This kind of reminds me of 'One Off', also heavy on the product placement of motorbikes/scooters. I'm fairly certain that one was Suzuki heavy. Anyways, apart from some off CG, the story has a melancholy heavy presence, but I feel like it will lighten up, as Koguma experiences the world about her in a new way. Also, the bit with the transport truck, total feels as I've been there and been scared out of my mind for a bit afterwards.
What sadness? The ultra-contrived "woe is me I'm all alone everyone I love is dead" spiel? Buzz, buzz, as a black-clad lad once said.
...or, less Shakespearean: I didn't see anything to back up the significance of her words.
Obviously, she's meant to be melancholic (elsewise, why make that speech), but where was the melancholy? Sure, we got a little bit of it with her having to pump herself up to go into the store (which we didn't see her do) and how she was so relieved when she got home that she just passed out in the entryway--both great moments--but that's two beats that were 20 minutes into the episode--with nothing prior to that to prime that pump. Up to that point, she seemed...neutral. Not disconnected--neutral. She seemed absolutely normal, just un-talkative, and maybe boring. (Heck--she even went out and got her license without any kind of issue!)
They could have absolutely done the exact same list of things, pre-scooter store, and made us feel all the things her voice over told us. But they didn't. Instead, they had her spend 30 seconds spreading really thick butter over toast. Which is sad, I guess, but not in the way everyone's saying.
Empty place settings at the kitchen table. No one grouping up with her for a class project. Struggling to buy lunch in the press of the cafeteria. Just off the top of my head, here.
I let out the biggest groan, at that point. What a completely unearned, overdramatic line.
What nothing did she not have? What was her struggle that having this scooter fixes that earns this line? We see her make breakfast, bike to school, eat lunch, not pay attention during an arguably bad English lesson--which tells us she's...a high school student.
Everything that is meant to be emotionally significant, in this episode, was told to us, not shown to us. (With the exception of the two beats at the end, I mentioned earlier. And maybe how she doesn't care that people died on...or because of...or, um, near the scoo--wait, do we even know what the guy meant by three people having died?) We see her by herself, which...okay, half of all high school anime MCs live by themselves, so nothing much there.
What we really needed was to see her go though her day one or two more times to show how lifeless it is. Maybe get some moments where her aloneness--particularly while at home--is palpable. And then, in a fit of pique at having to huff up the hill (not whole coasting down the hill), she decides she can't take it anymore, she's gonna buy a scooter, dammit.
Which was cliche--which is fine--and, more significantly, entirely unearned. Or, if you'd rather, a poor aesthetic choice--because, though washed out, the color palate for the episode didn't do anything prior to that moment. Like, it didn't enhance a feeling or tone. Nothing was happening. The girl wasn't reacting to anything. We'd probably have gotten more out of her silent doing nothing at school if we hadn't had her little "I don't have friends" speech at the start of the episode. At least then we'd be fighting to glean information from what little was going on.
Dead inside? Are we...watching the same--did I put on my They Live sunglasses before I hit play?
I'm sorry, I just did not see any of this. I'll grant you she was maybe not terribly engaged with anything she was doing, but there was no emphasis--not even subtle emphasis--on anything that made her seem like she was listless or empty. There were motions that could have done that, but none that actually did it.
"I thought I wanted a scooter, but they cost too much" was, what, code for existential dread?
They nailed it with the atmosphere in the first minute or so.
When she started preparing for school the whole thing was "screaming" sad for some reason, be it the visuals, the lack of BGM or almost any sound (that was a huge thing in the entire episode and I loved it). I got the feeling right from the start that she had something sad going on. And as she was going to school we get the explanation and everything connects. Brilliantly done.
After that the episode revolves around her and the cub, which was nicely done. The grin on her face every time she looked at her cub was the best part of episode 1 for me, I could definitely relate (it was for my new gaming rig in my case, but all the same).
I don't think it will keep the sad tone for long, but the way they did it was amazing, there wasn't even a need for an explanation to understand that something sad was going on with her life, and very few series have pulled it of in such a way with the atmosphere alone.
This will be a good one, episode 1 was a 10/10 and the rest will probably stay close to this level.
Now you've done it. I'm burning all the love letters you've sent me and am gonna delete your name from my will too!
This was clearly intended as the first ever motosexual romance type of thing to be celebrated all over the world in the name of diversity.
And then comes you and knocks their bikes over in a fit of envious rage.
I'm more upset how mean you was to this... you could of said "not my bag" but nope, bloody bringing tea kettles into this like it deserved that! This deserves love!!!
Oh my God. That was the most dreary, depressing ass excuse of an SOL show I've ever seen. The washed out color palette, the glacial pace that it moved at, this frankly depressing main character. Cripes, SOL shows are supposed to be fun. Not moroseness given form. Fuck this. 1 and done.
