These rules actually surfaced on Thursday, but my overwhelming need to rewatch Madoka and talk about it overpowered my need to point out the flaws in [C] (yes, that will come after the rules). I didn't intend to make a [C] post after Rho made one, but the rules surfaced up almost immediately after it was posted, which changes a large number of things. I'll split the post into two parts: observations about the anime after knowing the rules, and some final thoughts.
So, this is the source material from their own main site. It seems to be spiffied up into a picture, so I'll post that instead of a wall of text (since I'm lazy and didn't want to deal with the spoiler button; it has issues with Blogger's editor D:).
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| Rules pulled from anon source |
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| Another one that surfaced, and the raws used. |
This new information makes it MUCH, MUCH, MUCH easier to point out problems with this anime. I'll start with the first pubstomp we saw in in episode 1.
The first thing we noticed was that the random scrub purposefully bid for Mikuni without having any money in his account. The second thing to mention about this fight was that he clearly understood the rules.
Both of these things aren't big deals, but one part of the rules states that he must duel every 7 days. It seems like he has been around for more than 7 days, but that is just speculation. The big deal is the fact that he didn't have to duel even once, meaning that no one bid on him. So what we know is that this absolute beginner who knew the rules used all the extra money given to him and wasn't challenged once. That seems a bit...sketchy.
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| You can clearly see that this was a much bigger ball than the ones in the second episode, so it implies net worth? |
So, within this first battle, this guy wagered zero against a big boss that wasn't so rich and no one else decided to challenge him... This is all pretty sketchy stuff.
We'll jump to the second battle now. Kimimaro's bank account before travelling to the Financial District was 585,000 yen, which is equivalent to 58.5 points. At the start of the fight, he had 1259 points, so that could only mean that the black man bid 12 million yen just to get the battle with him. This would explains the sudden increase in funds he got from just riding in the car.
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| Just an estimate on size~ |
Now, to tally up the monies, Kimimaro started with 1259 and ended with 3359, so he gained 21 million. The black guy spent roughly 11 million (since it was 300K + 900K + 3M + 5M + 2 un-numbered investments), while the final hit Mashu did was 10M, which gave Kimimaro the 21 million gain.
To break this down more:
The black guy started with roughly 25M, then spent around 11M, got hit with 10M, so that leaves him with roughly 4M at the end.
Kimimaro, on other hand, was never hit, so he retained his original 12.59M, spent 10M, and that led to him ending with roughly 2.59M.
So, Kimimaro finished with 2.59/12.59 = 20.6% remaining original money.
The black guy, on the other hand, had 4/25 = 16% remaining original money
This is consistent with the end result, where Kimimaro's orb is about 50% larger. seems consistent
So, what we've learned, if you want to skip the math, is that either Mashu is just that good at calculations to have picked 10M knowing it all...or she just got "lucky" and picked a perfect value. This was just a breakdown of what happened in the fight using the rules to better understand what was happening.
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| You can clearly see the picture repeats every column... |
A second big problem I have is regarding the random scrub compared to Kimimaro. Our main character was bid 12M to be fought against, while this random scrub had no one even bothering to try to fight him. How does this flow? Did the writers not consider that these two fights would be compared?
So, with this second battle over, does this mean that Kimimaro is now considered pretty rich, since he stole 33M (12M from bid, 21M total from fight) from the black man. (This, by the way, is a pretty sizeable amount judging by the stock board.)
The third problem I had was obvious from watching the episode itself. So, we suddenly got some random new loli-demon girl destroying the veteran black man, so does this mean that your demon is all that really matters? It's all about the luck of the draw, since getting a good one means you dominate? It sure is amazing to own Mewtwo and auto-win every battle. What a great way to use over-powered Pokemon instead of ingenuity to fight...oh wait, I called this out in my first post. It sure is great being right~
I guess not everything is horrible, though. I do give credit to the rules, as they were clearly well-thought, thoroughly explaining the setting. The problem lies mainly with the execution. The rules were used like a Pokemon battle, rather than using them as tactics to make money. It could have easily become a battle of wit to amass a large sum of money instead of becoming about using a flamethrower to win.
A second decent thing is the way they used the terms. I guess this ties in with the rules, but some things like naming the demons "assets" works extremely well with the rules. It is a nice embodiment of what an asset can do for you (I won't delve into this unless someone is actually interested). Then again, you also get horrible usage, like "open deal" to start a duel or inconsistencies like micro (English), mezzo (Italian), and macro (English). D:
The stock system, which they haven't explained in the anime yet, seems interesting too.
New inb4: More rules that could be used to create a better battle of wits, though I doubt they will use that effectively.
I'll chalk this anime up to another amazing setting ruined by horrible story-telling. It is sad after seeing the rules, this anime could be so much more if they tried...
~Pearz
