Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Two things no one appears to have noticed about The Very Soil...

Yes, I know, if I have to tell you how clever I am, I'm not actually that clever. Well, I guess I'm not actually that clever. The two things that no one has noticed, or at least no one has commented on:
  • The article titles.
  • The OTHER trick I pulled in the article on Episode 10.
The Very Soil will resume next week, but only if you tell me I'm clever. 

P.S.: There is going to be a book version. The book will contain revised articles and also new articles, much like the My Little Po-Mo books. I have no release date, even an approximate one.

Edit: Happy Walpurgisnacht! Too bad I didn't think to time the articles so that one of the last two eps fell on today. 

14 comments:

  1. The article titles are all quotes from a single person whom I will not here name. I leave that for someone else to be clever about.

    Episode 10's essay ended with a reversal of the opening two paragraphs from the episode 3 essay, thus mirroring the symmetry of the series itself.

    Also: yay! Book! Will it be done via Kickstarter, and if so, how much will I have to pay to get an essay about Different Story in it?

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    1. No, I'm not planning to do a Kickstarter. The costs for this book are much lower than the pony books, and the Madoka articles have a noticeably higher average readership, so I'm going to take a gamble and pay for it out of pocket with the hope of making it back on sales.

      As to whether I cover Different Story, well, I'm going to cover some of the manga. I'm going to sample them before I decide which seem most interesting to write about (which is not remotely the same thing as which I like most, alas). Different Story isn't high on my list because it's the two least interesting magical girls, but I will give it the three-chapter test. Who knows, maybe it'll really zing or I'll have a good idea for it.

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    2. If I may give unsolicited advice...don't bother with Kazumi or Oriko.

      They aren't bad series - they're just extremely mediocre. There are some interesting ideas and characters, but I feel the the execution is horribly lacking, both in terms of writing and art-style. They're best left to the die-hard fans...like me, who actually bought the English translations of both series just because.

      I will say there are some moments in both series that became rather amusing after Rebellion Story.

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    3. I can't speak for Kazumi and Oriko, but definitely give The Different Story a chance. It feels just as high quality as the show and gives Mami and Kyoko a lot more depth than shown in the series.

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    4. I'd agree with universal person and Alex, and say that Kazumi and Oriko both have interesting ideas, but flawed executions. I terms of straight-up quality, Different Story is certainly the best of the slin-offs (hence my initial question), but I think one (or both) of the other two might be more interesting to write about.

      All that said, I still think the best part of all the spin-offs is the argument that, thanks to time loops, they also happened, and just weren't shown during episode 10.

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    5. Great, typos. This is why I dislike mobile keyboards. Also, so we get more Madoka posts next week: you are clever.

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    6. I dont see any reason for this person to need someone elses opinion on oriko and kirika, it may not yeild anything, but it wont take him too long to figure out if he wants to read/analyze it.

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  2. I'm afraid copying one of the titles into google and clicking the wikiquotes link isn't very clever, but it does identify the one being quoted.

    I always had a feeling that they were quotes, but it didn't occur to me to suspect that they were all the same person. I note now that one of that person's ideas is referenced with attribution in article text.

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  3. I recognized a couple of the post titles, but I didn't realize they were ALL from that guy. Why him, in particular?

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    Replies
    1. Because of hope, and because of rebellion.

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    2. Having looked through the wikiquotes page, I suspect that the reason he was selected is this quotation, which was broken into three parts which are the titles of the posts for the last two episodes and the series overall: "Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope"

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    3. You would suspect wrongly, then--I selected him before I decided to use that quote. The main reason I used him is because he articulates, better than anything else I've found, why I regard Homura as a better symbol of hope than Madoka.

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    4. I find it very odd to compare Homura and Madoka as competitive symbols of hope, because they relate to hope in fundamentally different ways. Madoka represents the object of hope, and Homura the subject; Mami, Homura, and The Implied Author each hope for her, and in the end she becomes something that all magical girls hope for, but the only notable hoping she does herself is in the pivotal scene in episode 10.

      I can see how Havel's words make a strong case for Homura as the exemplar of one who hopes, but Madoka isn't competing in the same category.

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    5. Interesting take. I'd agree that Madokannon is the object of hope, yes, but merely human Madoka is the exemplar of one who hopes in the naive sense of believing that things will get better somehow. She shows this not only in episode 10, but also in her big scene with Mami in episode 3, several episodes with Sayaka in her arc, and with Kyoko in episode 9. Madokannon still has that hope, but so much of it that she is able to become the object of hope for others.

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