Let's Talk About High Guardian Spice Indepth
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Recently I watched High Guardian Spice and had a lot of opinions about it. While the story is pretty basic, I thought one could try to explain what the show tried to since it failed at executing its ideas probably.
I tried to avoid talking about the creator Raye Rodriguez or the writers behind the work. In this video I simply wanted to talk about it's potential and why its such a mess of a show...
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Instagram:
/ _milaruu
Music:
• Animal Crossing - K.K....
Windmill Isle Day - Sonic Unleashed
Bubblegum K.K._Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Toad's Shop Bop-Mario Party Superstars
Lor Starcutter-Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Spagonia Day-Sonic Unleashed
Windmill Isle Day-Sonic Unleashed
Honeycomb Highway-Sonic Lost World
#HGS #HighGuardianSpice
0:23 - Wait: Why didn't Rodriguez use the Tumblr webcomic's original artstyle!? That would've made it distinctive and unique...except for Rosemary, who literally is just a cartoon-styled Madoka w/a broadsword. But the others look great; just recolor Thyme's hair to red (that was a good change so she doesn't look like Parsley's older sister). To keep w/ "mature themes", park that shit on ADULT SWIM.
Yes they are actually looks like WAY better in the original. Like this witch girl was much more unique. Even the Madoka main hero.
It looks like a downgrade to me. The original artstyle
to cut back on the budget, they outsourced the animation
@@TheLakabanzaichrg
But we can’t forget they may have given them terrible story board to work with, something like One Punch Man can be done extraordinary because of the effort that goes into the story board.
Something in the first ever trailer, that is part of the barely shown work on the show, is a story board that has Rosemary looking through a telescope in one frame, and standing straight up in the next. There’s excessive tweening or even just taking a single frame and enlargening or shrinking it.
@@Dgero i get the feeling the production itself was very troubled and that's why it got released after three years of being anounced
Would a protagonist be more interesting if they have some flaws as their character traits? Like goku not the smartest but a fighting genius or Jaden Yuki slack in school but plays like a pro. I mean the main characters from my little pony friendship have their strengths and flaws. Twilight sparkle is smart but very OCD. Applejack too stubborn to ask for help.
Actually Jaiden Yuki is just lucky...
Yeah, a protagonist with flaws can be a lot more fun than one who comes off like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. It also allows them to be able to grow as things progress.
I don’t know why the Goku not being smart reminds me of a meme where Gohan is walking in on him doing his taxes and Goku says, “don’t tell your mom I know how to do this.” 😂😂
@Liberator not really neospacians are bad and most his draws are lucky...
@Liberator you got me that is true~
As boring and bland as Parsley is, she's literally the only character that doesn't grind my nerves to dust, so she's probably the only person I could see being actual friends with. Like she'd be the only person you could pluck from that world, put into this one, and she'd be well-adjusted enough to actually function on her own. Probably because she's the only one who's conventionally normal to any degree.
I actually liked Parsley when I first started watching the show. I just wished she would get more screentime and character developement, but at least she's not as morally questionable as the rest
Parsleys only bad moments imo was when she intentionally dropped her giant hammer on Asters foot and when she said Thyme bullied Sage for wanting to go to lunch. (The last one in sort of excusable though because Parsley wasn’t there and only knew Sage was crying)
@@xempororhxppyx only two bad moments, I can excuse those unlike rosemary sue and sage , whatever they do , it's always wrong
@@lumityviktuuristanartist4100 true, true. Honestly though, 2 bad moments, for a show like this, is pretty impressive. Parsleys one of the only likable/tolerable characters in this show.
@chrisayywakeup7623 yeah along side of amaryllis, Snapdragon, parnell and Slime boy and also Aster and neppy cat they are the most loved in the show , none of them is a main character and Amaryllis and Snapdragon are antagonists 💀
6:32 That is the most confusing part. Thyme trying to cure The Rot is enough to get the villain's attention. Wouldn't all the Elves who had to flee their homes at least be talking about it? What makes her special in the villain's eyes?
Like, of her character was likable enough, we can reason to, but they don't further explain it
what bothers me the most is the cat literally fucking fixes most of the tree with that magic staff and Thyme doesn't even bat a eye at it. she instead seems to focus on getting a tiny vile of magic water to heal the entire forest. You'd think if she saw something that could heal the rot she'd be interested in that immediately. like "oh shit, this staff could fix all my problems lol"
Her Dad obviously has some form of authority and he is leading the fight against the rot even staying in the forest. That is a connection enough in my mind
She's the only one who thought od using healing waters... somehow.
I guess the "all female" writng staff didn't think about it.
That's a very good Point:
Why do we not know what a Guardian does?! It's the Goal of our Main Characters! You'd think they would tell us something that's THIS important.
What do Guardians even protect the World *from* ?
RWBY has a lot of Problems, but they establish right away, in the very first Episode, that the World is threatened by these evil Monsters called Grimm that have preyed on Humanity for as long as it has existed.
Or take the Game The Secret World:
While you fight many supernatural Threats, from Wizards, over Vampires, to Mummies, Djinns and Ghosts, it is established relatively "early" that there is no bigger Threat than the Filth, a strange, black Slime that slowly corrupts and drives People insane, and will devour our entire Plane of Existence, if left unchecked!
What do we get in High Guardian:
A nebulous Group that does nebulous Things for nebulous Reasons.
Are they what Guardians supposed to defend the World from? Yes? No? Who knows?!
After watching this show, I now believe I was too harsh on RWBY!
@@gabrieljoseozanan6989 Oh no, RWBY does *absolutely* deserve criticism- it has a lot of flaws- but at least it's World was kinda creative.
@@johannesseyfried7933 Very much true!
@@gabrieljoseozanan6989 Out of Curiosity: What's your Opinion on the last Volume?
@@johannesseyfried7933 Can't really give an honest opinion about that, haven't watched RWBY since 5th season rolled out.
I've only recently started watching it anew, thanks to HGS, now commented by Spilling the Milk! Check it out their newest:
ua-cam.com/video/OZgowUclPsE/v-deo.html
Parsley is by far the easiest character to fix in terms of actually giving her a character arc: Have her join the school to become a guardian because she wants to get away from her family and the stifling expectations they put on her. At the academy she slowly realises that she misses her family and that she's still fond of smithing, and toward the end of the season she reconciles with her family and decides to pursue both smithing and guardianship instead of choosing between the two.