Oh--that's right: she smiled at her scooter! I take back all my criticisms of the show's terrible pacing, lack of tone, absence of content, and failure to make the supposed core element of the main character's backstory reflect within the story in any fashion.
You know what they say: get woke, go (for) broke (shilling for Honda).
Hee hee, I crack me up.
Seriously, though, gents, this is absolutely a case of me wishing I could watch whatever show it is you're watching. Because you're seeing a cut of this episode that I must not have access to.
It's what @Madoka and @Nekus will, I'm sure, forever refer to as "a Rent-a-Girlfriend situation," except this time I'm the one not seeing the good everyone else claims is there.
I'm still the only one who's right, of course, just on the other side of the fence, this time.
Bottom line: I thought this was an episode with a pretty solid outline that just couldn't execute the plays.
It's beautiful. You'll get it when you watch the first episode. The artwork is beyond what I can describe within my vocab. Also the first episode was one of few dialogues but the ambient music filled in beautifully. As far as the story goes... Not much has been revealed so far but it does look like it might turn into an awesome plot. Absolutely loved the opening episode.
It's what @Madoka and @Nekus will, I'm sure, forever refer to as "a Rent-a-Girlfriend situation," except this time I'm the one not seeing the good everyone else claims is there.
I'm still the only one who's right, of course, just on the other side of the fence, this time.
I think Yuru Camp is the one and only show we agreed on so far.
Which in a negative light means we really are not compatible huh... or in a positive one, Yuru Camp is just that good.
Personally I didn't add much to the conversation because I think that "it's boring" it's a practically untouchable motivation to dislike something. God knows how many times I read heaps of extremely detailed and well thought out arguments on why a show was good and still just felt "I'm bored watching it though."
That is especially the case with SoL, if a SoL just doesn't *click* with you (or.. "vibe" I think it's the more timely term) it's not really worth wasting your time on.
That is the only criticism I disagree 100% with out of all the ones you said. The show absolutely did set a tone. One you can absolutely despise, but it was clearly there. The atmosphere of the whole thing was bleak, melancholic and somber.
Sure, the production values are out of this world, but so what? Its so hyperrealistic that it lacks any artistic quality. At some point you might as well just film in real life and whats the appeal in that? Not much to me.
Ill keep watching for lack of anything better, but its pretty dull
Oh, this. Very, very much this. Because it's ALL of the things on our collective checklists, in one place, in perfect balance, and in perfect harmony.
Yes, even the romance subplots.
Shut up--Sakura x Rin is real, dammit!
Like, food porn does nothing for me. And "chill vibes" aren't super-high on my list, even if I do appreciate them. But I love characters. I love laughing. I love adorableness. And if you can make those result from food porn and chill vibes? Or food porn result from strong characters who want to cook?
Winner-winner, chicken dinner.
...at a lake. Looking at the sunrise. While Aki says she accidentally sat in mud.
Personally I didn't add much to the conversation because I think that "it's boring" it's a practically untouchable motivation to dislike something. God knows how many times I read heaps of extremely detailed and well thought out arguments on why a show was good and still just felt "I'm bored watching it though."
That is especially the case with SoL, if a SoL just doesn't *click* with you (or.. "vibe" I think it's the more timely term) it's not really worth wasting your time on.
I think you guys are mixing up the color palate with the content.
What was bleak? What was melancholic? What was somber? I can point to where these things should be but aren't. Can anyone tell me where they are?
It was quiet and she was by herself, sure. But that's not tone--that's a setup for tone. You still have to fill it in.
Like, take when she can't start her scooter at the convenience store. She's upset, which makes sense. But...why is she upset? Because she's stranded? Because she's has literally no one she can call? Because she made a mistake? Because this is her first time going out at night and it's scary? Because she can't work past some kind of anxiety to ask the guy in the store for help? They have companies dedicated solely to helping people in exactly this situation--so why isn't she doing anything?
I'm watching that scene waiting for some sign that she's not just curling up into a ball because the writer doesn't know how girls react to things.
I guess I can assume all of the stuff I mentioned, just now, about how alone she is is true, but the story doesn't do anything to support it--the weight of it, I mean--prior to that moment. She deals with basically everything before going into the convenience store as though it is routine. Which, fine, whatever state her life is in, she's gotten used to it. But something like this moment needs a setup. And "Oh, I'm an orphan" isn't setup. Not when she reacts to LITERALLY EVERYTHING that happens before it as though everything in her life is fine. (Except maybe that she's tired of peddling her bike uphill.)
Consider her dealing with the scooter salesman, for a moment. You can generously call the interaction trepidatious, but that doesn't indicate some underlying sadness. The guy caught her off-guard when she was about to leave, and rather than accepting her "I can't afford one" and letting her leave, he keeps trying to sell her a scooter. All that means is that she's conflicted between being polite and allowing him to do his salesman thing and "rudely" cutting him off and leaving. It doesn't set anything up, emotionally.
