Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Part 2 [2022-01-27]
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b-dragon
Posts: 475 |
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1. In regards to the refugees? By presenting as if he understood their plight, brushing off their concerns to give an ultimatum after letting them fester outside the walls for what seems to be a long while. 2. Carla. 3. Getting lost in theoretical statistics and forgetting that his theories and numbers don't quite meet the reality of lived experience. This is what Carla calls him out for....and then she gets choked. Which he doesn't comment on. We can argue the extent to which his more ruthless policies are necessary. And being a dick doesn't mean you are factually incorrect. But the instances of him being increasingly callous to others' experiences are definitely increasing. A different show might analyze that. This show, last season, might have. I've no real faith it will now. |
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Ruhrpottpatriot
Posts: 65 |
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You assume that the refugees are just being lazy and feed off the nation supporting them? How the fudge did you get to that conclusion? If you just watch a miniscule of European news these days it's always: a) We want to go back to the place we fled from as soon as possible b) As long as we are here we want to work because we don't want to tax the nation that accepted us and shoulder our fair share of the burden. Point a) especially is a sore point for many refugees. It won't disappear in one, two or even three generations. We're now in the third generation after the second world war and the fourth after the first. There are still people in Germany who want the territories from either 1937 or 1914 (sometimes minus the French territories) back. Africa is still reeling under the borders drawn from colonialism, with people and nations wanting the lands back the belonged to them hundreds of years ago. The point Souma makes is a (semi-)valid one, but not this fast. There are three ways people feel belonging to a nation: Time (lot of it), war (as seen currently in Ukraine) or forced indoctrination. Based on how the last episode went we have to assume that the refugees aren't just given a place to live and work, but they have to accept Friedonia's culture and assimilate into their society. If Souma didn't want that and let the refugees live as they always have, why present his way as opposite to the empire's and point out that hunting and other tasks are forbidden? That's... just plain cultural genocide as defined in the UN-Charta, now that I think of it.
According to his go to author? Very little. Machiavelli was pretty clear in his writings that Republics are more stable, kinder and overall more prosperous. He only called for ruthlessness in times of desperation, which Friedonia never once had, at least not as it's currently shown in the anime or manga. The daemon threat is there but apparently just boiling on low flame with the empire and other nations shouldering the most and his war against Amidonia went almost too well, with just one battle which only showed that he has no clue about military operation and won just because Amidonia was too stupid to defend it's capital. What did the author read for research? |
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SilverTalon01
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Souma very clearly stated that he was not the one who "let them fester." It was Albert. Souma simply inherited too many larger problems from Albert that it is taking a while for him to get to this.
But this is all Souma is asking of them. Instead of them living in a ghetto outside the city, he wants to move them into a newly built town and give them jobs. All he is saying is that they should work and support the country they reside in, and he clearly said that they do not need to internally give up on going home and can leave to do so at any point. Lets not forget, the refugees currently in that camp aren't working and contributing. Souma is having the country shoulder the entire burden while he worked out the plan he offered. So if your argument is that refugees want to work to shoulder a fair share of the burden (which I'm not disagreeing with), Souma is offering a plan for how they can do that.
You're massively overreaching here. Souma never once said they needed to abandon their culture. He is saying that they need to follow the laws of the country they reside in, and he won't continue to overlook it. Pretty sure what you're talking about is not the UN giving immunity from local laws. Souma's position is the opposite from the Empire because the Empire would have the refugees poor their sweat and blood into building up a place they're not allowed to own. Souma's position is that he isn't going to shove them into a reservation that they'll never have any legal claim to, and instead he is going to set them up in a town where they can work and buy property just like everyone else in the country. Unlike the Empire's offer where the refugees end up owning nothing, Souma's offer would allow the refugees to sell their property should they decide to return to their homeland because they'll be working, getting paid, and purchasing things like everyone else in the country. The Empire is still exploiting the refugees for labor. Souma's point is that while the Empire's exploitation seems mutually beneficial at the moment, when the refugees are eventually told that they don't in fact own that land then they're going to feel exploited. Or the super dumbed down version is that Souma is forcing a hard choice on them now, but the Empire will be saying "lol, get fucked" to them later. |
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Ruhrpottpatriot
Posts: 65 |
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Problems that, as far as the anime has shown us, is literally just: They are here illegally and they are hunting and gathering illegally. The first point is absolute BS. Telling refugees they entered a country illegally is like telling a woman that got raped that she's responsible by dressing in revealing clothing. The second point is as simple as his hyper-competent prime minister drafting a few letters patent (which he was shown very capable multiple times) granting them these rights within reason, thus solving the whole "refugees are lazy and don't work" proble, So this is either a plothole by the author, or Souma just grasping for argumentative straws. The former is more likely, but you can certainly argue for both.
