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Terrible90sDub
Joined: 14 Jul 2017
Posts: 168
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 Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:00 am
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| pip25 wrote: | |
The anime's presentation might be largely at fault here, but most of Akira's time in school is portrayed as being spent in almost complete isolation. On one hand, this is because Akira does not really associate with anyone (which is a problem), but on the other hand, it's also because her supposed friends don't actually seek her out. To say that Haruka made a large effort because (by chance!) she came across Akira trying to get a special keychain is not all that convincing in comparison. Akira's decision to invite her to the festival feels a lot more like a meaningful and conscious choice, especially since she's the one with psychological problems in the first place. |
The main episode referred to here does focus on Haruka wanting to reconnect, and as such, I meant Haruka getting the keychain Akira wanted and finding her afterward to give it to her. I didn't mean that Akira inviting her was meaningless, just that Haruka is the one we see trying to initiate it at the start and later it falls apart because of what Akira decides. I do agree Akira's isolated, and said in an earlier discussion her world seems pretty small, but some of the earlier scenes with Haruka seemed to help that rather than make it worse... At least until that festival conflict.
| pip25 wrote: | |
As for Akira "abandoning" her during the festival, I think this is being blown out of proportion. She excused herself, greeted him, then came back. The whole exchange took at most 15 seconds. It did show to Haruka that Akira considers Kondo to be an important person to her, because she did go out of her way to greet him, but not much beyond that. (Akira's reaction to her follow-up question of course did betray everything else.) And also let's not mix up cause and effect: Haruka flipped out first, saying that Akira "doesn't tell her anything anymore", after which they got into an argument, which ended with Haruka running away after Akira's aforementioned "things can't go back to the way they were" line. Which, by the way, from her point of view, seemed absolutely true - the whole story between them so far seems to be about Akira changing (for better or worse), and Haruka refusing to accept it. |
There seems to be a different perception of events here, but to avoid arguing over things like in-universe time: The original focus is that Akria, in that moment, is presented with a reminder of her past (Haruka) and her present situation (Kondo) and decides the two of them can't be connected. It's like Akira took a step forward, but then two steps back. There was nothing explicitly related to track in that situation, but the moment a conflict came up related to her past at all... She probably didn't do this consciously so much as acting in the moment, since afterward, she wished on the apocalypse-sized moon that it wouldn't turn out that way and would improve, which is also a good sign. You can see Haruka as acting a bit selfishly for wanting her back in track, as Haruka misses her for her own reasons, but I doubt that's all there is to their relationship so much as the show is connecting characters with specific aspects of the lives of the main characters. I'm pretty optimistic they'll get there eventually, but at the moment Akira is running away from anything associated with track out of fear.
Which, to connect this back to the original question, is why it's so tied to her going back to track itself. Would talking about track less help them get along better at the moment? Yes, but it's connecting it to Akira's central conflict itself, and I don't believe that Akira actually doesn't want to go back, given how she's still drawn to anything related to running (i.e. that book she picked up). It's not that Haruka hasn't also made mistakes here, but Akira tends to make an association with track, which also may be why she didn't reach out to former members of the track team until after Haruka made that gatcha exchange and said they can still be friends outside of it.
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Mohawk52
Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:41 am
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| Crext wrote: | | I'll be honest. I thought this episode was really boring. I'm guessing next episode will be "return to the track team"-day and "return to writing"-day, and that is our happy ending. In reality it is as if nothing we've seen so far really mattered. |
Not so much the distination as more the journey there. I'd be more curious to know if the mangaka, discovering all the flack being shot at her story, didn't change to a slighty more safer course in its finally. 
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Coup d'État
Joined: 29 Dec 2017
Posts: 179
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:55 am
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| Mohawk52 wrote: | Not so much the distination as more the journey there. I'd be more curious to know if the mangaka, discovering all the flack being shot at her story, didn't change to a slighty more safer course in its finally. |
I'm not in the loop, was there even any real backlash in Japan?
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Ryutai
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 10:16 am
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| Mohawk52 wrote: |
| Crext wrote: | | I'll be honest. I thought this episode was really boring. I'm guessing next episode will be "return to the track team"-day and "return to writing"-day, and that is our happy ending. In reality it is as if nothing we've seen so far really mattered. |
Not so much the distination as more the journey there. I'd be more curious to know if the mangaka, discovering all the flack being shot at her story, didn't change to a slighty more safer course in its finally. |
Nah, she had planned this kind of story since the beginning.
