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「ほんのわずかなやる気」 (Hon’no wazukana yaruki)
“Just the Slightest Bit of Motivation”
While we do get more basic character background behind Glenn, Sisti, Lumia, and Cecilia, it’s becoming more transparent that the show has much more in common with it’s contemporaries in embracing and questioning the role of magic than it’d like to admit. Glenn does begin his first lesson of the day on a different page by telling students how wonderful magic is at murder, yet within the span of an episode, he reverses the half-assing he’s done up to this point by embracing magic in a goofy, non-conventional manner. Sure, it has to do with him discovering that he inspired Lumia to use magic productively after he saved her from assassins in the past, but if the first episode doesn’t set the tone correctly for him to change his mind so soon. It would’ve made more sense to foreshadow the extent of Glenn’s powers and history this way much earlier.
The story-telling in this episode operates on convenience. Lumia and Glenn just so happen to not remember a moment significant to the both of them. Glenn reverses his idea on denying his students magic education this quickly so that we can see how overpowered Glenn really is. Of course, Lumia happens to be a princess in deep trouble with mage assassins. Sisti happens to make a big enough impression with this episode’s jobbers to get her shoved in a room where the show can use the threat of rape as a tool for suspense, complete with fanservice shots of her clothes being slowly peeled off, until Glenn makes it right before anything else is removed. It is a limitation that isn’t unique to light novels, but since a typical light novel aims to get the train rolling as quickly as possible, they are trappings of the genre that show RokuAka‘s true colors.
That’s not to say that it wasn’t a good episode; it cleared up character details that I felt were missing from the first one. It helped expand on why Sisti is as deeply passionate as she is about magic with her desire to live out her grandfather’s will to reach a sky castle, we learn about Lumia’s backstory and how Glenn starts to see himself in her, and Cecilia’s role in Glenn’s life is explained in more detail as a professor who lets Glenn crash at her place. It was a relief to see Glenn start to warm up, and at least take Lumia’s passion and comments into consideration. If the anime is becoming more open about its intentions about being a straightforward fantasy academy light novel, it’s going about it in the right direction. That is, if they could cut down on the molesters.
Preview
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End Card
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I did like the points Glenn brought up on magic. I mean, one has to admit that, a majority of the time, magic tends to be used to hurt or kill others FAR more so than helping and healing. And the way Sisti talked made it out to be like magic SHOULDN’T be used to help people as it’s basically not important enough or something.
And similar to Rin did against Caster in Unlimited Blade Works, Glenn takes advantage of how people tend to rely FAR too much on magic to where, once it’s taken away and/or someone manages to get in close enough to fight conventionally, such people are pretty much helpless.
True, for every healing spell you see in fiction centered around magic, there are dozens more spells that focus on attacking someone. It might be a source of action for magical fiction, but Glenn did make a great point in that there is a deadlier, more violent world to magic that is pushed aside either to sanitize the potential magic has on the offensive side or to protect students from learning murder spells.
I think its unique enough to be worth watching. honestly there are some points i just have to take in stride as a light novel adaption. but at least this time the protagonist is OP in a unique way, as opposed to just being conventionally broken. its the little things with a genre like this i think. although I think the threat of rape was a bit much…A well established tool for showing they’re utter scoundrels, but still a bit much
That’s understandable. I think that Glenn having a more mischievous and carefree personality helps set him apart from other LN leads. The Fool spell he has does remind me of Touma’s Imagine Breaker from the Index series in that they both erase abilities from being used, but I think RokuAka has enough to it that it can stand out as long as they don’t end up tempering Glenn down too much.
I was surprised that the one guy was a rapist though. Him and his friend do have a Valentine brothers vibe to them, but I figured the plan was just to take the princess hostage instead of have one person take the princess hostage and have another rape whichever girl got on their nerves the most. It might be too much to expect practicality from barely remarkable villains, but it looks like it existed just to see Sisti in a compromising position.
To be honest, I think the writer used that less as a “see how extra evil this guy who was threatening to randomly kill people earlier is” and more as a setup for the punchline that was Glenn walking on on them and then turning around to walk out as if he walked in on two lovers…
I would even argue that the MC is not even OP, but that would be going into spoiler territory.
Yeah, rather than simply being secretly uber-powerful, Glenn simply just thinks and understands magic fundamentals more deeply than others and that allows him to use magic in various ways whereas, as demonstrated in the class, a lot of the students were clearly arrogant and overconfident in stating that they “mastered” a basic spell like the shock bolt, only for Glenn to reveal that there is SO much more to even just a basic spell.
