Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Izetta: The Last Witch
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Mikoto Himemiya
Posts: 5 |
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I have a feeling that in Britain itself in Izetta not turn out to demonstrate to representatives of other countries in their magical abilities as well as possible in the countries where they will negotiate the signing of an alliance against Germany will not have the most magical stream itself whereby Izetta can use magic.
And yet Sieg (full name Sieghard Müller if anyone did not know), with this phrase reminded me of one tyrant, who also neglected to harsh methods that, in his opinion, to defend their own country. |
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Catseyetiger
Posts: 779 |
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Man going a bit far but very neat to watch so far!
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11454 |
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If only. I think you can count on it being a running gag, whenever they need to distract viewers away from dwelling on the crappy writing and characterization going on. I almost rage quit at the way the cliffhanger was "resolved," which apparently I'm not alone in  at. But I soldiered on, only to get slapped in the face with corset and boob jokes, followed on by yuri jokes and endless gushing over tea and pie, and then even more pie. I did skip through all that, reducing the torture to about 1 minute rather than the ten it took up, and I don't seem to have missed anything important.
I started out liking this series a lot, but if I continue with it, it'll be a hate watch now to see how high they can pile the wreckage before it collapses under the weight.
(If I understood that correctly) They're going to Britainia (aka UK), home to fairies, pixies, elves, et al, a nation with a unicorn (for Scotland) on its royal coat of arms. Trust me, according to their own mythologies, the British Isles have no shortage of ley lines and magical energies. 
That said, given the "plot requirements supersede consistency or believability" attitude of the writers, your prediction could well turn out to be correct. I would no longer be at all surprised if they decided that in this universe, Britain had never even heard of witches until now. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18274 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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If they actually do this then I'll acknowledge that the problems with the story are as deep as you and some others claim they are. (Really, these "I'm almost at the point of hatewatching" comments baffle me, as while I see flaws, I don't see flaws that bad. This series is not even remotely close to being that much of a disaster.) However, I find that very unlikely given that England has nearly as much of a tradition of witches - and witchcraft persecutions! - as mainland Europe does. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11454 |
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Well, yes, that was the point of the paragraph previous to the one you quoted. However, if the plot demands that she be powerless or otherwise magically diminished there, I no longer doubt the writers will ignore all that if it's the easiest way to get where they want to go. While there is a school of thought that it's wrong or disrespectful or at best unwise to try to practice magic outside the area where that magic was developed, due to cultural imperialism or being unattuned to the local energies or something (like don't go to Australia and practice European magic in Aboriginal sacred spaces), I certainly don't expect them to come up with anything like that here, because they obviously don't feel the need to excuse their inconsistencies. If the plot requires it, they'll just go, "Oops, can't do magic in Britannia" and go on with whatever they're doing. It would be kinda cool if she ran into local witches though, who either wanted to help or were angry at her for outing witches as real.
