Whilst watching that first episode of Katanagatari, this is what I heard:
My friends, it has often been said that I like exposition. Friends, I like exposition. No, friends, I love exposition!
I love long speeches. I love pointless dialogue. I love wasting time. I love nouns, verbs, I love hearing myself talk, and improvising on the spot.
Speeches about politics, about fighting, about the world, about relationships, about the character designs, about hair, on the spot, out my ass, I love every aspect of exposition that can occur upon this earth.
I love wasting time with talking about cool things rather than showing cool things.
My heart leaps with joy whenever a voice actor is paid to say a line when we could be giving the money to the animators instead.
And there is nothing like a fight scene where battles are spoken when they should be fought. And the feeling that comes when a soldier runs screaming from his blazing tank only for the tank to stop firing for a moment and bore the soldier to death for five minutes before firing again, is such an exquisite feeling.
Like when ranks of infantry brandish their mouths whilst rushing into the enemy line rather than their bayonets. It moves me deep within my heart to watch a wacky character talking down another wacky character for long periods before realizing it’s not working and brandishing his blade afterwards.
The sight of people thinking our dialogue is good is an irresistible pleasure. And there is nothing more arousing, than the sounds made of cash dropping like flies into our laps, screaming in agony as they’re mowed down by ear piercing schmeissers!
When a band of pitiful internet critics makes their final stands with nothing but pitiful insults, only to have their words smashed to atoms block by block by legions of fans, I’m in ecstasy.
I love it when my writing is ravaged by losers with no life. It’s so sad to see people with so much free time to do something with themselves, being laid to waste, their parents screaming at them to get a job.
I love to be squashed under the heel of American losers like Mr. Flawfinder. The humiliation, as my bullshit is blasted with the power of Yak bombers flying overhead.
Gentlemen… All I ask for is exposition, exposition so long and boring as to make Hell itself fear us. Gentlemen, I ask you as fellow brothers in arms, what is it you really want? Do you wish for more “tell don’t show” as I do? Do you wish for a merciless barrage of proper nouns? Dialogue whose weight is backed with emptiness, and shallow pretenses, and basically nothing? Do you ask for a speech to sweep in like a tempest, leaving no impact whatsoever, from this Earth!?
Very well. Then Nision dialogue is what you shall have. We are a clenched fist of bullshit, ready to strike down all who oppose us, with our might. But.. After enduring over half an episode wallowing in pretentious, for us, a simple “ordinary” wordy episode will no longer be sufficient. We need a MASSIVE wordy episode! A episode beyond any other that man’s history has never known! Thus, we require the episodes twice the normal length.
We are but joined by one cause. An army of random words from a dictionary less than a thousand strong. However, I believe that each of you old words is worth a thousand of their sickly soft snarks! We represent a force that could easily win over an army of a million and one anime fans! It is time for them to awaken a new breed of fans. Let’s drag them out of bed by the hair, and make them realize what we are! We will remind them of what it feels like to be bombarded with speeches backed up by poor use of visuals. We will remind them of the sound they make when they realize we will not show any action. We will remind them, that there are more things between good writing and awesome animation than are dreamt of in their philosophy.
Our Kampfgruppe of one thousand (and possibly more) words will burn this world down to ash. Yes, my friends! Soon, the anisphere’s numerous cries will illuminate the Internet! I have brought you all back just as I promised I would. Back to our favorite battlefield. Back to the world of anime!
At last, our new anime, Katanagatari is heading for the hill! Attention all lines that make up the anime, this is a message from your director and writer:
Friends…let’s bring them…(cut off)
And that was when I shut off the first episode and recycled all my Katanagatari files. Seriously, I couldn’t even finish the goddamn thing. People might argue it gets better, but you know what? I think I’ll live. Besides, I’ve yet to see an exposition-heavy anime backed by dull visuals that actually got better. And I very much doubt a White Fox anime by the director of Jormungand and Akane-Iro Somoru Saka is going to change that viewpoint.
———————————————————————————————————————-
Stingers
- Original video source for speech is right here in case you’re a plebe who hates English dubs and didn’t see the cool version of Hellsing Ultimate.
5/5, the best post right here.
As I’ve said before and what apparently didn’t get through,
meh.
Even the next ep previews in Katanagatari had more substance than your whining.
My entire problem with the episode is that it’s too much substance and not enough style, so of course the previews would have more substance than my Hellsing Ultimate parody.
YOUR IMPATIENCE WILL GET THE BETTER OF YOU, FLAW
it’s a pity though. katanagatari’s first episode is super slow and drags out, but it gets so much better pretty soon that you kind of forget about it. (aka post episode 2, pacing issues become pretty much resolved)
There’s no guarantee I won’t pick Katanagatari back up sometime down the road. However, given that I’m not a fan of either Nision or the director of the anime (shut up, Jormungand was terrible), I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon.
JORMUNGAND WAS GR8 UR TASTE SUX!!!111
Have you seen Steins;Gate though? I have not, but I’ve heard it’s pretty good. So if that makes you regain your faith in White Fox again, maybe it’ll be enough for you to pick up Katanagatari and continue it…..or so I hope. ONE DAY~
I did. I really like the show and all, but its VN-like nature and slow first half brought it down. Plus, that anime was made by a different team than the one who worked on Katanagatari and Jormungand.
Steins;Gate, Katanagatari and Jormungand are all made by the animation team White Fox! (That’s what I meant to say, whoops). I’ve heard that S;G is pretty slow in the first half, but the second half was much better? Hmmm.