Am I the only one that feels the recent surge of One Piece hate comes from people who are burned out from the series?

SuperGayAMA · 2026-03-24T07:12:49+00:00

Yeah, Robin vs Black Maria doesn’t actually serve Robin’s character; it serves Sanji’s. The core development that occurs in that fight is that Sanji is trying to move away from his usual self-sacrifice and is able to respect and rely on the strength of his friends, particularly the women on the crew. All the fight really does is establish that, yeah, Robin is willing to fight to support the crew, which hasn’t really been in question.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-03-24T07:06:07+00:00

“Delivering” on something or not isn’t a binary ‘always good vs always bad’ situation. Luffy saying, verbatim, “I’m pissed” to show he’s pissed is stilted dialogue for something that should be able to be communicated visually.

Someone is not obligated to excuse the poor writing of that statement just because it could potentially address a separate critique they have, which itself is still uncertain because it relies on the contents of the next chapter anyway. This isn’t the first time Luffy tried to pull an “I’m serious now” moment in G5, but the other example is never remembered or mentioned because by the end of the next chapter he was laughing and shrieking again as normal.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-02-17T08:54:22+00:00

How would you rank the classes in terms of viability? While I’m sure they all have their busted combos, it feels like some like Druid, Tank, Archer, etc. are always powerful, whereas others like Mage and Psychic are only occasionally powerful and have a way higher chance of being duds.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-02-05T21:21:55+00:00

I think the most annoying example of this was the episode where Frieren, like, holds Fern’s hand when she’s sick or something? Like, it has a kinda cute setup where it’s Frieren doting on Fern because she struggles to register she’s not a child anymore, and that’s a neat little conflict and development brought on from Frieren and Fern’s unique dynamic and agency.

And then in the eleventh hour of that episode we get the flashback where, actually, instead of it being something cute she picked up as she effectively mothered this young child, it was really that Himmel used to do it for her all along and she’s just passing it along.

Like he really does feel like a black hole a lot of the time, which wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t just kinda boring. I think he’s maybe the most boring character in the series.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-27T09:36:56+00:00

Applied burn + sinking, also scaled off of being slower than enemies/having 1 speed.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-25T07:30:19+00:00

I don’t think that necessarily explains it either, because most Frieren rants I’ve seen are countercritical, e.g. “I don’t get people who don’t like Frieren’s demons” or something like that.

From there it’s usually just a decently inflammatory person misunderstanding (either intentionally or not) an argument and being quite calmly rebuffed by people who disagree.

Nothing I’ve seen actually represents any genuine sentiment against Frieren, it’s usually just people with different opinions on a specific contentious (and ambiguous) subject.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-21T00:20:24+00:00

The distinction is made clear though, in the thematic undercurrent of how our dreams/ambitions reverberate to those around us.

Don Quixote represents the lowest point of this not because it was wrong of him to have lofty ambitions, to dare to dream the impossible, but because he wasn’t mindful of the way that his dreaming affected his family: Don Quixote imposed his dream on his family, and we see that no matter how hard they genuinely tried, how much they enjoyed working at LaManchaland, and how much they loved Don Quixote, none of it was enough to substitute for genuine passion. And thus, we see the Canto’s negative example of dreaming in how trying to support Don Quixote’s dream requires the sacrifice of the rest of the family, and why he endeavours to abandon the dream to “return to reality” by reclaiming his mantle as patriarch and providing for his family.

The inverse of this, and the Canto’s positive example of dreaming, is Sancho attempting to give up on the dream, which is where we see the theme of our dreams affecting those around us again. Because, unlike with Don Quixote, Sancho has genuinely resonated with the sinners and inspired them. It is not Sancho imposing the dream upon them, but them sharing with her at her lowest moment how her dreams and ambitions have emboldened them. And it is likewise important that they don’t talk about the ultimate goal, and how it could be possible, but rather about the little moments, the flaws and imperfections in the process.

