Shangri-La Frontier: Kusoge Hunter, Kamige ni Idoman to su 2nd Season Episode 3 Discussion

That is probably one the most important meetings in the history of the game!
The first 5 minutes are really funny, but there are also some jokes in the meeting.
Shangri-La Frontier still feels like a game and an overly serious tone would have detracted from that.
Btw, I will be referencing Professor's explanation of the Colossi a lot. It's nice that I can find all that info in a single scene.

I know that there are many people who are bored like Katzo, but I believe that this is a 10/10 episode (like most SLF eps).
My biggest complaint is: Why is there no SLF Theater??? 🥺🥺🥺

Last season scene on the game company HQ stated that Wethermon was expected to be one of the last colossi to be defeated, and his kit matched that.
Why does this chapter make it sound like all the remaining are way more tougher than him? A kraken that you might fight in a boat risking losing it, a fucking dragon, a wolf that can """"teleport"""" and what amounts as some kind of either god or at least force of nature. Is this a mistake of interpretation or did the author ramped up the rest of the monsters to fill the classic powercreep problem in shonen?

Also Vash might be a human from the same time as Setsuna and Wethermon.

@CorbanEsp feels like you have a pretty skewed view of what kind of boss Wethermon was. That shit was near invincible, and three of the greatest players in the entire game (out of 30mill or something) barely managed to beat him, having gone all out in terms of items, skills, grinding and everything. Sounds more to me like you don't see Wethermon as mysterious anymore just because you've been presented with all details about him. Nobody had even managed to damage Wethermon before the fight with Sunraku and the squad.

imo he felt way way waaaaaaay more powerful than Lycagon just based on what we've seen on-screen, but I'm sure that will balance out when we eventually take it on for real. there's also the fact that the majority, if not all of the other bosses are huge monsters instead of human(oid)s, which makes them feel more imposing just from their designs and concepts.

Does not feel like powercreep at all to be honest. I've always gotten the impression that the unique bosses are all insurmountable in their own way, so comparing them feels almost meaningless.

Last season scene on the game company HQ stated that Wethermon was expected to be one of the last colossi to be defeated, and his kit matched that.
Why does this chapter make it sound like all the remaining are way more tougher than him? A kraken that you might fight in a boat risking losing it, a fucking dragon, a wolf that can """"teleport"""" and what amounts as some kind of either god or at least force of nature. Is this a mistake of interpretation or did the author ramped up the rest of the monsters to fill the classic powercreep problem in shonen?

Also Vash might be a human from the same time as Setsuna and Wethermon.

@Herman97 Pencilgon reached phase 3 with her clan, which means that it was pretty doable, only problem is that basically only Sunraku has been given advantages in this game. Sometimes feels too cheap in this regard and i have stated in last season that i consider Rabutza and all that it entails the worst part of Shangrila since it streamlines Sunraku's progress, let's him skip every piece of content, gives him equipment and battles for min-maxing not available for anyone else and is given the key to success against bosses, like the pendant that casually unlocks the Clear Sky Conquest phase.
That pendant should be given by some other quest from Setsuna, not randomly by Emul.

I'm not saying that Wethermon seems weak, the fight was amazing. I'm just saying that if he is one of the top 3, then how is it that there's a giant dragon (no way a dragon is not a top 3), one that manipulates the entire environment of the game, another one that unless there's other races outside humans, makes the whole arena a death trap, not even mentioning that there are two that are suppossed to be unknown, which means that the others mentioned were below Wethermon in story progress.
That's the point, Whethermon was at the top, yet, due shounen requirements, they now are hyping what should be weaker bosses as this even bigger threat. But is a common thing, the battle with Lycagon in S1 made him look less "Raid boss" than bosses from other chapter, due to him basically doing basic DPS checks (now they added in this convo the corrosion status to them) but Lycagon actually only had the "invisible without moonlight" status as a game changer when introduced.

And about the size, Whethermon was bigger than them and it was suppossed to go on top of Kirin starting phase 2, so in terms of size he should be at least the same as Lycagon.

@CorbanEsp you got a lot of good points, I wrote my comment solely off of my memory from season 1. while I still don't feel like there are any issues regarding this for me personally, I understand that it can be annoying if you start to think logically about structure and stuff. I honestly don't expect that kind of logic from the show, I just watch it on feel, so for me they've nailed that aspect as long as you don't think too hard about it.

I also liked what @amf85 said about it mimicking MMORPGs, although I don't think it's intentionally written that way. Either way it's a fun headcanon that could make it a bit more enjoyable if you're open to that.

In the end I think it's a fun show that's surprisingly detailed, but falls apart if you start looking to closely. I just try to enjoy it for what it is, which is rare for me as I'm the type of person that more often than not get my immersion broken by the exact type of stuff you're talking about.

Hope this doesn't bug you too much, as it's a super solid and enjoyable show

@Herman97 Nah, I enjoy it for what it is, a solid show about a videogame.
Is just that it wouldn't hurt once in a while not tying everything to Rabutza as easy mode and watching Sunraku actually engaging with the godly game that Shangrila is.

@CorbanEsp It wasn't only Sunraku though Katsu and Pencilgon "skipped" content too, technically they're worse offenders as they didn't even find the Vorpal epic unique scenaro.

Wethermon the Tombguard and rather all the Colossai have an order of operations, the devs created them to be defeated in a certain order and Wethermon was meant to be one of the middle to later ones as they've only confirmed who the 1st Colossai fought was meant to be.

In case your curious which colossai was meant to be fought first I'll put it in spoilers below, if you don't want to know don't open the spoiler.

@SleepingNinja15 I was expecting as the first, given that first raid boss should be a simple DPS check with not that many mechanics for players to get a feel of how things work.
Guess it relates with the current expansion and sailing mechanics that Sunraku will never play.

What content did they escape?
Katzo I guess you mean the level grind he made with Sunarku, and Pencilgon the exploit the PK guild used with Wethermon? If so, I don't consider optimizing leveling up as skipping content, they had to go through the motions and quests required in paralell.

I'm starting to rant and the show shouldn't be taken this seriously but..

The problem is that Sunraku has never engaged with any real mechanic or portion of the game in a player sense.
He skipped the first tutorial, encountered Lycagon after his first hours grinding materials, and after meeting Emul he has never truly explored or tried to unlock the map (why should he when he got the maps already explored available in Rabutza). He doesn't know half the mechanics that should come at play, and when confronted by one of those, he has a stronger option for each of them inside Rabtuza.
FFS, his dependence of Rabutza is so glaring that when Vash "dissappeared" the thought of "I should start searching for an Ancient Craftsmen quest or info about the whereabouts of one" never crossed his mind, he went straight to "what other rabbit in here can give me the same advantages as Vash" and when none was there, somehow he has the """rights""" to upgrade an NPC to that, again skipping anything actually related to Shangrila.

Sunraku is playing The Kingdom of Rabutza, not Shnagri-La Frontier.

Which manga chapter corresponds to this episode 3?