Some of Those Supports...

[Constable Reggie]

It's more that English!Henry genuinely doesn't understand human emotion, and is only just getting what he missed out on when during his time with the Shepherds. Of course Henry will claim that he enjoyed it: The wizarding school damaged him in a different, but no less destroying way than the orphanage in the Japanese version, so he genuinely believes he's actually sincerely smiling because he doesn't really know any better (and he's technically right, because it does make his smiles come from the heart, just a very twisted heart). Getting a family and child (and/or spending time with the Shepherds) seems to eventually make him understand that his way of thinking might be wrong, but by that point, though he's learning and adapting, he's still a far way from becoming a normal human being, and will probably still keep some of his weirdness.

You can't possibly convince me that this is true in any way. It just doesn't come off this way, at all. Henry flat out admits that everyone else, including Olivia, is wrong about him and how he acts. This would be fine if Olivia still attempted to get a genuine smile out of him anyway (and he eventually does), but she admits that he's been genuine from the beginning. That there really is nothing wrong with him, and that the way he acts is just his regular, unaffected personality. Saying that he simply doesn't understand emotion is a weak excuse when jp version did that, and actually gave him very depthful character development to go along with it.

[Shengar]

Is this sort of trend popular in anime now or something? The only ones you'd catch me dead watching are Studio Ghibli stuff, so I wouldn't know.

Standard moeblob harem mainstream anime, yes. Which actually mean A LOT of them.

But to be frank, both stalker and unrequited love isn't that common in anime recently. What I actually mean is the approach to the character writing is similar.

wait wha?

Sorry, computer problem bring a lot of anger cloud and stress over my head that my hand started having freudian slip

seriously that was typo, okay? I mean highest support avaible

[Loki Laufeyson]

I really love most of his support, especially with MU one. It is such shame really about the generic parent conversation, especially Virion!Morgan. I mean, Morgan should challenge his father for game of chess just like his mother did rahter than just have all the forgetting stuffs. I just realized this when I'm seeing Morgan A support with his mother. But due time constraint, it can't be helped

Yeah. Virion having a head for strategy and how he approaches it is really interesting. Hes pragmatic and clever but his "team" always ends up failing. He wins but not without severe cost.. Its more like cyvasse than chess they are playing. Hmmm....feels like an ASOIAF nod... So comparing Avatar's strategy to his is cool. I agree about the Morgan supports.

I'd say that the reason why Virion's supports are some of the best is precisely because he has that much more of a character to work with than everyone else. He's probably one of the only characters in the game who has multiple dimensions to his personality. He has an obvious bumbling side which is always good for a laugh, but also a serious and dare I say it, tragic side that he shows in most of his supports in some way. Most of the characters seem to slide too far in one direction or the other, or if they do try to do multiple aspects, they don't do it well enough for me to notice. (TVtropes says Lucina is apparently bumbling. Where? How? And Cordelia apparently still suffers from the sacrifice her teammates made. Aside from Avatar, I've yet to see a support that covers this.)

I think that the highest compliment that I can give Virion is that I can take a look at him and say to myself, "OK, aside from the skirt-chasing, which is a relatively shallow aspect of his character, can I even fit him into a shallow character archetype?" What it tells me is that IS put a lot more effort into Virion's character than the rest of the cast.

Isnt that strange? I find it strange. Heres a really large cast of colorful characters and yet the one guy (with the shitty base class) ends up probably the best written. Why did they go that route i wonder? To give depth to the "womanizer" archetype, sure, but why isnt everyone else given the same quality of writing? Theres plenty of wiggle room with everyone else. People say Tharja is a missed opportunity and while i find her hilarious, i have to agree. Panne shows warmth after a while in supports but nothing beyond that. Nowi, apparently is better in the localization, but still lacks really cool subversion to her archetype. Its easier to list characters who've gotten more depth than not.

Virion, obviously.

Libra, while he has this whole "I am a man!" thing going, has quite a bit of depth too.

Lissa isnt just the bratty little sister.

Donnel wants to learn all the things and stays humble about it.

Lucina obviously.

Gregor shows a lot of wisdom.

Thats about it really. As much as i love Henry, he is a bit shallow. Owain has moments where its almost like the writers were giving him some depth, but somewhere along the line, it falls short. While i love the characters in this game, i feel theres far too many missed opportunities.

What I actually mean is the approach to the character writing is similar.

