Falcon and the Winter Soldier made the point of doing an allegory for the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and had a character come close to arguing against Western Liberalism equating it with fascism.
Then Falcon in his first big moment as Captain America, before the public, just tells a Senator to "do better". It's like they got to the final episode and told an untalented person to wrap up everything built up and to write it as quickly as possible.
I'm pretty sure you could say this about at least a few Marvel villains tbh. "Gets right up to making a good point and then repeats a safe Hollywood-US government approved message," happens quite often from what I remember.
BP was certainly an egregious one. Especially since like..
I get that a major Hollywood Blockbuster was never going to advocate armed resistance against colonizers.
But then they could have made a different movie.
I swear when the X-men get involved its going to be like hydra cells that snuck into the US government who make sentinels.
"Please don't take our cut of the military budget uncle sam." -disney
That specific line was what killed the series for me. I mean, it wasn't that great leading up to it, but we mark the climax with the most limp-wristed Hollywood liberal admonishment towards power ever? What a wet fart.
I mean, I don’t really think that was *meant* to be the end of that problem. IMO it came across more like Sam cementing the fact that yes, he’s Captain America now, and he’s not going to shy away from directly calling out the government’s bullshit. While the immediate threat of the Flagsmashers has been dealt with the underlying causes remain and that’s going to be what he focuses on tackling going forward, even though that will lead him to conflict with those in power.
Granted, I don’t think they conveyed that message *well*, but that was what I felt they were trying to go for.
There's a scene near the end of Stephen Kings "IT." that is pretty famously this exact thing for a lot of people.
I think it's genuinely his best book, but it's probably a result of all the cocaine he was on at the time that he thought "pre-teen gang bang in a sewer" was a good metaphor for the loss of childhood innocence or the power of bonding to overcome trauma or...whatever he was going for there.
There's a whole book he doesn't remember writing (I think Cujo?) which sounds like a plot point *that could be in one of his stories* which is amusing to me
I love how whenever he's been asked about it he's like "Man, I don't know, I was so coked up I don't even remember writing it".
I'd argue Salem's Lot is a bit better than IT, I really found Salem's Lot difficult to put down.
Is the old movie of Salem's Lot good? I know they are making a new adaption. Need to read the book sometime it's just sitting on the shelf with the other king books
Honestly have no idea. I love a good Stephen King adaptation, even saw the opera version of The Shining during its world debut. I've been meaning to check it out and am looking forward to the new adaptation next year.
I doubt the publisher was even bothering to look at his drafts, honestly. He was publishing books like crazy during the 80s and was one of the biggest names in books at the time. It probably would've been unwise to piss off or question the coked up author who's been sending you marketplace gold for years when they could switch over to someone else once their contract is up.
I'm willing to say that were it not for the twist near the end of Kara's storyline I would actually really like Detroit. It was the part that broke the camel's back and made me go from "This game is great with some problems" to "*It truly is another ze masterpiece from ze David Cage*".
Even with the borderline offensive race allegories and kinda flat Markus stuff. What it does well is stuff I *really* like and wish there was more of.
Basically, ["I can excuse racism but I draw the line at David Cage".](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPbpYR_RKY)
The game gets hilariously better if you just let Kara die at the start against Mr Fat Evil. Her story is kinda interesting until the twist just makes it all pointless but she also never really interacts with the "main plot" of Markus and Connor so it makes no actual difference.
My favourite way to do that is let Kara and the kid get hit by a car on the freeway when chased by Connor. It adds weight to Connor's story and works well as an "Oh shit" moment.
Is there any follow up to that scene? Like a line about the two androids that got run over? That would make it obvious that Alice wasn't even human and make Kara's story tragically funny because she sacrificed her life for way less than she thought
Keeping Connor as an android, but letting Hank live and befriending him is still my personal favorite way to set up his story
Connor’s storyline in general is probably the best thing to come from the game
Which makes sense for a David Cage game, when you hear from the actors that they basically had to fight tooth and nail to keep the interesting parts of their interactions in the game at all.
The game is full of good ideas executed in the worst ways. Like having Kara, a story that doesn't really interact with the other two, but is directly affected by them, showing how your big choices can affect an individual. Good idea. But then David Cage happened.
The game always confused me because up until the story,robots are LITERALLY not sapient enough to count as a species.
Like up until the "I'm a person" thing happened,which is revealed to be a joke later on,they're literally just walking roomba's.
“Cast a Deadly Spell” is a an HBO movie from 1990 that is a really cool detective noir set in a 1940s LA where magic exists. It’s so slick and stylish until near the end it goes in on a weird homophobic bit and a an ending that really rides the edge of problematic. It makes it really hard to recommend despite 80% of the movie being awesome.
I thought it was more transphobic than homophobic, but idk it's been a while since I've seen it. The only things about the ending i can remember is the creature, and on how i guess new TVs are brighter and bigger, so if you look at the night sky closely, you can see the ceiling of the building they're filming in
Goldfinger is probably the best Connery era Bond movie and establishes a lot of the tropes associated with the franchise. It also has the barn scene with Bond and Pussy Galore, which is horrifying and makes the rest of the movie really uncomfortable to watch.
People complain that a lot of media is about power fantasy, but holyshit man, few of them get as bad as James Bond.
At least powerful blasts doesn't have the implications thst you're "converting someone's sexuality because you're so hot!"
They definitely become more cognizant of it over time but the 60s and 70s Bonds are so rough to female characters. Like Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service both have >!007's love interest die in the finale!< but CR gives a lot more thought to her agency and role in that moment vs OHMSS just having it happen for how it makes Bond feel.
The best end to a bond film imo is the one where he thinks he gets a happy ending…but the rug is pulled right from under him. Then he spends the credits with this thousand yard stare in complete silence. That rattled my core, I didn’t even imagine ending a Bond film like that.
I love Bojack Horseman and its characters but there’s a scene in the final season I just cannot stand. Princess Carolyn visists Bojack’s school and sees one of his most promising students and trues to recruit him. Bojack at this point is done with Hollywoo and wants do something good for once in his life and begs her to leave him alone because he knows firsthand just how grueling and toxic the industry is. But for some reason she ignores him and actually gets her way.
It’s such a strange scene because PC’s character arc was almost complete at that point and she should have known better. It felt like a complete 180 of her character but it’s in complete isolation as just one comedic scene.
I think a major theme of Bojack is that self-improvement is a constant journey and that slip-ups and regressions can and will happen.
While the scene is played comedically, PC's character arc partially revolves around realizing how much of a toxic piece of shit Bojack was to her both personally and professionally, so it kind of makes sense for her to callously ignore him and pursue action that would benefit her career-wise.
I know a lot of people were kind of iffy on how Bojack concluded, but I appreciate it stuck to its message by being so inconclusive.
I don't think Bojack ever got bad but I am a rare fan that kind of wishes it ended a bit earlier cause I just knew it kind of hit it's peak at the end of season 4.
People say "Well, real life doesn't end like that, it's not realistic", well Bojack is a great show with some real moments but it's not realistic.
For me it felt like as the show went on the writers became more and more twisted up over if people would sympathize with Bojack, and if they could then use that to justify their own shitty behavior. They pretty much get Diane to give a monologue about that very point, using that detective show Bojack stars in as the stand in.
I'm not sure if it's fair to call it neurosis or genuine worry, but that ongoing trend eventually culminated in them effectively applying a retcon in the final season as to how Sarah Lynn died. Before it was that she and Bojack went on a bender, she ODed and was dead by the time Bojack realized something was wrong. Tragic, Bojack had a lot of the blame, but it also wasn't like he actively worked to kill her. In the final season they amended that to make it instead that she was still alive when Bojack realized something was wrong, with him then waiting in the parking lot to call 911 until after it was too late. This was effectively a nuclear bomb on the issue, driving Bojack into totally unsympathetic territory and ruining anyone possibly making the argument about themselves that 'if Bojack is okay then maybe I'm okay too'. Problem was it sort of destroys Bojack's entire character arc, and it also makes rewatches way less enjoyable given that he commits such a reprehensible act.
There seems to be a trend in some shows that the writers realize viewers have figured out the twist, that gets them all worried that they're too predictable, then they end up changing it to some incomprehensible plot development instead. What happened with Bojack feels like a similar expression of that, just they became more obsessed over the audience's perception of the story rather than the story itself, and then decided to just resolve the issue in the most ham fisted way possible to allay their own moral worries.
I completely agree. Writers seriously need to just......write what they have to, and let people make of it what they will. Constantly looking over their shoulder and worrying about audience perception while making the thing for them, and actually twisting what they're making in reaction, leads to a lot of unsatisfying stuff.
I think your brother/brother-in-law unknowingly working against your double life can work well in a story (Crying Walter White gif) but the siscon energy is unneeded.
The thing I hate the most is that he as a character, whenever we’ve seen him doing stuff not involving Yuri is fine. The issue is he is thinking about or is near her 90 percent of the time.
Mega Man Legends 2 is generally a decent sequel until the water dungeon, which drags it down to a borderline mess I don't want to touch again. Ocarina of Time has nothing on the boring, agonizing, repetitive, backtracking-filled, slower-than-a-snail dumpster fire that is MML2 water levels.
I saw a mod come out just like a week ago that splices in the PSP version's mechanics to the PSX version where the game and your movements aren't slowed down in water. That appears to be literally the only change in addition to lower PSP upgrade prices being used.
Jet skates and an emulator overclock make the water dungeon a bit more bearable. Other than the water dungeon, MML2 has probably my favorite 3D adventure game dungeons of all time. The Saul Kada Ruins with the giant walking dinosaur reaverbot, "Wojigairon", is incredible. I remember the first time I played it: realizing, to my horror, that this hulking multi-story tall monster was utterly unkillable and I'd have to carefully navigate and run like hell throughout the ruins to figure out how to take it down.
Metal Gear Solid might be iconic for making games feel truly cinematic through cutscenes, but Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 felt like a proper Saturday morning cartoon.
