Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Girlish Number
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HelloBucket
 Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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Yeah, I think I should have been more specific. I don't really see Momoka as an outright villain (my take on her isn't meant to be that cynical, and I don't think the show itself is cynical enough to make the first friend character an outright villain either). I do see her as a representative of the problems with anime within the voice acting field, specifically. The focus of the show is on that, after all. As much as I gets into other elements it does so in less detail and I think that's where Kuzu comes in - he's a more abstracted stand-in in that he's the avatar of the problems at large, rather than just within voice acting, to act as the connective tissue between the two. I don't think Kuzu is really a full-blown villain either, though, just incompetent and shallow. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3662 |
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Look at these people. Look at the silent nodding director. Look at the mumbling author. Look at the audience's expectations. With what he has to work with, it's simply not worth anyone's time or money to make something to be proud of. Pump out a product, cash your paycheck, move on to the next one. That's not villainy, that's just recognizing the reality of your industry. A hero might fight to change things, but that doesn't make everyone who chooses not to automatically a villain. We can see as much or as little of the author's intentions as we like in him, but for me, I'm much more entertained seeing him as a character rather than a plot symbol.
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3768 |
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The way the production is becoming more and more troubled as it goes make me think the show isn't going to let Kuzu get away with his shallow incompetence. Sure the in show audience was eating up the PV, but once the show goes full Jiggly Jiggly Heaven (and it probably will) they will turn. This is because the entirely cynical take on the industry is not reality but a shallow interpretation of it. Sure popularity and quality aren't as correlated as they should be and there are plenty of half assed mediocre shows that pass through the system, but if you think you think the audience doesn't care at all about the quality of the writing and production values and just slap together whatever garbage you think they want, you're going to be pilloried by that same fanbase. Putting in the money and time to make something great won't always pay off, but the most successful series are the ones where they actually did put in the effort. No the author's LN was no masterpiece, but the way Kuzu is running the show, it will look like a masterpiece in comparison. That doesn't make him an out and out villain per se, just incompetent and shallow like HelloBucket said.
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1454 |
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To me, this show is starting to feel a lot like those Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant "cringe comedies". That's fine by me because I happen to love those shows, but I completely understand if some viewers feel too mortified by stuff like Chitose's bad voice acting, Kuzu's incompetence as a producer and the show-within-a-show's terrible animation quality to keep watching this.
Last edited by Zhou-BR on Thu Nov 03, 2016 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4131 |
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... and the disconnect between art and product continues. I stay away from the thread for a week and suddenly, they're villains. Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh...
No, they had that laugh from the start so what changed? The show turned out bad but since the promotion was a hit, so far the production is a success or at least meeting its goals for the producers; Anime shovelware because not every show needs to be [insert choicest anime here]. Harsher truth, good or bad, the show will most likely be forgotten by the majority next season anyway so why try that hard? I don't want to see this show take the "anime is sacred" route like Shirobako not because it's wrong... it is wrong though; personal preferences are usually more nostalgia based than quality based... but because none of the main cast are in a position to care about such details. It's a just job for the voice actors and good jobs pay just as much as bad ones and as for these producers, they're happier with money than a quality end product. It still doesn't make them villains. However...
Chitose knew what she was there for; She spent the entire night practicing the full song rather than just the TV version and she was able to lead the other four through the song because of her hard work. If she didn't put in the work on her end then the event would have been a failure, no matter how good she was at rallying a crowd. Furthermore, Kuzu-P was only rewarded for picking out Chitose as leader... even if he didn't remember her name at first guess. So, her hard work was meet with success while Kuzu-P just scrapped by on luck. Luck that he shall push... These reviews are going pretty much as I figured. "My preconceived notions are not being meet. I am frustrated." I don't know where the arrogance is coming from though... let me rephrase that... I don't know how their arrogance in doing what they're good at is a negative; Kuzu-P is a huckster and he's good at it while Chitose is a natural group leader in public. If Kuzu-P actually tried to do a good show then karma should come into play a la Shirobako but I think Chitose is pretty much faultless from start to finish here; She got the lead and acted like it. It doesn't matter if she earned it or not as that's how luck turns out sometimes. And since she's doing what she needs to do for her roles both in the studio and on the stage and then some then she has the right to be arrogant. Still, I loved Kuzu's approach to the old "good news, bad news" routine, the highlight of the episode. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Yeah I'm pretty sure Kuzu is set up for a fall (not that big of one I would imagine). But I would agree that the anime is making delivering any potential message it'll have a harder than it needs to be. For instance, they keep mentioning the author of the orginal novel and how he'd be disappointed by the change and the poor quality of the adaptation, but at the same time his work is an ultra formulaic story of which hundreds come out every year (if not every days), if it wasn't his work they'd picked it would be one of the millions of other one, all with pretty much interchangeable story/character/event/artstyle and pretty much everything. The only reason the anime industry can afford to adapt his work is because they can keep cost low and use it as a cross media promotion, without those cost would be too high to justify adapting it.
