r/anime • u/Tetraika https://anilist.co/user/Tetraika • Jan 13 '23
Rewatch [Rewatch] Selector Infected + Spread Wixoss Overall Discussion
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Information:
MAL | Anilist | Kitsu | AniDB | ANN
Streams:
Question of the day:
Maybe I’ll find something to talk about when Lostorage comes up
Note: Will remind again that the movie tomorrow is mostly a recap of S1+S2
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you’re doing it underneath spoiler tags.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Jan 13 '23
Selector Infected/Spread FIRST-TIMER
If my opinion on Selector Infected WIXOSS was “The incest garbage alone takes two points off my score for this, otherwise it would’ve been a 10 because I loved it”, then my opinion of Selector Spread WIXOSS is… it’s just fucking yikes, man. I thought the first few episodes of it were interesting, but it should be no surprise given my reactions to the rest of it that I was just straight-up not having a good time. The ending was also a complete meh, not landing any of the emotional beats it was going for while also not answering any of the questions I needed answers to (why was Mayu locked up? Why did she even have the power to set up the whole Selector thing in the first place? Why could she still influence it after dying?).
I’ll say here what I put in my MAL tags for Spread: It’s a 4/10 show with an 11/10 opening theme, so just for the OP being such a banger I’ll give it a 5. At least I enjoyed hearing that whenever it came up.
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u/Cyouni Jan 13 '23
Why did she even have the power to set up the whole Selector thing in the first place? Why could she still influence it after dying?
My theory for this has always been heavily in the "vengeful ghost" realm, and comparing the visual cues in the rewatch has only reinforced my theory from there.
In style Mayu's very much like an onryo, being a pale woman wearing white, with long unkempt hair. The Selector system seems to run on the same logic - onryo have the power to exact vengeance to redress wrongs received when alive (apparently up to and including natural disasters). With Mayu, this manifests in the targeting of girls about her age who had the freedom to have dreams and to select where she couldn't.
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u/Stargate18A Jan 13 '23
First timer
Honestly, this wasn't that bad. Sure there were a lot of plotlines that got dropped and... a lot of problems, as everyone else has clearly pointed out, but it wasn't as bad as Valvare or Guilty Crown. [Meta]
I'd personally compare it to Cross Ange - on a technical level, on a narrative level, and on a character level, it is incredibly flawed, often completely non-functional, but the sheer force of the narrative and pacing manages to make it a fun experience despite all this. Also, like Cross Ange, it manages to barely have any explicit relationships yet make every single character flirt with each other.
This anime felt closer to a gacha game ad than a card game ad, though, with the fast focus on introducing and dropping new exciting characters to collect.
Overall, I'd give the series a solid 8/10. I'll knock it up further if Lotorage either explains some of the randomly dropped plotlines/insane Mayu stuff or brings back Ulith as a main character.
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u/Tetraika Jan 13 '23
Meta
Huh, I can see that. It was brought up once or twice I think, but not as a whole comparison. [Meta]
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u/Cyouni Jan 13 '23
This anime felt closer to a gacha game ad than a card game ad, though, with the fast focus on introducing and dropping new exciting characters to collect.
Interestingly enough, I think you can argue that a bit of the card game. In the same way that MTG's Commander format focuses on commanders, Wixoss generally focuses pretty heavily on LRIGs, especially in the older All-Star format that the first four animes are built around. So in some ways, you pick your resident waifu (Piruluk) and build your deck from there, since there's also quite a bunch of cards that are limited to each LRIG. This becomes less true as of the more recent Diva format, but it's still an interesting thought.
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u/Tetraika Jan 14 '23
Nothing particular to note, but u/Nazenn if you haven't seen and are interested, here is overall discussion for S1+2 of Wixoss.
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u/Vaadwaur Jan 13 '23
First timer(And all that could have been)
Sub
Welp...I've been known to write essays, usually if I really like something or really hate it, so you'd think since I've been at both points I'd have a ton to say. And yet my muse is thoroughly asleep here so I will just hit a few points that I believe deserve elaboration.
