Sekai Seifuku: Bouryaku no Zvezda Episode 3 Discussion

Sourire said:
^

leetshoe said:
Smokers literally are not people. l'm glad a show finally has the guts to say it.
10/10 ep

Sourire said:
^

wakka9ca said:
Well not a smoker here and I can't stand the smell of smoke (choke). Hate it when others smoke however not to the point to embrace this episode.

However, this episode was very uncomfortable to watch because it went into the black & white protrayal of smokers.. up to a point where it looks like propaganda. Whatever message it was trying to convey, it was not good and I didn't find this funny.

This episode is just wrong. Really bad taste.

ganjafarmer420 said:
Funny you did not argued against any of my arguments.

ganjafarmer420 said:
And what do you mean by "someone like me"?

ganjafarmer420 said:
Show some respect kid.

ganjafarmer420 said:
Also I was very sceptical about this show from the very beginning, but after the first episode I decided to give it a try. I though maybe just maybe I was going to see good arguments against our rotten society system.

ganjafarmer420 said:
You can watch until the very end I don't care. This is not a healthy show.

ganjafarmer420 said:
This is not for me.

HalibelTheEspada said:
I think you and a lot of others are just blowing it out of proportion. There's way worse things than this episode out here... hell it didn't even show a single person dying, so it's up for debate if they even actually killed anyone.

HalibelTheEspada said:
This isn't some message to anyone trying to convince anyone smoking is bad, if it was it would've ended with a mountain of corpses with Yasu's on top. Seriously if something like this is going to offend you guys, I would think you'd be intelligent enough to know that a comical series centered solely on conquering the world clearly just isn't for you.

opernlied said:
I still liked this episode for some reason, but the absurdity wasn't as natural.

greebo said:
Agreed with Kate, smokers must be destroyed! ^_^

ichii_1 said:
Smokers are not human, infecting the world and themselves with their poison, throw rocks at them, bash their heads in and curse their existence, they are animals who need to be put down for the sake of humanity and peace.

leetshoe said:
Smokers don't have souls. They didn't "feel" anything.

Amarrez said:
Smokers are soulless cunts though.

opernlied said:
And the difference shows; I still liked this episode for some reason, but the absurdity wasn't as natural.

Sourire said:
I hate smokers more than anything, but this episode was retarded and awful. I seriously skipped midway thru to the end to see if their was a cliffhanger or something important not to miss.

1/5

wakka9ca said:
I am extremely sensitive to how entertainment handles the following things:
1) Genocides and war with high civilian casualties
2) Environmental destruction
3) Racial and hate propaganda + discrimination (often leads to #1)

There is a lot of things wrong with media in general and we all know it (let's not get started on how wrong all the ecchi series out there are), but these are the topics I think one should not easily laugh about and seriously think about.

I have no problem with the rest of the series. Just a problem with this episode in PARTICULAR. First of all, it was not funny because it actually took itself quite seriously, with the exception of the first half. The amount of jokes you can actually count after the first half is actually quite negligible. They didn't even try to transform the smokers into something satirical until the very end... and only after dropping the bomb claiming that smokers have no soul. If they just went and transformed the smokers into tar monsters it would have been fine. What is uncanny is how certain and self-convinced that both the series antagonist and protagonists are EXPLICITLY and VERBALLY declaring with full confidence that smokers have no soul, implying that they can be exterminated like pest. It's a bit too direct as a satire, don't you think?

HalibelTheEspada said:
Well again, that's why I said if those are things you can't handle... then clearly you shouldn't even waste your time with something that's about conquering the world. I'm not really sure how you thought someone would seriously conquer the world without weeding out the things they deem wrong.

HalibelTheEspada said:
Not to point fingers, but I'm just saying I think it's pretty hypocritical that you say all those things are bad etiquette in a series, when you rate Kill la Kill an 8... a series that is all about social prejudice, and from episode 1 made a mockery of killing people without batting an eye (not to mention since you claimed ecchi is bad as well). Also, from what I gather from what you just said, it's not that it's because it's morally a bad thing, but it is simply offensive to you when it's humans that are being slaughtered, not so much that they are sentient.

HalibelTheEspada said:
I find it more offensive that anyone would get offended by this, when smoking is proven to be more dangerous for the ones who have to suffer being around smokers. It's like if your hobby was pouring gallons of toxic waste into a water supply and being offended that there's people who hate you, or even want to kill you for it... better yet not doing it and trying to defend the person who does.

HalibelTheEspada said:
Yeah, I agree with #1 though, I don't like pointless wars/genocides/slaughtering people over greed. #2 I hope I don't have to explain why that contradicts your whole argument. #3 I hate prejudiced people as much as the next guy, particularly ones dealing with race, sex, age, and beliefs... but we're talking about something that is actually harmful to everything around, therefore a completely legitimate issue. And this is all coming from a guy whose entire family smokes, and who up until recently was all from "The South" U.S. and supported slavery.

wakka9ca said:
There is nothing I "can't" handle. Dude I read/watch series ranging from fluffy shoujo romance to guro. I don't think criticizing an episode of a series (I'm not even criticizing the whole series) is too much.