It's a giant cliche of course, and maybe that's why the creators didn't take that route, but instead they just didn't do anything to develop the character at all. And it's not as if Parsley's character arc was sacrificed in service of any of the other characters' arcs, because none of them are developed much beyond gaining some physical/magical skills.
TF is guardianing TF do they do are they soldier, defenders, adventurer, mercenary or leaders
@@jacktheripper6747 I was just giving one example of how amateur level the writing is and how easy it would be to fix. If I had to fix everything in the show we'd be here forever.
@@AliRadicali no this is no hate on you I'm just question ING what the hell is a guardian to the show because they didn't even try to explain it
@@jacktheripper6747 I FINALLY HAVE YOUR ANSWERS!! THEY ARE PALADINS BECAUSE THE TRIAD ARE THEIR IMMORTAL DEITY THEY WORK FOR!! AS WELL AS THE CODE/VOW/OATH THING!!
@@innomi4343 then why didn't they explained it in the goddamn show
Sage was supposed to be a *H E A L E R???*
What the fuck, how were we meant to know?? Did *she* know that??? She healed some poison *once!!*
*HOLY SHIT SOME HEALING MAGIC WOULD HAVE BEEN PRETTY FUCKING USEFUL IN SEVERAL SPECIFIC SCENARIOS THROUGHOUT THE SHOW, WOULDN'T IT.*
Man. If she was a dnd character the whole party would be dead session one.
None of her missions really showed that part of her character so I sorta forgot about it kekw
I kinda forgot that they're supposed to be a dnd group - but I didn't see Sage as a healer at all until you pointed it out now....she's been pretty offensive, and even the magic and potions she brews on the show were poison or harmful stuff.
ALSO YEAH - SURPRISED THEY DIDN'T MAKE SAGE HEAL
I mean the dwarf girl is supposed to be a tank but never uses armor, rosemary is supposed to be a warrior but lost a fight to a wizard cat girl using it's staff as a sword so their entire party just sucks at teamplay.
@@joaopedrofm1299 I mean. If dwarf girl was a barbarian from 5e then she wouldn't need armour. But I highly doubt they had that in mind.
I think there could've been a fascinating connection between 'old magic' and 'new magic' where the discipline, study and practice required to be proficient at 'old magic' could've made Sage acclimate relatively easily to 'new magic', but they don't even explain what either one even is. They also don't really go into what makes one better than the other or why Sage has such trouble with 'new magic'. There's also that really frustrating scene where it's revealed that Sage's mother, who exclusively uses 'old magic' hates 'new magic'. Her own sister calls her a hypocrite for having used 'new magic' when she was younger (setting aside the fact that that isn't what hypocrisy even is) and she does this right to Sage's face. She also completely ignores Sage's misgivings about using 'new magic' and deliberately pushes her to just use it as if that isn't a really messed up thing to do to your own flesh and blood. This is a really REALLY screwed up thing, because she's basically pushing her way of doing things onto a confused and unsure child, and this whole thing is framed as the right thing to do by the show.
They don't even talk about why Sage's mom stopped using new magic or why she hates it
Yeah, not wanting your child to practice something you did in the past isn't hypocrisy, it's growing up and changing your mind. Especially with how the show reveals that new magic is not that great, Sage's mom most likely regretted using new magic and decided not to use it again.
Also, there was this one scene in one of professor Redbud's classes where Sage asked her if she could use old magic instead of new for a task in class. Instead of explaining *why* or *how* new magic was better, more efficient and easier to use than old magic, the teacher just stated that it was. Really missed opportunity to explain the lore behind magic and the differences between the two techniques...
new magic could be halfassed (2x weaker than old magic)
Also better voice acting and writing
The root of the problem is half-assed worldbuilding, where the creators didn't fully flesh out the magic system before using old & new magic as a metaphor, resulting in unintended and mixed messages. If they wanted to have old magic be an analogy for traditionalism and how rigidly clinging to tradition can cause problems, they could have set up their system such that old magic is passed on in ancient magical families and is prohibited from use to anyone else, whereas new magic can be used by anybody but requires more practice and is looked down on as weak and proletarian. Or maybe old magic requires rare and expensive magical artifacts unavailable to the commoners. There are so many ways in which you could give old magic a negative connotation if that was the aim, instead, even though the show's intended message seems to be that new magic is good, it suggests the exact opposite. When you have two paths to power, one requiring hard work and perseverance and the other being quick and easy, the latter ALWAYS has some sort of hidden price or evil nature, except on HGS.
TL;DR:
It's bad enough when a show doesn't put in the legwork to explain their magic system and make it consistent, but it's absolutely unforgivable if they want to use their magic system as an allegory to impart moral lessons.
I really wish this show was better, but I really enjoy all of the discussion it creates about storytelling. It clearly had potential with its characters, and I hope it gets a second season just to see if it improves. Great video.
Me too
yeah, hopefully this is a good learning experience for everyone
the second season might be canceled due to crunchy roll selling out to funanimation
I mean, from what I've heard, the last few episodes make the whole show mediocre, so it improved already.
I don't. I don't want these people rewarded for their terrible views, and garbage art output. Giving them a second season won't make them improve, it'll just reinforce their terrible lack of skill and merit. Also, the people who made this have long since moved on; it was finished in 2019.
I think I get it now: the biggest problem with HGS is that this is the creator's "first baby". They are waaay too protective over it, want everyone to love it without any genuine improvement, and screw anyone who doesn't like it outright because it's "my little princess". They are shielding it from criticism, every excuse given shifts responsibility off onto someone else (Crunchyroll, the audience, etc.), and they cannot see the flaws in their own creation. It's a fanfic.
This would've worked better as a light novel with the style of the webcomic, since they clearly care more about the characters than the worldbuilding or story. Have them already established at magic school, don't make the world too complicated, just very "girls do almost nothing and look cute" trope. HGS as it stands is both too ambitious and too bland for TV anime.
And most importantly: it's clearly a first draft. Everyone does this kind of thing, but no one keep it. Because you must rewrite it!
The boring characters, the missing dynamic, the unclear plot points, the wasting of time, the incoherencies, the missing informations, the nonsensical worldbuilding... Every writers, even the best, do that. But we never stop there.
