Reserving Judgment
Given how I’ve been grabbing and then watching the raw of the latest episode of Index, I can safely say that this is the series that most excites me this season. The big drawback, however, is that my Japanese language ability is very limited and I often don’t get the best out of the anime. The process for Index Ep 4 went something like:
Raw: Very superficial understanding. Overall impression was that the fight scene was unnecessarily interrupted by an over-long dialogue between Touma and Kaori.
Chinese sub: My Chinese reading isn’t all that good either, especially for traditional (rather than simplified) characters but I did get the gist - even though Touma got KO’ed physically, he won the debate on points.
Quality English sub: Oh, this all makes sense. All that blah blah/pera pera was important background and plot information. The viewer was given the history, present situation and future to-do alongside Touma and also, at least in my case, empathy with his rejection of Stiyl and Kaori’s methods.
As Stripey was telling me, in some series and/or certain episodes of some series, understanding as close to 100% of the details and nuances of the dialogue is essential to the full enjoyment of the anime. I suppose the moral of the tanuki’s story was that until there is clarity of understanding, judgment reserved may be the fairest course.
Which is also why I’ve yet to make up my mind about Blassreiter. I’ve seen the last few eps raw but I will need the subs for the final arc to make up my own mind about whether the series was really excellent or just above average.
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