1) I am not saying those things should not be portrayed in series. I'm saying I'm particularly sensitive to those themes so the portrayal has be very carefully crafted for it to be good.
2) It's not offensive for me that humans are being slaughtered. If it was aliens slaughtering humans I have no problem. If you have a war with a lot of civilian casualties (pretty much every Gundam) it's fine. However, if you start to overly justify war (i.e. pro-war propaganda) or if you start singling out a particular portion of the population (and justify it in a twisted way), they it starts irking me.
3) Kill La Kill did not promote the killing of students nor social prejudice. It was shown in a negative light in order to display the distopian setting of the series.

Two wrong does not make one right. Even if you apply eye for an eye, there is a difference between hating an individual for a particular deed done (i.e. pouring a particularly toxic waste) and hating an entire class of individuals. Also, if you seriously think it's justifiable to beat up and murder someone because they smoke, I don't know what to say.

Smoking is bad and especially bad for the ones around you. However, going as far as claiming they have no soul and inciting mobs is not something positive to do. In most series, this is actually protrayed in a negative light to show that it's not something desirable. However, this episode did nothing of the sort and fully went into propaganda mode. Also there is not much problem with #2. It's rare that series screw up with #2 nowadays.

Again, I have no problem with the series but it seems this episode was originally intended to stir very uncomfortable reactions in order to display how fascist the MC is. However, I think it did cross a boundary there. I would have been much better if the comical elements were pronounced instead of using the more serious undertone.

HalibelTheEspada said:
Then I guess it would be better if I say "if something like discriminating against smokers offends/bothers you (or anyone) then I would think that a series about conquering the world (which implies converting people and toppling whoever you can't convert) isn't even worth your time". In other words if the very theme of the series is something that irks you, then why even watch it? It's like hating romance but watching it anyway.

HalibelTheEspada said:
Well, that's basically what I said... anyone pouring toxic wastes in water supplies should damned well expect to be hated. My point here was that all people who smoke [cigarettes in this case], are hurting others and the environment all the same, therefore it's really not even discrimination. Most people hate murderers and think they should be executed, but no one sees that as discrimination.

HalibelTheEspada said:
I'm not debating whether it's right or wrong, because that's not for me or anyone else to say (and trying to change someone's morals would be like trying to put a fire out with gasoline). But among all the things to weed out this is easily among the most justifiable, and to get upset about it is just weird to me... this is definitely a fair and reasonable thing to do, since anyone can choose to smoke and Zvesda is actually suffering from it.

HalibelTheEspada said:
Well claiming they have no soul means absolutely nothing, since it hurts no one except oversensitive people's pride. And I think that they have every right to rebel against things that are harming them, if that many people are willing to join them I think that says something right there.

HalibelTheEspada said:
My point about your "#2" was that smoking is in itself an environmental hazard.

HalibelTheEspada said:
That's not true about it normally being portrayed in a negative light... pretty much any kind of story at all is about the main character rebelling against whatever the conflict is. Whether it's portrayed as good or bad is always dependent on which side the characters are on. It's a common saying, but there's no good or evil in war and there's always two sides to a coin.

wakka9ca said:
Again, maybe I'm not clear here that criticizing elements inside an episode does NOT mean hating the episode. Two different concepts.

Discrimination is probably not the right word to describe this episode. Lynching, riot and genocide is more what this episode was leaning towards. Also, murderers are executed simply it's a general belief that killing the murderer will "avenge" the victims. Honestly speaking, it's the simplest solution with not much efforts required. Is it the best outcome, not necessarily but let's not go off topic here.

Again, you can make fun as much as possible just don't cross the boundary where it looks too much like something that incite mass murder.

This is what you don't seem to get. This episode does NOT hurt the smokers unless they are sensitive. My problem with this episode is that it went into the uncanny valley of degrading a portion of the population to the point that tells the viewer "smokers are not human beings, have no soul so they deserve to die".

And yet you don't have to lynch, beat or kill smokers to solve the problem. Violence is the easy solution. Anyone can do violence. You don't need to think much.

I don't believe in the concept of "good" and "evil". It's the easy way out just like violence to use a binary classifier. In fact, I don't actually believe in absolute moral principles. I am more utilitarian and relativist. However, I don't actually believe in -ism and classifications like that. I don't think personal ideologies can be clearly classified using such a system.

hazerddex said:

sorry its hard to take you seriously when you gave shiki a 8 when that had more genocide themes than this show >_>
i also doubt any one died yet...

wakka9ca said:


Because Shiki did not portray the massacre of vampires in the series with a positive light unlike this episode, which was supposed to make the whole process "funny". This episode was too short and trivialized the whole thing. If you can't see the difference then you are not getting what I am criticizing.

And please, no personal attacks please. Ratings mean absolutely nothing here. In comparison, this series is currently ongoing and rated 7. Don't take ratings seriously unless you really understand my rating system.