He never states that the place where he wants to put them is theirs either. Remember: Machiavelli said that a Price should not be overly generous because their subjects will not appreciate it and demand more. A prince should also be ready to cut off any generosity at a moments notice. If we take Machiavelli's words by face value, which Souma has done all the time, then him granting the refugees hurts his own position and will invite more hate against him and destabilize the state, therefore requiring him to disposes the refugees. About the empire's policy he says, that the refugees get a plot of land which they can do as they like but don't own for as long as they need to stay. When, or rather if, the land they fled from has been cleared from daemons they can return. His argument against is, that the generation which fled, will most likely return, but he (Souma) is not so sure about the generation that wasn't born in the land their ancestors fled from. Now here's the multiple fallacies in that argumentation: 1. Our own reality has shown that families will return to the land of their ancestors multiple generations after they have been forcibly evicted. 2. It's never stated that the empire will take away that land from the refugees after they have the possibility to return home. Yes, in the anime Licia calls it "provisional residence", but here are a few problems with either the translation or the author's own wording and what follows afterwards with Souma's argumentation. Assuming that the war is over quick, the refugees can return quickly and everyone is happy. One could argue that this is hard on the children, but generally children are very good adapting and most likely wouldn't really suffer. Again: Our own history has shown that people returning after decades can settle their ancestral lands pretty quickly. Heck there are Jews, and descendants of Jews murdered by the Nazis that willingly returned to Germany. On the other hand assuming the war takes multiple generation, then it's pretty plausible that the "provisional residence" becomes permanent pretty fast (after all; nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution), especially if other people (non-refugees) settle in the same area. If the empire would oust them after that, it would hurt the empire itself pretty bad in two ways: Not only would not only go against Empress Maria's whole character, but also hurt the empire financially as they now have an area that pays taxes, trades with other parts of the empire and other nations, that now completely breaks away. Not only that, but them only getting it provisionally is already pretty much out of character for both Maria and Jeanne. I mean the Empress being called "The Saint" doesn't just appear out of thin air. Even if "benevolent Empress" was just a mask, granting the refugees the land like any other citizen makes more sense from a Realpolitik standpoint. The refugees will be thankful that they are not pampered, they are also not living in uncertainty, thus stifling growth and the Empire gets taxes. Of course, the possibility exists that after Maria dies some hardline Emperor will just throw them out and not care about the financial repercussions, but the same goes for Souma's own plans. As a certain Yang Wenli said: "Rulers aren't necessarily wise through generations." So what's the whole point of Souma arguing? Either he wants to give the Refugees a place to live and let them be if they follow the laws. This is literally the same as the empire, just that he doesn't mention that he's totally willing to take it away because "Machiavelli said so". However he says, and I quote from the anime: "If you live as people of this country, I will give you a place to live." The emphasis is on the if. Only if they live as citizens, they will get a place and work. Them getting anything is bound to them giving up their old land and becoming is bound to them becoming citizens of Friedonia. If this isn't cultural genocide, it's pretty close. Now I have written that I don't see Souma being written as n asshole, but as an enlightened ruler. However, the writing in many cases is so comically bad, that he inadvertently becomes a massive dick (*cough* Carla vs. Mio *cough*). This episode is just the most egregious. |
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Covnam
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They said that there are 1,000 refugees iirc, but it's hard to know how much of an issue that is if we don't know how big that is relative to the rest of the population.
As for Souma's actions, it seems less like a culture thing and more a loyalty thing. If they want to stay, they have to "bend the knee" so to speak. |
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Ruhrpottpatriot
Posts: 65 |
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The problem with the whole argumentation around the refugees is pretty flimsy. Souma had the money to completely demolish the slums and rebuild them anew with modern housing and wastewater treatment.
