Anime: Emotions on a Rollercoaster

[majestic]

42 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

MMOs: That explanation I can at least understand. Though an MMO would probably be my absolute last choice of genre for it being the place to socialize with others, but that's just me. I guess the one positive about MMOs in that regard is there's a lot of downtime so you have *time* and focus to talk to others, which isn't often true of a lot of other games.

Well, unless you immediately start playing with your friends from school/college/university most of the time the social interaction is incidental, something that arises from doing content with others. The most fun I had playing WoW was when I was playing it with a colleague from work and a couple of regulars we found while looking for groups to do content. That was before Blizzard introduced a one click way of finding other players to play with.

It made doing the content much easier, but it killed having to interact with other people to do it. It ruined the server communities and allowed people to behave like complete arses, because while you could easily get yourself on a server-wide (or faction-wide, at least) blacklist, when you have the entire population of your WoW region at your fingertips, you can play all day long and never meet the same player twice. That limited the community feelings to raids, and even these you can find groups for these days. Well, not entirely certain about the current state of the game. I quit hard after Cataclysm and only dabbled a bit in Legion.

It might seem strange coming from me, because initiating any form of social interaction is hard for me, but it's much easier online. People might be jerks, but usually they just say no, I don't want to, have no time, instead of worse things.

A better example might be my time in Everquest 2, because that game, while still a theme park, focused much more on social interaction (back then it was impossible to do even the easiest of content without a group), exploration and questing than WoW ever did. It's a nice bonding experience to find some people and make your way through a long, drawn out dungeon, then it gets late, you put the people on the friend list and agree to continue next time.

After a while the game just becomes a platform for interactions. Unless you're like me and you at some point have to decide between playing with peeps from your friendlist or playing with people who know what they're doing but are complete asshats otherwise. And yes, I almost immediately ditched playing with my friends in favor of actually getting somewhere. So it was part community simulator and part actual, fun gameplay (and heroic raiding in Cataclysm was... hard).

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Voyager: Chakotay and that one brain lady from the first few seasons (...Nes...sa?) are the worst on that show. Janeway is insane, but at least she's not a complete drag.

There's Seska and Kes, both are only there for the first two and three seasons, respectively, but I'm guessing you mean Seska, the Cardassian spy on the ship. She was "fun", yep. Like everything about the first two season, especially the Kazon. Sigh.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Episode 8, fantastic episode, sorry for the wall of text, I even cut out some stuff because it was getting too long:

No, don't do that, this is the thread for walls of text.

So what you're saying is that Highway to the Dangerzone has no relation to aerospace engineering? Maverick would disagree. Heh.

Regarding Rei, she always went to a private school (hence the different uniform). This will become a funny running gag of a sort in the season when Rei shows up out of nowhere at the damndest of times. The anime never gives a reason why she goes to a private Catholic school when she arguably has the financially poorest looking upbringing of all the girls. In the manga her father is a wealthy carreer politician who has no time for her daughter, so she's foisted upon her grandfather. It's reasonable to assume he pays for her tuition fees, if nothing else.

Not entirely convinced that is what Ms. Takeuchi had in mind from the start when she made Rei go to a different school than Ami and Usagi, but it is what it is.

Oh, and also, one thing to keep in mind and comment on later, but I sometimes got the feeling that some of the fun of this season was about the writers realizing why people were watching the anime, and there's some meta-style humor later. That might just have been me, so when you start seeing it, leave a like, subscribe to my posts and hit that... wait, no. Erm. Leave a comment.

And yes, now imagine if SuperS would have been more like this. An entire season lost. Well, almost, there are two or three good episodes in SuperS. Out of 39. So sad.

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Matoki: No, no he wasn't...didn't he once say that he considered all of the girls to be more like little sisters? I'm pretty sure he said that at some point in the anime. Naoko Takeuchi seems to have some unresolved problems with boys. Was Umino a huge creep in the manga too?

So far Umino was barely in the manga. I guess that stays that way if Crystal is any indication. Once the team is complete Naru and Umino will be ditched in favor of making everything about Mamoru and Usagi. But I'll certainly complain about it when the time comes.

And yeah, Motoki says that in the anime. Not sure if that is to take out the creepiness of the source material or just so that Makoto can't catch a break. I mean manga Motoki becomes possessed and tries to seduce her, anime Motoki just thinks of her as little sister. Poor Makoto even cleans his appartment once only to find a picture of Reika.

 

[majestic]

Oh, right. The entire seaon has problems with hands. They look weird whenever there's a close up of them. For that I have no explanation.

[Bartimaeus]

31 minutes ago, majestic said:

A better example might be my time in Everquest 2, because that game, while still a theme park, focused much more on social interaction (back then it was impossible to do even the easiest of content without a group), exploration and questing than WoW ever did. It's a nice bonding experience to find some people and make your way through a long, drawn out dungeon, then it gets late, you put the people on the friend list and agree to continue next time.

