Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Disclaimers:
*this thread will contain spoilers for the first episode of "Kotoura-san"
*this thread takes under assumption that quality in writing is not just a matter of opinion being objective, and thus writing is improvable. Please do not post any comments here stating otherwise, it will only serve to piss me off
*you should probably read the first half before you read this one
When we stopped last time, the grim tone of the scene had litterally shattered in front of us. At this point, the episode introduces it´s lighthearted, bubbly opening, typical of a slice of life romance like this. However, as we saw last time, this has a heavy contrast with what we know about Kotoura and her life. So, how do we make such a radical transition feel natural? Last time, we saw how context and wording can create a general feel for a scene and by showing the value of consistency in powers even if not explained, making even the normally unnatural elements of the story feel organic within it. However, this is still very much working on the atmosphere and set up. Now it´s time to look a little closer at how to start the characters off.
Let´s see how the anime handled it.
The second half kicks off with the first break after Kotoura transfers in (as in between classes) and one of her classmates, the class representative, comes and asks her where she lives. We jump to Kotoura´s perspective, and we see her vision retains the dark monotone that we had seen before, indicating she still hasn´t let of the perspective that we the audience knows Makabe will bring to her. Kotoura proceeds to shooting down any attemtps at befriending or communicating with her using her mind reading abilities. People call Kotoura creepy, while Makabe gains some interest in Kotoura, curiosity.
A girl with a crush on Makabe appears to remind him of her invitation to go to her home, to which Makabe replies that he knows she is trying to advertise her dojo, and that he will not go. Needless to say he is mistaken, and that this is a first introduction of how dense he is, but it also leads to think about how they "might really want his skills", to which Kotoura remarks that they don´t.
This is followed by a small montage, with three panels of three weeks passing by. We see the way people flock to the new transfer student at first, who keeps her focus on her book without a single trace of emotion in her expression, while Makabe who is also with friends and at first is talking to them, starts to slowly approach his gaze to Kotoura, showing at once how Kotoura managed to shoo everyone away, but Makabe´s interest only grew. As the montage ends, Makabe forces his way into having lunch with her on her desk (everyone gasps in surprise). Kotoura once again reads his mind, realizes he is thinking about how good her food looks, and lets him take some. Makabe reveals the reason for his fascination, her weird behavior that is making her loose friends and her "mind reading trick". He advises her to cut it short, to which Kotoura explains that it isn´t a trick. In a show of how litle he is phased by the response, Makabe focuses his attention of the food again, snatching a croquete and smirking. Kotoura protests, showing the first ounce of emotion since her shock when she first met Makabe.
We are treated to a sequence of short bits, with a very lighthearted music on the background, while Makabe tries interacting with Kotoura at every chance. The girl, on the other hand, tries her damnest to avoidd him, and to keep up her facade. However, as Makabe continues to push, we are treated to another scene of them lunching together. For a brief moment, the serene Kotoura looks up at Makabe with interest and wonder, why would someone be trying to hard to befriend her? The wonder doens´t last long though, as she burts into laughter for the first we saw since her early childhood, provoked by a "funny face" Makabe was making with his chopsticks up his nose.
At this point, I think that it´s important to remind people of what Makabe´s general personality is like. He is very much like a typical protagonist in this type of show: very dense, very kindhearted and a bit stubborn. A stand in the audience , one might call him. However, even being that, the way he gets angry at people for not taking care of themselves is a somewhat unique trait in it´s consistency in this character. In fact, his consistency as a character, from being over-protective, to being a pervert to being dense and so on... all of these things are constantly present. And furthermore, the character has a solid perspective, as we see throughout not just what came before in the episode, but what we will continue to see.
As they walked together on the path home, Makabe asks about Kotoura´s trick. He poses what many members of the audience might have been wondering before they saw the first half of the episode: That having mind reading would be awesome. Kotoura lashes out at this, hurt by his insensivity to the subject (though to be fair, he couldn´t have known), and runs away. The next day, she doesn´t come to school, and Makabe ends up finding her. He speaks to her in an angrily fashion, and Kotoura tries to run away, but after her lashing out, Makabe has got an idea in mind and tests it by dreaming up a dirty fantasy envolving Kotoura. This is trasmitted right into her head, so she comes back to make him stop, which in turn proves him right that it is in fact some kind of special power. Kotoura reveals the truth, and averts her eyes, thinking Makabe will be angry or hate her. Instead, Makabe freaks out about not being able to dream up dirty fantasies (because she might think of him as a pervert), making Kotoura confused.