I literally said, out loud, when she walked up to the convenience store and gave herself a little pep-cheer, "Oh, is she...scared of convenience stores? Has she never gone before? Why is she doing that?" Because nothing prior to that moment indicates that she's got some terrible anxiety about loneliness (or whatever) brewing beneath the surface. A full 20 minutes have gone by, and all I know of her stress is that she's weirdly out of shape for someone who bikes to school. And then they cram a bunch of show-don't-tell moments into the last 5 minutes (which, in isolation, are very good and I like very much) that seem a 180 from what we'd seen for the rest of the episode.
Can I extrapolate from the convenience store stuff what's up? Absolutely. I also have to mentally rewrite the ponderous main bulk of the episode so that it now aligns with my extrapolations.
Which would be fine, say, midway though the first half or at the 50% mark. That's the twist that hooks you in to her situation. And then the stress of the convenience store leads her to decide to get a scooter because it's easier, and then she gets color back in her life, and the show is fine. (And, see? I had to rewrite the scenario. Now she's stuck at the store because her bike is unreliable and she can't call anyone and it's nighttime. (Which sets up a future incident where she takes her scooter out and everything is fine until she can't start the engine because of the gas situation.))
So, is, like, everyone basing this idea of some melancholic struggle on her exposition narration and then the convenience store thing 20 minutes later on in the episode? Or is it just the color palate? Because I just do not see it.
I take back all my criticisms of the show's terrible pacing, lack of tone, absence of content, and failure to make the supposed core element of the main character's backstory reflect within the story in any fashion.
I seem to recall now he also took a huge dump on Adachi & Shimamura the other day and that one was like solid-gold material. The man's a lost cause completely overtaken by his wicked hentai-esque impulses. Anything that fails to give him raging boners is a nuisance to him at this point.
Okay, yeah, now I know we're through the looking glass.
Is it a boredom fetish with you guys or are you just surprisingly good company for guys who think pretentious wank shows are somehow more critically valuable than actual wank-shows?
The man's a lost cause completely overtaken by his wicked hentai-esque impulses. Anything that fails to give him raging boners is a nuisance to him at this point.
I hated Healbro Reflux, and you know it! And I have spent days vociferously defending KoiKimo, which, despite its premise, is as wholesome as...I don't know why, but I keep wanting to say pancakes. (I guess you can have whole wheat pancakes. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Which is, on its own, certainly not un-wholesome. So...yeah, pancakes!)
But I'm still not hearing a defense of "melancholia," here. Just the bitter decrying of legitimate artistic vision.
Pfft, he could think he was joking all he wants, i know he really deep down was 100% serious and will be browsing bikescrashingover.com (don't search this... it's probably a thing)... that and i decided to take this 100% serious because... it fits so well.
I opt for this!
Funny enough i see eye-to-eye more often than not with @interregnum in series taste (at least on the romance genre), small exceptions of course (we all know which one!). Though i still credit happily in that i didn't think he would enjoy this one... he don't strike me as a SoL person for the best part (and well, i pretty much watch anything just because it's SoL...(I wish "Just Because" was SoL, i could of enjoyed this as a pun then).
So clearly it was Yuru camp being that great!
That is especially the case with SoL, if a SoL just doesn't *click* with you (or.. "vibe" I think it's the more timely term) it's not really worth wasting your time on.
This. This. This!
Honestly on a serious note, i get that most people dislike SoL, i said before i even understand it quite well, "nothing happens" (or boring) is a phrase i hear all too often which is technically true, you of course watch 'em to chill out or to appreciate the characters or settings ect. Heck, NNB spends the first 5-10 minutes of ep 1 showing scenery porn without a single line yet it's right up there on my list.
My point is, if you don't enjoy it, don't watch it but don't spend your life trying to explain why its boring, it wont sink into us SoL fans, we love dis stuff!
I have requested his admission to a asylum, effective sometime in the near future, first he brings the kettle into things, kicks the bikes, defends rental girl, hates on the cub and now Adachi?!
Truly a lost cause.
RIP
I take this quote but I'm answering to the whole post.
You argued really well on why the story is not quite "bleak, melancholic and somber." Except what I was saying is that the show is bleak, melancholic and somber, not the story.
While sure in the plot nothing particularly sad happens, or we don't get specific motivations on how the main character was feeling in a scene,the show absolutely succeeded in conveying to me those emotions.
The directing of the show was slow and methodical, the color palette was deliberately desaturated for the most part in order to express the bleakness, the environment was shown very often extremely barren (like a shot of an empty classroom as opposed to a filled one), the choice of not having any music whatsoever for the vast majority of the episode all contributed in selling the tone of the story.
