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EP. REVIEW: Killing Bites


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#844391



Joined: 09 Sep 2015
Posts: 517
PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:06 am Reply with quote
Ep 4,

This show is a bit more intelligent than I gave it credit, I wasn't expecting a board game type match. And the player being moved by the piece is a pretty cool move. I just wish they showed the board and the pieces as they were moved so viewers could get an idea of the actual strategies as they are being played out, the whole strategic element to the game seems a bit wasted if we're only going to be seeing the fights on ground level and not how they appear on the overall board.

It's also a bit odd that they say that piece of terrain is key because it provides a view of the battlefield, when the players can see the whole board and where everyone is, and where the the pieces can only move as they're told, but I guess it lets whoever is controlling that space be better prepared for anyone that might attack them?
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Sahmbahdeh



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 713
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:20 pm Reply with quote
I don't know what the reviewer is on about; Announcer Lady is awesome, and everything makes sense about the situation in context. It's just the right balance between cheesy and serious for me at this point, so I'm enjoying myself with this show immensely. And the board game style of strategy is an interesting take on the concept, so I'm looking to see how that will go.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 24124
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:42 pm Reply with quote
I confess that I'm a bit confused about the rules of the Destroyal. I get that Yuya is nominally Hitomi's "player"... but does that mean Ui and Hippo Guy are being controlled by other people? So it's not one player per 3-brute team, it's one player per Brute? Who is controlling Ui and Hippo Guy, then?

Also, Shido has a function within the Destroyal itself (I can't remember his title, but Announcer Lady introduced him) so why is he allowed to have a Brute he created in the competition? Aren't the other conglomerates worried about the conflict of interest? Unless he has created all the Brutes, then I guess I can understand it.
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#844391



Joined: 09 Sep 2015
Posts: 517
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
I confess that I'm a bit confused about the rules of the Destroyal. I get that Yuya is nominally Hitomi's "player"... but does that mean Ui and Hippo Guy are being controlled by other people? So it's not one player per 3-brute team, it's one player per Brute? Who is controlling Ui and Hippo Guy, then?

Also, Shido has a function within the Destroyal itself (I can't remember his title, but Announcer Lady introduced him) so why is he allowed to have a Brute he created in the competition? Aren't the other conglomerates worried about the conflict of interest? Unless he has created all the Brutes, then I guess I can understand it.


I believe each player controls all the members of their team, but they only move one piece at a time. And yea, I don't know how Yuya is supposed to make intelligent moves with his other pieces since he's only getting hand signals for one. But then Hitomi didn't really care who was on her team as she planned on beating everyone herself, she said herself that she only need Ui as an extra body to fill out the team.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18422
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:55 pm Reply with quote
Twelve participants and 12 people at the table probably means one player per Brute.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1759
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 3:22 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Taiga (yes, that's really his name)

"Taiga" is not an uncommon given name, though, at least in anime/etc. or as a stage name. It's pompous and it's cheesy to have the tiger character named that, but then again this show is all cheese, all the time. (Also his sister might just be named after the lioness Elza.)

I'm wondering more about his beast designation "Tiga". What language did that came from? (If it's a word play on "Taiga" it's still quite confusing since most everyone else's beast name is pretty straightforward.)
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Yttrbio



Joined: 09 Jun 2011
Posts: 3670
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 3:36 pm Reply with quote
I find the whole board game conceit pointlessly obtuse and disappointingly devoid of silly violence or sexy bodies. Which, for this show, makes you wonder why it was included at all.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 4:42 pm Reply with quote
I like the announcer woman. They gave that voice actress a script and told her to hype the hell out of the fights and she gave it 110%. Killing Bites is not trying to be a thought provoking show and it has all the quiet dignity of a WWE wrestling match. When the show is just trying to be fun it usually does a good job of it. The name of the strategy that Yuya uses is perfect and got a laugh out of me. The main issue I have with the show is that it does take the occasional stroll into creepsville since about every other episode has a scene with sexual assault. Still for the most part this show has been entertaining.
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#844391



Joined: 09 Sep 2015
Posts: 517
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 5:27 pm Reply with quote
"For now, the show just comes across as stupidly crass."

Has the reviewer been watching the same show we have? Episode one had an attempted gang rape that turned into a mass murder, followed by a girl stripping to her undies turning into a honey badger and having a death match with a lion man and at the end the main character meets a flasher (full nude on top) and who then skewers his leg. And that was all episode 1. This show is about as subtle as highschool of the dead, and I think we passed the crass line about 60 seconds after the first episode started heh.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2656
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:56 pm Reply with quote
^^ Our reviewer seems to have missed that in these sort of stories, there is a conscious effort to contrast the refined aspirations of elite criminals with their base or corrupt motivations, hence the seeming disconnect of guys in suits cheering/ jeering with such abandon. It's not just crass, but a statement. Also, I appreciate the reveal this week that Hitomi's signature phrase "(XX) doesn't matter, the one with the sharpest fangs wins, that's what Killing Bites is" isn't really about teeth but is a metaphor for strategy and skill. This show has some unexpected intelligent aspirations of it's own.
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shadowmaksim



Joined: 01 Feb 2017
Posts: 32
PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:45 pm Reply with quote
Gotta say, the adaption has been doing a pretty good job with adapting the manga so far. It's not perfect mind you as some details are simplified or glossed over, like the segments where the narrator explains animal qwerks, but what's there is done well enough and there are even some new scenes added to flesh stuff out, like the whole UI/Sumitomo Brutes scene. Not to mention the animation actually being pretty decent-to-good for the most part is much appreciated.

