i could proceed to watching this anime episode, but this piano piece by Ernesto Lecuona is playing, and I shall let it finish playing first. Priorities, my friend.
See, this girl's uncle seems like a really silly cartoon villain with his "only _I_ can make you great with my flawless scheming!".
But then if we take a step back and don't presume that we're seeing what's actually happening but potentially seeing what's happening through an unreliable narrator's viewpoint. Then we might consider that what's being represented isn't what he actually says but what someone else feels he said.
If you're watching Asterisk then you're talking about Kirin, the other sword user, yeah?
Yep.
Then I have to disagree because next to nothing exists in the show to persuade me that Ayato is an unreliable narrator. He's generally accurate in his assessments, or at least somewhat able to read a scene. Even if socially dense, it's specifically only as concerns the girls showing interest in him until they get as blatant as Claudia (as is the norm with these sorts of LNs). So I can't really buy that.
I'm not necessarily referring to Ayato being an unreliable narrator.
It's just a more general sense of "what you see happening may not necessarily be exactly what actually happened".
re appreciating it like RWBY
It's hard to describe, but I think it has something to do with being very curious about the setting and the way the different characters and their backstories fit into it. As opposed to, say, taking a huge liking to the characters themselves.
It's hard to describe, but I think it has something to do with being very curious about the setting and the way the different characters and their backstories fit into it. As opposed to, say, taking a huge liking to the characters themselves.
Yeah I think we generally approach anime pretty differently, though that's not to say I haven't also felt the former so much as the latter resonates with me fairly strongly.
Well I definitely know that with RWBY I did find things like the Jaune arc (no pun intended) to be a little cringe-inducing, but my curiousity about seeing the rest of the story and seeing how things played out kept me going. Also the characters were endearing enough that I didn't hate them I guess.
But, frankly speaking, I don't usually hate boring things. Boring things become "meh". They don't inspire antipathy. Only when something actively goes out of its way to rub me the wrong way does it become antipathy.
Which probably explains why I don't hate things for being cliche. If it's just inoffensive and boring I'll just have a meh reaction to it.
In the case of Asterisk War, I'm still curious enough to see how things will pan out, and I want to see how all the pieces fit together. Some of the characters and/or their antics do irritate me (Claudia is the most notable example but she's not the only one), but I'm willing to turn a blind eye to those things in order to see more of this story.
"Why do you waste time with the story when there are things that irritate you about it?"
Well, I'm still curious enough to see the rest of it.
"Don't you feel you're wasting time that could be spent watching a better show?"
Not really.
"Why?"
I guess I just don't really think about it that way. When I want to watch Asterisk War, I kinda specifically want to watch Asterisk War. The time I spend on it is not (or at least is unlikely to be) time during which I'd be satisfied with watching some random other anime series.
I want to see Risk variant rules that allow armies to be in a territory they don't control. Also want it to be possible to leave a territory undefended. Also want a way for eliminated players to be able to influence the game. Also want a way for there to be a game ending condition other than one player controls all territories.
Well, so I've finished watching That One Series That's Not SAO That People Seem To Keep Flaming. In other words, The Asterisk War. Technically I've only seen half of it, but since the two cours are listed as separate series, I think it's fair to ask what I think of it at this point. After all, one of the reasons I watched this was because I was curious what all the fuss was about.
It's not perfect, though I don't find myself hating it.
I don't like the harem aspects, which seem really shoehorned in -- honestly this story would have worked just fine and probably better had it built the main cast through heroic-alliance-building than harem-building. The former actually makes perfect sense in context -- and besides they could have even given McPhail a bigger, more interesting role, for example.
The characterization was best when the show had heartfelt moments presenting the characters' backstories, as that showed the most personal insight into their characterization, but the "in the present" character moments were somewhat lackluster, in that it often showed just one or two sides of the character (and one of those sides was generally their infatuation with Ayato, which is a theme that could have been repeated less). Julis, awesome as she is, sadly doesn't get much focused screentime after the first few episodes, and that was disappointing. On the other hand, the most interesting character might be Irene.
