Fantasies in high and urban mode
Just finished a fantasy series and Durarara! ep8.
The fantasy series is one I call the Path trilogy by some woman. Very mediocre. The general idea is alright, but several major flaws. The first comprises giant skips in the narrative, which generally occur during complicated (and thus inherently interesting) points. Oh, there's a giant battle five-way battle which just started? Let's skip to the end! Oh, the secrets of magic are about to be revealed? Let's skip forward six months and miss out on all the basics! The same thing gets done with character development. Time skips then you have characters who explain what happened to cause the development when we weren't watching. Thanks, Author! Also, for people in an urgent time critical crisis, they're sure willing to spend the odd month or two just sitting around. Oh well, it wasn't that bad, but the author definitely needs more polish (oh and SPOILER the final boss's end happens off screen and non-climatically /END SPOILER).
Durarara! ep8 was a fun episode, like the rest. I recently finished Baccano! which was created by the same person. Baccano! was good, don't misunderstand me, but it had some flaws. First was the lack of a central plot, idea, theme, or character to hang the story around. The second was how flipping back and forth through time was good at getting me interested and providing a sense quickness to the pacing, it actually slowed down the stories with the necessary reminder recaps. Third was how with all the characters, very few got significant development, and some got little to none at all. That anyone got significant development was a real achievement given the size of the cast and how no one was focused on for very long. A more minor issue was how several characters had fairly annoying character traits, which tended to dominate their scenes.
Durarara! keeps most of the strengths of Baccano! while reducing the weaknesses (I realize I never went over the strengths, so just assume that anything not explicitly mentioned was a strength :p). It also skips scenes quite a bit, producing a quick-feeling pace, but each episode contains a character or situation which is focused on a bit more, thus allowing more focused development. By doing so, several of the characters already have more developments than most of the characters of Baccano!. By keeping the temporal aspect more focused, it reduces the need for recaps and tightens the narrative. And whatever else, I like the jokes.
Addendum:
Ep8's biggest reveal is, naturally, Celty's head at the end. Or is it? My guess is the head in the jar is hers, while the head on the girl is a clone or other sort of copy. Presumably, Celty's head would retain at least some memories after all, but the girl doesn't have any. And no one in their right mind risks losing their sole sample of a precious resource by having it roam across town randomly (though I guess the obsessive sister might explain that, if so).
The other important parts of the ep are the relationships between Celty and Shinra and between Mikado and Anri. While I can see Shinra being fascinated by Celty, really, her feelings should be more like an older sister. She's known him since he was four! Romantic feelings would just be creepy. As for Anri, the creators seem to be hinting that yes, she is growing attached to Mikado, but she is resisting that at much as possible. For evidence, while they are looking for her shoes in the classroom, after they share a moment of sharing, she immediately decides to leave. When he comes over to deliver her shoes, she pushes him away again (I don't believe this is because she's socially oblivious, but because she's overcompensating for what she wants to do).
The fantasy series is one I call the Path trilogy by some woman. Very mediocre. The general idea is alright, but several major flaws. The first comprises giant skips in the narrative, which generally occur during complicated (and thus inherently interesting) points. Oh, there's a giant battle five-way battle which just started? Let's skip to the end! Oh, the secrets of magic are about to be revealed? Let's skip forward six months and miss out on all the basics! The same thing gets done with character development. Time skips then you have characters who explain what happened to cause the development when we weren't watching. Thanks, Author! Also, for people in an urgent time critical crisis, they're sure willing to spend the odd month or two just sitting around. Oh well, it wasn't that bad, but the author definitely needs more polish (oh and SPOILER the final boss's end happens off screen and non-climatically /END SPOILER).
Durarara! ep8 was a fun episode, like the rest. I recently finished Baccano! which was created by the same person. Baccano! was good, don't misunderstand me, but it had some flaws. First was the lack of a central plot, idea, theme, or character to hang the story around. The second was how flipping back and forth through time was good at getting me interested and providing a sense quickness to the pacing, it actually slowed down the stories with the necessary reminder recaps. Third was how with all the characters, very few got significant development, and some got little to none at all. That anyone got significant development was a real achievement given the size of the cast and how no one was focused on for very long. A more minor issue was how several characters had fairly annoying character traits, which tended to dominate their scenes.
Durarara! keeps most of the strengths of Baccano! while reducing the weaknesses (I realize I never went over the strengths, so just assume that anything not explicitly mentioned was a strength :p). It also skips scenes quite a bit, producing a quick-feeling pace, but each episode contains a character or situation which is focused on a bit more, thus allowing more focused development. By doing so, several of the characters already have more developments than most of the characters of Baccano!. By keeping the temporal aspect more focused, it reduces the need for recaps and tightens the narrative. And whatever else, I like the jokes.
Addendum:
Ep8's biggest reveal is, naturally, Celty's head at the end. Or is it? My guess is the head in the jar is hers, while the head on the girl is a clone or other sort of copy. Presumably, Celty's head would retain at least some memories after all, but the girl doesn't have any. And no one in their right mind risks losing their sole sample of a precious resource by having it roam across town randomly (though I guess the obsessive sister might explain that, if so).
The other important parts of the ep are the relationships between Celty and Shinra and between Mikado and Anri. While I can see Shinra being fascinated by Celty, really, her feelings should be more like an older sister. She's known him since he was four! Romantic feelings would just be creepy. As for Anri, the creators seem to be hinting that yes, she is growing attached to Mikado, but she is resisting that at much as possible. For evidence, while they are looking for her shoes in the classroom, after they share a moment of sharing, she immediately decides to leave. When he comes over to deliver her shoes, she pushes him away again (I don't believe this is because she's socially oblivious, but because she's overcompensating for what she wants to do).