Review of Fata Morgana no Yakata
| Subject | Fata Morgana no Yakata |
| By | Helpfulness: 0 Vote: 3n1er on 2021-05-23 last updated on 2021-11-11 |
| Review | There are already tons of reviews full of praises, so here I will just focus on what I disliked, thus expect this review to be quite one-sided (this, of course, is just an excuse to rant) I would recommend reading the prequel VN first to enhance the experience of the OG one, considering its mystery is worthless anyway, in case you have even a tiny bit of idea of where the story is heading (by knowing character designs, names, and a number of doors) - it is that kind of a story that you need to experience completely blindly and have room to speculate on everything along the way to be completely invested in it. Now sure, these details may seem trivial on the face value and not ruin the experience, but the thing is, that they help build the expectations and serve as the crucial hints for the story as you start experiencing the VN. Like, some people are saying things like ‘how is Morgana’s existence spoiled by knowing her character design, her name is in the title’, but in the story itself Morgana’s identity is unreliably narrated and thus it is part of the mystery at first and even her ‘clean’ face is some sort of a revelation later on. Boggles my mind how do people say stuff like ‘we love Fata Morgana because of characters, not the mystery’ when mystery and its presentation is exactly what's supposed to make the perspective of these characters compelling, so how else are you getting invested? Of course, there will be people saying that they went into Fata with these spoilers and still ended up liking the story, that which is of course within the possibilities, but I do not particularly care about these examples as it is not what I am talking about here and changes nothing in their terms How the mystery is structured seems decent-to-fine to me, but it is the general picture that disappointed me. Although the premise itself is also decently satisfying - Just like any other edgy Japanese story that's trying to give the hopeful message, it is also about the lack of connections, and all of the problems could be solved by characters just sitting and talking them out (cheese, I know), instead of overreacting everything, sure, but it is also trying to say how impulsive the human nature is and how it gets in the way of forming the relationships and how the resulting actions craft the twisted, fake perspectives (Unfortunately the reactions themselves are so overblown that it seems ingenuine to me, as well as how the all of the interesting concepts are pretty much discarded) What I dislike is how gimmicky it is - oh look, we have stories full of tragedies that are an homage to Shakespeare and fairy tales, oh look we have a sexy maid, oh look we have different time-periods, oh look we have characters literally named after a saint and a witch... you get the point. Everything exists just for the sake of sensationalism. Visuals are just pretty, soulless designs with very limited expressiveness and range, on top of the backgrounds that are just random pictures mixed with some cheap filters and borders. It's also inconsistent as the sprites keep changing in style for no reason whatsoever - on top of that, not only some characters are literal walking paintings that are hard to be taken seriously, but characters, that are not getting too much of a focus (but otherwise have quite high relevance), do not even have designs whatsoever (maybe not even the names) and in a good chunk of the scenes you end up seeing characters just standing all alone while talking to others, which to be fair makes the framework rather theatrical and results in turning it atmospheric in a way that can be appreciated, but there is no ‘acting’ so as for the feeling of the disconnection to be compensated. Now I am not asking for it to have literal actors doing expressions, but looking at some of the other visual novels (such as Muv Luv and Mahoyo), there is so much more that can be done with it. Oh and some of the scenes that are supposed to hit you emotionally with how visceral they are, are just lacking in terms of CGs and you end up watching mere blood splatters, that's also taking away from the experience even further. They even shied away from showing an oh so disturbing scar on a woman’s body - I guess it would not have mattered either way as the character is too hyper-sexualized for it to have an effect and would still be distracting. It is almost completely relying on your imagination, so it might as well have been just a novel… It is not really using its medium's potential, so I would have preferred if it was a collection of OVA anime directed in a theatrical manner (like that one episode about Melos from Aoi Bungaku). But I have to admit that the reliance on imagination does warrant investment/immersion, in the same manner it does for the novels. Prose… Well, I think for a medium that is generally infamous for its redundant prose, it’s pointless to talk about this exact aspect, especially when so many things may be lost in translation and thus it’s not really something the author is responsible for. Not to mention how the prose of Fata seems exceptional and well-written mostly because of how good of a translator it got to have and original Japanese prose is supposedly PTSD inducing, as I have directly heard from the Japanese readers. Aristocrats talking with slang and all. I have not even read any substantial argument as to why would Fata’s prose be exceptional, so there is that - there are characters that talk in a manner they are not supposed to talk and even if I were to ignore that, I do not really see a reason to praise