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← darkroom
[spoilers] Needy Girl Overdose Episode 3 Discussion
I don't really know how to express my feelings very well, I didn't feel the "documentary", "over-exposition" feel very much last episode, but this time it's like they dialed it to 23.
Initially I felt mentally prepared for it cause the moment in the trailer where Ame's parents were arguing stuck to mind so I went "oh, it's that!", but then things kept piling up 'n piling up, it feels like things happening for the sake of things happening.
At least, the consolation of Ame's serene expression in that bit of the piano playing parts lift the spirits a bit.
Keeping good hopes for Kache and Michika next ep cause preview was hype asf.
Wtf is even going on? It feels bizarre, but not the JoJo's good type of bizarre, it's that type where you're a bit confused and ask yourself what the hell is going on and why is it going on, dunno if I'm just this lost because I don't play that game this is apparently based on, but...eh
Got a laugh out of me since I've recently began reading JoJo myself (good so far, I'm due part 3 next!)
But yes I agree, eventually you're kinda left in a stuck state of "Oh well, they are making things happen and I struggle to see rhyme or reason.
Also no need to worry about the game or like, I myself haven't played it but it appears it is "divorced(?)" enough from the anime.
No worries, the game itself doesn't make much sense at times anyway lmao. The guy behind the game, Nyalra, is a massive otaku and eroge player who writes about them excessively on his Note page. The culture it's trying to speak to, sadly, doesn't exist in the same way anymore. This game would've been huge if it came out pre-Reiwa. Not now.
The thing is: Otaku culture is dead and what we have now is just larping. The real thing was built on isolation and social rejection, people with nowhere else to go who went so deep into this subculture it became their entire world. That doesn't exist anymore. Now it's a personality type, a Twitter bio, a merch haul. It's a market. It's people throwing slurs at each other over fictional character shipping wars on the internet. Needy Girl Overdose was going for something real inside all that, and it gets close, but it can't fully catch it in this day and age.
Funny enough, the episode title "Internet Overdose" perfectly sums up everything happening with the internet right now. This is what internet overdose does to people-it turns them into outrage machines who've completely lost perspective on reality.
People are shamelessly going on Twitter to attack creators and demand they write stories their way. Take the "Otaku Gals" discourse-people are calling out the mangaka for writing a "generic loser otaku MC," accusing them of self-insertion and demanding they remove him to make it yuri instead. Plot twist: the mangaka is actually a woman. Or look at Shirahama, the Witch Hat Atelier mangaka, getting accused of spreading propaganda just for doing an interview with UNESCO.... WTF lol.
Comment sections devolve into people fighting and throwing slurs over fiction. It's pure internet brainrot. So much hate thrown at creators who are just trying to make a living. The terminally online treat them like punching bags for not catering to every personal demand.
Hideaki Anno was right. Anime should stay Japanese, and Westerners should adapt to it just like how it's been the case forever. Now it's turning into a market devoid of what made it special in the first place.
Yep, you pretty much voiced all of my thoughts about anime communities these days down to a T lol.
People are shamelessly going on Twitter to attack creators and demand they write stories their way.
This just makes me think of that one Kubo quote that goes pretty much like this "Either pick up a pen and write a story better and more successful than Bleach or stfu"
But yeah, it's annoying to move through the internet these days, all posts are just engagement bait or lobotomized idiots sticking to one anime and calling every other one trash, to the point that they even make up lies and bs to justify it even though it's very apparent that they didn't even watch half the anime they call trash, it's just tragic.
Pretty much sums up my feelings too. I've been into it since the 00s/early 2010s and sadly so many things have changed its hard to even call this the same subculture with how its treated nowadays. NSO speaks to a community thats been long gone, which is an awful feeling, seeing as I've grown up around this for more than half my life. Now more than ever, I usually opt out of interacting with any anime community as the culture around it (at least, in the states) have shifted so much, it's just not the same anymore. Anime going mainstream was a mistake.
NSO speaks to a community thats been long gone, which is an awful feeling
This reminded me of this interview I read a couple of months ago featuring Naotaka Hayashi, the scenario writer behind Steins;Gate, where he talked about otaku culture being basically dead and how they’re struggling to capture the 2010s, when it was at its peak, in this reboot. Anyone who truly grew up with this medium and lived through it can’t help but feel sad and wonder how we ended up here.
This game would've been huge if it came out pre-Reiwa
NGO is a huge, massive bestseller with a huge following of both genuine otaku and larpers.
and you're acting like there were never flame wars and drama on 2channel, and scandals about seiyuu like Aya Hirano's promiscuity.
read some 2channel archives if you even care:
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/5ch.netisolation and social rejection, people with nowhere else to go who went so deep into this subculture it became their entire world
personality type, a Twitter bio, a merch haul
like it or not, these are the same type of people. terminally online people do have otaku culture as their entire world.
it may be more aggressive and negative with modern SNS (X is the only bad one honestly), but it's the same appeal."otaku culture" has always been about creating and purchasing emotional pornography. it's been like that since the Lolicon Boom of the 1980s or even earlier.
it's about rejecting flesh-and-blood human beings and community, and turning to a life of onanism in small packaged boxes that you take home and play with alone.Needy Girl Overdose was going for something real inside all that, and it gets close, but it can't fully catch it in this day and age
Otaku culture was and is not "real". God, family, friends, love, sex, babies, and nature are "real".