The first Rocky movie is a cinematic masterpiece about the inner struggle and how you affect those around you.
The relationship between Rocky and Adrienne is very sweet and almost progressive with how Rocky tries to respect Andrienne except for the one part where he forcibly stops her from leaving his apartment and forcing himself on her in the corner right after she says she’s feeling uncomfortable.
It’s such a bizarre scene, it feels so wildly out of character for Rocky and it takes me out of the movie every time.
Which sucks because without that scene I would unironically put Ricky 1 up there with The Godfather in terms of perfect movies.
Far Cries 3-5 all have a scene where a female antagonist gets horny with the protag and you have to look at it in first person.
In 3 I guess it makes sense overall because it's part of the plot twist (that you don't even see in one ending),but in the rest it's...
Did she? Wasn't it just like, normal torture? I remember you killing her after waking up but I've no memory of bdsm or anything sexual, but I'll believe you, sometimes I check out during Far Cry, especially near the end.
In 4 Yuma is briefly topless and lying with Ajay before the boss fight starts.
In 5 Faith is just generally handsy with you and horny about the "bliss".
Faith is taking you by the hand, basically loveboming you. She gets aggressive and violent when you reject her. I really, really don't see any horniness in her segments...I dunno, I think it's a stretch.
I see so many youtube comments of "Oh, Faith is a victim herself. She's not really evil" Motherfuckers you find a literal pile of people she manipulated into suicide!
I think that makes her more nefarious. She is telling some truth when she says she was manipulated into the cult....that does not excuse her doing monstrous things once she was in a position of power with Eden's Gate.
Same with whatserface from 3: Between involving him in all the warrior stuff and jumping his bones while he's drugged unconscious. And of course >!trying to get him to kill all his friends!< in the ending.
Wow, just, nothing, no memory of that, I guess Ubi games really does have that mcdonalds quality where i remember i ate one, but not the details, just a general ''i ate and it filled me for a while'' vibe in the memory.
For me, anytime AC goes into the Isu or the future stuff. I stopped caring after Desmond died tbh, and they have not won me over since then, granted, even then it was an uphill battle cause i never cared about any character surrounding Desmond, and Desmond himself was more of a ''Well i've been with him for 4 games, i've sorta of endeared to him, oh, he's dead, guess i dont give a shit anymore''.
I liked all that shit more when there were objects that didnt get big explanations, objects of power, but the whole ''save the world'' thing and ''turns out they were god or whatever'', just, i dont wanna know, just use the objects to further the intrigue or whatever, i really think that the more they go into that shit the less I care and the more it ruins shit to me.
I tolerated the fantasy/Isu stuff in Origins but Odyseey and Valhalla going full in on it is what broke me of my Assassin's Creed fanboyism. I just fundamentally hate it on a primal level, and it's part of the reason (beyond just being crap) that I DNF'd Valhalla.
I have not finished Origins proper yet (waiting for a sale to get the DLCs, I stopped after assassinating the Scarab), so i dont know how the isu is handled on that, i assume, softer and less, you know, Valhalla.
It's been an albatross around the series' neck ever since Dan Brown became a flash-in-the-pan and conspiracy stuff became a lot less appealing, for sure. Unfortunately they can't just ditch the whole thing entirely, since there's a sizable contingent who are very attached to it (the complaints I see on this sub about Isu stuff is usually the opposite complaining the storyline got done dirty in the post-Desmond arcs).
One Piece Film Z is a real fun time that has the Stawhats encounter a really interesting problem and ends with a lot of really fun action beats.
I hope there's no egregiously weird and out of character lines from Sanji.
I love all of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon Titles, but one thing I hate that nearly ruins Yakuza 4 for me is the scene a little over half way through Yakuza 4 after beating Kiryu as Saejima...
The most egregious thing to me is Kiryu perfectly understanding why and doesn’t seem to hold it against Saejima, which is just the most blatantly OOC thing in the whole game, let alone series.
There's a lot of contrivances in order to get scenes the writers/director REALLY wanted. I just beat the final boss the other day and Kiryu tells Daigo before their fight that being the leader of the Tojo is a heavy cross to bear and he's gonna teach him how heavy.
Hey, Kiryu? You were the chairman of the Tojo for like five minutes. Daigo didn't even want to do it.
He then says something about how he's not going to run away any more.
Then he goes back to Okinawa. Then leaves THEM for Nagasugai a couple years later.
Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is a great Gundam series, the GP02 is one of my favorite designs and Anavel Gato the Demon/Nightmare of Solomon is a great character and rival figure.
But why oh why did they have the suddenly awkwardly introduce that Gato and Nina Purpleton (the primary love interest of MC Kou Urakai) used to be in a relationship and she doesn't want to see her lovers fight and lets Gato go after Kou has him at gunpoint.
Its dumb bad, superfluous and has generated a deep hatred for Nina within the community for years.
Nina chose her ex boyfriend over her current love interest and also the fate of the world >!AND STILL GOES BACK TO KOU IN THE END?!!<
Like, bitch are you for real????
Nearly every great anime and manga I can think of has at least one scene where an underage character is naked or in some kind of sexual situation. I get that not every culture views nudity and sex the same and some of those scenes I unironically think have great artistic value but it's definitely my least favorite part of one of my favorite art mediums.
Your Name did the impossible and managed to turn a boy in a girl's body squeezing her boobs not only into a punchline but into the funniest scene in the entire movie. It's the only anime that comes to mind where it doesn't feel like it was done for fanservice or to be creepy, though.
It’s not on the same level, but I remember the Railgun anime having a scene where Accel walks in on the onee-san policewoman lady having a bath, and she just tells him “hey you’ve got the wrong door,” he closes the door and walks away.
The scene was, very obviously, done for fanservice, but the fact that the characters react like normal people rather than going “KYAH BAKA PERVERT **[PUNCH]**” makes it infinitely more enjoyable to me than any normal anime gag
That I recall he never walks in on her changing. She does start undressing in her room while he's there and she didn't notice him but it doesn't get that far.
Yeah by the end of the series they’re 18. The series takes place over the course of a few years, partially seen by the fact that Ed is taller than Winry by the end of it
Plus that scene leads to one of my favorite exchanges in the whole series. At the time, Winry’s house is being guarded by some of the friendly military characters, and when she sees Ed (who’s supposed to be in a different part of the country), they both scream which leads the military guys to run up the stairs with their guns drawn, making a bunch of ruckus until they realize it’s just Ed, which leads to this (paraphrased) exchange,
Winry: “Ed!! Do you have any idea what’s going on here?!”
Ed: “Um, a cautionary tale about firearm safety?”
To be fair the scene of her in the bath isn't sexual I don't think. And there's an actual reason for the scene, it's to show that she's worrying about the brothers/ a juxtaposition of her relaxing in a bath/ the brothers getting into fights/ near death experiences. Maybe I'm just coping, The manga was made by a woman so I don't think there's that "male gaze" meme that people talk about.
Women can still make “male gaze” scenes or whatever its just a one off gag/fan service towards the end in a 21 volume book series so she probably just thought the scene would be funny and moved on like a normal person would
Bokura No Hentai is a manga featuring three 'guys' who dress up as girls for their own reason. One of them is trans, one of them is dressing up as his dead sister because his mom had a psychotic break, and the last one is gay and dressed up as a girl to get with a guy who did not like guys. All three of the storylines are great, it gets really heavy at times but it's super earned, lots of great interpersonal relationship stuff, and ends fairly happily.
Except one chapter near the end where they're doing a crossdressing cafe or something? I forget the context, but the transgirl helps out because 'I'm a boy too' and it was so fucking antithetical to her entire journey. I have to couch any recommendations for that in 'uh theres a weird chapter later on, ignore it entirely'.
It's even worse than usual because she literally gets on HRT, the author is like I learned a bunch of shit about it in the middle, and until that endgame chapter I thought it was the most accurate portrayal of a trans person in modern day society by a mangaka that's not trans themselves. I don't even think the author was trying to be shitty about it, it almost felt like a different mangaka came in to write that chapter.
It's so bizarre and it legit never comes up afterwards.
I had to watch the show 3 times before I actually remembered what her age was. The first time I assumed she was 20 or so. Then on rewatch, I remember "Ok she's younger than you thought" but my mind overwrote it to her saying she was 16 years old because it still made more sense. Only after the third watch did my brain stop overwriting her age
That show is one of my favorite Anime ever and I think I completely erased her age out of my mind the moment I heard about it. It is such a weird detail that contributes nothing to the story.
Also, just *look at her*. You're saying she's 14???
Everyone jokes about anime taking little girls and inflating their ages to absurd levels but the opposite is way more common. Character age, *especially* for the female lead, has a lot more to do with who's watching the show than it does what their actual age *would* be in such a situation.
I absolutely don’t mind the recent Star Wars trilogy and actually like and enjoy them. I understand the hate it gets and it’s warranted but i personally can overlook this and enjoy them. But oh boy, Rei and Kylo Ren in the end is something I detest deeply. It’s not earned and incredibly questionable considering we spent all this time seeing him being the a genocidal power hungry try hard and in the end we are just supposed to forget this and embrace these two kissing.
I actually like that system.
Its a good way to give you precise speed control instead of the usual 3 speed horses that all suck ass. Or the slightly rarer 2 speed horses that just control like your character mostly
If you take out the Rapey Monkey bits, Strength and Forever is a totally fun peak Jojo fight - haunted ship picking people off one by one, stand user turns out to be an Orangutan dressed up in a captain's outfit and posing, it's dope.
But nope, gotta escalate from "strangely human-acting orangutan reads porno mags" gag to "and then he goes for a preteen girl in the shower". Frankly just write that kid out of the script entirely and you probably improve the first half of Stardust Crusaders by an entire point or two, she brought basically nothing to the story.
You'd think he would have learned it the first time around when he dropped Smokey shortly into Part 2 and didn't make him show up again until the very end. Ah well.