Later, in her room, she smiles pondering about how much of a weirdo he is. A sudden flush of flashbacks to her past dismisses the thought though, and Kotoura fights to repress it so that she will not get close to people again. However, in the next scene, the two meet up and as Makabe offers to carry her shopping home for her, a truck approaches and Kotoura saves Makabe´s life. She tells him she read the mind of the driver, and that he must see her as a monster now....
"Thank you" says Makabe. This really gets to Kotoura, this show of appreciation for something which had previously only earned her hatred. Makabe notices a wound on her knee and they go to Kotoura´s place to get that bandaged. There, the two of them have a small fight, where Kotoura explains that she was unable to control her powers, and since childhood it only hurt people, Makabe protests that it is her that is being hurt to which she replies that she doesn´t like it either, she doens´t want to hurt or get hurt, but what she hates the most is that people she is attached to leave her, so she is better off being alone. Makabe promises never to leave her, nomatter what.
Kotoura starts crying, to which Makabe fantazises about her , making her protest and reminding him that she will alwas be able to tell that he is having dirty fantasies on his mind. An imagery of a wolf over his head is shown, and Kotoura laughs, breaking the tension of the scene and finnally allowing Kotoura to settle to giving Makabe his chance.
And at last, we have the ending with a much darker, sad tone, showing us that the haunting past will not just fade into nothingness even if the series is generally lighthearted.
So, what can we learn form this?
Again, dissecting everything is pretty much impossible here, and I even let out some parts. However, this second half bears a wonderful introduction to the inciting incident, that is, the event that triggers the real plot (in this case, Kotoura and Makabe meeting).
A good inciting incident has three steps, appearance, resistance and comformity. The appearance is how and why the incident came to be. The resistance is what the characters to do to avoid having to face the clash with how they live and the comformity is when they finnally resign to follow the inciting incident and try to work out the problem it presents. Contrary to what some might expect, the inciting incident to Kotoura-san was actually pretty short, ending when at the first lunch together scene, as from there, it´s consequences of the inciting incident. The first part, the appearance, was caused by what I described in the first part. All of that also had the function of setting up this very meeting and the level of realism in the other parts make this one more belevable and thus strengthens our connection with the characters even further. At first, both Kotoura and Makabe try not letting their simple meeting face them. The realism is kept as neither character simply drops their whole life plan just because their eyes met once. But the seed of interest or curiosity is there. And as Makabe finally comforms and goes to lunch with Kotoura, the inciting incident is over and we get a real insight into Makabe as well, as well as to some other tricks the anime has in terms of showing characters.
The realism I spoke of is shown in the integrity and consistency of the characters. Keep in mind that, in universe, characters are real people. Yes, people change, but that is not at a moment´s notice. Real people have real personalities and their behavior is largely determined by that. Don´t deviate from the personality because it´s convenient and don´t try to make it too general, because it will make the character less outstanding, less unique and much weaker. Furthermore , consistency in perspective is also of extreme importance. The way Makabe is convinced that the mind reading is a trick until Kotoura lashes out is against the narrative notion that he would have to be shown as the most appealing human being ever to Kotoura. But instead, he pisses her off like that. And why? Because Makabe is not someone who would know or believe in such powers without having a good reason to.
Remeber that characters need a reason to interact. Just like real people, nobody is gonna walk up to a complete stranger and starts talking to them about random stuff. If two characters are going to interact, theys should have some kind of interest in one another. That can be romantic, but it can also be, for example, what Kotoura-san uses, curiosity.
Lastly, regarding growth. Kotoura-san is the kind of show that shows us it´s possible to make such a thing as well-paced developed very quickly too. Remember that progress has to be caused and earned even at the very beggining. Makabe´s push of Kotoura´s hearstrings start out with her emotionless, so naturally she doesn´t go to laughing right away, much less befriending him. She starts out angry and avoiding, then laughs, but she fights that happiness and she goes sad and despairs, all this before Makabe finnaly breaks her shell and gets through. A sequence of progress that makes sense. And of course, if you notice things are too fast, so shoul the characters.
Lastly, I want to quickly mention foreshadowing. It´s extremely important for begginings, and there should be plenty of it. There is in Kotoura-san, but I said I would only spoil the first episode, so I can´t mention it this time...
In any case, I hope you enjoyed the read and I appreciate any feedback you can give me!