As for the hate-watching part, as I said, I've liked this series from the beginning, although I see my ratings for it have been steadily dropping since episode 4. I was particularly annoyed by the outcome of Jonas' cliffhanger because it went against his established character. Izetta is his savior and she and his family his touchstones of hope and sanity. So that was all thrown out when he forgets his photo (which turned out to be merely a device to move him onto his stage mark and ID him to Müller, and not anything truly important to him), and runs back to camp to blab "Izetta has a secret!" to the first person he sees. And speaking of Müller, how did he miss hearing Jonas come clattering up to his listening post, loudly panting, but heard him once he was trying to hide (ok, maybe he couldn't hear over the General shouting "How did you fake Izetta's magic!!")? And why use a splash to reveal Jonas was there, when he wasn't in the water to retrieve his picture? Still, I could have just sighed and moved on from that, except that my resigned sighs piled up to hyperventilation because there was no rational plot movement from that to the fan service tour de force to allow any breathing room, and it was nearly a full ten minutes before we got any respite (and barely five minutes of that before another three minutes of pie fangirling). I get dizzy from headbanging too long, so I hopped, skipped and jumped through most of that. Even you, who enjoys fan service, have been critical of it, but for someone who only tolerates it, this is where the annoyance starts to become hate-watching. I can live with overhead shots whose only purpose is to look down Izetta's cleavage, or upshots of her mounting her rifle. But the way the major service-fests are used sends the message that no matter how powerful Izetta may be, rest assured, she can still be sexually humiliated, and if you're still feeling insecure, here's a distressed little O-moan to help you out. And no matter if a woman is the strong leader of her nation in wartime or a powerful witch who can flip tanks with ease, she will never be free of worrying about how her boobs stack up to other women. Boobs are women's weakness, just as they are yours! A lot of people who make the "man service is the same as fan service" argument tend to only compare the amount of skin showing (which is a flawed analysis anyway), but one huge difference is that I've never seen a male character obsess about his pecs (or muscles) the way women do their boobs. The only characters I can think of who even cared was the abs guy who named his pecs in Yowamushi Pedal, whose obsession was narcissistic and in service to his sport, and Armstrong and Sig in FMA, who again are not bulking up for the ladies, but for their jobs (not to mention it's an attribute they have some control over, where boob size, not so much). One of the reasons I don't much mind the fan service in Keijo!8 is because they want boobs and buns of steel to enhance their performance and not just to look good. (but even they fall into the boob comparison pit). Anyway, after the scenes of torture and humiliation with corsets and dancing, they moved on to further reducing their main characters to fluffy bunnies with interminable fangirling over sweets and pies...and drilled down deeper to having them do it in public and creating a scene. And how Fine was finally outed at the cafe was beyond ridiculous. I don't even know what she didn't want them to say, let alone why she had to stand up in public and scream with such power it blew her own scarf off. But the "plot" demanded it. I guess there was supposed to be some point about Fine making lemonade out of lemons or something, but the main thrust of it all was to show us that despite their strength and authority and the high stakes they're dealing with, they're still just girls and we all know girls are powerless to control themselves around sweets.
tl:dr: I can put up with bad, pointless, even abusive, fan service. I can put up with plot points that are inconsistent with established character traits. I can put up with plot points that are shamelessly contrived. But when I'm bombarded with all three, if I keep watching, it ain't out of love. |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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I'm glad Gina wrote all that so now I don't have to explain why I'm jumping ship at this point. It's definitely not bad enough to warrant hate-watch, as it is insufferable and terribly disappointing. Besides, I already have DAYS which gives me hatewatch satisfaction AND Mizuki.
The first episode was so good. I don't know what went wrong in these six weeks that brought us from shooting down warplanes on a flying rifle to "kyaaa pie", and from having a Finé that would fight with teeth and claws to defend her country to "why my boobs so small sad-face.jpg". To me this episode not only shot itself on the foot with the contrived writing to force the plot forward, but also showcases everything that is wrong with otaku fanservice tropes, piling them all on top of each other until we had this steaming pile of unwatchable crap. Getting through this episode was hard and I'm not gonna subject myself to that again |
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darkchibi07
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I swear, it has gotten to a point this show is walking on a tightrope of going pretty good or downright trainwreck. Thankfully this week's episode is solid for the most part. I'm also watching this show in hopes Izetta's and Fine's relationship doesn't get screwed in the end. Original anime shows with that type of dynamic and premise is something you don't get everyday.
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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I dunno about not exploiting the tickle scene for fan service, it was pretty pointless aside from fan service, I agree that they could have pushed it further but didn't, but they could have replaced it by something better.