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13235 |
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Doesn't that just go to show that authors genuinely care about their work? Light novels in particular get slammed for the things you mentioned with the addendum that "the author doesn't care about writing something good, he's only writing what's popular so he can make money!" A work might be cliché and formulaic but writters still put their heart into it. Anyways, I think the scene that needs to be focused on is that last one. Chitose scrolls through tweets praising her, but she sounds rather unsatisfied. Almost as if she's upset that the anime was so crap. As arrogant as she is, you'd think she wouldn't care how bad it was so long as she gets famous off of it. Me thinks she's beginning to take some genuine pride in her work and wants to see something she put her effort into turn out well. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Huh, I wouldn't really go as far to say that Kuzu and Chitose are villains but I thought this episode plainly gave commentary regarding anime otaku, particularly in how much they praised Chitose's performance on Twitter (she's an acting god, etc) just from her rehashing tropes from prior tsundere performances. It goes to show how they'll lap up the same thing over and over again from the industry, even when it treats them like crap (such as promoting a first episode preview event and only being shown a slightly edited trailer). This episode was outright mocking otaku and Kuzu/Chitose are exploiting their practically childlike fanbase however they can.
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3768 |
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Though like I was saying earlier in the thread, while it might well be forgotten even if they put in the effort to make it as good as they can, it definitely will be forgotten if you don't. Though the way the production is going that may be the best case scenario. This is why Kuzu will never make good anime. It's not that he is applying his skills to the wrong product, but that his not caring about the product will not make a great anime, even with great source material.
I did as well.
Yeah, sometimes Nick (and others) seem to judge a show based on what they want it to be and not what it is. Questioning the direction of the show is fine but sometimes that came be taken to far and you end up missing the merits of the show as it is because you're too busy judging it for not being the show you wanted it to be. @Megiddo Sure the fans were distracted by the shiny ball right now, but they have already begun to notice that something is wrong in the production. Once the shows starts tipping off the pedestal these fans have erected, they will push them off and those fans will become like a pack of wolves and start tearing it to shreds. At that point no amount of shiny balls will stop the mauling. Sure the fanbase can be manipulated and distracted but if you think that they will never turn against you no matter what you do, you're pushing your luck, just like Kuzu. Ultimately, I think Kuzu and the others will muddle through after the show comes crashing down, neither destroyed nor lauded, and Kuzu at least will continue as he always has, unchastised. Cause this isn't a show where justice prevails and evil is destroyed. Even if the show gives Kuzu his due, I'd bet they cut to some other producer who will do just the same thing, "But I'll do it better". Good luck with that 
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GeneStriker
Posts: 156 |
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My favorite part of this episode was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it tweet Chitose received at the end. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it went along the lines of "I hope you get some better work next time." Chitose's new fans are aware that this work isn't something to be proud of, and so is she.
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I'm pretty sure most otaku already realize that it's a crappy show. Just checking out the tweets shows that the otaku will watch and support it for the seiyuu cast alone (particularly Chitose) even though 'DDDPro' did a lousy job with the animation production. http://imgur.com/a/a1693 |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Thanks for the link, its cool that they went trough the trouble of making all the tweet relevant even though there on screen for half a second. I think most fan will have realized that the production value is poop (although I wonder if they'll make it so the fan notice that the first few episode Chitose performance will be phoned in). @vaisaga As for the light novel author, I was specifically saying that if the show (girlish number, man its hard to talk about show with show in them  ) end with a message that the industry is rotten and its current model is dysfunctional and doesn't care about the author its going to be hard to sustain because if the industry was working on another, more respectful, system then the author work would never have been adapted in the first place because it would be too expensive to adapt a work so mundane and that without the cross promotional stuff it would never get any significant marketing. ie, the industry being rotten is exactly why this author work got adapted.
I'm sure most author are proud of there work even when they're derivative, but it doesn't change the fact that there dime a dozen. |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3768 |
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@Megiddo That doesn't seem like the fans were "childlike" and being exploited masterfully or at least deviously by Kuzu and Chitose, especially Kuzu. Sure they might support shows for fairly low reasons, but they aren't dumb. They can tell the show is crap and the studio making it is doing a crappy job, not that Kuzu didn't put them in a position where they could only really do a crappy job. That doesn't sound like a group that will eagerly gobble up discs. The songs might do well enough, but ultimately it looks like it will do poorly enough that Kuzu won't get much more work like this but not enough so that all involved lose their hats over it, aside from the studio.
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I meant childlike in the sense that after the PV scam had been revealed, the otaku in the crowd were upset an angry, however after seeing some cute girls sing and dance the anger was completely gone. It was as if the girls jiggled a bunch of keys in front of the audience and said 'no, don't worry about that, watch me instead'.
To put up an example of a different sort of fanbase, when video games are released and are not at all what was promised, do the fans stay calm and put up with an obviously feeble product? They do not. They'll holler, scream, and demand a refund. They don't lay down and let the video game industry walk all over them. Well, as Girlish Number shows, anime otaku pretty much do. They don't have much of a backbone and can be distracted by something else (ooh this seiyuu is cute, ooh this has a limited edition item from the manga author if I purchase that crappy anime adaptation of my favorite manga, etc). It's fairly on-the-nose commentary I'd say. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2302 |
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I liked the scene where Kuzu tries calling the animators and they're all dead sleep from overwork.
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