Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Gushing Over Magical Girls
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Essedess
Posts: 52 |
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For those worried about what the show might to with/to Alice later, don't be. As a manga reader, I'm telling you you have nothing to worry about. I doubt they would add anything more then her transformation to the anime. Nobody lewded (is that even a word?) in the manga, and pretty much everyone is nice to her. Even villains/antagonists have standards, you know.
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encrypted12345
Posts: 718 |
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The manga is strangely sincerely wholesome at times, and those sincere moments stand out way more because of how degenerate it is most of the time. And then there are the times where the manga somehow manages to make a depraved scene bizarrely wholesome at the same time because of the context.
I thought this was historical fact (with Alice in Wonderland being about a little girl he liked and all) |
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John the Dark Lord
Posts: 234 |
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There has been a lot of controversies about this subject. His page on wikipedia lists some arguments people have made both condemning and defending him if you want to know more. |
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Yuvelir
 Posts: 1575 |
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Finally, cute and wholesome? Korisu is here. I love when she's around, the way her relationships and interests develop is so heartwarming.
Oh yeah we're getting Baiser's Big Brother room this season! |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2524 |
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In his initial review for Chained Soldiers, James claimed it was a "cornucopia of perversion". Well, this episode blows that distinction out of the water, because that show "ain't got nuttin'" on Gushing! WTF threesome and whatever a preteen girl sexually assaulting a young woman is called (can't even find the term). And we still have seven whole episodes to see what else they can dish up...
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ReasonableDaemon
Posts: 6 |
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In fact, from my perspective, the best parts of the manga are when it is being both depraved and wholesome at the same time. Lots of shows try to use the BDSM aesthetic without really understanding the BDSM ethos, and that misplaced sense of where the appeal is robs the aesthetic of its emotional depth. Note, for instance, exactly where Kiwi truly falls for Utena. It's not when she gets shocked, because sadism and masochism alone do not a kinky relationship make. She's even still cursing out Utena after a couple shocks. That's because what Kiwi wants isn't pain, it's affirmation, that's her consistent motivation, both before becoming a magical girl, with her trying to be popular on SNS with different poses and outfits of hairstyles, and after becoming Leoparde, where she puts on an attitude to try and impress and has an eye-catching outfit as steps towards that goal. And what Utena does is strip her of all of that pretense, very literally in the case of her outfit, no haughty attitude because she can barely form words, no one there to see her but Utena. And then, with Leoparde at what could be her lowest point, that's when Utena gently cradles her, her calls her by her real name, Kiwi, and calls her the cutest girl in the whole world. That emotional connection and the depth of understanding are what Dominance and Submission are really about in my book, and all the electrocution or whatever else are just a means to it, not the end goal. The sub knows the dom understands them, down to their deepest, most hidden, maybe even most shameful to them level, and affirms them regardless, and the dom knows the sub trusts them even with their very lives, and that's what turns the electrocution from torture to foreplay, and something as simple as Utena cradling Kiwi and staring down into her eyes, tracing her fingers along her chin and promising to meet again from something that wouldn't even be registered as more than intimate in other contexts into something more erotic than actual sex. (And the fact that Utena can intuit that within minutes of meeting Kiwi is why I think there really is a strong argument that she truly was a dominant from the very beginning, no amount of QB knockoffs blackmailing them can prepare someone that doesn't have the spark of dominance in them already to read a submissive like that.) |
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Cryten
 Posts: 994 |
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In doing a little more reading I am gonna retract my statement. While there is no primary evidence against Lewis Carol, there is certainly a lot of circumstantial. Not enough to fully condemn him but enough to give some probability to the theory.
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1872 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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Probably my favorite moment of episode 5 was Korisu putting Kiwi in literal horny jail.