My biggest beef this week is how the entire plan of the german makes no freaking sense. So the not SS officer figure out that the witch must have a weakness, so he decide to send the carrier at sea just to bait Izetta. Let's skip over the idea that Izetta has apparent reason to attack it, I'll concede that maybe the spy could have clue them early enough about Izetta going to the meeting (although if that's the case why didn't they just take over the country while she was away?). But here the problem, at this point the guy only know she has a weakness, not what it is, so he has no way of knowing its geography related. So he just got extremely lucky that the ship just happened to be in an area with random magic void, and even then how did he determine it was location based? It could just be that her power randomly turn off, or it could have been because she try to use too much at once. Beside none of the stuff she did were bad move, stalling an plummeting like is something no plane could ever do and going underwater is super safe (why does she not travel like that the entire way). So having him figure out her exact weakness from that is a bit of stretch. |
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zrnzle500
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I assume because she lacks the ability to breathe underwater, magically or otherwise. Plus bullets and bombs don't magically stop at the surface of the water. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23917 |
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@ meiem - The carrier plan actually made a lot of sense. First, they needed some bait to draw Izetta out from Elystadt. The carrier was not a bad choice because, strategically, it had no real value to Germania yet it was the sort of the thing the other Powers couldn't ignore, either. This reflects the reality of Germany in World War 1 and 2 when its surface fleet was an expensive waste of time that was (mostly) bottled up in both conflicts.
All Major Belkman wanted was a place to observe Izetta in combat to see if he could detect any weakness. He noted that her magic power flagged at certain points. Yes, he got lucky in that the ship happened to be in an area where this could occur - although it's not like those areas are super rare. Luck is an actual thing, you know. Real battles and real wars have turned on lucky breaks. Taking luck completely out of a narrative situation does not render it "realistic." Even then, however, it's not like he had a eureka moment and put it all together. He has heard that there is important information about the White Witch below such-and-such castle. Obviously, once he has that, then he'll have the final piece of the puzzle. Hey, that's a lot better than I originally thought they were going to do which was to have Private Jonas run into the spy and blurt out, "zomg, I just overheard that Izetta's big weakness is that she can't use her magic just any where!" |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6543 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I love the nods to real WW2 events but, like others here, I find the fanservice tiresome. The apparent need for said fanservice also impinges on my suspension of disbelief. Having a scantily clad person flying astride a giant phallus/gun might be sexy and all, but how cold must it be flying through the European Alps or the Nordic fjords? I imagine it would be below zero (Celsius that is). Add to that a dip in the fjord and Izetta should be in a very bad way from exposure. And, what about the inevitable bugs that hit your face/eyes at 400 km/h? As a long time motorcyclist, I can tell you from bitter experience that getting hit by one at only 100 km/h can be excruciating. Even the wind is hard to take for any length of time. It's why motorcyclists/aviators wear goggles or face shields. Or glasses at the very least. In an anime that tries to convince us with its historical verisimilitude, poor attention to detail elsewhere spoils things. Anyway, this episode is still a step up from the previous one.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23917 |
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Oh, Errinundra, tsk, tsk. I can't believe you weren't able to discern why Izetta, of course, would not be affected by the cold. It's because she's so hot. Yeah, I imagine you're feeling a little silly right now that I had to spell it out for you.
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6543 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Actually, I struggle to separate hotness from character. Izetta is a weak, uninteresting character (so far) so I don't find her hot. Fine is much more powerful, thus more alluring. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18274 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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First, apologies for the day delay on episode 7. It was all on me, as I got unexpectedly busy over the weekend.
