Forum - View topicThe Worst Anime of Fall 2024
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Lump of Flesh
Posts: 1 |
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Out of everything I've watched this season, Tower of God was easily the worst. If season one was mediocre mess, season 2 is like watching a slow moving dumpster roll downhill while on fire. Putting the downgrade of visuals aside, the story goes nowhere.
None of the previous points of interest from the previous season are followed up. The show is essentially a repeat of the first season with a different, less interesting cast with all the returning characters sanded down or non-existent. It continues to insist Bam is the most important person in the room while doing nothing to justify his role in the story beyond being a plot device. Even worse is it keeps lifting up him up on a golden throne for doing the bare minimum. He's not forced to grow, change, overcome or inspire in any capacity beyond being the designated protagonist. Let me just give you a quick run down of things that actually happen this season. They use Bam as the prize of the Workshop Battle, which is basically the tournament arc of the second half. On at least two occasions, a character will ask the in-universe Alexa for the answer to their current problem. Near the end of the season, spoiler[they literally reuse season 1's "twist" and push Bam another hole using the same angles as the first season.] I wasn't a fan of Uzumaki, but at least I had fun with it, even if it was for the wrong reasons. I can't say the same about ToG. If this is where the series was supposed to get "good", I'm not seeing it here. I haven't seen a title go off the rails this hard since Platinum End. Even if the animation were better, it still wouldn't fix its bigger writing issues (or make its hero more competent). |
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Daidan12
Posts: 69 |
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Their goal is to be the first Japanese trillionaires. |
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WizardOfOss
 Posts: 98 Location: Oss, Netherlands |
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Well, Uzumaki unfortunately is a very easy pick for this season. I still had some hope after the first episode despite the pacing issues in that one, but after that it became truly terrible.
Otherwise, from the ones I've finished, are still watching or at least seen a good chunk of, MF Ghost S2 was probably the worst. Not really surprising, as the first season already was very underwhelming. Still very little character development or world building, a complete absence of realism; It's just fast cars looking cool accompanied by some pumping beats. Had I not been a petrolhead I wouldn't even have watched it at all. As for Trillion Game, I kinda enjoyed that just for its absurdity, with Haru being the main source of that. I have dropped it after 8 episodes, but that's mostly because I have a lot of catching up to do after a three week vacation in Japan, and I just didn't really see it going anywhere. And at those moments it being a 2-cour series puts it at a major disadvantage over shorter series. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2584 |
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re: yen->USD explaining the billion/trillion thing -- oh, neat. That should have occurred to me.
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juaifan
Posts: 154 |
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The answer is almost always jealousy. That and people have been convinced that all the problems in their lives are the result of other people being better off than them and if those people didn't exist than their resources would be yours (somehow) and you're life would be better as a result. I'm financially secure in my life that I don't need to irrationally hate people who have more money than me. Let alone fictional characters who don't actually exist. So I can enjoy an anime about a good hustler. The morality argument does make me wonder how people feel about all the popular shows out there with actually morally repugnant protagonists. Actually morally repugnant as in they are actual murderers, drug dealers, and other dregs of society rather than a selfish guy who want to get rich. Haru is no Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan, or Walter White. He;s not even a Lupin the Third or Monkey D Luffy. Unless that changes later in the manga than what the anime has covered. |
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An Unchosen One
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That there's a plethora of people who need to work three jobs just to make ends meet while the wealthiest scumbags on the planet only ever "work" by attending a meeting for maybe an hour on some days is a clear example that wealth is the result of thievery rather than success. |
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ThrowMeOut
Posts: 268 |
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No, They do have a point even if they're being a bit of a smug dick about it. No one gets to billionaire status without exploiting someone, usually many, many, many someones. And in today's society where people who are working three jobs still can't afford to pay their rent and feed their families, while the billionaires keep exploiting their workers, hiking rents and suppressing wages so they can buy their 17th yacht, it's no wonder Trillion Game, a story about pointless unearned wealth gain, is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18507 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Getting testy again, so more posts have been deleted. There will be nothing more about bootlicking.(And yes, I'm specifically looking at you, An Unchosen One. Consider this an official Moderator warning.)
I will allow a certain amount of discussion about the morality of being a billionaire since it was brought up in the posts about the series in the article, but keep in mind that isn't this thread's main focus. I will cut the discussion off entirely if it becomes problematic again. |
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Puchu
Posts: 19 |
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The "likeability" of an immoral fictional character isn't based on absolute morality, because they're a part of a fictional narrative. It's generally a combination of factors, like how the character views themselves, how the narrative treats the character, and how fantastical their immorality is. An immoral character aware of their own flaws is more attractive than one who thinks their behaviour is justified (bonus points for a consistent internal moral compass that's just at odds with the "norm"). The narrative being aware that their actions are messed up also makes the character easier to root for. And the more outlandish their immoral actions, the easier they are to accept. People are way more likely to hate a school bully character than a murderer, because they're more likely to have known a bully or been affected by one, even if murder is objectively worse than bullying. Most people have had their lives negatively affected by billionaires/corporate profit chasers (and/or AI tech bros), which makes them a harder sell than pirates or drug dealers. I haven't watched Trillion Game, because it didn't look like something I'd enjoy, but from the sounds of the comments here, it seems like it failed on all three accounts to make the characters likeable to a general audience. Doesn't mean you can't like them, just means they're bound to anger a lot of people. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6364 |
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Billionaires & Millionaires do in fact use their wealth to commit sin Greed - which usually involves buying off politicians to draft & pass laws that enable these people to make money hand over fist usually at the expense of protections for employees or consumers. All while paying next to nothing in taxes which happens as a result of the above lobbying. Wrath - will use their money to go after people for certain affronts such as suing people for making assumptions about their wealth Lust - you don’t really need me to tell you how a rich person would use their wealth and influence with regards to this? Pride - will use their wealth for such things as buying their own social media platforms for the sake of their self esteem and egos. Envy - yes even rich people can be envious of others which can be become a self fulfilling prophecy with regards to above mentioned sins. It should also be mentioned many rich people come from old money (i.e. were born into a rich family) and what few made their wealth on their own didn’t do so without breaking laws, abusing loopholes, or stepping on toes. If you want everyone to stop picking on rich people tell these rich people to stop using their money to screw over everyone else and use it less selfishly. This apathy isn’t unjustified or unwarranted. |
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Flash33
 Posts: 81 Location: Florida |
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Surprising to see Spirit Chronicles S2 on here. While I do feel it hasn't solved the pacing issues S1 had (probably in part due to both only having 12 episodes to work with) I found it to be better than S1, especially Rio's confrontation with his mom's killer, although I did find it odd that in the English dub at least the pronunciation for Miharu changed (Mi-haru in S1, Mi-ha-ru in S2 if that makes sense). I also found it odd how despite a returning voice cast some characters sounded different (Rio most notably), with them even rerecording S1 scenes with the new voices, though that could just be chalked up to their voices changing in the years between seasons, which does happen sometimes.
