I Abominate In/Spectre, and right here’s why… | Glass Reflection

In/Spectre is a unique anime in that so much of it is trash, but it spends the vast majority of its runtime desperately trying to convince you that it's not. It has a lot of things going for it that make it an easy sell for people. It has a cute protagonist, a fantastic world, intriguing situations, and honestly, it's not surprising that it is.

Slash was able to pull the wool over many people's eyes into thinking that it was actually good, or at least not bad enough to tortch it from the ground up with a flamethrower. Originally, I had no intention of ever making a dedicated video on this series. While it did infuriate me.

Back in 2020 when it aired. I figured it was best not to call attention to it and lead people down the same hall of depression that I found myself in. I was sold on this series on some of these characters, but by the time I got to episode six, I started to really notice.

Just exactly what I had saddled myself into and I wanted out. So I stopped and that was it. I gave up. I walked away because really and this applies to you as well in everything that you watch. If you aren't enjoying yourself, you do have to ask, why are you watching this? And I didn't have a good answer to that question.

So I let sleeping dogs lie and then it got a second season. Season two is much like the first in set up and looking at it on its own. I can say at the moment that it seems to have cleared up a bunch of the major problems that I had with the original's pacing and plot.

That said, I didn't first get to really start being bothered by the first season until around episode six and wouldn't you know it, the second season got delayed after that point. So I cannot confirm with absolute certainty that the new season will be legitimately better by the end of it. What I can say, however, is that.

Even if the second season sticks the landing, it'll be super hard for me to recommend it, since you'll have to watch the first season beforehand. And that's where all of my problems are. So today, on Glass reflection, we are going to be discussing In/Spectre what makes it good,.

What makes it bad, and why I hate it. Let's jam. But first, Glass Reflection would like to thank the sponsor for this video today being the good people. Over at Surfshark VPN. A VPN for those who do not know is a way.

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Guarantee, no questions asked. So thank you very much to Surfshark for sponsoring the video. Now let's get back to it. First, I feel like we need to discuss something. What makes an anime bad? Well, I believe that it is a combination of a lot of different elements. One could say that in order.

For an anime to be bad, it must have been disappointing in one of the things that makes up its whole. So you could have a show that wasn't animated well or one with characters performed by a voice cast that treats the script no different than a phone book, one with a script that might as well be a phone book.

For all of the intrigue or entertainment that it might bring you to read. I would like to suggest, however, that a bad anime is not something that contains all of these things. Why? Because I have watched several that have all of these negative traits. And while technically speaking,.

I would not say that they're good. Barring the rare few that reach that mystical so-bad-it's-good actually territory. No, if you have a show that is chock full of negative qualities, but with very little to no positives. That's not just simply bad. That's just boring.

Which is the worst a description for any piece of entertainment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. If you have a show that fails at almost every metric imaginable, chances are even a casual watcher of the media.

Will notice right away and be unlikely to continue watching past the first episode or so. Anime is supposed to be entertaining after all, and if the argument is that it fails at every metric, it is more boring than it is bad. So that's not what we're talking about today. Because then.

What makes a bad anime truly bad in my opinion. The opinion of someone who doesn't like regularly going out of my way to trash on anything, even my own fans. The thing that makes an anime bad is when it could have been great, should have been great,.

Could have been best of either its year, season, genre even, but it just fails after a point. Usually this is where one of my favorite phrases the ending is Paramount comes from, but honestly, it's not always the ending. You can be enticed by a show from the start. Fall in love with its characters.

And then take far longer than you should to realize that the show is going nowhere and does nothing to live up to the expectations that you might have set for it based on its solid opening, which leaves you either to realize it eventually, or perhaps stay in denial.

So today we're talking about In/Spectre why? Because again, the show's second season is currently airing, and despite me dropping its first season back when it aired in 2020, for reasons that I hope.

To make clear in this video, it's still being considered good by a number of people. My goal is either to determine whether I droped the series too early or if I was right to drop it. And anyone who says that it's still good actually is just living in denial. So let's begin the video proper.