Raye had clearly no idea of the story and was more interested in presenting his characters to us. There is at least three self insert who represents himself at multiple stage of his life (the energetic girl in Rosemary, the angsty queer teenager in Snapdragon and the trans and wise man in Caraway). He just puts everything he thinks sound cool in his story and it just... fell apart. Because he didn't have the maturity for modifying his comfort characters.
You know how they feel like? Those ocs you make in your head and daydream about to edgy songs in middle school.
"could the healing water heal a tree?"
"Yes....YOU ARE READY"
There wasnt even a pause between his answer and the "YOU ARE READY"
@@greedycursedc_rat_ckhead3649 but there were other words in between
One of my biggest gripes is how impractical Rosemary's outfit is for actual fighting. Her poofy pigtails are just asking to get grabbed by an enemy (this is why horned helmets are VERY impractical in actual combat, a horn is just a handle asking to get grabbed). She has ZERO practical armour (her arms and legs are fully exposed, her shoulderpads don't protect nearly enough of her shoulders and I don't know if her brown fabric over her dress is supposed to be padded cloth or leather), NO helmet and her sword is impratically big. She sucks so much as a Melee fighter that Catgirl MAGE is able to smack her around in close quarters.
The other 'Guardians' at least aren't predominantly fighters (Mage, Archer and Smith) so their lack of protective armour is more excusable. Rosemary has no excuse if she wants to not get gutted a second time.
EDIT: I also don't like how New Magic is used by the good guys when there's seemingly no cost or downside to it. Normally in fantasy shows, magic that seemingly has no cost or downside...ALWAYS secretly has a downside. You're taking a shortcut compared to Old Magic. It's like the Dark Side of the Force, or Black Magic in other Fantasy settings. Old Magic takes effort and sacrifice, GOOD traits, New Magic takes neither of those things, making it a shortcut to power. A BAD thing to encourage.
It's implied that the Rot is caused by New Magic. So there's a cost to it.
@@harlannguyen4048 Weird that the school are either ignorant to that fact or just indifferent. New Magic draws its power from gems so it's weird the land is rotting.
new and old magic are used as a political insert. Just watch the scene where sage's cousins criticize her mother for using old magic and you get it. Old magic is conservatism, new magic is progressivism, that's why new magic has no downsides, because old magic is just a strawman to beat down.
A lot of the aspects of the show are obvious inserts in general. Even the triad is a blatant insert of the witch goddess of wicca (seen by many as a feminist icon), in her 3 forms, the maiden the mother and the crone.
And references and borrowing ideas isn't that bad. For instance I have little issue with the triad for being a wicca reference. But there is a danger in borrowing too heavily. And EVERYTHING about the show is a fucking reference, both the opening and ending are basically copypasted form animes and cartoons, the RWBY parallels are brazen, etc, and the plot ALWAYS takes a backseat to the creator's politics.
@@thespanishinquisition4078 You know what that does not surprise me in the slightest, this show compromising its own setting, lore and mechanics since they care more about the POLITICS. I also find it funny that Old Magic is a stand in for Conservatism..When it's New Magic (Progressivism) that's screwing their world over with The Rot...Like how in our society is degrading as more Conservative values are being eroded. Nice self-own there, writers.
I caught the Triad as an obvious nod to the 3 forms of the Goddess (Maiden, Mother and Crone as you said - which is not even unique to Wicca, it pops up in many pagan religions) and the Crone makes me groan every time she opens her stupid mouth "No Orientation, only DIS-orientation", like yeah sure, utterly fail to properly introduce the students (and the audience) to your school and its purpose (we still don't know WHAT being a Guardian really entails) for the sake of a bad JOKE.
Preach someone said it
the characters and costume designs are Horrendous
its such a shame the story seems so confusing because the art style is REALLY cute
The artstyke isn't perfict at least, but the story and script is messed up
the art style is wasted on this show
3:17 i like the idea of a morally grey/neutral organization the protagonist wants to join. Could be some nuance to the story where their code says to keep balance but they want to kill the villain, or they want to save people
(I haven't watched the show, so correct me if I was wrong)
I would say, the magic should've been the simplest thing in there. They could just make that the old magic like runic magic, where it's really stable but it needed to draw first making it hard to use in battle. While the new magic just needed chanting and gems or something as an intermediary, the gem that was acting as the intermediary would be destroyed if you overuse it and as the new magic is unstable. If you use new magic without an intermediary the result could become random, like it could create an explosion between you and your surrounding making it unrealiable without items like gems and such as intermediary.
And so we can use it to create an arc for Sage. Let's say that after few episodes, we see that Sage is now able to use the new magic and so she keep using it without knowing that new magic is unstable without gems. She using it for various thing such as carrying stuff, cooking or other meaningless thing, until the time where they are training in dungeon. As monster surrounding them, Sage who kept using the new magic suddenly taken surprise as the gem in her magical rod explodes into pieces. But there's no time as the monster keep surrounding them, she still insisted on using the new magic which ends up hurting her teammates because of the random result and thus making her afraid to use the new magic.
The following day after the incident, as she still afraid to use the new magic, she is consulting either to her cousin or her cousin's wife (which will make them more than what they always do in the show, like I feel like they are there just to satisfy the lesbian). Which still uses the old magic for alot of things from the most mundane thing to use to using it to protect themselves. Making her realize that she doesn't need to only relied on new magic, as the old magic is actually capable of something much more than what she expected from everyone that uses new magic, and so, she begins to train her magic once again. One day, the teacher asked them to do a mock battle and calls for Sage and the other random student who is a top student at magic. The others are rooting for top student of course, but then the whole class is taken surprise as Sage, using the new magic as way to distract her enemy with simple fire magic or whatever it is and support herself using a magic barrier whilst finishing her old magic that she draws as an offensive spell in the battle, is actually defeating the top student.
Sorry for the long post, I just can't bear it when the magic is so barebone that the only explanation is "It's magic" like f*ck me.
This makes do much sense and it makes for a nice character arc and give sages cousin a purpose.
That's a pretty cool and well-structured storyline. I especially liked the part where you made her incorporate new magic as well as old magic into the battle which shows that both can have good uses in battle!