Yeah, I played just a little of EQ1 when I was about six - basically impossible to play at that age for a variety of reasons, though. The raid guilds in that game were insane - basically an entire extra job in your life to be able to do it. EQ2 I played for some dozens of hours a few years later and could at least figure that one out since a lot of things had been simplified and I was a little older, but I remember it basically being impossible to do most of the interesting content without a group - but at least the game was manageably playable otherwise. Only got to mid-levels before I ended up quitting, though. A few more years later and I tried out WoW, and a few hours into playing, I think it was my troll magess, all by myself and I realized that MMOs just weren't for me anymore, because that game's gameplay was *beyond* boring, . Social element REQUIRED, it seemed.

Voyager: I actually meant Kes, but now that I look up who Seska is, I remember her as well...and the fact that I didn't like her either. Though really, I only liked the Doctor and B'Elanna on that show - not that I've seen all of it, but like the other Star Treks, I've seen a lot of bits and pieces from throughout the entire show. Paris was a borderline psychopath that seemed to always be learning the lesson of "don't be completely anti-social all the time", Janeway is basically Qui-Gon Gin (sic - insane people who aren't being treated as being insane by the framing of the show or its characters even though they clearly are), Kim and Tuvon were mostly just flat and boring, Neelix...was on and off both great and terrible, and Kes and Chakotay always made me want to shoot myself in the face - refused to sit through any of their focus episodes.

Rei: Ah, I didn't realize one of her parent(s) was still around and wealthy - with her occupation at the shrine alongside her grandfather and generally wearing odder clothes than the rest while never really paying for anything (also being very possessive over the things she DOES own, like her manga), I kind of got the impression that she was less well-off than the rest of the girls - maybe not poor, but probably not quite middle-class. Weird.

Matoki: Figures that Umino basically isn't even in the manga - I actually wondered if he might be an anime invention entirely! So yeah, all my homies hate how Naoko Takeuchi writes boys. Take a note from Steven Universe* and please start writing only girls from now on, Ms. Takeuchi! Although...now that I think about it, the manga stinks for the girls, too, so maybe she just can't write all that well in general. Thank goodness for the TV adapters!

*Who, ironically, of course took a ton of notes from Sailor Moon...and seemed to figure out most of the boy problem, if Steven's dad was any indication.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

43 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Rei: Ah, I didn't realize one of her parent(s) was still around and wealthy - with her occupation at the shrine alongside her grandfather and generally wearing odder clothes than the rest while never really paying for anything (also being very possessive over the things she DOES own, like her manga), I kind of got the impression that she was less well-off than the rest of the girls - maybe not poor, but probably not quite middle-class. Weird.

Yeah. It's... strange. I can only guess that her father just pays for the tuition and nothing else, but who knows. It's as flimsy as anything else that serves as backstory in the manga. Given her personality, she might as well just refuse any more help (in the show, at least).

Everything she says, does or wears is pretty much par for the course for someone whose main income comes from providing shrine services - they're generally living on donations and charity in Japan (at least it was a while back, it sure still is I'm guessing). It's only the private school that doesn't fit, at all. Blame it on the manga, it's what I do.

Edited April 11, 2021 by majestic

[majestic]

Manga!Ami has a crush on Motoki too. I'm guessing Motoki is really hot stuff, huh? No wonder Reika is jealous as hell all the time.

Edited April 11, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Manga!Ami has a crush on Motoki too. I'm guessing Motoki is really hot stuff, huh? No wonder Reika is jealous as hell all the time.

Maybe the idea was to have all the Sailors (except Rei) get bfs but Motoki was the only guy around and it didn't go anywhere because of Usako+Mamo-chan took all the attention.

EDIT

Puella Magi Madoka Magica episode 1.

The setting seems futuristic, it threw me off for a minute.

Kyubey seems up to something, I don't know what but I think it will be bad. The two girls will absolutely go for the contract.

The witches, man what the ****. I dig it.

Edited April 11, 2021 by ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

[majestic]

5 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Kyubey seems up to something, I don't know what but I think it will be bad.

What bad thing could he possibly be up to? Seriously...

Edited April 11, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

45 minutes ago, majestic said:

What bad thing could he possibly be up to? Seriously...

We needed to do laundry today, so we ended up watching the whole thing. To avoid spoiling Barti and IC, it's very good and is a nice break from Sailor Moon but is extremely dark.

Kyubey actually being a really ****ed up take on utilitarian logic was surprising and a good twist. Maybe it was just opinion shifting as time went on, but there was something very unsettling about his appearance the longer the show went on. In some ways I think the end he/it/they got was too good.