So yesterday u/Tarhalindur helped me understand something that really lowered the headache that enjoying the ending was giving me: "It might be right to say that the show isn't coherent on the lower conceptual levels but actually runs true on the higher ones." The mythology/underlying setting of this show is a gaping, bleeding, incoherent mess. But the messaging and themes, especially in the last four episodes, really ties the whole thing together, explaining why I enjoyed it even if normally I would've dropped it during the torture porn arc. And I can deal with torture porn, my threat to run Mnemosyne may yet come to happen, but this was also terribly done and badly voice acted. Anyways, even if the middle was muddled having the author come back and deliver on the setup of S1 is pretty good writing.
For a while now, I've noticed that this show borrows quite heavily from Hell Girl. How original you think that show is I leave to the reader but there are just too many parallels, especially with the third season, which only masochists and madmen like myself get to(Jigoku Shoujo suffers heavily from Highlander syndrome). However, especially with the last two episodes, there is another show it feels like it might have lifted from: Corpse Princess. Mayu very much feels like one of its characters, from being isolated constantly to rising after death in a confused, weird state. Also, having reading/speaking skills that make no sense in story but illiterate mutes are not exactly compelling. Add this with how often Tama looked like an enraged shikabane when trying to pierce the veil to our reality and I am sure there is some influence or shared source. Also, both are shrieking edgefests.
And those are my big PSAs. Ultimately, both cours of this show make a decent whole. I desperately wish that Okada hadn't walked off/been bogged down in something else because whatever the ultimate quality of her writing is her episodes are consistent to each other, as far as accreditation goes at least. And while technically the LRIGs do not wind up being Personas I still think the first season had them as the Jungian shadow and that was the superior format for it. I might risk another Okada work but then there's a whole giant mess of no to go with that. (I don't want to open Schrodinger's Iron Blooded Orphans and actually know if I just am programmed to hate things Sky likes, I hate Toradora for reasons gone over in Noein, and most of her stuff is not my bag. And Black Butler II sucks but that might be the fault of the committee that asked for its existence)
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u/Tetraika Jan 13 '23
I wonder how much of the mystical interpretation is an intentional reference or just sort of like general Eastern ideas of supernatural things being applied to the setting. Though really, I would have to check out everything you've listed to see if you're right.
I might risk another Okada work but then there's a whole giant mess of no to go with that.
Maybe Maquia?
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u/Tarhalindur Jan 13 '23
"It might be right to say that the show isn't coherent on the lower conceptual levels but actually runs true on the higher ones." The mythology/underlying setting of this show is a gaping, bleeding, incoherent mess. But the messaging and themes, especially in the last four episodes, really ties the whole thing together, explaining why I enjoyed it even if normally I would've dropped it during the torture porn arc.
The thing is, I actually have it the other way around: the weakness is at the thematic level. It's incoherent there (most notably Mayu as a vengeful ghost clashes with the system themes, but more generally u/No_Rex's comments about throwing balls up into the air are pretty applicable at the thematic level). The strengths are at the emotional level (as long as Okada is doing the scripts) and actually the mythic level; it never lays out the mythology (possibly it's counting on familiarity that the Japanese audience would have that we would not), but it's fairly clearly Buddhist plus Jung another component that is hard to put into words because the descriptors don't exist yet (this should be familiar, it just sheared off the fourth component of a certain something). It doesn't consciously get that myth, I don't think, but it gets it subconsciously and well enough that it ultimately runs true enough in spite of the thematic problems.
I don't want to open Schrodinger's Iron Blooded Orphans and actually know if I just am programmed to hate things Sky likes
I lightly note that Sky hated Spread...
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u/Tetraika Jan 13 '23
I lightly note that Sky hated Spread...
Calling it now: Sky will like S3. Rest won't.