never-ending conversations that are just exposition of emotions, instead of characters doing something actually interesting Soundtracks are probably the best part, but still, a hit or miss, considering how sometimes they just absorb you into the scene with how heart-pumping and fitting they are, but in other cases, they just hurt your ear with how their momentum just does not fit the scene and vocals amidst dialogue do not help either with their stand out voice that keeps detracting the attention... There also are not any voice actors to compensate for the lack of sprites, sadly. Maybe it's just me, but they also resemble JRPG soundtracks too much and my immersion was breaking even more as a result. Another problem of mine is just how much of a difference is between the backgrounds and the OSTs - on the one hand, you have something that is trying to craft an atmosphere in a way to make you imagine the environment with its own depth of field, but on the other hand, you have a static, lifeless visual presentation that is clashing with it. I could see how these scenes can be enhanced with the help of the imagination once the scene ends and you can re-build them in your own mind so I would still give it props, but that does not really happen for me mid-way playing the visual novel, so the point that it was clashing in my experience still stands. Setting is... I have no idea, it just is. It is random after-life or purgatory or something, it is not explained or hinted at properly or anything. There are random doors that for no reason serve as a cursed reincarnation and somehow they can also be faked... then it is also revealed they you can also do all sorts of magic by the power of will, which is in itself inconsistent, considering how sometimes they are able to do things and how they just are not and random things happen that were not wished by anyone. Why are they even able to do it if it is only Morgana who provided the curse? And why was she able to do it anyway? Not only I legitimately have no idea what the hell is going on the more the story progresses, but it also gives me all the reasons to not care about a single thing that has happened - it's just a gimmick house that merely shows to me how some randoms have died (well if I know that they gonna happen, why would I care) and how nothing I will do will have any effect on the story… Oh, right, why is the character even able to move and interact in the final door? Why would Giselle be a mere voice then? How are these people unable to understand the identity of the white-haired girl when they were the ones who made her anyway and why is she able to interact in the real world anyway?! Not to mention how uninteresting presence she has, literally doing nothing for the whole run, just exists to have parallels or something. She is somehow a separate entity in the real world and in the... dunno, somewhere? How do these people get reincarnated if their souls drift around and why they get reincarnated only once anyways? Someone could say that I am nitpicking and should instead maximize my suspension of disbelief to indulge in the narrative, but I refuse to do so in case of stories that do not have anything satisfying enough to compensate for its shortcomings to me Regarding the ‘take you on a journey through the different time periods’ I would say that the events here are taking place in the same household for 80% of the screen time at the very last and none of the periods have been exceptionally explored either way (they just feel mere homages that are not trying to stand on their own with their own unique input on the table), on top of not even having the fitting visuals - like my friend mentioned ‘I like how this is supposed to look like a victorian European city and it has modern pottery and the roads aren't covered in horse feces’. Characters are simple and random, to the point you can't even understand why do they even exist, to begin with, and the story does not even have banter between them to make them feel like actual personalities and they just talk and talk and talk about their emotions they can be understood quite quickly, to the point that you keep guessing whole sentences at the beginning of each one. I have a hard time understanding why people love these characters so much about Fata’s cast (well, aside from their ideas, of course) when these characters are barely doing anything, to begin with and feel more like they were spawned to do their single fixed role to the bitter end. It's especially hard to care about them when you know that after 2-3 scenes they will overreact to something and just die in a meaningless, rushed and edgy manner - because some background characters are mad. How am I supposed to care about the CHARACTERS if first I am not convinced that they are human? Especially when they are merely made to suffer and I already know that about them for the get-go? Hell, their character ‘climaxes’ also get repetitive as you move towards the ending and you start expecting that amidst the tension characters will just start feeling bad and move on, nothing else, really. They all also accept magic rather strangely. background characters are overreacting everything and label everything as evil, satanic and so on without confirming anything, but whenever it comes to the main character - not only do they never give in to these rumors and never assume such things on their own, but they are never even get affected, never terrorized/frightened much by such unknown and supernatural things that are not really established as a norm in their lives or anything, they just carry on their lives. The work does not really understand the 'twisted' perceptions of varied individuals (there is more