Could you explain to me how "God" is any more real than "Otaku Culture"? Both are imaginary concepts based off of some form of merchandise, like a book for example. People then believe in that concept and center their world around it and let it also affect their world view.
I don't wanna deny anybody their religion and neither is it my place to, but let's not act like God is a factually proven "real" concept like physics or something.
massive bestseller with a huge following of both genuine otaku and larpers.
Everything nowadays can blow up into a bestseller with enough social media exposure. Post an out-of-context clip from some game or show on Twitter and people immediately start asking for the name, just to stay on the latest topic with everyone else, even with zero genuine interest in the actual product. Whether those are people who actually engage with it and get what it's trying to say, or just want to larp along with the crowd, is a whole different matter.
you're acting like there were never flame wars and drama on 2channel, and scandals about seiyuu like Aya Hirano's promiscuity.
One was genuine obsession eating itself alive. The other is just noise.
- Hirano's situation and the drama it caused is a bit different from what we're seeing now on social media. You have to understand that back then, Suzumiya Haruhi was the biggest thing in Japan, quite literally. The anime and the light novels didn't just top charts, they rewrote what pop culture fandom looked like. The non-linear broadcast order alone became a cultural event, and the Hare Hare Yukai ending dance spread through Akihabara flash mobs and Nico Nico Douga before viral even meant anything. It wasn't just a cult following, it was a complete lifestyle.
So when Aya Hirano, the voice of Haruhi herself, got exposed by some Japanese magazine for sleeping with members of her own band, it didn't land as celebrity gossip. It landed as betrayal. Japan's idol culture runs on the parasocial contract of perceived purity and devotion. The die-hard fans who had built their entire identity around Haruhi felt it personally. The backlash was vicious enough to, sadly enough, effectively end her career as a voice actress at her peak.
- Nowadays the flame wars and drama on X are something else entirely. People fighting over products to push social status, political agendas, even going as far as harassing and threatening the actual creators over nothing, while 90% of them are pirating the thing they're supposedly defending.
Otaku culture was and is not "real". God, family, friends, love, sex, babies, and nature are "real".
It is real, at least in Japan. Rapidly dying though, if not dead already. Highly recommend giving Azuma Hiroki's writings a read, the guy wrote extensively about anime and otaku culture from the early 90s till now. His 2001 essay "Otaku: Japan's Database Animals" is a solid starting point, goes deep into the culture and frames it within that era. He actually got asked about the state of otaku culture today in one of his streams last year. Pretty interesting stuff if you can understand Japanese.
From my understanding of the game (got 3 of the endings), it feels like this is meant to back up and explain who Ame was before the game. I can confirm some of these events are canon and others are implied.
If you want a theory craft, I believe we're heading towards the consequences of hitting it big as a streamer, for the main person and their audience. The game itself focuses on building an audience for good and ill, so the afternath feels like a natural step to take the story and characters.
Thank you for your first point, in hindsight, it does feel logically sensible.
I suppose that by my surface level knowledge of the game I haven't played yet, Ame feels so "well established " as a streamer (in the game) that it makes the story of the anime feel more distant than what little I know >.>I'm sorry, that must be hella confusing! So to confirm, in the game, the goal is for you to get 1 million subs. Ame starts from 0 in the game, but the anime feels like it's about a month or two after one of the better endings since she's gotten 10x the goal by episode 1. Hopefully that can help set up a better timeline for what's going on now.
What an episode. I have to rewatch it tomorrow just to fully stomach everything. They're doing a terrific job elevating the game experience to a whole new level. Ame-chan's mom was already a cockroach, no need for her to be reborn as one.
The room shown in the ED is Nyalra's old room from when he was developing the game.
So i recently played the game a month before the anime came out so its been fresh in my mind. I havent been super into the directjon theyve gone with so far storywise. Its just a little TOO abstract to me but ive enjoyed alot of the visuals and the op/eds. This episode though I liked it alot more than the first two. Maybe it was just a little more clear to me? I enjoyed the expansion of Ame's homelife and before she dropped out of high school as well as the small mention of internet angel !! That was a fun lil bit they included. But idk i was hoping it would be more ame focused and thats why i enjoyed this episode more? Im still going to keep watching though. At least want to give the series a whole as a shot!
From the perspective of someone who knew about the game, its influence, and other media such as its music, I had an expectation that this show was going to be a dissection of the character Ame/KAngel. So it was a surprise when they decided to have the backstory for this episode.
Honestly speaking, if someone started the show from the third episode, I don't think they would miss much, except for the previously established characters—from my understanding of the previous episode discussions—it wasn't a part of the game (I might be misunderstanding previous details.)
But I guess I'm also at fault to think her story alone would carry throughout the season (In real time thinking I might have my expectations a bit too high given it's real-world impact that I, myself, haven't experienced.)
But wherever the story goes, I don't mind. I'm a fan of the storytelling. It reminds me of SHIBOYURI. I love artsy shows like this with its perceived lack of "space" and "emptiness," with detailed, and vivid imagery.
I wish there was one show like this every season. I'd eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
If you couldn't tell, I loved this episode, and the main character.
