Nothing against you not liking the show cause that's totally valid but I don't know why you expect realism given Chisato casually dodges machine gun bullets and Majima surviving an almost point blank explosion previously already. Have you seen John Wick? Pretty sure he survived some five hundred feet building fall and you don't see him dodging bullets the way Chisato does.

Repeating what I said before...

Also, despite being well-animated, the action was terribly written. The level of plot armour is just objectively bad writing, for both the protagonist and antagonists. Nameless Lyco gets hit by a car, she's a goner. Chisato gets hit by a car, not even a scratch. Majima tanks literally dozens of bullets that incapacitate anyone else after one or two shots, and is unscathed by a point-blank rocket explosion. The key to suspension of disbelief is internal consistency - it's okay to write a goofy action anime with cartoon-tier violence, but if you do, it should be consistent. As it is, the action has no weight to it and yet sometimes it ends with schoolgirls being brutally murdered and at other times it doesn't, with the only consistency to it being "named characters are invincible".

Nowhere in my post did I mention anything about "realism". The key to good writing is for the world to be faithful to its own rules. You can write a 'realistic' story about magic; you're just telling a story about a universe with different laws of physics. There's no reason a fictional universe has to have the same laws of physics as our universe. But it must follow its own laws. If it doesn't, suspension of disbelief goes out the window, and it becomes difficult for viewers to become invested in what they see happening because they can't trust what they see. This is like, good writing 101.

I have zero problems with Chisato dodging bullets or Majima being a bathuman, because those things are part of this universe's established rules: some people are born with superhuman talents, and these people are recognised as Alan Children. But nowhere does it suggest that Alan Children are also immortals (indeed, it explicitly contradicts this). Violence is routinely shown to be perfectly lethal in all normal cases; there is no reason to believe this universe's laws include increased human survivability. The only time violence is ineffective is when it's convenient for the plot.

You're expecting the show to give you something it never promised you.

I'd argue that any good fictional story has an implicit promise to be internally consistent, if it wants people to care about the events that occur. The only place I would expect otherwise is in something like a gag comedy where the plot is non-existent.

Also, I will add as an addendum that it's possible to think something is poorly written, from an objective view, and still like it. Nothing wrong with people liking LycoReco! I have plenty of guilty pleasures that I like despite knowing that they aren't well-written, and LycoReco would have probably been one of them if it were a good deal more gay. Alas, it is not for me.

last edited at Oct 6, 2022 7:02PM

Honestly that's a pretty long reply so forgive me for only scanning but Majima is shown to survive the subway explosion and another point blank explosion. Now he survived the fall. I'd argue that's pretty consistent.

I think it's kind of rude to say you're not going to bother reading what I wrote, but still argue against it...

Scanning is still reading it I'm just not keen on honing into the details of a show that's 70% slice of life. The only point I tried to say is that you're expecting things the show never promised. The show never really went out of its way to detail how their world works aside from the general gist of things. Chisato surviving getting hit by the car can easily be chalked to her eyesight allowing her to lessen the impact or just even the fact that she's a more talented lycoris than the other just off of their uniforms. Majima could easily balance himself out of a fatal fall. After all that's related to his talent is it not?

last edited at Oct 6, 2022 9:24PM

I don't normally do CGDCT or Kirara stuff, but Bocchi the Rock had a damn fun premiere? I recall trying the manga on a whim ages ago, only for it to make no real impression, but the anime just pops with style and color and charm (truly the second coming of K-On, though I sure hope it doesn't end up getting co-opted by the worst people on the planet as well). The introverted protagonist, which at this point has gone well beyond being a common trope and reached the level of a cry for help ironically stifled by its own ubiquity, glimmers in renewed darkness through Bocchi. I think what sets our bubblegum babbler apart from her closeted compatriots is precisely the fact that she acts like she's almost entirely alone in the world and the first and only person ever to suffer social anxiety, and channels this into a melodrama so unabashedly abashed that it bumblefucks its way into a raw authenticity (as raw as anime can be, anyway, which is about the level of an undercooked batch of scrambled eggs [I honestly like this show, I swear]).