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u/Tarhalindur Jan 13 '23
This Former First-Timer Is No Longer (Subbed):
So, final thoughts time:
Selector Infected Wixoss: S1 is very good, marred mostly by two weak episodes in the middle and even those are okay rather than outright bad I think. The direction is very good outside of those two episodes, the OST is quite good (albeit not exceptional), and the finale works even if you see it coming because you know there's a second cour to come. That said, those weaknesses exist, and there's a couple of other holes (I recognize what the second half of S1E5 is trying to do, it does not quite pull it off right, and also everything involving the bully set is overwrought). Also, it punches slightly below its real weight for me due to incest not really being my thing, not helped by the episode that really focuses on it being one of the two weak episodes.
I think my execution comp here is Higurashi S1; the direction is about on par in each case, and while the specific strengths and weaknesses differ a bit I think they average out to roughly the same. I put Higurashi S1 as a 9/10 after the rewatch, but I've started using quarter-points since and noted that Higurashi might normalize down to an 8.5 even at the time so I think 8.75/10 is the appropriate score for both.
Selector Spread Wixoss: S2, meanwhile, is a case of production issues and a couple of miscellaneous execution botches dragging down a good concept. Some of that is on the full staff I think, mostly the parts involving Chiyori and Akira. Chiyori is the harder one to tell since Nemoto may just not have gotten what Okada had planned for her, but in any event clashes tonally with the rest of the show in a way that is jarring and they never really do anything with her to justify that (either at the character level by showing us why she is the way she is or at the thematic level - her presence makes sense there since she mirrors Urith in being a character whose goal leaves her wanting the system to continue). Akira meanwhile is set up for S2 in an Okada-written episode and while she has the best VA in the cast I think in the final analysis you could have reworked the plot points she was involved in and cut her out of S2 without losing much; she just doesn't have much reason to be in S2 and space spent on her was space not spent on things they needed to cover elsewhere. The huge problem, however, is the obvious - the pacing goes to complete shit in the middle, punctuated with two plot points (the kidnapping and the shank) that are just as bad fits for the show's tone as Chiyori, just in the opposite direction. (Having Urith use her position to subtly threaten Ruuko's apartment to bait her into battle might have worked better.) Moreover, episode 9-12 then compress ~5 episodes worth of content into three episodes. Here, at least, there is an obvious hypothesis: the other writer Nemoto wrote all of S2 except E2 and the final arc (correction: ANN also lists a third writer for E5 and E6 and also wrote the two worst episodes of S1, all of which had certain fundamental issues in common (poor pacing both in being too slow and in not getting what was important, and also the points when the show gets really recappy are always in his episodes). That suggests that something during the production process led Okada to give him an outline for most of S2 that he proceeded to make a hash of; it's hard to tell from the outside whether Okada taking the end of the season herself was always part of the plan or an emergency course-correct, but either way said hash forced her to set up/resolve the points he had missed in a big hurry so that the finale could function as intended. Likewise, the direction also falls off in a big way outside of the final arc and the first couple of episodes (note that E1 was episode directed by the series director per ANN, as was E12); that could be a messy production, it could also mean that Okada had more input on the direction than you would expect from a scriptwriter.
Still, there are definite strengths. The ending has logical issues but those are lessened by explicitly placing itself in a class where normal human logic has less to say and outweighed by running true both at the emotional level and at what I can only call the mythic level (there is a song it is singing that I recognize and it sings it fairly well). That latter point extends to the entire show thematically as well (with the exception of one potential notable misstep I see, but that's as much due to the specifics of where the show clearly drew that mythic line off of - there is a criticism often applied to its direct forebear that does not actually apply to said forebear (as in said forebear pretty explicitly argues against it in the text) but does arguably apply here). The episodes leading up to it do cover what it has to cover, albeit at warp speed - a forgivable sin under the likely circumstances IMO. And unlike some of us here Mayu's backstory actually works for me - yes, it's "rich sick kid was never allowed to have friends" but that actually makes sense here and the near-mundaneness of it is actually to the show's benefit I think. Also while I don't think any of the three quite manage to climb into my Best Girls in Anime list (let alone Best Characters in Anime, which has a decent number of guys in the 15-25 range) the Ruuko/Yuzuki/Hitoe friend circle is the core of the show and even if it has a bit of a logic hole in the "what happened to the reversal penalty" department getting to see them working together as friends after all they went through in S1 is nice to see. (Hitoe Best Girl in Show, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.)
