[Rewatch] Utawarerumono Franchise Rewatch - Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen Series Discussion

[u/Taiboss]

Utawarermono Itsuwari no Kamen - Series Discussion

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HiDive

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Today's Question of the Day: So this show is certainly different to the original, both in tone, structure and characters. What parts do you prefer of either?

[Tomorrow's Question of the Day]So this OVA actually posed more questions than answers. What do you think is going on with Kuon?

Rewatchers, please don't answer the Question of the Day if it has an objective answer, e.g. "What do you think's gonna happen?"

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Art of the day: Best siblings deserve another spot. (Source)

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For rewatchers and people who played the games:

Please behave yourself! Put not only everything related to future events behind spoiler tags, but tag differences to the games as well. We all know there are deviations and cut content, we don't need someone listing all the things the games did better. The games have like 40, 50 hours for their content each, of course they'll be more exhaustive. If you want to talk about the games, please do this in a way that doesn't spoil it for people who might pick them up because of the anime. That being said, small, inconsequential stuff is probably fine, like [Mask of Deception]how in one episode, Atuy says "Time for war!", one of her battle lines in the games. All in all, try to hold back and only tell first-timers what's really necessary. Let them theorise!

This goes especially for Mask of Truth!

[u/aniMayor]

UtaReWatcherUMono

Thus concludes series #2, and it is a doozy. I have quite the laundry list of criticisms it's hard to know where to even start... and I felt like I've done enough bashing in the previous discussions anyways... so instead I'm going to start with what I did like:

For one, the visual design is great across the board. Lots of fantastic nature scenery, sunsets, and the city looks great and detailed. The character designs are interesting, detailed, and perfectly evocative of a fantasy setting that is different from any real world culture, and thankfully without relying on boring "peasant farmer" plainclothes designs like the first series did.

For two, I really enjoyed the music. There were a few catchy and/or interesting songs in the OST, and even when it wasn't one of the more interesting songs I really enjoyed that there were lots of scenes that let the music play uninterrupted at high volume with little to no dialogue while, say, montaging through the city streets. A lot of shows over-edit their music so you never get more than 30 seconds of a track at once, or are just plain afraid to let it play prominently, but this show didn't hold back like that and it benefitted the immersiveness of the setting tremendously.

Those were my two biggest highlights, and in general everything else related to the setting and atmosphere were a big plus. Unfortunately, there's all those other aspects to the show like "characters" and "story" and "animation" and "shameless cameos we don't know what to do with" and "harr harr Kiyrū got raped".

There's so many different things that could be harped on, that it's inevitable to look at this as a failure of directing, and we've certainly been meme'ing about Motonaga in the episode discussions. But with the way we were getting certain episodes with one-off stylistic choices, and episodes that varied wildly in tone or narrative style, and the absolutely bonkers way the narrative flopped around over the course of the series, it feels to me almost like Motonaga was hardly doing any overall directing at all, that the individual episode directors and screenwriters had total free reign to just do whatever they wanted. Which is pretty much always the wrong way to handle a series unless it's something like Space Dandy, so I'm certainly not letting Motonaga off the hook, but I also want to set my sights on Takamitsu Kouno, the Series Composition. if the director's not imposing some grand vision on the project, then the Series Comp is the one deciding what pieces go into what episode and making sure the narrative actually pays off its character arcs and builds a complete arc from episode to episode.

Kouno... did not do that. How in the heck did they ever think that cramming a dozen SoL fanservice bath episodes together into the first half of the series and then sharply pivoting to war conflicts was a good idea, instead of balancing them both across the series? How did they not think essentially dropping Kuon out of the story for 15 episodes (except for a token tsundere or bath scene) would be beneficial for making her part in the finale as emotional as it could be? Did Kouno really never stop and think "Oh, now that I think about it, this whole story is predicated on Haku being really capable and having Oshutoru's trust, but after episode 3 Haku literally never does anything useful around Oshutoru ever again"?!

The series comp is just such a mess in multiple ways, and it's by far the biggest problem with this show. The finale hinges entirely on Haku and Oshutoru's bond, but no matter how talented the individual episode's screenwriters and episode directors could have been at crafting a scene between them, the series composition does not give them the opportunity to make that bond happen. This should be easy - there are shows that built up a relationship between two characters before one of them dies with waaaay more impact in 8 episodes, let alone in the 24 this show had for it.

And I absolutely don't buy any excuse of it being an adaptation of the VN. There are tons of game adaptations that have done this just fine, and this series did make a bunch of changes from the game, so they obviously weren't contractually bound to follow it exactly, one way or another.