to it than just being optimistic or pessimistic), as everyone admits to the same old morality and does not conflict it with a wide array of beliefs, superstitions, and whatnot. Here you either are a kind partner (being victim of something/someone and forced to do something being their only 'flaw') who keeps being idealized with or evil incarnate. Well I guess there is Yukimasa as a sole exception, but him being bewitched by Michel (as well as being seen by Pauline, but that does not fix the issue to me) so easily was quite disappointing to say the least - really underestimating the stubbornness of human nature That would not be the case if Fata had some other novelties that could pique the interest, but it really does nothing aside from demanding empathy from the player. As well as 'mysteries' that only really consist of 'how did this guy turned into psycho', which is quite a corny experience when the answer is always either voodoo magic or abuse. Morgana - titular character, who was... abused and life never gave her freedom to live her own life... so now she is cursing the souls of those who wronged her, but... her perception was also damaged and thus twisted? So then... where are the other characters that wronged her... like her mother... and what are Giselle and Michel, who have never met her, doing in the 'house'? no idea, no idea... She is completely unlikable and 'gets bored' of abusing the souls after Michel proves the capabilities of sympathy towards her and probably regrets giving up hope on humanity. I do not know, man, traumatized people won’t suddenly get good, their trauma will surely get over them and they will commit something all again, that’s the most interesting part, but her character arc ends here? Yeah, the story ‘knows’ how to dig a hole by putting characters in as miserable as it gets predicaments, I guess, but how does it go above? ‘Get a lover who will be with you in your darkest hours?’ What am I supposed to take away from the story? I do not believe that these characters are redeemable, so why is the story putting the idea down my throat? I mean, sure, I can understand the sympathy/empathy towards them, that they were not just spawned evil in this world, but it is easier to advocate for them once they are dead and turned into souls because the only thing that left for them is to be freed, as there is a whole eternity of opportunities for that - but there are no souls in the real world and the consequences remain permanently. Sure, you could say that Morgana has not forgiven (as if she has any right to forgive them anymore) them for what they have done, but these were may as well be unreliable. Regarding her twisted perception, that's the whole point of Morgana's character, that she is unable to properly look at things in an objective manner because of her trauma, but then somehow proceed to make a perfect copy of Michel or something? Regarding her godly powers... why do they even exist? why does she even have them? I would understand if the work sneaked in ambiguous details as if demanding from the players to connect the dots by themselves and achieve various interpretations of what is really going on at the higher plane of existence and what kind of unreachable and incomprehensible beings are present there, but this is not the case here - details are just nowhere to be found... Morgana is just randomly born with magic powers, uses them for a bit, the world does not start caring about said powers further than just drinking her blood (while from various religions we can see how messiah attracts way more relevance in the world and shifts the destiny of the whole world, not just a singular house, just by a mere presence) and then stop using her powers up until she dies... then she is allowed to use her 'sacred' powers for the opposite, devilish, matters for some unknown reason. Neither point nor sense can be found here. That being said, she is interesting conceptually - a girl born as something more than human, thus she was never perceived as a human being, everyone being more interested in her larger-than-life identity eventually shaped not only her perception of the world and herself, but also her deeply rooted nature, which gives her internal conflicts resulting in her double identity as people's perception towards her transforms from the saint to that of a witch - that which leads her to both accept the identity of the witch (as she was tainted from her point-of-view too) and still do the bits of kindness. Message being that societal labels are pretty much irrelevant on the grounded level and that they are merely weaponized by higher ups for their own good and that has consequences over the masses. But would have been better if I were to witness her being an actual human being, though - I do not think execution and her personality do the justice to the concept. Giselle - well she is just another historical girl who got a job because her family needed money and is expected to have sexual relations with the boss... nothing exceptional about her, up until she randomly gets turned into immortal (idk how, don't ask, writing is just nowhere to be found here - I could somehow make sense out of affecting someone else's psyche, but how do you turn someone into zombie witch? And how come for so many hundreds of years people shrug her mysterious existence off just by saying that 'she must have been working here for a while'. For one, she does not even look that old and two, nobody has lived here for two generations to notice how she just does not change? Yeah I just can't buy that) and... she just gets sad after hundreds of years... that which gets miraculously 'cured' after a while, instead of leaving permanent marks into