Setting Things Straight With Brats - Ch. 15 - Brat Lost Because Otaku Kun Got A Girlfriend

[HoangDinh]

I actually feel bad for this girl.

I feel meh

 

[phil777]

Honesty is always the best policy.

 

[harukuro]

NO GUYS DYING! THANK GOD!

 

[Aztecreader]

Com-muni-cation!

 

[Qwormuli]

But Anime classically had exaggeration. And while anime does have more serious elements, they still keep the cartoony sides for most things.. Tsundere (and comic yandere) are often supposed to be exaggerated characters....

Cartoons are really just moving drawings. And the original Japanese cartoons and Western actually were quite similar. They split apart to their own styles later... but the core is the same. So the base of anime and western cartoons is slapstick stupidity.

And in Japan, they also have a type of humor called manzai, where physical comedy is a huge part of it.

It's just, I noticed a lot of tsundere hate comes from taking comic exaggerations more seriously....

While I think you do have a point with the amusing injuries being misunderstood, but I'd say that it less commonly comes from the audience not understanding it (which also still can be a mistake on the author's part, to be clear) and more from the author either misunderstanding how to make the cause and effect funny or deliberately straying away from it to make a more serious point.

The biggest factor being the effect part of that cause and effect. If the injury is fixed or ignored easily, even a very realistic depiction or serious intent can turn funny (think about getting flattened, but blowing yourself back up from your thumb). But it doesn't work as well the other way around: If the result is either a lasting one or is shown to cause actual, non-comedic distress, it's really difficult to spin as a harmless gag, no matter how much you play it up with comedy graphics or whatever crutches are in use.

One can try to switch up the seriousness of the cause and effect themselves in scenes like this and see the massive difference it causes. And if an author does switch it up for the more harrowing flavour, either they are doing it 100% seriously and bludgeoning etc. is not meant to be all that funny, or they are quite frankly fucking up a really basic thing.

And very often the tsundere's/brat's/whatever's hit really does hurt, is avoided and is not liked by the target at all (unless fetish bait ofc), which is why comedy isn't the exact thing coming into the readers' minds.

...And yes, I just spent paragraphs over-analyzing a dumb trope in a comment section.

 

[Qwormuli]

While I think you do have a point with the amusing injuries being misunderstood, but I'd say that it less commonly comes from the audience not understanding it (which also still can be a mistake on both the author's or audiance's part, to be clear) and more from the author either misunderstanding how to make the cause and effect funny or deliberately straying away from it to make a more serious point.

The biggest factor being the effect part of that cause and effect. If the injury is fixed or ignored easily, even a very realistic depiction or serious intent can turn funny (think about getting flattened, but blowing yourself back up from your thumb). But it doesn't work as well the other way around: If the result is either a lasting one or is shown to cause actual, non-comedic distress, it's really difficult to spin as a harmless gag, no matter how much you play it up with comedy graphics or whatever crutches are in use.

One can try to switch up the seriousness of the cause and effect themselves in scenes like this and see the massive difference it causes. And if an author does switch it up for the more harrowing flavour, either they are doing it 100% seriously and bludgeoning etc. is not meant to be all that funny, or they are quite frankly fucking up a really basic thing.

And very often the tsundere's/brat's/whatever's hit really does hurt, is avoided and is not liked by the target at all (unless fetish bait ofc), which is why comedy isn't the exact thing coming into the readers' minds.

...And yes, I just spent paragraphs over-analyzing a dumb trope in a comment section.

 

[deathmailrock]

While I think you do have a point with the amusing injuries being misunderstood, but I'd say that it less commonly comes from the audience not understanding it (which also still can be a mistake on the author's part, to be clear) and more from the author either misunderstanding how to make the cause and effect funny or deliberately straying away from it to make a more serious point.

The biggest factor being the effect part of that cause and effect. If the injury is fixed or ignored easily, even a very realistic depiction or serious intent can turn funny (think about getting flattened, but blowing yourself back up from your thumb). But it doesn't work as well the other way around: If the result is either a lasting one or is shown to cause actual, non-comedic distress, it's really difficult to spin as a harmless gag, no matter how much you play it up with comedy graphics or whatever crutches are in use.

One can try to switch up the seriousness of the cause and effect themselves in scenes like this and see the massive difference it causes. And if an author does switch it up for the more harrowing flavour, either they are doing it 100% seriously and bludgeoning etc. is not meant to be all that funny, or they are quite frankly fucking up a really basic thing.