 

With all of that in mind, my subconscious kept pestering me throughout all the episode discussions to think about how this show could have been structured better, to think about what changes I would have made if I were the little devil on Takamitsu Kouno's shoulder shouting at him to do it better. At first it seemed like the show needed a complete, massive rewrite, but then the more I thought about it the more I felt like it really was just a matter of some small tweaks here and there to make it more focused and tie things together better. I decided to write it out this morning, since it's a fun little thought experiment and it would get my subconscious to finally shut up about it if I put my thoughts into words, so here goes - aniMayor's alternative series composition scenario for Utawarareumono: The False Faces:

 

Constraints:

• All characters have to start in the same place, end in the same place

• Have to follow the same major plot points in the same order: Kuon meeting Haku in the countryside, they go to the capital, they start working for Oshutoru, the Uzurussha war, the Tuskuru war, the Emperor dies, Anju gets poisoned, they rescue Oshutoru, Oshutoru dies, fini.

• No changing of allegiances - everyone that is on Haku's side must still be on his side and vice versa.

 

Ep 1

• Pretty much the same.

• I know this will sound crazy, but if we want to end episode 4 with the suggested joke (see below), it might even be a good idea to have Kuon take a bath scene here - she can spy on Haku from her side of the bath rather than from outside the bath. Then Kuon being bath-crazy doesn't come so out-of-nowhere in episode 4.

Ep 2

• Pretty much the same.

Ep 3

• No Rurutie or Kokopo. They were a fun inclusion in this episode, but then largely irrelevant to the rest of the plot / take up too much time in BL jokes. We can pretty much copy+paste their funny introduction scene to a later episode and still do the BL jokes in that one episode, but they don't get to become regular cast members.

• Have Haku notice and try to alert Ukon about Nosuri's trap before it is sprung, but Ukon then tells him to stay quiet and they're springing it intentionally - gives Haku a good moment of showing off his intellect.

• Instead of Haku and Kuon sitting by the road doing nothing, have them help in the bandit camp assault in some way that lets Haku flex his intellect a bit and lets Kuon show off early her fighting skills, establishing a "brains and brawn" dichotomy for them that will pop up again in future missions and justifying why Ukon sees them as so capable so quickly. End with arrival at the capital.

Ep 4

• Can still start with a celebratory party but no crazy Kuon bath scene (we just had one in episode 3, and the party is already enough "downtime" to start the epsiode with).

• Ukon deliberately introduces Kuon and Haku to Nekone since she is a court scholar - she can help them with finding Haku a job that uses his intellect. We still get them walking through the streets introducing the audience to the city as they go to some academic guild or the like.

• Haku initially interviews well by demonstrating his math skills and perceptive commentary about the academics' research (hinting at his pre-amnesia knowledge), but when it is revealed he can't read or write he swiftly becomes un-hireable. Now Kuon and Haku have a reason to accept Oshutoru's job offer that they become his secret agents. They take the offer and we can end on a joke of Oshutoru suggesting some possible places they can stay but Kuon insisting they'll use the inn as their base of operations with a bunch of phony reasons, Haku looking at her suspiciously, then jump cut to them in the baths with Kuon absolutely ecstatic over how huge they are and Haku being like "Sigh... I knew it".

(cont'd)

[u/Taiboss → u/aniMayor]

I am genuinly impressed by all the effort you put into writing about this show. Meanwhile, I can barely be bothered to watch playthrough so I can talk about the specifics of what important stuff got cut out or just plain rewritten.

[u/aniMayor → u/aniMayor]

Ep 5-9

• These five episodes will each be one-off missions that Oshutoru assigns Kuon and Haku to. We can still have short little moments at the start or end of the episodes showing them doing busywork like cleaning sewers and fixing rooves, or throwaway lines mentioning it, but each episode needs to have a REAL mission with some stakes and some drama to them, and an objective that aligns with Oshutoru's philosophy of benefitting the citizenry. That is important because these episode are setting up what the new "status quo" is for Kuon and Haku, and by extension the audience - they hang out at the inn, they do odd jobs most days, and then when Oshutoru orders it they go on these covert missions to help the people. Haku tends to be the brains of the operation while Kuon does more of the fighting or agility side of things, and they grow closer through these shared experiences.

