Bobduh

Narrative/action scene inventiveness, mainly. Stuff like the school festival time travel war, or the stadium fight with Jack Rakan, are both creative and generally grounded in stuff that's all been built up. It kind of falls into "Negi is great at everything/just needs to power up harder" dullness near the end, it doesn't go as far as it should with its awareness of "shounen protagonist stupidity" relative to what makes Negi a unique protagonist, and the potential for the last arc to make best use of the wild array of characters/powers is kind of squandered, but its heights are pretty high. It has many ideas, and to a lesser extent shares HxH's understanding that shounens are at their best when straight-up power contests don't solve very much.

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This is all relative to what other shounen anime/manga I've seen/read, of course - DBZ, Bleach, Naruto, Kenshin, HxH, and aborted attempts at starting others. It's not really my genre.

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I wrote a post about Urobuchi's shows in general a while back:

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http://wrongeverytime.com/2013/12/02/wrong-every-time-gen-urobuchi-and-the-human-spirit/

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As for Madoka specifically, I have a cliffnotes review of it in my top shows list:

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http://wrongeverytime.com/2014/03/31/top-30-anime-series-of-all-time/3/

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Hell, here's an old ask.fm answer about why Kyouko is a great character:

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http://ask.fm/B0bduh/answer/109569127466

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Here's a nice post by someone else about Madoka as a reflection of feminine power:

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http://missturdle.tumblr.com/post/46471029695/on-the-importance-of-magical-girl-heroines

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Here's another nice post specifically about Sayaka's arc:

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http://altairandvega.net/2012/10/23/madoka-movie-1/

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I've also seen great breakdowns of Madoka from various structural and religious perspectives, as well as a breakdown of its visual language, but I can't seen to find them at the moment. Either way, whatever reasonable angle you attack it from, it will probably reward you. The show is about as rich and well-crafted as a piece of media can be.

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It's solid! They're one of the good guys, and actually make engaging, character-focused narratives. And I will eternally applaud Jennifer Hepler for her suggestion of a button that lets you fast-forward through gameplay if you just want to see the story play out. You can fast-forward through dialogue if you're just in it for the gameplay - why can't it go the other way around? A button like that would have gotten me through many more games! I actually really want to know what happens at the end of Bioshock Infinite and Persona 3, but I don't have the time or inclination to play more hours of Generic Shoot Man 2013 or Tarot Pokemon to get there.

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...of course, Jennifer Hepler eventually left Bioware after facing harassment and death threats from our wonderful gaming community. Videogames, everybody!

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It's an awful, awful, awful, awful, awful game. Very likely the worst game I have ever played. You run down a corridor and are very slowly taught a simplistic game of Simon Says that replaces any real combat system. The writing and characters are at first laughably bad and then just infuriatingly grating. Even the art direction has no cohesion whatsoever, meaning you're just wandering through a series of shiny museum exhibits. You continuously push forward and click a repetitive sequence of buttons while the game insults your intelligence in every way it possibly can. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

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I'd say "momentum" is probably why it was a commercial success. People had faith in the Final Fantasy brand, and all their games have tremendous marketing pushes. I can't connect the game's success to any of its inherent qualities. It has no inherent quality.

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If criticism is something you can eventually become emotionally detached from, I certainly haven't reached that point myself. You just kind of have to separate the sting from the constructiveness, which means I often go through little cycles of "oh no they hate it I'm worthless" -> "whatever not like they know shit about writing anyway" -> "okay I can see why they said that, and they're probably right about this and this, but I disagree with this part."

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It's important to realize that criticism is not what The World thinks of your work or your persona - it's what this specific person does, and they have their own perspective and system. Don't just take their criticism at face value - examine it, examine what you wrote, make your own choices. Debate the criticism in your head. This doesn't mean just saying "nuh uh, I knew you'd say that and it's because your face is dumb" - criticism is often helpful because it breaks us out of our default assumptions, so take advantage of that and try to see if there's some truth there. Oftentimes criticism will actually point out stuff you really do know you need to work on, but just haven't acted on.

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It's also important to internalize that anything you are creating at any given moment is probably going to be terrible in the eyes of a near-future you, and that near-future you is the only person you should be trying to impress, but you should be working REALLY HARD to impress that person. And sometimes other people will be able to help you impress that person, by pointing out stuff that you might not see from your own perspective. And unless they're just being an unconstructive dick about it, this is a /service/ they are offering you - they cared enough about what you write or what you do to say something instead of just moving on.

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But I've been getting harsh criticism on what I write or do for years and years, and it still stings, so I dunno. Maybe it's possible to take comfort in that? It's hard for everybody. We're always going to write/do things people don't like, or don't agree with, or even misinterpret. You can't make everyone happy, you can only make what feels true to you and try your hardest at it. If you learn from the process, they can throw rocks at the result all they want. If you learn something from their criticism, the sting means you've become greater than you were. And if the criticism seems like nonsense, then laugh about it. Criticism itself can't lessen your work - either the issues were there and you learned something, or the issues weren't there and nothing changes. No one is naturally great at this stuff - we all have endless things to improve on, and criticism is one of the best ways to get there.

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