And very often the tsundere's/brat's/whatever's hit really does hurt, is avoided and is not liked by the target at all (unless fetish bait ofc), which is why comedy isn't the exact thing coming into the readers' minds.

...And yes, I just spent paragraphs over-analyzing a dumb trope in a comment section.

Here is the thing, a huge chunk of the audience DO understand.

And it should be noted that in the past, people understood these kinda tropes a lot better than now.

Now, we have audience members over analyzing and taking things more seriously and being a lot more critical of realism in fiction...

Remember, Tsunderes are used heavily because they are popular. So there is a huge market that understands it perfectly.

And it's fine if they don't like it... but if a joke is way way way too common in a medium and culture, then you should have a duty to at least understand that culture.

If you don't like the joke, fine... but you got to understand that the damage and problems caused aren't actually connected to the canon (aka, not real).

You said it yourself. It's a trope. A HUGE one that's been lasting for more than 40 years....

 

[deathmailrock]

While I think you do have a point with the amusing injuries being misunderstood, but I'd say that it less commonly comes from the audience not understanding it (which also still can be a mistake on the author's part, to be clear) and more from the author either misunderstanding how to make the cause and effect funny or deliberately straying away from it to make a more serious point.

If a trope is way too popular, used in too many media and lasted for 40+ years, there is a point where you should at least TRY to understand it....

 

[Qwormuli]

If a trope is way too popular, used in too many media and lasted for 40+ years, there is a point where you should at least TRY to understand it....

But still, there are good and bad ways to use the trope. While I'm not a fan of the trope itself, I don't have an issue with much of the antics surrounding it, as long as the author says as they show. And while I can agree to a point about understanding tropes and jokes that don't personally land for you, there isn't that much leeway for poor execution. And that's what many of the more complained about tropes fall to. They are either used or executed poorly and by that make the rest of the story worse. So many mangos (and I don't intend to rag just manga for this, even if it's so prolific) just make a xerox of whatever trope or a piece of a setting without any thought towards how it functions or why it worked. And glossing it over is a disservice to the work.

In the best cases (like in the 100 GFs) I actually like the use, as it's followed through well from start to finish.

 

[deathmailrock]

But still, there are good and bad ways to use the trope. While I'm not a fan of the trope itself, I don't have an issue with much of the antics surrounding it, as long as the author says as they show. And while I can agree to a point about understanding tropes and jokes that don't personally land for you, there isn't that much leeway for poor execution. And that's what many of the more complained about tropes fall to. They are either used or executed poorly and by that make the rest of the story worse. So many mangos (and I don't intend to rag just manga for this, even if it's so prolific) just make a xerox of whatever trope or a piece of a setting without any thought towards how it functions or why it worked. And glossing it over is a disservice to the work.

In the best cases (like in the 100 GFs) I actually like the use, as it's followed through well from start to finish.

The issue is that even when it's clearly meant for humor, you can still find people complaining in the comments... even when it's super clearly exaggerated. So people just take it more seriously than it's meant to....

 

[Qwormuli]

The issue is that even when it's clearly meant for humor, you can still find people complaining in the comments... even when it's super clearly exaggerated. So people just take it more seriously than it's meant to....

That's my point: Even if the preset is exaggerated no matter how much or in what way, if the follow through is mishandled, the whole thing falls flat. If it's poorly executed, it's no surprise it elicits an unintended reaction from the audience. So much slapstick in general fails at this. Many authors focus on the wrong thing (the setup vs the result) and that's something even the old timey Disney has failed at every now and then.

Then there is a pigheaded audience every now and then, but I don't have much I can talk about that, other matter it's probably much rarer that it's made out to be IMHO. Sometimes it really is the viewer.

 

[deathmailrock]

That's my point: Even if the preset is exaggerated no matter how much or in what way, if the follow through is mishandled, the whole thing falls flat. If it's poorly executed, it's no surprise it elicits an unintended reaction from the audience. So much slapstick in general fails at this. Many authors focus on the wrong thing (the setup vs the result) and that's something even the old timey Disney has failed at every now and then.

Then there is a pigheaded audience every now and then, but I don't have much I can talk about that, other matter it's probably much rarer that it's made out to be IMHO. Sometimes it really is the viewer.

The problem is that very rarely do I see people complaining if ever about it being "misused"

I just see only 2 groups, people who take comic slapstick as abuse and those that don't.

I haven't really seen any time where people think it's misused or something.

It's almost always people taking the joke too seriously and claiming it's abuse.

