The Story
After a week of Darling in the FranXX fan toxicity – including everything from pure irrational hate, to making a petition to “destroy Ichigo” and more famously lashing out at the series’ staff – we received an episode (15) that was not only beautifully constructed, but did a great deal to resolve the lingering fan drama from episode 14.
Tell me more but make it fast
Episode 15 was a treasure in a lot of ways, mainly stemming from the commendable efforts of a very powerful staff lineup. However, it brought additional value in its ultimate handling of Ichigo, Zero Two and Hiro’s relationships. It gave Zero Two fans the emotional avenue they wanted and Ichigo fans a very respectable resolution. It was a win/win for both sides and those of us who weren’t picking sides – still a fantastic viewing experience in a craft sense.
Sounds like a lot of fans jumped the gun with all of that hate then
Yup, they should have honestly waited to see how the narrative would play out before overreacting like they did. Understandably, as seasonal watchers it’s easy to get caught up in the week to week conversations, but there’s no excuse for the level of behavior that we all saw recently. Hopefully those fans look back on comments like this and see how stupid that sort of reaction is.
So those fans should feel stupid?
I would. If I was getting that worked up over fictional teenage relationships to do what some of these fans did – only to see what happened the following episode – I would feel really stupid. As previously mentioned, there’s no excuse for that level of behavior.
The Bottom Line
I hope all of this acts as a nice lesson for Darling in the FranXX fans and our community on a greater whole. If you ever feel frustrated enough at a series’ narrative choices to the point that you’re lashing out at fans / staff, then take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and tell yourself “It’s just a TV show” because really, it’s not that big of a deal.
“QUOTE OF THE WEEK”
– The title of a dead serious Darling in the FranXX thread. Brace yourself, the cringe in the first post is strong.
SEASONAL PRATTLE
Find what you’re looking for fast
Shokugeki no Souma: San no Sara – Toutsuki Ressha-hen
Steins;Gate 0
Mahou Shoujo Site
Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii
Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai
Hinamatsuri
Last Period: Owarinaki Rasen no Monogatari
Caligula
3D Kanojo: Real Girl
Darling in the FranXX
Shokugeki no Souma: San no Sara – Toutsuki Ressha-hen (14)
Elevating small character moments into a narrative that really captures the tone and pacing of those characters lives is often an approach found outside this genre space. However, Shokugeki no Souma is certainly making it work to pleasing effect this week. With more touch than usual, Shokugkei’s second half has plenty of well placed Erina bits – the vast majority of them confident in their design and purposeful in texturing her character. I can really appreciate the extra effort in making her scenes pop.
Worthwhile Prattle:
Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma – San no Sara – 14
Steins;Gate 0 (2)
Another week, another round of graceful storytelling. Steins;Gate 0 exhibited all the fundamental strengths of a well polished episode all the way down to its hypnotic cadence; It’s so easy to get swept up in SG’s narrative that time simply seems to just fly by. But beyond that, White Fox made good use of its CG moments. Amadeus using that modeling is a good fit, and it comes across more naturally than other Spring works implementing the same elements.
Kurisu’s AI Debut and How Everyone has Changed, Steins;Gate 0 Episode 2
Mahou Shoujo Site (3)
Had it come out ten years earlier, Mahou Shoujo Site would have at least gotten some credit for novelty, but here, all there’s to be found is conventionality and lackluster writing. This week offers plenty of cringe and tropes, but little to actually elevate its genre space – coming off as all too convenient in its last ten minutes and way too plainly executed in the first ten. In a sense, it’s actually a feat at how lower this series can push the bar down.
Worthwhile Prattle:
MAHOU SHOUJO SITE EP. 3: DEEPER INTO THE SNAKE PIT
Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii (2)
The more I see Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii work its smaller conversations, the more confident I am that this series is genuinely in good hands. A lot of this week’s material reinforced the well-illustrated and endearingly self doubting aspects of the cast – which has been a consistent treat to enjoy. There are occasional lazy jokes, but most of the humor emerges directly from the fundamental nature of the characters and feels properly restrained. It’s a pleasure to have this on Thursdays.
Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai (3)
Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai’s writing is still simplistic, but the heavy use of Nyanko Big’s perspective this week worked to lend it much-needed flavor till the second half. Once there, Doga Kobo’s knack for character work took over, not only presenting more generous doses of Nyanko Big, but a well done Teresa / Alex flashback sequence that did its fair share to provide both of them more texture for their relationship. Not bad.
Worthwhile Prattle:
Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai – 03
Hinamatsuri (3)
Showing off relentlessly solid fundamentals, Hinamatsuri brought another strong outing to the table – filled with great pacing, efficient character work, and so many little jokes. This episode did a fine job at balancing its comedic delivery with emotional weight; There’s plenty of well composed physical gags but also taught dramatic beats to mirror them. The value of Anzu’s homeless struggles are just as validly earned as Hitomi’s bartender antics.
Worthwhile Prattle:
Last Period: Owarinaki Rasen no Monogatari (2)
I really wish viewers hadn’t been successfully trained to value fourth wall breaks and meta humor to the extent that they do, and with that, blatant approaches to this brand of comedy like Last Period’s recent efforts would be less likely attempted. If Last Period’s first episode didn’t make it abundantly clear that we’re completely satisfied with delivering the most broad, lazy, can’t-miss humor possible, then rest assured that’s certainly the intention after this week.
Caligula (2)
Caligula is still walking a tightrope in its second episode – \with some nice design elements and a theoretically compelling concept, but a lot of the writing just feels under-cooked. There’s times where I sort of wish we had more concrete exposition, instead of just skating by on viewer intrigue and faint hints that this will all narratively come together. I’m all for “show don’t tell” but having a bit of small talk every now and then has never hurt anybody.
3D Kanojo: Real Girl (3)
It’s inherently tough to interact with character drama completely on the level those characters are experiencing them, because we’re never truly holding that perspective. As viewers, we watch the majority of the narrative roll out with perfect information, we’re generally aware of all the thoughtlines, goals and desires the cast in question has. We’re not limited by the emotional chances the characters are taking, and thus, it can be trickier than most think for a director to fully sell their scenes. Despite the usual dialogue hangups in 3D Kanojo, episode three actually does a good job of selling its characters’ concerns. It’s not the most compelling effort, but a fine one nonetheless.
Darling in the FranXX (15)
The way this series is able to use less to say more in terms of layout and design, letting the landscape depict the emotion of a scene is incredibly strong. When you back that with beautiful insert tracks and easily investable writing – it basically goes without saying that our latest Darling in the FranXX is on another level. The job done here is really admirable, not only just for craft reasons, but in the way its brand of storytelling manages to succeed despite the irrational backlash that it’s coming off of. Well done.
Worthwhile Prattle:
THOUGHTS: DARLING IN THE FRANXX EPISODE 15
If you enjoy this blog and would like to see more of them then please consider following Seasonal Prattle or using the sharing tools below to spread the word. Thank you!
11 thoughts on “Dear Toxic Darling in the FranXX Fans, You Can Officially Feel Stupid Now”
I’m still utterly baffled by how toxic the fandom was last week. Ichigo’s actions weren’t right, but they were certainly understandable and justified, so seeing people get so worked up about the whole situation is just strange to me. There’s no reason to get so angry at a creator over a work of fiction, especially when said work is barely halfway done.
Agreed. I’m really hoping a similar situation doesn’t arise in the future, and if so, I’m hoping people can look back at what happened here and use these circumstances as a reference for ridiculous behavior to stop.
I’d drop MC’s position and take over so I can have more girls to myself…
Ah. Even I can dream…
I guess a new thread would have to be started then:
“Will you drop this show if Shokamoka kisses a third girl?”
Come on. Am I really the only one having the hots for Kokoro?