Beautiful
I like the majorly story/character/worldbuilding and storytelling take on reviewing this show. Straying away from ALL the drama and focusing on the show itself just goes to show that this show, for what it is, is still just bad. It's very calming to watch at least some people who review it in a non-hyperbolic way
Yes, I’ve heard most people complain about the parts of the show that don’t matter (like the LGBT and diversity stuff, which is weird cus a lot of anime and cartoons have those themes, especially more recently) and I’m glad she’s discussing the show more in depth instead of just complaining.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 Yes, anime do you have a lot of LGBT content and characters and for the most part it's represented well. Here it's hamfisted and they try to shove it in your face any chance they can get. And before you accuse me of being anti LGBT I am LGBT. But I definitely agree with you that it's not the worst part. There are things in this that are so much worse.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 most LGBTQ complaints about it that I've heard were about bad representation.
Fr in one comment section for the scene where they talk about how Sage's mother used to use New Magic, instead of discussing why it's bad storytelling and has a bad morale (pushing new magic onto a confused person with no explanation why either should be better) the people just talked about how "on the nose" the lesbian couple was. Like dude, they're married. Why is it on the nose that they have pictures of themselves on the wall and call each other pet names? Straight couples do that too!
@@frauleinzuckerguss1906 THANK YOU
The only good thing about HGS is how it lead me to good smaller content creators.
Well then there's the memes. I feel like this will become a sort of cult classic because it's so laughably bad.
this show has inadvertently introduced me to so many good artists
I feel like HGS is not utilizing the strengths of either anime or American cartoons.
HGS was advertised heavily when more diverse media wasn’t super common, and at first I thought it was just because of the whole way it was portrayed and the unsubtle way it displays itself.
But now, not only are a lot of animation, ESPECIALLY American cartoons, becoming more diverse and LGBT friendly (by no means in a perfect way, btw), but they are more nuanced and rich than High Guardian Spice will ever be.
It’s not enough to just be politically conscious, you have to have something to SAY, and reasons why your viewers should care. But why should we care about HGS?
As a positive thing, I actually like the backgrounds in this show! The painting like surroundings are actually pretty cute, and maybe would be cool in a better written story.
As a fun fact, the backgrounds take things from google, a lot of items and stuff are pngs lmao
A lot of things in this show would be cool in a better-written story.
Unfortunately the people who made it show the very obvious signs of being absolutely detached from reality, so they screwed it up by running it through their usual mental processes of "I said it makes sense so it makes sense".
@hyperflyer
That was my point. There isn’t much there, and what little there is is super simplistic and boring. Other shows (anime and western cartoons) have done it better.
2019 wasn't after the Div boom, it was once it was well underway. The problem is the same as always: putting politics, message, representation, whatever, ahead of good story means you don't get a good story to make the pitch with.
honestly, if i can say one thing about this show, is that i found a bunch of small and really good content creators who need a bit more attention because of the rabbit hole of reviews. I loved this video honestly, it was pretty entertaining
I know it’s like everyone is coming together to express their feelings about this shit show of a series
I've seen a good explanation in the comments that the purpose of a high guardian is to protect something they commit to, a personal vow
So it's a case by case, could be a country a city or the people in general
It is just that holy shit they fucking could have been less bad at explaining it?
The fact that there's an official guardian school suggests to me that guardianship is more than just a personal, individual commitment. The comparison I'd go with is a seminary where most of the students go on to be clergymen, theologians, etc.
I mean the idea seemed pretty obvious to me from the get go. They're adventurers. They're going to an adventuring school. Their job? Protection good and fight evil. What is evil? Orcs, necromancers, undead, demons, eldritch horrors, bandits, cultists, etc. What is good? Everything else. Simple as.
@@grimgrahamch.4157 I mean sure, you can write the script for the author, if you want. Personally, I do think the utter lack of worldbuilding is worthy of criticism. Even the laziest, most brain-dead isekai with a generic fantasy universe will still take the time to explain basic concepts like "what is an adventurer's guild?" "Who are the major factions?", etc.
HGS purposefully went out of its way to not be absolutely generic, at least superficially, so the burden is on them to explain what a guardian is. This absolutely basic potatoes stuff that your average anime gets through in one, maybe two episodes of (sometimes painful) exposition.
@@grimgrahamch.4157 But we don't see them doing that. The girls aren't aware they are evil people!
The only time we see guardians being guardians it's in a flashback where Rose's mom and Caraway fight a monster.
But why? Is it because it attacks civilians? Is it because guardians hunt all monsters as a job? Is it because they need for ingredients? Is it because it was sent by villains?
The writers writed classic situations which are so cliche that our brains fill the blank by itself automatically. Like you did. Like I did too.
Why the Rose wants to be a guardian? Being like her mother? Finding her mother? Because she likes to fight? All of this is cliche and we don't really know which one is the canon answer since she never explained.
High Guardian Spice is important because it shows writers what NOT to do. It's a very good creative lesson.
The biggest mistake is the too long-winded intro, so many trains in one episode
They probably could have dedicated part of the traversal period to the city to showing a battle between actual guardians and any creatures in the world that present threats to the people. And maybe the conflict is able to be settled without having to actually kill anything, displaying the potential ideal that the ultimate goal for a guardian is to preserve life and have all creatures coexist with one another as harmoniously as possible.
@@AzariahMarinaStarcaster but they did not
its funny beacuse trains could be intresting, like in Harry Potter. My mom went on a long journey on a train once across the US as a teen alone with her sister and they had all these stories from that one trip; there was a pickpocket running amock, they got lost at one of the stations, talked to all these intresting people who were on board. They cpuld have put alot of exposition about the characters and world when traveling though the land with dialogue. but then they would have to be creative
@@jessfrisk3585 The train was to build the world- Harry spends a ton of time being blown away and amazed by the fantastic things he's now seeing and experiencing that he previously never fathomed could even be- look at how much attention the movie committed to just Harry trying out new junk food during the trip.
Here it was just a lot of visual padding because they don't even use it as an opportunity to show how large the world is. Sage has some existential dread over how small their home town was as they got further away but nothing happened on the trip to instill this feeling of insignificance in her, it just...happens.