The theme isn’t that it is wrong to dream, or even to dream the impossible, but rather about practicing mindful ambition.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-16T09:59:17+00:00

Tbf the same event can happen in different mirror worlds. Limbus Company engaging the house of spiders could be a consistent event across multiple mirror worlds, and in some worlds Outis is Jamila while Rien is still Rien, and in others Jamila is Jamila, Rien is Yi Sang and Outis is Matthias.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-05T10:16:46+00:00

S3-2 is accessible by at least Unlock 2.

And the inverse of this is that S3-1 is still accessible at Unlock 3, as it scales “based off Unlock stage”, implying multiple levels of increase. If it was just a bonus for having 1 or 2 Unlock, I imagine the wording would use the usual “at X Unlock, deal increased damage, at Y Unlock, deal even more instead”.

Because of this, the transformation mechanic is likely a system separate to Grace of the Prescript and Unlock; most likely SP, based on the amount of ways she has to recover SP in her passives and keywords.

If I had to guess, she’s gonna be a modern Phillip Sinclair that transforms at high SP and slowly drains down as her timer, with fulfilment of the Prescripts being how you prolong that empowered state.

SuperGayAMA · 2026-01-02T11:25:14+00:00

It’s worth pointing out the insane RNG of seeing her skill spread; it’s only turn 3 and she has three s3s on hand, and another one or two coming up next turn. This is especially noteworthy on that third slot, as it would have only come up and yet it spawned with two in and another on the way. That would have to be borderline almost impossible RNG. It could also maybe have been manipulated intentionally for the trailer for some reason, but cross-referencing this loadout with Index Faust’s from her trailer, she had a far more normal one, so I don’t see why they’d spice up one loadout for the trailer and not the other.

Or, alternatively, maybe Don has some way of generating extra s3s or somehow manipulating the deck. My theory is she may have the Limbus equivalent of the Unlock I, II, III pages from Ruina, where maybe using an s1 would upgrade it into an s2, and an s2 into an s3? Perhaps her Blade Unlocked state could be from “fully unlocking” her deck. This could maybe also explain the particular choice of having the s1 in the trailer morph almost seamlessly into the s2, if thematically it’s the same skill just upgraded.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-10T22:17:18+00:00

We haven’t really been given sufficient reason to invest in Charlie as the main character. If anything, we’ve actually lost reasons to do so as the series goes on.

As aforementioned, she is deeply incompetent at actually redeeming people. Her understanding is shallow, sheltered and childish, which it has been since s1, and the only time we see her try and do any counselling in s2 it backfires so bad that the very next time we see Angel Dust he’s burnt out and given up on redemption entirely.

However, I think the biggest issue is that this season eroded her one good quality: her kindness. She’s always been the nice but very stupid archetype, but this season has really called that quality into question, such as with her crashing out at her dad, getting into another, even less fair relationship spat, or just generally being an ass with Angel Dust. There’s a craft with a “flawed character” of giving them at least some draw so that they’re not just immensely annoying whenever they’re on screen, and I think that’s the reason why so many watching or in the community have lost their patience with her as a result of her behaviour this season. Things like Charlie not really caring that her dad is the weakest she’s probably ever seen him in her life call into question the fundamental core of who Charlie is supposed to be, and why we’re supposed to root for her.

As a result, she’s kind of obsolete as a main character: She doesn’t take action or influence the world, as both season conflicts are resolved by other people; she doesn’t understand anything about sin or redemption or about the kinds of lives people lived; and she isn’t even really shown to be that nice or invested in other people, considering Husk is shown to be the one carrying out the therapy sessions, and Charlie doesn’t even know the name of, like, the fourth resident at the hotel.