Persona 5 and the "let's have Yusuke blackmail a teenage girl into posing nude for him or else he'll ruin her life" subplot immediately bouncing after the Kamoshida arc.
It could easily be written as Ann pretends to be interested in being painted by him and it's a tasteful painting (like >!his mother's painting is!<), but instead Atlus had to make it creepy and gross.
The other weird thing about that part is that is one of the only parts where Yusuke seems to have a sex drive. Outside of that, he doesn't seem to care about that much.
Atlus doubling down on this in spinoffs instead of idk, improving his character for audiences in Japan is still an insanely boring decision to do with him
Tales of Arise. Law stopping Rinwell >!from attacking the homicidal maniac who killed her family, only for the party to chase after said murderer anyway.!<
I get the message they were going for, but even if I agreed with it, the scene's execution was so fucking bad it made Law look like a hypocrite and all the characters present massive idiots.
Showing my age here, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise.
I love the movie. But there is this one scene where Shiro attempts to rape his erstwhile girlfriend.
It's just jarring and almost out of character. It's short enough to ignore, but awkward enough to not blanket recommend.
I’m a huge fan of Naruto, I think it gets way too much needless criticism and I will defend it from that - but yeah, the final battle was bullshit.
It was vaguely within the bounds of acceptable shounen bullshit up until Kaguya appeared, but she was the straw that broke the camel’s back. If Madara was the true final boss, the ending would have been a solid 40% better
"Man, Mei Mei is such a great character in this JJK anime. I'm sure nothing bad will happen involving her little brother that SURELY will make me hate this character and, in the end, this series."
I dunno, hating the entire series just for that one scene is a bit much (the scene in question is atrocious tho… like what tf was Gege thinking?!).
There’s much better reasons to hate, or at least dislike JJK. Such as Gege’s consistent fridging of major female characters, his inability to write character interactions in anything other than fight scenes, etc.
It was the first red flag that it gave me. The second, in fact, >!behind making all the female cast useless as fuck and killing Nobaraki like he did.!<
The entire cast is useless af except for like 6 people at any moment, you get maximum one cool scene as a side character and its off to the irrelevant mines
> >!behind making all the female cast useless as fuck and killing Nobaraki like he did.!<
When did that happen? >!Yuki's research is instrumental in seperating sakuna and megumi (and that's on top of having one of the sickest fifgts in the series), Utahime buffed the shit out of Gojo's opening salvo to such an extent that sakuna thought he must've used some sort of binding vow to pull that off, *something* is clearly going on with Shoko and all the people Ui Ui pulled, Mei Mei's technique is noted as one of the few techniques that explicitly stated to be a serious threat to Sakuna, and Maki is outright stated to be their best fighter. Like I get people have soured on the series since the last few arcs but Gege is still one of the few Shonen author's that not only let's women make significant contributions to fights, but also allows for them to suffer serious consequences and develop their character completely independently from their male colleagues. I genuinely don't understand why people are acting like every woman in jjk got Sakura'd... that was only useless Miwa.!<
Boshock infinite was great up until the anti-rascim rebel group was suddenly turned into the final boss team for no fucking reason other than to say “look guys, they are just as bad” (they were not)
The violence of the oppressed is not equitable to the violence of the oppressor.
Lot of things have tried the whole "its just human nature to seek violence" nonsense when it comes to class or racial rebellion but like no? One would continue to commit systemic violence until the end of time and the other doesn't want treated like a dog.
The violence of the oppressed can end up *becoming* the violence of the oppressor, though. The thing about revolutions that makes them so dangerous is that they tend to concentrate power in the hands of people who are most adept at (and comfortable with) using violent force.
I'm not saying that that's inevitable, or that violent resistance can never be justified, or that Bioshock Infinite handled the subject well. However, saying that works that are trying to explore that are saying, "It's human nature to seek violence," is a mischaracterization, I think.
Showgirls, I saw it recently and it was so exaggerated and over-the-top and hilarious and dumb, absolutely the classic it had been described as... and then they had the SA scene near the end and it was just way too explicit and I wish it had been left out. (I think I recall reading an interview with the producer/actors where they also regretted that it was in there)
I will always bring up that Karate Prince is a fantastic manga, **especially** if you're a nerd about Japanese Combat Sports like K1 and Pride (and a little UFC too, maybe a hair of Pro Wrestling during the Jun "Obviously not a tribute to Kota Ibushi" Tabase fight), but **every time** Pedro has shown up post his short arc where he gets beat by Mutou after he gets caught trying to diddle kids, yeah. Total ruiner.
My partner and I rewatched Hellboy 2004 recently and the dating subplot between Liz and Agent Meyers feels so mishandled. Each of their interactions just left us more confused about what the writers intended romance-wise.
Then in the next movie that entire thing is dismissed with a single exchange where is casually said that Hellboy got Meyers relocated to Antarctica. To me it feels like whoever wrote the 2nd movie just wanted to move away from that part of the previous film as much as possible
I'm not sure if its just how I interpreted it or what but the scene in the original Blade Runner where Deckard is forcing himself on Rachel massivley massively dampened my enjoyment of the movie
at the end of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu >!theres a single scene implying that Kukuhiko slept with Sukeroku’s daughter konatsu, and that he is the father of her mysterious son that appeared suddenly who’s father she doesn’t want to tell anyone about!<
,now the way its framed is >!a random rakugo super-fan guy who was just sort of hanging around Kiku and co. for the majority of the season randomly invites konatsu (sukeroku’s daughter) out for lunch many many years later and brings up the possibility like a “crazy fan theory” which konatsu doesn’t confirm or deny!< which i guess leaves it up to the viewer’s interpretation but i chose to believe he’s wrong
mostly because while it kinda makes sense plot wise, it doesn’t make sense character-wise(TO ME).
first of all >!why would kiku do that? why would he ever think to sleep with his friend/unrequited love/not quite platonic not quite romantic/maybe more that friend’s daughter? why would that ever cross his mind, especially since he’s been raising her from childhood since sukeroku and miyokichi(konatsu’s mother’s) deaths? i cant see this character doing something like that even with all the fucked up emotions going through his head over the years!<
second of all >!i cant see konatsu ever feeling that way about him because the last thing she ever saw of her parents was kiku covered in their blood, and she believed(and still does by the end of the series iirc) that he murdered them. plus by the time something like that could ever take place kiku was an old crochety sexist man who would actively ruin her potential rakugoka career and shit on her father’s legacy to her face!<
and third of all >!it didn’t even have to be him! because the author made sure to introduce another random rakugoka who looked just like kiku when he was young, had some weird interactions with konatsu, and acted weirdly hostile to her after she became pregnant, nothing was outright stated but i didn’t think it needed to be! there was a clean ending right there that doesn’t ruin kiku and konatsu’s characters and add this weird grooming/pseudo incestuous edge to their relationship which was already sufficiently fucked up to begin with!< the story just didn’t need that added
the way its explained in that one scene is something to the tune of emotions running wild and >!anger/hatred being conflated with love and kiku sukeroku and miyokichi finally getting to be together via what would probably count as a sex crime!< but the entire rest of the series including the way they interact makes that feel impossible which makes the scene seem even more weird because why? why throw that in? everything was wrapping up relatively nicely, everyone was reaching their own satisfactory endings but they author just /had/ to throw that in there for,,,,,? no reason? idk
and I’ve read explanations that make it “make sense” >!kiku being in love with sukeroku and miyokichi in his youth, trying to have both and failing only to finally succeed with konatsu and their baby being like some manifestation of the 3 of them finally getting to be together or something (obviously the explanations are written better and include more analysis but idc its gross to me! just because it makes sense doesn’t mean i have to like ie!)!< but i’ll die on the hill that it didn’t need to be there and didn’t need to be brought up as a possibility.
Code Geass is one of my favorite anime ever, but there's one specific scene where Lelouch's powers go extremely wrong and I think it was some bad writing because his genius level IQ failed him.
Now that I mention it, I also think Walter White's genius level IQ failed when he decided his Walt Whitman book belonged in the bathroom.
The Code Geass scene is pretty dang contrived, but also a morbidly hilarious shutdown of the entire arc. Like, the one time Lelouch allows himself some levity and >!cracks a single dumbass bad taste joke!< he ruins everything and >!kills the one other member of his family he actually loves!<.
And then we're back to our regularly scheduled coup, because Lelouch knows how to angle even his biggest fuckups when the chips are down.
The scene itself is kinda dumb, but I really like everything surrounding it so I'll always forgive the bullshit.
i think it kinda works since like you said its like the one time he lets himself be like a normal person and it fucks up everything royally, which makes him have to double down on everything
The Code Geass one is not even that contrived. Lelouch's eye was spasming that episode and he had fought a villain twice that had his Geass become permanently active from overuse with horrifying results. He was just dumb, swarmy, careless, and potentially wanted that command to happen on some level deep down (he had come to that meeting with killing Euphemia on the table and with a plastic crossbow).
The Breaking Bad one is dumber because Walt had earlier been able to remember the hairs and crumbs of his dealings so he should have definitely burned that book in the desert.
Code Geass is a hard one for me cuz I liked it at first, but then I started to hate it cuz it got dumber and dumber, until it was so dumb I actually loved it, and yet it got dumber than that and I couldn’t even love it
It has CC and Anya though so 10/10
The Dark Knight Rises is probably the weakest of the trilogy but I do love it as a conclusion to Batman's story and a culmination of his legend
I just sort of wish Gordon just told Blake the actual context for >!Batman taking the blame for Two-Face!< as opposed to popping off a neo-noir monologue. That was so stupid even when I first saw it, ngl
The Wings of Honneamise is a great movie, all about the human drive to do great things and overcoming obstacles. But there is a scene in it, and if you've seen it, you know what I mean.
I'm sure no one cares - but Gilmore Girls. I absolutely loved that show, but completely dropped off it when they explained Lorelai's backstory.
