This post comes after reading the what people said about the series on nihonreview.com. IS received plenty of bashing, but some of the people on that site are the most prominent ones.
First of all, I understand how your opinion of a certain subject will change after reading other's... IS probably received a lot of flak on nihonreview early on, and maybe people just join in the bashing so that they'll fit in. And there it becomes a place for all the IS hate. Why do I say this? Because it seems like the overall opinions of IS differs greatly from forum to forum. I could counter argue almost every point they said but no, I'm not going in there to argue. I had enough internet dorama and squabbling to last me a lifetime.
It's funny, if they hated the series so much, why'd they still bother watching it? Maybe they're one of those people that actually likes the show but have to bash it just for the sake it.
I must say, the fourth episode does disappoint me a little because of how cliché Rin's expressions and reactions was. Cliché expressions and reactions are one of the things that bothered me the most and that itself prevent it from being the most awesome show this season... but I'm still gonna have to defend IS.
Calling IS generic isn't wrong. I myself do think that IS is a pretty formulaic, but being formulaic isn't the same as boring. It's like calling burgers boring when you've only tried McDonald's and Wendy's. Ever tried the 101 burger? It's your standard meat-between-two-buns, but it can give you a mouthgasm. The point is, having a generic plot doesn't matter if the studio can bring out the flavour with the pacing, directing, timing, character development, etc. I won't say that IS does any of this really well so far, but IS have interesting characters that would make an interesting combination. Episode 4 diluted that thought a little, but it still stands.
Most of the complaints I'm seeing is about the story setting. Come on, this is FICTION. And sometimes there's a lot of things they won't waste resources explaining since they'll rather get on with the main story. How can Ichika find the IS in such a convenient manner? I'm in the army, I've seen worst case where military equipment can easily land on civilian hands. How come IS can only be pilot by females? Same reason you don't see Magical Boy series. How can Japan dominate the IS? Same reason the country with the most nukes in the world prevent other countries from making even one. Why ban combat usage of such a powerful weapon? Same reason we ban dirty bombs and biological warfare. I feel like I'm explaining RL to a 3-year-old.
*takes a break*
Well, I'm getting to the part about "how much bullshit one can take". Specifically, from a production like this one. To me, however absurd the setting is shouldn't put down the series, because we're seeing a fiction and unnatural circumstances are suppose to be part of the package. We're not talking a near future where we're totally expecting things to develop this way, even though there still might be circumstances that could change the world as we know it. In this case we're talking about an almost totally different timeline or even world, and making repeated comparisons with our RL is insulting the creativity of the designers of that world.
The one thing I think people should be comparing, are the characters, which does somewhat disappointed me in the 4th episode. Reason being we're seeing a story of humans like you and I, and they should have realistic expressions and reactions, unless we're looking at a nutjob. This is why cheap tsunderes and airhead dojikko who took nanoseconds to fall in love irks me so much; because they don't exist and they're an overused stereotypes (grr Nogizaka Haruka). We're not looking at people who would behave totally non-human, because that will be a documentary.
Overall, what I'm trying to say is that people have unfounded expectations of this show and their disappointments and complains have overshadowed what creativity and brilliance the show has.
P.S. Some people complained about the animation quality of IS? Either I have not seen enough good stuff or people have not been seeing enough crap. I've seen nearly 300 titles so I don't think it will be the former.
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