I love a show that doesn't take itself too seriously, but is also so dedicated to this non-seriousness that it busts out an entire repertoire of tricks to deflate budding bathos, ranging from ironic self-quoting to elaborate daydreams to not-so-subtle jabs at teenagers to fake-out ending themes. It's very dedicated to capturing the absurdity of trying to figure out how in the ever-loving fuck to human being as a teenager, but it's precisely because it jokes about the whole experience in eighty different ways that you can tell that the story genuinely cares. It also fits with the whole theme of being an artist and messing about as you try to figure out your sound, leaning into all the hackneyed lines and self-pitying screeches so you can get 'em out of your system and into a soundscape, barfing up new recipes as you reverse-engineer individuality. I look forward to Bocchi realising that everyone's a bit of a freak and normalcy is eternally the first and last station on a train that never stops, so the key to being a good artist is to figure out how to sell tickets to your travelling cryptid circus. The Girls are Not Going to Be Alright and I, for one, am going for the next dozen weeks to integrate this show into my New Subnormal.

A manga about music without music is just screaming for an anime so I'm glad this one got one... In the same boat, we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

A manga about music without music is just screaming for an anime so I'm glad this one got one... In the same boat, we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

I wasn't aware that there was a new k-on manga, which one is it ? That's some big news !

A manga about music without music is just screaming for an anime so I'm glad this one got one... In the same boat, we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

I wasn't aware that there was a new k-on manga, which one is it ? That's some big news !

It's not like, new new, they're prob referring to K-On! Shuffle, which has been going since 2019
https://mangadex.org/title/2442e655-dcfe-4ed2-99de-d5b212836b64/k-on-shuffle

we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

Kyoani? That's bad news. They are notorious for worst kind of yuri baiting
(its just a phase lol)

Pretty happy with the new stuff so far, the alchemist is really cute...
But a little disappointed with Yama no susume, I thought the first episode was to introduce the main characters but they're actually retelling everything with new stuff here and there, is hard to tell because it's been so long since I watched the first seasons.

...

So I just went to investigate, the first part of the episodes is new stuff, the rest is recap, and that will continue for 2 more episodes... There's something I really don't like in season 3 so I'll probably skip the recaps of 3 and 4, only watching the first 3 minutes of new content and then come back for episode 5!

we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

Kyoani? That's bad news. They are notorious for worst kind of yuri baiting
(its just a phase lol)

I don't know, they did make Mugi explicitly a lesbian.

we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

Kyoani? That's bad news. They are notorious for worst kind of yuri baiting
(its just a phase lol)

I don't know, they did make Mugi explicitly a lesbian.

They did? I guess that was some time after I stopped following the series.

Did they give her a girlfriend, or a canon romantic partner?

we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

Kyoani? That's bad news. They are notorious for worst kind of yuri baiting
(its just a phase lol)

I don't know, they did make Mugi explicitly a lesbian.

They did? I guess that was some time after I stopped following the series.

Did they give her a girlfriend, or a canon romantic partner?

No, they didn't give her a girlfriend but in season 1, she was openly crushing on Sawako and when Mio and Ritsu asked her about it, Mugi told them that love between two girls is beautiful or something like that.

If I'm not mistaking, it was in season 1 episode 5.

last edited at Oct 13, 2022 5:25PM

we'll have a few years for Kyoani to make the next K-on (there's an ongoing manga with a new school)

Kyoani? That's bad news. They are notorious for worst kind of yuri baiting
(its just a phase lol)

I don't know, they did make Mugi explicitly a lesbian.

They did? I guess that was some time after I stopped following the series.

Did they give her a girlfriend, or a canon romantic partner?

No, they didn't give her a girlfriend but in season 1, she was openly crushing on Sawako and when Mio and Ritsu asked her about it, Mugi told them that love between two girls is beautiful or something like that.

If I'm not mistaking, it was in season 1 episode 5.

Yep, episode 5.
Though she doesn't have a crush on Sawako. Mio thinks she does but when Ritsu asks her Mugi corrects them by saying that she just thinks that girl on girl stuff is pretty nice ("女の子同士っていいなって").
So Mugi likes yuri but whether or not she's into girls, who knows?

No, they didn't give her a girlfriend but in season 1, she was openly crushing on Sawako and when Mio and Ritsu asked her about it, Mugi told them that love between two girls is beautiful or something like that.
If I'm not mistaking, it was in season 1 episode 5.

