Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Izetta: The Last Witch
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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@Blood- Your last sentence is quite apparent. For many, it is difficult to separate the two as they are nearly exactly alike, geographically, technologically, and up to the beginning of the story the war turns out exactly the same. And as I said, this is intentional on the author's part, and if you're trying to make a story that is, aside from some magical additions, historical fiction, you shouldn't be surprised when people call out things inconsistent with that time period. And if anything, the technology aspect as much about self consistency as it is historical accuracy. The technology is precisely the same, except for the cloning. If you want to do a period piece, stick with things from that time period.
I'm not entirely convinced you don't actually mean your first sentence seriously but whatever. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23910 |
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Except the show is not trying to be "historical fiction" with some magical additions. Historical fiction is an actual thing. It's when you set a story in a real historical time period. In a context like that, even when a story is fiction, then yes, the writer is obligated to be truthful to the reality of that time period. However, Izetta is not attempting that. A parallel world is not "historical fiction" even if the time period depicted is modelled after an actual historical time period the way Izetta is. It's a science fiction premise (or fantasy, if you prefer), not historical fiction, So I go back to my original point: getting your panties in a twist because this science fiction/fantasy world doesn't correspond to our real world is moronic. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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He was shown earlier in the episode, eating at the hotel and was the guy who was driving his chariot into the castle to deliver food (how a spy managed to get a job to go inside the castle yet never bothered to investigate the secret underground earlier is never explained). |
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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I've been checking on Izetta repeteadly to know how is it going and boy I never wanted my stupid assumption of Izetta having an evil Izetta to fight, less so how it came out.
The problem isn't even that it's not historically accurate. It's thematically incoherent. Sure, a witch fighting in World War II is not exactly logical, but as far as the premise of the show, it was believable that magic and witches existed just because the story goes like that and nothing else. But human engineering is not something that ever seemed like a thing in this world. Like, for exmaple, Fullmetal Alchemist, in all of the first episode we know enough stuff about the world that everything else doesn't come out of the left field: alchemy is basically magic powered by science, and everybody has a different specialty in alchemy (then not-Chinese/not-Jew alchemy makes sense), alchemy can only be done with alchemy circles (but lots of alchemist have the circles already drawn for more practical uses), and there are boundaries normal alchemy cannot cross, but we know that the philosopher stone can, Ed and Al's incident compared to the homunculus is enough proof. We also know that automail is a thing, and that there are different engineers, so of course there are cold-adapted automail parts. In one episode, we know all of that. In 6 episodes of Izetta, all we knew was that witches used to exist, people hate them except for one who saved them, and only one survived, and her magic is...lift stuff. But whatever, it's mostly about the presentation. At least have Berckmann walking into some shady lab in previous episodes instead of having him talk redundantly about stuff we already know, the genre/historical accuracy is another aspect of discussion, I feel the lack of cohesive thematic is a way more important flaw, which was also what made me drop this anime. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23910 |
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I've edited out my original response because all I'm really doing is repeating earlier points and I'm having a hard time maintaining a polite tone.
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2463 |
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I thought this episode was less terrible than a few earlier ones because at least this time we got stuff blowing up and really that's kind of all I want from the series. Sophie going from "yo, stop that" to "guess I'll have to MURDER you" was laughably bad, but her want of revenge against the country that betrayed 'her' sounds believable enough as a motivation.