I love High Guardian Spice for how big of a mess it is. Absolutely nothing is done right or consistent. I keep going though videos to find more plot points to make fun of it for 💀
As it's explained, guardian is a concept, not a role. This is like having a school for philanthropists. Sure, you could. But why? Just give to the needy and spread your wealth. Not something that needs a school. It feels like the same thing here. Also, why does Parsley look (and kind of sound) like Hani from Ouran High School Host Club? Come on. I can't be the only one who's noticed this. On top of that, copy/pasting Halloween into this world makes no sense. If magic always existed, it stands to reason that magic was used to ward off evil, so things like dressing in costume (imitating mummers) and carving pumpkins to scare away evil spirits makes no sense and feels lazy. I don't mind that Halloween is there, but be creative with it. Make it unique to this universe.
it feels like they were trying to take MHA's "highscool that train superheros" concept and just gave "superhero" a different name to sound more fantasical, but didnt go into any other details. so heres my idea for the whole guardian concept;
"guardian" is actually an umbrella term for a large variety of jobs that have to do with defending/guarding, all ranging from fantastical to mundane. jobs include soldiers/guards, forest rangers, monster hunters and any other niche you can think of.
The school in HGS trains their students in almost every niche, so they can introduce the students to the careers they could have in the future and make it easier for them to get jobs they want. it can also make classroom episodes interesting, as any ridiculous kind of job could be taught to them along with all the crazy skills and techniques it entails, which would make for interesting worldbuilding and a fun episode (ex. a wildlife expert is teaching about how to correctly identify and fight different monsters/animals, but the main characters arent listening. later, they have to defend a town in a simulated monster attack as apart of their training, and have to figure everything out themselves).
I've watched so many reviews where the question was asked "what is a guardian" as if the concept was alien. It's a school for becoming an adventurer. "What do guardians fight?" Orks, bandits, cultists, necromancers, demons, etc. It's not that hard.
@@grimgrahamch.4157 Except that that still doesn't really answer the question. Being an adventurer is not something one studies to be. For example - Indiana Jones is an adventurer. But he is, by profession, a professor. Nigel Thornberry is an adventurer. He is, by profession, a naturalist and documentarian. His wife is an adventurer too. She is also, by profession, a naturalist and documentarian. Guardian as it's shown in HGS (because it's never explained) is a very broad term. Being a guardian is treated like both a role to be filled and a profession, but, other than the teachers, we don't see any viable profession for guardians. Do they make money doing this? If they don't, how do they make a living. Harry Potter's magic system accounted for this, so why doesn't HGS's? In fact, aside from the teachers and Rose's mom, we never see any guardians who aren't in training, so we never see them really performing their role. Who do they answer to? What if they abuse their power? Who do they decide is in the wrong and in need of protecting in cases where it isn't immediately evident? Again, all this could be answered very simply (as opposed to the ridiculously bloated and still somehow equally vague vow the "triad" recites), but the show never does it. Hell, the show actually acknowledges that even the students HGA accepted into its alumni don't know what a guardian is and it STILL doesn't actually answer the question is raises in its own dialogue. Basically, the show responded to "What's a guardian?" with "Well, it's a sort of hero that just does things sometimes for some people whenever I guess. We don't care about that part of the narrative. Deal with it."
I think they may have been trying to make guardians like Jedi. Some highly trained guys that wander around and protect people from whatever danger may find them.
@@SunnysFilms The only time that anybody made an "adventurer" a profession is a web novel I read called Reincarnated as a Sword it's basically about a child named Fran goes in an adventure. The lore even defines adventurers as people who are like superheroes who fights for causes and they get paid based on the mission they went through via quests and a place called the Adventurers' Guild where you could do things like sell loot and get the quests, level up etc. Sometimes they're even activists fighting for a cause like the protagonist fighting for préjudice to end and another one of them fighting in order for children to have homes.
At least they decently defined what an adventurer is to the lore.
Someone pointed out that their names are herbs, not spices, so even the title of the show is wrong.
Omg true..
spice? there are none
guardians? what are those
high? maybe the writers are
high guardian herbs
There's an English folksong called Scarborough Fair that has a list of herbs in its lyrics. Guess what those four herbs are.
I appreciated this video. Intelligent, in depth, fair, and entertaining. The work you put in paid off. I don't subscribe to many channels, but you earned one. And your english was perfect.
Yeah, this show is a dumpster fire but a lot of the reviewers I see say the same things. I like how this is different.
16:00 those background nameless student looks as boring as if creators was drawing they own friends (a generic people). I remember how fun background characters was in the Little witch academia.
Even shows like victorious had more entertaining background characters
I just noticed, when Rosemary holsters her sword she does not have the reach to place it point first in her scabbard her sword would just fall out of her hand as she released it
This is a bit of a joke my friends and I made, but this show is basically RWBY with zero passion, love, or so much as thought put into it.
And I get RWBY ain't a perfect show either, but it's LEAGUES better than what ever drivel HGS tried to do...
So, rwby after monty died?
@@camharkness Even RWBY after Monty’s death is enjoyable
HGS is a great example of what not to do when writing a story or a character. I write for fun(pen and paper type guy) & I could come up with better character ideas.Hell one of my characters is a female dhampir similar to Dante from Devil May Cry trying to adjust to the modern world after being sealed/asleep for centuries.
This channel definitely deserves more attention
The biggest issue with Parsley is that she runs away from her commitment to being a Smith for her family to commit to being a Smith in the same town or family lives in where they can bother her all the time
(I mostly know show from rant videos and Slime Boy clips, so i could be wrong about some parts) I think it would fitting if guardians was some sort of the secret police service(something like a Man in Black, but fantasy) who would protect head leaders secrets and keeping people from knowing about threats from within (conspiracies, hidden cults etc.) so there wouldn't be any panics in cities or rebelion against goverment. That would explain why we don't know much about them - it's to show guardians as a protecting warriors and not as head leaders agents. And "old magic" and "new magic" would be interesting if old magic was shown as something that only Mages could do, but new magic could be perfom by annyone by require only certan magic items to do. That would be nice way to show two sides of "progressivism": on one hand, we have accessibility to magic privilage, but on the other hand, it makes mage profession as a whole useless where everyone can become one without much training or any skill at all making it simple.
Won’t lie, the breaking oath consequences sounds like a very good concept that one could expand on, you can take several routes with the that idea involving the oath being broken. Like for example, someone who wants to desperately get out of the guardian job without having to die. Or, someone who’s forced to break the oath, and suffer the consequences bringing the vagueness of magic oath rules into question, or someone who had broken the oath and survived through some degree of willpower.