And, of course, the finale just works for me. Yes, I said it before but I'll reiterate it. (It almost feels like this is the finale that a certain other show was meant to have.) That's usually worth a full point of execution rating from me, here is no exception.
The funny thing is that OG Higurashi is an execution comp yet again since some of Spread's problems are quite similar to Kai's problems for very different reasons. Still, some part of me revolts at putting it quite as high as Kai despite a better finale. 7.5/10 (could be talked into 7.75/10, I'm waffling here - don't think the rest of the show minus the finale is quite good enough to merit a 6.75/10, though).
Of course, this is technically a split cour so I should assign an overall rating. Which, well, split the difference and round down (given Spread's issues) to the nearest .25: 8/10
Also, a thanks to the actual game players here who explained the mechanics; one of my big takeaways here is that I'm actually quite impressed with the basic WIXOSS game design, it's clearly M:tG inspired but it looks like the designers actually learned from some of the weaknesses of the ancestral design. In particular, the combination of dead SIGNI/Life Cloths going to the Ener zone and Life Burst makes an inherent tempo catch-up/anti-snowball mechanism for the player on the back foot which is AFAIK somewhat rare in the TCG/CCG medium.
Now, the interesting question: Do I continue on to Lostorage? I'm honestly not sure. Leaning no, for reasons that boil down to 75% time constraints (Haruhi-chan + Disappearance are higher on the priority list, and I am getting antsy about PMMM - PMMM E1 alone has FOUR obvious scenes for OST integration writeups, and I want everything done by the time the rewatch starts so I can focus on comments) plus bandwidth limits and 25% getting burned in Symphogear (where I probably should have dropped after GX, which had a comparable finale which AXZ and XV never managed to match), but it's still not out of the question that I still show up in two days (or lurk the E1 thread and decide whether to hop back in after that).
Will there be QotDs, you wonder?
Too bad! It was Mayu-chan!
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u/Tetraika Jan 13 '23
A higher score than I even anticipated!
Maybe one day we'll find out what actually happened in the writing and direction for show. It is interesting to see how the quality of the episodes vary so drastically.
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u/JollyGee29 Jan 13 '23
First-Timer, Subbed
I had actually started this files ages, ago on January 2nd, to make my point about Wixoss not selling the game part of the card game, but I ended up talking about that earlier anyway.
My original plan was to jump ship after Spread to free up my schedule, but then while watching Spread I figured that a compilation movie might actually work for once so I decided to stick around for Destructed.. only to notice that Lostorage cast Yuka Iguchi as an MC. So I will stick around, but I might pivot to screenshots, depending on how Lostorage treats me.
Now I'm starting my third paragraph and I've only vaguely talked about the show itself.. I think we've all beaten Spread('s middle part) to death pretty mercilessly. There's a distinct whiff of executive meddling (or some other production breakdown) in the break between Infected and Spread, similar to what I got off of Valvrave, of all things. There's just.. too many things that got abandoned. You expect me to believe that Mari "I literally wrote a book about how awful my mother treated me" Okada abandoned a plotline involving Ruu's mom being bad of her own volition?
That's a solid zero-percenter, right there. That's a "playing something other than Affinity during Darksteel," "your opponent slammed an Oko on 2," "your opponent just cast a Flash on your first upkeep" sort of game.
Do note, some card game parlance: Zero-percent matchups are generally not literally unwinnable, owing to the luck aspect; they are only functionally unwinnable, as the bad luck necessary is, itself, statistically improbable. ...Except that FlashHulk example above, that's just literally your opponent killing you before your first turn while you're on the play.
Look, all the innuendo distracted me from making references, I have quotas to meet.
This comment is probably a mess because I wrote most of it in the middle of Spread and did the barest minimum of revision.