The variety of abilities and the various tactics used by different characters in battle was certainly interesting. In this way this series reminded me a bit of RWBY (which, incidentally, also has somewhat weak characterization, at least early on). And as with RWBY, I continue to be interested to watch more, in order to find out more about the setting and "how things work" in this world.
I don't see any inherent problem with Ayato being overpowered. I understand that he's somewhat used as a wish-fulfillment character for audience appeal, but that's a metatextual element I neither feel personally nor find relevant to my opinion of the show. Meanwhile, his overpoweredness is actually presented pretty consistently -- something that could be said in general of the show's portrayal of the characters' abilities and how they match up.
The show presents a reasonably interesting setting with reasonably appealing visual aesthetics. The music that accompanies this storytelling is also decent, though in my opinion the real gem is the harmonically-brilliant ending theme, "Waiting for the Rain", written by Rasmus Faber. (I greatly enjoyed his OP for Lagrange: the Flower of Rin-ne as well.) Rather, the main trouble with this story is the storytelling itself.
I think it would be improved if the "harem scenes" -- i.e. where various characters seem to (often unfittingly and without nuance) express their infatuation with Ayato -- were replaced by lighthearted heartwarming scenes or more serious, dramatic scenes. Such scenes could be used to give greater depth to the characters, which is would be a much better use of the time. In general, the fanservice (even in the character designs) could be toned down and the characters could be taken a bit more seriously; that would have appealed to me more.
It strikes me that South Florida really was developed by -- to borrow some words from a song -- paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. Oftentimes quite literally.
Lottie Gehl is introduced in the second episode of Strain.
I love her attitude.
So there was an incident where someone bullied someone else. The second person had a good point, but it embarrassed the first person. The second person didn't want to talk about it, but the first person really wanted to chew out the second person over it. First person ended up walking away.
As first person walked away, Lottie injected herself into the conversation from a distance, pointing out that the first person had a good point.
It of course helped that Lottie is basically at the top of a higher-ranking class, so the second person stormed off in a huff, rather than retaliating in any way.
Still though, Lottie's dimunitive size compared to the people around her, coupled with her very strong month and willingness to jump into situations to set things right, make her a very memorable character, and probably my favorite (or second after the main character, possibly).
Seriously, the attitude of jumping into the fray to set things straight, done elegantly, is something I look up to.
So apparently the planned community we live in prohibits campaign signs on lawns.
People who made this rule deserve three slaps in public and having their lawn filled with campaign signs.
┌∩∩┐┌∩∩┐
Meanwhile I wonder how they worded the rule. I wonder if it's possible to get away with replacing one's lawn with non-grass (e.g. stones) and then placing a campaign sign there.
actually, fuck these winding, intenstinesquely-coiled gated communities in the first place
if you've lived here you will know how they basically give you no sense of place and also force you to use motorized transportation to get anywhere despite things being actually close by
I had some idle thoughts last night concerning how we consume media differently, but kinda forgot to do the whole "write a post" thing. So, scattered thoughts best I can remember.
"Predictable" storylines and beats are, it seems, generally easier for you than for me. Not that I find predictability to be an inherently bad thing - I mean, SOL shows are relatively predictable - in media, though in most shows it can go either way. Expecting something to happen in say a shounen show is rather different from in a SOL or Cute Girls Doing Things type of show, where the routine behavior is part of the calming draw (and thus can be a big strength or at least not minded as much), as opposed to an example of writing that relies overly much on cliches, or treads some of the same ground in characters or setting or plot and so on, or any other number of things. A lot of words for different genres and shows having dramatically different standards for what works within them and what can work more or less easily. For you, this isn't necessarily a weakness, while it can be for me. Take Ayato for example: From the entirety of S1 I gathered that he was passive, ridiculously powerful except with restraints due to his sister, has an older brother relationship with Kirin, (still) childhood friends with Saya, uneven relationship with Claudia, and best friends/battle mates with Julis, who herself is pretty much a classic tsundere. Save for the character development in the last, these are things I've seen before, never mind largely stuff you can easily gather by the time of their appearance, and takes little guesswork to confirm.