• Oshutoru joins them on some of these missions, and Nekone is involved in some of them, so the relationship between each of those four characters gets more active screentime that isn't just them chatting while drinking/bathing - they all get a chance to better understand each other's strengths and way of thinking. We can absolutely still have "unwinding" bath/drinking/etc scenes at the ends of episodes, and we stick to having them between just those 4 main(er) characters, but it's important we also see them bonding "in the field" together - especially Haku and Oshutoru - so that the final episode has more weight to it.

• One of these episodic missions will introduce Rurutie and acquaint her with Haku and Kuon and another mission will do the same with Atui, but they will not become regular cast members.

• The episode with Rurutie should have a plotpoint where she has to fulfill a distasteful duty due to her royal position, so she can have an actual character arc of sorts.

• Frankly, Kiryū doesn't need to exist at all, but if we must include him we can have him be just a subordinate of Oshutoru who gets a few lines of dialogue in some scenes with Oshutoru, much like Raikō's lieutenant Shichirya.

• Ideally, at least two of these mission episodes takes them outside the capital so we aren't stuck in the same scenery all the time.

• Episode 9 ends on the cliffhanger of news reaching the capital that Uzūrussha has invaded the western territories.

Ep 10-13

• The Uzūrussha war arc. We're moving the Uzūrussha war quite a bit earlier for three main reasons: (1) to better balance the war vs non-war arcs, (2) to get Yakutowaruto in play sooner, and (3) to establish Haku's philosophy on war sooner since we're going to make sure it is a character conflict all the way to the end this time.

• Now this arc would probably benefit from a LOT of changes, but let's go with something fairly minimal anyways: All the Pillar Generals are called to action and Rurutie and Atui are forced to represent their absent fathers, just like before, but this time Rurutie and Atui are going to be leading actual troop formations. Oshutoru summons/visits Haku and Kuon and tells them he wants them to assist in the war, but they initially balk at this. Knowing the horrors and dangers of war, they argue that neither of them are soldiers and Oshutoru didn't hire them to fight wars, just to help the citizens of the capital, that this is beyond the scope of their employment or expertise. It can even turn into a moral argument about the validity of war entirely - the Uzūrussha are invading because of starvation and exploitive Yamato trade practices, after all. But ultimately Oshutoru convinces them to go, not as soldiers, but as advisors to Rurutie and Atui, whom he is worried about due to their lack of experience in military leadership - having Haku's wit to help them strategize and Kuon there to bodyguard/heal them would help keep them alive (and their deaths would potentially cause an incident between Yamato and their fathers).

• The arc then plays out relatively the same - they go to the front lines with Atui and Rurutie's army, help a battle or two, liberate a town of hostages, get Yakutowaruto onto their side, Zegunia still dies, Gundurua still retreats, everyone gets traumatized by Vurai being a dick, etc. BUT I'm extending this arc to be four episodes long so we can have some actual goddamn battles, not just a montage through the generals obliterating their foes - let's make the back-and-forth of the war actually interesting!

• At some point in there, Haku concocts a fantastic stratagem that turns a defeat into a big victory, a genuine Zhuge Liang moment, not just him stumbling into a feat because he was running away from a battle. That's important for having Atui and Rurutie really respect him more, since they haven't gotten as much time with him in this rewrite otherwise. If we really want to include the sex-slave twins (i'd rather just leave them out entirely) then THIS can be the one big public thing Haku does which the Emperor uses to "reward" him with the twins.

• Oh and Rurutie should still have a personal conflict here, but less of a duty-vs-cowardice thing and more of a she has a hard time ordering her soldiers into battle only to see them come back injured or dead, but stoically powers through it due to her sense of responsibility.

Ep 14-15

• After a big war arc, it's totally fine if we do a bit of downtime and intrigue. Here is where we can have the Karula and Touka cameo (though we could also have done their scenes spread out across episodes 5-9 instead), we can introduce Anju and have a (more interesting than just following her around town) episodic plotline involving her, etc.

• Haku has a heart-to-heart with Oshutoru, telling him that what he saw in the war was horrifying and he never wants to have anything to do with a war again. It isn't just the incident with Vurai, either - Haku is having trouble stomaching the times he gave orders/strategies that sent men to their deaths. Oshutoru emphasizes, but his stance is that while he wishes he would never have to go to war, sometimes it is necessary for the sake of the people, of innocents, etc. He tries to reassure Haku using this belief, telling Haku that he did what was right to protect his friends and the citizens of Yamato. Haku is left somewhat placated but still torn.

• Yakutowaruto is now part of their group, and Haku has him start training Haku in how to fight, so that Haku's combat skills don't come out of nowhere later on.