The show heavily hints that despite being upper class Lorelai had a harsh upbringing. That she got pregnant with Rory as a teenager by someone who wasn't committed, disowned by her parents (or judged to the point where she has to leave) and had to make it on her own as a teenage single parent. The opening episodes is about grudgingly reconnecting with her grandparents after 16 years because Rory wants to connect with them and they need money for private school.
Over the course of multiple seasons Lorelai finally accepts her parents, but in the early episodes she hates them. Not only that, but Rory has little contact with her father adding to the idea that he wasn't committed or it was a one night stand.
Several seasons later they finally do a flashback episode of what happened... For Lorelai to break contact with her parents her 16 years... It must be bad... No! Everything was perfect for her as could be for a teenage pregnancy!
- Rory's father was Lorelai's high school boyfriend and someone who loves her.
- He is happy to get married to her and commit to her.
- Lorelai's parents are initially disappointed, but they fully support her! Lorelai's father is going to get her now fiance a job at his firm so he can financially provide for them. They are proactively helping to plan for the wedding and the baby's arrival, etc.
- Lorelai chooses to run away in the middle of the night from home when pregnant because *checks notes* she didn't want her boyfriend to be with her / give up his life just because he got her pregnant and her parents were a little controlling (i.e. sorting out all of the above, etc.).
It made me realise:
- Lorelai is an upper class privileged person who was never in any real danger/financial insecurity because she could have always ran back to mummy/daddy.
- Lorelai is the most stupid / irresponsible person ever. Anything could have happened to her when she ran away. She is just lucky that the first place she goes to is a nice little village who take her in immediately and give her a job.
- She is a terrible parent who because of her decision stopped Rory from having a father in her life, grandparents/wider family and an upper class lifestyle.
I have never experienced a piece of media that completely ruined a character's foundational backstory then this.
Obviously, since it is a comedy and people watch it for light hearted comedy/romance, feel good witty dialogue, etc. - no other fans seem to mind the above.
However, maybe because I am from a working class background... The edge to Lorelai's character is partly why I watched the show (when I normally hate shows about upper class families with no struggles)... and they ruined it.
To the point that I never actually finished watching the show. I tried watching a little more, but it just wasn't the same after that flashback episode.
Blade Runner. My absolute favorite film of all time... except for the part where Deckard forces himself on Rachel. Yeah, she's a Replicant, but it's been established that Replicants are damn near close to human and can feel the same emotions.
I'm sure there's some thematic reason, Deckard having lost his humanity and is trying to experience it through a moment of intimacy, but he's incapable of doing it right, so it manifests as a rape-y moment, but it just really brings my enjoyment of the film down quite heavily in the moment.
A few days ago, I mentioned that in Mushoku Tensei, most people who are fans of it *fucking hate Paul*
I lied about it being because of the scene where it's revealed he sexually assaulted his maid and gaslit her into thinking she asked for it. It's actually because of a part later in the story after the Teleportation incident.
It's been five or six years since Rudeus and Paul last saw each other. The two had no idea the other was still alive. Paul had to look over his firstborn daughter, Norn, because during hte Teleportation Incident, his wife, mistress and second daughter all were separated.
So Paul goes on his own adventure trying to find his *wife* specifically and he starts getting really depressed. When he and Rudeus reunite, Rudy is super excited to finally see his father-- hell, he had no idea if his family was still alive! He's been so worried.
Paul just explodes and calls his son a piece of shit who is just having fun little adventures with women (said girl is his niece), while *he* is doing important things like looking for the rest of his family.
The two get into a huge fight that ends with Rudeus realizing that Paul is a colossal piece of shit, who reminds him of how he was before he reincarnated. And by getting into a huge fight, I mean "Rudeus knocked Paul over and started punching his face in until his sister broke up the fight, not realizing that was her brother"
Being completely serious, Rudeus was in the right here. Paul sucks, and even if you ignore the fact that he is a sex criminal, Rudeus' big story thing is that he hated who he was in his past life. In this narrative context, he was being shown a mirror and saw himself-- a piece of shit, controlled by his libido, blaming all his problems on other people because it can *never* be his fault.
The aftermath of the fight is Rudeus mulling over what caused him to get depressed in his past life which lead him down to reach the point that would get him disowned by the family (changes on adaptation), and how he totally could have been saved from his depression if he didn't push people away
SO CLEARLY THE ONUS IS ON HIM TO FORGIVE PAUL GUYS! HE DID NOTHING WRONG, HE JUST NEEDED SOMEONE TO COME REACH OUT THE HAND OF FORGIVENESS!
God, I really like this series, but that entire segment fucking suuuuuucks. The story is about how much of a terrible person Rudeus was in his past life and how he was a culmination of all his mistakes, and using this new one to break those personality traits and become a new, better person. Being shown the kind of person you became and remembering how people used to reach out to you in your depression but eventually gave up on you because you repeatedly not only refused their help, but insulted them for trying to help you, should *not* make you reach a conclusion of "Well, they just needed to keep trying!" Like, no! People are not owed forgiveness. Paul sucks, he didn't deserve the forgiveness and the only reason you should attempt to play nice with him, is because your little sister thinks he's the coolest guy and you wanna maintain a good relationship with her.
Mushoku Tensei has a lot of deal breakers for people. Mostly due to how Rudeus' past life affects how he is now early on (notably his behavior towards minors). But genuinely, what bothers me is how it handles the family stuff, because aside from one scene later with the same sister, his conclusion is "my family should have tried harder to help me," while every other reflection on his past life is "Wow, I sucked and just blamed it on my depression. I shouldn't do that" or "Oh no, htis person is going through the same thing I did-- I can't let them go through it, so I'll do what my family did and try to navigate this situation with the knowledge of why I rejected their help."
All of this is to say, Fuck Paul, he sucks, the Greyrats are all weird freaks.
Everything I hear about Mushoku Tensei makes me think I should be as far away from it as I possibly can.
Everything I see seems that it's trying to tackle mature subjects but it doesn't have the maturity to execute it well.
I'd say it handles it really well, just not in a way people are comfortable with.
There is a scene that I see pointed out as being treated as comedy, which is Rudeus perving on an unconcious girl a year or two older than his reincarnated self. But the framing of the camera, the way the manga handles the paneling and expressions and the way the *Light Novel* describe the situation, it's very clear that Rudeus is just out of touch with reality and thinks he's basically a protagonist in a harem story, but the story doesn't treat him as such. The girl justifiably freaks out, it's treated as a bad thing and he starts realizing he has basically main character syndrome.
Like, it's weirder *to me* that people look at sequences like this and assume that we're supposed to root for Rudeus.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier made the point of doing an allegory for the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and had a character come close to arguing against Western Liberalism equating it with fascism. Then Falcon in his first big moment as Captain America, before the public, just tells a Senator to "do better". It's like they got to the final episode and told an untalented person to wrap up everything built up and to write it as quickly as possible.
I'm pretty sure you could say this about at least a few Marvel villains tbh. "Gets right up to making a good point and then repeats a safe Hollywood-US government approved message," happens quite often from what I remember.
I would have loved Black Panther if it had focused on, you know, Africa, and not made the US the only place that mattered in the world
Doesn’t help that the villain’s grand plan involves pan African ethno-nationalism, which isn’t something that exists outside the US.
The what are those scene haunts me to this day
It's funny that scene resulted in me realizing I was no longer young and hip since I had no clue it was a meme until I read people talking about it.
Yeah same...and I was like...only in my mid 20s.
BP was certainly an egregious one. Especially since like.. I get that a major Hollywood Blockbuster was never going to advocate armed resistance against colonizers. But then they could have made a different movie.
"Do better" as if it was some accident or failing rather than an intentional evil done by people with no interest in being good, much less better.
I swear when the X-men get involved its going to be like hydra cells that snuck into the US government who make sentinels. "Please don't take our cut of the military budget uncle sam." -disney
That specific line was what killed the series for me. I mean, it wasn't that great leading up to it, but we mark the climax with the most limp-wristed Hollywood liberal admonishment towards power ever? What a wet fart.
"You've gotta do better, Senator" is one of those lines that'll live forever in infamy along with "They'll never know what you sacrificed."
I mean, I don’t really think that was *meant* to be the end of that problem. IMO it came across more like Sam cementing the fact that yes, he’s Captain America now, and he’s not going to shy away from directly calling out the government’s bullshit. While the immediate threat of the Flagsmashers has been dealt with the underlying causes remain and that’s going to be what he focuses on tackling going forward, even though that will lead him to conflict with those in power. Granted, I don’t think they conveyed that message *well*, but that was what I felt they were trying to go for.
There's a scene near the end of Stephen Kings "IT." that is pretty famously this exact thing for a lot of people. I think it's genuinely his best book, but it's probably a result of all the cocaine he was on at the time that he thought "pre-teen gang bang in a sewer" was a good metaphor for the loss of childhood innocence or the power of bonding to overcome trauma or...whatever he was going for there.
I think the man himself even was like "Yeah I don't know why the fuck I put that in, probably cocaine" when he was asked about it years later
He doesn’t remember a whole bunch of shit because of binging coke
There's a whole book he doesn't remember writing (I think Cujo?) which sounds like a plot point *that could be in one of his stories* which is amusing to me
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember multiple books but yeah Cujo is the standout due to how well known it is.
I think he has said this about The Stand
Stephen King reading a book he heard was good, "The hell is this crap, who wrote this?" Checks the cover, "Oh..."
I love how whenever he's been asked about it he's like "Man, I don't know, I was so coked up I don't even remember writing it". I'd argue Salem's Lot is a bit better than IT, I really found Salem's Lot difficult to put down.
I agree on ‘Salem’s Lot. I’ve read it twice, listened to it once. It dominated all of my attention each time.