What is this show about? What is In/Spectre? Let's assume that you've never watched it because, I mean, I'm not recommending it. I am not going to tell you to stop this video and watch it first if you haven't. I value your time more than that, so I am assuming you haven't seen it. In/Spectre follows.

The exploits of a young girl named Kotoko Iwanaga. She lives in a modern world full of spirits that the average person cannot see or interact with regularly. And as a child, she took it upon herself to sacrifice her right eye and left leg to become an envoy for these spirits, a mediator for their problems.

She becomes what the spirits referred to as their goddess of wisdom. We are never told why she did this. What made her a candidate for such a position or why she found herself in the position to make that sacrifice? It's all.

An intriguing mystery of her backstory left to be explained later or not at all. As the series starts. She is much older now, spends not an insignificant amount of time in a hospital and becomes infatuated with an older boy named Kuro Sakuragawa, a boy who.

The spirits fear and will not approach, for he is not fully human. The initial episodes of Inspector lead us to believe that the series is a kind of mystery show. Spirits and various forms of yokai have problems or conflicts either between themselves or with humans that only Kotoko.

As the goddess of wisdom, can solve or explain away, while at the same time layering in this mystery of Kuro and his family. This on the onset is fantastic. There are plenty of ways that you can integrate stories of yokai into a modern world. We've seen many examples of that, and because stories of yokai.

Are all up to interpretation, it could be very fun to spend episode after episode learning more about this world and how all of these spirits need guidance from their goddess. But even by episode two, the cracks start to show if you're paying attention. The second episode of the first season sees.

Kotoko travel into the woods to visit a giant snake, a mountain guardian who lives in a secluded lake troubled by the recent dumping of a dead body in her home. And she desires Kotoko to explain why the woman who dumped the body.

There acted the way that she did. Largely, this is a typical murder mystery, and Kotoko explains the possibilities of how the dead man was murdered and why the woman who did it discarded the body where she did, and why. Then that woman did not lie to the police about it.

When she was eventually found out. Because all of these things confuse the serpent and she is looking for the truth of the matter. This mystery takes about an episode and a half to set up, showcase and then resolve. But the problem is, the problem that I did not realize until much later.

Is that Kotoko goal here is not to find the truth of the mystery because she doesn't need to do that. She just needs to discover a truth that the serpent will accept and be comforted by. Because in In/Spectre, the truth doesn't matter. Come here. Let me say that again. In this mystery story, the truth doesn't matter.

Do you understand what truth is in a mystery story? Doesn't matter what the mystery is. Whether it's about a crime or, more specifically, a murder. Truth is what makes the story believable. Follow any story in the mystery genre. Christie, Conan Doyle, Urasawa, none of these stories are real,.

And it doesn't matter if they contain fantastical elements like Spirits Yokai or a blond German who was very good at convincing people to kill others and then themselves. It doesn't matter if there are details written to muddle or confuse the reader.

What matters is that there is a truth at the end where a reader can follow the chain of clues and find the solution to the mystery. Find the truth of the mystery in a satisfying way. In/Spectre does not care about truth so he can write whatever it wants. It can solve things however it decides. But the problem is that without truth,.

None of it is satisfying. Show is, however, very good at covering that up. As I said, this was just from episode two. So how did I get to episode six before bowing out of it the first time I watched it? Because honestly, Kotoko is a wonderful protagonist. She is a little shit of a gremlin,.

But she is a fascinating character to watch. And even if she is literally spouting bullshit that sounds halfway plausible, the methods in which she does it are hugely entertaining enough to at times cover up for the lack of satisfaction in the mysteries themselves. But then we get to the even bigger problem.

If this season was all about Kotoko constantly bouncing about helping Yokai with their problems, seeing how the Yokai interact with each other and humans, there could have been a lot to this setting that would be on its own. A fascinating watch learning about this world.