her character, as if nothing had happened... So the concept of immortality is not really explored with her - the only interesting part about her character is just used as a gimmick… a sexy maid as a means to not lose hope in humanity. I liked how some pathetic randoms forced her to blame things on Michel, that which had an emotional culmination in the fifth door - and both of them got close by venting each other’s flaws, as well as realizing their own ones, so it was pretty touching, as it may as well be the most sincere and satisfying way of opening-up and thus bonding, rather than just sitting and calmly talking about each other - but that's pretty much it. Which brings me to the scenes of rape and the abuse in general - How are these nobles getting away with literally anything they are doing? Not to mention how superficial and unreasonable said actions are. Like, what's with having public rape attempts? A noble teenager comes into the house of another noble and randomly decides to assault someone, but makes up an excuse as if he was drunk and gets away with it, nobody says anything. There is also an instance when the boss is trying to rape her in their own house, with several people there, including hysterical wife - like, may try to be cautious? Ask someone to get you a maid that will be okay with sex or something? Anything? They can make a living for someone else’s whole family (by the way, where are they), right? So, for instance, how are they unable to go to the brothel? Why even send Giselle to Michel? What did these guys expect? Giselle would not tell Michel what happened? Michel would kill her? Yeah no. Forced. On another note, she strangely is not being called out for being a passive bystander (at the very least) of so many atrocities that were happening in front of her all of these years. Talk about repercussions and call outs, the romance between Michel and Giselle is quite strange - first, a rape victim is running around with open cleavage for quite a good amount of time in front of a man for some reason (and the story even turns that into comic relief once Michel randomly touches her breast and they just make 'feels like rat' joke about it). Two, they tried to kill each other and somehow just talked it out... Like, yeah, empathy may make you understand someone so you forgive and realize that you two are in similar shoes, so you believe that they are actually good, sure... But why is that the case in-between them? Not only they are two drastically different personalities with drastically different upbringings and problems they have faced both externally and internally, but they also forget it right away that they did bad to each other out of their nature - as the lurking suspicion and overthinking should remain... Instead they just confess to each other, while not really having anything else to do with their lives and not wanting even for a bit to go out somewhere else, not being done with that damned place. And three, Giselle's questionable future aside, Michel without consent forces Giselle to remember things she does not want to remember, hurting her deeply with such behavior - so... Why do they end up as perfect, unconditional couple regardless of so many internal and external problems influencing their mindset? Their interactions as a couple also come out rather cringe-worthy to me Yeah, romance has always been quite questionable here... Like with the third door, accompanied by another passive love interest that is White-Haired Girl... She never starts holding a semblance of grudge or anything negative, really, even after being locked up for several months and does not really have any character/personality on her own aside from his husband, who she has only seen once doing something considerate (not romanticized at all)... Then there is that Jacopo who is presented as someone who was just a bit late to save his marriage... Yeah, there somehow a glimmer of hope for his relationship that was being crushed not because of himself alone, but because of some other human being (Maria), despite him being a massive sc*mbag, who treats everyone like trash (but then for that gets his parent blamed, as he himself is just a boy who struggled with brainwashing because he is not actually such a freak... Who believes in that?) Michel - hmm... his character goes two ways... one is 'how miserable would it be if we were to put a hermaphrodite in the past' that which is not an exceptional idea (Not to say that it makes the character bad (quite the opposite, it raises contradictions within the character and he gets defined well) just that I have seen it in other stories, such as Shigurui, so it's hard to get interested again) and does not offer anything aside of suffering... and the second way is just how much of a saint s/he is - which is weird for someone who is being cynical around the family at first and no one in the environment really affirms that saint-hood... but it goes on such ridiculous levels, that he 'cures' people of their 'aggression' (for the lack of better word) by merely talking about their 'alternate selves' and then he gets hailed as a saint in a heavy-handed manner as well (like yeah, I noticed his name and how he is standing in front of backgrounds full of saints, chill and stop looking down at readers). Michels disposition to be more talkative and sociable feels more like the writing requiring him to become that way in Door 8 rather than natural development for him. Although I like the part in which his image of his own idealized brother gets crushed and how that experience allows him to help out Nelliel's relationship with her brother - I wish so much that every door was as lengthy as the eighth door to be full of