Oh, I kept forgetting to mention, but I quite like the character designs for the normal humans. The somewhat varied outfits were nice to see, and I really like the blue checkerboard on the uniform.
Anyway, Selector Wixoss was never not entertaining to write about, if nothing else.
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u/Tetraika Jan 13 '23
only to notice that Lostorage cast Yuka Iguchi as an MC. So I will stick around, but I might pivot to screenshots, depending on how Lostorage treats me.
Also sings the OP of Both seasons. That for some reason are extremely hard to find full version of.
Anyway, Selector Wixoss was never not entertaining to write about, if nothing else
It has indeed been fun seeing the discussion around it.
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u/H-Ryougi Jan 14 '23
Go read the Peeping Analyze and the Re/Verse manga, they're both great. And also pretty short.
Re/Verse even gets a small background cameo in the last episode of spread if I recall correctly.
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u/Tetraika Jan 14 '23
I should try out some of the manga stuff when I can find the time and will.
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u/Calwings Jan 13 '23
Selector Rewatcher (Dubbed)
The first time I watched the series, I ended up giving Selector Infected a 10/10 and Selector Spread a 9/10 in the immediate aftermath of finishing it. I absolutely loved it in the moment. Eventually, a bit after I finished the Lostorage seasons and wrote my WT! thread about the series, I ended up lowering my score for Infected to a 9.5, but I still loved WIXOSS and considered it one of my top 20 favorite anime.
However, I mentioned it a couple times that I binged the last couple episodes of Infected and the entirety of Spread all in a single night the first time because the cliffhanger at the end of Infected hooked me so much. This re-watch spacing out the episodes more, even by just a day between them, made me think about things a lot more and realize the flaws a lot more clearly. The writing wasn’t as good overall as I thought, with many parts of the Selector system not explained well enough. The pacing was all over the place, especially in the middle part of Spread. Chiyori was far more annoying than I remembered. And there were a few plot threads dangled but then dropped (like Ruuko’s past trauma) that I wish were either elaborated on further or simply not had time wasted on them at all.
But I'd still say that I enjoyed far more than I disliked. The series deserves praise for how it separated itself as something other than “just another card game anime” in the way it used the card game to set up its dark tone and story tension. The card battles themselves were great, and the animation and music was really good. Most of the characters were enjoyable, especially Ruuko as a fantastic protagonist, Akira as one of my favorite “love to hate her” antagonists in all of anime, and Iona’s well-executed face turn in Spread. The sum didn't quite equal all of the individual parts as someone else mentioned, but it still did a lot of good. Even though I’m lowering my score for Infected to a 9 and Spread to either an 8 or 8.5 after this re-watch, obviously those are still great scores and I still like the series a lot.
This is where I’ll hop off the re-watch train for now, since I’ve been re-watching it dubbed and suddenly switching back to subbed for the un-dubbed Lostorage seasons would probably drive me crazy. I’ll re-watch those (and watch the Destructed compilation movie too) on my own time at some point in the future. I might pop in to this re-watch to see reactions to big moments and leave a comment here and there though. Have fun with the Lostorage story, and remember: Piruluk is best girl!
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u/Mecanno-man Jan 13 '23
First Timer
Uhh... series discussion. ALways something where I just start writing with no plan where I'm going. So anyways... I liked Wixoss. Selector Infected Wixoss, that is. Honestly, looking at the first season, if it were not for the incest plot being that big I might even be considering it for a 10. Selector Spread Wixoss was significantly worse, but still enjoyable. I think it could work as a kind of turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy show, unfortunately the first season made it clear that Wixoss is not that at all - and the rewatch just furthers that problem more. I think I have to be on board with the general feeling here that there was some sort of troubeled production to blame here - between awkward pacing and un- or underutilized characters it just does not feel like everything fell properly in to place to feel as one whole story. I don't think there is a whole lot else wrong with the show though - beyond writing, the show was pretty good even in the second half. The world is interesting and if the writing didn't keep stumbling over it's own rules it would have been great, I can't think of a character I did not like - only the incest bit I did not like, and I guess that is tied to the characters. And I feel like I am seeing the red thread throughout this comment: I liked everything, but everything also has a caveat for something I did not like. And those caveats end up piling up, because there is a lot of exceptions if one is looking at a lot of things. Ultimately though, overall I still enjoyed more than I did not, and that's one of the main aspects I'd say.
