AmuroNT1 wrote:@ Yokozuna: Yeah, there were five Cuckoos, but two got killed in some event comic. As far as I know the remaining three are still around, especially after they revelation that they were test tube babies made from Emma Frost's eggs. Because comics.
@ latenlazy: Your last couple of sentences are what I was really going for here. We don't actually know much of anything about Yosuke Kuroda as a person; all we know is his list of work, and even then it can be a little vague. Just because someone's listed as A writer for an episode of a show doesn't mean he's the ONLY writer for that episode; the entire writing staff generally contributes to a script, suggesting changes or additions or deletions. Even if you know who scripted that episode, we don't know for certain WHAT that person handled, if they wrote the dialog or storyboarded the fight scene or whatever. We just have the vague idea that they contributed to its existence.
That's why I feel like it's unfair to damn a single person for a show's failure OR to credit one person for its success. A television series is a gigantic undertaking, with hundreds of staff members working on every episode. And like any machine with lots of moving parts, if one tiny thing goes wrong it can have massive repercussions. Giving one person all the praise undermines the efforts of their co-workers, while blaming them for everything that went wrong is a bit like singling out one specific fire-fighter out of a whole brigade for being unable to stop a building from burning down.
Basically, the only way one person can have that kind of massive pull with a production is if there's a special case - like the much-reviled Chiaki Morosawa, who wasn't just the head writer of Seed and Destiny but also the wife of its director. And even then, to be completely honest, I've gotten the impression that she's not nearly as bad as a decade of fan-hatred has made her out to be. Sure, things like her breaking up Athrun and Cagalli pissed me off, but I KNOW she wasn't the only person on the staff screwing things up - after all, why would a writer have any say over things like the excessive use of stock footage?
But to summarize, I really am enjoying Try. As much fun as the original Build Fighters was, there was only so far you could carry certain concepts. All the "nudge and wink" jokes about the Gundam franchise were fun, but eventually all the nudging was going to get annoying. I do appreciate that Try is trying to go in its own direction while still retaining some vestiges of the old spirit. I will admit that the show has its problems, but like with all things it seems down to personal tolerance: at what point will the small dislikes override your enjoyment of the overall story? When does a cool car with a few scratches change into an ugly rust-bucket? That's all in the eye of the beholder.
All I can really say in response is that my problem with Try is solidly in the writing. It may not be that Kuroda's presence or absence is responsible for this, but that's where the problem is. It's not as cohesive, tight, and competent as BF. At times it is downright clumsy and forced. For me at least, the problems with the writing haven't been minor. I do think you can at times isolate what parts of a production are the problems for a show (being a hobby film critic and having been on the back end of some college productions I at least believe that I can
), and in this case I'm very certain that the problem is in the writing. In fact, within a production writing is one of the most important and influential component next to direction (with photography and acting in live production). Sometimes that responsibility for writing is very distributed. Often times that responsibility is actually very concentrated. That writing component is so influential that if you pay attention and know what you're looking for you can usually identify a writer just through the feel of the script and its tendencies. It's why a lot of people complain about writing and can claim that this writer or that writer was responsible when they're being critics.
On a tangent, I would say yes, Destiny IS as bad as we all remembered it, for me at least. I don't think Morosawa deserves all the blame for it, but in my mind she does deserve significant blame for the bad parts of the show that pertained to the writing, which was a big big piece of the problem.
