Kotaro Uchikoshi/Takumi Nakazawa Discussion

Off-Topic
#21

Wow, the topic is back (and so am I). Well, I watched the first episode and I found it to actually be pretty fun, despite the huge amounts of fanservice and silly premise. At least to me, it’s about being able to turn your brain off and enjoy it for what it is.

But yeah, it’s bizarre that this is being written by Uchikoshi. Even weirder is the fact that it’s also getting a VN version, which is being directed by Nakazawa.
Though MAYBE it will pull a Madoka on us…MAYBE. In a recent interview, Uchikoshi said he didn’t plan for the fanservice aspects of the story at all (which is even more weird, since the premise itself is based around fanservice). And Nakazawa being involved does give me the impression Punchline just might be about more than meets the eye.
Though there’s no way I can know. I’ll just watch the show and hope it does surprise us. If not, well, the first episode was funny for me.

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#22

I haven’t started this season in anime yet, but I’ve got Punch Line on my plan-to-watch list. I hate fanservice, dislike comedy, and wouldn’t even know who this Uchikoshi guy is if this thread’s title didn’t tell me.

It’s from the noitaminA block, instant interest points.
It’s by Mappa, so it has promise.
And the synopsis, at least the anime-planet one, sounds interesting. If it has nothing to it then I just won’t bother, but it sounds like a good story.

#23

Don’t know about anime-planet’s synpose, but the first episode is literally about a dude who loses his body to someone and has to find an ancient book to get it back, which is somehow within the apartment complex he lives in. The problem? If he gets too aroused, his newfound porwers go out of control, an asteroid falls on earth and humanity dies. Bad luck for him that the other apartments are all habited by cute girls that like to undress all the time.

So yeah…I can’t even begin to understand how this would sound like a good story aside from an over-the-top comedy perspective.

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#24

Yeah that never really boded well for me :frowning:

Oh wow, it’s getting a VN!? I could totally imagine it as a game. Being the avid Adventure Game fan that I am, I can see soooo much links to adventure games, and I can already sort of imagine the gameplay it’d be. This’d be so good as a classic point-and-click game.

Producers probably put tiny bombs into his stomach, saying it’ll explode if he doesn’t put fanservice :’(

See, that’s why a lot of my non-Uchikoshi friends are getting into (and being disappointed by) it. They seem to have high hopes for noitaminA. I honestly don’t really bother to care what TV channel it’s from haha.

#25

I normally don’t, but every anime that’s been shown on noitaminA has been good… so… I trust them~

#26

Yep. Though 5pb tends to never release a damn PC version of their games, so we’ll have to count on an unlikely official translation if it ever happens.
I actually managed to contact Nakazawa via facebook and he told me he can’t say much about it (you know, Japanese companies are very keen on secrecy and all), but that if I ever played it I would see “his and Uchikoshi’s style”. So I dunno, maybe that was a hint there’s more to come. I’ve just watched the second episode and it does end on a cliffhanger that just MIGHT hint at something darker. Though we’ll have to wait until next week to know, I guess.

I wouldn’t doubt it, since it’s 5pb. I mean, it’s producer is technically Mages, but that is a company merged with 5pb anyway, and they ALWAYS cram fanservice into their works, probably as a selling point.

Wasn’t Guilty Crown shown on noitaminA? That was awful.

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General Anime Discussion
#27

Well, just finished episode 2, and it was still stupid. I have a hard time standing this sort of stupidity, really. Like the whole “cheermancy” thing, and the whole Ito biting on a salmon thing. I know it’s supposed to be funny but I just find it stupidly annoying.

But heeey it got me thinking, and I tried enforcing what I know about Uchikoshi’s writing to try and theorize what will happen in the series.

So far, what I propose is that MC needs that Shambala book to save the world, yeah (and not just to return to his body). But once he gets it and saves the world, he realizes that he wouldn’t have gotten that book unless he was turned into ghost form in the first place. So he has to transcend dimensions and go to the past and somehow cause him to turn into a ghost. Which further implies that the whole bus hijacking incident was all a ploy to get him to turn into a ghost in the first place. It may or may not have been instigated by his sister (but it probably was).

I dunno about you, but that sounds like classic Uchikoshi right there.

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#28

Yeah there’s gonna be lots of crazy plot twists to come, just you wait.

#29

I got nowhere else to talk about this so I’ma just put it here :stuck_out_tongue:

Finally caught up to episode 7 (should get 8 done soon since DameDesuYo just finished subbing it yesterday) and boy oh boy, what a trip! Well Nandala Gandala was a red herring lol. But I’m still sticking with my idea that the bus hijacking was staged in order to get him to power up and allow him to reach ghost form :wink:

I kinda feel bad that I didn’t figure out by myself the whole body-switching thing. Narugino obviously had Guriko’s body (because of the G on her neck), but she also obviously had Chiyoko’s mind (because of the song and the eyes, I guess). If I made that connection, and applied it to Yuuta, who was so obviously shown to be Pine by about episode 5, then the whole him being female would have made total sense, heh.