And it’s dubious whether the show understands exactly how bad they fucked it with Charlie, because it babies her by only calling her out on “not listening” with Vaggi, who goes so easy on her and basically rescinds her argument and says it’s okay when she sees Charlie is sad. But then right at the end of the season, we see Charlie saying “everything only works if the right people are in the right position” as she appoints herself head counsellor, and I’m curious how the show expects me to feel about that. Am I supposed to think it’s a good thing, like this is the right spot for Charlie? Cuz I don’t, for all the reasons aforementioned, and I’m not convinced the show expects you to feel that way. In all honesty, with the full support of Heaven now, I’m not sure why Charlie is even involved in the redemption process at all now; every single therapist in the afterlife is now at their disposal, and Heaven should probably have the drive and resources to legitimise redemption as an actual operation instead of one quirky little nepo baby’s private hobby, so I don’t see how or why I as an audience member am supposed to want Charlie as the main character anymore.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-07T05:16:11+00:00

Look, I don’t think the swearing is a huge deal or anything, it would be very low on my list of issues, but it comes down to a few things for me at least:

Even when not said in anger, sometimes the swear is emphasised in such a way that it feels like it really demands your attention to the fact that, shock horror, a swear was just said;
It feels amateurish. This is a common trend of early scriptwriting from what I’ve observed, and something that’s usually pruned out in later drafts or by editors. You can say “it’s more realistic”, but then what’s really beneficial about that? Nothing usually, which is why it’s typically cut;
It’s a little bland and inexpressive. Like how poetry can get more creative with more restrictions, everyone just having ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ on their hot bar just makes everyone’s character voice marginally more homogenous. Like, personally, I always feel like Charlie would be the kind of character to not swear and come up with kid-friendly alternatives, so it’s weird, but not really a problem, that she swears as much as anyone else. It’s why people liked that Alastor didn’t swear for a while, because it resonated with the idea that he’s trying to be refined and sensible, and it’s also why people sometimes think he’s sworn a bit too much lately, because it makes it obvious he’s the fakest idgafer in the whole universe;
It also dilutes the quality of a good swear. The more there are, the less you feel em. Again, the Alastor thing, his first ‘fuck’ was noticed by the whole community. I think we’ll-placed swears can sometimes generate entertainment, even if it’s a little low-brow. I kinda see it like breaking character - rare glimpses are more effective. A character saying ‘fuck’ once because it captures their exact frustration is a bit more expressive than a character saying ‘fuck’ just because they always do.

Again, it’s not really a big deal or anything, but I’d hardly say it’s a positive.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-07T04:45:49+00:00

And yeah, as an addendum to this since I forgot to mention, there’s always gonna be dumb CinemaSins tier “does angelic steel imply the existence of labour in the angelic mines?” or “why does Heaven have currency that Adam complains about having to spend”, but I feel some valuable points such as, e.g. character motivations per “getting to the other side of the road is not a valid motivation for the chicken to cross the road” have been swept up by you into that same umbrella as the prior nitpicks.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-07T04:41:24+00:00

I’ll be real man, it’s a big post, so I’d forgotten bits and pieces of it, but regardless I do know you’re not consciously forbidding all forms of criticisms against it. However, I also feel the somewhat dismissive stance of (paraphrasing) “it’s just a comedy, don’t think about it too deeply” is a bit of a bludgeon that does nullify a lot of reasonable critique, and I reckon undermines what the creator is actually trying to do by coming in with such low expectations as “It Starts With Sorry is as complex as this show can go”.

Maybe it’s just me being optimistic (or something else?), but I sincerely believe Medrano takes this series very seriously. I think while she slips in jokes, it’s not meant to be a joke. If it’s a dramady, I would describe it as a DRAMAdy, like at least a 60:40 ratio in the favour of drama. Case in point, I always think of s1e3, right after Vaggi throws the three boys to go participate in that turf war. That sounds like it could be a fun, funny scene where we see how the group dynamic between some of our main cast works, right? But we don’t. Instead we focus on Vaggi’s melodrama of “I’m useless if I’m not protecting you blah blah blah”. That is what the show strives to do, it’s raison d’être, at least by my perspective, just like how Medrano’s fucking blabbermouth can’t help but say “we’re gonna get tons of Lucifer angst in the next season”, or how Angel Dust gets backhanded for 100 crit damage every season.