All those things are stuff you see and hear so I can't exactly write a full page about like we would do on plot or characters.
But that doesn't make them in any way less valuable. This is not a book, this is a visual and auditory medium.
Is it a boredom fetish with you guys or are you just surprisingly good company for guys who think pretentious wank shows are somehow more critically valuable than actual wank-shows?
Can i just interject to say (lets be honest here, i am almost certainly not wrong either) that she show will turn into a pick-me-up type thing, the listing and everything about it dictates this is going to become "girls life sucks but becomes great as she chills on her bike with her new friends" type of thing
The episode is clearly a setup for creating appreciation of her later gained happiness.
oh and SoL and story don't completely go together hand in hand, i mean, imagine trying to explain why Yuru Camp's story is worth watching, the show is undeniably great but c'mon, story is still a low down factor to the show, like all SoL.
I actually accepted most didn't care for this one, me? I brought the books but i certainly wouldn't strip people of their opinion either. I try to (mostly) be objective and understand what isn't to like... wont change what i do like, i just don't watch shows i don't like ^^
Is it a boredom fetish with you guys or are you just surprisingly good company for guys who think pretentious wank shows are somehow more critically valuable than actual wank-shows?
Well there you go! We have established you've been enjoying this show all along. Your mind just hasn't caught up with your overenthusiastic studly bod yet. Now be a doll and press that "4.5 stars" button, will ya?
I think you guys are mixing up the color palate with the content.
What was bleak? What was melancholic? What was somber? I can point to where these things should be but aren't. Can anyone tell me where they are?
It was quiet and she was by herself, sure. But that's not tone--that's a setup for tone. You still have to fill it in.
Like, take when she can't start her scooter at the convenience store. She's upset, which makes sense. But...why is she upset? Because she's stranded? Because she's has literally no one she can call? Because she made a mistake? Because this is her first time going out at night and it's scary? Because she can't work past some kind of anxiety to ask the guy in the store for help? They have companies dedicated solely to helping people in exactly this situation--so why isn't she doing anything?
I'm watching that scene waiting for some sign that she's not just curling up into a ball because the writer doesn't know how girls react to things.
I guess I can assume all of the stuff I mentioned, just now, about how alone she is is true, but the story doesn't do anything to support it--the weight of it, I mean--prior to that moment. She deals with basically everything before going into the convenience store as though it is routine. Which, fine, whatever state her life is in, she's gotten used to it. But something like this moment needs a setup. And "Oh, I'm an orphan" isn't setup. Not when she reacts to LITERALLY EVERYTHING that happens before it as though everything in her life is fine. (Except maybe that she's tired of peddling her bike uphill.)
Consider her dealing with the scooter salesman, for a moment. You can generously call the interaction trepidatious, but that doesn't indicate some underlying sadness. The guy caught her off-guard when she was about to leave, and rather than accepting her "I can't afford one" and letting her leave, he keeps trying to sell her a scooter. All that means is that she's conflicted between being polite and allowing him to do his salesman thing and "rudely" cutting him off and leaving. It doesn't set anything up, emotionally.
I literally said, out loud, when she walked up to the convenience store and gave herself a little pep-cheer, "Oh, is she...scared of convenience stores? Has she never gone before? Why is she doing that?" Because nothing prior to that moment indicates that she's got some terrible anxiety about loneliness (or whatever) brewing beneath the surface. A full 20 minutes have gone by, and all I know of her stress is that she's weirdly out of shape for someone who bikes to school. And then they cram a bunch of show-don't-tell moments into the last 5 minutes (which, in isolation, are very good and I like very much) that seem a 180 from what we'd seen for the rest of the episode.
Can I extrapolate from the convenience store stuff what's up? Absolutely. I also have to mentally rewrite the ponderous main bulk of the episode so that it now aligns with my extrapolations.
Which would be fine, say, midway though the first half or at the 50% mark. That's the twist that hooks you in to her situation. And then the stress of the convenience store leads her to decide to get a scooter because it's easier, and then she gets color back in her life, and the show is fine. (And, see? I had to rewrite the scenario. Now she's stuck at the store because her bike is unreliable and she can't call anyone and it's nighttime. (Which sets up a future incident where she takes her scooter out and everything is fine until she can't start the engine because of the gas situation.))
So, is, like, everyone basing this idea of some melancholic struggle on her exposition narration and then the convenience store thing 20 minutes later on in the episode? Or is it just the color palate? Because I just do not see it.
Oh boy. It's like... if someone handed you a blank sheet of paper for no particular reason, you would mercilessly criticize the hell out of it for having a slightly creased corner and leaving a sore sensation after you tried to wipe your butt with it. (Not that I would object to reading the 12-page critique of it that would no doubt follow.)
