Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Peach Boy Riverside
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
 SubscriberExempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 621 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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One of ANN's staff, over on twitter, has a question. This show was voted to the top spot in the review poll, pre-season, and now is close to the bottom in the ratings poll. An explanation is requested.
Could liven up the thread here a bit. |
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Dayraven
Posts: 183 |
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Maybe the series is going to finish really well, but the votes are being sent in out of chronological order. |
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Hal14
 Posts: 699 Location: Heart of africa |
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It could be source material fans. Alternatively, the first episode was ok. And Frau seems to be a well-received character. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11505 |
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I don't think people realized it was going to be aired out of order when they voted. The first episode wasn't bad, which is what the voting was based on. Also, if people found it a bit confusing since the story just started without any set up, maybe they were hoping a reviewer could help clarify what was going on. I do that sometimes, if it looks like a series is going to be more complicated than I'm prepared to invest effort into sorting out myself.
Now that people know it's deliberately confusing, they don't like it so much. |
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lesterf1020
 Subscriber Posts: 295 Location: Trinidad and Tobago |
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The problem isn't that the story is out of order or confusing. There are quite a few anime like that and they are still well received.
The problem for me is that the method of out of order story telling alienates me from the characters and kills all tension in the story. For example, there is no tension for a confrontation when you already know the outcome and you have already seen the terrifying foe as the butt of silly jokes. It is difficult to empathize with someone who suffers a great tragedy when you have already seen an episode in which they seem to have completely forgotten about it and are having a good time. It is too late to use later episodes to fill in the blanks the damage has been done. This would be fine if it were done as flashbacks or some other framing device that would keep the tension and empathy. I remember watching a youtuber quit a series when an episode of great tension building was deflated at the last minute with a bad joke. That is a bit like what this show feels like sometimes because it has a lot of tonal whiplash and that is heavily exacerbated by being told out of order. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11505 |
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Ah, thank you for that. When she showed up out of nowhere, I figured I'd just forgotten about her because I wasn't paying attention. Have we been told who the bored pair watching from the rooftops are yet? I'm not even sure if they're human or oni. I guess I feel like the little girl was around earlier, but I no longer recall the context. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3774 |
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With the season now over, I have to ask those that watched it, was it worth it releasing the series this way and is it worth it to watch it in chronological order?
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11505 |
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I don't see how it benefited in any way from the jumbled order. But I don't care enough about it to rewatch in order, since the way it was presented left such a bad taste in my mouth. Sometimes a series makes choices that make you feel so spiteful about it that you just can't enjoy it anymore, regardless of its other merits.
If you haven't watched any of it, I think it would be a decent series to watch in the proper order - not fantastic, but not terrible either. Frau is great, and Hawthorn is a good guy. If you're watching in chrono order, the 3 episode rule should work fine to decide if it's for you or not. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2449 |
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I quit watching it around episode 3 or 4 (in airing order). Since it finished airing, I went back and watched the rest of it over the past few days, in chronological order. I thought it was an above-average show; intriguing world (shockingly so, for a riff on such a simple classic story), reasonably well-done classic fantasy cast, and between decent and pretty darn good animation. On the other hand, its central themes are really clumsy and on-the-nose, and its character writing is only OK and rather uneven, with some characters (like the Big Bad) feeling so not-fleshed-out that you wonder if it's some kind of meta-joke you're missing out on. Often substitutes style for depth.
Anyway, I thought it was worth the watch. I cannot imagine watching it in the as-it-aired order, though. There was clearly no purpose to that choice; makes me feel bad for most of the staff, to have one directorial decision take an otherwise decent product and push its popularity into the dirt. |
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Covnam
Posts: 3774 |
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Thank you for the feedback =)
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