That kind of knowledge and experience can allow someone using even basic or weaker spells, but in unexpected ways, to defeat someone who is using more powerful spells, but in a more “basic” and limited manner.
Loved seeing how Glenn actually understands the fundamentals of magic. Makes him more qualified to be professor than whoever wrote that tome.
Actually thought magic was particle physics at the start of the episode. Glad that got sorted out.
The attempted rape scene was uncomfortably long. At least we got some amusing reaction faces from Sisti after Glenn showed up. Especially when she thought he was really that weak. But they really should’ve shortened that scene a lot, would’ve been more fun that way.
I would not say that the tomes author is incompetent. Think of the tome as an Algebra book that lists formulae and examples on how to use them, but does not go into detail on how these came to be. In other words, your standard high school textbook
Never said the tome’s author was incompetent, just that Glenn’s a lot more qualified for it. A good comparison would probably be between alchemy and chemistry. Though Glenn’s knowledge might even be more akin to physical chemistry.
Those types of classes are actually quite fun, especially when the real experts are speaking.
Rape scene in episode 02? Oh… its a Big Bomb they drop here.. Let see if the anime is right for me…
It twists the cliches enough that they don’t bother me.
I’m a bit puzzled how much the “rape scene” seems to rile people, considering that people actually died – nobody cares. But when a cute and entirely unnecessarily loud-mouthed girl is threatened to be violated, it’s a no-go?
Somehow this disparity disturbs me more than the scene in itself.
Recent gaming culture has shown that the murder of fellow human beings and wanton genocide places far below seeing a female human’s breasts, if game ratings are any indicator.
I’d MUCH rather prefer my kids to be exposed to murder than sexual exploitation!
Not sure how ironic you are, but yea… I remember on one of my America trips it was fine to show Hannibal – a cannibal eating the brain of a living human – to 14-year-olds, and splattering brainmass on the wall is par for the course. But there is hell to pay for showing an uncovered tit.
Not that I found the scene particularly tasteful, but the _point_ behind it was to show the difference between the arrogant-commanding behavior of the innocent Sisti initially compared to the time when she was actually threatened and helpless. Which was the major turnaround of ep2.
As an American, it all comes down to presentation. For the most part, murder is barely ever given any sense of gravity in a movie. When you consider the deaths you’ve seen in fiction, it’s usually either bloodless violence or gratuitous violence with little to no emotional attachment to those who died. No crying families or loved ones who lost their children or parents because they happened to be some evil guy’s henchman. It’s morbid and still heinous to act like death and murder is nothing, and it’s important to mention the role it plays in desensitizing people towards the worth of human life, but most people here are conditioned not to feel much when you see a guy getting killed in a movie.
For rape and sexual assault, however, much of the scenarios are very close to what happens in reality. Aside from Evil Dead or tentacle hentai, usually it’s a secluded area where a guy or guys prey on a girl who refuse their advances and have their way with her. There’s no special effects or grand theatrics. Fiction usually cuts to the chase and has a dude stroke a thigh, tear some clothes off, and, if they get far, show the rape happening. If it doesn’t want to get City of God level of graphicness, they can always do a Gran Torino degree of it and just imply. Facial reactions differ, but it’s usually too real for people to want to see or want to see on a regular basis compared to an action movie star shooting through nazi zombies because you can’t really suspend your disbelief when a guy is forcing himself on a girl. Even in a show where people are shooting lightning from their finger tips, the guy pins her down and lifts her uniform up before he’s caught. Doesn’t seem out-of-place for the real world.
Could also be how people see murder and rape in general over here. Mowing down a sidewalk full of people in GTA comes off like action movie fantasy stuff in the West, but it would come off as a lot more tasteless if they added a button to rape everyone you come across instead. News stories about mass murder are shrugged aside compared to a single death, and sexual assault is either shielded from people to avoid bringing up sex on TV or is mentioned to emphasize the heinousness of someone’s crime. Jokes are a bit dicier on both ends, but there’s still more discretion about how to tell a rape joke that doesn’t upset people rather than jokes about murder or mass murderers in history.
It is unusual how we turn a blind eye when we see murder, but because rape is much more taboo and not as easy to make acceptable, it makes it all the more uncomfortable to see some dude getting ready to tear off a girl’s clothes and brag about how his victims behaved while he was in the act. I’m not saying to outright ban any depiction of sexual assault, but there is a tactfulness about depicting it that is often thrown out the window when it’s tacked into a show or film for dramatic purposes. Apologies for the length of this post, I get invested with media analysis so I get long-winded when it comes to talking about media and cultural studies.