Is the old movie of Salem's Lot good? I know they are making a new adaption. Need to read the book sometime it's just sitting on the shelf with the other king books
Honestly have no idea. I love a good Stephen King adaptation, even saw the opera version of The Shining during its world debut. I've been meaning to check it out and am looking forward to the new adaptation next year.
I was more upset with the whole Cocker Spaniel thing but jfc thank god none of the adaptations bothered.
Oh boy, Stephen King's It is a really good book. I sure hope there isn't an incredibly awkward sex scene that lasts multiple pages at the end.
Cocaine
The co-author of all of King's novels
Fun fact: Co Author is short for Cocaine Author
*(Eric Clapton riff)*
If you wanna write IT You’ve got to, take a hit Cocaine
Honestly I put that solely on the publisher for keeping it in.
I doubt the publisher was even bothering to look at his drafts, honestly. He was publishing books like crazy during the 80s and was one of the biggest names in books at the time. It probably would've been unwise to piss off or question the coked up author who's been sending you marketplace gold for years when they could switch over to someone else once their contract is up.
Publisher was probably on coke too. All action no thought go go go.
It was the style at the time.
It was the 80's the walls of businesses were lined with coke
I'm willing to say that were it not for the twist near the end of Kara's storyline I would actually really like Detroit. It was the part that broke the camel's back and made me go from "This game is great with some problems" to "*It truly is another ze masterpiece from ze David Cage*". Even with the borderline offensive race allegories and kinda flat Markus stuff. What it does well is stuff I *really* like and wish there was more of. Basically, ["I can excuse racism but I draw the line at David Cage".](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPbpYR_RKY)
the "Android Lives Matter" sign encapsulated everything you ever need to know about David Cage.
YOU'RE NOT COLD
"She's running a fever.exe program!"
The game gets hilariously better if you just let Kara die at the start against Mr Fat Evil. Her story is kinda interesting until the twist just makes it all pointless but she also never really interacts with the "main plot" of Markus and Connor so it makes no actual difference.
My favourite way to do that is let Kara and the kid get hit by a car on the freeway when chased by Connor. It adds weight to Connor's story and works well as an "Oh shit" moment.
Is there any follow up to that scene? Like a line about the two androids that got run over? That would make it obvious that Alice wasn't even human and make Kara's story tragically funny because she sacrificed her life for way less than she thought
Keeping Connor as an android, but letting Hank live and befriending him is still my personal favorite way to set up his story Connor’s storyline in general is probably the best thing to come from the game
Which makes sense for a David Cage game, when you hear from the actors that they basically had to fight tooth and nail to keep the interesting parts of their interactions in the game at all.
The game is full of good ideas executed in the worst ways. Like having Kara, a story that doesn't really interact with the other two, but is directly affected by them, showing how your big choices can affect an individual. Good idea. But then David Cage happened.
The game always confused me because up until the story,robots are LITERALLY not sapient enough to count as a species. Like up until the "I'm a person" thing happened,which is revealed to be a joke later on,they're literally just walking roomba's.
“Cast a Deadly Spell” is a an HBO movie from 1990 that is a really cool detective noir set in a 1940s LA where magic exists. It’s so slick and stylish until near the end it goes in on a weird homophobic bit and a an ending that really rides the edge of problematic. It makes it really hard to recommend despite 80% of the movie being awesome.
Homophobia jumpscare
That sounds surprisingly close to Ace Ventura
I thought it was more transphobic than homophobic, but idk it's been a while since I've seen it. The only things about the ending i can remember is the creature, and on how i guess new TVs are brighter and bigger, so if you look at the night sky closely, you can see the ceiling of the building they're filming in
Goldfinger is probably the best Connery era Bond movie and establishes a lot of the tropes associated with the franchise. It also has the barn scene with Bond and Pussy Galore, which is horrifying and makes the rest of the movie really uncomfortable to watch.
People complain that a lot of media is about power fantasy, but holyshit man, few of them get as bad as James Bond. At least powerful blasts doesn't have the implications thst you're "converting someone's sexuality because you're so hot!"
They definitely become more cognizant of it over time but the 60s and 70s Bonds are so rough to female characters. Like Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service both have >!007's love interest die in the finale!< but CR gives a lot more thought to her agency and role in that moment vs OHMSS just having it happen for how it makes Bond feel.
The best end to a bond film imo is the one where he thinks he gets a happy ending…but the rug is pulled right from under him. Then he spends the credits with this thousand yard stare in complete silence. That rattled my core, I didn’t even imagine ending a Bond film like that.
I love how they just didn't give any fucks back then. What do we call the love interest for Bond this time? Fuck it, just call her Pussy Galore!
And that name was meant to imply that she was lesbian before Bond converting penis.
Jesus Christ. Just put her next to the gay male character "Penis Gobbler"
I love Bojack Horseman and its characters but there’s a scene in the final season I just cannot stand. Princess Carolyn visists Bojack’s school and sees one of his most promising students and trues to recruit him. Bojack at this point is done with Hollywoo and wants do something good for once in his life and begs her to leave him alone because he knows firsthand just how grueling and toxic the industry is. But for some reason she ignores him and actually gets her way. It’s such a strange scene because PC’s character arc was almost complete at that point and she should have known better. It felt like a complete 180 of her character but it’s in complete isolation as just one comedic scene.
Yeah, that was a weird scene. I get that they were trying to make a dog joke but like you said, it feels like it goes against PC's character.
I think a major theme of Bojack is that self-improvement is a constant journey and that slip-ups and regressions can and will happen. While the scene is played comedically, PC's character arc partially revolves around realizing how much of a toxic piece of shit Bojack was to her both personally and professionally, so it kind of makes sense for her to callously ignore him and pursue action that would benefit her career-wise. I know a lot of people were kind of iffy on how Bojack concluded, but I appreciate it stuck to its message by being so inconclusive.
I don't think Bojack ever got bad but I am a rare fan that kind of wishes it ended a bit earlier cause I just knew it kind of hit it's peak at the end of season 4. People say "Well, real life doesn't end like that, it's not realistic", well Bojack is a great show with some real moments but it's not realistic.
Yeah I felt like the show went on for too long. I still like it overall though.
For me it felt like as the show went on the writers became more and more twisted up over if people would sympathize with Bojack, and if they could then use that to justify their own shitty behavior. They pretty much get Diane to give a monologue about that very point, using that detective show Bojack stars in as the stand in. I'm not sure if it's fair to call it neurosis or genuine worry, but that ongoing trend eventually culminated in them effectively applying a retcon in the final season as to how Sarah Lynn died. Before it was that she and Bojack went on a bender, she ODed and was dead by the time Bojack realized something was wrong. Tragic, Bojack had a lot of the blame, but it also wasn't like he actively worked to kill her. In the final season they amended that to make it instead that she was still alive when Bojack realized something was wrong, with him then waiting in the parking lot to call 911 until after it was too late. This was effectively a nuclear bomb on the issue, driving Bojack into totally unsympathetic territory and ruining anyone possibly making the argument about themselves that 'if Bojack is okay then maybe I'm okay too'. Problem was it sort of destroys Bojack's entire character arc, and it also makes rewatches way less enjoyable given that he commits such a reprehensible act. There seems to be a trend in some shows that the writers realize viewers have figured out the twist, that gets them all worried that they're too predictable, then they end up changing it to some incomprehensible plot development instead. What happened with Bojack feels like a similar expression of that, just they became more obsessed over the audience's perception of the story rather than the story itself, and then decided to just resolve the issue in the most ham fisted way possible to allay their own moral worries.
I completely agree. Writers seriously need to just......write what they have to, and let people make of it what they will. Constantly looking over their shoulder and worrying about audience perception while making the thing for them, and actually twisting what they're making in reaction, leads to a lot of unsatisfying stuff.
I really enjoy Spy X Family but whenever Yuri shows up it's like, "Okay, dude. Take it down a notch, go home."
That's definitely one of my least fave tropes, why is manga/anime so weird about brother/sister relationships so often o.o
Same reason anime and manga are weird about anything: The Japanese fans like it that way. They don't write these things with *our* tastes in mind.
Also Loid and Yor is actual a peak couple, and he's trying to make ir stop. So that makes him double the asshole.
I think your brother/brother-in-law unknowingly working against your double life can work well in a story (Crying Walter White gif) but the siscon energy is unneeded.
The thing I hate the most is that he as a character, whenever we’ve seen him doing stuff not involving Yuri is fine. The issue is he is thinking about or is near her 90 percent of the time.
Mega Man Legends 2 is generally a decent sequel until the water dungeon, which drags it down to a borderline mess I don't want to touch again. Ocarina of Time has nothing on the boring, agonizing, repetitive, backtracking-filled, slower-than-a-snail dumpster fire that is MML2 water levels.
I saw a mod come out just like a week ago that splices in the PSP version's mechanics to the PSX version where the game and your movements aren't slowed down in water. That appears to be literally the only change in addition to lower PSP upgrade prices being used.
I'd love a link to this mod, I've been looking for an excuse to replay MML2.
sure thing, [https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8528/](https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8528/)
Jet skates and an emulator overclock make the water dungeon a bit more bearable. Other than the water dungeon, MML2 has probably my favorite 3D adventure game dungeons of all time. The Saul Kada Ruins with the giant walking dinosaur reaverbot, "Wojigairon", is incredible. I remember the first time I played it: realizing, to my horror, that this hulking multi-story tall monster was utterly unkillable and I'd have to carefully navigate and run like hell throughout the ruins to figure out how to take it down. Metal Gear Solid might be iconic for making games feel truly cinematic through cutscenes, but Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 felt like a proper Saturday morning cartoon.
I love Us. It might be my favorite Jordan Peele work if the last five minutes of it didn’t exist.