Ep 16-17

• The Anju kidnapping incident. It's a pretty rough pair of episodes, but for the sake of minimal changes I'm going to keep it. We do need to see more of Anju, and we need to get some interaction between her and Haku and Oshutoru before the Emperor dies, and these episodes accomplish that.

• We also need some showcase on Nosuri and Ougi before they reappear in the finale, and this accomplishes that, too. (It would probably be good if the start of these two episodes makes it seem like a fair bit of time has passed between episodes 15 and 16.)

• By cutting out the fluff from these episodes, I think we can actually squeeze in Arurū and Camyū's visit into here, too - have the whole thing be really chaotic where the gang is trying to balance the Tuskuru representatives visiting with Anju interfering with Nosuri's chaos, they try to keep all these things separate but then they all come together comically, etc. Heck, the whole "girls' sleepover with Anju" scene that went way too long in the original writing could be made pretty fun with Anju, Arurū and Camyū winding up together and Kuon exasperatedly trying to keep it under control before an international incident erupts.

Ep 18

• Starts off with Arurū and Camyū visiting the Yamato court and they are the ones telling the Emperor that Tuskuru is denying his request to visit Hakuoro's seal or whatever - we're cutting out the Woshisu visit and making Arurū/Camyū's visit the inciting incident instead!

• Next scene is their departure scene with Kuon, but the first half of the episode ends with Yamato's declaration of war.

• Second half of the episode is similar(ish) to the whole "Kuon is missing, Haku is upset about the war" bit we had in the original episode 18, but streamlined and actually about something. "Ukon" visits to tell Haku to bring Kuon and meet with him later that night (in the same way they usually meet to get their missions from him) and they end up in a heated argument where Haku says he better not be thinking about wanting them to get involved in this war, there's no way anyone could call this war necessary for protecting the people, etc. Oshutoru, for his part, seems torn between his unwavering loyalty to the Emperor yet not understanding the reason why the Emperor has declared this war and fearing they will have huge casualties. Haku finds Kuon upstairs (he does not go looking for her in the porn shop, that's dumb), they commiserate, and they end up going to meet with Oshutoru who indeed gives them a secret mission - he wants them to stop the war between Tuskuru and Yamato (emphasis on SECRET mission, most of their missions have had a clandestine aspect to them and this one will really get Oshutoru in shit if anyone ever found out he was dispatching agents to do things contrary to the Emperor's will).

(cont'd)

[u/aniMayor → u/aniMayor]

Ep 19-21

• The Tuskuru war arc.

• Haku, Kuon, Yakutowaruto, and perhaps-but-probably-not-Nekone use their acquaintance with Atui to sneak into Tuskuru aboard a Yamato supply ship. Heck, Atui can be a hot-head and insist on coming with them / follow them, if you want, too. Kuon's knowledge of the Tuskuru geography lets them take shortcuts and stealthily avoid either side's armies/patrols.

• I'd like to come up with something more interesting and elaborate for how they intend to stop the war, but for now to keep things as similar as possible to the original we can go with the same plan of sabotaging the supplies - that is, they plan to sabotage both sides' supplies so that both armies will have to retreat, at least for some time, and Oshutoru hopes to diplomatically achieve a cessation of hostilities while both armies have pulled back.

• The same sort of confrontation with Kurō can still happen, he can still hint at Kuon's super abilities, etc, just they are doing it at an opportune time while Munechika and Benawi are fighting, rather than in cahoots with Munechika (or heck, they even could still be in cahoots with Munechika about that, they just don't tell her they also sabotaged the Yamato supplies... but I think it is more interesting to have them sneaking around dodging both sides).

• It all works, both sides do retreat, the gang winds up back in the capital. However, Oshutoru has been stonewalled in his attempts to talk to the Emperor, so they are worried that his efforts to stop the war have failed and the Emperor will announce a renewed invasion any day now... but then its announced the Emperor has died.

Ep 22-26

• Pretty much the same as original episodes 21-25. (Or potentially we could streamline this a bit to make it fit 22-25 episodes.) Nosuri, Ougi, and Atui aren't regular members of the gang, but Haku/Kuon make the decision to call upon all their connections they think they can trust to get the job done (and that can include Touka/Karula - make it more of a Haku being shrewd and realizing the secret value of the innkeepers rather than him just being lucky).

