Creators Lost Touch with What Makes Stories Compelling

Watching another isekai anime I could not help to notice a repeated use of the title, called "floor guardian". Even good takes on the videogame genre such as Overlord series do that, many others copy that. 

However, what a floor guardian even is, if you look at world of Warcraft for example, you will not find one in the entire game. Most likely this is part of player jargon and used in lieu of boss, possibly something culturally acceptable and meaningful for a Japanese person. 

Boss is a term used by players a lot, but it is never used by a game itself or in game characters. Reason for disparity is due to different objectives for communication between players and between NPCs in game. 

Players need to communicate fast and precise. The game is fast paced, and any delay can be costly. There is no time to nitpick on titles of each individual character, a simple precise term that denote their role in game is needed. That is why players use terms such as: boss, trash, loot, CC, DPS, tank, healer buff, nerf and so on. These are technical terms that sum up much more complex actual names for spells, characters and other game aspects as well as denote their role in game. Refer to OMGWTFBBQ article (net rather than my blog) for the full list of abbreviations used by players. 

On the other hand, NPCs in game and the game plot has to tell the story and immerse players in the world. To do that each character is given elaborate name, sometimes title and a role in the organisation they are part of. No real-life organisation would have a floor guardian and no person referred as boss has this written down on their business card. The game imitates reality so by extension it has none either. Instead, each NPC has a certain role in one or the other in game organisation. These range from royal and even divine titles to humble farmhands and shop keeper assistants. Each character is someone in the big world the game designers want to portray.

Broadly speaking both forms of communications are equally important for the whole experience. Player's jargon is needed to actually play and communicate with fellow players. The story language on the other hand allows you to feel that it's not just a game with game pieces, but a living breathing world, full of all sorts of people.

Any fiction is just as good as how well it can suspend our disbelief that its real. Yes, underneath the hood it's all numbers and game mechanics, they are important to master the game, but they are not why people play in the first place. People play because they find the world game set in compelling. Yes, it is a fictional fully made-up world, but if its likable and believable enough then people will keep coming back to it.

That is why what happens in this world is important. A one careless plot twist that does not fit the established world or characters and this whole illusion of the world falls apart. 

That is why good actors train themselves to actually believe they are who they play in the movie. That way they can act like it really happens and viewers looking at them could believe it too. They cry like their own wife and child died in front of them, then bash villain like they a person who killed their loved ones. 

A bad actor does half-hearted act that breaks the illusion and expose the 4th wall, allowing audience to realise it's all an act, no one died and there are cameras and director on the other side. 

Characters calling themselves floor guardian is that kind of breach of 4th wall act. If you look on WoW lore, every dungeon boss has actual title and role, they are, chef wizards, lead engineers, cannoneers, fighting instructors, captains, inquisitors, lords, even school headmasters and so on. Behind every title there is a story and a role they play in their organisation story wise. Same with characters talking about game rules and game mechanics. Phrases such as gift game or geass scrolls are all such artificial concepts that expose them as mere game mechanics. 

For example, NPCs in WoW do not say such things, they act like characters in screen are real people, experience real like sorrow or joy if someone dies or saved. In short act like real life people would in similar situation. Citizens of Darkshire is afraid undead or Worgen going to kill them all one of these days and then implore player to help them fend-off these threats off. They also ask you to contact every other Stormwind friendly locality and ask them to send help. All responses however are negative as they have too many problems of their own and could use some of Darkshire help if they can spare any. 

That get you invested too as you realise that you are possibly the only one who stands between Darkshire and its obliteration at the hands of Worgen and undead. When you save them, they call give you gifts and promise to remember you, tell tales and celebrate your victories like in historical myth. You can become as immortalised as Momotaro, or Minamoto, or Till Eulenspiegel or Ivan Susanin or crusaders, name it. You saved them from a certain assured destruction, story wise that it. Yes, you will be remembered by fictional people, but still.

Yes, really game will not break if you do nothing and they will not die, but it's the illusion that they will that makes people love the world as much as they do and continue to play classic. This is one and quintessential thing that classic got right compared to modern WoW.

Generally High fantasy stories are like Lord of The Rings or cliche WWII movies. JRR Tolkien got the formula right in his books, that is why they are so loved by the fans.