Talking about underrated waifu in a mainstream series. Pfft. She still interests me as her ideas about the not so subtle nature of sex kept getting her some scolding from others. XD
If Hiro kisses her then I’ma drop FranXX, cold!
You hear that A-1 and Trigger? The lines have been drawn, don’t cross them!
darling in the franxx truly is the re: zero of the season for me; an anime that i can’t for the life of me understand why it gets so much praise. Well, i guess it’s not entirely accurate for me to say that i don’t get why, because i do; I just think a lot of it is unwarranted. As one of the conversational posts mentioned, a lot of darling in the franxx is stewarded by “easily investable” writing; which means the show itself doesn’t really have to do any heavy lifting to write genuinely interesting characters, create compelling drama, or an enthralling world. For one, Ichigo is literally the only member of the cast who remotely gets close be a well-written character. I’d be willing to entertain the argument that zero-two is an alright character but to be honest, her whole whole character arc feels so artificial that i don’t genuinely care about her at all. People praise the world building but when if you really think about it and breakdown how the writing has gone about establishing its setting, you would realize that the world building is not that good. People praise the cast when again, a little bit of deeper thinking would reveal that they aren’t perspicaciously well-written characters. I think the show has it’s strong points like the ability of the directing to sell the theatrics of its scenarios, but man are there some issues that hold this series back from being great. It really is re: zero all over again. We are so used to being emotionally pulled along by media that it feels like we’ve forgotten how to appreciate genuinely well-written drama and characters.
On a more positive note, I like how the collaboration between A-1 and trigger is proving how healthy a partnership like this can be for the integrity of an anime’s production schedule. This show has been visually consistent throughout its 15 eps and has been promoted even before the series began, factors that have played a part in the show’s overall popularity. I want to see more collaborative (and promotional) efforts like this between studios going forward as they are necessary steps to improve the profitability of anime and the infrastructure of the industry as a whole
Ahhh a Sonic comment. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one of these and I always enjoy them.
I agree with you in a broad sense that FranXX’s level of world building isn’t the quality it’s generally portrayed to be. I think it has its moments, it certainly works in particular episodic vacuums now and then rather than continuous stretches, but your take is a reasonable one in the bigger picture nonetheless. As far as the bit on easily investable writing, I think FranXX’s hand in creating that threshold might be getting undersold here. Sure this work has plenty of manufactured beats to reach for its drama – a lot of characters are carved from that source too – however I believe there’s a reasonable level of craft from them that earns their fallout. You’re already willing to credit Ichigo to a pretty decent extent in terms of character writing and your foot is at least somewhat in the door for Zero Two (two of the three more pertinent characters thus far). With that in mind and in conjunction with FranXX’s writing invoking one of, if not the biggest emotional responses from fans (even considering its level of authenticity in doing so) in recent years, I believe it’s fair to say an adequate amount of its current praise is warranted. This statement becomes even more mentally manageable when you keep in mind its prowess in a production sense.
I agree with you on the Re:Zero comp and I’m with you on your outlook on collabs.
Haha nice talking with you as usual. I disappear when i have a hard time accessing the site. Again; I just want to be clear that while I’d be willing to entertain the argument that Zero-two is a “character,” I don’t think she’s a particularly interesting one. There’s just such a manufactured glossiness to the way her story has been told and I just don’t care for it. As for the other characters, I couldn’t give two shits about about em’ except Ichigo because she’s the only one who genuinely feels like a character. The reason why i said i’d be willing to entertain an argument about Zero-two being a decent character is because at least we were exposed to her gradual descent into insanity (albeit without any real engaging character work) before rebounding back and accepting her flaws. Watching those scenes unfold was entertaining in a sense, but that’s mostly because of how those episodes were crafted by their directing rather than the actual character or narrative writing, which together makes up a large percentage of what I value in my storytelling.
