#everything to be okay. even if it isn't. at least the pretense counts right? so i've not been honest to the ppl i loved most. and in turn

[pinkislouder]

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[viridiansindria]

This is going to be kinda rambling both because I've done my best to mostly purge it from my mind, and because its midnight and my meds jack me up a bit right after I take them.

First Sakurai (the writer of Septem, London, and everything minus Altera's Route in Extella) didn't write Agartha. She managed to write Shimosa which is actually good. Stopped clocks and all that.

Agartha is Minase (who only did the Prillya event + interludes, and is one of the main script writers for the Prillya anime and movies). So if you like most people think Prillya is trash he's one of the ones you curse. His only saving grace is giving us Mini Cu-chan.

And while we're at it Salem which is equally shit as Agartha was by Meteo continuing his trend of everything he writes being really good or really bad with little to know in betweens).

And Shinjuku the only other good EoR chapter (unless you're counting CCC but ehh even without the racist jokes it was pretty weak imo and I feel people count it more because Nasu wrote it than its own merits but I digress) was Higashida; the writer for Orleans, Okeanos, America, and Apocrypha.

To get back on topic and to make a long story short: Agartha is a bad critic of modern feminism it certainly has points where I agree with the answers it gives but then they were shitting the blanket along the way to said answer. Much of which is told through crass and sexual humor- which I wouldn't have minded if it was done well (lord knows that Gorilla does it all the time in Gintama and I eat it up).

Longer rant:

Writing wise its less 'criticizing feminism' and more 'what if feminazis ran everything" Wu was overall the best character in a weak arc (outside of her design- damn you Takeuchi) but outside of the climax none of her scenes really stand out. But arrogant loli gets her comeuppance is a tried and true anime trope. Speaking of her design (again fuck you Takeuchi and your make a loli with sex appeal crap) lore wise she could have been another Waver with the third being the loli form to represent her at her most ambitious for when she first set out to become Emperor while the first could have been her as an old woman or middle aged graceful and elegant but showing signs of her cruelty and arrogance, second is her as an adult in full bloom as empress, fancy as hell and more sex appealish to get those waifu bucks and to hint at her assent, and then third loli because Takeuchi is gunning for lolicon wallets.

This story chapter literally contains most of the shota and trap jokes in the game at Astolfo, D'eon and Mini Fergus expense but all 3 are okayish. Astolfo at least has a few good scenes. There's Fergus' whole "oh wow women who aren't quiet damsels! How unique and unexpected!" which is weird because not only does his own in game and mats profiles contradict that but he was Medb's favorite lover and love her or hate her "quiet damsel" isn't how you'd describe her at all.

Pent was okay she was fairly one note throughout the chapter and for the most part was kinda imitating Herk's role in Okeanos to lesser effect for half of it and hammering in the "feminism" of the chapter. Same for Drake Alter.

Now onto the real divisive characters: Columbus and Scscherezade. TM went all in on Columbus the Asshole with the closest thing to a shade of gray he has is his love of money. Personally I like him since he's Moriarty without the pretense of civility and the foe-yay with Holmes and he chews through the scenery well. Others hate him because he's an utter bastard and that his art clashes heavily with the rest of the game in a way not seen since launch. Scheherazade is more complex since well everything about her is a fight. Personally I'm ambivalent to her. But design wise its clear what they're going for is SEX APPEAL because famous concubine and the art looking kind of off is less them trying to make a comment and more artists fetish. More importantly though is how she's portrayed in Agartha. Scheherazade is kinda both the main and secondary antagonist in Agartha because her actions kick off a lot of the plot but at the same time she's not because Wu is. Schehedazade isn't a symbol of strength in adversity or even an odd romance, Scheherazade is a victim. Which cool, not unheard off but still pretty rare- but her victimhood is the start and end of her personality and character arc. Scheherazade has extreme thanatophobia (a fear of death) from her experience with the king, like extreme extreme she's jealous of Roman permanently erasing himself because she hates and fears being a Heroic Spirit because it means she's destined to die repeatedly, she has no pride and will do literally anything and everything if it meant not dying (selling her body is outright given as an example) but at the same time her life is greater than any loyalty to anyone as she'll quickly abandon ship or backstab them herself if she feels what they're doing has negative prospects for her life expectancy. Part of Agartha's in series explanation is that her thanatophobia and her fear and hatred of kings (this applies to kings of both genders, as well as those who are charismatic and seem kingly) which coupled with her storybook powers amped by story events is causing certain characters to be warped according to Scheherazade's opinion (an abuse survivor coloring everything in terms of how it relates to her and her abuse). Coupled with her outright groveling and begging for her life when cornered and Agartha's writing issues just put a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths even (if not especially) in Japan.

Now onto writing issues: I touched on it a bit before but Agartha is in love with gags. Constant gags everywhere and the jokes fell short more often then not, super sexual like CCC level sexual (Drake Alter has sex with a single crew member a day then murders them the next, lots and lots of moaning, etc.) without any good writing or decent meta commentary. Its one of the worst in terms of balancing its large caste of characters- all of FGO no matter the writer suffers from this to some extent but Agartha fails to really do much with the main characters which even Salem can at least say (mind you what was done was crap but it was at least there). There are no stakes, everytime you think something serious happens like Helena dying she just pops right back no worse for wear with a few jokes and this happens repeatedly. And probably its biggest failure: its formulaic as hell. You can easily predict most of the chapter because it just repeats the same beats over and over again. Its like early FGO Suddenly Monsters! padding except that padding is supposed to be plot.

Sorry this is kind of all over the place but I hope it helped even a little to understand why almost everyone hates Agartha.

what happened in agartha? i keep seeing rumors that the writing was really really bad. i don’t care for spoilers, i just wanna know wtf happened that made it gain infamy