This goes back to at least Victorian values that sex is the worst thing their is and murder is less bad. A proper women was expected to kill her self to avoid rape or she was ruined and shunned forever, the community reaction to rape victims is often this. You listen to anti rape activist now is still sounds like a women who is raped should be put out of her misery. I understand this it seams passionate activists greatly exaggerate a problem in order to get more focus on it. For example John Carter Warlord of Mars written 1912 often stated all women carry daggers to kill themselves to avoid rape. Examples of exaggerating, nuclear weapons would have killed hundreds of millions not everyone, global warming might kill Billions but a warm earth is actually more friendly to humans than the current one humans will survive.
As long as you do not molest a child and cut their limbs off and pluck out their eyes you can get significantly less jail time than if all you do is sexual stuff with no physical damage. In my state FL rape carries a possible life sentence which I call go ahead and kill them it’s free you can even get out of jail early by execution which is very unlikely unless you do not fight it. Either way FL is the old view that the women’s life is totally ruined thus life the sentence.
Taboo is what drives this. To have Taboo’s seams to be a basic human instinct with what the Taboo is set by the culture. Taboo’s can be logically based but almost always greatly overblown and can even be imaginary. Thus thanks to religion sex became the ultimate sin worse than anything else, exposing a breast worse than showing someone being killed. There are arguments that American culture is so violent because violence is ok but sex is not.
Taboo is what makes showing some forms of porn illegal to have despite a free speech right but you have a free speech right to show how to build a bomb to kill children or join a fanatical religious group. Thus I support the American Civil Liberties Union position of no censorship period. This does not mean you cannot prosecute rapes or murder if recorded.
Thus I say make love not war. Make having sex and showing the human body PG and make showing killing someone X rated.
As my comment above, I find the length of the scene to be disturbing. Just imagine a scene of killing someone slowly. Compared to a quick decapitation, I know which one I prefer getting censored.
The attempted rape itself was actually quite essential for the amusing scenes after. I could watch it again and still have a chuckle. (I’m not that evil, seriously!)
My Answer: Where is your ranting in Fate/Stay Unlimited Blade Works when their Masters died? Also it was only hinted and not showed rape…
Link: (for reminder) https://randomc.net/2015/05/24/fatestay-night-unlimited-blade-works-20/
In Fate/Stay her Pride is still intact, only the villain lost his face..
But here.. She lost a bit Pride (showing underwear is a big thing in Asia), and did the Attacker lost his face?… But her Pride is still “lost” in our Eyes.. Because we know it…
The Key here is the spectators
Lumia remembers him she was just trying to find out if he remembered her. As for Glenn I think that he just doesn’t want to remember because hes trying to leave his past behind him and at first working at a magic school was the last thing he wanted. He was really only doing it as a favor for Cecilia who took care of him. The talk with Lumia just made him remember that it wasn’t all bad and that some good did come out of all the bad stuff that happened and all the people he killed even if they where bad.
That makes sense. The characters are a little hard to read when it came down to the flashback with Glenn and Lumia so I wasn’t sure if they both knew or are being coy about it, but the episode did well to clarify Glenn’s debt to Cecilia and him starting to see more of the magic in Lumia that he once sought for.
https://randomc.net/image/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records%20-%2002%20-%20Large%20End%20Card.jpg
Endcard by Nishimata Aoi, visual novel illustrator and designer. Employed with VN company Navel, did designs for games like Shuffle!
https://randomc.net/image/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
Ever notice that one cliche for LN male leads is that they’ll have a special skill set and a tragic past together?
Hah, Glenn reminds me so much of myself. Though much less on the shameless bastard and tactless side.
Y’know, I like this show. Sisti and Lumia are cute, Glenn reminds me of myself, the voice acting’s pretty solid for the leads, there’s interesting things that are gonna be gradually shown if they maintain this storytelling pace, and the visuals are at least consistent tending more towards the creative side. In fact, one part I really liked was how when Lumia and Glenn were talking at the bridge, the low key violin segues into a gentle piano line.
Fact of the matter is, so many narratives utilize the same basic ingredients but they only become overdone because people inject no soul nor personality into them. They are simply spiritually and creatively dead which says a lot about the creator of such narratives. At that point, you might as well get a job picking up garbage off the street. Even those who dive into junkyards have far greater creative spirit than that.
I agree. As officially a senior in a month it is very rare that something new comes along. If all I waited for was really new stuff I have way less to watch and read. And often it not something new, it just a approach that you have not seen, it is extremely difficult to make art that has not been done before. Thus you learn to enjoy how well something is made despite seeming similar before.
