ひげ
"i'm so sad so i want to make everyone sad so i can feel happy" is a fucked up, deranged take.
edgerunners has a lot of style but it is pure depression porn made by this guy, the likes of which are only surpassed by neil druckmann's last of us 2.
@beardalaxy no, you don't get it
you don't *just* make everyone sad so you could feel happy; it's not a deranged schadenfreude
you make everyone sad so they could feel soul-engulfing, encompassing, distilled cleansing ~toska~ and come out of it a better man; it's like detox for your soul
and because you made people a bit better, you feel a bit happy
it's a major Slav thing (although not just Slav, Japanese are quite fond of it too, and it's derived from them respecting Classic Russian Literature), I write in the same way even when I don't want to; it's the same thing that makes so many of quests in the Witcher deliver a gut punch in their finales
@matana any good story has tragedy. it makes it relatable and does give that gut punch. everyone's life has tragedy and they can feel that connection through the story.
in my opinion, the problem with edgerunners is that the tragedy of the ending feels contrived. with the producer actually saying that was his intention, that's a pretty big confirmation for me. you can have stuff like david's mom dying and that one guy going cyberpsycho. those fit really well. everything past that point (basically the second half of the anime) is just so forced to specifically put you in a depression hole all so this guy can be like "oh yeah it makes me happy when people are just as sad as i am." i think that's why a lot of people might like it too. they are sad, so seeing other people who are sad makes them comfortable. maybe it's more of a translation error or something but i think "comfortable" is the way most people feel. saying you feel happy that other people are just as sad as you is sociopathic.
i had wondered if the writers had just sped things up and crunched it down because they were given a pretty strict episode limit. that could still be part of the issue, but now it seems pretty clear that the story was always supposed to be something that only served to make you feel like shit. i want a story that makes me feel like shit at some points, but also has reprieve from that. i want the parts that make me feel like shit to actually make sense. the writing of edgerunners is just not good, even if this depression stuff is what they were going for they really should have worked it in far better.
nabokov's quote here is a little interesting to me, because he mentions that at its lowest level it becomes ennui/boredom. i think edgerunners' story goes so far into "toska" that i just find it completely boring. it's just not interesting to see these unrealistic characters being forced into the shittiest possible situations. and do note there is a clear difference between demonstrating the ennui a character feels (such as samurai jack in the final season) and actually causing the viewer to feel that way towards your story.
@beardalaxy Samurai Jack never had a final season
and with Edgerunners, it's clear from the episode one that nobody will survive, cyberpunk genre rules and the characters' initial position call for that; and Lucy getting to the moon is almost a hopeful subversion
it was indeed rushed because of episode limit, but the writing was really good taking that into account
and that's why Edgerunners doesn't need a second season: it ended pretty much perfectly; although I can't say that I felt too much toska after the ending, but it left a nice melancholy aftertaste
and honestly, fuck the current society where happiness is mandatory anyway, it is poisoned with toxic positivity; that's how we got vultures screeching about everything being problematic and calling for the return of Hays Code; if being happy about sadness is sociopathic, then the society needs this kind of sociopath thinking because otherwise rich men in ties turn something like Sonic Adventure 2 into a fart comedy (I am still mad)
and imo even if you felt frustration and annoyance, it's a good thing and a mark of good writing, because the worst case scenario when the reader/watcher doesn't feel anything
@matana happiness isn't mandatory. sadness is perfectly fine to feel. i think a lot of toxic positivity comes from an over-correction by people who are the saddest. at the same time, if things are aggressively bleak and it feels like it is only that way to force you into feeling like shit without reprieve, i don't find that to be something worth engaging in personally. not everything has to even have a 100% cheery happy ending. they could have had all the same deaths happen in edgerunners but twisted it differently and i would have been much more sad and less annoyed.
i'm willing to chalk it up to a culture difference. i personally just think that edgerunners was far too bleak and in a very unconvincing way. even within the cyberpunk genre it's one of the most oppressively written stories. it was memorable for me, but i don't believe it was in the intended way. at gunpoint, i'd still watch it again over something like borderlands though so you got me there lol. that movie didn't even feel like wasted time, it felt like i never had the time that movie took up to begin with.