In High Fantasy enemy is devil incarnate and trying to destroy everything and exterminate everyone; we either win or die. There could be variations on how exactly they plan to destroy everyone, or whether they honestly admit to their designs or believed so by their opponents.  If they do not plan to destroy everything and kill everyone and can be trusted and negotiated reasonable terms with, then why all the struggle with fighting them to death. Let's just make a deal and have peace of our time, Neville Chamberlain style. It's the impossibility of compromise that makes all the struggle against the enemy necessary. When plot fails to deliver that impossibility of peace, it cheapens the whole experience. 

It works in real life as well. Take even recent war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia called Ukrainians nazis and refuses to negotiate with them. Ukraine and Europe in turn consider Russia untrustworthy genocidal power who seeks to destroy Ukraine and Europe. It is not a situation where there can be trust in any agreement, not backed by something more concrete, like force and guarantees.

Originally WoW followed this formula faithfully. For as long as they continue to follow this formula, fans were happy. 

In later expansion they started to deviate from it. NPCs started to admit that not much will change even if you do nothing. You no longer save them from assured destruction, just kill some mobs to earn some gear. Story progressively went somewhere else. 

There are no antagonists to speak of. As I wrote in one of my previous articles about WoW, western stories are almost always antagonist driven. No antagonist is almost as good as no story.

Before enemy was deadly and good guys are completely hapless without you. You were the center of all efforts to win and save Azeroth, everyone else either supported you or relied on you. It was all about you. When Nietzsche talked about Will to Power, he meant this: the power to decide the future of the world.

After you end up being an accessory to the dodgy protagonists like Garrosh or Sylvanas and later even Shadowlands Jailer if I understand story correctly. It's no longer your show, it's their show and you are just an extra. You are no longer the power, they are, you are just around. You can have that IRL, as IRL most of us can affect nothing, why bother playing the game. 

The reason to play games is to feel more powerful and influential than you really are. Games can give you what reality alas cannot. That fulfilment of Will to Power. When games and other entertainment stop giving you that, then why continue?

If it's not about you, everyone can be just as fine without you, then why play, why struggle, why invest into the game, what all these efforts will accomplish? Videogames were one of few opportunities for an average person to feel they are important and matter a lot. If you take that away than what remains? Crunching numbers until your numbers are bigger than their numbers?

It is the same with isekai or any other anime. In some anime, like Code Geass you feel that future of the world is at stake. You can feel invested. 

Yet other shows make you feel discouraged instead, system is just too strong or stiff or inert, and you can never change it no matter what you try.

Back to the original topic. When writing about videogames, player jargon and game story narrative should stay distinct. Authors should not mix them as that breaks the whole thing apart. Instead, two distinct narratives should exist side by side, one describes the action from story point of view, and the other describe in in gamer's jargon terms. 

To achieve that one way is to make one character speak in jargon and the other in story terms. One of the players, invested in story or narrator can give plot context of what is going on, while another experienced player will speak jargon instead.

As I was often writing in my articles, quality of writing has declined in all media, movies, anime, videogames. In this article I have describe how it declined exactly and how to fix it. Hopefully it will result in more and better stories across all media.

Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou desu yo? Review

Overall Rating 6.5 out of 10 - Rather unusual show with mixed good and bad aspects.

I recommend watching.

This show felt rather refreshing at first but gradually felt into usual problems so many other shows of this era suffer from. 

It is an isekai but instead of usual adaptation to new world and struggle in the new world, it was several OP protagonists going wild and pushing boundaries of what was thought possible. Clearly stronger than what their hosts have anticipated, they each went on to break the game in their own way, especially Izayoi. Kill toughest demons and gods just because you can. A motivation not uncommon in actual gamers, watch Spiffing Brit videos if you want to see some of that.

Add to that cute looking Black Rabbit whose sexy revealing outfit gets frequently admired by Izayoi and Shiroyasha and you have a good show. Sweet, sweet female objectification and exploitation: they are just pretty dressed dolls and puppets for us to have fun with. Later they also added another cute girl, Leticia Draculea and they made her dress in maid outfit. Decent stuff all round.