*this thread will contain spoilers for the first episode of "Kotoura-san"
*this thread takes under assumption that quality in writing is not just a matter of opinion being objective, and thus writing is improvable. Please do not post any comments here stating otherwise, it will only serve to piss me off
*you should probably read the first half before you read this one
When we stopped last time, the grim tone of the scene had litterally shattered in front of us. At this point, the episode introduces it´s lighthearted, bubbly opening, typical of a slice of life romance like this. However, as we saw last time, this has a heavy contrast with what we know about Kotoura and her life. So, how do we make such a radical transition feel natural? Last time, we saw how context and wording can create a general feel for a scene and by showing the value of consistency in powers even if not explained, making even the normally unnatural elements of the story feel organic within it. However, this is still very much working on the atmosphere and set up. Now it´s time to look a little closer at how to start the characters off.
Let´s see how the anime handled it.
The second half kicks off with the first break after Kotoura transfers in (as in between classes) and one of her classmates, the class representative, comes and asks her where she lives. We jump to Kotoura´s perspective, and we see her vision retains the dark monotone that we had seen before, indicating she still hasn´t let of the perspective that we the audience knows Makabe will bring to her. Kotoura proceeds to shooting down any attemtps at befriending or communicating with her using her mind reading abilities. People call Kotoura creepy, while Makabe gains some interest in Kotoura, curiosity.
A girl with a crush on Makabe appears to remind him of her invitation to go to her home, to which Makabe replies that he knows she is trying to advertise her dojo, and that he will not go. Needless to say he is mistaken, and that this is a first introduction of how dense he is, but it also leads to think about how they "might really want his skills", to which Kotoura remarks that they don´t.
This is followed by a small montage, with three panels of three weeks passing by. We see the way people flock to the new transfer student at first, who keeps her focus on her book without a single trace of emotion in her expression, while Makabe who is also with friends and at first is talking to them, starts to slowly approach his gaze to Kotoura, showing at once how Kotoura managed to shoo everyone away, but Makabe´s interest only grew. As the montage ends, Makabe forces his way into having lunch with her on her desk (everyone gasps in surprise). Kotoura once again reads his mind, realizes he is thinking about how good her food looks, and lets him take some. Makabe reveals the reason for his fascination, her weird behavior that is making her loose friends and her "mind reading trick". He advises her to cut it short, to which Kotoura explains that it isn´t a trick. In a show of how litle he is phased by the response, Makabe focuses his attention of the food again, snatching a croquete and smirking. Kotoura protests, showing the first ounce of emotion since her shock when she first met Makabe.
We are treated to a sequence of short bits, with a very lighthearted music on the background, while Makabe tries interacting with Kotoura at every chance. The girl, on the other hand, tries her damnest to avoidd him, and to keep up her facade. However, as Makabe continues to push, we are treated to another scene of them lunching together. For a brief moment, the serene Kotoura looks up at Makabe with interest and wonder, why would someone be trying to hard to befriend her? The wonder doens´t last long though, as she burts into laughter for the first we saw since her early childhood, provoked by a "funny face" Makabe was making with his chopsticks up his nose.
At this point, I think that it´s important to remind people of what Makabe´s general personality is like. He is very much like a typical protagonist in this type of show: very dense, very kindhearted and a bit stubborn. A stand in the audience , one might call him. However, even being that, the way he gets angry at people for not taking care of themselves is a somewhat unique trait in it´s consistency in this character. In fact, his consistency as a character, from being over-protective, to being a pervert to being dense and so on... all of these things are constantly present. And furthermore, the character has a solid perspective, as we see throughout not just what came before in the episode, but what we will continue to see.
As they walked together on the path home, Makabe asks about Kotoura´s trick. He poses what many members of the audience might have been wondering before they saw the first half of the episode: That having mind reading would be awesome. Kotoura lashes out at this, hurt by his insensivity to the subject (though to be fair, he couldn´t have known), and runs away. The next day, she doesn´t come to school, and Makabe ends up finding her. He speaks to her in an angrily fashion, and Kotoura tries to run away, but after her lashing out, Makabe has got an idea in mind and tests it by dreaming up a dirty fantasy envolving Kotoura. This is trasmitted right into her head, so she comes back to make him stop, which in turn proves him right that it is in fact some kind of special power. Kotoura reveals the truth, and averts her eyes, thinking Makabe will be angry or hate her. Instead, Makabe freaks out about not being able to dream up dirty fantasies (because she might think of him as a pervert), making Kotoura confused.