Last edited by Flash33 on Fri Dec 27, 2024 1:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jmckenna15
Posts: 158 |
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The outlandishness of Haru is undeniably part of his charm. He's not like an IRL billionaire who actually earned their money by building a car company or a social media firm or who made smart investments in others (and yes you do have to ruffle a few feathers to make your dream work, it just makes it more satisfying). He's a high value hustler who has an insane knack for swapping hustles right as they're about to collapse (like the fake AI flower shop or the shareholder takeover bluff towards the end of cour 1). Trillion Game lives off of that kind of insanity -- which can get tiresome if there's no friction but it looks like we'll have that regarding the game studio they bought as Cour 2 begins. I compared him to Joe in Halt and Catch Fire because he was also a guy with a knack for BS and schmoozing, but he's also a bit like Eddy from Ed, Edd,, and Eddy. Just on a grander scale. That hits the sweet spot for me. Plus he has Gaku as a grounding force which balances it out. Its not hard to root for these two goofballs. Again, I have no issue with some of the critiques of the show itself. It's not going to turn me off the show (nor should they turn anybody off a show they genuinely like), but my issue is when it's dressed up in some moral platitude that is rooted in envy and a reverse form of greed -- or a suggestion that anime Fandom as a whole agrees with that line. It's presumptive and not reflective of anime fans as a whole -- to the point where it takes an almost gatekeeper like tone even if that was not the intention. |
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jmckenna15
Posts: 158 |
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Agreed -- which is why I usually dismiss those "moral" arguments because it's so often rooted in jealousy. I'll fully admit that I've been jealous of billionaires and millionaires when I was struggling financially. Getting to a point where you can work less and still make hand over fist must be a great achievement -- one that might only exist for us in video game worlds or when we reach retirement and lean on our 401ks. But we also don't see the hard work it takes to get to that point, the risks that had to be taken, the powerful people you have to challenge to carve out your piece of the pie, and decisions you have to make that you know will leave some people out in the name of continuing to grow and maintain your dream (and how many thousands of people's livelihoods are affected by your decision making). That has helped keep me grounded and I don't feel quite as jealous because I don't have to deal with those pressures, nor do I necessarily wish to. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2584 |
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Accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being 'jealous', without any evidence, doesn't seem anymore substantial than what An Unchosen One was doing. People have repeatedly witnessed the extremely wealthy distorting and controlling existing power structures, gaming them in their favor in a way that no reasonable person could call fair -- massively expanding their political influence through bribes and campaign funding, buying and controlling the coverage of newspapers in their favor, stripping worker protections in the pursuit of corporate growth, and so forth. There's no need to want to be that to criticize it; it's enough to be disgusted and angered by it.
More importantly, though, I don't see what this Randian fairy tale has to do with the show in question:
Even for people who would be really into a narrative that breathlessly worships the wealthy as heroic captains of industry like this, where exactly is that in Trillion Game? Based on what Shay Guy said, it sounds like the story of a fraudulent company that earns its founders great wealth without creating anything useful. That is about as close as you can get to the opposite of some kind of heroic tale of rags-to-riches entrepreneurship. |
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An Unchosen One
Posts: 11 |
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The overwhelming majority of wealth is obtained in one of two ways: 1. Inheritance. Just about any wealthy individual you can think of (including Gates, Bezos, Musk, etc.) was born into an already wealthy family, giving them such a massive head start that nothing they could do is ever really that risky. And that's not getting into the severe nepotism problem that makes it seem like the capitalist class has become a new aristocracy (spoiler: that's been the goal all along). 2. Ownership. Most millionaires and billionaires have never done any hard work in their lives, because all they've ever had to do is lay the groundwork for a company (usually with wealth they already have; see above) in either a successful field or an industry that's taking off, then never pay any of the employees making that company worthwhile a fair salary and instead horde what they should be paying those employees while also taking bonuses for basically just being at the top of the hierarchy as opposed to having actually done anything worthwhile. Just look at the myriad of stories about CEOs getting massive bonuses for being "efficient" in cutting jobs via layoffs or even shuttering entire subsidiaries, or how publications like Forbes try their hardest to make it seem like big business owners are hard at work and fail spectacularly by way of just how little time those owners spend on anything to do with their companies. Seriously, do everyone a favor and actually read up on the criticisms of wealth, business, and capitalism rather than parrot assumptions driven by propaganda. |
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