Rapdily tanking with My Otome
Oct. 31st, 2005 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo, we're up to episode four and, as utterly amazing as Haruka was in this episode, I can't sustain the same level of interest as I could in Mai HiME. My Otome suffers from the same disease as the Matrix series, and it's doing poorly for it.
In the first episode of The Matrix, the big question that desperately needed to be answered is: What *is* Trinity? We see her do amazing, inhuman things, and the dramatic tension of the movie is sustained by the quest to answer that question. In Mai HiME, the dramatic tension is created by a similar conflict: What is the black-haired chick with the motorcycle helmet, what is the little girl with the nasty-bad sword, and what is it that Mai Tokiha experienced when she faced down those two on the deck of the ferry? Mai HiME did a good job of building tension off those questions and jerking us around in its quest for an answer.
The later Matrix movies were just a drag-down knockout fight. My Otome is setting us up for the same kind of fight, and there is little dramatic tension in that. Few mysteries are present. We know what the Otome are, to a fault, and even have a silly explanation for why the series is basically yuri-on-the-hoof. The arc of conflict between Arika and Nina is also more or less obvious, as is the dramatic revelation about Arika's origins. Unless My Otome starts to get serious about the drama part of its dramedy, it's going to be a loser.
Speaking of the comedy part, the jokes this episode were just lame. Haruka still has dyslexia, and Yukino (now President Kikukawa, talk about casting against type!) carries around a bullhorn to correct her. Sad. And Mashiro doing paperwork was just as unfunny.
The fact that the character-in-shadow in the OP is probably Mai Tokiha bugs me.
Mai Tokiha in My Otome Opening Piece
In the first episode of The Matrix, the big question that desperately needed to be answered is: What *is* Trinity? We see her do amazing, inhuman things, and the dramatic tension of the movie is sustained by the quest to answer that question. In Mai HiME, the dramatic tension is created by a similar conflict: What is the black-haired chick with the motorcycle helmet, what is the little girl with the nasty-bad sword, and what is it that Mai Tokiha experienced when she faced down those two on the deck of the ferry? Mai HiME did a good job of building tension off those questions and jerking us around in its quest for an answer.
The later Matrix movies were just a drag-down knockout fight. My Otome is setting us up for the same kind of fight, and there is little dramatic tension in that. Few mysteries are present. We know what the Otome are, to a fault, and even have a silly explanation for why the series is basically yuri-on-the-hoof. The arc of conflict between Arika and Nina is also more or less obvious, as is the dramatic revelation about Arika's origins. Unless My Otome starts to get serious about the drama part of its dramedy, it's going to be a loser.
Speaking of the comedy part, the jokes this episode were just lame. Haruka still has dyslexia, and Yukino (now President Kikukawa, talk about casting against type!) carries around a bullhorn to correct her. Sad. And Mashiro doing paperwork was just as unfunny.
The fact that the character-in-shadow in the OP is probably Mai Tokiha bugs me.
Mai Tokiha in My Otome Opening Piece