Later however it gets worse. Leticia got almost no screen time after her ark. Black Rabbit suddenly stops being helpless damsel and fights Izayoi. The worst protagonist, Asuka, gets lots of screentime, but does not suffer in any of that, like she did in Leticia ark.

Character motivation somewhat changes too, or to be more precise drifts into less appealing zone. Instead of minmaxers (a type of gamer) they end up more of whatever goes: more chaos and action over more victory and loot, typical of actual gamers.

Game world, already rather convoluted with many overengineered complex rules and even complex mediation system over these rules. There are role and place for everything. Dispute between two corporations over the terms of multibillion contract is something to be mediated by qualified judges in a courtroom where examination of all the rules and terms as well as facts on the ground are needed. This is something a court can find a fair solution to. An invasion of semi-undead troupe who first infected everyone with uncurable disease and then try to use mediation and game rules to suspend the battle and prevent them from curing the disease is ludicrous instead. In what kind of real-life situation in will fly? Yet this show does that. For every complex plot that works and makes sense like in Code Geass, there are several dozens more that do not. This show is of latter type.

Finally, epilogue leaves to be desired as well. Instead of a grand victory, it's just watering of the barren land. 

Overall, it is flawed but decent experience. I can recommend it.

Macross 7 Review

Overall Rating 7.0 out of 10 - Nice show with thick late 90s early 2000s nostalgia

I recommend watching

It has been a while since I have reviewed anything. That is partly because this show is 49 episodes long, 4 seasons of most other shows. 

I liked Macross 7 mostly for its very late 90s feel. The show really brings back the better of late 90s memories: fancy sleek looking gismos, imaginative drinks and outfits all as outlandish and surreal as possible - helps you forget the shit all around us in this post-crisis austerity era.

I could somewhat relate to the protagonist as well. Basara has very unconventional worldview and frequently clashes with everyone over it. In the end Basara always ends up being right. That is just like me: I am right but no one sees it my way yet.

On the other hand Basara's overly pacifist views are hardly that close to mine. That said in late 90s they made more sense that nowadays.

That said show has its drawbacks too. To begin with, its far too long. Instead of clear cut filler arks, they just stretched story very thin. There are several very repetitive episodes before something significant changes and then there are more repetitive episodes after that.

Story is somewhat interesting. There is now another alien race that survives by consuming life energy of humans. Their approach to addressing this problem gradually evolves as show progresses, making it interesting to follow.

Unlike the original Macross, here music has supernatural power that somehow stronger than weapons. In the original music had no supernatural fighting power but only appealed to enemy psychologically. Original Macross fleet convinced Zentradi to defect with better culture and way of life, kind of what EU does IRL and it works in both show and IRL. Compare to that Macross 7 does not try to showcase any clever use of soft power. Its a pure entertainment show.

Characters are somewhat OK. Best girl is the flower girl in a wide hat. She is a very devoted Basara fan who wants to give him flowers one day. The show consistently shows her struggle to get close to him. Basara's band, Fire Bomber, consists of quiet drummer Vefiddas who almost always drums on something, Rey who struggles to keep band together and patch differences between members and rather annoying Milene that complains all the time. Max, Milia and Exedore return from the original Macross. There are also stick up Gamlin and cocky Docker who is this Macross's Fokker. Enemies consist of Gepelnitch with a plan that gets revealed gradually, ugly guy Gigil who yells at people, Sivil that struggles to say basic words and Gabil who says beaty in every sentence.

Overall it is a solid experience and I can recommed, especially if you are nostalgic for the late 90s. 

Night Elves vs Blood Elves in WoW

 

I was thinking recently that I do not like Blood Elves as much as I theoretically should. In theory Blood Elves are just my kind of people, they pursue increased knowledge and power, use arcane magic to make everyday life more comfortable and advanced, they are also hedonistic and like comforts and pleasure. That sound a lot more like me compared to nature loving, magic forbidding and ancients worshipping Night Elves.

Yet somehow in game itself Night Elves appeal to me more than Blood ones. I wonder why that is. Could it be that I do not like colour red, Blood Elves do overuse it to my taste, but there is more, I think.

After some thinking I concluded that Blood Elves architecture looks tad too small and somewhat plastic in game. It feels more like a playground for kids houses than one's people actually live in.

