Thoughts on rewatching ZnT anime

General discussion related to this novel series

Moderators: Fringe Security Bureau, Senior Editors, Senior Translators, Alt. Language Translator/Editor, Executive Council, Project Translators, Project Editors

Locked
User avatar
denormative
Fish Miner
Posts: 834
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:56 am
Favourite Light Novel:

Thoughts on rewatching ZnT anime

Post by denormative »

I've just been re-watching the anime since I never watched the entire four seasons (only the first two), and I'm surprised at how enjoyable they are even after reading the LNs. Even though things have been chopped and changed and rearranged, I've found the majority of the episodes seem to flow nicely anyway. And at least they don't have the same "the author was being paid by the word" feel that the novels started to have after a while.

Though I've just encountered the Order of the Undine Knights part of the story (part way through 3rd season) and already I'm disliking it as much as the LN. :( It's like he took the "we three idiots are one character" trope and then expanded into "us battalion of idiotic knights are one character", and then decided to use them as a central supporting character for way too much plot. At least in the anime they've been giving the males other then Saito (and Guiche and Colbert-sensei to a certain extent) minimal screen time so hopefully they'll give these lack-wits minimal screen time as well, leaving Guiche to be the primary idiot.

/rant

On the plus side the anime is less war-and-politics focused and more character focused, so I like that. Though it still loses to Campione! on it's kiss-per-season quota.
Assorted PDFs: viewtopic.php?p=159960
eduardogranja
Literature Club Member
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2012 7:51 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Thoughts on rewatching ZnT anime

Post by eduardogranja »

denormative wrote:I've just been re-watching the anime since I never watched the entire four seasons (only the first two), and I'm surprised at how enjoyable they are even after reading the LNs. Even though things have been chopped and changed and rearranged, I've found the majority of the episodes seem to flow nicely anyway. And at least they don't have the same "the author was being paid by the word" feel that the novels started to have after a while.

Though I've just encountered the Order of the Undine Knights part of the story (part way through 3rd season) and already I'm disliking it as much as the LN. :( It's like he took the "we three idiots are one character" trope and then expanded into "us battalion of idiotic knights are one character", and then decided to use them as a central supporting character for way too much plot. At least in the anime they've been giving the males other then Saito (and Guiche and Colbert-sensei to a certain extent) minimal screen time so hopefully they'll give these lack-wits minimal screen time as well, leaving Guiche to be the primary idiot.

/rant

On the plus side the anime is less war-and-politics focused and more character focused, so I like that. Though it still loses to Campione! on it's kiss-per-season quota.
Well, the best part of the novels IMO is the creation of an alternative medieval/early modern world, with the wars and politics centered on magic and all. Not to say, Saito goes from a little pervert to a all out pervert on season 3.

Regarding the characters, i hate all the Undine Knights, but Colbert should have recieved a lot more attention. He's like Leonardo da Vinci of Halkeginia
User avatar
denormative
Fish Miner
Posts: 834
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:56 am
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Thoughts on rewatching ZnT anime

Post by denormative »

eduardogranja wrote:Well, the best part of the novels IMO is the creation of an alternative medieval/early modern world, with the wars and politics centered on magic and all.
I enjoy that part. It's just that I feel I spend way too much time sitting there wondering when a battle will finish, rather then enjoying the battle; or being annoyed at that insane-Gallian-King's Xanitos Gambits rather then more straightforward plans that would work just fine. That's where a lot of the "paid by the word" feel comes from.
eduardogranja wrote:Not to say, Saito goes from a little pervert to a all out pervert on season 3.
Oddly I found that part of it (well I'm only half way through season 3 so far...) was pretty much about as perverted as the novels. It was season 2 which was less perverted, since it seemed to cover a lot more serious story arcs then the first season and covered them more or less true to novel. Whereas the first season I found a lot more lighthearted then the books (and also a lot more... divergent from them, though they seem to have corrected or avoided most of the story-line breakages within a few episodes of season 2).

Oddly despite the fact I like the more frivolous and character driven (aka, less-drama-more-ecchi) episodes more, my favourite has to be season two's episode six, "The Queen's Vacation"; where Henrietta pretends to be kidnapped and Saito had to guard her. It just felt really nicely characterized and paced and had nice dramatic flow. Of course the novel version is still better. :)
eduardogranja wrote:Regarding the characters, i hate all the Undine Knights, but Colbert should have recieved a lot more attention. He's like Leonardo da Vinci of Halkeginia
I was hoping that they had completely eliminated them in in the same way a lot of harem-ish series tend to minimise any non-MC-males in the original source material to maximise the screen-time of the fanservice, err, more central characters, yeah.

Unfortunately the Undine Knights are way too tied into the 'war' plot that if you ripped them out you'd have to do a lot of plot rewriting to get everything back on track (not that that would be a bad thing, as I don't recall feeling any sympathy or empathy with them even when they were in the war parts).

And yes, Colbert really needed more screentime. I much more strongly noticed missing his conversations with Saito from the novels then any of the other things that got changed. In fact it was probably the first thing that had changed that I had noticed. When I saw Saito drop the notebook as he was walking through the portal in season 1 episode 1 rather then take it with him, my first thought was that was going to screw up a lot of conversations with Colbert and plot later on.
Assorted PDFs: viewtopic.php?p=159960
Locked

Return to “Zero no Tsukaima”