@MiyamotoMusashi:

Ehm, you are kind of missing the point.
You argued about it being popular and its popularity being tested weekly with it trying to be critically appealing, it´s a wrong statement.

What the people here are doing is something entirely different.
First off, people in such a forum, especially APForums, are generally harder to please and tend to over-analyze and criticize more.
The majority of a mainstream piece of fiction, they neither have the time, the critical approach nor the actual motivation to analyze a fictional work.

And secondly, a manga such as Shokugeki which had a pretty superficial appeal in teh first place, maybe there is not much sense and meaning to expect consistency, especially in a format that emphasizes weekly satisfaction of the reader in any way over long time payout.

It´s just an advice i fare pretty well with, analyzing stuff that is actually trying to be more than lighthearted fun makes more sense to me but hey, this is the internet where people are overly sensitive, so stuff like this needs to be met with sarcasm rather than a genuine response.

How is it a wrong statement? People always judge critically, doesn't mean they do it in the right way or for the right reasons.

Soma is an official product that places itself in a top running magazine, if that's not enough cause to be critical towards something then i don't know what is.

There are plenty of superficial series that can be critically appealing, so i really don't get your point, you act as if only things that have some level of depth should be criticized. No.

What you're saying is that if i should consume a given product that i shouldn't appraise it for what it's worth. Based on…. what exactly? What are the reasons something should be critically appraised. Who decides that? Why?

@MiyamotoMusashi:

Being popular and being critically appealing are two different things though.

Nobody is judging this series week after week from a literary standpoint, it´s a much more subjective and simplistic way of looking at it, is it still fun or not.

Actually yeah people are, in this thread in fact, are you actually reading this thread? About this very chapter people are talking about the ramifications this reveal has on various characters. That's critically judging it.

On top of that there's various other arguments to be made about it such as that it's being put up for sale. As a commercial product. That means you're being put up for critical reception by default. In fact the idea of "is it fun or not" is critically judging it.

Never mind how WSJ works, every title fights for a chance to stay based on readers vote, people vote for the series they enjoyed the most that week, they do that based on their own thoughts and judgements, which could potentially be more than just "hey i had some mindless fun this week". The problem in your idea is that "is this enjoyable" is apparently not criticism? While it very much is, one of the very basises of critcism is in fact about whether or not a given product can appeal to people or not.

@MiyamotoMusashi:

Just keep it simple, if a fictional work aims at being serious, i take it seriously and i am more critical, if a work is just aiming for purposeless fun like SnS is for example, i do not think too much about it.

I fare mostly well with this approach, and there is no useless judging of series that never aimed to be critically appealing.

It's in the most popular magazine of the country, a magazine that judges your popularity week by week and if you don't perform well you're on the chopping block, it very much aims at being critically appealing.

"purposeless fun" is a contradiction, there's always a purpose to it, if "purposeless fun" made any sense then the comedy world would be thrown on its head.

**Time extension achieved!

With 5 players alive, it takes 3 to achieve a majority.**

SUDK (2): Nectar, BellisarioFaith

SpaceCowboy (1): Wooden_Giraffe

Not Voting (2): SUDK, SpaceCowboy

25.5 hours remaining.

@HeartOfDarkness:

Nice try, but I didn't say, or imply that.

I simply asked you if sexuality was even a thing for Ellie's character before that scene in Left Behind.

I didn't assume she was straight, or gay simply because the narrative never focused, or hinted, or touched upon that, so when it literally came outta nowhere in Left Behind, I was simply scratching my head and wondering what was the point considering the lack of relevance, build up, foreshadowing or hints prior to it.

@HeartOfDarkness:

Which is pretty much the problem lol.

IF the writing is good and the character organically reaches that point then it doesn't matter. But if simply switching "straight" to "gay" changes the reaction then yes its a problem. Having either a guy, or a girl die in order for Ellie to go for revenge would be cliched in both cases, but I can bet that most western audience would react to them in a different manner with the later scenario being more well received.

You did imply it. Else that makes no sense in context.

What you're acting like is that we should get a whole breakdown or meaningful addition to whenever someones attraction is revealed to another person, and that we should then have some plotrelevant reasons for why they are attracted to said gender.

@HeartOfDarkness:

Can you prove that Ellie isn't/is straight, or gay, or asexual, or bisexual, or pansexual without the kiss scenes or using the directors word? I'll wait….

Congratulations for proving my point.

You said they changed Ellie from being straight to being gay, what you're saying is that by default a character is straight while this isn't the case.

@HeartOfDarkness:

IF the writing is good and the character organically reaches that point then it doesn't matter. But if simply switching "straight" to "gay" changes the reaction then yes its a problem. Having either a guy, or a girl die in order for Ellie to go for revenge would be cliched in both cases, but I can bet that most western audience would react to them in a different manner with the later scenario being more well received.

So what part of the game proved that Ellie was straight?

Apparently we need a reason to have gay characters now, i ask you the opposite, why do we need straight characters?

With 6 players alive, it takes 4 to achieve a majority.
No swords style best style (2): Nectar, Wooden_Giraffe

Not Voting (4): SUDK, SpaceCowboy, BellisarioFaith, No swords style best style

There are now 13 and a half hours left in the Day.

Please include line breaks before and after votes if you want to vote if you would.

@Black:

They are similar but I doubt they copied it, I feel like overbearing parent mounting an unreasonable amount of pressure on their child is just a common trope in Japanese media

Except it's more than that, you ignored half of the similarities i listed with that.