Something completely new requires more than just dashes of creative flair and extending your personality into your works, what you need is some extremely determined conviction made of tungsten alloys for that. In short your balls and ovaries must be left open and proudly displayed, metaphorically speaking. The depths of your dreams must be exploited and mined until extinction for originality to arise but dreams and nightmares are off-putting, cryptic and weird hence the aforementioned metaphor.
And so because of that, lots of times it’s just nice to relax into generally well-made works that exude some degree of creativity and soul, we really don’t need much. Not everyone is capable or gutsy enough to craft a War & Peace or a Citizen Kane or an Angel’s Egg, or even -to take a recent example- a Cure For Wellness.
Plus, watching shows like RokuNashi reminds me of my younger days where I simply watched whatever was entertaining and within my interests, as long as they’re not soulless or commercially cynical and reductionistic.
I recently found out that Sagiri from Eromanga-sensie and Sistine from this anime are voiced by the same seiyuu, Akane Fujita
It’s really hard to tell.
Grade A newcomer right there 😀 I find that she is very skilled, lots of emotion too. But sometimes her pitch is off, needs more exp definitely~~~
I’m not into short-haired girls, but if they do this then hell yeah definitely!
https://randomc.net/image/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records%20-%2002%20-%2007.jpg
So Glenn is basically a guile hero who plays dumb to obfuscate his badass credentials as well as his (I’m assuming) dark and troubled (possibly a “shell-shocked veteran”) past? Also, his unorthodox way of using magic (and anti-magic) in combat does remind me of some of the battles in JoJo, which is always a plus.
Anyway, I’ve always thought that Index‘s Touma would be more badass if he actually bothered to learn various hand-to-hand combat techniques. But it looks like Glenn already beat him to the proverbial punch.
https://randomc.net/image/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2021.jpg
I’d love to see a bit more of the backstory between Glenn and Celica and why he came to her in the first place. As much as I like the tsundere Sistine and nice girl Rumia, Celica simply oozes sexiness. I don’t know if it’s because of her voice, or her “mysterious woman” aura, or the way she wears that black dress…perhaps all three. (ROWR!)
https://randomc.net/image/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records/Rokudenashi%20Majutsu%20Koushi%20to%20Akashic%20Records%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2035.jpg
It’s bad enough to get your ass handed to you in a fight… More so if your “manhood” is belittled…
I love Glenn pulling a DR Strange. One of Dr Strange’s advantages was that he trained with his valet a Super hero level martial artist to the point that Strange was almost as good. Thus from time to time Strange would go physical against opponents only expecting magic, and of course Strange would use anti magic situations to his advantage wether he caused them or not. Also being in great shape increases endurance for hard spell casting.
I’m glad Sisti seems not to be a real tsundere like I feared in ep 1. She’s more like a Tsukkomi who gets trolled hard. Okay now that Glenn saved her, she might go full Tsundere on him now… or she won’t, please suprise me autor! (I do love her embarrassed face though)
Glenn’s power is interesting, now I wonder, is it a full anti-magic field or is it more like a counter spell?
If it just (like Glenn said) makes it impossible to activate magic in a certain radius around him, can long range magic still get to him?
He doesn’t really give false explanations, so you can rely on what he explains – mostly.
Glenn’s unique magic is just as he says, it disables the activation of magic within a set range around him. Meaning, magic that has already been activated is not affected, along with magic activated outside of the range.
Love the anime chest servie xoxoxo
and Cecilia’s role in Glenn’s life is explained in more detail as a professor who lets Glenn crash at her place.
I’m pretty sure it’s not that simple: I’m 90% sure that’s Cecilia holding younger Glenn in the opening of episode 1 and her seemingly throw-away lines that he’s “her greatest apprentice” and that he’s a pervert for “looking at me that way now” leads me further in the direction that she’s actually a parental/teacher figure in some way.
Which also explains Glenn’s similarly casually flirty nature.
Sure, it has to do with him discovering that he inspired Lumia to use magic productively after he saved her from assassins in the past,
I don’t think he recognizes this yet, nor does she. Two reasons for that: she’s created an image of this master mage he doesn’t match. Meanwhile, his background is increasingly leaning towards someone who did a whole lot of “government work” before camping in Cecilia’s apartment that he either doesn’t want to remember or couldn’t keep track of half the people he was involved in if he tried.
Akane voiced Sisti is okay but I still like KanaHana. I know this is just a off-topic.