Even if the people living there would just accept that course of action -- which is not a given; people rarely take kindly to others taking away their stuff, even if it would result in a better overall situation for them -- why not use a part of that money to help the refugees in the camp and take the other part to make improvements to the slums without bulldozing everything? |
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Hiroki not Takuya
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Again, not sure how I feel toward Ep25 except that it'll be interesting what the resident "patriot" says about the dismissal of the refugee problem in the first minute or so
 (BTW, my people were from Düsseldorf and once part of the Prussian Guard). Anyway, I get production problems in the industry at large are forcing some decisions but a little disappointed in the continuing minimal animation in favor of exposition. Thus "Sex Ed for Queen Wannabees" serves to not highlight those deficiencies but feels a little out of place. Also, Excel's "extraction" of information seems like a very disturbing and dangerous development.
Also want to know how anybody there knows about Worcestershire sauce seeing that they didn't have an "England". Mirin is understandable since it and Souma are Japanese and this makes me wonder if this isn't a tip that they may come out with "Pancho's Isakai Cookbook" as a merchandising tie-in wherein we get to find out how to make the yummy things they are eating in Fredonia.... |
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Ruhrpottpatriot
Posts: 65 |
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Yeah, that is pretty common or rather the need to adapt as much material as possible with as few episodes as possible. After all anime is very much used as a marketing instrument to booster the sales of LN and Manga. Especially for series aren't finished and that don't have the pedigree like Overlord, which was plagued by production issues (just look at the GC) in Season III or JoJo or Tensura, this gets problematic really fast. Leadale suffered from this with the break neck pace for the fist 10 episodes; the same goes for Genius Prince, where they crammed 6 books into twelve episodes. In addition, Japanese anime season structure is pretty rigid. Every season is 12 episodes (sometimes 13 or a special) and if you want more you must run for 24. Of course many LN could benefit from a cut in length of 25% but being focussed on simpler language and generally an easy access to readers, this lends itself well for many cuts when adapting as manga or anime (not at least because both mediums can show far more with images than text). Genius Prince for example would have been better with one volume less to to adapt and 16 or 18 episodes overall.
I feared as much, it was already hinted in the last episode, but that's an actually good end for that whole debacle. There wasn't anything new to be said.
Yeah, no comment on that. I'm going to ignore everything before the cut to the empire... For me that's Episode 24.5 for all I care. As for the rest... Ughhhh... I don't know how this is portrayed in the LNs but pushing Jeanne onto Hakyua seems just too quick. At least for me all of their conversations were friendly but still only work focussed. And even if -- Does every female character really need a love interest? spoiler[As far as I could discern from a bit of spoilering myself on the internet: Apparently yes and every male gets a harem.] And the food? Oh god. The author really doesn't know anything. Ever heard about Cabbages, Potatoes, Carrots, Leek, Beetroot or similar stuff? There were German kings who ordered all villages to plant potatoes as a response to famines because potatoes grow literally everywhere and can be stored for a very long time. I know around my seasonal fruit and vegetables quite a bit, but even I don't know half as much as my grandmother, but just typing in "seasonal food" gave me THIS and THIS Most of that stuff has high yield for a comparably low area and can be planted in every village. Just 50 years ago you could identify a village the Kale on your plate came from, since it was planted literally everywhere and every in every village it had a slightly different taste. This ties into Season 1 quite well. You have Souma being presented weird/uncommon food to highlight how "dire" the situation is and how far they have to go to actually feed the population, because the "free market" (which is never explored in more detail) made farmer plant cotton instead of food... So the author wants us to believe that villages don't even have a few fields of potatoes, grain or other vegetables and just sell everything to other countries when a developed road network just doesn't exist?
As far as I know Worcestershire sauce is pretty well known in Japan and especially in the Kanto region (at least to Wikipedia). So if the author comes from that region we (again) have a situation where the author subconsciously took his knowledge and assumed that it "applies everywhere". The sauce itself isn't anything uncommon. While the UK (and I assume much of the English speaking world) has Worcestershire; Germany, France and Poland have Maggi sauce and the far east has soy sauce. All of those are available in many versions because fermented sauce used to spice food isn't really anything uncommon (after all beer and wine as fermented drinks predate civilization). So basically the scene boils down to: We have a western soy sauce but here's the real deal, which of course is much better. /edit: To make this clear: I don't want to hate on the work per se. I still think it's a very interesting premise that has the possibility to fill a niche in the ocean of isekais. And there were a few really good points: * Using storytelling to convey complicated real world examples * Using the army to advance the road network (which has a precedent in the Roman Republic/Empire) * Making the kingdom a meritocracy (or at least trying to), after it has been proven that different world-views have positive effects on productivity. |
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b-dragon
Posts: 475 |
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Yeah, I'm not really going to touch the setup for the first half of the episode. Thats a bit creepy to get into. I'll say that the whole portion seemed highly unnecessary and unhelpful- at a stretch it demonstrates the rapport between the wives, but I don't know that it does so all that well.