 

[deathmailrock]

That's my point: Even if the preset is exaggerated no matter how much or in what way, if the follow through is mishandled, the whole thing falls flat. If it's poorly executed, it's no surprise it elicits an unintended reaction from the audience. So much slapstick in general fails at this. Many authors focus on the wrong thing (the setup vs the result) and that's something even the old timey Disney has failed at every now and then.

Then there is a pigheaded audience every now and then, but I don't have much I can talk about that, other matter it's probably much rarer that it's made out to be IMHO. Sometimes it really is the viewer.

I want to rectify my point, I have seen it ONE single time where both tsundere haters and lovers united.

And it was for a series called "The Seven Sleeping Beauties"

Where it tries the trope but it drags it out so badly that it just doesn't work....

 

[Qwormuli]

The problem is that very rarely do I see people complaining if ever about it being "misused"

I just see only 2 groups, people who take comic slapstick as abuse and those that don't.

I haven't really seen any time where people think it's misused or something.

It's almost always people taking the joke too seriously and claiming it's abuse.

100% agree that You (or I) don't see those complaints, but that's because people are never boring enough to really analyze this stuff. They see a thing, they see that it's stupid AF, they see the label. They don't look at execution or anything else, but stick to the label and attribute all solely to it. It happens with all genres, tropes or tools. You might have seen people hating the terms deconstruction or subversion lately in media and especially movies and all the rants how shit concepts those are, but little mention how it's the shitty modern results that are worth hating, not the idea necessarily. Same with isekai, virtual reality or anything else that gets absolutely raped by the wider author population.

Tsundere just gets the double whammy, as the premise itself is so rickety, that only diamond solid execution will make it truly work.

Edit: Also, pure slapstick stripped of these other things -like inflamed relationship dynamics- also tends to look wholly different, Tommy & Jerry style.

 

[deathmailrock]

100% agree that You (or I) don't see those complaints, but that's because people are never boring enough to really analyze this stuff. They see a thing, they see that it's stupid AF, they see the label. They don't look at execution or anything else, but stick to the label and attribute all solely to it. It happens with all genres, tropes or tools. You might have seen people hating the terms deconstruction or subversion lately in media and especially movies and all the rants how shit concepts those are, but little mention how it's the shitty modern results that are worth hating, not the idea necessarily. Same with isekai, virtual reality or anything else that gets absolutely raped by the wider author population.

Tsundere just gets the double whammy, as the premise itself is so rickety, that only diamond solid execution will make it truly work.

Edit: Also, pure slapstick stripped of these other things -like inflamed relationship dynamics- also tends to look wholly different, Tommy & Jerry style.

I think it's just because they are just now taking everything so seriously now...

It's like how One Piece fans try to take everything as a super master plan and connect stuff when it isn't there...

Also, while Tom & Jerry style is even more exaggerated, I think overly common jokes should also be kinda obvious... it's just the modern mentality of some people...

And there are even people pitying Looney Tunes characters....

 

[Qwormuli]

I think it's just because they are just now taking everything so seriously now...

It's like how One Piece fans try to take everything as a super master plan and connect stuff when it isn't there...

Also, while Tom & Jerry style is even more exaggerated, I think overly common jokes should also be kinda obvious... it's just the modern mentality of some people...

And there are even people pitying Looney Tunes characters....

But on the other hand, those types of One Piece fans are absolutely hilarious.

 

[deathmailrock]

But on the other hand, those types of One Piece fans are absolutely hilarious.

True, but the funny thing is that they probably would find some loose proof.

Like using "Mr. Prince" and thinking Oda always planned for Sanji to be Germa or even thinking Oda always planned for Gear 5 when Oda literally admitted in an interview that One Piece became darker than he expected and he came up with the idea to lighten things up.

And the funny thing is, because One Piece ran for 20+ years, there is a good chance they can find something, just cause there is so much material...

 

[Weebman0]

Agree to disagree that tsunderes are a good trope, frankly i also kinda completely forgot what started this discussion

I don't think they were making any kind of claim on whether tsunderes are a good or bad trope.

They just noted that tsunderes get a lot of flack for being taken seriously instead of being acknowledged as exaggerations (which can be said of many tropes).

 

[thedinowarrior]

I don't think they were making any kind of claim on whether tsunderes are a good or bad trope.

They just noted that tsunderes get a lot of flack for being taken seriously instead of being acknowledged as exaggerations (which can be said of many tropes).

Nigga, what the fuck even is this chapter, yo i don't even remember the series that started this 😭