Forum - View topicIzetta: The Last Witch (TV).
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Actually, I thought that was a pretty awesome battle scene from start to finish. The complaint that Izetta's violence is somehow sanitized compared to the regular human on human conflict I find bizarre. There's very little gore regardless of who is doing the killing. This is no Drifters-style blood-athon. The discordance doesn't come in with any so-called sanitization, it comes in with the fact that the "regular" battles are depicted fairly realistically (in a non-gory way, generally) whereas Izetta's powers are clearly fantastical. There is no gritty way to portray flying lances and swords, there just isn't. This discordance is baked right into the premise of the show, so if its execution is troubling you, I don't think you are going to dig this title very much.
My only real question is about the rules of Izetta's magic use. Last episode, it seemed like she needed to spill her own blood to use offensive capabilities, but that wasn't in evidence this time. I guess the idea is that when she comes in contact with an object, she can make it fly, but if there is no handy object around to force through the air, she can use her own blood to become spear-like projectiles. |
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HelloBucket
 Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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I'm pretty sure the spears were made out of ice. So, I think the rule is simply she can animate objects using whatever latent magical energy that they have if she touches them, and her throwing her blood was a way to throw her touch. I also saw some strong implication that the older something is, the more magical energy it has to tap - I think this, rather than just sheer weight, is why should couldn't move the tanks around as well and why she swapped the gun for the lance as what she was riding.
Honestly, it disappoints me a little as I liked the blood-for-blood angle of the magic in episode two, but this is clearly not the actual logic by which her magic works. I think you can make the flying lances and swords gritty if you bothered to actually show anyone being skewered by them. That said, I don't recall her directly taking on any infantry and only attacked tanks and planes. Still, a little thought could have been spared for the occupants. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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It might be an unwritten rule that "because a person put there soul into crafting the object" objects with a history of wielded for a long period of time or the intricate parts that make up tanks means that they are subject to Izetta's magical manipulation. It might simply be better if the show doesn't spell it out and we go with "it is MAGIC!" else the audience becomes a stickler for what Izetta does with future actions. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Sure, there is always the danger of some segment of the audience becoming too persnickety about magic "rules" but I find HelloBucket's explanation pretty persuasive. It fits in with what we have been shown and its not a terribly convoluted idea so I don't think we're in danger of being bogged down with a thick tome of Ye Olde Magicks rules.
eta: keying off HelloBucket's comment about sparing a thought for the occupants of the tanks: my interpretation is that Izetta's personal code prevents her from killing anyone directly. The tanks didn't blow up, so you can imagine that while the occupants doubtlessly got banged around, they are probably still alive. It would appear she is only interested in destroying the machines of war. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15546 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 3
That was awesome! Like a cool anime version of the old fight in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. First I really liked the regular WWII like battle. The tanks and like reminded me of Girl und Panzer, but that is in the best possible way because the use of CG models in that show with tanks was fantastic and worked here. There really was a sense how horrible the battle was, with all the trenches, bombings, snipping and grenades, kind of makes me think of why we had not had something like this before. Fiine was amazing with her speech to her men, she is simply a great character that it is easy to see why anyone would follow her. And when we got to the magic fantastic side of the combat, it was a feast to the eyes. Pike like spears flying around and piecing planes, a swarm of swords raining down on opponents and tanks being flipped, I was enamoured by the whole thing. And in reference to the complaints earlier about her violence being sanitized, well she was mostly fighting large vehicles. She had not chance to hesitate in this fight, so this had to be conveyed to the audience. But despite that we did see her linger on the thought at feeling bad at killing someone, I think that it was conveyed when she lingered her attention on a crashed plane, something she kind of regretted but she had to carry on, which followed with her getting swords for the second wave. This is only the second episode so I think that it is a little unfair to call the good guys being sanitized at the moment. We got a number of shots also getting shot too, but we were supposed to be seeing the battle from the point of view of the good guys, so it would not make sense to focus on the dead body of an enemy soldier that a good guy cannot see over a friendly who fell right next to them. I usually have a big problem with good guys being sanitized. Like say in Star Wars we are made to not care about stormtroopers because they are made faceless by wearing helmets, caring more about stupid little bears being killed over the implication that those human characters got eaten by said bears. Something Episode 7 did good was making a character an ex-stormtrooper. But it is too early here so far, and a little misguided when we have already had the theme that having to kill was her breaking a promise. |
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HelloBucket
Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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^
