@analytical-machine:
i have this feeling it's about feeding mayoi on schedule. and also dumbing down the plot so ppl won't think about it deeply
@postcardorigami:
i dunno yknow like i want to believe it isn’t malicious but also with how they’ve done everything so far i just can’t help but feel like it is just a little bit coming out of some sort of dislike if not for the series then certainly for the people that are making it—like shrek being a punishment for the prince of egypt folks or something
to the second point i mean like it already has an audience from the manga and from previous anime seasons, so they’re not really taking that big of a risk with making it—what’s riskier is putting it out in a way that is so blatantly different from the source material and with the actual quality of what they ARE doing being so reduced even from previous seasons, and the only justification i can think of for that is if they don’t care or even actively dislike the series
The thing is glorious manga master race would watch the anime, no matter what. We see this in action right now. Therefore, the goal is to lure in the unaware - for which quality isn't actually needed as long as costs are recouped, but also - if someone watches the anime they have no reason to read the manga, b/c there is legit so much to consume. So if they imbibe a 'good enough' anime, it will not rewire their brains (consider: for BSD, classlit counts as extra materials. Can't profit off that - ex. NLH entered public domain relatively recently).
Moreover, i've been watching Monster on and off on the side and the anime is slow, visuals obviously old but aged well, just… has slow, low-to-no animation moments that give it a feel of being adapted literally panel-by-panel. Meanwhile, i jumped ship to manga after s1 and the biggest reason was… I was consistently distracted by the 'aha, this animation repeats to pad out the episode', 'this animation brings absolutely nothing to the plot, why is it there?'. Comparing it to respective manga parts makes it even worse, because in retrospect manga at the same time rushes and pads out. Like, you could just have some manga panels that are fundamentally stills with some voiceover and it would work. When you track what gets cut & what gets added - they remove the quiet moments (the sort that let the viewer ponder on the events before you're given next plot beat), and add meaningless animation loops that are the equivalent of jangling keys. If the logic behind them is to add levity to a serious plot - why?
Humor in a serious plot also has it's own pacing (read: to tactically control tension, not just to add whenever convenient), and it's existence in the 'core' plot completely changes the tone, especially when combined with wan! which, acts as a palate-cleanser - but one outside of the flow of the main chain of events, thus not changing the read of them.
so, they didn't have to do ＡＮＹ of this. But they did. Who benefits? hence, option 1: churn for BSD mayoi. All yu-gi-oh animes move(d?) in tandem with card releases with episode quality swinging hard, so we absolutely have a precedent. option 2: noticable dislike for the source === malicious actions. We have a precedent - Firefly TV show. consider who exactly has the decisionmaking power here, what demographic: the kind that would not see spicy takes on mental health (did the anime get to the point where who should be framed as a deuteragonist just straight-up hallucinates? and the 'camera's eye' doesn't give a shit?). And what about unsubtle anti-war messaging? Yosano on the main cast, Fukuchi being a Metal Gear Solid refugee? But at the same time, aren't Hunting Dogs baaaasically military? quick check on wiki says is a rabbit hole, but the intended point stands: you just can't win with these characters. Plus moral ambiguity and noticable grayness implictly make it a harder sell for 'all audiences' (read: squeaky clean)
So, you force everything to be scheduled too fast, too quickly, too soon - using the excuse of (1) to cover for (2). (#1, and the terribad norms of the industry)
aaaand that's how you get away with murder *jazz hands*
the thing about this current season and the egregious errors, issues, etc. within it is that realistically none of this had to happen—i think it’s pretty obvious that not only on top of studio bones’ already apparent and seemingly deep-rooted disdain for the source material and specific crucial characters with immense impact on not only the plot but also on the development of the actual protagonist, the season is also incredibly rushed, and it didn’t need to be
season four came out only a few months ago. it would have been reasonable—and honestly it would have been expected—that bones wait at least another year to work on season 5 and develop the chapters covered here a little more, so that not only could they present a cleaner, better-paced, and more emotionally impactful product, but that they also would give the manga more time to finish this current arc so that if they did choose not to adapt anything afterwards, they could at least close out this part of the story on a halfway acceptable note
it’s not just disrespectful to the fans and asagiri/harukawa (my god, what they’ve done to harukawa’s beautiful art style should be considered a crime), but it’s frankly a poor reflection upon themselves, too, that they’ve pushed this season so quickly after the most recent one, seemingly without care for what it’s reception may be by the people who want to see the story done justice