[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Despite enjoying the episode a ton anyway, after first watching it, I was pretty hung up on the whole reveal at the end that the episode's central dilemma only ever existed in Touma's head. I guess I thought it retroactively undermined the stakes or something, but ever since then, I've realized I actually think it's a perfect cap for this story, which makes me love the episode that much more.

I enjoyed it for no other reason than I thought it was humorous. The way Touma's all like, "yeah, you're right, I could've just used you to do that", followed by his sudden revelation and incredulous expression. Great comedic timing from Naito there that totally sold the scene for me! And as you mentioned, while it rendered the endeavor pointless, it didn't lessen Touma's determination to do the right thing and even helped Yuri to understand the philosophy of modern heroism by making him consider the value of individual human life.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Mei's quite lucky that she got an editor who is principled by focusing on bringing happiness on the people who read the books, though... there are multiple genre of books and there are multiple feelings and emotions various type of stories can give, like giving fear for tenseful suspense, sadness for something tragic, etc.

Yeah, I think something like general satisfaction is more what she meant by bringing happiness. Readers want to feel the full emotional spectrum, whether it's happiness, sadness, anger, etc. They want to feel like the stories in the books are real and meaningful, so they can learn from those experiences and apply them IRL. Like the debate between Touma and Bacht about whether suffering is a justified part of living. The worst stories are those that make people feel apathetic, offended, bored and like they wasted their time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Hmm.. so that seems to be where your arguments from Gai came from, thinking that he genuinely had a goal of human improvement... I'd say, his human supremacist claim is the cover of his crimes, I've said that Horobi never lives up to his claims of saving Humagears, but Gai is even worse for that as he just consistently hypocritically contradicting it, like him thinking humans deserve Ark's judgment, and also how he had cold and data-focused approach even more than Humagears due to his profit-driven approach, and as Rider he won't improve/evolve but acting as a parasite stealing from people around him, it's also revealed later his true view of humanity is using them as tools, he doesn't actually care about them, all his actions are only for himself and his greed.

Well, honestly, I don't exactly believe in Gai's claims of human improvement either, hence why I quote-unquoted "heroic", as his idea of that is just as pretentious and self-validating as everything else he does. Although his belief that humanity are deserving of Ark's retribution can be seen as forcing them to confront their malice so they can become better, something that Gai eventually does as well after seeing the error of his ways. The only real thing is his love of Hiden Intelligence and Thouzer, but sadly that got twisted by his narcissism, inferiority complex towards Korenosuke and Aruto and a childhood of 1000% expectation, which collectively motivated him to become the one true president by any means necessary.