And, importantly, Ayato is the focus character. Unfortunately at that, considering he's still one of the blandest I've seen, arguably the least interesting in his own show (not done intentionally), and by being a bore necessarily drags down his dynamics with others. It's like, Julis may be interesting, but that's also by contrast to a fairly standard LN-adapted-into-anime protagonist, average in every way save for being OP protagonist. This is where you can lose me or draw me in, in this case lose because Asterisk never seemed to be more than a by-the-books battle shounen, with his companions not being much better than Ayato himself. Nothing novel, same precise sort of skeleton just with different flesh and an art design I like.
So-called novel attributes are not the be-all-end-all either, albeit something I probably value on average more than you. It's the stuff I tend to seek out, just because of who I am. And because of who I am, shows that do "something" with predictable traits in their work can interest me, as I actually gain some pleasure in calling the beats as they happen and seeing how the author adds personal twists to it. However, when even that lost value, it turned into me trying and failing not to hate-watch and sticking around because of inertia. This is all including the stuff you and I both took issue with: The harem aspects that felt shoehorned in, lackluster character development as we watch things change (although I honestly don't recall liking the past stuff either), although I still find myself uncertain of what you mean by figuring out "how things work" since that... even implicitly, seemed to be lacking in elaboration or ripeness. I think I hated it at the time though I don't now, but still struggle to see what it really brings as interesting to the scene beyond various things I could list off (which I suppose is "enough").
There's also how, I am puh-retty sure, I end up checking out more anime and manga than you because of whatever reasons, which would surely factor in at the base level. Actually I think I said all I wanted to say last night with the first part, before I ended up meandering and working TAW in as a convenient illustrative example.
Also I didn't enjoy the music, and choose to generally not talk about it since I have little to bring on that front: It worked acceptably, just never resonated with me or seemed important in itself, and I always skipped the OP and ED (latter being my favorite track).
From the entirety of S1 I gathered that he was passive, ridiculously powerful except with restraints due to his sister, has an older brother relationship with Kirin, (still) childhood friends with Saya, uneven relationship with Claudia, and best friends/battle mates with Julis, who herself is pretty much a classic tsundere.
To me, this is basically like, the baseline description of a scenario, neither particularly good nor bad in itself. I guess I just lack the right (wrong?) associations to jump to conclusions like that? As you suggested, probably because I haven't seen enough stuff like this to get sick of it yet.
The other possibility is that maybe I automatically flesh them out in my head so that while Julis (for example) is "just a tsundere" to other people, to me she is "a character with tsundere traits". As for what other traits she might have, if the show doesn't display them explicitly, then that just leaves more blanks for me to fill in with my imagination, usually by thinking "if I were this character, how would I behave in such and such situation?".
And, importantly, Ayato is the focus character. Unfortunately at that, considering he's still one of the blandest I've seen, arguably the least interesting in his own show (not done intentionally), and by being a bore necessarily drags down his dynamics with others. It's like, Julis may be interesting, but that's also by contrast to a fairly standard LN-adapted-into-anime protagonist, average in every way save for being OP protagonist. This is where you can lose me or draw me in, in this case lose because Asterisk never seemed to be more than a by-the-books battle shounen, with his companions not being much better than Ayato himself. Nothing novel, same precise sort of skeleton just with different flesh and an art design I like.
The fact that I broadly agree wth the criticisms of the story, yet have a different overall opinion of it, suggests that I'm actually not really watching it "for the story", at least "for the story from a literary appreciation perspective". Maybe I'm here for the character art and the ending theme, as well as setting fodder for me to imagine things into. And maybe also the co-op battle strategy, which I also found interesting. And then that would mean that the story is basically a vehicle to move things along, rather than the primary draw.
Kinda like how sometimes you want to spend time with someone and then you schedule an event to use to spend time with them, but the real point isn't the event, the point is having an excuse to be there with that person.
I actually gain some pleasure in calling the beats as they happen and seeing how the author adds personal twists to it.