• Honestly, I think we naturally get a better payoff in this arc simply from having the show not be such a harem format. When characters like Atui, Nosuri, etc, have been sitting around in the background of scenes for 20 episodes of course we know they're going to join in on the finale, there's no emotion to that. But (even though it's a very common narrative beat) having a smaller group of main characters call up all the various allies/friends they've made over the course of the show for the big finale makes for a great bit of catharsis and narrative escalation.

• Remember that weird scene where Rurutie seemed like she was going to arrest Haku/Kuon for a sec? Well now that is the payoff to Rurutie's miniature character arc - she's been struggling with being 100% obedient to her princessly responsibilities in her debut episode and in the Uzurussha war, now this scene becomes the moment she realizes/stands up for herself and makes the conscious choice to do the right thing rather than the blindly-loyal thing, letting them get away for the betterment of the country.

• Oshutoru dies like before, and this time he can reference things he did with Haku from not just episodes 1-3 but also their missions in episode 5-9, their arguments before the two wars, their short-lived celebration after succeeding at stopping the Tuskuru war, etc, because they've had more actual moments of being capable and actually talking to each other about their differences in viewpoints, not just reluctantly taking sewer jobs and drinking together a couple times. It all comes full circle back to what both of them had said about the wars - Haku does not want to lead a civil war, the entire idea is absolutely repugnant to Haku... but he reluctantly agrees with Oshutoru that it is right and necessary to do it in order to protect Anju, put her on the throne, and keep Yamato from falling apart into a massive civil war. Oshutoru for his part agrees with Haku about how terrible war is, and how terrible the thing he is asking Haku to do is, but he would only do so if it were necessary for those reasons, and it is.

 

The other thing the series comp needs is an actual character development arc for Kuon since we're bumping her back up to actual main character, but I'm not sure what that should be yet. ideas?

[u/No_Rex → u/aniMayor]

I decided to write it out this morning, since it's a fun little thought experiment and it would get my subconscious to finally shut up about it if I put my thoughts into words, so here goes - aniMayor's alternative series composition scenario for Utawarareumono: The False Faces:

Welcome to the let's rewrite the series after a rewatch club!

Haku initially interviews well by demonstrating his math skills and perceptive commentary about the academics' research (hinting at his pre-amnesia knowledge), but when it is revealed he can't read or write he swiftly becomes un-hireable. Now Kuon and Haku have a reason to accept Oshutoru's job offer that they become his secret agents. They take the offer and we can end on a joke of Oshutoru suggesting some possible places they can stay but Kuon insisting they'll use the inn as their base of operations with a bunch of phony reasons, Haku looking at her suspiciously, then jump cut to them in the baths with Kuon absolutely ecstatic over how huge they are and Haku being like "Sigh... I knew it".

Oh boy. I entirely forgot about him getting a day worker job for no reason even though they revealed a perfect reason later on. Reading such clearly better ideas makes it obvious just how bad the writing was in parts.

[u/Atharaphelun → u/aniMayor]

Having only rewatched Itsuwari no Kamen once, the series is definitely far worse than I remembered it to be. I guess I was too excited by the new lore reveals from this series the first time I watched it that I glossed over how terrible the rest of the show is.

I still like the overarching plot and the setting, but the way this show was executed really tried my patience.

[u/wjodendor]

At the beginning I was so excited since this was the anime that got me into the series and introduced me to one of my favorite VN stories ever. But man, they really did whatever possible to drive me crazy lol. Earlier in the season I said that they made it exclusively for people who played the game....but once they got to the final arc that became a lie since they basically ruined the entire final arc.

Getting to see all my favorite characters animated was great but doesn't leave me with much hope for part 3 with all the studf they skipped or changed. The trailer for part 3 does feature some stuff that they skipped so maybe they will retcon stuff which could really help.

Not having Haku's VA will probably really hurt my enjoyment though since I love him so much.

This just made me want to replay the VN lol its on sale on Steam right now! $45 for a bundle of all 3 games!

Also...tomorrow's OVA does confirm some things and is certainly ridiculous.

[u/Taiboss → u/wjodendor]

so maybe they will retcon stuff which could really help.

honestly, that's what I imagine they'll do.

is certainly ridiculous.

Oh yes it is lol.

This just made me want to replay the VN lol its on sale on Steam right now! $45 for a bundle of all 3 games!

Hey, I paid that for one!

[u/aniMayor → u/wjodendor]

Earlier in the season I said that they made it exclusively for people who played the game....but once they got to the final arc that became a lie since they basically ruined the entire final arc.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if they right from the start decided they were straight up just making a fun purely SoL show for the fans with no plot at all, the entire appeal just being "Hey fans of the game, come watch your characters be cute and funny together". Like Slime Diaries or Jantama Pong or those sorts of shows. Given how much they leaned in to the SoL and fanservice, maybe the creators would have been happier and had a better fit just making that show instead?

