Ah, someone who can and will tell me the awful truth. I've been liking it for the ways in which it messes with Western expectations (all of the male characters are treated, narratively speaking, the way women generally are in Western tv and film), for the stylization of the visuals, and for the earworm soundtrack. And for the Faust references, I suppose; but beyond that, and more than anything else, for the concept that the moodswings of early-adolescent girls could be a source of universe-rending power, if only you could crack them the way you crack an atom.
At the same time, though, I've been reluctant to push it on anyone who isn't as ignorant of the genre as I am. I had a nasty feeling that a lot of what seemed fresh to me was that way only because I happened to be encountering it here for the first time. But of course, for that very reason I have no idea what parts are original and what might be same old, same old if only I did have the cultural background for it.
Mmh, well, there is interesting stuff there, but it never quite transcends IMO. I kept expecting it to go all Utena on me and it didn't -- at least, not convincingly. This is mostly because I just don't believe in the characters; their archetypal qualities seem to be working for most people, but I just find them so blank I just associate them with other moe girls (four of the five exactly mirror the cast of K-On!, frex) rather than any human reality. Also the - emotional loading? - is way unsubtle. Characters I don't care about + tragedy turned up to 11 ALL THE TIME = disengage
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At the same time, though, I've been reluctant to push it on anyone who isn't as ignorant of the genre as I am. I had a nasty feeling that a lot of what seemed fresh to me was that way only because I happened to be encountering it here for the first time. But of course, for that very reason I have no idea what parts are original and what might be same old, same old if only I did have the cultural background for it.
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