Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: In Another World With My Smartphone
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TasteyCookie
 Posts: 421 |
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At the same time it makes no sense to push modern sensibilities onto ANY fictional world. I'll never understand the hypocrisy of watching slavery, murder, genocide, torture, or any other thing we would be appalling in real life, be OK to watch in anime. But then as soon as the 12 year old is getting married off in a completely non-offensive and non-graphic nature, it's the worst, most morally corrupt thing to happen this side of Berserk. Get off the high horse, all of these things are horrible things to do in the real world. But this is fiction. It's not real. If the anime showed them consummating said marriage in a graphic fashion that was visually disturbing, that would be a different matter, however that was not the case. It was a non-offensive, entirely verbal confirmation of an act that is clearly deemed as normal and acceptable by everyone in said fictional world and has 100% CONSENT from the parties that offered. The parents even mentioned that they were married at 14! But nope, they couldn't be happy with their marriage because the modern man said so, and story be damned if it doesn't follow my specific moral compass. This show has a lot of problems from an animation, direction, story flow, and other various stand. But making an entire review forcing your own moral view onto a happy couple, who's living merrily, AND unharmed, just because you think some magic number determined to be the character's age (by the author, since you know they aren't actually living creatures that were born) is too low, is pretty shocking. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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I'm not saying it is random or that a negative response to it is unwarranted. I'm just saying that I think the author included it for comedic reasons and not to appeal to lolicons, not to say that they won't find inspiration regardless. It also mitigates the whole "everything's going his way" feeling a bit. If she was, say, 16, I don't know that he would assent to marrying her but he certainly wouldn't object so strongly, which means he could be persuaded more easily and then the show is just the most bland wish fulfillment with no conflict whatsoever, just him being good at everything, healing the sick and blind, marrying princess, becoming the king, all the while wearing a look of mild amusement. I mean it's mostly that already but a little conflict, even just played for comedy, is desirable. That doesn't mean that their choice was wise, but it's something at least. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23907 |
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Such an inane statement. Of course it makes sense to consider modern sensibilities when considering a fictional world created in contemporary times. If a show seems portray slavery as a good thing, it's fine to say, "hey, you know what? I'm not cool with slavery being considered a good thing." Same with 12-year-olds getting married. As I said before, I didn't have a problem with the way the show presented it because it was played for laughs (clearly the MC had a problem with it and that's where the "humour" comes) but I can completely understand a viewer who thinks, "oh man, did we really have to go there?" Who cares is the author of a work imagined a world where everybody is cool with 12-year-olds getting married? "Gee, it's okay in-world, so I guess I don't have to be bothered about it!" So lame. Last edited by Blood- on Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4896 |
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@TasteyCookie
Dude, chill out. Maybe my comment suggested otherwise but I don't even share the reviewer's opinion. I simply understand where the reviewer is coming from and don't think the reviewer's position is flawed because the fantasy setting is based on medieval times. |
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TasteyCookie
Posts: 421 |
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If the slavery portrayal shows everyone as being happy and no one being harmed, then it would be worth discussing why that is OK in world. Same with 12 year-olds being married. It's obviously being portrayed as something completely normal and non-harmful to any party involved (unlike when it happens in the real world) so why try to force a modern sensibility?
I apologize, my post did come across as confrontational. I was simply bringing up a concern with the review style as well 
I should clarify, I totally understand if a certain moral sense makes a show make you feel uncomfortable. Everyone is different with what they find acceptable in media and there's nothing wrong with that. However what I do take issue with is blanketing a show as bad or flawed because it portrayed with morals as good or bad. Giving a show a low score based on its own merits (which this show has a lot of problems) is understandable, but saying this show is bad because it has 12 year-olds getting married, is just unprofessional. It's not the show's duty to represent your moral compass and should be judged on it's own portrayal. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5887 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Yes this is a fantasy world with magic, but it is still set up in a medieval setting. The author has the full right and logic to include all the trappings of such a setting.