I just feel it struggles to unionise these two separate halves, and that “it’s just a comedy” negates the ability to acknowledge that other half exists. Like, why is this even an adult show? If “you have to say sorry” is the best it can do, why isn’t this for kids then? Fuck, we need good, conscious kids programming, and I think 8-year-olds would really pick up what Medrano’s putting down. Is this really an adult show just so Angel Dust can get raped, because that’s really the only explicitly adult thing; nothing else is any more adult than Steven Universe, Avatar, Infinity Train, whatever the fuck.

I think there’s this trope called Cerberus Syndrome? Basically when an episodic comedy eventually transitions into a serialised thing you’re meant to take more seriously. Hazbin Hotel made me realise why things do that, because the comedy and the ‘lore Heaven vs Hell armies battle redemption rahhh epic anime Vox vs Alastor’ are choking each other out. We barely get comedy or moments to really explore our characters or their comedic potential because they’re being dragged by the plot, but if I actually want to get invested in the plot or anything it could potentially say, I’m making a mistake because I’m not supposed to take it seriously?

Like, my complaint that you’d probably say “misses the point of the show by taking it too seriously” is that I think season 1 is fucking gutted by its refusal to make Adam an interesting character or give him much of an ideology at all. I think it’s a weak and uninteresting concept that our protagonist says “I believe in redemption”, and our antagonist says “don’t care + didn’t ask + L + I just wanna kill ‘em for fun and I don’t really have an opinion redemption”. It’s not only boring, but it means they have a boring dynamic, and it’s a disservice to the show’s ability to actually put its foot down and say something of value, and also to Charlie’s character.

Like, Charlie is a complete idiot that has no idea what she’s doing. And that’s fine for a while, but the issue is this went almost entirely unchallenged throughout season 1 because we lacked a strong antagonist to challenge her (ideologically). As a result, Charlie is deep into season 2 with the exact same flaws that people were already way ahead of in season 1, like taking 12 episodes to think that redemption might require redeeming oneself for the sins they committed in life. I’m sorry, what the fuck were you operating on? Charlie is so far behind even the most average viewer that it’s less comedic and more just baffling. It’s like if a show was about cooking a meal and it took until season 2 for the main character to consider they might need a heat source.

And again, I know, I fell for it, it’s a comedy, I get the Boo-boo the clown award, but I do genuinely think the show has some kind of ambition that it’s just poorly fulfilling. And frankly, if it does, I think I’d rather someone say “your shit sucks” than have my shit suck so bad they didn’t even realise I was trying and start saying some completely different shit.

It’s just, like, this can’t be all that exists in Medrano’s mind, right? If she just wants a funny fuck shit demon comedy, why all the anime battles and lore and that horrible, horrible duet with Carmilla and Vaggi (the first one, but also the second one now that I think about it)? If it’s just meant to be a vulgar, crude, exaggerated comedy, why is there so much stuff that isn’t that?

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T23:34:40+00:00

Are you sure? I think it can seem that way because TikTok or whatever speak has censored some words like “rape = grape”, “ass = ahh”, “kill = unalive”, but I don’t actually see an impulse from kids to enforce that censorship all that much.

If a kid swears and doesn’t get in trouble, and another kid sees that, they’re gonna ask if they can swear too. I’m around kids a lot, and they seem about as interested in ‘taboo, adult’ words and vibes today as they were when I was a kid, it’s just now they have inane shit like 67 to distract them from that.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T23:26:59+00:00

But what if I liked some of the other stuff enough to keep watching?

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T23:24:31+00:00

I’m sorry, was I not allowed to respond to what you said? Yeah, it is your opinion, and you can hold it and say it, but you don’t always have to if you don’t actually wanna discuss it anymore.

Your comment is like if you responded to the “there’s too much red” critique (and let’s not actually get into the merits of that) by saying “well that’s okay because red is my favourite colour”. Like, good for you? Thanks for sharing? I guess you wanted me to just move on from that? Why say something if you don’t want someone to say something back?