Hooh yeah? Im like the HeoandReo, where i do not watch anime not Ghibli these days and havent for years. So im a bit in the dark about that as well.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

@flo: I beat you both because the only anime I watched is JJBA, and those from the eighties or nineties

Demise/10

That being said its not like being "obesessed" with a dude/chick" can be played into an interesting character

[shadowofchaos]

Richt/Ricken x Olivia development supports were pretty endearing. You find out that despite Olivia's embarrassment, she loves making entertaining people and bringing smiles to them. Which I very much respect even in dancers like Lalum from FE6.

...and then suddenly S support.

Yep. Glorious. Chrom's Flashback Confession scene with her is the same as that as well.

...And believe it or not, there's something worse than Chrom's, Lon'qu's, and Ricken's sudden S Supports with her.

Vaike x Olivia.

Vaike x Olivia:

C:

Vaike: Stop apologizing!

Olivia: I'm sorry!

B:

Vaike: Stop apologizing!

Olivia: I'm really sorry!

A:

Vaike: Stop apologizing!

Olivia: Please forgive me!

S:

Vaike: Will you marry me!?

Olivia: Yes!

:/

...I don't even.

Edited July 1, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[Airship Canon]

Richt/Ricken x Olivia development supports were pretty endearing. You find out that despite Olivia's embarrassment, she loves making entertaining people and bringing smiles to them. Which I very much respect even in dancers like Lalum from FE6.

...and then suddenly S support.

Yep. Glorious. Chrom's Flashback Confession scene with her is the same as that as well.

...And believe it or not, there's something worse than Chrom's, Lon'qu's, and Ricken's sudden S Supports with her.

Vaike x Olivia.

...I don't even.

Vaike/Olivia's support is like "Take Lloyd and Colette's schtick from ToS and give it to people that just don't match in the way that Lloyd and Colette did."... yeah. That's gonna end bad. It worked great for Lloyd and Colette but with Vaike and Olivia it just feels wrong because neither has the reasons behind it.

[euklyd]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Severa's obsession with her mother. I mean, it's not a "positive" obsession, but it controls her personality just as much say, Lucina or Morgan.

..."hilariously bad"?

Well, it's not that, but a pet peeve of mine is Libra x Tharja - it just seems dark and edgy for the sake of being darker and edgier, and IMO feels tacked onto Libra. I know a lot of people disagree with me, and I'm not saying it was badly written, merely that I don't like what it did with Libra's character.

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them.

[Vashiane]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Severa's obsession with her mother. I mean, it's not a "positive" obsession, but it controls her personality just as much say, Lucina or Morgan.

..."hilariously bad"?

Well, it's not that, but a pet peeve of mine is Libra x Tharja - it just seems dark and edgy for the sake of being darker and edgier, and IMO feels tacked onto Libra. I know a lot of people disagree with me, and I'm not saying it was badly written, merely that I don't like what it did with Libra's character.

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them.

That was probably a shout-out to Lucius actually.

[Folt]

You can't possibly convince me that this is true in any way. It just doesn't come off this way, at all. Henry flat out admits that everyone else, including Olivia, is wrong about him and how he acts. This would be fine if Olivia still attempted to get a genuine smile out of him anyway (and he eventually does), but she admits that he's been genuine from the beginning. That there really is nothing wrong with him, and that the way he acts is just his regular, unaffected personality. Saying that he simply doesn't understand emotion is a weak excuse when jp version did that, and actually gave him very depthful character development to go along with it.

Of course it's been genuine from the beginning: Henry believes it to be so, and in his own twisted way, he's right. His humane growth has been stunted, and what sanity he had left have been permanently damaged, thanks to his past, so he's never learned normal human behaviour (before his time in the Shepherds), so if he flashes a smile like that, it will still be perfectly genuine, because he doesn't know how it couldn't be genuine. Same goes for what he says: He's right because he never learned any better (or any normal way of doing things). He follows his own code and way of thinking, because to him, that's totally the right thing to do. Only once he begins spending time with the Shepherds, does he see that the way he's been up to now might not be entirely appropriate, and by the time he's got a kid, he's somewhat wised up!

To put it like this: Japanese!Henry seems to know that there's something wrong with him from the start, but refuses to admit it, preferring to delude himself! English!Henry genuinely doesn't see how his behavior or the laws he follows are wrong, until he gets to spend time with the Shepherds (and maybe even start a family)! Japanese!Henry is more human, but also quite unstable, somewhat like a bomb that might go off anytime unless reined in by someone! English!Henry is more of an animal with human intelligence in his thought process, following his own laws, but is also more stable thanks to following those laws (but who still needs someone to rein him in). In both cases, Olivia does manage to teach him some humanity (though you only find that out for English!Henry if he speaks with Inigo in the Future Past). I don't see how one interpretation is more wrong than the other, given what happened to him prior to his time in the Shepherds.