I think I get pleasure less so from figuring it out ahead of time, but more so from being along for the ride and figuring it out at the same time as the characters themselves do.
although I still find myself uncertain of what you mean by figuring out "how things work" since that... even implicitly, seemed to be lacking in elaboration or ripeness.
I think that's just a natural sense of curiosity when I'm in a new place, and being immersed in a story is like being in a new place.
Then again it may also be true that I've got a larger sense of curiosity than you do, I dunno. Or alternatively, I've watched so few similar shows that this still feels fresh. Actually this might just be related to that general sense of wanting to know how the story ends?
It may even have something to do with my tendency to not want to judge something until I know it for sure, and once I've started watching something and developed some inclination of caring about the characters, I actually do feel committed to find out what happens to them, like I care about what happens to them.
And I want that thrill of wishing for something, and either that wish coming true in the end, or that wish being tragically dashed, or something like that. I guess I'm just not jaded enough yet.
From the entirety of S1 I gathered that he was passive, ridiculously powerful except with restraints due to his sister, has an older brother relationship with Kirin, (still) childhood friends with Saya, uneven relationship with Claudia, and best friends/battle mates with Julis, who herself is pretty much a classic tsundere.
To me, this is basically like, the baseline description of a scenario, neither particularly good nor bad in itself. I guess I just lack the right (wrong?) associations to jump to conclusions like that? As you suggested, probably because I haven't seen enough stuff like this to get sick of it yet.
The other possibility is that maybe I automatically flesh them out in my head so that while Julis (for example) is "just a tsundere" to other people, to me she is "a character with tsundere traits". As for what other traits she might have, if the show doesn't display them explicitly, then that just leaves more blanks for me to fill in with my imagination, usually by thinking "if I were this character, how would I behave in such and such situation?".
Framed like that, I am not inherently bothered by such works, as it's all very context-dependent to me. However the distinction you defined doesn't exist to me if a character doesn't develop enough past those traits. Julis read most charitably is also a compassionate person with dedication to her companions and doesn't fall over Ayato all at once, and whose single-mindedness springs from how highly she values her position; but, I feel like I could just as well file compassion under the broad dere side of her, while the rest isn't that much to me. I generally don't like doing that because it's simplistic, though in this case (as well as others), "just a tsundere" and "tsundere plus one or two other things" is not much of a meaningful distinction, if you see where I'm coming from. I am fairly certain I get where you're coming from, in that she's fleshed out "enough" to be her own person, yet also let you look into the world through her eyes. It makes sense, it's just not where I'm coming from, in that I don't think I could reasonably call my personalized inferences as coming from the show itself.
And, importantly, Ayato is the focus character. Unfortunately at that, considering he's still one of the blandest I've seen, arguably the least interesting in his own show (not done intentionally), and by being a bore necessarily drags down his dynamics with others. It's like, Julis may be interesting, but that's also by contrast to a fairly standard LN-adapted-into-anime protagonist, average in every way save for being OP protagonist. This is where you can lose me or draw me in, in this case lose because Asterisk never seemed to be more than a by-the-books battle shounen, with his companions not being much better than Ayato himself. Nothing novel, same precise sort of skeleton just with different flesh and an art design I like.
The fact that I broadly agree wth the criticisms of the story, yet have a different overall opinion of it, suggests that I'm actually not really watching it "for the story", at least "for the story from a literary appreciation perspective". Maybe I'm here for the character art and the ending theme, as well as setting fodder for me to imagine things into. And maybe also the co-op battle strategy, which I also found interesting. And then that would mean that the story is basically a vehicle to move things along, rather than the primary draw.
Kinda like how sometimes you want to spend time with someone and then you schedule an event to use to spend time with them, but the real point isn't the event, the point is having an excuse to be there with that person.
I can get that. In your case, you could get attached enough to the characters and story; I, obviously, could not. Personally, the sort of criticisms I mention don't do well for the verisimilitude I seek in fiction (just broadly speaking), so going that far is a no-go.
I actually gain some pleasure in calling the beats as they happen and seeing how the author adds personal twists to it.