such interactions Talk about being Jesus, is not that kind of a contradiction regarding the themes of identity here? For Morgana, it is irrelevant whether she is a saint or a witch, because one can be both and thus labels become pointless (although to be fair she has not done anything to be referred as a saint - since her death), but what about Michel being presented as clear-cut saint? Do not give 'yeah he was trying his best, but emotionally he disliked three men' when he has not been defined by these emotions there. He does not really affect anything and we have no idea how the setting operates, as well as how there are no proper hints towards the happy or bittersweet future, but the ending still wants to give a hopeful message, despite being a forced tragedy throughout the whole run - completely ingenuine. I was constantly being reminded of anime named Princess Tutu, which is all about criticizing authors that put all sorts of devices and whatnot to force the story towards culminating into the tragedies and love that aspect wholeheartedly It is also weird seeing him coming out of his cynical phase just because of Giselle and buying everything she says so easily, despite how she clearly even sold him out for her own good, so when the guy has only such selfish people at every corner of his life, one would think he would remain cynical. But Giselle is that cute, I guess. The plot is basically meaningless, the character is merely observing some random, disconnected, and simple stories that end in patterned tragedies that you have no reason to care about, considering the pacing that equals the speed of light the moment characters stop rambling about their feelings. Not sure, you need to have a terrible attention span to consider it as a good one (to be fair my attention span is also quite short, but it breed these other problems for me). Oh, you were interested in what happened to the characters after the tragedy occurred? Were you interested in the setting and seeing how connected details were affecting each other to lead from one period to another? Well, too bad for you, we never cared about such trivialities. There really is no coherence whatsoever. I guess it gets some semblance of plot since the fifth door, but really it's just a poorly structured drag with nothing much in it, the whole story is told through individual and boring flashbacks and then you get to the last door. I still have no idea how so people are trying to sell Fata as if it was taking the players on the ADVENTURE through several different periods when 90% of the time the player sits in the house alongside the maid Oh and, the most amusing part is how literally none of the conflicts ever get resolved. All of the plot points end in the simplest, tragic way because characters do not even think about finding out some unique ways to fix the problems, and aside from the character that gets sad in the afterlife, we have no idea what happened to other characters that were responsible for the most crucial of the plot development and what happened to them - well, they probably died of sadness because that's how every human being's life goes in this universe, I guess. Only meaningful thing here probably is 'move on' aspect, but I do not want to hear that from dead people that are ready to be reincarnated with no problems in their next life for some reason. At least do not bring the conflicts that are not supposed to be 'resolved' through the 'moving on' and 'empathy'. Recontextualization is also abysmal as these details are not really being added in the context of the first doors themselves, because characters in the first doors are completely different incarnations of their original selves and thus do not really have much connection to each other and you just look at the ‘parallels’ (be damned). The only thing you can probably do is to judge them from a different perspective after hearing their stories, but I am not really convinced enough... now sure it is still good that it gives you the room to enjoy the re-play, of course, but that comes off with a price of making the whole first run completely lacking in the hook department, as you can't really solve anything and the overarching plot is virtually non-existent up until you finish at least the 70% of the story. So if you are not into a collection of little mysteries in each door, there really is no other novelty to keep your interest/attention - and even if you were into such mysteries, they are very predictable, so you understand almost the whole picture in each case, before finishing the doors. Door 1 - That was the instance when I actually liked this VN, as it seemed distinct enough and conflicting character traits were very well implemented in the dialogue, but alas it ended up as some spoiled brats whining about their predicament and losing their mind in a blink of an eye, instead of coming in terms with the reality... Mell is just a cowardly guy who is being torn in-between the ideals of her sister and the hardships of reality between religion and the business - as he fails . Needless to say, he is completely unlikeable and is not progressing at all - he just seeks comfort in the white-haired girl and that also results in complications (also forced one, as the character and characters in her backstory could actually done literally anything else and it would feel more natural (say, artist getting another job)). One would think Mell would have been disillusioned after understanding what that girl actually was and would have tried to escape from her (a girl intentionally trying to ruin your family and all, you know), which would be a norm for him, but oh well. and the door suddenly ends after 15 min long climax and my feelings