Also, Blood Elf women look to cold and hard compare to Night Elf ones. I like softer women.

Finally, there is indeed too much red and brown in Silvermoon, I do not like colour brown and only like red in limited amounts. Generally, there are too much colour saturation in Blood Elf towns.

Compared to that, Night Elf towns and areas look like there is perpetual twilight. I like sunsets, so that appeals to me.

Generally, Night Elves feel a lot more relaxed compared to rather terse Blood Elves. Night Elf areas have resort feel to them, particularly tavern building. Darnassus itself is somewhat oversaturated with treehouses but, smaller towns are much better in that regard, particularly the one in Darkshore. That ocean view is one of the kind. I like relaxed things and Night Elf areas give feel of tranquility and timelessness.

Also, while Night Elves are somewhat closer to nature, it's not the kind of real wilderness like in Un'Goro Crater, Feralas or north and east of Strangelthorn Vale. Ashenvale has paved roads and even streetlight (lamppost) trees to illuminate your path, similar to how high-class resort hotels do it in real life. It's all crafter magical and fairytale-ish experience rather than wilderness. I do not like wilderness but do like magical fairytale-sh experience.

That is not to say I do not like Blood Elves, their areas are better than Tauren ones for example. If I am to rank capitals in order of my aesthetic preference, then they will go: Exodar, Darnassus, Silvermoon,  Ironforge, Undercity, Stormwind, Ogrimmar, Thunderbluff. Night Elves have better small towns, but best capital has to go to Draenei. As for favorite zones, then Ashenvale, Azshara, Desolace, Eastern Plaguelands, Westfall in that order. Least favorite has to be Un'Goro, followed by Redridge Mountains, Feralas, Wetlands and Dun Morogh. 

Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED FREEDOM

Overall Rating 5.2 out of 10 - Poorly made movie loosely based on original series

I do not recommend watching.

I did not yet review the original Gundam Seed. I watched it a while ago long before I began blogging and had a mixed experience with it. In view of lack of good anime to watch recently I decided to revisit this franchise and watch a movie.

The movie did disappoint. Original war between Earth Forces and ZAFT ended and they are not all friends for some reason. Later I checked there is whole 50 extra episode second season of Gundam Seed, called Destiny, that possibly explains how that happened, but after watching this one, I do not want to watch it. What they showed about Durandal in this movie is enough to not want to watch the entire 50-episode slog where he is main antagonist.

Back to the movie, Kira married Lacus, they live unhappily together, each too busy with their own work and feel guilty for not having time for each other. Each so driven to achieve peace and blaming themselves for not being able to. Back in original both of them were much nicer and a lot more easygoing, they were just nice guys, now they are as heavy with guilt as lead dumbbells.

Antagonists are not any better. The asshole knights who measure a person value based on ability to fight with a sword despite piloting overengineered ginormous mechs that can destroy a city or two at a press of a button. Spoiler alert, they end up being so called accords, genetically engineered beings above coordinators, who want to create a caste society dictatorship and try to convince protagonists and viewers that it is the only way to peace. I will not spoil the rest of the plot as the Accord's trap one of the few redeeming points of the story, together with Lacus cooking ability. 

Story begins with pathetic "strength is all that matter" message and ends with "love is strength" (almost Beatles era, all your need is love), yes that pathetic. I simplify here, but I cannot be bothered to elaborate on stupidity of screenwriters of this movie.

Broadly speaking most of the story is unappealing and unpleasant, middle movie plot twist is the only interesting part. Animation is not any better, characters look uglier than in the original Gundam that was released more than 20 years ago, how did you managed to fuck it up that much? Some backgrounds somewhat redeem it, but not that much. There is a lot of beams flying all over the screen during the fight scenes, trying to make them look pretty. Its picture over substance however, oversaturation makes it hard to follow who fights whom and where. Mech's designs do not help identifiability either. So is the fact that Shiin looks too much like Athrun. The whole action feels either rushed or cut too far. Athrun seems like teleporting between his own fight with Shura and protecting Kira from Orpheus. Some scenes in between were probably cut.