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5463 Location: Iscandar |
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Well, to be fair, that spy was only a part of the counterattack. Other Germanians were doing other things behind the scenes, which are explained with more detail in episode 9. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2273 Location: Online Terminal |
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To be honest, it wasn't that polite to begin with. The issue I found with your original counter is that you come off saying this show and what it presents is somehow not worthy of critical thought, which to me, is pretty much an insult to the entire production team. The whole point of Science Fiction is using a fake world to talk about the real one. There are deliberate choices made to help inform the audience that this is still the 1940's, even though fantastical things are happening that could've never happened in our time. The fact that we are having a brief discussion about what was known in our 1940's indicates that those choices are paying off in some way. Like I said before, it could just be that Yoshino really likes clones, but that doesn't mean the discussion we're having is somehow invalidated because it's an alternate universe and is somehow "lesser than". |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23910 |
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I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. I would welcome critical thought with respect to the show. I just don't consider raising issues like, "but... but... there was no human cloning during World War 2 so the writing sucks!" It's you and anyone else who raises objections like this who are insulting the entire production team. You are calling into question their competence based on what is truly stupid reasoning. "Your alternative history show is not being faithful to real world history!" I can't think of a worse example of so-called critical thought when applied to a show like this. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18271 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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As one of the people you're referring to, I absolutely think it is relevant to bring up because it's a violation of internal consistency. Other than magic existing in a very limited fashion, the world presented here is fundamentally based on actual late 1930s/early 1940s Europe. Clothing styles and architecture are consistent with that, tech has (mostly) been consistent with that (the suspended animation tube in episode 1 is a massive steampunkish stretch, but I let it pass at the time), and military equipment and tactics is consistent with that. Hence gross inconsistencies with that, without good reason, is thematically inconsistent. Now, if the Germanians had been documented as discovering alien tech or otherwise having a consistent technological trend that's decades (at least!) of where it was in our world at that time then there would be no inconsistency. Likewise, if magic had been established at being widely-available from the beginning (see FMA), and the clones could be produced at least partly through magic then there would be no inconsistency. But just pulling cloning out of the blue definitely doesn't fit, and I am in full agreement that this is probably just the writer expressing his personal like for clones. Now, I'm not saying that Izetta TLW is alone in this problem; far from it, as this kind of internal inconsistency is common in sci fi and quasi-historical tales both in and out of anime. (American comic books are a common offender, too, but "hey! superpowers!" allows them to get away with a lot more..) Last edited by Key on Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3767 |
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I had intended to stay out of it, as I didn't seem like it was going anywhere, but since you insist on calling the idea of calling out anachronisms in this work "stupid" and "moronic", maybe I'll give it one last shot. Let's try different example. Say a character whipped out a cell phone and called someone. I'm not talking about a cell phone like spell or a magical cell phone. Just a straight up cellphone. Let's make it a smart phone to really get the point across. Technology clearly beyond anything possible in the equivalent time period and again no magic involved. Would that be acceptable to criticize the show for including that? If that is ok, why is criticizing the show for a more plausible anachronism "truly stupid reasoning" and "totally moronic"?
Oh and this is not the only example of...less than great writing, and not the primary reason for questioning the competence of the series composition writer, which is his previous works. |
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Fhoo
Posts: 23 |
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Every freaking time this show convinces me to become invested in it, it does something that absolutely ruins my enjoyment of it. First was the awful slice of life fanservice scenes that, at best, can be described as basic. Now, pretty much every plot point is either completely predictable or subverts those predictions, but in a dumb way. Oh well, I hope the action scenes in the last few episodes are good, because I expect nothing from the writing anymore.
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Angel M Cazares
Posts: 5463 Location: Iscandar |
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If in the next couple of episodes the show explains that in their version of WWII Germania possessed technology immensely superior to the one real life Germany had, will that fix the thematic inconsistencies of the show? I share Blood-'s reasoning. When it comes to science fiction or fantasy, even if it is based on historical events, I am pretty much in complete suspension of disbelief mode. I will be satisfied with Izetta as long as the result/outcome of Izetta and Finé relationship is satisfying to me, and the show offers a complete story. |
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1idd0kun
Posts: 62 |
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You're supposed to stablish the internal "rules" of your fictional world at the beginning of the story, and then keep yourself within those parameters. That's what being consistent means. If the show Introduced advanced cloning technology from the get go (like they did with the existence of witches), that would have been fine. Introducing it now after 9 episodes is an asspull. A text-book example of bad writing. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18271 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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^
Pretty much in agreement with the above. If the series revealed over the remaining episodes that the tech level of Germany always was incredibly higher then the problem would become why we didn't get indications of that before now - in other words, before it became a major plot point? |
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