were left hanging. There was parental emotional abandonment as well, but I did not find it compelling as the dad himself had no progression or/and exploration of said actions (or lack of thereof). Without giving as details to speculate what would have happened in the future this is just a very cheap ordeal. Also not sure why Nel settled on merely cutting the hair of the girl, instead of killing her. That does not really fix her problem in any shape or form. Door 2 -That was the instance when I ‘paused’ this VN for good. So a BEAST appears... and then the twist is that the BEAST is... a SADIST... shocking, I know. At first, it somehow wants you to believe that the literal monster is somehow becoming a human (again, nothing exceptional, especially when it has no other context for a while - there is no in-between scenes for his gradual transformation for us to have the proper sense of its value and it is solely used as killing machine of the guests), which is a ridiculous idea... although later it gets revealed that it's just a twisted perception that somehow stems from him being a sadist and being called out for his race... I do not really know if that was a realistic exploration of anything psychological, it seemed too over-the-top to me. Maybe Morgana affected his mind? But I am not sure about that because Morgana did not affect that way neither Michel nor Giselle. Another problem is how the story gets detracted to the point of tonal whiplash with an introduction of some naive girl, that repeats and repeats her naivety and dies in a brutal manner but I hated the girl and it was also too over-the-top, again, so if I have felt anything, it would be a satisfaction - and also a child, whose parent was killed by the beast, but instead of having a damaged psyche, he just acts like a random introverted boy from the 21st century that somehow drops 'interesting' views, that should not make sense, considering he should not be that educated to begin with and should not word things like that. The cherry on top is, how the village somehow blames the victim child TO BEING UNABLE TO KILL A BEAST ALL ALONE. It is a cartoony ordeal at this point. Like, guys, literally every frightened-of-a-scary-house villagers I have ever seen in the media always go and burn the damn house, so… what stopped you to do so? You could say that the twist and message were how these deeds that are usually pointed towards made-up images of the monsters in actuality could be done by our beloved representations of the human race, but I think this door would have benefited of this idea if it was used as a prologue door, considering we as players would not have any idea that there were no actual monsters in this story (coming from the first door, I think we can already assume that) and it would serve nicely as it would have been the most surface step of the ideas that Fata Morgana is trying to convey. For a story that is trying to set up the criticism of naivety and romanticism, I think it is not really doing a good job up at properly providing ideals and just comes off as edgy 'haha, you are such a child for believing in ideals, now suffer', but at the same time, ends on a romantic/idealistic note regardless - both achieved in a forceful manner. So if the author himself can not naturally make his views flow through his own work and has to rely on the forced devices, how am I supposed to believe in whatever he is trying to tell me with his work? Door 3 - Jacopo is such a sensitive child, that with barely any proof just gets enraged towards a girl that he should know very well, as she is his wife, but somehow he has only interacted with her only once in his life. He somehow has that inferiority complex towards noble, rich women, that which is not explained - I also have no idea how he can explain how no one bats an eye when her wife is locked somewhere in the house, in a room for SEVERAL MONTHS... why is he so insecure? And if he is so insecure, how does he manage to have a successful business and 'mafia' of some sort? Yeah, his dad was trying to brainwash him, but he clearly is an emotional wreck as a result and has not really done anything of that sort. Well, anything besides the 'romance' tends to be an afterthought and a just another discarded theme in each of the doors, unfortunately. Oh, and the door ends with Jacopo miraculously being able to somehow kill a girl (awfully accurate aim for someone so insecure, especially while being in haste and aiming at his beloved childhood friend), who had him on a gun-point... if anything, Maria was the one who deserved to survive here, but no, everything needs to be bleak. And even if I liked Maria, she was still quite disappointing in the role of villainess... her satanic laugher aside, she could have had some competent goals and motivations, alongside petty emotions to counter/contrast the irrationality of the couple, but no, nothing. Everything is an afterthought here, after all. Now to be fair, I just liked the twist and the idea behind it, but the way she ‘disconnected’ the couple was also quite implausible (exchanging the letters for months was especially absurd, as it does not seem likely for hyper insecure Jacopo to not take suspicion towards Maria just because she is a childhood friend as he should have overthinked that as well and at least ask other maids to keep track of things in secret) Talk about the dad, why is his whole character/personality being an asshole who conveniently pop-ups to say basic cynical stuff? What is wrong with parents in general here, why does this thing feels like some anti-parental movement? No redeeming qualities whatsoever, all of them are just psychos Now you could say how he may remember his 