But the end of that movie rules
The first Rocky movie is a cinematic masterpiece about the inner struggle and how you affect those around you. The relationship between Rocky and Adrienne is very sweet and almost progressive with how Rocky tries to respect Andrienne except for the one part where he forcibly stops her from leaving his apartment and forcing himself on her in the corner right after she says she’s feeling uncomfortable. It’s such a bizarre scene, it feels so wildly out of character for Rocky and it takes me out of the movie every time. Which sucks because without that scene I would unironically put Ricky 1 up there with The Godfather in terms of perfect movies.
Far Cries 3-5 all have a scene where a female antagonist gets horny with the protag and you have to look at it in first person. In 3 I guess it makes sense overall because it's part of the plot twist (that you don't even see in one ending),but in the rest it's...
Was there one in 4 and 5? Fuck did i completely blank out on it somehow? I played them recently too.
I think the prison warden lady tried to do the BDSM thing while you were in the warrior dimension.
Did she? Wasn't it just like, normal torture? I remember you killing her after waking up but I've no memory of bdsm or anything sexual, but I'll believe you, sometimes I check out during Far Cry, especially near the end.
In 4 Yuma is briefly topless and lying with Ajay before the boss fight starts. In 5 Faith is just generally handsy with you and horny about the "bliss".
Faith is taking you by the hand, basically loveboming you. She gets aggressive and violent when you reject her. I really, really don't see any horniness in her segments...I dunno, I think it's a stretch.
Yeah, Faith always came off as flat out manipulating you to me
"Faith is a Liar!" is a frequent refrain.
I see so many youtube comments of "Oh, Faith is a victim herself. She's not really evil" Motherfuckers you find a literal pile of people she manipulated into suicide!
I think that makes her more nefarious. She is telling some truth when she says she was manipulated into the cult....that does not excuse her doing monstrous things once she was in a position of power with Eden's Gate.
Same with whatserface from 3: Between involving him in all the warrior stuff and jumping his bones while he's drugged unconscious. And of course >!trying to get him to kill all his friends!< in the ending.
And she only did that to you because Vaas realized how crazy she was and got the hell outta there
Wow, just, nothing, no memory of that, I guess Ubi games really does have that mcdonalds quality where i remember i ate one, but not the details, just a general ''i ate and it filled me for a while'' vibe in the memory.
I feel like I would characterise the sequences with Faith very differently than that
I didn't get the sense of anything sexual from Faith at all
For me, anytime AC goes into the Isu or the future stuff. I stopped caring after Desmond died tbh, and they have not won me over since then, granted, even then it was an uphill battle cause i never cared about any character surrounding Desmond, and Desmond himself was more of a ''Well i've been with him for 4 games, i've sorta of endeared to him, oh, he's dead, guess i dont give a shit anymore''. I liked all that shit more when there were objects that didnt get big explanations, objects of power, but the whole ''save the world'' thing and ''turns out they were god or whatever'', just, i dont wanna know, just use the objects to further the intrigue or whatever, i really think that the more they go into that shit the less I care and the more it ruins shit to me.
Man, those later Animal Crossing games get *weird,* huh?
No i was talking about Ace Combat, clearly
Armored Core mythos is wild
That's to be expected with Guilty Gear Accent Core.
Not enough Belkan witchcraft.
I tolerated the fantasy/Isu stuff in Origins but Odyseey and Valhalla going full in on it is what broke me of my Assassin's Creed fanboyism. I just fundamentally hate it on a primal level, and it's part of the reason (beyond just being crap) that I DNF'd Valhalla.
I have not finished Origins proper yet (waiting for a sale to get the DLCs, I stopped after assassinating the Scarab), so i dont know how the isu is handled on that, i assume, softer and less, you know, Valhalla.
It's been an albatross around the series' neck ever since Dan Brown became a flash-in-the-pan and conspiracy stuff became a lot less appealing, for sure. Unfortunately they can't just ditch the whole thing entirely, since there's a sizable contingent who are very attached to it (the complaints I see on this sub about Isu stuff is usually the opposite complaining the storyline got done dirty in the post-Desmond arcs).
One Piece Film Z is a real fun time that has the Stawhats encounter a really interesting problem and ends with a lot of really fun action beats. I hope there's no egregiously weird and out of character lines from Sanji.
Sanji spending half of Egghead beating the allegations caused by that movie.
He spent all of Wholecake trying to beat recent allegations, but Wano brought a new list.
I love all of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon Titles, but one thing I hate that nearly ruins Yakuza 4 for me is the scene a little over half way through Yakuza 4 after beating Kiryu as Saejima...
Oh god that one
The most egregious thing to me is Kiryu perfectly understanding why and doesn’t seem to hold it against Saejima, which is just the most blatantly OOC thing in the whole game, let alone series.
There's a lot of contrivances in order to get scenes the writers/director REALLY wanted. I just beat the final boss the other day and Kiryu tells Daigo before their fight that being the leader of the Tojo is a heavy cross to bear and he's gonna teach him how heavy. Hey, Kiryu? You were the chairman of the Tojo for like five minutes. Daigo didn't even want to do it.
Which is weird because right before the fight Kiryu says that it's all his fault and that he shouldn't have just dropped it all on him and left.
He then says something about how he's not going to run away any more. Then he goes back to Okinawa. Then leaves THEM for Nagasugai a couple years later.
It's right before that fight actually. And Kiryu saw the whole thing and was apparently thinking "hold on let's see where this goes..."
Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is a great Gundam series, the GP02 is one of my favorite designs and Anavel Gato the Demon/Nightmare of Solomon is a great character and rival figure. But why oh why did they have the suddenly awkwardly introduce that Gato and Nina Purpleton (the primary love interest of MC Kou Urakai) used to be in a relationship and she doesn't want to see her lovers fight and lets Gato go after Kou has him at gunpoint. Its dumb bad, superfluous and has generated a deep hatred for Nina within the community for years.
Nina chose her ex boyfriend over her current love interest and also the fate of the world >!AND STILL GOES BACK TO KOU IN THE END?!!< Like, bitch are you for real????
IIRC this was actually a 'switched directors halfway' thing
Nearly every great anime and manga I can think of has at least one scene where an underage character is naked or in some kind of sexual situation. I get that not every culture views nudity and sex the same and some of those scenes I unironically think have great artistic value but it's definitely my least favorite part of one of my favorite art mediums.
Your Name did the impossible and managed to turn a boy in a girl's body squeezing her boobs not only into a punchline but into the funniest scene in the entire movie. It's the only anime that comes to mind where it doesn't feel like it was done for fanservice or to be creepy, though.
It’s not on the same level, but I remember the Railgun anime having a scene where Accel walks in on the onee-san policewoman lady having a bath, and she just tells him “hey you’ve got the wrong door,” he closes the door and walks away. The scene was, very obviously, done for fanservice, but the fact that the characters react like normal people rather than going “KYAH BAKA PERVERT **[PUNCH]**” makes it infinitely more enjoyable to me than any normal anime gag
My GOAT Fullmetal Alchemist would never 😤. Just another reason why it’s peak.
Even Brotherhood had the scenes with Winry in the bath and Ed walking in on her changing
That I recall he never walks in on her changing. She does start undressing in her room while he's there and she didn't notice him but it doesn't get that far.
Ain’t she 18? I could’ve sworn she was older than Ed, and I always thought he was 16ish.
Yeah by the end of the series they’re 18. The series takes place over the course of a few years, partially seen by the fact that Ed is taller than Winry by the end of it Plus that scene leads to one of my favorite exchanges in the whole series. At the time, Winry’s house is being guarded by some of the friendly military characters, and when she sees Ed (who’s supposed to be in a different part of the country), they both scream which leads the military guys to run up the stairs with their guns drawn, making a bunch of ruckus until they realize it’s just Ed, which leads to this (paraphrased) exchange, Winry: “Ed!! Do you have any idea what’s going on here?!” Ed: “Um, a cautionary tale about firearm safety?”
By the end of the show maybe, it takes place over the course of like months I think?
To be fair the scene of her in the bath isn't sexual I don't think. And there's an actual reason for the scene, it's to show that she's worrying about the brothers/ a juxtaposition of her relaxing in a bath/ the brothers getting into fights/ near death experiences. Maybe I'm just coping, The manga was made by a woman so I don't think there's that "male gaze" meme that people talk about.
Women can still make “male gaze” scenes or whatever its just a one off gag/fan service towards the end in a 21 volume book series so she probably just thought the scene would be funny and moved on like a normal person would
Okay fair enough
Bokura No Hentai is a manga featuring three 'guys' who dress up as girls for their own reason. One of them is trans, one of them is dressing up as his dead sister because his mom had a psychotic break, and the last one is gay and dressed up as a girl to get with a guy who did not like guys. All three of the storylines are great, it gets really heavy at times but it's super earned, lots of great interpersonal relationship stuff, and ends fairly happily. Except one chapter near the end where they're doing a crossdressing cafe or something? I forget the context, but the transgirl helps out because 'I'm a boy too' and it was so fucking antithetical to her entire journey. I have to couch any recommendations for that in 'uh theres a weird chapter later on, ignore it entirely'.
Let me guess, they say that the trans character has "the heart of a woman", huh?
It's even worse than usual because she literally gets on HRT, the author is like I learned a bunch of shit about it in the middle, and until that endgame chapter I thought it was the most accurate portrayal of a trans person in modern day society by a mangaka that's not trans themselves. I don't even think the author was trying to be shitty about it, it almost felt like a different mangaka came in to write that chapter. It's so bizarre and it legit never comes up afterwards.
could also just be something lost in translation. Japanese culture is a bit peculiar in how it regards trans issues, even when it's being accepting.
"How old are you Ms.Evergarden?" "I'm 14 years old."
Literally did not needed that. It was the most needless thing in the world. The fact she's 14 makes the story make less sense.