Yep, episode 5.
Though she doesn't have a crush on Sawako. Mio thinks she does but when Ritsu asks her Mugi corrects them by saying that she just thinks that girl on girl stuff is pretty nice ("女の子同士っていいなって").
So Mugi likes yuri but whether or not she's into girls, who knows?

My bad, back then I watched it with fansub subtitles and I was pretty sure that there were some ambiguities about her crushing on Sawako. I watched the episode again and you were right.

Thanks for correcting me :)

Welcome to episode 3 of My Master Has No Tail! The yuri usher will show you to your seats.

I'm late to the party too but I finished Birdie Wing this past week. I don't actually have much to say, but thanks so much to the people who recommended it over the last few months! The Eve/Aoi pair has such fun dynamics. I'm not quite delusional enough to hope for any ending where they get together (they're totally sisters, aren't they?), but I really hope s2 is as strong as the first. Was a real joy to experience.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 11:42AM

You think you've seen it all when it comes to problematic anime, and they still find new ways to surprise you. The third episode of this season's alchemist anime was gross. They bring not!Ryza a patient with a severed arm and she really has the gall to say "I can save her life... if you're loaded". Not only that, but when they protest the vulgarity of her actions, she literally stops what she's doing and instead of treating the patient (WHO IS MISSING AN ARM) goes into a freaking lecture justifying putting a monetary value on life.

How does an author arrive at such a fundamentally vile worldview, to the point of feeling they have something insightful to contribute to society by soapboxing about it in their story? Even the US, which is notorious for pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens into medical bankruptcy every year, still provides emergency treatment no questions asked. That's the absolute minimum, the lowest of lows to be able to say you live in a society, yet here we are with an author confidently asserting that people deserve to die if they don't have money. Watching this left an absolutely sickening taste in my mouth. This is Mushoku Tensei-tier "anime was a mistake" material. Although I guess it's really "WNs were a mistake".

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 7:40AM

You think you've seen it all when it comes to problematic anime, and they still find new ways to surprise you. The third episode of this season's alchemist anime was gross. They bring not!Ryza a patient with a severed arm and she really has the gall to say "I can save her life... if you're loaded". Not only that, but when they protest the vulgarity of her actions, she literally stops what she's doing and instead of treating the patient (WHO IS MISSING AN ARM) goes into a freaking lecture justifying putting a monetary value on life.

How does an author arrive at such a fundamentally vile worldview, to the point of feeling they have something insightful to contribute to society by soapboxing about it in their story? Even the US, which is notorious for pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens into medical bankruptcy every year, still provides emergency treatment no questions asked. That's the absolute minimum, the lowest of lows to be able to say you live in a society, yet here we are with an author confidently asserting that people deserve to die if they don't have money. Watching this left an absolutely sickening taste in my mouth. This is Mushoku Tensei-tier "anime was a mistake" material. Although I guess it's really "WNs were a mistake".

That is literally not the case, though? She offers the choice between only lifesaving emergency treatment or also restoring her arm, etc. With the latter being the much more expensive option. Yes, it's a bit harsh and didn't quite sit well with me either, but it's also not something she can afford to do for free. As we learn later, she very much needed the ingredients from the grizzlies to avoid bankruptcy herself after the treatment. And while it does certainly remind one of the insanity of the American health system, being aware of the options and making the choice first certainly beats being presented the bankrupting bill after the fact.

One should also not forget that we are not dealing with a modern society that has health insurance and easily accessible hospitals. People would normally die of such injuries in this world. She's incredibly lucky that the village even got a new alchemist now, otherwise she would have had not much of a chance to survive.

So yeah, all things considered, while this did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, it's far more realistic for the given setting than your usual OP healers performing miracles left and right with no cost to themselves.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 9:33AM

but it's also not something she can afford to do for free.

Not that she should do it for free, but nonetheless she should just do it, period, and worry about recouping her losses after the fact. That said, when it comes to literally saving a life, it honestly is something she could afford to do for free. Her day-to-day business involves selling potions, not healing, so it's not like she's providing all of her services for free by saving somebody in an emergency.

Speaking of free things, she got gifted an 8 room mansion for free. Depicted as a "fixer-upper", of course, that took all of 5 minutes to fix with magic.

And the whole story they presented about it being a financial reality of this world really falls flat when alchemists are established to be the elite of the elite, practically royalty in all but name. They made sure to hammer home how above everyone else she is; she's the only person in the village with an indoor bath, something which is the norm only among nobility even in the capital. She's no starving artist.

