Scumbag System: THE ANIMATION
Sep. 17th, 2020 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSo the animated version of Scum Villain's Self Saving System is out, and based on the first two episodes it's...actually not entirely terrible! Considering what it looks like!
BUT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. IS NOT GOOD.
'Scum Villain's Self Saving System' is the first book by MXTX, author of 'Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation', which was adapted into 'The Untamed'. It's also fantasy m/m, but more of a satire of the genre, basically the 'Northanger Abbey' to 'Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation's 'Pride and Prejudice'(*).
It's the story of a regular Chinese guy who dies and finds himself stuck as the doomed villain Shen Qingqui of the cheesy fantasy webnovel he was reading. The plot starts out with Shen Qingqui trying to be nicer to his student, the cheesy webnovel's protagonist Luo Binghe, to avoid dying when Luo Binghe is an adult obsessed with revenge. Except what actually happens is that Luo Binghe falls obsessively in love with him. I did end up shipping them but it's more humour about romance tropes than super romantic.
When the fandom heard there was going to be an animated version we wondered how they'd deal with the Massive Gayness of the plot. And then we saw the initial stills and wondered...how bad it would be...
Good news: Thus far it is pretty true to the SVSS book in terms of writing! Which is to say, right now it's a funny fantasy story, and the adaptation to tv pacing is fairly smooth. The translation seems fine from what I can tell. The Siri-ish System that gives "useful" advice and deducts points for playing the villain out of character is handled in an amusing way, and they use it an excuse for streamlined exposition. Adult!original!Luo Binghe's terribleness has been softened slightly but he's still scary enough.
It's hard to say for sure right now, since it would never cross 20ish Shen Qingqui's mind to feel anything romantic/sexual towards 14 year old Luo Binghe, but the writers seem to be trying to keep things as shippy as they can. Even in the original book the shippiness at this point was just subtext involving significant looks etc from Luo Binghe, and that's still there: At one point his canon-in-the-webnovel female love interest asks him something about Shen Qingqui and Luo Binghe gets so distracted thinking about Shen Qingqui he forgets the question. Also the closing credits are Quite Shippy. I'm expecting the final story to be like reading a Noticeably Shippy gen fixit fic for Obi-wan and Anakin, with lots of lingering looks between master and student etc.(**)
Middling news: The voice acting is ok but not spectacular. The writing gets across the important things well enough but is unsubtle.
Bad news: THE ANIMATION. OH GOD. IT'S SO BAD. SOOOOOOO BAAAADDDDD. And I don't mean 'bad for 2020 CGI' bad. I'm talking 'bad for 2002 CGI' bad. 'Remaking it as a Dragon Age mod might be an improvement' bad. BAD. There's like 5 minutes of genuinely pretty 2D animation in a flashback at the very start, like they're saying LOOK, WE KNOW. WE WOULD DRAW IT ALL LIKE THIS IF WE COULD AFFORD IT, BUT WE CAN'T, SO JUST USE YOUR IMAGINATION.
I'm managing to enjoy the show well enough regardless but...prepare yourself. Think of it as a representation of the shitty, cheesy style of the original webnovel. And use your imagination.
Upside: I bet I could make canon accurate 3d renders pretty easily lol. I never got the hang of hair or fabric but CLEARLY NEITHER DID THEY.
Also this joke is pretty funny if you have watched the show and read Heaven Official's Blessing.
(*)I thought of this metaphor yesterday and am pretty happy with it. I would classify Heaven Official's Blessing as MXTX's Persuasion. She's not really the sort to write a Sense and Sensibility since her protags are not very sensible, but I'd love to see a MXTX Emma.
(**)I normally find master/student ships squicky, but this one mostly won me over, and they get together as adult peers. But if you can't handle that sort of thing at all, this version of canon won't go there explicitly, but it's definitely going to be a thing in subtext and fandom.
BUT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. IS NOT GOOD.
'Scum Villain's Self Saving System' is the first book by MXTX, author of 'Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation', which was adapted into 'The Untamed'. It's also fantasy m/m, but more of a satire of the genre, basically the 'Northanger Abbey' to 'Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation's 'Pride and Prejudice'(*).
It's the story of a regular Chinese guy who dies and finds himself stuck as the doomed villain Shen Qingqui of the cheesy fantasy webnovel he was reading. The plot starts out with Shen Qingqui trying to be nicer to his student, the cheesy webnovel's protagonist Luo Binghe, to avoid dying when Luo Binghe is an adult obsessed with revenge. Except what actually happens is that Luo Binghe falls obsessively in love with him. I did end up shipping them but it's more humour about romance tropes than super romantic.
When the fandom heard there was going to be an animated version we wondered how they'd deal with the Massive Gayness of the plot. And then we saw the initial stills and wondered...how bad it would be...
Good news: Thus far it is pretty true to the SVSS book in terms of writing! Which is to say, right now it's a funny fantasy story, and the adaptation to tv pacing is fairly smooth. The translation seems fine from what I can tell. The Siri-ish System that gives "useful" advice and deducts points for playing the villain out of character is handled in an amusing way, and they use it an excuse for streamlined exposition. Adult!original!Luo Binghe's terribleness has been softened slightly but he's still scary enough.
It's hard to say for sure right now, since it would never cross 20ish Shen Qingqui's mind to feel anything romantic/sexual towards 14 year old Luo Binghe, but the writers seem to be trying to keep things as shippy as they can. Even in the original book the shippiness at this point was just subtext involving significant looks etc from Luo Binghe, and that's still there: At one point his canon-in-the-webnovel female love interest asks him something about Shen Qingqui and Luo Binghe gets so distracted thinking about Shen Qingqui he forgets the question. Also the closing credits are Quite Shippy. I'm expecting the final story to be like reading a Noticeably Shippy gen fixit fic for Obi-wan and Anakin, with lots of lingering looks between master and student etc.(**)
Middling news: The voice acting is ok but not spectacular. The writing gets across the important things well enough but is unsubtle.
Bad news: THE ANIMATION. OH GOD. IT'S SO BAD. SOOOOOOO BAAAADDDDD. And I don't mean 'bad for 2020 CGI' bad. I'm talking 'bad for 2002 CGI' bad. 'Remaking it as a Dragon Age mod might be an improvement' bad. BAD. There's like 5 minutes of genuinely pretty 2D animation in a flashback at the very start, like they're saying LOOK, WE KNOW. WE WOULD DRAW IT ALL LIKE THIS IF WE COULD AFFORD IT, BUT WE CAN'T, SO JUST USE YOUR IMAGINATION.
I'm managing to enjoy the show well enough regardless but...prepare yourself. Think of it as a representation of the shitty, cheesy style of the original webnovel. And use your imagination.
Upside: I bet I could make canon accurate 3d renders pretty easily lol. I never got the hang of hair or fabric but CLEARLY NEITHER DID THEY.
Also this joke is pretty funny if you have watched the show and read Heaven Official's Blessing.
(*)I thought of this metaphor yesterday and am pretty happy with it. I would classify Heaven Official's Blessing as MXTX's Persuasion. She's not really the sort to write a Sense and Sensibility since her protags are not very sensible, but I'd love to see a MXTX Emma.
(**)I normally find master/student ships squicky, but this one mostly won me over, and they get together as adult peers. But if you can't handle that sort of thing at all, this version of canon won't go there explicitly, but it's definitely going to be a thing in subtext and fandom.