I think I get pleasure less so from figuring it out ahead of time, but more so from being along for the ride and figuring it out at the same time as the characters themselves do.
I could go either way, and in the best of times end up feeling both. If everything was predictable, goodness, that would be a hollow and mechanical experience.
although I still find myself uncertain of what you mean by figuring out "how things work" since that... even implicitly, seemed to be lacking in elaboration or ripeness.
I think that's just a natural sense of curiosity when I'm in a new place, and being immersed in a story is like being in a new place.
Then again it may also be true that I've got a larger sense of curiosity than you do, I dunno. Or alternatively, I've watched so few similar shows that this still feels fresh. Actually this might just be related to that general sense of wanting to know how the story ends?
It may even have something to do with my tendency to not want to judge something until I know it for sure, and once I've started watching something and developed some inclination of caring about the characters, I actually do feel committed to find out what happens to them, like I care about what happens to them.
And I want that thrill of wishing for something, and either that wish coming true in the end, or that wish being tragically dashed, or something like that. I guess I'm just not jaded enough yet.
See the verisimilitude comment for immersion, since for how I get involved in media they're pretty strongly overlapping. The differences I'm inclined to chalk this up to the freshness, and a likely higher threshold for wanting to see how stories that have problematic elements yet still interest you end up finishing (speaking of, if you get to the second season I'll be curious to see what you think since I stopped two episodes in). Those, and I don't mind judging something preemptively depending on the context. Like, Masou Gakuen HxH has an exceedingly steep hill to climb for me to think of it as anything other than what I read about concerning the first episode, though as memory serves it's keeping to the course. But I at least follow where you're coming from. To over-simplify between "seeking experiences" and "seeking entertaining stories", the former is seriously variable, while the latter is not, I suppose.
Oh I always watch the OP and ED unless they really annoy me. On the other hand, people skipping them at anime club more often annoys me.
Same, I guess I just have a much lower threshold for OPs that bother me, and thus skip them more. But in an anime club? I'd say always watch them, short of running low on time.
It makes sense, it's just not where I'm coming from, in that I don't think I could reasonably call my personalized inferences as coming from the show itself.
I guess. I'm counting them as part of the totality of my experience of the story, since they are thoughts that are directly inspired by it, and as such they influence my opinion of the story.
Personally, the sort of criticisms I mention don't do well for the verisimilitude I seek in fiction (just broadly speaking), so going that far is a no-go. ... See the verisimilitude comment for immersion, since for how I get involved in media they're pretty strongly overlapping.
What do you mean by "verisimilitude"? Because if anything, I feel that I'm considering the story as if it were something happening in the world around me, hence my describing it as "immersion". I know in the back of my mind that it's not "real", but immersing myself and then pretending that it is, that's suspension of disblief.
(speaking of, if you get to the second season I'll be curious to see what you think since I stopped two episodes in)
The second season of The Asterisk War? I stopped after one; I figured that I wanted to wait until it got dubbed since I think I'd enjoy it more that way, and I know it's getting one.
And well, essentially that? Being able to be immersed, and forget that I'm suspending my disbelief (with or without a bit of work), characters I can relate to and care about the characters as if I communicated with them in person, etc. Isaac and Miria may be totally outlandish people in Baccano!, but are some of the realistic and relateable characters in the entire series, or now that I think about it, perhaps everything Narita has been involved in.
TAW, yeah. Noted. Why do you think you'd enjoy the dub more?
A dub often lets me feel closer to the characters, I think.
As in, I'm not just reading their words and having effectively-meaningless sound effects convey their tone; I'm actually hearing their words in their tone of voice.
Comments
(picture is SFW, site is not)
beautiful portrait of yuri nakamura: http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=467052
But then if we take a step back and don't presume that we're seeing what's actually happening but potentially seeing what's happening through an unreliable narrator's viewpoint. Then we might consider that what's being represented isn't what he actually says but what someone else feels he said.
it has spicy curry and two people who dislike spicy curry
this is feeling a bit like rwby in terms of the way i'm appreciating it, actually
I'm not necessarily referring to Ayato being an unreliable narrator.