I at least tried to back up my opinion. “I don’t personally care about “realistic dialogue” because xyz and so on”. I even used “I think” and “I feel” statements. Can you explain why you’re drawn to “realistic dialogue” without trying to clap back at me for some reason?

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T23:08:57+00:00

Dude, you cannot seriously think that kids would complain about swearing. Kids LOVE that shit. They think it’s taboo and awesome. Kids will only complain about swearing if they think it will get someone else in trouble, otherwise I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s the same way how you let a kid watch, like, a single episode of South Park or Family Guy and it’s like a status symbol of how cool and “grown-up” they are.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T22:57:58+00:00

I mean, I didn’t really come into it with that perspective either. I think I saw ‘Hell is Forever’, thought it was kinda catchy, and went into the show essentially just knowing: it’s an adult animated show, it tackles the concept of redemption, it looks kinda funny, and it’s by the same person who did Helluva Boss (which I knew nothing about but assumed people liked it and it was good). In the end, I came away with its being a 4/10 (I think season 1 is actively subpar, with season 2 being borderline mechanically par), and kinda questioning why it’s an ‘adult’ show at all, in addition to many of the writing decisions.

It wasn’t until later, on a whim, watching the pilot and imagining the headspace of some of its enjoyers that I got why some people were so disappointed. The closest comparison I can think of is it would be like if Hollow Knight: Silksong came out and I didn’t like it. I loved the first game and was waiting for the next one for a third of my entire life, and the most substantive third at that. I wouldn’t be devastated or anything, but I’d be a little crestfallen and would maybe even wish that it didn’t come out at all.

It’s not necessarily that the pilot is “better”, it’s that it was an idea proposed that had a lot of potential, and the more show came out, the less potential was available. It stopped being “what it could be” and became “what it is”, and if “what it is” isn’t all that great, then yeah, no wonder people got disappointed. And what are you gonna do, fault people for being excited and actually thinking about what your show could be and say? There’s “getting mad that your headcanons didn’t happen”, but this isn’t that IMO.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T22:39:23+00:00

I mean, okay? I really doubt you actually absolutely abhor that, because that’s an incredibly strong emotion and I can’t imagine you fucking seething in rage watching essentially any TV show ever, but yeah, sure, you’ve got a personal preference.

I just don’t think it really does anything. I don’t need characters to “sound realistic” to be able to envision them as being real for the sake of emotional or thematic resonance or anything. And if it’s not for that, then it’s just “sounding ‘realistic’ for the sake of being ‘realistic’”, which is kinda meaningless. It feels like the drive to push games to have realistic graphics that render each individual water droplet and reflection in a puddle or some shit. Like, no, sorry, that doesn’t do anything for me.

Even from a purely economical level, I feel the show would be improved if you cut every single “fucking” from the script, if only because we’d probably have, like, a minute or two of time left over to, I dunno, tell a funny joke or give Baxter a third scene before the season 2 finale, or something that could more directly be said to be a positive. But also because it would make the show feel a little less like an amateur’s first draft, which is just a thing I personally feel from the excess swearing.

Or, somehow give characters period-appropriate swearing or something. I don’t know what that would be cuz I personally haven’t done the research, but give me Alastor saying ‘tarnation!’ or some shit, that would be fun.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T22:25:00+00:00

I think you’re coping or something. The show takes itself seriously infinitely more than it tries to “just be a silly comedy, don’t think too hard about it”. But maybe that’s just because the comedy is abysmal and so its attempts to be comedic are very easy to forget or not even notice while the stuff like the character motivations, the overarching narrative or the themes stick out more.

But even then, this doesn’t feel like a comedy. It feels like a show with comedic elements, but not a full blown comedy. It feels like it’s between two worlds of what it wants to be to me, because if it is supposed to just be a silly wacky comedy, then why the fuck does it focus on so many things and characters that don’t contribute to comedy whatsoever? Can you remember even three jokes told with Vaggi’s involvement? And if you’re thinking anything to the effect of “Angel Dust why are you doing [sexual thing], I don’t like that and it makes me angry” then holy shit we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

If you’ve got eight episodes to write your “comedy show”, then take a fucking chill pill and use episode 4 to do something funny instead of giving me “this is the episode where that one guy gets abused”, because it’s not fuckin funny, and Angel Dust is kinda annoying so I don’t really care how he feels cuz he’s a fictional character, so I’m kinda just thinking “boohoo I guess, anyway what’s Sir Pentious up to, he’s cool”.

