Where it fell despite the potential

MyOwnGod said:
One Punch Man+Harry Potter, what can go wrong with such a great idea? Mashle isn't actually bad, but as can be seen from the ratings, it fells flat despite its potential. The interesting thing is that it even has well-developed characters, unlike most anime, including Eminence In Shadow, which succeeded with a similar "OPM" approach. So, what's the problem with Mashle?

I think it's in the inconsistent tone of the story and lousy world building. Serious fights are interrupted with silly comedy, and stakes aren't clear enough. I mean, do characters actually try to kill or permanently harm each other? Or are such fights normal for mages and aren't deadly? Is it okay for students to murder each other in the academy? We don't know. The author should've chosen one of the two paths. Either make the world clearly brutal, like in Dorohedoro, where it's common for people to be killed, where mages are merciless to humans and each others. Or make everything "safe" like in My Hero Academia, where it's established that the fights between the students are normal and not deadly, unlike the fights with the villains. It's either one or another, but Mashle just doesn't make any distinction, thus in one episode we have death threats, that are never fulfilled as no one in the first season ever dies or is even disabled, and in another the former enemies become friends.

Be it OPM, Mob Psycho, or Eminence in Shadow, we have a serious world that, if we remove the main character, will function like one. Those stories work so well because we add a "foreign" element in the face of the protagonist into a serious and well established reality, where that protagonist changes everything, including the tone. Even if those have some tone changes and comedic elements, including in the middle of the fights, they are there because of the MC, as he's the source of the chaos and changes the reality around them in an interesting way. Chainsaw man also works in a similar way, we clearly have a brutal and merciless world and the MC with his silly motivations as a contrast. In Mashle, even if we remove Mash, we'll still have a non-serious world of magic with silly characters and loose rules. This, alongside with the unclear stakes, removes most of the tension from the serious moments, making the show fail at reaching its true potential.

I hope that the second season solves at least some of the problems, but it seems that the author just doesn't know what he wants his story to be.

MyOwnGod said:
I won't reply to people who lack basic reading comprehension and say bs like "wHy U hAtE iT". Please learn how to read words. Thank you.

As to reply to those who actually made a decent point—if it tried to be a pure gag comedy, it wouldn't try to give every character a tragic backstory or create seemingly high stakes, etc. The story obviously tries to mix serious plot with comedy, like OPM or Gintama, but it fails at both for the reasons I described and maybe some more. I just shared my opinion which is based on my knowledge of storytelling as I am a writer (that's how I make a living) who listened to many lectures on screenwriting and writing in general. If the author learns to separate comedy and seriousness in a decent way, the story has great potential. But it's a clear example how easily a show can be ruined by inconsistent tone and world building.

Yeshaiah2015yesh said:
look at his new account, i see nothing but a coward. who knows what his saying is shit and about 98 persent of it is shit , he knows it him self better than anyone else. and that's the reason he probably created a frish new account.

Falcon07 said:

i never seen a new account that is 6 year old

ktg said:
It has nothing to do with the world building. In the case of Undead Unluck you can also see some missing world building elements and yet that is a great show.
The problem here is that it is not funny at all. The joke should be moments that are exaggerated, but it fails to do that, because it uses moments that are normal in other shows. Like when Mash is kicking the air and flying. That's a normal technique in One Piece.

And the show is full of this 'trying to be funny, but fails to do that'. That's the main problem.

TheColdMayor said:

Are you referring to Sky/Moonwalk? That’s not even close to the same. Sky/Moonwalk is a technique that involves pushing off the air, it’s part of the power system. Mash flies by kicking so fast it’s acting like a propeller and lets him fly. Completely different things

ktg said:

Yeah... completely...
Ok, at this point this is just pathetic...
They have similar techniques and you try to explain how different they are...

And even if I agree with you, there are tons of other similar things that happened or worked similar, so it's still easy to point to other things as well.

TheColdMayor said:

How is it pathetic? You said it’s like One Piece, I just explained how it’s different. You just had no response so you called me pathetic. If Mash starts acting like a frog, are you gonna say “it’s not funny because Asui from MHA is like a frog!!1!!”? Or if someone punched Mash and he wasn’t affected are you gonna say “it’s just copying Iron Body!!1!!1”? Skywalk is an actual technique that people can learn that involves them jumping on air, while Mash is just so physically strong that he can do things like fly. The comedy isn’t that he’s flying, it’s that since he can’t fly with magic, he uses his pure strength to have himself fly anyway.

Just admit you made a bad point/comparison instead of resorting to insulting me

TheColdMayor said:

How is it pathetic? You said it’s like One Piece, I just explained how it’s different. You just had no response so you called me pathetic. If Mash starts acting like a frog, are you gonna say “it’s not funny because Asui from MHA is like a frog!!1!!”? Or if someone punched Mash and he wasn’t affected are you gonna say “it’s just copying Iron Body!!1!!1”? Skywalk is an actual technique that people can learn that involves them jumping on air, while Mash is just so physically strong that he can do things like fly. The comedy isn’t that he’s flying, it’s that since he can’t fly with magic, he uses his pure strength to have himself fly anyway.

Just admit you made a bad point/comparison instead of resorting to insulting me

DrFlamingLeaf said:

That dude is a known clown who shits on every show that isn't Monogatari. Don't bother with that guy.

IdkWhatIShouldDo said:
idk wut ur yapping abt and im not reading all that shit but all im getting is u dont like it cuz its funny that's all i read till but tbh i enjoy the show because its funny some ppl dont like that idc, if u dont like the show stop watching, so fking simple