And these characters could be the focus of everything, so that even if there was a mystery to be solved, it didn't need to be one that followed the truth because it was not the driving force of the narrative. There are plenty of good things here. Some, I would say, are even masterful. Like, let me give an example.

There is a certain level of subtle storytelling at work in this series as well. Right. So one of the major side plots of the series is Kotoko Infatuation with Kuro and her insistent attempts to enter into a romantic relationship with him, even though he has absolutely zero interest in her romantically.

It's a thing that comes up nearly every episode, but if you watch the opening and ending sequences for the shows, it hints that such a relationship will never be. Even if Kuro changes his mind later, both bookends of the show finish with the two characters together for a brief moment.

Before zooming out to see that one or the other is actually completely alone. This is relevant because traditionally it's these moments during an OP and ED where the most hope is given. Like how the intro of the show constantly focuses on a large breasted woman.

Like she is a major influence on the plot of the show and not just paraded around for fan service. Okay. Okay. That's a little unfair. That that's unfair. She is a large part, but she shouldn't be. So now we get to explain the steel lady arc of the show or in other words, the whole rest of the show.

Because unlike my hopes of watching a series that showcases a myriad of different yokai and problems come Episode three, we begin the mystery of the steel lady that stays with us all the way until the season's finale mysteries and air quotes.

Because again, the truth doesn't matter, but because I am not a complete dick, if for whatever reason you want to watch and experience this series for yourself, this is in fact the time to jump off now because I have to spoil the rest of the season in order to explain my problems with it.

So if you are leaving, I wish you well and may the gods have mercy on your soul. Now, the show largely admits that the truth behind the steel lady, this busty idol with a steel beam, doesn't matter because the steel lady is a spirit made from people's perceptions of her.

Like some stories that say the power of a God is only as great as those that worship, said God. The steel lady is an immortal, vengeful specter only because so many people within the populace believe her myth, believe that she is responsible for killing people and believe.

Desperately that she actually exists and therefore she does exist. But like with the murder mystery at the top with the giant snake, Kotoko doesn't need to find the truth behind the steel lady at all. In fact, the truth, if you want to call it that, is discovered.

Quite early and rendered unimportant. What is important is what the populace believes to be the truth. And so Kotoko’s new quest is one to convince people that this specter doesn't exist and can be explained away logically, such that they believe a new truth. Doing so lowers.

The specters power and allows her to be defeated so that no harm can come to anyone else on its own. What I just explained doesn't sound too terrible. I think you might have heard that and been like, Well, what's the problem with that story? There could be an interesting tale here about the the nature of truth.

And how it's very difficult to change the minds of a mob of people and perhaps even argue that under particular circumstances, the truth doesn't matter. But the reason why I hate it, the reason why I drop this series, is because that concise description of this.

Arc that I told you that story about Kotoko trying to convince the populace that the steel lady can be logically explained away as not a specter takes eight episodes to tell. 160 Minutes… We are in motion.

Picture runtime territory, and I guarantee you that the story does not keep things entertaining for that long. Hell in nearly four of these episodes. I can easily describe what physically happens as Kuro is fighting the steel lady in the background while Kotoko sits in a nearby car.

And argues with internet commentators about why she is actually a genius and everyone should believe her. Nearly four episodes she spends in that car. She concocts these elaborate situations to explain all of the aspects of the case away, but none of it matters because, again,.

The truth doesn't matter here. Everything she explains, everything she sets up, which takes episodes to do, is all in service of one final tall tale of a story, one that she makes by combining elements of all of the bullshit she's sprouted before so that she can concisely put a nail.

In the coffin of a believable and logical explanation for all of the mystical happenings surrounding the Steel Lady. One that people can believe, regardless of what the truth actually is. That is this arc. And if the steel lady arc was even half of the length that it was,.

I actually think that it could be entertaining as an experimental story to discuss how minds are easily swayed by lies, even logical ones. Despite lacking truth. But because of its length, I knew how it was going to end episodes before it finally did, but I was still expected.

