Unlisted video because I don’t know why? It wasn’t before. But this is by far one of the best critique videos of the show on the internet and very much worth your time.
“bad year for Asia”
gives North Korea missile test and Xi ending term limits as examples
Had a user once recommend me Goblin Slayer after I complained about all the disgusting isekai out there these days. His explanation? “Um, it’s technically not an isekai because they don’t go to a different world. It’s just a fantasy anime.”
Fantasy anime used to be so good. Escaflowne and Rayearth and all that. Now it’s all adaptations of violent fetish manga written for 13-year-olds that don’t go outside.
Anime and manga realized there’s more money to be made pandering to a modern otaku’s taste which is violent hyper sexualized nationalistic shit.
Not to mention the system of anime production committees making it ridiculously difficult to make anything new or creative. Here’s a short post that kinda explains it.
Thanks to these groups of companies, all expecting a share of the profits, only extremely safe IPs are chosen to be adapted. All that hyper violent, hyper sexual garbage is determined to be a “risk-free” investment (thanks to the legions of basement-dwelling otaku), so those are the only anime that are made these days. As an added bonus, almost none of that money goes to the animators that actually make the shows (which is only to be expected from a creative industry under capitalism). Writers, directors, and animators all genuinely want to make more creative content rather than trash, but their hands are all tied. Death to the modern animation industry for real.
Extremely suspicious of anyone that watches and likes this garbage. I remember someone I work with recommending it and they talked about the first episode and I’m just like, people actually keep watching it after seeing that?
I liked it once I got past the absolutely atrociously bad first episode. But not because of the whole “kill all goblins” shit.
The thing that makes it good is the DnD party style combat, where combat is genuinely high-risk, the combatants all have reasonably down to earth skills/abilities, and they could all easily die with one mistake made. The combat itself is extremely DnD-like, in particular with the kinds of DnD parties that invent cheese methods of beating encounters. For example this Beholder fight scene is VERY DnD party in style.
I think there is a real audience for combat encounters written and played out in this way, and that anything would be popular without the whole genocide-the-goblins narrative if anything else were like this. A lot of combat in anime is just whoever screams loudest or whoever has the highest power-level instead of intelligent application of the powers to a scenario. You could see this exact scene play out in a BG3 encounter or group tabletop game and it rocks.
That doesn’t sound like any game of D&D I’ve ever played lol. Since 3rd (ie since 2000), combat is very much a game that is focused on abilities on character sheets, and balanced such that the PCs should win every fight. This is also very true of Baldur’s Gate, where just by playing the game as intended you can easily win every fight with little to no trouble (I will concede this may not be true on Tactical difficulty, but that is a departure from 5e rules anyway).
Maybe it’s just the DMs I’ve had then, although I’ve had 4 and they all played like this, including our Numenera games, or even especially our Numenera games… We always end up in absurd extreme scenarios either through our own fault (aggroing entire town guard) or some other thing. Perhaps I’m the influence causing it? Who knows. Either way I like extreme situations that call for utilisation of tools in a way that is extremely creative to cheese situations that would otherwise end in instant death. It just feels good.
Combine Mcguyver with DnD abilities and physics. Break the universe. Create infinite energy machines. That kind of thing.
(I will concede this may not be true on Tactical difficulty, but that is a departure from 5e rules anyway).
I’m definitely thinking of Tactical difficulty, which is honestly the only way I’ve played the game.
DnD party style combat, where combat is genuinely high-risk
D&D hasn’t been high risk for decades, especially not at high levels where it’s nearly impossible to take enough conventional damage in one round to be dropped from full HP with conventional balanced CR encounters, no matter how bad the rolls.
I like it because it’s obviously someone’s AD&D campaign that one guy derailed with a bit character.
I wouldn’t recommend it obviously because of all the shitty parts, but the later show has similar vibes to my first experiences with TTRPGs.
Also the opening and ending songs are generally pretty catchy.
Man, this is so much worse than I thought. The first episode was enough to make me drop the series as just “not being my cup of tea”.
Makes me worry a bit for my friend who is so enraptured by the series.
goblin slayer? that was the harry potter game, right?
We need a game, like red faction, where we play as a goblin and lead the goblin revolution in the wizardry world.
