Report rrakku's Profile Rewrite Writer

1
When a character’s inner monologue makes you question the intelligence of the author though, that is cause for concern, because then you’re unable to trust their judgement about what they write in general. Besides the point though, whether the author shares Chitose’s views or not – I don’t find it interesting to read Chitose’s analysis of what his classmates think about him or what he thinks about other people. What he worries about is too far removed or too abstracted from reality to be interesting to me, and there are no other compensating factors in the story like a plot to follow.


2
I read most of the first volume which is like 400 pages, so a pretty fair shot, and I skimmed the next three volumes to see if there was anything interesting or unexpected and there wasn’t really.


3
The translations may be bad but whether or not a better translation would improve things enough to where I like the story is dubious, since it isn’t the writing that’s the major issue but the content.


4
I let it set its tone, I don’t like its tone. Kenta isn’t treated with enough sympathy, Chitose’s a big-headed idiot for acting that way to him and the fact that he doesn’t get punished for it is a heinous display of karmic injustice. (I know he gets beaten up at the end of volume 2 but that’s hardly related). Tsuki ga Kirei is boring, but Chitose is still a nutcase. The way he acts is just morally bad, and its not funny, and he’s never called out on it. It’s not a major issue but it’s still bad.


5
Sorry for putting words in your mouth, I thought ‘giving it a chance’ meant reading more of it, so I thought you were implying that it gets better later on.


Aside from Chitose, the main reason I don’t like Chiramune is that I’m not interested in its subject matter. The main cast may have nuanced takes on the same events but the events themselves are boring. High school drama, fictional or otherwise, is just not interesting without a character or a narrator who can see it for what it is, i.e. petty, self-interested squabbling by insecure teenagers jostling for position in their social circle. The only way to make this interesting is to make the connection between the pettiness of the action and the seriousness of the personal problem that causes the frustration. Chiramune doesn’t do this, or anyway, it doesn’t do it quick enough or soon enough to hold my interest.

nah what's weird about the first-person perspective is that I'm not sure if it's the character or the author speaking through the character, there's a vagueness about it that isn't defined by the other characters, as to what the author's actual viewpoint is. A lot of what Chitose says in the first volume at least comes across as really patronizing and it isn't really made clear whether this is the author's way of thinking about things (stuff like highschoolers being the most important people in the world is surely a joke - or is it?). If it's part of character development, it can be forgiven, I guess, but there's plenty of ways to write unlikeable characters in a likeable fashion and then have them improve later on instead of starting off as intolerable (and I find Chitose to really be one of the most intolerable characters in fiction) and then maybe somewhere down the line finally reach a point where what they say becomes readable.

Aside from that, the books seem really plotless and adhere to the visual novel style of storytelling that is often rife with filler because time has to be spent "endearing" the reader to the heroines instead of having the characters move around and do things that move the story forward. The sentences aren't enjoyable to read in and of themselves, which is an issue when there's little else to latch onto from my perspective. It probably does get better as things go on but it's so slow moving to read. My enthusiasm for light novels/visual novels have more or less died out for this reason, they take so to get anywhere, the writers have these weird rules inside their heads about how a story should progress without answering the primary question of "is the story enjoyable to read?"

Because there are books that exist that are enjoyable from start to finish and have characters that develop in satisfying ways, and so to go from that to Ramune Bottle... the argument of "it gets good eventually" doesn't really work out, although yeah it probably is way better than most light novels - just by trying for some level of realism - but at the same time some stuff doesn't sit right. When Chitoge meets the superinflated ultra otaku stereotype - it's like I'm reading some sort of parody of a propaganda pamphlet issued by the Japanese government. Like yeah, exercise is good for you and lusting over 2D women is ridiculous, but this advice could not be given in a more ridiculous fashion than in the novel. The dude breaks into his room through the window and quotes a Bump of Chicken song - and then a few minutes later the otaku dude is all on board. There's also a lack of sympathy shown towards the otaku that I kinda don't like, his problems are treated as punchlines, whereas in reality this sort of thing isn't as skindeep as being rejected by a girl and so not wanting to go to school.