What I’m saying is it would’ve been more interesting to hear what came from that, I can’t personally recall many shows that tackle severe consequences attached to a oath taken by many people as standard being broken.
That is why prefer Onyx Equinox, another Crunchyroll animated series based on Mesoamerican cultures with interesting characters and story.
"It started as comic on Tumblr"
This explains SO MUCH.
That was a nice video and a good way pointing out how to build interesting characters
and what to avoid if someone doesn't want to create boring ones. Now I know why people doesn't really like this show.
It's nice that this video wasn't hours long too, like moste of the videos that are looking critical at the show.
I really dislike how they made olive lose she's a mage and can fight with staff so why did she never use magic in the fight with rosemary and mandrake was actually interesting shame they only have him in the end
12:48 “Old Magic” is just copied from The Dragon Prince’s sigils.
“New Magic” is ripped-off from final fantasy VII with Materia (read: terraspheres) and mako energy [the rot].
And thing with Materia, they're interesting, practically, and not completely considered evil. But rather, a biproduct of the planet's energy (Mako). It's not inherently good or evil; it's just powerful. Except Meteor, that's just plain dangerous.
@@SaiyanGamer95
Plus they cut out the whole analogy between Mako and oil that was the core of the environmental message in VII. Here it's just new magic...might be doing something bad somehow?
I'm not entirely sure the rot is caused by new magic. It really messes with the themes of the show and doesn't quite line up in the timeline. So I think spark magic is the cause of the rot, that's why the big corporations that make spark spells care about people knowing about it
Yeah. The idea of new magic does make me think of life magic from DP. It feels like it's supposed to be an allegory for taking the easy way through instead of learning the honest way. I find this laughably ironic since the show's creator went from a webcomic author to a showrunner. A position that takes years if not decades in the industry to achieve.
@@grimgrahamch.4157 🤔 interesting I didn't know!
Nice video! You did a really good job analyzing the show. This is the first video of yours I’ve watched, but even with 398 subs you have more production quality than HGS.
The only thing I have to argue about is that (while this is head cannon) maybe ‘the rot’ is not a well known thing in the HGS universe, and Thyme only knows due to it being her reason for leaving home. My assumption is that antagonists try to limit the knowledge as much as possible.
I’ve only watched the show once through, and I was mostly distracted by the everything confusing about it, so who’s to say!
:^)
Yeah you are right! This would make more sense, sadly they rushed over that topic so fast. I think in ep 7 Thyme opens up a bit more to her friends but after that they don't mention it again which shows how bad the narrative is. Like no one seems bothered at all
I have been so tempted to watch videos on High Guardian Spice but all of them are like "Eww SJWs! Lol why are there no straight characters?!" I really wanted to see a video that wasn't biased against it due to it having a fairly diverse cast. That actually gave real criticism. You delivered on that. Thank you.
I've seen quite a few analysis videos on this show, and none of them are telling this "ew sjw" view you speak of. You're probably not looking in the right place?
@@marielcarey4288 They are mostly what is recommended to me on my front page. Don't know why. A lot are just clips.
See, I'm not mad about the diverse cast, in fact I love that, but.... they didn't do much with them, and introduced some of them poorly. Like that was their whole character. At least thats how I saw it.
@@camharkness The worst diverse cast is a diverse cast for a purpose of beying just a diverse cast.
Easy as that.
@@Nagadirchan That is a good way to put it. Yes they are diverse in appearance but not in personality and writing.
I don't mind the art style, it reminds me of those cartoons from the early 2000s and I love the fantasy setting, but that's were my praise ends.... IT SUCKSSSSSS as an 'anime' but Kids cartoon I think it would have been great, it would be one of those monster of the week cartoons, with the girls learning about the power of friendship (or whatever moral the episode was trying to get across)
it would still lack an overarching plot (in the first season) but a lot of shows are like that, let us get to know the main cast before we get to meat and bones of the story and have episodes that establish the rules of this world instead of dumping a bunch of dialog on us and expecting us to know the answer!!! Seriously season one is supposed to start things off but the writers somehow manage to screw that up!!! Another thing I hate is that this show doesn't know what it's doing!! Like who is this show for???? The characters look like they could be in the 5th grade! The whole idea of best friends learning magic in a colorful fantasy world just Screams kid's show!! Seriously who is this show for? Young adults??! It has a 'warning' in the beginning, BUT NOTHING HAPPENS! It feels like they have blood and stabbing for shock value! And they say things like bastard and shit out of nowhere! And it feels so out of place..... and the fact that it was marketed as an 'anime' really sickens me.... because western and eastern entertainment have very different writing styles, you can call an apple an orange all you want! BUT IT WILL STILL BE AN APPLE....
either way I can see why this failed so bad
Duuuude,, an animation memer who also reviewed a whole cartoon? Heck yeah, definitely subscribing
I was really stunned when you said this was your first time doing a video like this and talking into a microphone for so long, this video was very well done and I was completely expecting to drive into dozens of more Indepth reviews of yours, i'm sad to see this really is the first I need more, also as someone who only specks English I had no trouble following along with everything you said
I can't wait to see what more you come out with and I hope you continue to make more reviews like this in the near future!
Honestly when this was released I was actually really excited because I have a huge soft spot for magical shows.
I have an indescribable urge to rewrite the entire thing but as a story
however, as an individual with no motivation, I will not do this unless someone wants me to. honestly just give me ideas and I'll probably do them
Responding one year later, agreed
Lmao still would got a new account tho
You made a lot of great points and I'm glad I listened, the show could be good but it falls short because it was rushed. When talking about the creators its obvious that they didn't have to many people with differing opinions, which helps shows with figuring out what is good and what's not good. Having the same opinion as everyone you work with in the studio can ruin what your working on, the art style looks like it could be good in a separate setting as they don't fit in a lot of scenes. Possibly going for a similar style to Amphibia and or Owl House for the settings that they visit would help with the characters conflicting designs. Regardless this show is a mess, it could have been okay, but that first trailer and the creators didn't help the show's reception.
Good video, also may I say your voice is super calming
this is a very fair review...i like this one a lot
Nice vid, I didn't even know it started as a comic on tumblur.