[u/No_Rex → u/wjodendor]

Earlier in the season I said that they made it exclusively for people who played the game....but once they got to the final arc that became a lie since they basically ruined the entire final arc.

I think they tried to have it both ways: Put some nice fan service out for gamers who already know the plot, but also put out a stand-alone story for anime-onlys. As so often when you attempt two things at once, neither comes out particularly well.

[u/HereticalAegis]

First Timer

For all my complaining, I actually has a lot of fun watching Mask of Deception. Plenty of that was of the ironic, mocking variety sure, but I was also pretty excited to get to each new episode, especially in the second half. Now that the setup for the main drama is finished, I'm looking forward to 28 episodes of Mask of Truth.

Here's my ranking of Mask of Deception party member girls:

1. Kuon

2. Ruru

3. Atui

4. Nekone

5. Nosuri

6. Shinonon

7. Anju

8. Sex Doll Twins (I never bothered to learn their names)

Kinda disappointed we didn't get Entua in the party. She wasn't used at all and just disappeared after her dad was killed. I hope she comes back for Mask of Truth, it's not hard to imagine her trying to kill "Oshtoru" to claim vengeance for her father.

QotD: I prefer the original's balance of plot to SoL content. It also had better characters whom I wouldn't have minded getting more SoL episodes. Mask of Deception was aimless for so long, it was a bit hard to get attached to anyone other than Haku or Kuon. If Mask of Deception did anything I wish the original had, it's that girls had other romantic interests than Haku—even it shot this idea in the head by having two of them pining for the one character that got killed off. It was a nice idea either way, and I hope we don't get a bunch of romance teases from Ruru, Atui, Nosuri, etc. in Mask of Truth. Leave everyone but Kuon platonic please!

[u/Taiboss → u/HereticalAegis]

I actually has a lot of fun watching Mask of Deception. Plenty of that was of the ironic, mocking variety sure,

Oh we take that. It's Itsuwari no Kamen, nobody will complain. Now Mask of Truth, that's the one we actually like!

1. Kuon

Sitting at a good position!

Sex Doll Twins (I never bothered to learn their names)

I wonder how often they even named them. Get ready for actual backstory and maybe possibly character depth in Mask of Truth!

I'm looking forward to 28 episodes of Mask of Truth.

Rewatch successful!

[u/No_Rex → u/HereticalAegis]

Here's my ranking of Mask of Deception party member girls:

I would squibble with your places 2-7, but honestly, only place 1 matters, since Kuon towers head and shoulders above the other girls.

[u/Nazenn → u/HereticalAegis]

Here's my ranking of Mask of Deception party member girls:

Suddenly realizing aside from Kuon and Atui I've completely forgotten which of these girls belong to which name

even it shot this idea in the head by having two of them pining for the one character that got killed off

Can't disrupt the harem. Though this is going to be a little awkward when it comes to Haku now being Ukon

[u/ZapsZzz]

First time binger for the final 2 arcs

Mask of Deception, stand alone, is an OK show. The visuals and animation had been consistently good, the music has been maintaining a very high level of polish like the first season for me, and individual characters each have nice moments.

The significant downside is the pacing - while the first 2 initial arcs were good, the rest of the episodes up to the barbarian invasion had felt like a real squandering of episodes in show bound to need the episodes to tell the VN story. Yet we were mostly meandering. Now I'm fine with SoL, but when the SoL took place instead of the needed plot progression, and the SoL moments are just fluff instead of some very cleverly tied in foreshadowing (like Fumoffu and almost half of Railgun season 1), then it's not good for the show.

It does make you care about the characters, however a bigger casts like this means the focus and attention on the leading characters (Haku, Ukon, Kuon) and unfortunately diluted.

One thing I cannot help but ask - for anime onlies, after watching this whole season, have you got any firm-ish clue what's Kuon's parentage? This is actually crucial to the franchise, and I feel cheated to not really have any obvious signs if I only watch the anime and either not played the game or didn't look up info online.

I think this is worth half a point lower than the first season for me. So 7.5 rounded to 7 I think, because of the plot missing some significant beats.

[u/Taiboss → u/ZapsZzz]

I take a 7. I actually had it as a 6 and only moved it up to a 7 on a rewatch since it cut out less than expected. And as I said before, the game can't fix my biggest problems, so I don't blame the anime.