I sort of expected the magical girl to witch thing after episode 5. I did not see the time travel thing, even though there are some major hints about it. I'd say that Madoka becoming more potentially powerful the more Homura time traveled was weird, but this is a show about emotionless aliens who trick girls into becoming zombies so eh whatever.

The relatively short time (I think a bit over 4 hours) and great pacing made it a good binge. I'm glad I gave it a shot and it turned out to be a good mind clean after so much Sailor Moon, especially given how the last stretch was Usagi crying non-stop. There is a movie but I don't think I'll watch it right now.

[majestic]

32 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

We needed to do laundry today, so we ended up watching the whole thing. To avoid spoiling Barti and IC, it's very good and is a nice break from Sailor Moon but is extremely dark.

 

  Hide contents

Kyubey actually being a really ****ed up take on utilitarian logic was surprising and a good twist. Maybe it was just opinion shifting as time went on, but there was something very unsettling about his appearance the longer the show went on. In some ways I think the end he/it/they got was too good.

I sort of expected the magical girl to witch thing after episode 5. I did not see the time travel thing, even though there are some major hints about it. I'd say that Madoka becoming more potentially powerful the more Homura time traveled was weird, but this is a show about emotionless aliens who trick girls into becoming zombies so eh whatever.

The relatively short time (I think a bit over 4 hours) and great pacing made it a good binge. I'm glad I gave it a shot and it turned out to be a good mind clean after so much Sailor Moon, especially given how the last stretch was Usagi crying non-stop. There is a movie but I don't think I'll watch it right now.

 

 

Spoiler

I figured out Kyubey was up to no good almost immediately (much like you), but the German subtitles call what he offers the girls a pact rather than a contract, so there's a negative connotation right from the start, plus it is extremely unsettling how that thing talks without moving its mouth. The witch conversion didn't come as a real surprise although I expected something else to be the plot twist, but the time travel bit... well, yeah. Especially the part where it is implied that she tried to save everyone and failed for hundreds of times.

What did you think of the meta ending that more or less explains why all other magical girl animes usually have happy endings?

 

Those last five episodes of Sailor Moon before the final one really bothered you, huh?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

15 minutes ago, majestic said:

Those last five episodes of Sailor Moon before the final one really bothered you, huh?

Yeah, worst part of the season entirely because of pacing and repetition.

 

I generally think of contracts in a negative connotation lmao. The way he(they?) was so pushy about the contract gave me real predatory vibes, and such vibes were right. The mouth thing I noticed right away and even with the telepathy explanation was creepy. The red eyes that never blinked and the closeups on them reinforced the unsettling factor. If I have to compare the portrayl of the incubators to anything, it is the progression of the book in The Babadook but over several episodes.

The ending was fine, but I guess I didn't associate with other magical girl animes because I separate anime into their own contained universes. I also haven't really watched much magical girl anime besides Sailor Moon and Kill La Kill (which is somewhat a stretch). All in all it was as satisfying an ending as could be had, besides just wiping out the incubators.

Edited April 11, 2021 by ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

[InsaneCommander]

12 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Episode 9 (much shorter, thankfully):

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Iron Mouse just apparating out of the shadowy corn. Very Mimette-like - she liked to do really weird stuff like that too.

 

 

Well, she is a mouse. I don't remember if this was evident in the beginning, but her workplace is a mess, just like you would expect.

[InsaneCommander]

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

We needed to do laundry today, so we ended up watching the whole thing. To avoid spoiling Barti and IC, it's very good and is a nice break from Sailor Moon but is extremely dark.

  Reveal hidden contents

Kyubey actually being a really ****ed up take on utilitarian logic was surprising and a good twist. Maybe it was just opinion shifting as time went on, but there was something very unsettling about his appearance the longer the show went on. In some ways I think the end he/it/they got was too good.

I sort of expected the magical girl to witch thing after episode 5. I did not see the time travel thing, even though there are some major hints about it. I'd say that Madoka becoming more potentially powerful the more Homura time traveled was weird, but this is a show about emotionless aliens who trick girls into becoming zombies so eh whatever.

The relatively short time (I think a bit over 4 hours) and great pacing made it a good binge. I'm glad I gave it a shot and it turned out to be a good mind clean after so much Sailor Moon, especially given how the last stretch was Usagi crying non-stop. There is a movie but I don't think I'll watch it right now.

 

This is a short one. It is next on my watch list. I'll probably watch it this week.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

8 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

This is a short one. It is next on my watch list. I'll probably watch it this week.

It's really good and makes an interesting comparison to magical girls played straight like Sailor Moon.

