION, not history. The author isn't trying to tell you how life actually was in this fictional land that never existed, they are telling the story of a young woman who stands out because of her appearance, but in reality is extraordinary because of her intelligence, diligence, kindheartedness, bravery, and drive, and the young Prince who falls in love with her who is similarly extraordinary because of his personality more than the accident of his birth. Well, I seem to have ranted... I'll stop here. 
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
SailorTralfamadore
Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
|
|||||||||
You're right that Snow White with the Red Hair is more 17th-18th century than medieval (which is why I avoided using that word in my review). But TarsTarkas was probably referring to Game of Thrones, since that was the example Saturn gave. (Which, I still think that's silly -- dragons show up in all different sorts of mythologies across time and place, and it's not like the show doesn't play fast and loose with "historical accuracy" in some of its other fantasy mechanics, including other ones that are less typical of the genre. The point is, making the situation of women in that society less awful would hardly be a bigger "departure" than adding dragons, or ice zombies, or changing the seasons/weather and geography, etc. But I'd rather not turn this into a Game of Thrones discussion.) |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
|
|||||||||
Shirayuki is not a peasant. She lived in a town, which means she is a burgher. The problem with this series is not that it has no far-reaching plot, but that individual, slice of life stories are not as good as they could be. For example, Natsume’s stories were done better. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group