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Panino Manino
Joined: 28 Jan 2018
Posts: 748
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 11:08 am
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| pip25 wrote: | |
The anime's presentation might be largely at fault here, but most of Akira's time in school is portrayed as being spent in almost complete isolation. On one hand, this is because Akira does not really associate with anyone (which is a problem), but on the other hand, it's also because her supposed friends don't actually seek her out. |
I believe that her little circle of friends is occupied with after school activities while she waits the time to go to work.
| #Verso.Sciolto wrote: | | This is a series about writing and writers. |
I'll warn you, beware to not find yourself in one of those fanfics.
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#Verso.Sciolto
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:13 pm
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| Panino Manino wrote: | | I believe that her little circle of friends is occupied with after school activities while she waits the time to go to work. |
Is there one person among the circle of female classmates and club members the scriptwriters created for her who can actually read a human emotion? Based on the way those girls were scripted to behave in episode one what incentive did Akira have to talk to them? That never improved, only got worse:
| Quote: | ... and while on the subject of recognition or interpretation of "basic" human emotions, this episode the animators treated us to the in-universe deduction that "Haruka probably needed to use the toilet", or words to that effect, when she arrived at school then rushed by them when she found Akira in conversation near the school entrance... posted Tue Mar 13, 2018 |
Akira was depicted from the start as having nothing to gain from interacting with her female peers. Haruka too is nearly constantly scripted in such a way that the few male characters she interacts with are the ones offering her assistance and guidance.
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Mohawk52
Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:54 pm
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| Ryutai wrote: | |
Nah, she had planned this kind of story since the beginning. |
Oh? Know her that well do ya? Close mates and all that?
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pip25
Joined: 22 Sep 2017
Posts: 167
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 2:36 pm
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| Panino Manino wrote: | |
I believe that her little circle of friends is occupied with after school activities while she waits the time to go to work. |
But that... kinda proves my point, doesn't it? Were they truly so preoccupied for months that they never found the time? Really?
| Terrible90sDub wrote: | |
There seems to be a different perception of events here, but to avoid arguing over things like in-universe time: The original focus is that Akria, in that moment, is presented with a reminder of her past (Haruka) and her present situation (Kondo) and decides the two of them can't be connected. It's like Akira took a step forward, but then two steps back. There was nothing explicitly related to track in that situation, but the moment a conflict came up related to her past at all... She probably didn't do this consciously so much as acting in the moment, since afterward, she wished on the apocalypse-sized moon that it wouldn't turn out that way and would improve, which is also a good sign. You can see Haruka as acting a bit selfishly for wanting her back in track, as Haruka misses her for her own reasons, but I doubt that's all there is to their relationship so much as the show is connecting characters with specific aspects of the lives of the main characters. I'm pretty optimistic they'll get there eventually, but at the moment Akira is running away from anything associated with track out of fear.
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We certainly seem to have a very different interpretation for these festival scenes. I do understand that the series relies heavily on symbolism to show the emotional state of certain characters, (funnily enough Akira still seems more talkative here compared to her manga counterpart,) but in this case, the thought of interpreting these events in a symbolic way honestly never occurred to me. Heck, Akira's reactions to Haruka's disbelief concerning her feelings for Kondo (and Haruka's "he's an old man!" speech itself) seemed so tropey that they bordered on comical - which, to me, made Haruka's frustrated outburst a moment later all the more unwarranted, or at least unexpected.
I do hope these two characters can patch things up and that their friendship isn't as shallow as it sometimes appears to be. In fact, I plan on rereading the available parts of the manga once the anime concludes because I get the feeling that the adaptation might have skipped some things that would have provided a lot more context and depth to their situation.
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Ryutai
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:46 pm
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| Mohawk52 wrote: |
| Ryutai wrote: | |
Nah, she had planned this kind of story since the beginning. |
Oh? Know her that well do ya? Close mates and all that? |
She said she didn't write this manga as a love comic. Plus, I am actually reading the manga (I don't know about you) and Akira's drama with running was introduced since the first volume.
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pip25
Joined: 22 Sep 2017
Posts: 167
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 4:40 pm
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| Ryutai wrote: | |
She said she didn't write this manga as a love comic. Plus, I am actually reading the manga (I don't know about you) and Akira's drama with running was introduced since the first volume. |
I will not claim that it surely applies to the present situation, but I would not take everything the author says for granted, especially in topics of potential editorial interference.
I will not forget any time soon how Sasuga Kei, the author of "GE - Good Ending", said in an interview that her manga was not at all cancelled, and everything in the story went the way she wanted it to go - while you could practically pinpoint the chapter where she was more than likely told that she had to finish her manga by the end of the next volume. She did (probably) try to go with her original plan for the story, but with only so many chapters to work with - well, you can imagine the result. It's the reason I avoid her new work (Domestic na Kanojo) like the plague - she has remarkable art and interesting characters, but I simply don't want to be burned twice. (And I am probably being unfair, since she is only partially to blame.)