Later, in her room, she smiles pondering about how much of a weirdo he is. A sudden flush of flashbacks to her past dismisses the thought though, and Kotoura fights to repress it so that she will not get close to people again. However, in the next scene, the two meet up and as Makabe offers to carry her shopping home for her, a truck approaches and Kotoura saves Makabe´s life. She tells him she read the mind of the driver, and that he must see her as a monster now....
"Thank you" says Makabe. This really gets to Kotoura, this show of appreciation for something which had previously only earned her hatred. Makabe notices a wound on her knee and they go to Kotoura´s place to get that bandaged. There, the two of them have a small fight, where Kotoura explains that she was unable to control her powers, and since childhood it only hurt people, Makabe protests that it is her that is being hurt to which she replies that she doesn´t like it either, she doens´t want to hurt or get hurt, but what she hates the most is that people she is attached to leave her, so she is better off being alone. Makabe promises never to leave her, nomatter what.
Kotoura starts crying, to which Makabe fantazises about her , making her protest and reminding him that she will alwas be able to tell that he is having dirty fantasies on his mind. An imagery of a wolf over his head is shown, and Kotoura laughs, breaking the tension of the scene and finnally allowing Kotoura to settle to giving Makabe his chance.
And at last, we have the ending with a much darker, sad tone, showing us that the haunting past will not just fade into nothingness even if the series is generally lighthearted.
So, what can we learn form this?
Again, dissecting everything is pretty much impossible here, and I even let out some parts. However, this second half bears a wonderful introduction to the inciting incident, that is, the event that triggers the real plot (in this case, Kotoura and Makabe meeting).
A good inciting incident has three steps, appearance, resistance and comformity. The appearance is how and why the incident came to be. The resistance is what the characters to do to avoid having to face the clash with how they live and the comformity is when they finnally resign to follow the inciting incident and try to work out the problem it presents. Contrary to what some might expect, the inciting incident to Kotoura-san was actually pretty short, ending when at the first lunch together scene, as from there, it´s consequences of the inciting incident. The first part, the appearance, was caused by what I described in the first part. All of that also had the function of setting up this very meeting and the level of realism in the other parts make this one more belevable and thus strengthens our connection with the characters even further. At first, both Kotoura and Makabe try not letting their simple meeting face them. The realism is kept as neither character simply drops their whole life plan just because their eyes met once. But the seed of interest or curiosity is there. And as Makabe finally comforms and goes to lunch with Kotoura, the inciting incident is over and we get a real insight into Makabe as well, as well as to some other tricks the anime has in terms of showing characters.
The realism I spoke of is shown in the integrity and consistency of the characters. Keep in mind that, in universe, characters are real people. Yes, people change, but that is not at a moment´s notice. Real people have real personalities and their behavior is largely determined by that. Don´t deviate from the personality because it´s convenient and don´t try to make it too general, because it will make the character less outstanding, less unique and much weaker. Furthermore , consistency in perspective is also of extreme importance. The way Makabe is convinced that the mind reading is a trick until Kotoura lashes out is against the narrative notion that he would have to be shown as the most appealing human being ever to Kotoura. But instead, he pisses her off like that. And why? Because Makabe is not someone who would know or believe in such powers without having a good reason to.
Remeber that characters need a reason to interact. Just like real people, nobody is gonna walk up to a complete stranger and starts talking to them about random stuff. If two characters are going to interact, theys should have some kind of interest in one another. That can be romantic, but it can also be, for example, what Kotoura-san uses, curiosity.
Lastly, regarding growth. Kotoura-san is the kind of show that shows us it´s possible to make such a thing as well-paced developed very quickly too. Remember that progress has to be caused and earned even at the very beggining. Makabe´s push of Kotoura´s hearstrings start out with her emotionless, so naturally she doesn´t go to laughing right away, much less befriending him. She starts out angry and avoiding, then laughs, but she fights that happiness and she goes sad and despairs, all this before Makabe finnaly breaks her shell and gets through. A sequence of progress that makes sense. And of course, if you notice things are too fast, so shoul the characters.
Lastly, I want to quickly mention foreshadowing. It´s extremely important for begginings, and there should be plenty of it. There is in Kotoura-san, but I said I would only spoil the first episode, so I can´t mention it this time...
In any case, I hope you enjoyed the read and I appreciate any feedback you can give me!