'sins' from his previous life (as in a body memory or whatever... or soul memory... Jesus), but that makes no sense, considering how it can't be explained by the rules of the setting, so I don't really care. Heck, it is not even foreshadowed or anything, so who cared about that 'recontextualization'? It won't suddenly replace my initial experience and it makes things even worse when the witch is supposed to be blamed for everything - like, evul Maria was being blamed for it either, so what does it change? Not to mention how lazy the whole 'yeah it was not too good but hey the witch arranged it with the means that makes no sense whatsoever, so it is suddenly a 10/10 door' thing sounds. No, I do not admit to such non-sense, whether the witch did it or not, the door should make sense through the humane means and not 'it was all magic' (to blur the line between the witches and humans, on top of that) Door 4 - basically a FORCED filler to make a message about how FORCED the interactions can be made in romantic tales but the reality is oh not like this at all... self-unawareness here is hilarious, considering I do not find this story in its entirety to be realistic, at all. It just feels too meta for no reason at all and it is also a story she managed to remember for centuries to cling to the hope of them getting together? Well leaving the positive stuff as nostalgic bits in the memory does seem realistic enough to me, so it is fine I guess. It is just Michel coming back as he made the change in her character quite irrelevant as the whole appeal of the march of time and separation is how after the fundamental changes two personalities do not click to each other in one way or another - be it the external factors such as environment or the internal factors such as personality traits being changed or new ones being acquired and all - but none of these were present at the end of the day in their dynamic. I keep hearing how The Maid is deliberately hiding things from these doors - how is she even aware of such capabilities of her own - and heavily altered the fourth one or/and Morgana actually made this whole door up on her own, somehow - It seems rather strange to me that it is possible to make up, fabricate the stories in the doors themselves? How can you make something up out of someone else’s memory bits that can be viewed as if you were watching a TV? ‘It's just magic?’ I don't really get it, from where would she even learn that? She just hid the truth that it's a fake door for some reason? Hell, how is she even able to ‘reconstruct’ Michel out of thin air and turn into someone that can’t even be distinguished from the original one, especially when she did not even remember him properly or at all? even if she was not the one who made this door, then how else would there be a fake door. Door 5 - problems repeat - two characters just talk and talk 80% of the time, but unfortunately they have nothing interesting to talk about... 10% is random disconnected things that happened and 10% is the sudden tragedy… really, it is just a generic romance, I have no idea where the appraisal comes from, these people have not been watching movies, I guess. Well, they actually vented and formed a relationship, so it was not as miserable as the previous ones, which is a breath of fresh air. I just disliked how they forgot that they would not have been able to get away with suddenly arriving at the family house and getting away with it. Oh and it was rather strange in the middle of the door, the random people being scared of a ‘monster’ that looks so pretty. Not even one human being had a different enough personality to at least throw something towards someone who looks so fragile as obviously is not a monster? I think they should have had enough adrenaline as well. the shift in tone is also quite jarring on here. I could understand if this was the first door, making us care about the characters, unaware of what may come, but... here it is just place in the middle of constant misery? It has been pretty visceral and fast paced before, but now it wastes time on slice-of-life things (that does not even make sense for its time-period... meditation? enlightenment? really now) as if nothing has happened? I am afraid I can't get invested in that. Door 6 - how Morgana is trying to corrupt Giselle, who was corrupted by a random village in a blink of an eye in the previous episode... but somehow Morgana can't get under Giselle's skin for hundreds of years... just because she remembers Michel... romanticization through the character rewrite is off the charts. Oh there was also Morgana’s backstory, which was uncommonly good as it does blur the identity of a girl, whether she is a saint or a witch. Unfortunately, I found everything surrounding it to be hyper edgy. Like, why is it even being narrated, I am getting whole individual doors for randoms like Yukimasa, but I can’t get one for the main antagonist? Lol, alright. I dunno how does a child gets brainwashed into thinking that she is a saint that shall never sin when that’s not very childish to me; I dunno why her mom allowed her saint-ly deeds to kick-start if she was so cynical, what did she expect (was it a forced contrast to Michel? Morgana getting treated positively (at first, at least) for being special, meanwhile Michel was being tortured? To be fair Michel was indeed named as a saint, so their dynamic should probably viewed as a foil, but I did not mean the names here) and then it’s just suffering that I have no reason to care about and feels like I am yet again being forcefully drained. Door 7 - I already talked about Michel's backstory... It is just Michel reacting to things and not doing anything, even in his own door and