Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Izetta: The Last Witch
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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It's been bugging me for a while, but I think I've finally figured out why Izetta seems the tonal & visual mess of ideas that it is: The creators saw The Mouse that Roared & didn't realise it was a comedy.
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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Yeah, that's why it airs at 3 in the morning in Japan, a perfect timeslot for all the vampire families over there.
Holy damn. Just...savage. My sides. |
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Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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Unfortunately, my interest in this show is waning more with every episode. I'll still keep up with it, but now that I've seen more of the shows from this season, it's near the bottom of my list in terms of necessity. And yeah, the fanservice in this episode was pretty lame. I don't care if being turned on by cliche and contrived nudity shots is a "cultural thing," it doesn't do anything for me at best, and at worst it sours my overal experience with a show. Though I'm not too surprised, the show felt like it was just barely concealing its appeal to degeneracy over its entire first three episodes. Even without the fanservice this episode wouldn't have have been very good IMO. None of the newly introduced characters did anything for me, and the scenes with previously established characters weren't much better. I guess the action shots are what have really been pulling me in for the most part, and this episode suffered from a lack of that, and not much compelling drama to fill its place.
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2737 |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11689 |
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I think Atlanta likely refers to the ocean, the way Oceania refers to Australia, New Zealand, and the bazillion islands in the area. Indiana is probably that big, pointy country north of Sri Lanka.
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2497 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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One thing that kind of took me out of the episode: newspapers being read right-to-left. Triggered my "this is Europe, not Japan" reaction, kind of like when Katia would politely bow to superiors in the supposedly-German Schwarzesmarken:
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meiam
Posts: 3472 |
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It's really starting to feel like this show is just beyond the writer ability. First we had the extremely awkward exposition dialogue where the subordinate explain to the emperor why he invaded the country (I can barely tolerate the "as you know..." speech in the first episode, why is it present in the 5th?).
But then we had the kerfuffle to get Izetta weakness know. So let's recap just for the sake of it: They figure out they need some sort of solution in case the german attack where Izetta can't use her power (why are they attacking a different place this time, who knows?). So they decide to not inform anyone but the guy (what's his rank anyway?) and the royal guard, crucially they don't inform the general, the guy who's army is going to be in the line of fire and who's cooperation is absolutely necessary for the plan to work. There's pretty much no reason for that, he already know Izetta weakness so it's not important to keep him in the dark. (stupidity) Then, after the plan work, the general get all pissed at them (why?) and decide to talk with him... in the wood for some reason. At which point they proceed to have another extremely awkward "as you know..." conversation at shouting level, which is pretty pointless anyway since it's already done. (stupidity) Then while this is going, at this exact moment, some random soldier just happen to overhear them. (coincidence) And this soldier also just happen to have caught the interest of the spy who also decided to go after him at this exact time (coincidence). So yeah, the plot is progressing trough coincidence and stupidity at this point. Why not take the far simpler and more effective route of just having the not-SS officer figure it out? "Look every time she attack us she threw stuff at our guy, but this time she just cause a landslide and some soldier also said they heard explosion right before the landslide and we examine the pass and found sign of explosion triggering the landslide, for some reason she couldn't use her magic there" and boom, this also set up the officer as real danger as a bonus. Not even mentioning the fact that Izetta was directly in the line of fire, guess they were really lucky that out of the entire enemy army only a number equal or less than the royal guard sniper decided to fire at Izetta (so like 10 out of hundreds of soldiers) and at the same time the mortar all happen to miss. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5528 |
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Ok, I strongly approve of the cute girl special forces unit!
(it makes me wonder if those bodyguards that were with Fine in the first episode were in that same group) Episode 5 definitely gave me some thrills that felt reminiscent of watching Code Geass especially with the theatrics pulled. Though I am starting to worry Hiroyuki Yoshino is going fall back into his bad habits in providing cheap thrills just to further the story. That scene with Jonas overhearing how it was a ruse could turn this series into a tailspin. Then again, why were those guys out in the open raising their voices about sensitive information? |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2421 |
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I really hope he isn't the leak. Maybe the spy will find out another way and Jonas will do something about it, but I think the more obvious direction of him blowing it is more likely. That would really annoy me if so. I mean not only does he know it is a major secret that is essential to being able to fight the Notzis, but for him it is clearly a secret that if outed would put the life of his personal savior at risk. Going back to his unit and gossiping about that is incredibly ungrateful and stupid, and at least to me would entirely destroy him being used as the sympathetic normal character.