So Souma didn't have a concrete plan for refugee employment when he made the offer? On the one hand I'm glad- I find "perfect" Souma is quite dull to watch- but when Poncho immediately delivers the solution on a silver spoon, it kills the little tension there is. Thats one of the two overarching complaints I've had this season (the second is the overall flattening of the casts' characterization.) If you believe the show's own narrative, Souma just doesn't make errors, face consequences, get challenged, suffer serious setbacks, or have really any negative surprises. He just hasn't grown as a character- especially since the end of episode 3ish. Generally, anytime there's an issue he's either already resolved it, figured out how to resolve it, or its in his favor anyway. I like the show's concept. The potential is most of why I've stuck with it. But it definitely feels like the author already told the story he was interested in, at least to me. |
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Ruhrpottpatriot
Posts: 65 |
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Which is another point in the flawed storytelling. He and his government had the time to plan a completely new and massive city. They also had the funds for it and yet they can't solve the refugee problem. Keep in mind that the whole two seasons took place in a year. A year where a completely new city is planned, road infrastructure was massively improved, the food crisis was solved and a war fought. Most modern politicians/rulers would be glad to have this amount of work done in a decade (well sans the war...) Tesla's new Gigafatory in Germany took a few years to plan, and that's just a single factory not a whole city. A few numbers are really skewed.
Same here. The potential is clearly there, but the execution sorely lacking. Even though I'm a bit harsh on it I'd probably watch a potential S3, just because I want to know if it gets better. |
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Sariachan
 Posts: 1500 Location: Italy |
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I think the series as a whole is quite good and interesting actually. Especially S1. But the directing/series planning is weak sometimes.
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Covnam
Posts: 3724 |
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Yeah, that's the kind of thing that would probably get you executed, not to mention showing the lack of security for Souma. Sure, it was all in good fun this time, but apparently anyone in a high enough position can just brainwash the King without too much trouble... I wonder if this was some anime only filler added for a comedy bit to help the series end at the right point.
Unless I missed an announcement, next weeks episode is the last. Hopefully we'll get another season, as I'd still like to see it continue despite the recent misses. |
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killjoy_the
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It's not. This is content in the novel as well, though slightly different |
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MFrontier
Posts: 11933 |
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It feels like a huge invasion of privacy to use magic to force Souma to reveal his private thoughts and sexual fantasies about his fiances and then straight up telling them about it. Feels like stuff he should be telling them to their face, consensually.
I do like the idea of Excel having the experience necessary to teach the Harem how to properly build and maintain relationships since she's loved and had families with multiple men in 500 years and loved them until they passed away. And on a meta level you have Yui Horie teaching rookie or younger seiyuu how to be proper girls in a Harem. I get why Souma would still be worried Roroa on some level blames him for her fathers' death, but by this point it seems like her feelings for him are genuine and she seems to genuinely look up to the other girls in the Harem as older sisters. Which, knowing her relationship with her older brother, is probably something she really needs. Juna is literally the "perfect woman." I mean, way to raise the bar for the other girls, Souma. I feel bad for Aisha. Souma literally views her as a dog. Her sister wives treat her like a dog. I'm half-expecting Souma to want her to roleplay a dog during sex. And Aisha can't help but go along with it... I guess it goes to show how important Liscia is to Souma that she was the one girl, even under the influence of magic, he wouldn't say anything about that wasn't to her face. Does this mean Souma is planning to confess to her? Although they kind of skipped over Liscia confessing when she just said in the throne room she had feelings for him and no one batted an eye. Maria pouting was adorable. And teasing her sister about her relationship to Hakuya. Poncho hasn't been in the show for, like, 10 episodes (maybe more) and now he comes back to let Souma know they're bringing even more Japanese cuisine to this setting. At this point I think Souma only keeps Poncho around so he can create Japanese food. I guess the creators didn't think the show had enough explicit fanservice even in an episode where the Harem goes over how to properly please their future husband at night, so Liscia's uniform gets drawn as super skintight and with some conveniently placed buttons while she's cozying around with Souma under a kotatsu. But it was pretty adorable watching them feed each other. Seems like we're finally going to learn what the king and queen's deal is, but will that make for a satisfying finale? Hopefully it's better than season 1's at least. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
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