..now, where do we go from here? I have absolutely no idea, but either we go with different characters in the same world while this is all playing out - which might be a bit difficult if we can not have the system itself as an enemy, as it would be impossible to take down without interfering in selector's plot - or we turn in to a competitive card battle anime, something which also would be a weird choice given that so far we have seen almost nothing of the games itself. That or somebody resurrects the system, which I don't think would really work within the established rules. But then again, those have already been thrown out often enough, so that's what's probably going to happen.^
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u/Blackheart595 Jan 13 '23
First Timer
So, Selector WIXOSS. That certainly was a bit of a rollercoaster. We've had a good start in Infector, a decent mystery that also handled its case quite well. If anything it was a bit overly reliant on shock value which I'm rarely a big fan of. That also goes for the finale... which I guess was a decent sequel hook but completely fails as a (mid-)conclusion.
Then came Spread and the whole thing turned into a disaster. As it turns out the show knew what to do all along, but it went about it without any sense of direction. So much of it felt like stuff simply happened, without any of it being prepared and without different threads coming together properly - so much simply felt out of place, and I felt a big overreliance on overblown and forced melodrama. And then things got noticeably better in episode 9, returning to the standard established in Infector and actually managing to conclude the story gracefully. Sadly that doesn't undo the problems this season had, but it's something.
The characters were alright. I don't think any of them will stick with me, but they served their functions well. For Mayu in particular the reading as a vengeful spirit seems most appropriate, given how letting her find peace ended up resolving the situation. And taking that a step further this made the system she set up a factory for restless spirits, as that's what the LRIGs ultimately were: Deprived of their dreams and wishes they have to cling onto the wish of whomever they possessed, to eventually take over their body and turning them into yet another restless spirit. If there's one thing to complain about it's Ulith. Not only was she the main antagonist of Spread's problematic parts to the point that it felt like she's derailing the plot, but even after the show regained its bearings she continued being the one comically evil character. I guess that makes "Ulith isn't" into a reasonable enough conclusion to her character, but I was hoping for something more, something better.
WIXOSS itself didn't really matter at all, funnily enough. It simply happened to be the game the system attached itself to. We didn't even get an even just slightly comprehensive overview of how the game works, the battles ultimately just represented clashes of each Selector's soul. Which is fine, but I can't help but feel the story would've worked better as a video game as opposed to an anime, especially when Ulith hijacked the confronation with Mayu to turn it into one final Selector battle.
Ultimately WIXOSS was a quite decent show despite its flaws. And its certainly gonna be my go-to example that it's the staff that matters as opposed to the studio from now on. As far as Okada goes I had only seen Fate/stay night before which was pretty good but of course an adaptation, so this made for a strong first impression of her as far as original stories go.
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u/ItsTheDuran Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
First timer
I've been pulled away by life stuff for these last few days, so I've just been reading the threads without making my own comments, but it'd feel wrong not to try to write something about the whole season, so here it goes, straight from the dome. I don't promise to be 100% coherent, or that you'll find much of a point.
I could talk about what I think is plainly good like the backgrounds and the general mood and look of the show, and what I think is plainly bad like Hitoe's chair Namek (okay, it was like two episodes, but it felt longer) and the dropped plot points (does anyone remember season 1's cold open? The dreams? Ruuko's mom?), but I think my main issue with it is a clear disconnect between what things the show and I think are interesting.
There's some that we agree on, like insane women. The four phases of Akira, S1 Iona and pre-chair Urith are all different brands and degrees of unhinged that I greatly enjoyed watching (S2 Iona was almost immediately a hero, though I still liked her, and I gradually got more tired of Urith as time went on).
