Hitori no Shita: The Outcast Episode 7 Discussion

SakurasouBusters said:
Honestly it really saddens me how underrated this is, im really enjoying it so far
Bad animation aside, this was a really good episode
It was really nice to see Hou Hou finally showing some emotion.

ixarising said:


Well Chu Lan (Soran) already stated his position and decision clearly. He chose his self-respect (面子) over his life.

You may not understand it but to us Chinese, 面子 involves anything to has do with self-respect like pride, honor, dignity, reputation. So 面子/self-respect is important to us. This self-respect doesn't just consist of the individual alone but it also consist of the family, the belief and so on.

The moment Soran opted the self-respect, beating him up won't stop him from leaving, he'll crawl his way out even if he has to just to leave. That's just how the Chinese are.

Shirasho said:
I appreciate the lesson (really, I do), but that doesn't really change the situation. The woman is emotionless and seemingly oblivious to many aspects of life, not to mention her previous behavior suggests that she doesn't really care about other people's basic rights. It is completely out of character for her to stop and get emotional like that. When all is said and done I admit that I am looking at this as a non-Chinese person who, first, is a critical thinker, and second, doesn't feel a need for any sort of religion or superfluous concepts like faith, honor, or pride. The only similar concepts I subscribe to are humility and respect, both of which Houhou completely tossed out the window from the start.

Ultimately the biggest issue I have here is that she magically gained emotion out of nowhere. A normally calm, expressionless, rational character became excited, emotional, and irrational in that situation instead of trying to compromise or talk to Chu Lan. I have no issue with her wanting to respect his pride, but the way the situation (the writing) was handled was atrocious at best and forced at worst.

Shirasho said:
That scene with Houhou felt really forced. Normally she would have absolutely no hesitation to beat the living shit out of him. She'll kick him in the face when his ki messes up but barely does anything when he wants to leave? That was Big Order levels of forced.

Emotionless characters only work as gag characters, not as main characters. People can't get emotionally invested in a character who has no emotions - they can only invest in people they see themselves in. Kiznaiver is actually a good example of unbelievable irony - Sonozaki is pretty much emotionless but she goes on about how people don't get involved, invested, or empathize with Agata because they can't see themselves in him.

Now, with that said, I actually enjoyed this episode more relative to the previous episodes. Despite how forced it was Houhou showed some kind of emotion, so I am curious to see how she will handle that. Unfortunately if the writing continues in the same way it has been they will likely mess that up too.

mTeacup said:
Quite glad I didn't drop this one.

tyrolizard1 said:
I know I am going to be the exception here but I personally like, the girl with the powers to transfer her body parts and attackpeople.