That was pretty dumb. Why were they talking that loud? Why did he specifically layout Izetta's weakness when he could have just asked 'how the hell did you do that?' |
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Valhern
Posts: 916 |
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The fakeish victory of Elystadt probably is my favorite part of the series as a whole, just because the idea was cool, even if the aftermath and some other stuff seemed nonsensical, at least what they pretended to do was cool.
In this episode I saw probably one of the most boring ways of showing and planning tactics. We could've done that in episode 2 or 3, with the guy with Suwabe voice (Berckmann or something like that?) hinting at the possibility of Izetta having a weakness, and then we have the incident in the bathroom, and the final reveal is her weakness, instead of going around everything again as if we're gaining new information, adding literally nothing. It's tremendously stupid how Berckmann doesn't tell all the important people, and the guy he decides to hire is a soldier who says "I'm the only one who can keep up with her!" and he's like "You pass, you'll fight her", if he seriously expects him to defeat Izetta then I can't take this guy seriously at all. Not to mention, the characterization of these villains has been extremely lackluster. Not a single second we spend with them makes them interesting at all, the Germanian emperor is just a twad who says "Oh, a Witch is kicking our ass, cool, I like witches" and Berckmann is the smart guy with a sexy voice and that's it. But I don't blame them, it's not as if Izetta had that much of a character so it's okay. This might just be me extremely unfair, but I got a really jarring feeling when they did a recap of Izetta's actions but in black and white? Why not directly animate it like that instead and show it like a movie of that time? That would've been a great idea. |
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Luke's JRPG Channel
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I'm not surprised that there would by a spy in the army, no one would pay much attention to a low ranking soldier.
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2277 |
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It actually reminded me a lot of what the Americans (what do we call their AU counterparts? Atlantans? Atlanteans? ) pulled with General Patton being stationed at a set of fake tanks set up by Hollywood to fool enemy intelligence (more commonly known as the Ghost Army). But in the same vein, I'm curious if the Atlanteans are going to have a more skeptical approach since they'd be more familiar with visual effects and might think its an elaborate ruse.
I was pretty relieved that they did address the horrible idea of exposing Izetta to enemy fire, and I was half-expecting a sniper to take a potshot at her. Even so, that "I wanted to help" coupled with a "She's just that stubborn" feels like an attempt at showing her character growth, but for me, it's too flimsy an excuse to justify jeopardizing the whole campaign, and it doesn't feel earned yet. I'm starting to think more and more that this show is going to really start straining against its limited runtime in trying to get all its ideas out in time.
Yeah, I'm also starting to wonder if the Germanians are ever going to get characterization beyond "we're the bad guys". I don't need a redemption arc, but some nuance would be nice, and so far the bowl-cut assistant is the closest we've gotten. As an aside, I find the Germanian advisor's(?) words to be kind of interesting, with his "We think it's the real deal" shtick. It might just be a wonky translation, but that sounds to me like there's an implication that there's a synthetic Witch lying in wait somewhere in Germania's forces, or something equally man-made made to mimic the legendary power of the Witches. |
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Valhern
Posts: 916 |
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I didn't take it as supposed to show some growth. Maybe it is because at the start she says "I just do what I'm told!" while trying to be humble and then she doesn't do what she's told? However, she's already gone and done stuff that was never asked to or ordered not to do so I thought it was the same as before.
I think he says that when he says they've checked the photo to be sure it was real, not because they know of artificial witches...But now that you mention it, it sounds pretty believable that the Germanians do have some sort of anti-Izetta in the plans as Izetta's final obstacle. It will just work, like everything else. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2440 |
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Izetta being a filthy Faker was great, but that ending conversation was painfully contrived.
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WeNTuS
Posts: 65 |
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What i hate about this show is that Izetta is too overpowered + tanks blowing from being hit by metal swords. Are you serious?
If she had another weakness, more dramatic one, like more she use the power faster she will die or something like that, it woudl be more interesting than those lame ley-lines. |
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