Speaking of characters, my favorite and most relatable character from the original, Rue Le Creuse (the masked guy from ZAFT), is not in this movie at all, a be it you see him occasionally in memory flashes. I do not remember if he died at the end of original or not. My second favorite character, Athran is in it, but he is different from how he was in the original, and not in the good way.

Finally, the overall plot. In the original I could sympathize with ZAFT. Humans engineered coordinators to be smarter than ordinary people yet denied them status and power they deserved, expecting them to all to be like Kira and serve humanity for no benefit of their own. It was only natural for coordinators to fight against the earth forces. 

In this movie however, the accords are extremely unlikable, and their society is horribly totalitarian and oppressive. The never-ending obsession with peace, that all sides profess, does not make it any better. I felt that Gintama should satirise it. It's like when Gintoki and Hijikata were arguing about treatment of that elder in video game (ep 99).

Overall, this movie is a bad, it's full of unlikable characters and I do not recommend watching it.

Why Japan and Japanese Things Has Unique Appeal in the West

 

It is no secret that Japan is very popular around the world. It's not just Japanese games and electronics, but other aspects of culture as well. Nowadays there are at least as many sushi restaurants as there are McDonalds or Pizzerias if not more. 

To top it up there is also anime that people enjoy watching with subtitles despite American Hollywood can offer life action movies in many languages. Yet people around the world choose subtitled anime instead. There is supposedly large cultural barrier between Japan and the west, yet it does not stop fans. 

A similar problem prevents people from enjoying cultural products from other countries. China, Russia or France are supposedly huge countries with long history of culture, yet they only enjoy very limited to non-existent interest around the world. A far cry to the interest Japan has.

However, why Japan wins the hearts of the globe, while everyone else misses by a longshot? What does Japan have that other countries do not?

A simple answer would be humble women; I wrote a separate article about why Western Men choose Asian women. In this article I will cover reasons not related to women.

Imitation

Back in the past, Japanese heavily borrowed from Chinese. culture, technology, even writing system. Some Sinophiles might even say that everything originated in China and Japanese and other Asians simply copied it. That however will be shortsighted. While Japan indeed copied a lot from Chiese, not everything Japan has comes from China. For example, even if Kanji are from China, Hiragana and Katakana are not. The same with other things.

In copying and imitating good ideas from other cultures, Japan is remarkably similar to the Western civilization. Greeks borrowed from Egyptians, Romans from Greeks, barbarians who destroyed Rome, later grew to imitate it in many ways. Even at its pinnacle, West does not grow complacent and start thinking that everything great comes from us and there is nothing to learn elsewhere. That makes it much easier for western people to understand Japanese who think the same way, than say Chinese who think that everything good originated in China and everyone else is just a barbarian compared to us.

Language

Japanese language a lot closer to western languages compare to say Chinese or Vietnamese. Japanese may be using Chinese characters, but their spoken language is rather distant from Chinese. Chinese and Vietnamese normally limited to one syllabus per word and are heavily tonal. Japanese language is not tonal, and words typically consist of several syllabi. Most other languages share these features with Japanese, making Japanese more accessible and easier to understand than Chinese. 

Japanese also have access to Hiragana and Katakana, that allows them to write words phonetically, like in most other languages. In contrast Chinese a limited to characters that represent objects and concepts and have no ready way of writing down sounds.

The sound of Japanese language is pleasant to ear, its soft and gentle. Much unlike many other languages. It sounds almost childish and wins Japanese people much sympathy because people tend to like children.

Religion

Japanese religion, Shinto, while different from either Christianity or more ancient Hellenic, Norse and Egyptian religions, but it does have many parallels with them. All of these have a lot of stories about gods. Japanese gods, much like Olympians or Norse have humane personalities and flaws. They also have complex human interactions and relationships with each other. Each also has world founding myth as well as stories that explain various natural phenomena. Finally, each has dedicated places of worship (shrines), elaborate rituals that performed at such places and even formal religious authorities in charge of religion.

Japanese attitude towards religion is also similar to increasingly secularised west. There is more curiosity towards religion than righteousness and zealotry. That allows for communication and mutual appreciation of religion and culture of each other.