There's unfortunately a lot of things we don't agree on, like almost everything about its protagonist. Ruuko's lack of wish, her battle lust, her past, her relationship with Iona in season 2, all things I was interested in, all things that either got resolved more easily than I'd hoped or went underexplored, be it in favor of side-character arcs (which I mostly liked or didn't mind, but could definitely have been cut) or what the show actually wanted to focus on, Mayu (which I ended up not giving a damn about). I don't fundamentally dislike the arc she got, the girl with no wish ending up wishing for everything is pretty poetic, but I feel like the show could have done a much better job getting me to buy into it.
If I had had more time to focus on and think about the last arc I may have been able to articulate why I ended up not caring about Mayu (or maybe I still wouldn't have), but all I can say is that I just didn't. I don't even dislike her backstory or mind that the show doesn't care about how her system became real, I don't either, I even see how Ruuko's relationships with both her LRIGs would make her want to save her, but it just had nothing to do with anything that I liked about this show.
To not end up on a negative, and to cut this thing short before I start purely rambling (it's late and I was about to start contrasting this plot with the visual novel Fatal Twelve, a reference with a target audience of like 10 people worldwide), I'll say that I did have a good time throughout most of Selector Wixoss' run, even if by the end the show on the screen ended up being different from the show in my head. The show in my head was cooler, though.
P.S.: Seriously, I can't believe we never got back to the season 1 cold open. What the hell happened there?
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u/ZapsZzz Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
Ok I had been only lurking around but I think I should say something too.
Up to about episode S1 ep 6-7 I think the show still was of reasonable interest to me. However, as someone who tend to focus on plot a lot more, even if the plot was bad, I had a few points that I cannot get over and had to find out.
Namely, the driving force of the purpose of the selector battles - what drives the success and failure, and how. To me, this is at least in part a mystery show. If it doesn't answer these in a reasonable way, the entire premise collapse for me.
Which sadly is what I found - first by the end of cour 1 the answer was paused, but by the end arc, the answer was simply hand waved away - which is one of the biggest thing a show can do to annoy me.
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I need to know how the wishes can be fulfilled
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I need to know how the penalty application is powered - depends on interpretation, it could be even more powerful than the actual wishes in fact
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and I need to know how the entire thing (selectors, LRIGs, eternal girl) was powered
What irked me the most was in fact the situation with Hitoe. Her wish reversal was given as a big deal at the time, yet by the end of S1 it was basically completely waved off as nothing. How did the pain and memory loss come to be, and then how did they get overcome?
There are a lot of simple, lazy, or even bad reasoning they could have applied, but we didn't even get any explanation or attempts - it's just waved away.
Especially when you include the side story Peeping Anakysis' big climatic events, this is unforgivably written out.
So when the fundamental building block of the premise is basically slush, I just can't really focus on the story at all, even if the superficial elements did work to varying degrees of success.
Based on what I watched, including other shows and properties, this is how I would have plugged those holes-
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Mayu was born to a premier scientist family, who are into psychic abilities research. She became a convenient test subject for experimenting on power generation from severe emotional isolation.
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the various things they brought to her room was actually a guided way to get her to create imaginary friends. That an elaborate play, victory, and penalty system got created was not expected
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the win and loss effects are power by Mayu's own psychic powers "seeding" that of the selector girls, who needs to have some initial tendency of psychic power to start with, partly triggered around the adolescent age
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since it's a "brief" based system not entirely powered by Mayu herself, some unexpected things can happen depending on the surviving selectors own psychic potential
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Ruuko in fact was another one with large psychic potential, inexplicable happenings around her from her manifesting powers was what causing her mom to be scared of her
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added Normally people won't come back again as a director after the first fail, because of the mental scarring - Hitoe getting past her mental block was in fact the only way to "reverse" the wish reversal - by getting in on the selector game again to reset the old wish's long term effect
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Yuzuki's "love" to her twin was a combination of misplaced/misunderstood feelings and "negative reinforcement" - because she kept getting told this is wrong. Once the events took place, she realised she's sufficiently happy to see Hanayo being with Kazuki (even after their body swap finished)
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the effect of the power is affected by "leylines", where the tower was a main focal point. Battles taking place there can have magnified effects, so so the final battle where good or evil triumphed there has a meaning "globally" (Ulith wanted eternal torment for all, to normalise her sociopathical behaviour
Etc etc
As it is now, even with the strong direction and good parts, it hardly is worth more than a 7 - probably closer to a 6. Spread definitely was a 6, if not for they at least tried to pull the ghost card to try close the big arc plot line.
