The Extraordinary Fan(boy)
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2012
- Messages
- 363
I need to express myself so i am going to start rambling a bit about DokiDoki a bit. Bear with me.
For the last 5 or 6 episodes i have found myself really enjoying DokiDoki, and after giving it some though i figured out why.
You see, back when DDPC started a lot of people started talking about how much this show focused on its plot, the first 12 episodes are literally filled with exposition. The thing is, that seems to be misguided perception, DDPC doesn´t focus too much on the plot, but it does have a strong sense of narrative; if you look at the first 5 or 6 episodes, you will notice that one episode starts pretty mcuh where the previous one ended, so you get the perception that there is plot going on.
My problem with this is that even if DokiDoki has a good sense of narrative, it has a rather bad plot.
Well to be honest, the plot is not really bad, but that is because there´s barely any plot; all DokiDoki has been doing is throwing a bunch of plot elements that while independently good, the don´t mesh very well together.
Again, let´s look at the beginning of the series, the first 8 or so episodes where about Cure Sword, her backstory and integrating her into the main team. So far so good, the "Sword Arc" was a good introduction and presented the main plot of the series, saving Princes Mari Ange, but once it ends we are introduced to the character of Ai-chan: the myserious psychic baby that obviously plays a bigger role in all of this mess than people realize. They focus on that for a few episodes and then BAM, the whole royal crystals deal rolls around, on top of that the character of Regina is introduced and there´s also the whole Joe Okada/Jonathan Klondike deal.
This is what i feel is the show´s main weakness; there are a lot of good story elements, but they are all presented in such a way that they quickly become irrelevant and the show does nothing with them; they just sit in there for people to point out and say "hey, that looks interesting", without really doing anything note worthy.
If i feel that is the case, then why have i been enjoying the show more now that Cure Ace has been introduced introduced? Simple, while i do have my issues withUltraman Cure Ace (her fire transformation NOT being one of them), ever since she appeared a lot of elements from the show have been removed: the whole Mari Ange thing has been put on hold, the royal crystals became irrelevant, Ai-chan has been written off as Ace´s reborn fairy and the original Jikochu trio, Joe Okada and Regina have vanished from the show.
Now that all of those things are out of the way the show has finally been able to settle down and focus on the main characters, and that has made the show a lot better in my opinion.
I mean, Precure is always at its best when it focuses on its characters, that way once the actual plot kicks in we become invested because we care about what will happen to them. In DokiDoki´s case, we had all these things going on and even though the show gave focus to the characters, it never let them "breathe" so to speak, and even though the "plot" wasn´t necessarily bad, it wasn´t really good either, so the way the show gave more importance to it than to the characters felt awkward and out of place, but now that all those things are out of the way i feel the show finally found its own pace.
Also, i love Mana to bits, she is not a Mary Sue, she is a Parody Sue, and if you hate her because you think she is a Mary Sue, then the joke is on you.
For the last 5 or 6 episodes i have found myself really enjoying DokiDoki, and after giving it some though i figured out why.
You see, back when DDPC started a lot of people started talking about how much this show focused on its plot, the first 12 episodes are literally filled with exposition. The thing is, that seems to be misguided perception, DDPC doesn´t focus too much on the plot, but it does have a strong sense of narrative; if you look at the first 5 or 6 episodes, you will notice that one episode starts pretty mcuh where the previous one ended, so you get the perception that there is plot going on.
My problem with this is that even if DokiDoki has a good sense of narrative, it has a rather bad plot.
Well to be honest, the plot is not really bad, but that is because there´s barely any plot; all DokiDoki has been doing is throwing a bunch of plot elements that while independently good, the don´t mesh very well together.
Again, let´s look at the beginning of the series, the first 8 or so episodes where about Cure Sword, her backstory and integrating her into the main team. So far so good, the "Sword Arc" was a good introduction and presented the main plot of the series, saving Princes Mari Ange, but once it ends we are introduced to the character of Ai-chan: the myserious psychic baby that obviously plays a bigger role in all of this mess than people realize. They focus on that for a few episodes and then BAM, the whole royal crystals deal rolls around, on top of that the character of Regina is introduced and there´s also the whole Joe Okada/Jonathan Klondike deal.
This is what i feel is the show´s main weakness; there are a lot of good story elements, but they are all presented in such a way that they quickly become irrelevant and the show does nothing with them; they just sit in there for people to point out and say "hey, that looks interesting", without really doing anything note worthy.
If i feel that is the case, then why have i been enjoying the show more now that Cure Ace has been introduced introduced? Simple, while i do have my issues with
Now that all of those things are out of the way the show has finally been able to settle down and focus on the main characters, and that has made the show a lot better in my opinion.
I mean, Precure is always at its best when it focuses on its characters, that way once the actual plot kicks in we become invested because we care about what will happen to them. In DokiDoki´s case, we had all these things going on and even though the show gave focus to the characters, it never let them "breathe" so to speak, and even though the "plot" wasn´t necessarily bad, it wasn´t really good either, so the way the show gave more importance to it than to the characters felt awkward and out of place, but now that all those things are out of the way i feel the show finally found its own pace.
Also, i love Mana to bits, she is not a Mary Sue, she is a Parody Sue, and if you hate her because you think she is a Mary Sue, then the joke is on you.