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15483 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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So saying she is a "Dom" is the right terminology? I thought that the whole control rather than pain thing was what I had picked up from research. |
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ReasonableDaemon
Posts: 6 |
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In my opinion, yes. BDSM one of those things that is so complicated that even if you ask different people in the scene each will sometimes define things differently, but dom is a fairly universal shortening of dominant, and most people think of dominance and submission as more or less entirely separate from sadism and masochism. In my personal philosophy of BDSM, I think of it as at least 3 separate axes. Along one is Dominant/Submissive, Sadistic/Masochistic is on another, and the pithiest way I can describe the third is Top/Bottom, though really it's its own concept that doesn't necessarily have much in common with how those terms are usually used. Dominant/Submissive is about who is in control vs being controlled, Sadistic/Masochistic is about who is giving pain vs receiving pain, and what I'm referring to as Top/Bottom is about who is pleasuring vs being pleasured. Some of those might seem contradictory, and certainly some combinations are uncommon, but there's nothing inherently unworkable about, for instance a dominant masochist bottom. Imagine someone who is in a dominant relationship with a tattoo artist, and who's ordering them to do a tattoo for them as part of a scene, with the tattoo artist orally servicing them during break times. Personally, I'd put myself high on the Dominant axis, which is probably obvious from some of my posts in this thread, but also quite high on the Top side of that axis, because my own direct sexual pleasure is actually pretty unimportant to me throughout most of the scene. I'd also put myself only barely off of neutral towards Sadistic, because inflicting pain really does quite little for me in a vacuum. I'd mark Utena down quite similarly, though there are some illustrative differences. She's still pretty much maxing out on the Dominant axis, but I'd actually put her even higher up the scale towards Top. If you pay attention, you'll notice that once she's established control, basically no one ever touches her. She initiates essentially all contact, and while she'll touch all over whoever she's dominating, the only contact on her end is almost all just her hands, as a necessary part of that. And finally, while I'm pretty close to neutral when it comes to Sadist vs Masochist, Utena is in a similar place but through an entirely different route, which is that she's a complete switch. She sometimes uses pain when she's in control, yes, but also she's not just accepting of but ecstatic about the prospect of Tres Magia getting stronger, escaping everything she can do, and beating the shit out of her. You can already see it now in the anime, like how she loved Sulfur overpowering her, and it'll only get more pronounced in time. (As my offhand list for the rest of the cast, Kiwi is normally a Dominant Sadist Bottom but a complete Submissive Masochist Bottom for Utena specifically, which is something that you'll sometimes see. Korisu is an interesting case where I don't think she's even capable of thinking in this framework yet, but I will say there are strong signs of high Dominanace in her future. Sayo is a Switch Masochist Bottom, Kaoruko is a Dominant Sadist Top. Haruka doesn't have a kinky bone in her body. And for the manga-exclusive characters and developments, spoiler[Nemo is a Submissive Sadist Top, Matama is a Neutral Masochist Bottom, Michiko is full on Switch Switch Switch, Momo is a Dominant Neutral Top, and Randa is a Submissive Masochist Bottom. Holy I can't really judge until she actually does something, and Haruka gets a surprise reappearance where there's room to doubt but I can't evaluate her until it's revealed what the real deal is with the Fallen Medic.])[/spoiler] |
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bunniko
 Posts: 5 |
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I'm not entirely sure the reviewer calling a manga author a pedophile is in good taste without way better evidence than "wrote Gushing Over Magical Girls."
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akitainu
 Posts: 115 Location: SATX |
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What I've gathered from the reviews so far, is that is you're still watching the show, you're probably a heavy breathing deviant, possibly wearing crusty sweatpants. If you had anything to do with the creation of the show, you're probably a dangerous pervert, possibly driving a windowless van, maybe an ice cream truck. Whether this is an oafish attempt at humor, or what the reviewer actually thinks, well, that eludes me. But a schtick is a schtick and I guess you stick to it. For what it's worth, the author's other work, Kumika no Mikaku, features all adult characters, and would struggle to garner even a "PG" rating...just don't read it while hungry. Episode 5 and 6 were real scattershot, chronologically. I think there were a few, maybe several, non-manga scenes in both. I'm looking forward to the next episode, as it should adapt Chapter 10, which I feel is a pretty important chapter for the story, and the two characters involved (it's also also one of the main reasons I dislike the "Gushing" rename). I hope they do it right. So far, as much as I'm enjoying the anime, I feel it's only capturing about 75-80% of what i like so much about the manga. Still fun, though. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1575 |
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Korisu's introduction episode did the same as Kiwi's: temporarily skip one chapter to get more content focused on the new character.
Episode 6 has been... weirder. They took chapter 25 (the last they adapted is 11), chopped it in three and then interspliced Sulfur's introduction scene from even further ahead and either anime original scenes or store bonus comic scenes - either way, Haruka wanting to be the "team mom" and Kaoruko's brief "takoyaki without the tako" scene are not from the manga volumes themselves. This works to give Haruka more of a focus episode but it takes away from the emotional weight it had for Korisu. Also, I think it would have worked slightly better being placed after next week's episode since the reason why Korisu was wandering around alone this time was because Utena wouldn't pay attention to her because spoiler[she was mindbroken about Kiwi] so making it about Utena spoiler[being mindbroken over Magia Azul] would have given a good enough impetus for Korisu to be alone. |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 718 |
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Making episode 6 mostly chapter 26 with the flashback of 31 and anime-original material to change the context and flesh out the scenes was definitely an unexpected move, but there are a few narrative advantages that will make the season feel more complete, IMO.
1. The Magenta and Alice dynamic is established much earlier on than it was in the manga, before the first major story arc as opposed to after. 2. Sulfur's spoiler[feelings for Magenta] are also delved into early on and within the scope of the first season, as opposed to the manga which didn't tackle them until the mid-30's or so (season 2 material, which the studio probably assumed that they wouldn't be able to do) 3. Alice's more mischievious side gets to be showcased early on, whereas episode 5 mostly focused on her more innocent side. Again, the manga doesn't really show off that side until chapter 26. I personally think episode 7 will focus mostly on chapter 10 and flesh that out a lot with anime original material as opposed to adapting both 10 and 12. I think that will make that episode stand out even more than the manga chapter did. If so, making the episode before the full Azure episode half on Magenta and half on Sulfur makes narrative sense. |
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SpencerSDH
Posts: 2 |
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The age play thing doesn't happen in sequence in the manga. This episode is made up of chapter 26, a few pages from chapter 31, and about a third of it is completely new material. The manga does not have this much characterization for Haruka. This is a really good adaptation.
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