History

Japanese history has many parallels with the western one. Japanese daimyos were much like Western feudal nobility; samurai were like knights. Both even had a peculiar code of conduct for warrior class, Chivalry in the West and Bushido for samurai. Both of these codes were equally far from how warrior class actually behaved. Nonetheless legends about knights and samurai continue to exist in both cultures even in present day.

Even warrior states period division during times of shoguns are similar to how medieval western society have operated. In both cases warrior class took control of the country after defeating barbarians. 

Long periods of war are also common for both Japanese and the West. Peace is more of an exception than a rule. That is different from say China where one dynasty just takes down another in a coup or a very fast war that does not affect broader country that much and peace returns, just under different authority.

Past Poverty

Modern Japan and the West are rich, prosperous and well developed. That was not the case in the past, however. Europe has cold climate and poor-quality land. Better and richer lands were that of Byzantines and later Arabs in the South-East. Japan geography is also not very fortunate; there are not that much habitable land between mountains in the middle of the Japanese islands and sea that surrounds them. One of precursor of modern Western civilization, Greece has similar geography. 

Compare these with near endless plains of China and huge rivers that make these lands very fertile or vastness of Russian lands, that are full of valuable natural resources.

Poor geography and resulting poverty pushed west towards exploring the world and eventually allowed them to discover New World. It also encouraged innovation and creativity. In the same way Japan too became much more creative and innovative as a result of their circumstances.

Dealing with poverty of the land, while secretly envy those lucky neighbors who have it much better simply because they were born on better piece of land, is something Japan and the West have in common.

These similar experiences allow Westerners to relate to Japanese and their experiences. Just like Chinese can easier relate to Russia instead. Much like in my previous article about paradox of wealth of nations. Russia and China are poor Kraterocracies on rich lands. West and Japan are rich democracies on poor lands.

Understanding Emotions

Despite distance and physical differences, similar past experiences ended up shaping West and Japan to be broadly similar to each other.

That allows Japanese to better understand feelings of a Western Person. That allows them to create video games and anime that appeals to Western audiences even when they do not particularly try to. Similar past allows for an unspoken understanding and relatability.

Meanwhile China, Russia, France, Arab World, Iran or Latin America all had different past and history. Thus, their experiences and works of art are not as relatable as those of Japan.

In Defence of Formula 1

For quite a while various internet pundits and content creators have been bashing F1. Most of the reasons they cite are repetitive and awfully same: few overtakes, very expensive and full of nepotism. Some even go as far as call it corrupt. They make it seem that F1 has nothing going for it and its place on top of autosport hierarchy is completely unwarranted.

As someone who enjoyed F1 ever since I began watching it in 1998, I could not agree with such assessment. Yes, F1 does have less overtakes, which it certainly compensates with quality of overtakes. There are other issues too. 

However, there are a lot of things that F1 does that other series do not. Here I will explain what make F1 pinnacle of auto sport.

Engineering

F1 one is not just competition of racers, it's also a competition of engineers or in more recent times, engineering teams and R&D departments. Just as racers try to outrace each other, engineers try to out engineer each other and build a car that will be head and shoulders fasters that what other have.

F1 is a race of concept cars. Other series, who race on tried and tested at best, and downright outdated at worst, equipment. The kind of cool over the top cars that you occasionally see on exhibitions. What if all carmakers will bring their concept cars to a race so we can see which one is the fastest. That is what F1 is about. 

Pre-season testing is where we get to see fruits of these efforts. That is why everyone who understands the game, paying great attention to cars in these events in an effort to notice a future GP winner.

Nowadays teams go conservative with designs as certain design solutions just work best and best not to alter them. However, even in modern times we occasionally see original and bold solutions, like Mercedes without sidepods.

F1 is famous for many of the engineering innovations. Some of these later made into road cars as well. Others stay in F1 because they are either too expensive or impractical. 

Some innovations later get banned, but not before team that came up with them, gets to win a championship or two, becoming a legend of the sport in the process.

In F1 its not only racers, who get famous, chief engineers and sometimes team principles become legends as well. Nick Fry, Adrian Newey, Patrick Head, Harvey Postlethwaite, John Barnard and of course Colin Chapman are all famous for their engineering innovations.

Money

F1 is famous for being extremely expensive. Nepotism, paid drivers and dubious sponsorships deals are regulars of F1 life and often make a lot of F1 news and rumors, fuelling accusations of corruption.