Tales that take place in our modern world or alt modern world should reflect the trappings of the modern world. This should not be hard to understand. You don't have to like it, and no one is saying you have to. But it is not illogical to have such things in that setting. The problem comes when we start dictating that those trappings have to be censored or not shown because of our present society. The sugar coating of history. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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I actually think Blood-'s example and your reaction to it are perfect exemplars of the issue here. The example of Slavery is great because of the powerful imagery associated with it and the fact that there have been historical retellings of the slave period in the U.S. that tried to portray slavery as a wonderful happy good time where slaves and masters were friendly and everything would have been just peachy if not for those evil abolitionists. Your reaction just really crystalizes the problem of ignoring modern sensibilities. In order to maintain your position on the example with the child bride, you indicate that maybe a story that portrayed slavery as a positive thing would be okay, as long as everyone was shown as happy and not being hurt. I can guarantee that such a portrayal would not be accepted at all in our society and would be ripped to shreds by any decent critic. This is because we live in modern times, not the slave period or medieval times. Our ideas of justice and humanity are not particular to our time. We realize now that those enlightened ideas should have always been the case, but people in previous periods of human history were either more stupid or more ignorant than we are now. If someone from 1790 wrote a book portraying the benefits of slavery, they could do that and get away with it because in that time, people were more ignorant. You couldn't do the same thing today because people are more intelligent. It is not possible to completely divorce modern thought from media just because one is telling a period story. The important thing will always be context. If you do a period piece on slavery and show the harsh realities of the practice, it might be considered a good movie. If you do a period piece on slavery but do it in a fantasy setting where slaves are all dancing and singing, and begging to serve some self insert fantasy massa hero, that will not be good for you. Similarly, if one portrays the practice of arranged marriage of little girls to older men in a serious manner, maybe it would be given praise. But when it is portrayed as a fantasy manner for the benefit of a self insert hero, where it is so non-serious that God himself calls up the hero to give him kudos, there is plenty of room for criticism. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Not really, the most common cliche in fantasy fiction is gender equality (again, a projection of modern values into cultures of the past). Lack of gender equality is not even a medieval only theme, it is something that even our culture is still working on. But having a group of females learn to use weapons/magic and openly use them? Having them enter a guild and receiving 100% payment for their services? That never happened but I never see people doing long rants about how unrealistic a writer is because they do not have females ostracized in their medieval themed stories. On comparison, having a young man with unique magical abilities marry with the princess of a relatively small country does not seem to me farfetched. At least they went the route of "princess fascinated with the mysterious foreigner" instead of "king directly orders daughter to marry to have some degree of control over unique magical abilities". |
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TasteyCookie
Posts: 421 |
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@ChibiKangaroo
That's the whole point though, it is all about context. The issue stems not from the portrayal, but the fact that it was portrayed at all. The complaints that were made weren't about WHY the show portrayed a 12-year old marriage and instead said it was bad simply because it portrayed 12-year old marriage at all in a normal light (which was determined by their modern sensibility and not by context or setting.) And actually there have been works about slaves who were treated properly and displayed as a good thing for those people. They have created much ideological discussion especially among university professors (had some myself who loved to ask about the concept to see how students could stretch their world views.) Not all slaves wanted freedom, as some lived much better lives in freedom than they ever did outside of it. Granted, we wouldn't say slavery was a good thing would we? Because when contextualized in a modern setting, it's not. However that doesn't make it wrong to portray slavery as being beneficial those those few in a historical or even fantastical setting. Just because it's different then our modern sensibilities doesn't make it inherently bad when contextualized properly. Which is the whole point. Stories should be based on their on merits, not forcing a modern view on a fantasy settings just for the sake of doing so. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Okay, I think that's quite enough about the historical "merits" of slavery and child marriage. That derail ends here.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Okay TarsTarkas, you were right and I was wrong.
Damn. I hate being wrong. |
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SleepySkull
Posts: 36 |
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Fine by me. I'd much prefer topics like how adventurers accepting a monster clearing quest become monkey murderers when you don't like the show. But here's a serious question: the next time the reviewer rants about pedophiles and banging -- a virtual certainty given we're only at episode four of the show -- how would you prefer the forum discussion to go? |
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Cam0
Posts: 4896 |
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AARRGHH!!! TIME TO DI-... uuuhhhh... Oh. I accept your apology then. *drops his spiked baseball bat* |
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TasteyCookie
Posts: 421 |
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On a more positive note, can we all agree how ridiculous it is that Slip seems to be the almighty spell to vanquish any foe? I mean come on, it's just tripping for god-sake. You would think a ridiculously overpowered MC with all the magic disposal in the world could think of a more useful attack.
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Think of it as the equivalent of D&D sleep spell. It is a first level spell with no saving throw and making your enemies sleep is basically defeating them since you can slay most critters with a coup de grâce; the catch is that it only affects weak (4hd or levels max) critters. Slip is less overpowered as it only gives you a short amount of time to freeze your enemy in place (to prevent it from going out of range), but if you do not have anything powerful to attack at the moment it becomes comically useless. |
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