Kind of wish this much care was in some of the other adaptions airing this season, *cough* spoiler["Death March"] *cough*, if not just in general.

That said, over how much the first episode got under peoples' skin and the reception so far...the next episode and especially the one after (if they cover the chapters I think they will) are going to be an absolute riot. That is if they aren't censored or changed...which they might be but you can't know or sure.
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Mojave



Joined: 07 May 2017
Posts: 178
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:40 am Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
^^ Our reviewer seems to have missed that in these sort of stories, there is a conscious effort to contrast the refined aspirations of elite criminals with their base or corrupt motivations, hence the seeming disconnect of guys in suits cheering/ jeering with such abandon. It's not just crass, but a statement... This show has some unexpected intelligent aspirations of it's own.


Yeah, I actually really liked how they used the announcer lady to illustrate this theme. She was reserved, refined, unapproachable, and then suddenly full of excitement and bloodlust at the Therianthropes' killing of each other. I don't think that she's supposed to be a likable or relatable character, she's there to really embody this concept, and I thought that it came across really well thanks to her.

What I didn't like, though, was the pointy-toothed therianthrope (we don't know yet who/what he is). We're expected to believe that on a ship full of elites, with elite fighting machine contestants, that one of these contestants would just be able/allowed to wander away and rape a waitress in a bathroom and then attempt to rape another contestant? Yeah, there's pretty much zero chance whatsoever of that being able to happen. And since it doesn't make any sense whatsoever within the show's context, it just seems both pointless and unbelievably gratuitous. I had no issue with the start of the first episode, because it wasn't really gratuitous, served a clear purpose, and made sense. This, however, did none of those things, so even as someone who enjoys the show, I do agree that this part of the episode was really bad and needlessly detracts from the episode while adding nothing.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1759
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:37 am Reply with quote
Mojave wrote:
What I didn't like, though, was the pointy-toothed therianthrope (we don't know yet who/what he is). We're expected to believe that on a ship full of elites, with elite fighting machine contestants, that one of these contestants would just be able/allowed to wander away and rape a waitress in a bathroom and then attempt to rape another contestant? Yeah, there's pretty much zero chance whatsoever of that being able to happen.

Why? It fit perfectly into the point you're agreeing with just above. For one, he didn't "wander away", clearly they can move freely on the ship. And two, this is a depraved, terrible group of, if you take a close look, mostly men. You can bet that as far as they're concerned the waitress girls are expendable. These are supposed to be terrible people who enjoy watching violent deatch matches between people they have genetically engineered to turn them into fight machines. Why do you think rape is even a blip on their radar? Hell, with all the cameras around, you can bet that there's a reason why this guy in particular, who obviously has a penchant for rape, is a contestant.

Mojave wrote:
And since it doesn't make any sense whatsoever within the show's context, it just seems both pointless and unbelievably gratuitous. I had no issue with the start of the first episode, because it wasn't really gratuitous, served a clear purpose, and made sense. This, however, did none of those things, so even as someone who enjoys the show, I do agree that this part of the episode was really bad and needlessly detracts from the episode while adding nothing.

Oh, it was gratuitous, sure, but it does make sense, and it does serve a purpose? It served to set up the Sumitomo fighters as the main villains for this arc, or at least as the common hated enemies. Our heroes are fun and likeable; the brother and sister pair are also kind of likeable (or at least not entirely terrible, okay they're at least hot); the bear guy and glasses dude are obviously cannon fodder. (The woman in the dress and the huge guy are the only enigmas so far.) But the Sumitomo contestants have been firmly established as the worst that we should root against.

Now, one would argue that it shouldn't be necessary to use gratuitous sexual violence with obviously titillating overtones to sell characters as being evil, but... I mean, you know...
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Mojave



Joined: 07 May 2017
Posts: 178
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:25 am Reply with quote
It doesn't fit into the zaibatsu's baser instincts, though. It's already been clearly established that the rules of killing bites are basically sacrosanct to these guys. So the chances of the pointy-toothed therianthrope being permitted to be in a situation where he would rape another team's contestant on the official vehicle to take them to the battle destroyal are absolutely zero. Which means that the situation with both the waitress and Ui couldn't possibly happen in the show's world. So it was pointless. They could have conveyed the same sentiment (Sumitomo brutes are totally the bad guys) in a manner that actually made sense and wasn't pointlessly gratuitous. Have pointy-toothed guy get all horny as he passes Ui on the boat, and have him start saying what he's gonna do to her out in the battle royale after he defeats her. Gets the point across just as effectively, actually makes sense in the show's world, and doesn't feature rape as titillation.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1759
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:19 am Reply with quote
Mojave wrote:
It doesn't fit into the zaibatsu's baser instincts, though. It's already been clearly established that the rules of killing bites are basically sacrosanct to these guys. So the chances of the pointy-toothed therianthrope being permitted to be in a situation where he would rape another team's contestant on the official vehicle to take them to the battle destroyal are absolutely zero.

I honestly don't understand why you think so. I don't remember any rules as to what the contestants should and shouldn't do outside the actual Destroyal. They're free to walk around on the ship and interact with people, contestants and no contestants alike. The zaibatsu guys probably don't give a damn about the waitresses and what happens to them (many of them likely do the same off-screen, I mean this is that kind of a manga/show) and contestants are most likely expected to be able to defend themselves (otherwise what good are they in the Destroyal?). Rape, to these people, obviously doesn't count as an offense.

To me it seems your main problem is that it's a gratuitous rape scene, and yeah that's bad and it's not an aspect of the show that I enjoy, but... I mean, you know... ^^;;
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