wjs018@ani.social 4 days ago
This has been a really interesting adaptation to me. I have read up through this point in the manga and it handled this story very differently. I mentioned it in last week’s discussion thread, but the manga has way, way more of Romelia’s internal dialogue as we go through, and we learn more about her state of mind and her opinion on those around her. She has an incredible sense of what these soldiers around her are capable of and she tries to set up situations for them to overcome and help develop their abilities. In this adaptation though, we only ever see her actions, and don’t hear her rationale for why she is doing these specific things.
We learn about her ability this episode, Grace. I read the beginning of this manga ages ago…and this ability has kind of stuck in my brain ever since. I think it is a really interesting way to have an ability that is incredibly powerful, but never feels OP. Just imagine if you could make every cosmic coinflip just a bit more likely to land in a way more favorable to you. Nobody knows you have this ability or can stop you from exercising it - it happens even whether you realize it or not. That is a power that has the ability to move mountains…probably before you even realize you needed them moved. Coincidences seem to always work out when you need them to…you have a fortuitous chance encounter with a person possessing the skills you need at that point in time…your enemy is more likely to take the bait on a bluff you make…the possibilities are endless, and subtly powerful.
Rottcodd@ani.social 3 days ago
I might have to give the manga a try.
I really wanted to like this series, but I just couldn’t manage to stick with it any longer, and specifically because there’s almost no context for anything. We got the bare outline of the climax of her backstory, with the fight against the supposed demon king and the aftermath, when she was accused (apparently correctly) of hiding and not fighting and was summarily dumped by the prince, then much later we got that one flashback of some family apparently being killed by somebody for some reason, and… that’s it pretty much. Other than that, it’s just been her mostly silently forging ahead with whatever her plan is for whatever reason.
With no context, it just all seems arbitrary, and I can’t find any reason to care one way or another.
From what you’re saying, it sounds like the problem is not only that they dropped her internalized running commentary from the adaptation, but that they didn’t replace it with something else, so not only is it gone, but all of the context it provided is gone too.
And if these first three episodes are anything to go by, it’s not coming along later (which is what I had been vainly hoping for with this episode in particular) - it’s just gone.
That seems like a surprisingly boneheaded directorial decision.
wjs018@ani.social 3 days ago
I think it was more harmful in this episode compared to last. I am going to include some manga panels as examples below, so I am going to put it in some spoiler blocks, however, I haven’t included anything outside of content covered in this episode. Honestly, I could include a lot more than this, but I just chose three examples, all from the same manga chapter (chapter 3).
Al's Inspirational Speech
First, let’s look at what Romelia was thinking in the lead up to Al’s speech to inspire his fellow soldiers to charge into battle when they were hesitating. In the show, we just see her lay out the plan and then charge off…there was then a bit of awkward silence until Al spoke up and gave his speech. In the manga, Romelia charges off again, but this is what she is thinking while she does it: setting Al up for the speech …she knows that they aren’t about to follow her just because she asks. Instead, she is setting Al up to give his speech and naturally grow into that leadership role. As proof, let’s also look at what she is thinking immediately after his speech ends and the men charge into battle: Romelia’s plan worked perfectly
Ray's Hesitation
Another example from this sequence is why she singled out Ray to follow her and kill the injured demon. In the anime, she just tells Ray to follow her and then has him finish it off. But why? How did she know that Ray would struggle with this? Well, let’s look at this small bit of internal dialogue that was left out: his spear was clean …now it makes sense how she knew that Ray was hesitating. It’s a small line of text, but it motivates her actions a lot.
Al's Reward
At the end of the battle, Romelia gave every soldier 1 silver, and gave a Al an extra silver in recognition of his merit. We see Al then proceed to buy an extra sheep and share it with the rest of the men in celebration of their victory. We see Romelia kind of smirk knowingly at this…but what is actually going through her head? What is the reason behind this reward system? Let’s look at the manga. Here is her internal dialogue after Al buys the extra food to celebrate with everybody: spending is good …so she is using this both as a bonding experience due to the feast, but also as a way to help them burn through their money to motivate them to earn more.
NineSwords@ani.social 3 days ago
Just showing her taking a quick glance at Ray’s spear before she told him to follow her would have taken maybe a single second. Just her eyes moving down, and a cut to the clean spear tip before cutting back. It would have been so simple and would have made such a big difference. But that’s something I see more and more. Direction is getting worse, and studios either put the wrong people in place, or they simply often don’t have people anymore who understand what made the source worth adapting in the first place.
But does everything really need to be presented so explicitly and unambiguously? It’s as if the audience were completely incapable of picking up on the clues provided elsewhere. In my view, there were already plenty of hints to realize that Ray is stressed, struggling, and not fighting the way the others do. It’s not exactly difficult to deduce that Romelia noticed the same things during the battle that we, the viewers, did. I don’t think adding that scene would have changed much.
Honestly, being treated like an idiot, having everything spoon-fed to me, is often far more irritating. I believe that adaptations should follow their own rules. You simply cannot translate every single line from the source material to the screen while maintaining a structure that actually works in a completely different medium. From my perspective, anime creators actually make such changes, which could help convey events more effectively on screen, far too rarely. Instead, they cling rigidly to the manga panels, which often results in terrible pacing and uninspired direction. Of course, I’m not saying that Romelia stands out in either direction in this regard; it’s just a general observation of mine. But at the same time, I think this in this case this particular scene was not needed here at all.
Rottcodd@ani.social 3 days ago
Sure enough.
I wonder why they chose to just ignore that entirely. Why didn’t they have Romelia narrate her thoughts?
I just read through the first few chapters of the manga, and yeah - not only are there all sorts of details provided by Romelia’s thoughts (like what she actually did in the hero’s party and why she wasn’t particularly surprised when Henri broke off the engagement, both of which are revealed early in chapter 1, but still haven’t even been addressed in the anime) - there are little bits and pieces expressed through the thoughts of multiple characters all the way through it. And none of it’s in the anime.
I really wonder what they were thinking. It just seems too dumb of a decision to have made it all the way through production.
Ah well…