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Ryutai
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 5:32 pm
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@pip25: As I said, I am reading the manga, and since the first volumes she was dropping the hints for developing this kind of plot rather than a pure sentimental story.
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pip25
Joined: 22 Sep 2017
Posts: 167
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 5:40 pm
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| Ryutai wrote: | | @pip25: As I said, I am reading the manga, and since the first volumes she was dropping the hints for developing this kind of plot rather than a pure sentimental story. |
It was a while ago, but I've also read the manga (the first part of it, at least), and my impression was that there's very significant plot progression on the "love" front in the first volume, and even after that. However, in later volumes the focus seemed to shift significantly. That may have been the author's intention from the start, or maybe it wasn't. Hard to say. The story remained interesting for me either way.
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#Verso.Sciolto
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 6:58 pm
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| Ryutai wrote: | | Plus, I am actually reading the manga (I don't know about you) and Akira's drama with running was introduced since the first volume. |
Previously I wrote that the changes in the adaptation were significant in the context of interactions between Kyan and Yamamoto, excerpt from an earlier comment:
| Quote: | | The ball hitting her leg is followed immediately by suggestive remarks about her academic abilities, Yamamoto implies Haruka too should have been inside a classroom to take extra classes. The young man then offers faint praise when her facial expression changes and she offers a grunt as her reaction. |
Running out of time, but we'll return to this moment.
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Ryutai
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 2:08 am
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| pip25 wrote: |
| Ryutai wrote: | | @pip25: As I said, I am reading the manga, and since the first volumes she was dropping the hints for developing this kind of plot rather than a pure sentimental story. |
It was a while ago, but I've also read the manga (the first part of it, at least), and my impression was that there's very significant plot progression on the "love" front in the first volume, and even after that. However, in later volumes the focus seemed to shift significantly. That may have been the author's intention from the start, or maybe it wasn't. Hard to say. The story remained interesting for me either way. |
Both the topics (love and inner struggles with life ambitions) are heavily connected in the manga since the beginning, and they progress together, but the "love part" becomes always more clearly a tool to develop the other topic, especially in the last 5 volumes, more or less. In the anime, since they are compressing the story so much, they are skipping tons of material between Kondo and Akira, so it looks like the interactions between Akira/Haruka and Kondo/Chihiro are way more relevant in helping them with their struggles than the interactions between the two main characters themselves. This is why I complained about this adaptation, but since someone asked me to avoid to compare the manga with the anime, I'm trying to do it.
EDIT:
In basically every volume of the manga (but also in basically every episode of the anime), we get scenes where Tachibana is observing the sky. That sky that she loves so much, as if she was a swallow, and that is calling her, but that she is rejecting because of her fears.
She preferred to hide herself in a shelter (the Garden), but that shelter is also a "cage".
I think this is made really clear by the mangaka in every volume, so I completely disagree with people who think the mangaka could have decided to change the direction of the manga at some point. Tachibana is a silent character who speaks especially through her looks at the sky, and her deepest emotions are expressed by the weather conditions.
The mangaka got the beautiful intuition to building up her healing through the interactions with a person who, basically, is the opposite of her. Someone who feels himself "alive" when he is inside a small room with a pen and a manuscript, and love enjoying his time closed in a library. Despite Akira and Kondo being so different, they were able to help each other. Two people with completely different background, experiences, and dreams, but with the same kind of struggle. The message is that you can learn something about life from any kind of people, also from the ones who apparently are completely different from you. And it's never too late for improving yourself (this is especially expressed by Kondo's character, since he is a depressed middle aged man).
This is the first PV that was released on Noitamina channel when the anime was announced. That pic with Akira looking at the sky, it's a recurrent pic during the whole manga.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHLYugCBtjs
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Crext
Joined: 04 Nov 2012
Posts: 211
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 12:44 pm
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| Mohawk52 wrote: |
| Crext wrote: | | I'll be honest. I thought this episode was really boring. I'm guessing next episode will be "return to the track team"-day and "return to writing"-day, and that is our happy ending. In reality it is as if nothing we've seen so far really mattered. |
Not so much the distination as more the journey there. I'd be more curious to know if the mangaka, discovering all the flack being shot at her story, didn't change to a slighty more safer course in its finally. |
That's the thing though, there's no journey at this rate. If you think about it, this is normal life everyday everywhere. If it ends up as I suspect then there was no point in telling this story, as them meeting probably never had much, if any, impact on how things turned out. It's almost like the ultimate "good guys finish last"-story where you see responsible people doing responsible things. If I wanted stuff like this then I'd just videotape some relatives in secret, where the most interesting thing of those stories would be that I videotaped them in secret... (I don't plan to videotape people in secret!)
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