then Michel gets magically saved by Giselle... Oh there is also a satanic girl in this door, who randomly comes to Michel and tortures him/her, as if the story was not cartoony enough already. I would have liked it if these characters came to terms with their problems after so many years and somehow went on compromise and tried to adapt with one another, instead of just sending Michel away out of nowhere. Door 8 - The episode starts with the hidden identities of the men, but the girl’s identity is not hidden and we see her being called a sister… like why hide it then if you are going to make it so obvious? To start with the positives that are minimal, well… I like the idea of using saint blood or whatever it is, I don't even know why it is. Despite being edgy, it does blur what exactly is the truth behind it, what is the motive of using said blood, no one should be able to tell that. There was also some semblance of banter between secondary characters so at least there is that. You are somehow able to see what actually happened before everyone died. Like, Morgana did not know these stuff, right? So by whom were these events crafted? You are somehow able to interact with the characters... you also know since the start that all of your actions will bear no fruit, but somehow it is still served as a plot twist. And about the story in the door itself... well... our saint's 'talk no jutsu' somehow is able to change the minds of hardened assholes with no consequences whatsoever (broken fingers aside, but they were useless and lack of fingers won't affect future developments (neither in conflict, nor in bed), so there really is no value in their loss) and... that's pretty much the 'climax' of the 30-40 hours long build-up. Seriously, the guy we knew was sadistic on unhinged, uncontrollable levels, somehow is not losing any sense and conveniently stops once his beloved appears conveniently… then he starts praising the random lunatic as Jesus in a blink of an eye. Well Jacopo is a loser so there were no difficulties there, so its not even a climax… then random magical things happen again and we also see how sorry they are in front of Morgana… Yeah, okay, that was not very interesting. Why do I care whether Morgana gets satisfied by that? Well of course people start feeling bad once consequences come to bite them. At least they had goals and motivations here (a bit too late, though). Why did I waste 50 hours on something so simple and obvious? After the door is finished, Michel and Morgana (she is 'redeeming' herself, you see) will free the soul of the tormented, which is sweet and all, but I would not care about the souls, would I now? Sorry but I also do not care about the whole reincarnation thing and find it whatever - they are reborn as identical beings, in the same environment and are magically attracted to each other? If that was the finale (from my understanding, that is) it is quite forced I daresay, there is no reason for this situation to occur but it does. Oh and I do not remember Michel's brothers ever deserving to be redeemed either, so why are they shoehorned into the story AFTER the climax? The structure is all over the place. It does not even make sense how could Didier be forced to brutally massacre his beloved brother, when everything in Fata's universe reeks of corruption, so it should have been perfectly within the possibilities to take care of his brother in one way or another - but he did not do anything. Can't remember a narrative that is cheaper than that of Fata Morgana - every event is contrived and convenient and simple characters barely do anything, barely change, just talk and spoonfeed you with details. basically the opposite of what an actual mystery that is trying to explore the perception should be - an omnipresence of the lack of credibility through the completely unreliable narrator, that expects from YOU to 'solve' the rabbit hole by yourself, settle on one 'truth' or just accept it as it is, an unsolvable ordeal and do not give in to mania, improve your own life with the infinity possibilities within in you reach (a la Umineko). After all, everything is in the eye of the beholder and the truth never gets reached by mere talking, but quite the opposite, interpretations and retellings further complicate the rabbit hole Shameless recommendation section btw, read Ravages of Time for the same theme - specifically, how the cultural shift affects the perspective and how we judge the history and legends by re-interpreting the interpretation of those people that had different perception of these words to begin with and more. All in all, if you don't care about the characters, just like I do not, it is going to be extremely hard to find any merit in this story. In case of the prequel I have to say that I enjoyed it way more, as it focused only one story with the best characters from the OG, accompanied with more side-characters and more slice-of-life interactions that made me able to care about the characters and lack of magic also helped quite a bit - unfortunately it also has its own problems, as its not only lacking in the plot-department (stuff that is supposed to advance the plot is quite random and gets quite easily off-screened) as its not only as edgy as the OG in climactic scenes, but also has fatal problems regarding standing on its own, considering it was not written as self-contained story - for one, its not finished in a satisfying manner in case we won’t take the OG into the account and two, if we take the OG into the account, then the experience of the Requiem seems underwhelming as most of its content was heavily spoiled in the original visual novel. |
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