I have not watched your video yet, in a split second decision I decided to try and watch the show myself and got 5 minute in before realizing that the writers likely just adapted a tabletop role-playing session for their storyboard. I will be back after I'm done torturing myself.
This is sort of random, but when I saw the thumbnail to the video, I didn’t see your hands and thought your hoodie sleeves were these cute red hand stubs
I might suspect the "it's the law" is a poorly delivered joke, like what's in a lot of other cartoons.
It makes me love my worldbuilding even more.
Thank you for this video and your hard work. I'm happy you didn't dive into talking about the staff behind the show much, as I feel too many people simply based a lot of opinions based on that alone, which isn't fair, in my opinion. And a lot of other things I've seen just say "High Guardian Spice is BAD" but don't elaborate much past that.
You did very well, I wouldn't mind hearing more reviews and such from you if you ever decide to do more.
Great video and I'm glad this blew up because your channel definitely deserves it I just hope that the success of this video doesn't cause you to change genres into video essays because even though this was a very good one and I definitely would love to see more I have to admit after checking out your youtube channel after that offhand remark I just have to say that I adore the smoothness of your animations and all the energy you imbue your character's with and I guess it would just be a shame (for me especially considering how I just found you) if that talent got overshadowed in the long run with this other genre(which you also have talent for) but either way I'm excited to see where this channel goes and you've gained yourself a new subscriber(this is coming from someone who tends to be very stingy with their subscriptions) so once again congratulations on this great video and I look forward to seeing what else you make in the future now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go watch animal crossing and honeypie again
omg thats so kind 💕💕 I really appreciate it and I will definitely animate more :D
I have not watched a single episode of this anime but like, the clips and analyzes are more than enough lmao
This is the first video about this show we're the comenters are actually discussing why the storytelling etc. Is bad and not just a bunch of anti-SJWs who think stating that it's done by people they dislike is actual criticism.
0:24 those designs are so much cuter than the current ones (IM NOT TALKING ABT THE SKIN COLORS)
You know, another thing with the whole thing with Rosemary seriously hurting someone is that Olive _SHOULD_ have expected it because she was underestimating Rose, yet it just makes her feel petty besides just to make Rose feel bad, even if Olive did do some terrible things turning everyone else to stone.
Great video. I’ve watched few videos on this show and this one gave the best idea on why the show has issues.
I don't think you need to know a lot of story writing to see what the problem is with the show at large.
First off it doesn't have strong narrative direction, due to a lack of focus on goals. It's not that goals are not in the show, but they are brought up and often ignored immediately, with little sensible action being taken by characters with said goals. Often this leads to poorly brought up, unrelated, or non-examples of conflict.
On the other hand it also seems to want to be character driven. This puts the burden of intrigue on the characters, and let's run down about how well that works.
First off pinky is static from start to end, she's just immature, bratty goku-lite, and nothing really dives deeper than that.
Old school has one minor issue with wanting to have her mother's approval, and then changes pace and resolves that by a short pep talk from aunty about how gay magic is cool and her mom tried it before. So she flips 180 to being ok with noob magic.
The emo one acts emo and yells at mommy. Not much to say about her character, it feels like a worse equivalent of like raven in the old teen Titans as her cynical nature isn't really unique to her in this show and the parental issues don't come across as as reasonable.
We have short stack. She acts human. Not horrible, more or less throw to the back burner heavily and is stuck in a show lacking direction.
And then we have snap dong off, that seems to be getting praised when it's just a matter of having 0 competition and easy to prefer over everyone he interacts with. Blondie is a douche, and so is the jealous girl and he just talks about being that overly judgemental as annoying, so opening speak for how the audience feels about how they think of the cast at that point. Then they cross dress, have someone act like a piece of shit, and have a teacher use that bullying to encourage transitioning which reeks of grooming. I think it's funny and ironic, because I don't hate the character, but the purpose here is to mostly be a political pander and voice of reason, and it's ironic to me that a show preaches super hard and outlines a kinda silly hierarchy that probably lines up with their political motives.
For one both the trans confirmed characters act like they are the only genuinely rational characters in a show where a trans person is running things behind the scenes. Both times they are expected to be received as both victims of others ire and excused for their own actions due to an implied purity it seems. And one aims to groom and emotionally troubled teen, the other kinda explodes off at other people, verbally or violently, due to what the show considers a greater emotional maturity, despite the fact that this expresses impulsive need to ridicule and control others.
Then you have the girls acting as either the only calm and stable competent characters. Or better yet, characters displaying overly stupid and demanding characteristics with heaps of judgment, to downright awful and rude to violent to others which is often played off for laughs.
And then boys being either insufferably "toxic" with no further personality or completely harmless pretty much crybabies of little to no substance. In an ironic double whammy, Blondie that's portrays a toxic narcissist is in essence just pinky and old schools negative traits, with his appearance having old-school act just as possessive and sexist, and pinky later acting as controlling, obnoxious and self centered, but that's kinda ignored. On top of that the bully kid for snap just picks on the ginger in a fashion like pinky and emo end up doing a decent amount of time, and frankly violence against both of these characters is just ignored or praised, which frankly shows the immaturity to the political talking in the show. The other boys I mostly forgot, because they like introduced 2 of them with "I need to cry now" as their introduction or core character as if crying is the only way to display emotions in a childish fashion.
11:45 Realizing that Sage knows this festival despite never having set foot outside her old home (since first ep emphasized that Rose and Sage realized how big the world is) so there's more questions like -
So they also had this festival back home? How different is it? I wish we had flashbacks of how she and her fam experienced it - also does it mean Rose and her mom and dad also took part?
Your English is great, great video! :)
I thought of how to rewrite High Guardian Spice giving at a better plot and worldbuilding and I actually ended up cutting parsley. I just don't feel like, while her character is really balanced, she doesn't tie in with any storyline that the overall world has. She is that one character in a dnd Campaign that just kinda tags along for the adventure and has no specific reason to actually interact with any other character or help move the story along because it doesn't concern her
Edit: this is to 22:02
Very true, her only real connection is she's Thyme's roommate, and then Thyme's only real connection is being nearly killed by Rosemary sparking a slight rivalry
This is top quality! How are you only 400 subs?! I hope to see more amazing content!
Great review. Look forward to hearing more reviews from you!
Like in Monty pythons “Get on with! Ya get on with it! (Everyone) Get on with it! (God) Get on with it!”