Her regret over breaking her promise and conflicted feelings about using violence are good characterization for Izetta, but I don't think they address the question of sanitization at all. We're really only shown the positives: Izetta defeating the evil, faceless tanks and destroying the evil, faceless airplanes and then, in true good person fashion, feeling a bit bad about it. The show itself never really forces the audience to confront the violence inherent to all this. At the end of the day, this OK, just not great. The depiction of war in general in the show is done in a very classic good guy vs. bad guy style. It seems pretty clear that it wants to be an adventure with just enough darkness to not feel saccharine. I can't help but wish it aimed for a little greater range in tone and a little greater depth to its themes. Yeah, yeah, we're still early so things could take a turn but the show is spending most of its time with mustache-twirling enemies, hero speeches, sentimental flashbacks, and ain't-it-cool action sequences. I don't see where the groundwork is being laid for anything more ambitious. Not the end of the world though. If they keep the quality up it will still be a fun adventure show with a really awesome soundtrack. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Episode 4
Izetta's gotta nice setta. Well, looks like we have to "pay" for last week's spectacular battle sequences with a far more contained episode this week. Can't have a high production value extravaganza all the time, after all. I had to chuckle at "the United States of Atlanta." Seems like in this world, the US Civil War maybe ended a bit differently. I had to groan at some of the comments in the Izetta episode review thread. There are still people posting stuff like, "well, Fine's father shouldn't be called Archduke because, blah, blah, blah..." Jesus Effing Christ. What will it take for people to understand that this is an EFFING ALTERNATIVE/PARALLEL WORLD and therefore anything that doesn't correspond to our real world ISN'T AN EFFING MISTAKE!!! Such a simple concept yet apparently beyond the ability of some to grasp. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15546 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I liked the build a symbol thing with the help of a reporter, it is one of those things that I think tend to get ignored as part of war. Not that I am the biggest fan of the franchise in general, but it was one of the parts of the Hunger Games that I thought was especially cool, and the fact that it was also a women made me think of the similarity. Although, level boob squeezing a little unnecessary.
I also like the introduction of other side characters, like her body guard and her maid, they feel like they have their parts, and there is a strength in carrying out their duties. |
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HelloBucket
Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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It seems the source of Izetta's power is even more simple than I speculated. It's a bit of a disappointment, in my opinion, to choose something like that which isn't readily apparent to the audience since it lets the creators just set power levels arbitrarily, rather than really working them into the narrative.
That said, they did establish the capital as a magic-free zone, which could end up being important. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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This is also slightly curious, it could be simply that "the ley lines don't reach" and alternatively the historical White Witch performed something forbidden that drained the local magic in the area that would be the "new capital" area. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Episode 5
Nice fake out. I wonder if the Germanians will draw any conclusion from the fact that Izetta "used" a landslide to win the battle as opposed to her earlier technique of animated lances and whatnot. That Major guy is fairly sharp, so I wonder what he may make of it. Although I do question his assumption that all Izetta would need to do is go to Neu-Berlin and kill the emperor and the war would be over. Not sure why Germania would suddenly throw in the towel just because its emperor was dead. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15546 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I really like plots that involve creating the illusion of greater power as a weapon. I would say that it is a weakness in stories where a character has to explain the exact nature of their ability, and making someone over or underestimate strength should be a part of a battle.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Episode 6
Well, Fine sure does like to eat herself a nice slice of some hot, steaming, juicy, delicious pie, heh-heh-heh... Farewell Private Jonas, we hardly knew ye. I'm glad they didn't do what I was expecting and have him spill the beans about Izetta. It's clear Major Berkman is already aware something was off at the Pass as I assumed he might. The Germanians are eventually going to learn about Izetta's weakness and I'm glad it won't be in some super convenient way. Meanwhile the lasses are off to jolly old Britannia where they no doubt will have scads of scandalous adventures. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24034 |
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Episode 7
I just finished bitching about this in the episode review thread, but Elystatd security forces get zero out of zero for competence. They knew in advance a Germanian spy was in the area SPECIFICALLY trying to get into the secret room and they still couldn't prevent that and prevent Izetta's secret from getting out. Oh and Royal Guard commander obviously didn't think there was ANYTHING suspicious at all about a guy who was very familiar with the White Witch legend and expressing an interesting in seeing the old castle. I hope she gets a scathing performance review. Other than my disgust at the piss poor security (can't you guard a single friggin' room, goddamnit?) an enjoyable episode. Looks like trying to get help from Atlanta was a mistake, though... |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13235 |
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Well, it is a secret room. Putting a guard at some random spot in the hallway would pretty much scream "Hey, there's a secret door here!" Anyways, new girl is obviously the original white witch and the room reacted more to her blood because of that. Of course the biggest issue with that is the title is no longer accurate, but hey, I guess Superman's been "the last son of Krypton" for years even though there's plenty of other Kryptonians around. |
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