It's just a more general sense of "what you see happening may not necessarily be exactly what actually happened".
re appreciating it like RWBY
It's hard to describe, but I think it has something to do with being very curious about the setting and the way the different characters and their backstories fit into it. As opposed to, say, taking a huge liking to the characters themselves.
But, frankly speaking, I don't usually hate boring things. Boring things become "meh". They don't inspire antipathy. Only when something actively goes out of its way to rub me the wrong way does it become antipathy.
Which probably explains why I don't hate things for being cliche. If it's just inoffensive and boring I'll just have a meh reaction to it.
In the case of Asterisk War, I'm still curious enough to see how things will pan out, and I want to see how all the pieces fit together. Some of the characters and/or their antics do irritate me (Claudia is the most notable example but she's not the only one), but I'm willing to turn a blind eye to those things in order to see more of this story.
Well, I'm still curious enough to see the rest of it.
"Don't you feel you're wasting time that could be spent watching a better show?"
Not really.
"Why?"
I guess I just don't really think about it that way. When I want to watch Asterisk War, I kinda specifically want to watch Asterisk War. The time I spend on it is not (or at least is unlikely to be) time during which I'd be satisfied with watching some random other anime series.
It wasn't really "finding what happens to them", as much as it was "here's how the writing team decided to end things". It didn't feel organic.
I'm interested in vicariously living and thereby understanding the experiences of others.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12209/full
and my dose of philosophy for the day:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12254/full
that's not fun at all
Well, so I've finished watching That One Series That's Not SAO That People Seem To Keep Flaming. In other words, The Asterisk War. Technically I've only seen half of it, but since the two cours are listed as separate series, I think it's fair to ask what I think of it at this point. After all, one of the reasons I watched this was because I was curious what all the fuss was about.
It's not perfect, though I don't find myself hating it.
I don't like the harem aspects, which seem really shoehorned in -- honestly this story would have worked just fine and probably better had it built the main cast through heroic-alliance-building than harem-building. The former actually makes perfect sense in context -- and besides they could have even given McPhail a bigger, more interesting role, for example.
The characterization was best when the show had heartfelt moments presenting the characters' backstories, as that showed the most personal insight into their characterization, but the "in the present" character moments were somewhat lackluster, in that it often showed just one or two sides of the character (and one of those sides was generally their infatuation with Ayato, which is a theme that could have been repeated less). Julis, awesome as she is, sadly doesn't get much focused screentime after the first few episodes, and that was disappointing. On the other hand, the most interesting character might be Irene.
The variety of abilities and the various tactics used by different characters in battle was certainly interesting. In this way this series reminded me a bit of RWBY (which, incidentally, also has somewhat weak characterization, at least early on). And as with RWBY, I continue to be interested to watch more, in order to find out more about the setting and "how things work" in this world.
I don't see any inherent problem with Ayato being overpowered. I understand that he's somewhat used as a wish-fulfillment character for audience appeal, but that's a metatextual element I neither feel personally nor find relevant to my opinion of the show. Meanwhile, his overpoweredness is actually presented pretty consistently -- something that could be said in general of the show's portrayal of the characters' abilities and how they match up.
The show presents a reasonably interesting setting with reasonably appealing visual aesthetics. The music that accompanies this storytelling is also decent, though in my opinion the real gem is the harmonically-brilliant ending theme, "Waiting for the Rain", written by Rasmus Faber. (I greatly enjoyed his OP for Lagrange: the Flower of Rin-ne as well.) Rather, the main trouble with this story is the storytelling itself.
I think it would be improved if the "harem scenes" -- i.e. where various characters seem to (often unfittingly and without nuance) express their infatuation with Ayato -- were replaced by lighthearted heartwarming scenes or more serious, dramatic scenes. Such scenes could be used to give greater depth to the characters, which is would be a much better use of the time. In general, the fanservice (even in the character designs) could be toned down and the characters could be taken a bit more seriously; that would have appealed to me more.
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11759842/chuck-tingle-hugo-award-rabid-puppies-explained
I love her attitude.