I'm not saying you have to believe this, but I'm asking you to have some understanding for why some of us won't necessarily think that Japanese OliviaxHenry Support is really any better than the English version.

[Shengar]

Yeah. Virion having a head for strategy and how he approaches it is really interesting. Hes pragmatic and clever but his "team" always ends up failing. He wins but not without severe cost.. Its more like cyvasse than chess they are playing. Hmmm....feels like an ASOIAF nod... So comparing Avatar's strategy to his is cool. I agree about the Morgan supports. .

Thats about it really. As much as i love Henry, he is a bit shallow. Owain has moments where its almost like the writers were giving him some depth, but somewhere along the line, it falls short. While i love the characters in this game, i feel theres far too many missed opportunities.

Hooh yeah? Im like the HeoandReo, where i do not watch anime not Ghibli these days and havent for years. So im a bit in the dark about that as well.

Well, even FeMU wouldn't want to agree with Virion's term because she still fear shw would lost to him in a game. If Morgan is really that a tactic maniac, I would really love to see him have a match against his father Virion. We can also see Virion brag about how he won FeMU by playing a game of chess. And what worse is we can't get parent conversation out of Morgan(s) in the DLC because. yeah you know

Rather shallow character that only being representation of shallow archetype/stereotype. What I mean is, they approach in writing of the characters by create a character out of an archetype, not the the other way. By creating archetype out of a character, I thought we could at least have stretyped-but-unique character.

@flo: I beat you both because the only anime I watched is JJBA, and those from the eighties or nineties

Demise/10

That being said its not like being "obesessed" with a dude/chick" can be played into an interesting character

JJBA is awesome and more people should watch it.

Also Joseph Joestar character clearly 11/10

[Loki Laufeyson]

Sadly all the parent/child supports are generic. D:

Rather shallow character that only being representation of shallow archetype/stereotype. What I mean is, they approach in writing of the characters by create a character out of an archetype, not the the other way. By creating archetype out of a character, I thought we could at least have stretyped-but-unique character.

I see...So instead of taking an archetype and deconstructing that archetype or filling in the blanks, they just pretty much roll with that archetype? Bogus.

[Shengar]

Sadly all the parent/child supports are generic. D:

I see...So instead of taking an archetype and deconstructing that archetype or filling in the blanks, they just pretty much roll with that archetype? Bogus.

Considering the time constraint, that is more plausible option when writing a lot of characters. Actually that approach to writing character could lead a lot of problem when handling the plot, but since anyone but Chrom, Lucina, and Avatar are not involved in it, they're not bothered with it.

I could let this lazy writing go considering how Nintendo gave ultimatum to IS being the last FE game, but now we know how FE13 is a mssive success both in Japan and worldwide release, there are no more reasons for IS to not to fix this.

[Thor Odinson]

Maybe that's why they send in some DLC to somewhat remedy it. It's not perfect, but I got a lot more character development (and definitely a lot more feels overall) out of the fanservice scrambles than the actual supports, even though there is still crack stuff like "boingy bits".

[I.M. Gei]

Did you seriously prefer that shitty Chrom x Fe MU support over Chrom x Sumia

I mean fuck, Chrom x all of the candidate(bar Olivia flashback) is actually really good, but FE-MU x Chrom just take the low quality in a whole new level

the support tree for ChromxFeMU may be garbage buuut it's still better than "Let me do your laundry and cook stuff teehee" and at least FeMU doesn't fall off the face after the earth after recruiting her kid/meeting Lucina

Such an enlightened support chain for the main character's "canon" option

Edited July 6, 2013 by Soran Ibrahim

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

At least Sumia does not become the single stupidest character in the entire cast following the middleway of the game

Also I rather marry a chick who clean my laundry, rather than those who tried to kill me with a sharp object

[shadykid]

At least Sumia does not become the single stupidest character in the entire cast following the middleway of the game

Also I rather marry a chick who clean my laundry, rather than those who tried to kill me with a sharp object

Sumia would dump your laundry on the floor and ruin everything

then <------would charge you money to clean it again

Edited July 6, 2013 by shadykid

[The Void]

Sully and Maribelle are Chrom's best pairings.

Woman!Avatar? Nope. Sumia manages to be a version of Caeda who is worse than the original. And Olivia comes off as being a gift to Chrom.

Edited July 6, 2013 by The Void

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Sumia manages to be a version of Caeda who is worse than the original.

Being worse than Caeda x Marth is not a bad thing when that pairing is on a level that not many(if any) pairing in the entire series come close at their level

But other than that Sully and Maribelle is indeed the best

Edited July 6, 2013 by I have a Dragon Boner