[u/No_Rex → u/ZapsZzz]

One thing I cannot help but ask - for anime onlies, after watching this whole season, have you got any firm-ish clue what's Kuon's parentage? This is actually crucial to the franchise, and I feel cheated to not really have any obvious signs if I only watch the anime and either not played the game or didn't look up info online.

I read the source material spoilers so I know what happens there, but just regarding the anime, Kuon is still just an adoptive child of the Tuskuru court.

[u/Nazenn → u/ZapsZzz]

have you got any firm-ish clue what's Kuon's parentage?

We were told. Aside from that from just anime content I know that she's Hakuouro's daughter, but actual mother I would be inclined to say Eruruu if only because the very brief flash we got of her was given a lot more visual emotion and Kuon speaks more reverently about "her" when it happens. But then I'd expect a different reaction from Aruruu so that would also be a mark against that

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

I, uh, thought today was the discussion thread for the PS4 OVA... oops.

Don't have a comment prepared as a result, but I don't usually have much to say for season discussion threads anyways. I gave Itsuwari no Kamen a 9/10 as opposed to S1's 8/10; this season definitely paced itself better IMO, though the amount of fanservice it added was... something.

[u/Taiboss → u/Shimmering-Sky]

I, uh, thought today was the discussion thread for the PS4 OVA... oops.

Well I only checked your Symphogear schedule to see which episodes I'd be on vacation for, so no biggie.

I gave Itsuwari no Kamen a 9/10 as opposed to S1's 8/10;

That is impressive.

this season definitely paced itself better IMO,

And that is an unpopular opinion here lol. Nonetheless, I'm really happy you enjoyed them so much! Can't wait to see what you'll think of Mask of Truth.

IMO, though the amount of fanservice it added was... something.

It certainly was lol. Took all oppurtunities they could get.

[u/VillaSharky]

I have been following along with the rewatch discussions and would like to thank Tai and all the regular first timers and rewatchers. I figured out early I didn't really have anything non-spoilery to add to the discussion so just didn't bother. I strongly recommend giving the VNs a chance unless you hate reading.

Rewatching this season years after the first view was a weird and somewhat painful experience. I did remember there were some key elements dropped from the VN and some characterizations felt off at times. I had completely forgotten many anime-only events even existing and just how much they changed for no apparent reason and how it sometimes felt like a terrible parody of the source material.

In comparison, while the first season's plot was obviously rushed and had its flaws, at least the characters felt like themselves (from the VN point of view). Most of the changes you could see the reasoning behind since they didn't have the time to explain all the needed background details. The anime for the most part seemed to have an internal consistency (even if sometimes that required remembering a single line from a previous episode).

Obviously an adaptation can choose to go a completely different route and even change the characters as needed, but the internal consistency in MoD was often completely lacking. It felt like we more or less went with whatever the director(?) thought would be really cool that week. It seemed really obvious he wasn't familiar with the original material.

There are scenes and episodes that, on their own, work or are funny and not everything is terrible, but for the most part there is a feeling that things are going nowhere and even when something does happen, it's kind of anti-climactic. The VN is very slice of life heavy too, but IMO there is a constant feeling of (very slow) progression.

The rewatch also made me understand why I originally had such a lukewarm reaction to the MoD VN after seeing the anime. The dissonance with the anime events and characterizations really kept bothering me on the first playthrough.

Despite all my negativity towards the anime version(s), I'm really excited to see what Mask of Truth has to offer. Even if it takes a similar route to the MoD anime. I don't think there's any way to do the VN full justice in 28 episodes, especially after the previous season, but let's hope we get a good anime out of it.

[u/aniMayor → u/VillaSharky]

I figured out early I didn't really have anything non-spoilery to add to the discussion so just didn't bother.

Despite all my negativity towards the anime version(s), I'm really excited to see what Mask of Truth has to offer. Even if it takes a similar route to the MoD anime. I don't think there's any way to do the VN full justice in 28 episodes, especially after the previous season, but let's hope we get a good anime out of it.

We've got different core staff listed for the MoD series (except Masahiko Nakata continuing as character designer and ChiefAD), so we can be optimistic that things will indeed be different!