4:00
wow, deine Stimme klingt sooo angenehm
the only good thing they have going for them are the character designs
I'm really late here but
I personally think high guardian spice was just some artists following their dreams of being animators, and clearly by their feedback they should know by now that they weren't ready to make it. They had no proper plot, character development, animation, and the whole entire thing in itself. This will put a reputation on whatever future plans they might have in mind, but they *should have* learned from their mistakes and retry for a better start.
It shows that they didn't have the proper confidence or motivation to properly make the animation, they have the capabilities to draw yet are too careless to check for mistakes, making a comic might have been a better choice for them as its much simpler and easier for them to explain their storyline and really give the audience a feeling of what they were trying to express. Plus if they did, in fact, make a comic, it might have been easier for them to convert it into an anime series since they'd have a better idea of how they should make their story plot go if they did in fact check over what they did.
i actually have nothing more to say, and nobody is going to read this so peace out.
Every fantasy story that struggles with plot always has too much world building and not enough character development. Somehow this managed to have no world building which is a first for me.
Thank you for this video! I love that you shared your thoughts on the current story and what could make it better. And I think your English is pretty good too, I wouldn't have guessed that you don't speak English for long periods of time if you didn't say so. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for teaching me how to write story , I needed that
Those 3 witches are basically rambling random bs because the writers though it would be cool and epic.
Doing something for fun is the unwitting fasttrack to getting good at it. So long long as you don't forget to keep learning. :)
Your artstyle and voice make an adorable combination
The fact that the old magic is potentially more interesting than the new magic in the world really goes to show how stupid they are for making that an allegory for leftism vs conservatism. Like you've got this cool, potentially well thought out magic system where you use your own energy making it feel more real and grounded, and then there's new magic, the oops let's just fucking solve all of our problems with a godly magical gem like that's more appealing than old magic for some fucking reason
It started out as a comic on TUMBLR?! What did you expect?!
Great analysis! Your English is perfect in many ways and the only issue I had is that your voice sometimes went low and ran words together. At those points I couldn't differentiate what some of the words you said were (so I just went back and listened again). You could try pausing between sentences so that you could take a breath and start speaking again with full strength. That might prevent your voice going too low.
English is a stress timed language which is why little things like how you emphasize words are important. Still, your vocabulary, grammar, and how you express yourself are excellent :^)
It's called an accent lol
I feel like parclys arc should have been centered on if she really likes black smithing because she likes it or is it what her family likes and then try to take a general education course before realizing she does like Black smithing or another art because she likes it and not her family. That would've been a great character arch for her in the first season and show the viewers it's ok to be nervous and branch out to find what makes you happy
Hey I think your voice and accent are really cute and pleasing to the ear! You did very well for this being your first time. I definitely will be checking out more of your videos!
You did a very good job speaking English!
This show treats Guardian like Beats headphones.
Everyone likes to say “Yeah, I’ve got Beats” but no one really thinks about if they’re worth buying or not.
Not me watching ANOTHER video of High Guardian Spice without even watching the actual show. I just want to have fun 😄
This video is very well put together, dont know if this will be the general type of content you plan on making for this channel, but it seems like a promising small channel. You got a new sub
Not gonna mention how the producers and animators STEAL material and whole themes from other shows? The entire Outro is stolen almost DIRECTLY from Azumanga Daioh.
Regarding the whole magic thing, this would be my approach:
So we have new magic and old magic right? And we hear that the “old way” was or well- should be harder to control since you “pull” magic from this magical earth as mentioned at 16:38 somewhere. She said that this is how it was always done, to me it would be more interesting if let’s say the whole powerful person that controls nature created new magic as a way to teach everyone(literally everyone) magic in an easy way which could create absolute chaos knowing how humans irl are greedy peeps and such that would make living in that area a lot more dangerous and that would give the people that are supposedly qualified to be guardians a purpose; protecting the place from people who abuse the new magic(kind of like police and criminals) only this would work better if the school stuck more to the old ways. Back to the nature controlling person- what would this person benefit from handing out magic balls? Well I dont know, can you guys help with this one? In the show it just seems like they’re evil for the sake of being evil and it just makes my head hurt. Also, if the school would use new magic also- which seems like everyone can control, what’s the fricking point of having a school? Thats why it would make sense if the people that want to become guardians are only allowed to become one once they inherit the old magic. This still needs some work ofc but I think I’m getting somewhere? Leave suggestions in the comments below we should literally make a better spin off of this show lmao
I have another idea! B)
So old magic is “pulled from the ground” and this nature controlling person is trying to ruin nature and trees and whatever holds the magic that can be used in combat(using the ways of old magic) to have new magic overrule everything so they can end up being in charge instead of lets say the three council members in white that introduce the guardians to the school programs at the start? Because they’d have most knowledge about old magic, it would be interesting to see if the nature controller and the council members have some hidden rivalry
Wait, it started as a Tumblr comic??? That makes so much sense 🤣
You’re talking about HGS, this
should be good.
Let's Talk About High Guardian Spice Indepth
_must we?_
Also, I think that might be 'in depth,' but whatever
This was a really great video and a enjoy very much your points
Congratulations for the video btw, as a non native english speaker I applause you for the whole video
Only 780 or so subs? goddamn with this quailty i would have expected 10x times more. Here's a sub for ya
i think the writer fleshed out the world just enough for the characters to have a place to stand but it wasnt enough, as the show progresses the lore starts to fall apart cuz he is making it up on the go and didn't bother with re-reading the script beforehand.
Am I the one who thing one if the teachers look like eda from the owl house
This is a great vid , would love to see more of these :)
Really good analysis!
I agree with you opinion.
This show had a potential but it doesn't look like the people that made it don't really new what where they doing. Like they have a concept in head an for HGS but they just didn't know how to visualize it.
As an artist...Visual is really important for me. And its looks so boring....Something in artstyle,colors,animation and backgrounds...just bothering me...What to redesign all of it.
5:32 Ok, but why excell with using a single tool for hours? She's a smithy. An occupation which places one stationary with their entire arsenal of tools are their disposal, which leaves no excuse to not be using the exact right tool for the job. Like, if I catch my smithy putting the finishing touches on my gemstone ring with the big ol' hammer you shape a sword with, I'm going to fight them.
lovely video. Can wait to see you grow.