Also, I might be misremembering, but in Ep1 didn't they literally say alchemists were subsidised by the kingdom?

As we learn later, she very much needed the ingredients from the grizzlies to avoid bankruptcy herself after the treatment.

[X] Doubt

She lost at most one day's labour, plus some grass growing around her shop. She hasn't bought anything and has no debts, so the prospect of bankruptcy doesn't even make sense.

being aware of the options and making the choice first certainly beats being presented the bankrupting bill after the fact.

Well, if you set aside the fact that she never mentioned a price and then sprung that it was several years of lowly peasant adventurer income after the fact...

One should also not forget that we are not dealing with a modern society that has health insurance and easily accessible hospitals.

Indeed, we're dealing with a fantasy world where magical 16 year olds solve everything from amputated arms to giant flaming bear invasions.

So yeah, all things considered, while this did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, it's far more realistic for the given setting than your usual OP healers performing miracles left and right with no cost to themselves.

Well, she is literally an OP healer who did it at no real cost to herself beyond a handful of ingredients (that she got for free!!!!), not to mention being an OP fighter who put the actual adventurers to shame.

This entire story is a masturbatory isekai self-insert fantasy in all but name. Which is fine if you just want to telling a relaxing slice-of-life story for escapism, but considerably less fine if you want to moralise at length about how actually, money is more important than lives,
and going so far as to have the characters call the adventurers awful people for daring to say she should value human life. I don't want to hear anything about realism when the entire premise of the anime is an escape from realism into the easy life of the 1%er who is better at everything than everyone.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 1:48PM

As we learn later, she very much needed the ingredients from the grizzlies to avoid bankruptcy herself after the treatment.

[X] Doubt

She lost at most one day's labour, plus some grass growing around her shop. She hasn't bought anything and has no debts, so the prospect of bankruptcy doesn't even make sense.

The price of the treatment is literally listed at the end of the episode as bringing her 20 million into the red.

The price of the treatment is literally listed at the end of the episode as bringing her 20 million into the red.

This doesn't make a lick of sense. Whatever the number of the balance sheet says, she lost ingredients she got for free and spent a day's labour on the task. She didn't have 20mil to lose in the first place. It seems like 20 million is the number she's charging the adventurers, and that's being put on credit - but depicting that as a "loss" is not how business accounting is done, at all. And her services being 20mil for her literal first day of working really drives home how insanely well-off alchemists are, when we already know that 5mil took her multiple years of part-time work to save up before.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 2:01PM

I haven't watched the alchemist anime, but it makes sense to me that an individual person working alone couldn't afford to provide lifesaving treatment for free, especially when it's her first day on the job. Even private hospitals that receive zero government funding can offset the cost of free emergency services through the profit they make elsewhere. I think this sounds like an interesting moral dilemma in theory. Maybe the anime executes it badly and makes some weird libertarian point with it but the idea itself is fine imo.

but it makes sense to me that an individual person working alone couldn't afford to provide lifesaving treatment for free

She is literally under zero financial distress whatsoever. She got a mansion for free!!!! The herbs she used for making potions were free, growing all around her mansion!! The villagers gave her expensive free stuff as welcoming gifts!! She gets everything handed to her for free, she's already set for life considering the property she owns, and in the end all she lost were some herbs. Which, even if they're worth money, literally grow on trees. Don't watch it, because it's egregious, but if you watched it I think you'd see what I mean.

You're trying really hard to undervalue her work, to say that she only lost some herbs is like saying that she took a bunch of grass (according to you, all herbs are the same too, not one more rare than the other, all in equal quantities) and that grass will turn into 500 potions easy peachy, Huh? we don't have more of those Work For All situation herbs? no worries, we'll just grab more tomorrow because as we all know, plants are ready to be harvested the next day just like a video game and only herbs are needed for the potion.

In short, don't try to pretend she doesn't have to struggle just because you don't know all the details of her work, specially if you're trying so hard to make her look bad and you saw what she had to do to make high quality potion in her exam.

But I agree that instead of arguing about price with the 2 idiots in the party, she could've prioritize first aid or cleanse the potion before talking about the price and the arm because it was a race against time too... That's what imo was handled poorly.