You are still expected to sit there and listen to these extra explanations that our main character freely admits are not only false, but largely don't matter at all. Unlike me, who said at the start of this video not to watch Inspector, because I respected your time.

This show does not respect your time at all and makes you wade through so much in hopes that the great story that was hinted about with the fascinating characters whom we love watching just awaits us further along. Except it doesn't. If this series.

Instead built these episodes around the existing character interactions, allowing Kotoko humor and energetic personality to properly shine, instead of just spending episodes pitting her against faceless Internet commenters, which doesn't help her to be endearing at all, then it could have been halfway entertaining. Let me ask you this.

Would you want to watch a series about me responding to the people in the comments of this video? Some of who will inevitably argue that inspector is good, actually, and it will be my job of this series to convince them otherwise,.

Or at least convince most of them otherwise. Do you want to watch a show like that? Because that's basically what this IT inspector forces the mystery to drive the story, but there is no mystery to be solved by the characters or the audience. We know that the steel lady was a concoction of kudos,.

Equally non-human sister long before the show ends. We know what needed to be done to stop the steel lady from killing people long before the end. But we still have to spend episodes of time waiting for Kotoko to actually get around to finishing it. It's like we're just sitting there.

And waiting for someone to open the door for you, but you can't get past them because they decided to hold the door closed and tell you their life story first. Now, I suppose that the next question is, does it get better? All of my problems revolve around the majority of the first season, and despite.

Delays to new episodes, we do have six episodes of season two, at least. At the time that I wrote and recorded this video, we have six episodes. And here's the thing it has gotten better. God dammit, it has. It's not. It's not an amazing series. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm not going to be touting this.

Season two as best of the season or hell, even my top ten of the year or anything but Season two takes what was actually good about this show. It's setting Kotoko as an entertaining gremlin. Multiple stories of her interacting with various yokai and solving their problems.

It has all that, and it doesn't even matter that three out of six episodes doesn't even focus on Kudo and Kotoko the majority of the time, instead giving Spotlight to a Yuki Oni and a human who she saved the life of because that was a well-told, entertaining story. But let me tell you something, all right?.

I think that the biggest change of Inspector Season two is that it's not a mystery show anymore. There may be mysteries in it, things unexplained that Kotoko gets to explain away however she likes. But there is no driving mystery that is the lynchpin of the narrative anymore,.

And it is so much better for it, at least until they change their mind and make the entire second half of the series about some additional bullshit like they did before. But I am legitimately enjoying the series again. My God, am I enjoying it? And I hate that because I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to drag my way.

Through those episodes again just to see this light at the end of the tunnel. And I hate that. I can't easily tell someone to just skip it. Like years ago during the second season of Haruhi Suzumiya, If you were around during that time where there were eight episodes of complete bullshit because it was all the same episode,.

Animated eight different ways just to seem deep or what have you. Back then I could at least just say, Hey, watch the first and the last out of those eight and you'll miss nothing in the middle. And that would have been absolutely true. And a fine recommendation. But I cannot sit here.

And say to skip the majority of season one because it gets better. And that's because despite all of the bullshit that exists in those episodes, there is still a relevant story to what will probably be upcoming. So you have to watch it, which means I am in an impossible situation.

Where I am legitimately enjoying an anime, but I cannot ever recommend it to someone because I value their time your time more than my own. I will not tell you to watch Inspector. I may even regret saying that I am enjoying the second season if that somehow convinces some of you to watch it and it decides to go tits up.

In the last few episodes like it did before. But I hope that somehow I have explained why I dislike this series, why I have hated it. Despite things like Kotoko being one of my favorite protagonists of the last decade. She is so good, but her stories are terribly paced and I can't be wholehearted.

In my recommendation for them and that is it for our show today. Please subscribe. If you haven't hit the like button, if you enjoyed this video and want more of its kind. And until next time, ladies and gentlemen and others watch more anime. Not this. Watch more anime and stay frosty.

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