What rumor mongers do overlook however is what all this money is spend on. Running a full-on R&D department with dozens of people with engineering experience is not cheap. Equipment they use to build and test cars is not cheap either.

Unlike other series, F1 uses expensive materials, such as carbon fibre, titanium and so on. When it comes to what it builds of, F1 is closer to Space Shuttles and other rocket equipment than to cars from similar series such as IndyCar. At one time teams even experiment with fuelling cars with literal rocket fuel until FIA outlawed it because it's too flammable. Rocket science behind these cars is real.

Overtaking

Now to the elephant in the room: overtaking. Yes, there are a lot less overtaking in F1 compared to many other series such as NASCAR or IndyCar. However, when it comes to quality of these overtakes then F1 is clearly ahead.

Number of overtakes is not everything. Take soccer and basketball for example. In soccer there are at average only 1 or 2 goals per game. In basketball players hit the basket so often, score often goes into third digit. Does that make basketball better or more popular? Statistics says that soccer fans outnumber basketball fans by large numbers. 

The reason for that is when a soccer player does score, the entire stadium goes mad. After every goal it takes several minutes for players to calm down and continue playing. You will never see something like that in basketball. Easiness to score makes each scoring repetitive and ordinary. Michael Jordan hitting the ring in 100's time is nothing to write home about. A Ronaldo finally getting through tenacious goalkeeper and scoring after 20 or 30 previous futile attempts to do so, drives the stadium to celebrate with him as he running wild all over the field.

F1 is like soccer in that regard. Less so nowadays compared to the past, however. Overtaking is hard, but when it does happen, everyone gets agitated. F1 overtake is a dish that is served slowly cooked and well prepared. You get to see it being cooked over many, many laps. Near entire race sometimes. 

Overtakes are typically precede by a lengthy fight over position, where the chasing racer tries to put pressure on the one in front of him by staying within striking distance and occasionally fainting overtakes. Every so often they will attempt to take on the car in front of them, forcing them to defend and try to block the chaser to prevent them from overtaking. That goes on and on for many laps straight, making viewers speculate who will blink first and make mistake. 

A good commentator is needed to narrate the whole process to the audience.

Long Term Plans and Plots

F1 is a long-term sport. To begin winning in 2030, you need to start in 2020, ten years ahead. Take for example Audi. In early 2020 they negotiated with F1 authority's engine regulations. After getting what they wanted they started investing money in R&D to build the engine, as well as started their takeover bid for one of the existing teams on the grid. As of 2025 Audi is not yet on grid, but on track with their plans to get winning by 2030.

Other now famous teams did not become so overnight. Both Mercedes and Red Bull spent several seasons to get things right. Some might call Brawn GP an exception, but if you understand how F1 works, it really wasn't. Brawn GP was a former Honda factory team with all the same personnel. Due to head office decision to terminate their F1 involvement, Honda name was withdrawn in 2009. However, the F1 team already knew in 2008 that they will have a winning car in 2009 because one of their engineers figured out a clever workaround against the F1 rules. Thus, engineering team offered Honda to buy the team and entered 2009 season as Brawn GP and won.

This long-term planning is also part of the game or F1 process, much like playing chess or contract bridge. Pit-stop strategies. Complex deals even paid drivers are part of smart solutions to get ahead in the long run. Sure, you will have to take a deadweight driver on board, but money their will bring will let you build a better and faster car several seasons into future, so it's worth it. When Haas and Sauber were saying they will have a poor season this year, that is what they meant. Poor season now, for a good one several years on.

High Stakes

Another reason that brings a lot of interest to F1 is the fact that stakes are much higher here compared to other series. In a casino no one will care if a slot machine doubles your $1 bid or not. However, if someone bids a million that will get heads turning.

It's the same with F1. Big money is part of it but there is also a competitive racing spirit. Many famous F1 drivers are fiercely competitive. Take Prost and Senna, who infamously caused a crash each to win a championship. While Prost used to deny it was deliberate, Senna did not. Michael Schumacher was also famously competitive, ending two battles for championship in a crash in a final race. For one of these he was even disqualified. Even when he did not crash into anyone, he would do anything possible and impossible to win.