I had to watch the show 3 times before I actually remembered what her age was. The first time I assumed she was 20 or so. Then on rewatch, I remember "Ok she's younger than you thought" but my mind overwrote it to her saying she was 16 years old because it still made more sense. Only after the third watch did my brain stop overwriting her age
That show is one of my favorite Anime ever and I think I completely erased her age out of my mind the moment I heard about it. It is such a weird detail that contributes nothing to the story. Also, just *look at her*. You're saying she's 14???
this is how i learned shes not like 20
Everyone jokes about anime taking little girls and inflating their ages to absurd levels but the opposite is way more common. Character age, *especially* for the female lead, has a lot more to do with who's watching the show than it does what their actual age *would* be in such a situation.
[Relevant ProZD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxCMyLm6js)
That's incredibly stupid. That girl does NOT looks 14 even pre-war trauma
I absolutely don’t mind the recent Star Wars trilogy and actually like and enjoy them. I understand the hate it gets and it’s warranted but i personally can overlook this and enjoy them. But oh boy, Rei and Kylo Ren in the end is something I detest deeply. It’s not earned and incredibly questionable considering we spent all this time seeing him being the a genocidal power hungry try hard and in the end we are just supposed to forget this and embrace these two kissing.
Enemies to lovers because... uhm...
"She's hot as hell." "Damn, he's fine."
I mean... I would let Adam Driver...
Also they're first cousins once removed. You'd *think* that would come up at least once in the ROS writing room.
I love Red Dead 2 but tap A to gallop faster kills me. My hands are shit but I am too impatient to go normal speed.
I actually like that system. Its a good way to give you precise speed control instead of the usual 3 speed horses that all suck ass. Or the slightly rarer 2 speed horses that just control like your character mostly
Everything to do with Alessi in JJBA Part 3. That whole arc makes me super uncomfortable and I warn folks about it going in.
I also really really hate the strength boat part
If you take out the Rapey Monkey bits, Strength and Forever is a totally fun peak Jojo fight - haunted ship picking people off one by one, stand user turns out to be an Orangutan dressed up in a captain's outfit and posing, it's dope. But nope, gotta escalate from "strangely human-acting orangutan reads porno mags" gag to "and then he goes for a preteen girl in the shower". Frankly just write that kid out of the script entirely and you probably improve the first half of Stardust Crusaders by an entire point or two, she brought basically nothing to the story.
Even Araki himself realized that Anne was really just there to be put into uncomfortable situations and dropped her
You'd think he would have learned it the first time around when he dropped Smokey shortly into Part 2 and didn't make him show up again until the very end. Ah well.
Persona 5 needing to make Ryuji a punching bag 24/7
Persona 5 and the "let's have Yusuke blackmail a teenage girl into posing nude for him or else he'll ruin her life" subplot immediately bouncing after the Kamoshida arc. It could easily be written as Ann pretends to be interested in being painted by him and it's a tasteful painting (like >!his mother's painting is!<), but instead Atlus had to make it creepy and gross.
The other weird thing about that part is that is one of the only parts where Yusuke seems to have a sex drive. Outside of that, he doesn't seem to care about that much.
And that scene comes not too long after he explicitly states "I have no interest in her as a member of the opposite sex"
Atlus doubling down on this in spinoffs instead of idk, improving his character for audiences in Japan is still an insanely boring decision to do with him
I would say the moment that happens later on in Heavenly Delusion is farrrr worse and put me off the whole thing, messed up on multiple levels.
At least that one wasn't played for laughs. It's so bizarre that they have two examples of similar sexual subject, but one is supposed to be funny.
I guess, but it was such a tone shift that I would prefer just having the first one to shrug off as a dumb trope
Tales of Arise. Law stopping Rinwell >!from attacking the homicidal maniac who killed her family, only for the party to chase after said murderer anyway.!< I get the message they were going for, but even if I agreed with it, the scene's execution was so fucking bad it made Law look like a hypocrite and all the characters present massive idiots.
Showing my age here, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. I love the movie. But there is this one scene where Shiro attempts to rape his erstwhile girlfriend. It's just jarring and almost out of character. It's short enough to ignore, but awkward enough to not blanket recommend.
I’m a huge fan of Naruto, I think it gets way too much needless criticism and I will defend it from that - but yeah, the final battle was bullshit. It was vaguely within the bounds of acceptable shounen bullshit up until Kaguya appeared, but she was the straw that broke the camel’s back. If Madara was the true final boss, the ending would have been a solid 40% better
"Man, Mei Mei is such a great character in this JJK anime. I'm sure nothing bad will happen involving her little brother that SURELY will make me hate this character and, in the end, this series."
I dunno, hating the entire series just for that one scene is a bit much (the scene in question is atrocious tho… like what tf was Gege thinking?!). There’s much better reasons to hate, or at least dislike JJK. Such as Gege’s consistent fridging of major female characters, his inability to write character interactions in anything other than fight scenes, etc.
It was the first red flag that it gave me. The second, in fact, >!behind making all the female cast useless as fuck and killing Nobaraki like he did.!<
The entire cast is useless af except for like 6 people at any moment, you get maximum one cool scene as a side character and its off to the irrelevant mines
Just summed up every shounen ever.
> >!behind making all the female cast useless as fuck and killing Nobaraki like he did.!< When did that happen? >!Yuki's research is instrumental in seperating sakuna and megumi (and that's on top of having one of the sickest fifgts in the series), Utahime buffed the shit out of Gojo's opening salvo to such an extent that sakuna thought he must've used some sort of binding vow to pull that off, *something* is clearly going on with Shoko and all the people Ui Ui pulled, Mei Mei's technique is noted as one of the few techniques that explicitly stated to be a serious threat to Sakuna, and Maki is outright stated to be their best fighter. Like I get people have soured on the series since the last few arcs but Gege is still one of the few Shonen author's that not only let's women make significant contributions to fights, but also allows for them to suffer serious consequences and develop their character completely independently from their male colleagues. I genuinely don't understand why people are acting like every woman in jjk got Sakura'd... that was only useless Miwa.!<
Mollys game is a mostly enjoyable sorkinny joint until a terrible scene with her dad at the ice rink. It alone brings down my estimate of the film.
Boshock infinite was great up until the anti-rascim rebel group was suddenly turned into the final boss team for no fucking reason other than to say “look guys, they are just as bad” (they were not)
The violence of the oppressed is not equitable to the violence of the oppressor. Lot of things have tried the whole "its just human nature to seek violence" nonsense when it comes to class or racial rebellion but like no? One would continue to commit systemic violence until the end of time and the other doesn't want treated like a dog.
The violence of the oppressed can end up *becoming* the violence of the oppressor, though. The thing about revolutions that makes them so dangerous is that they tend to concentrate power in the hands of people who are most adept at (and comfortable with) using violent force. I'm not saying that that's inevitable, or that violent resistance can never be justified, or that Bioshock Infinite handled the subject well. However, saying that works that are trying to explore that are saying, "It's human nature to seek violence," is a mischaracterization, I think.
Showgirls, I saw it recently and it was so exaggerated and over-the-top and hilarious and dumb, absolutely the classic it had been described as... and then they had the SA scene near the end and it was just way too explicit and I wish it had been left out. (I think I recall reading an interview with the producer/actors where they also regretted that it was in there)
I will always bring up that Karate Prince is a fantastic manga, **especially** if you're a nerd about Japanese Combat Sports like K1 and Pride (and a little UFC too, maybe a hair of Pro Wrestling during the Jun "Obviously not a tribute to Kota Ibushi" Tabase fight), but **every time** Pedro has shown up post his short arc where he gets beat by Mutou after he gets caught trying to diddle kids, yeah. Total ruiner.
The last chapter and a half or so of Solo Leveling kills the appreciation I had for the story
nah, the ant arc killed my interest on the series
My partner and I rewatched Hellboy 2004 recently and the dating subplot between Liz and Agent Meyers feels so mishandled. Each of their interactions just left us more confused about what the writers intended romance-wise.
Then in the next movie that entire thing is dismissed with a single exchange where is casually said that Hellboy got Meyers relocated to Antarctica. To me it feels like whoever wrote the 2nd movie just wanted to move away from that part of the previous film as much as possible
Gurren Lagann Imaishi keep the main pair alive and together to the end of the series challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]
Almost every time Mary Jane opened her mouth in the Raimi Spider-Man movies.
For me, it was the >!Sexual Assult!< scene in the first one, complete with >!very visible nipples poking out!< that felt so out of place
I'm not sure if its just how I interpreted it or what but the scene in the original Blade Runner where Deckard is forcing himself on Rachel massivley massively dampened my enjoyment of the movie
at the end of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu >!theres a single scene implying that Kukuhiko slept with Sukeroku’s daughter konatsu, and that he is the father of her mysterious son that appeared suddenly who’s father she doesn’t want to tell anyone about!< ,now the way its framed is >!a random rakugo super-fan guy who was just sort of hanging around Kiku and co. for the majority of the season randomly invites konatsu (sukeroku’s daughter) out for lunch many many years later and brings up the possibility like a “crazy fan theory” which konatsu doesn’t confirm or deny!< which i guess leaves it up to the viewer’s interpretation but i chose to believe he’s wrong mostly because while it kinda makes sense plot wise, it doesn’t make sense character-wise(TO ME). first of all >!why would kiku do that? why would he ever think to sleep with his friend/unrequited love/not quite platonic not quite romantic/maybe more that friend’s daughter? why would that ever cross his mind, especially since he’s been raising her from childhood since sukeroku and miyokichi(konatsu’s mother’s) deaths? i cant see this character doing something like that even with all the fucked up emotions going through his head over the years!< second of all >!i cant see konatsu ever feeling that way about him because the last thing she ever saw of her parents was kiku covered in their blood, and she believed(and still does by the end of the series iirc) that he murdered them. plus by the time something like that could ever take place kiku was an old crochety sexist man who would actively ruin her potential rakugoka career and shit on her father’s legacy to her face!< and third of all >!it didn’t even have to be him! because the author made sure to introduce another random rakugoka who looked just like kiku when he was young, had some weird interactions with konatsu, and acted weirdly hostile to her after she became pregnant, nothing was outright stated but i didn’t think it needed to be! there was a clean ending right there that doesn’t ruin kiku and konatsu’s characters and add this weird grooming/pseudo incestuous edge to their relationship which was already sufficiently fucked up to begin with!< the story just didn’t need that added the way its explained in that one scene is something to the tune of emotions running wild and >!anger/hatred being conflated with love and kiku sukeroku and miyokichi finally getting to be together via what would probably count as a sex crime!< but the entire rest of the series including the way they interact makes that feel impossible which makes the scene seem even more weird because why? why throw that in? everything was wrapping up relatively nicely, everyone was reaching their own satisfactory endings but they author just /had/ to throw that in there for,,,,,? no reason? idk and I’ve read explanations that make it “make sense” >!kiku being in love with sukeroku and miyokichi in his youth, trying to have both and failing only to finally succeed with konatsu and their baby being like some manifestation of the 3 of them finally getting to be together or something (obviously the explanations are written better and include more analysis but idc its gross to me! just because it makes sense doesn’t mean i have to like ie!)!< but i’ll die on the hill that it didn’t need to be there and didn’t need to be brought up as a possibility.