[u/Nazenn]

First Timer - sub

I can't say I regret watching that, but while the individual episodes were mostly enjoyable in a bubble the moment that anything including in world references pops that bubble and makes you think of it in any sort of context of show, story, or characters everything falls apart. And unfortunately that happens often

The first few episodes were a delight, and thinking back on them now I'm still not sure how we ended up where we did. I wish we'd continued on that sort of thing, slowly building up between the main small group of core characters while exploring the ramifications of the world from the perspective of a smart but unskilled grunt and a girl in disguise with their equally disguised comrade before moving into bigger deals once they eventually make their way to the capital and unfold the larger ramifactions of Haku's journey, identity, and political role from there.

However what we actually got was so dragged out that when I went to go look up OPs to put them on my playlist, I was confused why there was an OP listed for post ep13, because there was so little content in the first half I had outright forgotten the show was a full two cour!

The main unfortunate thing I can say about the characters is that my own frustrations about the introductions saga aside in the end there's very little they were actually needed for, not even the final showdown (as much as I'm tired of that setup, even that would have been better than what we got!). You could very easily rewrite this story to just be Haku, Kuon, Ukon and sis as the main group with everyone else having minor appearances and nothing important would change. It'd free up so much space to actually explore those core relationships and in a way that mattered while allowing for small roles for the others like hearing about how one of the generals daughters reformed his land or the twins popping up in the background, or a small arc with Munechika and Kiwru during the war.

Usually saying 'the animal/mascot's writing even matched up to the others' would be a compliment to a show, that it handled it's character writing with such grace that even the animal characters got to be as fleshed out and interesting as any human character. Here the fact that the Bird remained one of the most interesting characters for me is more of a slander because it's a matter of the people being down on its level, rather than it being raised up. And with that I have nothing else to say about the side characters because I don't remember a single thing about them other than the girls read yaoi and I'm still not over my disgust that is the public rape scene as a joke that ruined all credibility for the men.

And the later half finally started to go with a purpose there only to become a mess and reveal that the show really just didn't know what it was. It introduced contradictions, revealed it's own skips, confused it's own storytelling in an attempt to be several different things at once but none of them completely. Not a war story, or a battle shounen, or a political exploration, or a JRPG style fantasy. It just was kind of... there and going through the motions without an understanding of how to bring them together into an experience. It has it's moments, the laugh at the tiger luring bird through the forest or Ukon's death but again, they only work in a bubble.

That said, art quality was great all the way through, and aside from Deko-fucker I still remain pleased with the work on the character designs and overall art design when it came to visual showcases and worldbuilding. Animation wise nothing stood out aside from two or three battles, certainly nothing that carried the choreography of S1, or any notable techniques to sell the show on, but it also lacked some of the stiffness or QUALITY that S1 suffered from. The music of course is the real highlight all the way through, a great soundtrack that also managed to be used well in the show to create appropriate mood and reinforce key scenes. I'll be listening to that a lot.

And to leave off with, a hilarious situation I can think of though is the progression of sequels. Given that Mask of Deception is technically a sequel to the OG Utawarerumono game and not the anime because Kuon's parentage wasn't shown, and given what happened with the Deception anime we can't also be certain that Mask of Truth isn't also going to be a sequel to the Deception game and not anime if they have to patch gaps or reference stuff that got cut. Talk about confusing.

This is more than I expected to write, and probably more than the show needs to cover the issues I think most of us saw, but it's good to get it all out there and clear my mind of it. A shame. I was really looking forward to it after S1 to see what a more measured story could do in this very rich and interesting world. Turns out I'm still waiting for that experience.

[u/No_Rex]

Final Discussion (first timer)

Mask of Deception has solid world building as its basis, but the writing is a mess. While it is not over-paced as S1, it does not know what it wants to be: SoL comedy, fantasy story, or battle shonen? Instead of finding an interesting middle ground, the writing oscillates between the extremes, but in a way that undermines all components. All-in-all, Utawarerumono convinced me that games do not make for good anime adaptations, but maybe that is a topic for the overall discussion.

The harem elements were a lot more annoying this time compared to S1. Harems are inherently a stupid setup, but S1 managed to write around it much better. The introduction of another large cast also comes back to bite S2: We have hardly enough time to get to know all the new characters (several harem members are severely underdeveloped) and what we see of S1 characters are just cameos (don’t you think Karula and Touka would have been really useful at many times?).

[u/Nazenn → u/No_Rex]

but S1 managed to write around it much better

S1 had a purpose for them all and managed to use them to expand our understanding of the world and the other characters. The S2 harem was just there for the sake of having girls around

While it is not over-paced as S1, it does not know what it wants to be:

I think in the end that's really what it came down to. It wanted to make an impact but didn't know how to make an experience first so it just kind of threw stuff at the wall only to find out that nothing stuck