Also predicting it now: Qmay leader is actually Guriko in Pine’s body. Not like it isn’t painstakingly obvious tho, heh

#30

I am really liking Punch Line if for no other reason it’s showing that Uchikoshi can change up what he does going from high tension serious settings (999, VLR) to this over the top, nonsensical, seemingly over the top fanservice type setting and still be Uchikoshi. When I first started PL it felt like it was going to end up being just another one of those heavy fan service/comedy shows, but these last few episodes feel like he is proving me and everyone else wrong.

I personally loved the fact that they actually took the time to explain why the world ended if he got too excited instead of just leaving it as “your powers go berserk”. I like the explanation that he dies and can’t stop the asteroid instead of him causing the asteroid much better…

#31

It has less fan service than most shows airing this season. The OP is a bit DearS-ey, and the break bumpers are weird, but there isn’t much fan service within the show part of the anime. It’s like… 1-4 five second clips or something.

#32

I have mixed feelings over it. On one hand, I do like when a show subverts it’s marketing and becomes something different. On the other, I don’t think they are handling the over the top comedy and serious moments very well, and there are some weird plotholes that, while you might call me nitpicky, still bother me. There’s no decent explanation as to why getting horny makes Yuuta uberfy, for example, and that wouldn’t be a problem if the whole uberfy concept was not backed up by what seems to be a scientific and dramatic background (you know, the whole three children in the lab thing where Pine uberfies after being pissed…am I to assume being pissed/determined AND getting horny works just as well? ). Maybe that’s the point of changing styles, but whatever sci-fi is present here is very weak.
Not to mention how most of the twists until now were either painfully obvious ( Myazawa Kenji is Yuuta, time loops going on ) or just out of nowhere ( Come on, there was no way to guess it was even possible that ubafying can make you switch bodies )

#34

The cat said it was when he got excited. It’s probably just whenever they feel heightened emotions.

Were they trying to not be obvious? I think it had to be obvious about what was coming, because a lot of people are quick to give up. Didn’t the staff even tell people, before the anime started airing, that there’d be a big twist? I mean, it’s still pretty obvious what happens next, and what happened in the past.

There was a bunch of stuff pushing that idea leading up to it’s reveal though.

I think you are looking for this show to be something it isn’t… This is exactly how I expected it to be when I read it’s synopsis, and it’s great.

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#35

As I said, I can understand Punchline is not like his previous works, which is obvious. But when you begin to insert, say, sci-fi into your show, it has to meet some standards (for me anyway). Same thing with dramatic moments and such. It feels like Punchline is really trying to tell a story of political intrigue, character drama and time-travel behind the whole fanservice fest, but it never really commits to any of it. As a result, everything related to the overarching plot feels either rushed or misplaced/pretentious, at least to me. Aside from perhaps Ito, I just don’t care about any of the other characters, and I can tell Punchline REALLY wants me too. And sorry, but I don’t think they announcing the story would be twisty makes it okay for the twists to be lame. You either write good twists or you don’t, and if you’re actively trying to write bad twists, well, then it’s just bad.

Also, I’m still not sure if Yuuta remembers who he was prior to the story. I mean, at some points it seems he remembers stuff, and others it seems he doesn’t. I do remember the cat saying the shock of dying or something made his memory fuzzy, but I just felt a bit cheated by the fact that the protagonist is at first oblivous and then he kinda sorta remembers his EXTREMELY PLOT-IMPORTANT past just because (even before he actively remembers there’s a flashback which implies he knew his past). He never even mentions ubafying or assumes that maybe ubafying is the reason he can’t see panties, but suddenly he just goes “oh yeah, I did that stuff before”.
Not to mention how I still don’t get how he came to live with Narugino at Korai house without realizing who she was. Or does he know that she was his former lab friend? Or does Narugino herself know that Yuuta is Pine? Becuase it seems like she doesn’t…or does she?

#36

It’s the opposite for me. I feel like it’s trying to be a fanservice show for some reason, but isn’t committing on it, and instead is focusing on making a good story.

Ito is cool I guess. I found her to be a bit annoying during the Muhi episode, but she progressed.

There hasn’t been bad twists though. There has been predictable twists, but that’s how twists should be imo. Not out of the left field.
It’s a bit crazy that they show half a season’s worth of events in a flash forward near the start, but it’s a fun idea.

He does. They all do. Yuuta was a bit confused when he was in the state of his namesake, but only for the first one or two episodes.

He was never surprised by ubafying, and hints towards knowing what it is in the first episode, so he’s probably aware of it from the start. It’s never “ubafying is the reason he can’t see panties” it’s “Why, when in spectral form, he gets excited and passes out, does the world end?”
That question has been answered already though.

Yuuta doesn’t think much of it until he loses yet another body. A mix of deja vu and watching Narugino let him make the connection. Narugino has recognized him since they met at Korai house, but she wasn’t sure where from. Meika brushed the idea of the two having met before under the carpet before the conversation went too far. She’ll figure out that Yuuta looks familiar because his body was hers until they got struck by lightning.