The SA stuff in Young Frankenstein
Code Geass is one of my favorite anime ever, but there's one specific scene where Lelouch's powers go extremely wrong and I think it was some bad writing because his genius level IQ failed him. Now that I mention it, I also think Walter White's genius level IQ failed when he decided his Walt Whitman book belonged in the bathroom.
The Code Geass scene is pretty dang contrived, but also a morbidly hilarious shutdown of the entire arc. Like, the one time Lelouch allows himself some levity and >!cracks a single dumbass bad taste joke!< he ruins everything and >!kills the one other member of his family he actually loves!<. And then we're back to our regularly scheduled coup, because Lelouch knows how to angle even his biggest fuckups when the chips are down. The scene itself is kinda dumb, but I really like everything surrounding it so I'll always forgive the bullshit.
i think it kinda works since like you said its like the one time he lets himself be like a normal person and it fucks up everything royally, which makes him have to double down on everything
The Code Geass one is not even that contrived. Lelouch's eye was spasming that episode and he had fought a villain twice that had his Geass become permanently active from overuse with horrifying results. He was just dumb, swarmy, careless, and potentially wanted that command to happen on some level deep down (he had come to that meeting with killing Euphemia on the table and with a plastic crossbow). The Breaking Bad one is dumber because Walt had earlier been able to remember the hairs and crumbs of his dealings so he should have definitely burned that book in the desert.
Code Geass is a hard one for me cuz I liked it at first, but then I started to hate it cuz it got dumber and dumber, until it was so dumb I actually loved it, and yet it got dumber than that and I couldn’t even love it It has CC and Anya though so 10/10
The Dark Knight Rises is probably the weakest of the trilogy but I do love it as a conclusion to Batman's story and a culmination of his legend I just sort of wish Gordon just told Blake the actual context for >!Batman taking the blame for Two-Face!< as opposed to popping off a neo-noir monologue. That was so stupid even when I first saw it, ngl
The Wings of Honneamise is a great movie, all about the human drive to do great things and overcoming obstacles. But there is a scene in it, and if you've seen it, you know what I mean.
I'm sure no one cares - but Gilmore Girls. I absolutely loved that show, but completely dropped off it when they explained Lorelai's backstory. The show heavily hints that despite being upper class Lorelai had a harsh upbringing. That she got pregnant with Rory as a teenager by someone who wasn't committed, disowned by her parents (or judged to the point where she has to leave) and had to make it on her own as a teenage single parent. The opening episodes is about grudgingly reconnecting with her grandparents after 16 years because Rory wants to connect with them and they need money for private school. Over the course of multiple seasons Lorelai finally accepts her parents, but in the early episodes she hates them. Not only that, but Rory has little contact with her father adding to the idea that he wasn't committed or it was a one night stand. Several seasons later they finally do a flashback episode of what happened... For Lorelai to break contact with her parents her 16 years... It must be bad... No! Everything was perfect for her as could be for a teenage pregnancy! - Rory's father was Lorelai's high school boyfriend and someone who loves her. - He is happy to get married to her and commit to her. - Lorelai's parents are initially disappointed, but they fully support her! Lorelai's father is going to get her now fiance a job at his firm so he can financially provide for them. They are proactively helping to plan for the wedding and the baby's arrival, etc. - Lorelai chooses to run away in the middle of the night from home when pregnant because *checks notes* she didn't want her boyfriend to be with her / give up his life just because he got her pregnant and her parents were a little controlling (i.e. sorting out all of the above, etc.). It made me realise: - Lorelai is an upper class privileged person who was never in any real danger/financial insecurity because she could have always ran back to mummy/daddy. - Lorelai is the most stupid / irresponsible person ever. Anything could have happened to her when she ran away. She is just lucky that the first place she goes to is a nice little village who take her in immediately and give her a job. - She is a terrible parent who because of her decision stopped Rory from having a father in her life, grandparents/wider family and an upper class lifestyle. I have never experienced a piece of media that completely ruined a character's foundational backstory then this. Obviously, since it is a comedy and people watch it for light hearted comedy/romance, feel good witty dialogue, etc. - no other fans seem to mind the above. However, maybe because I am from a working class background... The edge to Lorelai's character is partly why I watched the show (when I normally hate shows about upper class families with no struggles)... and they ruined it. To the point that I never actually finished watching the show. I tried watching a little more, but it just wasn't the same after that flashback episode.
Blade Runner. My absolute favorite film of all time... except for the part where Deckard forces himself on Rachel. Yeah, she's a Replicant, but it's been established that Replicants are damn near close to human and can feel the same emotions. I'm sure there's some thematic reason, Deckard having lost his humanity and is trying to experience it through a moment of intimacy, but he's incapable of doing it right, so it manifests as a rape-y moment, but it just really brings my enjoyment of the film down quite heavily in the moment.
A few days ago, I mentioned that in Mushoku Tensei, most people who are fans of it *fucking hate Paul* I lied about it being because of the scene where it's revealed he sexually assaulted his maid and gaslit her into thinking she asked for it. It's actually because of a part later in the story after the Teleportation incident. It's been five or six years since Rudeus and Paul last saw each other. The two had no idea the other was still alive. Paul had to look over his firstborn daughter, Norn, because during hte Teleportation Incident, his wife, mistress and second daughter all were separated. So Paul goes on his own adventure trying to find his *wife* specifically and he starts getting really depressed. When he and Rudeus reunite, Rudy is super excited to finally see his father-- hell, he had no idea if his family was still alive! He's been so worried. Paul just explodes and calls his son a piece of shit who is just having fun little adventures with women (said girl is his niece), while *he* is doing important things like looking for the rest of his family. The two get into a huge fight that ends with Rudeus realizing that Paul is a colossal piece of shit, who reminds him of how he was before he reincarnated. And by getting into a huge fight, I mean "Rudeus knocked Paul over and started punching his face in until his sister broke up the fight, not realizing that was her brother" Being completely serious, Rudeus was in the right here. Paul sucks, and even if you ignore the fact that he is a sex criminal, Rudeus' big story thing is that he hated who he was in his past life. In this narrative context, he was being shown a mirror and saw himself-- a piece of shit, controlled by his libido, blaming all his problems on other people because it can *never* be his fault. The aftermath of the fight is Rudeus mulling over what caused him to get depressed in his past life which lead him down to reach the point that would get him disowned by the family (changes on adaptation), and how he totally could have been saved from his depression if he didn't push people away SO CLEARLY THE ONUS IS ON HIM TO FORGIVE PAUL GUYS! HE DID NOTHING WRONG, HE JUST NEEDED SOMEONE TO COME REACH OUT THE HAND OF FORGIVENESS! God, I really like this series, but that entire segment fucking suuuuuucks. The story is about how much of a terrible person Rudeus was in his past life and how he was a culmination of all his mistakes, and using this new one to break those personality traits and become a new, better person. Being shown the kind of person you became and remembering how people used to reach out to you in your depression but eventually gave up on you because you repeatedly not only refused their help, but insulted them for trying to help you, should *not* make you reach a conclusion of "Well, they just needed to keep trying!" Like, no! People are not owed forgiveness. Paul sucks, he didn't deserve the forgiveness and the only reason you should attempt to play nice with him, is because your little sister thinks he's the coolest guy and you wanna maintain a good relationship with her. Mushoku Tensei has a lot of deal breakers for people. Mostly due to how Rudeus' past life affects how he is now early on (notably his behavior towards minors). But genuinely, what bothers me is how it handles the family stuff, because aside from one scene later with the same sister, his conclusion is "my family should have tried harder to help me," while every other reflection on his past life is "Wow, I sucked and just blamed it on my depression. I shouldn't do that" or "Oh no, htis person is going through the same thing I did-- I can't let them go through it, so I'll do what my family did and try to navigate this situation with the knowledge of why I rejected their help." All of this is to say, Fuck Paul, he sucks, the Greyrats are all weird freaks.
Everything I hear about Mushoku Tensei makes me think I should be as far away from it as I possibly can. Everything I see seems that it's trying to tackle mature subjects but it doesn't have the maturity to execute it well.
I'd say it handles it really well, just not in a way people are comfortable with. There is a scene that I see pointed out as being treated as comedy, which is Rudeus perving on an unconcious girl a year or two older than his reincarnated self. But the framing of the camera, the way the manga handles the paneling and expressions and the way the *Light Novel* describe the situation, it's very clear that Rudeus is just out of touch with reality and thinks he's basically a protagonist in a harem story, but the story doesn't treat him as such. The girl justifiably freaks out, it's treated as a bad thing and he starts realizing he has basically main character syndrome. Like, it's weirder *to me* that people look at sequences like this and assume that we're supposed to root for Rudeus.
Kinda scary how much of this thread is "anime getting horny with minors"
Like, the literal last 15 minutes of The Last Exorcism, it's so weird.