So yeah basically it's not just Chitose BUT... I'm not hating on the people who like it. If you enjoy it then there's nothing you have to justify.

Thank you for reaching out, and for your kind words! Even if we may have differing opinions on the material as a whole, I'm grateful that you found something in my writing that was worth chewing on. That's not just lip-service; I'm genuinely grateful...though I gotta say, "the review spills a lot of digital ink on something I'd consider trivial" sure knows how to make a fella feel special XD

I'm sorry that it's taken me awhile to respond to you, by the way. I was writing another review for the MV version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on AniList (I tend to be far more active over there) and I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep over the past couple of days combined. So I'm a weird combination of loopy and awake. That said, I'll try to respond as best I can, but I apologize if something I say falls off the cliff and hits its head on the way down, even in the limited way that MAL allows, as you indicated.

I most definitely understand the mindset of seeing it as "a reincarnation / revenge-quest / story about idols " first. The problem for me anyway is that this, along with the "exposé" portion, are too intertwined to cleanly parse out as presented. The reincarnation story (coupled with Aqua's ability to more or less fix everything) saps the exposé of any bite, which is ironic because part of the reason why the Akane story impacted people so strongly (including myself - I found it the best-executed portion of the whole until I thought it was rather hastily resolved) is because it was when the critique was at its sharpest. She was left to the wolves and the sheer ugliness of it all was on full display -- in no small part due to the episode being so well-directed, as narrating the Tweets really let their venom set in.

There's kind of a fundamental question that "Oshi no Ko" does not ask, and it's this - "If the entertainment industry is itself so terrible, with all these villains waiting in the wings and all these characters overtly talking about the bad stuff within it, why do people continue to want to enterprise within it?" The problem is that asking the question is something that the material cannot do because asking that puts into perspective that, with the exception of Ai's death and Akane's harassments, the industry really has not done anything terrible to anyone, so any "repellents" are not actually a force within. "Making people smile or happy" is, itself, not really a unique message for stories about entertainment.

And even if there was darkness the industry imposes, Aqua being able to 5-D chess his way out of things makes any tension rather meaningless. Having "Oshi no Ko's" characters be successful at pretty much everything they do means that the show cannot actually be critical, but the show is constantly going out of its way to say "thing bad." Yet, not being critical offers the path of least resistance for a reincarnation / revenge quest / story about idols that, unfortunately, I just find myself invested in. I don't find Hoshino Ai enough of an interesting presence narratively to justify the obsessions Aqua and Ruby have with her. Sadly, no one I've spoken to can really answer what ACTUALLY separates her from other idols, even in theory...unless her stage presence really is just THAT awesome, which I don't feel. As far as the whole connection about her lying and how she "was afraid to speak the truth," it honestly reads more as melodramatic ham than anything indicative of a tormented character, especially given just how successful she was.

It doesn't stop there, either. Aqua and Ruby have all their accomplishments effectively handed to them by being born into the industry and knowing people who will always accommodate them, Akane's bounce-back from literally being one step away from suicide was abrupt, she also happens to be a supergenius at profiling when Aqua (himself made out to basically be a genius) couldn't after living with Ai for so long, Kana's career is already reviving because of a handout, and B-Komachi got to the idol festival NOT through hard work, but through a connection AND apparently their performance was so great despite other idol groups having probably practiced longer and harder than they did. I find it hard to be compelled by the reincarnation / revenge quest / story about idols when the rewards or resolutions pertaining to the industry often don't justify the lack of real adversity on the journey.

Sadly, I have seen and read too much media (in and outside of anime) to be impressed by something saying "thing bad" anymore. If you want to say, "thing bad," then really make the case for why that is. By shying away, it's falling into the problem you said - "the dissonance of its narrative and its message." It wants to have a critiquing function, but lacks the teeth to actually do so. Because of this, "Oshi no Ko" and / or Akasaka can claim that it's about the revenge plot with elements of critique within it, and that the critique is not really that important, which I honestly find so disingenuous. The result is that you can have a story say point-blank "bullying people online is bad," and then have anime fans not even bat an eye as they hound one another in ravenous "debate" over minutiae to the point of overt harassment, or even go so far as to attack a grieving mother who objected to her daughter's death being used as inspiration for Akasaka's material.