Honestly, it seems to me like people are looking for excuses to hate on the series at this point. Some of the arguments I've seen here are either ridiculous or getting applied only here and not to innumerable other series which use similar elements. About the latter, I am particularly referring to the "bugs while flying" thing. Yes, that is a realistic detriment to what Izetta''s doing, but how many other anime series have characters flying around at high speeds without acknowledging matters like this? Dozens? Hundreds? It would be a rare series which actually did acknowledge this; in fact, off the top of my head I can't think of one. Temperature factors are another thing that's routinely ignored in anime (to a ridiculous degree IMO), and this series isn't any worse on that than innumerable others. Izetta and Finé are shown bundled up near the end of ep 6 for flying through the mountains, but Izetta otherwise seems largely unaffected by the cold and I was thinking she said something to that effect at some point. I did find it interesting, though, than in episode 2 Izetta did react to the gun barrel being hot after Finé fired it at the plane. That detail commonly gets ignored, too. Some of the fan service complaints I won't dispute; in fact, I agree with them, especially on the couple of groping scenes. As for the breast size comparison, while I'll totally agree that it's an obnoxious joke, it's also one that exists across all genres of anime, even ones not aimed at otaku audiences. (Heck, I've been rewatching The Story of Saiunkoku recently, which is about as purely shojo as far removed from male fan service-oriented as an anime can get, and even it has a couple of references to the MC not having much of a bosom.) Frankly, I'd like to see more female characters with petite figures who still have confidence in their looks even in the face of larger competition, but that's probably asking too much of anime. (And given that Japanese women aren't exactly renown for being busty in general, I have to wonder what that says about Japanese psychology.) However, I also think some of the complaints are going overboard. For instance, if we're going to equate the gun to a phallus symbol, then you're essentially saying that's true for any broomstick that a witch in any story uses, and that puts a nasty spin on Harry Potter, doesn't it? Do we really want to go there?
Actually, I'm pretty well convinced that it was specifically intended to be a portrayal of innocent fun. It serves perfectly as a mood-breaker, since Izetta was getting all uptight about being that close to Finé. Apologies on the late reply on this next one; I somehow missed this post when it came up:
I agree that it could have been interesting to explore those angles, but on the first point the series seem to be implying that the source of magic is the same everywhere. As to the second point, well, Izetta even refers to herself as the last of her kind, so that would make meeting up with Brittanian witches to be rather illogical. (For a franchise which does explore those aspects in great detail, check out The Ancient Magus's Bride.)
Guess I fail to see what the big problem is here. What's wrong with having a cute affectation like a vulnerability to sweets? If you even want to call it a character flaw then it's a relatable one, as I've known lots of women who would openly admit to having such a weakness. In fact, people were starting to complain a few episodes ago that Finé was coming across as too perfect, and now her showing a flaw is a problem? Besides, I hardly find that something like that damages her credibility as a leader, and the people who saw her there definitely didn't see it that way. In fact, I would think that they would be heartened by knowing that their leader fully understands the base level hardships that the war might inflict on them. As last week's U.S. election proved, appealing to the public at a base level is often more effective than all of the policy talk you could explain rationally. As for the second part of your statement, think about that whole scene in the context of Finé being a political opportunist (which she most definitely is). It not only makes perfect sense that way but is also perfectly reflective of what goes on all the time in politics in the real world. Frankly, I thought the scene could be interpreted as another sign of how quick Finé can think on her feet even when caught off guard. |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3767 |
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I think they were trying for at least a little yuri subtext in the tickle scene. On the small boob jokes, its commonality does not make it better, in general or particular. And in particular the small boob joke was a little damaging and reductive to Fine's character at least briefly, turning her from a complex strong woman into a basic pettanko character. For those who don't enjoy the show's brand of fan service, who were drawn in by Fine's character, I don't begrudge them deciding to bail on it, or at least having a very mixed reaction to the show as a whole going forward. In general, I don't believe that people are just hating on the series. The writing is...not always the series' strong point at times such as the near miss with the Jonas plot line. It may not have been given credit for some details it includes but in general, the show has been somewhat negligent with details as some have brought up earlier in the thread. The show has some great episodes, but it has some weak ones as well, such as the previous one. Perhaps some have made some flawed arguments against the show or taken some to an excessive degree (sometimes a cigar is a cigar, not that I believe that the phallus comparisons are baseless or unwarranted), but that doesn't mean there aren't real and concerning flaws in the material. Last edited by zrnzle500 on Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:06 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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