There were also many incidents of fistfights and hurling insults due to perceived undue interference. As for mutual accusations between teams and occasional complains to FIA, then these happen after nearly every race. 

Big money brings big stakes; big stakes make everyone nervous. Add to that ambition and stubbornness and you get tension that will explode if something falls on the wrong side of the track.

Compare that to an overly relaxed attitude of some IndyCar racers, where even not getting to start at all is no big deal for some.

Meritocracy

One of the important aspects of F1 is meritocracy. In F1 the best driver and best car wins. In NASCAR people accept that sheer luck can make you a winner. Not so in F1. F1 champion is someone who races better and faster than the rest. F1 constructor champion is one that builds fastest cars.

That is a double-edged sword. On one hand F1 fans can accept that one team dominates a season or two if they indeed managed to build a better and faster car than anyone else. On the other hand, fans do not like when someone gets victory handed down to them for free or wins through no talent of their own, by pure chance and luck. 

For example, Senna is so popular because he had Alan Prost to fight for championship with. Fans liked seeing them fighting for victory. Michael Schumacher in his early career too had to fight Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen for leadership. Later however he became uncontested, and fans grew to dislike him, calling him red baron. 

Mercedes had much more goodwill of the public when Lewis Hamilton had to fight Nico Rosberg for title. When Rosberg left, citing unwillingness to just let Hamilton win all the time, that goodwill dissipated. Rosberg was replaced with uncompetitive support driver, Bottas, who was just there to pave way for Hamilton to win. Hamilton became silver baron.

Some might question equality in sport. Considering that some teams have better cars and engines than others, giving them clear advantage. That may be true in F1 but to get there, a racer typically has to go through the equal machinery F2 and F3. However, a truly equal and accessible for nearly everyone is the very first step, carting.

By carting I do not mean go-carts where you rent a cart for a time to race with friends. In (semi) professional carting you have to buy your own cart, engine and other equipment from a specialised store. All together it costs less than a typical road car. 

Once you have your cart, you can enlist in regional carting league and start racing right away. Races are typically in the same country and not too far away from each other, meaning you can just drive there with a caravan and a cart in a trunk.

Carting is more accessible because you do not need to somehow convince a team boss to give you a chance; in carting you are your own boss and your own team.

On the flip side it means that you also have to manage everything yourself and be your own engineer and mechanic. However, that experience is what makes good races that later became F1 champions. Sure, there are engineers and mechanics in F1 who can set your car up for you. However, if you are not knowledgeable enough to understand what does what, then your car will be average at best, and you will never be the first. 

A truly good drivers have peculiar driving style they developed in carting. To match this driving style, they also have a peculiar setting preference that somehow work for them. Max Verstappen is a good example of that. All of his teammates struggle to drive a car tuned and build to his driving style, yet he alone can win championships with it. Something like that can only be achieved through thorough understanding of technical aspects of the car and its settings. Without caring background it will be hard to have such understanding.

Legacy

in other sports racers come and go and forgotten almost immediately they have left. Not so in F1. If you achieved in F1 something of will be remembered forever. People talk forever about legendary cars, engineers, racers. Great innovations are remembered and analysed decades after the fact. So are famous overtakes and battles for championships.

F1 is immortalised as it goes with meticulousness of a museum collection of royal jewels and then showcased with no less reverence. If you want to become part of history and not forgotten the season you stopped racing, F1 is the way to go.

Why legends of F1 are remembered and those from other series are often forgotten. Some might say its only because F1 is more prestigious, however there is more to it than just that. To win in NASCAR or Indy you mostly need luck. A lucky break can make even a very average driver a champion. In F1 that does not work, to win you actually have to be better than others. That is why legends of F1 are remembered.

It is the same in other spheres in life. People who won a million in Nobel Prize money will be remembered, while those who won as much in lottery will soon be forgotten. Because to win a Nobel Prize one has to be good at science and to win in lotto just luck will suffice. 

Conclusion

F1 is a sport like no other, it has it all, fast speed, glamour, money, iconic locations such as Monaco, cutting age space level technology and chess level strategy. What other sport has just as much. not even posh upper-class golf can compare. So, tune in and take your time to understand how it all works, it will be worth your time.