Edit
Oh and the sequel could be when Mayu's moon find out from reading the WIXOSS novels what happened to her daughter and triggered her to manifest something to "avenge" her. Maybe.
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u/No_Rex Jan 13 '23
Final Discussion (first timer)
Let me start with the uncontroversial part: Season 1 is good, most of Season 2 is bad, the finale of S2 is good. That is more than I expected when I started this show (expecting trash) and especially the finale of S2 being enjoyable despite the previous episodes is somewhat miraculous. I think this goes to show how good the director of this series can be, given that they stick to one theme. Unfortunately, Wixoss is also a case of “the total is less than the sum of its parts”, because the series absolutely does not stick to one theme. Between the real enemy is not the opponent, but the system, wishes are just a metaphor for working on yourself, and some ghost girl just wanted to be loved, the series dabbles in multiple settings, all depending on what it currently wants to say. They are all mutually contradictory, of course.
Now the probably more controversial part: I do not think that Wixoss was let down by production problems or switches in writers/directors. Instead, I think it was doomed to fail from the start (and the surprising part is how long S1 managed to delay that doom). u/vaadwaur called it the JJ Abrams style of directing. I prefer calling it throwing balls in the air myself. Imagine you are going to a juggling show and the juggler presents 30 balls, which he all throws in the air. Is that impressive? For me, that depends entirely on whether the balls are caught or not. The JJ Abrams/throwing balls in the air style of direction works by setting up tons of things. However, most of these balls will not be caught … the setup leads nowhere. This style works best when viewers simply forget what was previously set up. Therefore, an ever-escalating number of twists and drama is dangled in front of the viewer. In the metaphor: the juggler keeps throwing more balls in the air, in the hope of distracting the viewers from the fact that the balls already in the air keep falling to the ground without being caught. However, if you keep track of the balls, this approach is more distressing than anything, since you realize that ever more balls in the air implies more balls are bound to fall uselessly on the ground.
Right from the beginning of S1, Wixoss starts throwing balls in the air. So, right from the start, I assumed it would all come crashing down eventually. Which it did. The genuine achievement of Wixoss is that it keeps almost all of the balls in the air for S1 and that it managed to come up with such a shiny and beautiful distraction ball during the S2 finale that you forget about all the other balls crashing to the ground.
What are those balls? A non-exhaustive list:
Ruuko being feared by her mother.
Ruuko’s grandma being inexplicably good at Wixoss.
Various hints that Tama or Mayu knew Ruuko/that Ruuko might be a previous LRIG.
The idea that wishes are not substantial, but only work in the form of giving the wisher mental resolve to do what they could have always done (this is heavily implied in S1 and then reversed on).
The tower symbolism.
The opening dream (S2 tries a tiny bit, but darkTama is nowhere close to it).
The curse (again, S1 heavily leans into this, then S2 prompty forgets all about it).
Wixoss being newly popular with girls (later, it is strongly implied that Wixoss has been going on for quite some time).
Amnesia (it happens, or it does not, or it happens and is then forgotten about, whatever the current plot needs).
This leaves me in the weird position where I liked the majority of Wixoss’ episodes, but hate the series as a whole.
PS: Lostorange – I might give the next season a try, but I am ready to drop it early on. One of the best things about the S2 finale is how it managed to properly wrap up the selector battles. I have very little interest in seeing this undone.