That being said, the supposed "deep dive into entertainment" clearly resonated with people. Especially considering that there are some people who, in their own reviews (the top review on AniList, for instance) insist that "Oshi no Ko" will "change the way you view entertainment." Whether you want to ascribe a comment like that to hyperbole is obviously up for debate, but it does not cover up the reality that there are some people who do, indeed, consider it a biting critique.

So, in that sense, I'm a lonely fish in a wide ocean - because of the material's intertwined-ness with its disparate elements, I just cannot like or love this material in either respect. That's not on purpose, mind you; I'm not actively trying to upset people. And I'll say this much - considering just how much my own thoughts are in the minority, I was stunned that I escaped almost entirely unscathed in receiving vitriol.

Anyway, I am SO SORRY that this is so long, and I would send you a cookie if I could for getting through all of it (not oatmeal raisin, though. That shit needs to be banned from existence). I tried my sleep-deprived best to try and answer you, and I hope that I was at least somewhat coherent. I'm not gonna bother editing this because I think my body is finally catching up with me.

Regardless, thank you for your message :)

Oh yeah, I can totally see some cheesy parts during volume 4, even so I still liked it so much.

And volume 3 is my second best volume, so nice to hear that. I also felt the same way you did, seeing that dilemma of living in a rural place and thinking about going to a big city was so refreshing and well-done. It was during this volume that I've realized how thoughtful the writing is, and it was nice how they didn't try to make the adults (mainly Asuka's father) evil, but purely having a different view of life, as expected from them. Asuka's father talking about how he wanted to become a rock star back when he was young was so funny and understandable lol

Yeah I can see that. I've read up to volume 6 and it definitively felt like the end of the first half of the series like the author said.

And while on this, can I ask you what was your favorite volume up to the one you read? For me personally it was volume 4, its probably the usual response from those that are fans lmao but it really had everything I love in a school-themed series, like romance, sports, drama and bromance so yeah lol

Hey, good tastes there! And nice to see a fellow Chitose-kun fan here, its my current fav romcom after Oregairu ended.

based

L reviewer , talking about incles when he is an incel

I absolutely love you take on that confession. I did not look at it from the latest perspective. Yuuko would have the self confidence to do that. I can see her wanting to pumish herself and, maybe, stay fresh. Not having that special title will be a good point for her to start over maybe. Still don't like that she did it though, I think it would have worked well enough in private or, at least, we just the girls. The guys do not need to know. Oh, I don't like how the author is trying to lump the girl similar to chitose. I'm forgetting her name with his cool friend. Chitose-kun and that girl are great together! I see the author hinting st potential romantic mates besides Chitose-kun for the girls....I understand that harem don't work in real life, but ouch, I don't like to see it lol
I'm waiting for a few more volumes to be translated into English before I start it up again. Lately I have been reading the Invaders of Roku light novel. The one that had over 40 volumes. It is light hearted, good read. I'm on volume 12 lol I still have a shit ton to read, but that is good. Some books to read when I feel like it.
How have you been doing?

Oh, I just did not like how Yuuko confessed seriously in front of the whole group of friends, making Chitose seem like a complete asshole to everyone. She should have done that in private, kinda of irk me. But maybe she wanted to force him to give a real answer by having an audience of close friends.

Yeah, I can understand that, I found it a little weird too. lol Oh, the Chinese translations are up to date?

Haha, no worries, I barely have time for MAL. You can read Japanese? I rad up to volume 5 and found volume 5 a little annoying with the Yuuko one, but it's been good so far. Haha Yeah the rural setting is nice

L reviewer

Your review has to be the best thing I've read that fully describes how terrible The Angel Next Door was.

Oh damn, we have similar favorite manga. Nice! I'll check out that Chitose light novel. What you like about it?

Loved your chainsaw man review