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#37

That’s the funny thing about Yuuta. He doesn’t talk about himself. At all. Whenever somebody mentions something about him, his reactions are vague at most. Like, when Meika announced that he was biologically female, his only reaction was squirming and covering his face. He could have either been denying internally her words, or he could have been squirming in shame because she revealed a secret he himself was trying to keep.

We shouldn’t expect to know his thoughts since we are just viewers, after all.

#38

Yep! It’s a common trope of Uchikoshi’s stories to leave the protagonist as much a mystery as the rest of the cast.

I’m pretty much agreeing with everything @Takafumi is saying here (for once). But there is one thing worth noting. Uchikoshi has mentioned that the fanservice aspect of the show as a complete afterthought; he was asked by the publishers to include the panty gimmick to appeal to a wider audience. Pretty sure it was always gonna be absurd, but the panty stuff definitely isn’t the focus.

#39

I didn’t say twists should be out of left field to be good. I said they are bad if they are predictable, since the whole point of a plot twist is, by definition, something that should surprise the viewer. A good twist is one that is previously foreshadowed but not easily predictable. I think you’re assuming that foreshadowing always make it predictable, but that’s not the case at all: take Ever17 for an example, where the twist is bombastic, surprising, and completely foreshadowed and full of hints sprinkled throughout the entire game. It’s fair because you could have guessed it beforehand, but it was not obvious. Now, Punchline? I could see most coming from a mile away, despite they being properly forshadowed or not.

Exactly. He stated in an interview that the fanservice was an afterthought (almost everything 5bp touches becomes a fanservice fest after all), which is why I got into this expecting a big subversion. But so far, this hasn’t quite happened. They are trying to blend both aspects insted of subverting one for the other, and that’s not working FOR ME, personally. I think you have to commit on which type of show you want at some point, but Punchline keeps going back and forth, and in a very fast pace, so I always feel like it’s not quite living up to it’s potential. It’s serious parts don’t feel really dramatic or…well, serious enough, and it’s comedic parts are so-so (I did laugh a lot at the first episode, but that’s about it).
That is something that could be resolved in it’s upcoming Visual Novel, perhaps. But the anime just feels too fast-paced and stuff like Hercules Virus or whatever just pass by in brief mentions instead of proper build up.

Just out of curiosity, have you caught up with the Infinity series? Ever17 (which was mainly written by him) and Remember11 (which had Nakazawa on the helm) are much better than what Uchikoshi has to offer nowadays IMO.

The difference between our opinions is that you think this is a storytelling technique, while I see it as a straight-up flaw. We can’t know who’s right as of now, though lol.

#40

I think you are missing something. In a lot of uses, it’s not the big reveal that is the twist - it’s the unforeseen consequences of that revelation. It’s how the characters react, or how the plot changes. The actual reveal is just infodump time.

Yeah, I thought that was a dreadful VN.

Main focus is plot, side focus is the cast. There are some fanservice and sol moments thrown in. I haven’t noticed comedy, but that might be in there too. The plot and the characters are still the distinctive part of the show to me. That’s what it’s committed on.

He’s just another character. You don’t learn about a character until they open up, and this guy’s had no interactions for most of the anime, so there’s no real reason for him to talk about himself unless he has a deja vu moment.

#41

Welp, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on what the definition of a plot twist is. I for one don’t see the point in being hyped at how the plot will supposedly change when I already guessed what the twist is and, therefore, it’s consequences as well. I find it very hard for a twist to be unsurprising but somehow have “unforeseen” consequences. From the moment you guess the twist right, the consequences are usually also seen as well.

Well, I can understand why some wouldn’t like it due to it’s pacing, but aside from that I take it you haven’t read it until the last route?

If the main focus is the plot, then in my opinion, said plot is too fast, too shallow and too predictable. I can’t make it anymore concise than this.
To say the fanservice moments are just “some” is really weird to me, but we’ll have to agree on disagree for our measurements of what is a lot and what isn’t.
Now, for you to say you haven’t noticed comedy in the show is just honestly baffling (unless you’re being ironic). If the cheermancy and videos of cat humping sequences aren’t comedy, than I don’t think I know what is. If it’s GOOD comedy or not is a different matter altogether.
Also, in my opinion I don’t see what’s distinctive about the characters of the show. Like, at all. But hey, we all have different opinions.

What I’m saying is that I didn’t think his actions and inner-thoughts (when shown) were done well. Whenever something about him was revealed, it felt forced because his actions did not portray any hint that there might’ve been something more to him aside from what we know. It’s like he just switches modes between “deep, meaningful past” and “nope, just a normal kid caught up in this mess”. It doesn’t feel natural.
In short, it does not have enough build up for me to suspend my disbelief when we suddenly learn he was a test subject in a laboratory that had superpowers and had his body switched to that of a girl. It’s like he doesn’t even care until it’s time for the reveal to roll up.