I think you underestimate just how effortless it can be to use “easily investable” writing to do all your narrative heavy lifting and get a strong emotional response out of your audience without needing your writing to be expertly executed. You probably won’t agree with what I’m about to say because if I remember correctly, you really love this film, but why do you think “Your Name” had such global success? It’s a film where the threshold of investment was so low because of its central theme that it took the world by storm. Who cares if the two main leads weren’t three-dimensional in a film that was centered around their chemistry? Who cares about some of the questionable plot contrivances? who cares about how it doesn’t explore its concepts of dreams, surrealism, culture, love, distance, and gender roles to an effective degree or integrate them more skillfully into its narrative? The easily investable and romanticizing of the idea that there is somebody out there for you was enough to sweep people off their feet and praise the film to high-heaven as one of the best animated films of all time. I enjoyed Your Name, but man did the things i mentioned make it difficult for me to find it as engaging as everyone was hailing it to be. And again, this comes from the fact that a lot of what made Your Name a tender tale of love was its subject being inherently relatable and investable to a wide group of people. Yes, you have a point about craftsmanship, but where exactly that craftsmanship lies is equally important; is it in the writing, the visuals, the editing, the scene composition?. You can have great craft in your editing or scene composition or scenario staging, and yes; those things require deft handling and creativity, but those things cannot always uplift up your core writing. Things like that should accentuate your narrative,not be the entire crux in which you judge the narrative itself.. I admire Shinkai’s visual craft in Your name was excellent. Through some great editing and scene composition, the man was able to construct some visually powerful moments in the movie that cover up some of the films narrative blemishes; stuff that really wrapped me within some of the movie’s emotional highlights. Unfortunately, that doesn’t absolve the film of the rest of its faults.
Thank you for the Zero Two clarification.
And yes,you recall correctly. I am relatively high on the film (but its more for production reasons and Shinkai’s personal craft than anything else). So you actually won’t find really any contention from me with what you’re saying in your second section. However, I do want to address a particular notion in that section on a whole as it pertains to your thoughts earlier today on FranXX (thinking a lot of FranXX’s praise is unwarranted / demonstrating that through my statement of “easily investable” writing) and elaborate a little bit because that’s really where our differences rest:
“I think you underestimate just how effortless it can be to use “easily investable” writing to do all your narrative heavy lifting and get a strong emotional response out of your audience without needing your writing to be expertly executed.”
Let’s just say for the sake of this discussion that I do. Okay, Trigger and A-1 have a super low-effort means to achieve the emotional goals that they’re going for and to unfold their narrative. So are we discrediting FranXX’s praise for taking advantage of that and being very effective with that approach? Even if we are, the emotional response they gained with it as of recent are still commendable. At the end of the day Darling in the FranXX got what they want in doses that are rare in the community, and I believe that deserves some semblance of praise regardless of the perceived levels of effort and quality of the methods to do so (at the very least for scarcity sake).
While you likely won’t give it much credit (if any at all) in this context or even agree with me, I just wanted to illustrate the value that can be found there and why it can be considered praise worthy even when you’re low on its process.
Outside of that, I really don’t have anything else left to say on this topic now that I got this point out. It’s not like I’m trying to convince you that DiTF is exactly worthy of its current praise so there’s really not much left for me here. So with that and as always, it’s a pleasure talking to you Sonic and hearing out your perspective.
Yea, in some ways I am discrediting it for its approach because it’s similar to using juvenile storytelling for the sake of shock value to get a rise out of your audience. There’s a lack of strong writing to bolster all this. I had a much much longer comment dissecting the flaws of the show (while highlighting some of the good) and explained why they result in a lower net positive for me but i scrapped it because it was much too long. Still, I guess you have a point. I agree with your argument to a certain extent; the praise for the show is at an extreme high right now and analyzing why that is important to elucidating some inherent value many are seeing with the show. I guess i can vibe with that. Again, I think there are things to like about this show; I guess I’m just surprised with how strongly this anime is resonating with the anime community considering how derivative i think it is. But yea, i think your point about the anime having something going for it has some validity. Ill keep this in mind when i construct my review once the series ends. I’m sure the show is going to end in a way that makes the anime community explode with emotion, whether good or bad
Comments are closed.