wjs018@ani.social 6 months ago
The team battle finale is here…and it’s over…with Team Kuzunoha’s victory! However, it seems something strange is happening to Ilumgand, but we will have to find out more next episode.
Overall, I liked this episode, but there were a couple choices that I think were a bit weird. First is that we completely skipped the whole team tournament and just jumped right into the finale. I can forgive this as those fights are not really that consequential. But, we instead spend a ton of time on the final fight itself…which is also not that consequential. The real meat of this part of the story is what happens after the team tournament finale, but now we are going to have to wait until next week.
Instead, I think they could have spent more time on other parts of this story instead of the action sequences of the fight. See my other comment in this thread that there is a lot more Ilumgand story they could have told if they spent the time on it. Also, they might show more of it next week, but the demiplane side of things was left out of this episode.
Ultimately, we have spent the last couple episodes building up Makoto’s frustrations. He is annoyed at the hyumans for their interference with his students, Laurel bugging him about being a sage, the Merchant Guild for exploiting his inexperience and naivety. This episode, we also see him get annoyed with the demons as he feels as though Rona has not lived up to the spirit of their conversation even if she abided by the letter. Strap in for Makoto’s frustrations to boil over soon!
e-five@kbin.run 6 months ago
When I saw that line somehow I knew it would be the one you would pick
When it comes to pacing, I do wonder how they storyboard this stuff. I feel like the rigid ~25min, 12 or 13 episodes must make it difficult. Like how they're going to split up the future content, I have no idea. I have some idea of stopping points but, there's a lot to do and feel like not a lot of great stopping points, though I guess cliffhangers are a thing.
I do wonder if non-aired anime ever gets more freedom of like, "ok this time we're going to do a 32 minute episode". "ok this season will be 16 episodes". Maybe not a thing but wonder if it would make pacing things much easier
wjs018@ani.social 6 months ago
That’s a good question on pacing. If we look at Western media made for streaming platforms, it often varies in length episode to episode. My wife and I recently were watching The Crown and some episodes are a pretty standard ~45 minutes, while some are over an hour long. I think there is a difference in this kind of thing when it comes to animation as it takes a lot more work to just drop in a couple extra scenes.
I suspect that even if an animated show was created and aired for streaming only, that they would still stick pretty close to the traditional pacing/timing. I am guessing that is because that is what the production/animation teams are used to doing and it would also enable it to be aired on broadcast more easily at some point in the future if desired.