So there was an incident where someone bullied someone else. The second person had a good point, but it embarrassed the first person. The second person didn't want to talk about it, but the first person really wanted to chew out the second person over it. First person ended up walking away.
As first person walked away, Lottie injected herself into the conversation from a distance, pointing out that the first person had a good point.
It of course helped that Lottie is basically at the top of a higher-ranking class, so the second person stormed off in a huff, rather than retaliating in any way.
Still though, Lottie's dimunitive size compared to the people around her, coupled with her very strong month and willingness to jump into situations to set things right, make her a very memorable character, and probably my favorite (or second after the main character, possibly).
Seriously, the attitude of jumping into the fray to set things straight, done elegantly, is something I look up to.
People who made this rule deserve three slaps in public and having their lawn filled with campaign signs.
┌∩∩┐┌∩∩┐
Meanwhile I wonder how they worded the rule. I wonder if it's possible to get away with replacing one's lawn with non-grass (e.g. stones) and then placing a campaign sign there.
if you've lived here you will know how they basically give you no sense of place and also force you to use motorized transportation to get anywhere despite things being actually close by
It's like swordfighting only with signs.
reply to longer post in a moment
powerful except with restraints due to his sister, has an older brother
relationship with Kirin, (still) childhood friends with Saya, uneven
relationship with Claudia, and best friends/battle mates with Julis, who
herself is pretty much a classic tsundere.
To me, this is basically like, the baseline description of a scenario, neither particularly good nor bad in itself. I guess I just lack the right (wrong?) associations to jump to conclusions like that? As you suggested, probably because I haven't seen enough stuff like this to get sick of it yet.
The other possibility is that maybe I automatically flesh them out in my head so that while Julis (for example) is "just a tsundere" to other people, to me she is "a character with tsundere traits". As for what other traits she might have, if the show doesn't display them explicitly, then that just leaves more blanks for me to fill in with my imagination, usually by thinking "if I were this character, how would I behave in such and such situation?".
considering he's still one of the blandest I've seen, arguably the least
interesting in his own show (not done intentionally), and by being a
bore necessarily drags down his dynamics with others. It's like, Julis
may be interesting, but that's also by contrast to a fairly standard
LN-adapted-into-anime protagonist, average in every way save for being
OP protagonist. This is where you can lose me or draw me in, in this
case lose because Asterisk never seemed to be more than a
by-the-books battle shounen, with his companions not being much better
than Ayato himself. Nothing novel, same precise sort of skeleton just
with different flesh and an art design I like.
The fact that I broadly agree wth the criticisms of the story, yet have a different overall opinion of it, suggests that I'm actually not really watching it "for the story", at least "for the story from a literary appreciation perspective". Maybe I'm here for the character art and the ending theme, as well as setting fodder for me to imagine things into. And maybe also the co-op battle strategy, which I also found interesting. And then that would mean that the story is basically a vehicle to move things along, rather than the primary draw.
Kinda like how sometimes you want to spend time with someone and then you schedule an event to use to spend time with them, but the real point isn't the event, the point is having an excuse to be there with that person.
I think I get pleasure less so from figuring it out ahead of time, but more so from being along for the ride and figuring it out at the same time as the characters themselves do.
"how things work" since that... even implicitly, seemed to be lacking in
elaboration or ripeness.
I think that's just a natural sense of curiosity when I'm in a new place, and being immersed in a story is like being in a new place.
Then again it may also be true that I've got a larger sense of curiosity than you do, I dunno. Or alternatively, I've watched so few similar shows that this still feels fresh. Actually this might just be related to that general sense of wanting to know how the story ends?
It may even have something to do with my tendency to not want to judge something until I know it for sure, and once I've started watching something and developed some inclination of caring about the characters, I actually do feel committed to find out what happens to them, like I care about what happens to them.
And I want that thrill of wishing for something, and either that wish coming true in the end, or that wish being tragically dashed, or something like that. I guess I'm just not jaded enough yet.
As in, I'm not just reading their words and having effectively-meaningless sound effects convey their tone; I'm actually hearing their words in their tone of voice.