moksud

Manga / Anime has a tendency to add layers to the plot (One Piece probably being the best example of it), but it sometimes lack in character development (one of the good things that US based series can provide). Even if they do sometimes give you backstory of a character, there sometimes is a lack of the portrayal of the resultant emotion.

Urobuchi is different. So is Fate / Zero.

The protagonist is a good looking version of Rorschach, except with access to mythology. The characters understand politics, philosophy, and has a consequentialist approach to life, and therefore also show how differences in interpretation leads to different meaning of what is good and what is just. And the seriousness combines with epic battles between mythological heroes creates a story that is both enticing and thought inducing in equal measure.

Despite this being a prequel to fate / stay night and its countless other sequels / narrations, this is the best of the whole lot without a shadow of a doubt. And in some way, it kind of shows how the Japanese romanticise nihilism, probably being the only country in the world that have being nuked.

Apparently, US Office is better than the original, UK version.

No.

Ricky Gervais is not one of my top choices in stand up, but as a scriptwriter / content creator he is one of the best. He can maintain a steady tempo throughout and most importantly, he knows how to end (compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, definitely). Come to think of it, Peter Kay's Car share too.

Considering the umpteen numbers of US sitcoms and a few of the British ones I have seen, I have to say that the British ones are superior in one aspect: they don't pander to Lowest Common Denominator and Central Tendency.

Take Big Bang Theory for example. Notice the gradual "humanisation" of Sheldon with Amy and a "happily ever after" tune (including a Nobel Prize in Physics. A bit much, but ok). I don't know who started it, Friends or before, but American sitcoms have this compulsion to "resolve". Compared to that, British sitcoms are not always Disney films with a laugh track. They generally leave it hanging: like a novel with the ending of a short story.

Ricky Gervais probably didn't have the money to continue, or maybe he thought this has run its course, but the short stint of the British Office is still miles and miles better than the 9 seasons of popular predictability of the US Office.

And so is the case with almost all US sitcoms.

Except Seinfeld. Minus the acting, Seinfeld is probably the best and the bravest of all sitcoms I have ever seen. No one will have the guts to do that ending, ever. Definitely not in the US.