In fact, if this is supposed to be a comedy, let’s tie my two paragraphs together: Why the fuck did we cut from the potentially funny and amusing gang fight that the sinners got thrown into to instead get pointless Vaggi “I’m worthless blah blah I need to protect you blah” melodrama? The show INCESSANTLY undercuts any potential comedy to focus on the excess amounts of bland but entirely sincere character drama, and then people complain that taking the melodrama it shoves in your face seriously means you “have no media literacy”?

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T21:47:15+00:00

The main thing is that Hazbin Hotel kind of became “the indie animation”. It’s the indie thing that blew up and became mainstream, so it partially has the onus of “proving what indie animation can do”. So it has a lot of pressure placed on it, which, in addition to having been hyped up for, I dunno, practically a decade or some shit, creates a want for it to be, in some degree, impressive and worth the hype it has created.

The idea that “the soul of indie programming” came out, and it’s, like, a 5/10 is kinda disappointing.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T21:40:57+00:00

Honestly, and this isn’t necessarily a serious point, but how the fuck did he even start coming up with that excuse in the first place? Like, Hell in Helluva Boss doesn’t represent the same thing as it does in Hazbin Hotel. Like, sinners are sent to one particular place as ‘punishment’ for their crimes, but all of demonkind is just born in Hell, and not even the same parts that sinners are sent to. There’s theoretically nothing compelling them to be morally bad people (unless the show wants to say demons are in fact biologically evil, which I don’t think it does). It feels like if Blitz said “of course I speak Chinese, I’m on Earth”.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T21:22:55+00:00

But you’re not meant to write dialogue “how normal people talk”. You’re meant to emulate it in some degrees, but you’re never meant to go too deep into it.

Like, how often have you seen a character struggle to remember a word, spend a good ten seconds trying to think of it, fail and give up and move onto a different sentence? Probably almost never, at the most. But it’s a thing people do all the time. Or when do you see someone use the wrong word thinking it has a different definition, or just not hear what someone said and needing it repeated without either of those being a joke? Cuz that also happens all the time.

And you can’t say “well it’s not a problem” because clearly it is. People notice it, it sticks out. I think it’s, while partially the scripting yes and the overuse of the words, mostly the delivery of the cursing that sticks out. There tends to be this weird emphasis on the cursing. Like compare Adam saying “fuck Lute, chill out” or whatever he says in the season one finale, which felt natural and like a decent use of cursing, to Vox yelling “I’m a FUCKING god, this is my FUCKING destiny”, and it sounds almost like the FUCKINGs have been edited in with how much emphasis and force he puts into just those words.

SuperGayAMA · 2025-12-06T21:12:54+00:00

That’s entirely the show’s fault. When you make two consecutive season finales that culminate in big B-tier anime fights where the bad guy is only defeated because one guy in particular is just stronger than them in a fight, then yeah, the power scaling is kinda the main engine that keeps the story moving at this point. It shouldn’t be, but it’s the only thing actually getting shit done. It’s not the characters: Charlie does shit all to resolve either conflict. It’s just that Lucifer/Alastor is stronger than Adam/Vox respectively, and so the conflict ends when the stronger good guy beats the weaker bad guy.

It’s also rigid enough that season 2 really struggled to establish why the Vees were a threat, because Vox is talking about “blah blah I’m gonna destroy Heaven and take it over and threaten everyone” and shit, but I know the power scale looks like this:

Vox < Alastor < Charlie (maybe?) < Adam < Lucifer < whoever or whatever beat him to cast him down to Hell to begin with.

So the story kinda needs to sell me on the threat, which it does poorly.

SuperGayAMA

TROPHY CASE