[Lexx]

Watching Samurai Champloo right now. Nice soundtrack. Show itself is sometimes a bit boring and same-y though. But mostly it's pretty good, I guess. Still have 5 or so episodes to go.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Lexx

[majestic]

15 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Yeah, worst part of the season entirely because of pacing and repetition.

I just realized something. On its own, when taken out of context of the badly paced complete finale, the final episode of Sailor Moon is one of the best final episodes of any animated series or TV show that I've seen, and while I'm totally fanboying this anime to the point where the pacing of the five episodes before that doesn't really bother me all that much, I think that opinion isn't entirely born out of being a stan.
 

Spoiler

 

From the entire way the final confrontation is resolved, which is pretty much perfect for anime Sailor Moon (not so much for fans of the MURDER DEATH KILL Senshi in the manga), to the goodbye scene with the Sailor Starlights, including the final very funny exchange between Usagi and the girls ("You're so mean, Rei!") and Luna wishing Yaten good bye much to the chagrin of Artemis, Hotaru and Setsuna making wishes for the future while observing the shooting stars of the Sailor Starlights leaving Earth, Haruka and Michiru saying that they didn't wish for anything because they're happy with each other, to that ridiculously schmaltzy final shot of Mamoru kissing Usagi in front of this oversized full moon when Moonlight Densetsu starts to play for one last time. Miracle romance indeed. And for the first time in Sailor Moon, I think, that romance really feels heartfelt (well, or maybe that's just the general feeling that carried over from SuperS being so ridiculous that Mamoru probably felt embarrassed to be even associated with Usagi ).

Video timecoded to the final goodbyes.

If there's anything that's bad about this, it's that they let the intern team animate the final scene between Usagi and Mamoru. There's such a distinct difference in mood and lighting between these shots that it's almost distracting.

 

Would I have liked a better paced finale, and maybe an episode or two wrapping everything up, like in S? Yes, probably. Would it have been nice if that finale as a whole felt planned out and revised a couple of times like the filler arc in the beginning was? Oh, you bet.

Was there ever any chance for that to happen? Probably... not. The final storyline episodes feel a bit like they were a first draft that got shot (well, animated) because time ran out (just like in SuperS). 

That makes the whole matter worse, huh? The fact that the Nehelenia filler arc, regardless of the questionable creative decision to immediately revive a villain that was just defeated, which was probably planned, written and revised before it even went into production prior to airing the final season, feels like the only time a longer stretch of story episodes is actually really... quite good, instead of just there. All the other story beats that are good (more or less) are the mid season two or three parters. Especially the one where Minako goes full cray cray and works hard on being attacked by the Death Busters.

Ah, well. That's about all, I think. Time to let it rest for a while now. Should probably go watch that SU movie.

Edited April 12, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@majesticI think the final episode is very good and fits not just the season but the series very well. However it is hard to ignore that before getting there you have to deal with significant padding of story episodes with Usagi crying and doing nothing, which is a lot like Shinji from Evangelion (you said you haven't seen it, so I'll just say that Shinji is possibly the most hated protagonist of an anime because of how much he cries and does nothing, even if it makes sense).

I somewhat disagree, I would have liked to see some more of the inner Sailors on their own at the ending and maybe check in on Galaxia before cutting to Usako and Mamo-chan kissing under a giant moon. What is there is good though. I think that with significant editing down of Usagi crying as the world burns that could have happened, but this is an anime over 20 years old and what happened is what happened. I'm sure SMC will make us appreciate it more when Usagi just blasts CHAOS with her moon rod and the ending is her being pregnant.

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

 

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I somewhat disagree, I would have liked to see some more of the inner Sailors on their own at the ending and maybe check in on Galaxia before cutting to Usako and Mamo-chan kissing under a giant moon. What is there is good though. I think that with significant editing down of Usagi crying as the world burns that could have happened, but this is an anime over 20 years old and what happened is what happened. I'm sure SMC will make us appreciate it more when Usagi just blasts CHAOS with her moon rod and the ending is her being pregnant.

 

That's going to be so much worse that just her using the Moon Rod.
 

Spoiler

 

From what I gathered* Usagi jumps into a stellar nursery (well the Galaxy Cauldron, source of all stars and life in the Milky Way, anyway) to destroy Chaos from within, or some such, after some encouraging by Chibi Chibi who turns out to be Usagi's ultimate god form from a bad future. Because, if you do have some deus ex machina stuff in your story, why not make it literal.

Galaxia is also not just someone who came back from war changed, but was just plain evil to begin with and willingly teams up with Chaos for UNLIMITED POWER. And there's a panel where Galaxia blasts a planet apart with a snap of her fingers. Because why the hell not.

Oh, and Usagi sees Mamoru die in the first act and then spends the rest of it having PTSD and simply never acknowledges that she was ever in love with him. Or something like that, anyway. Seiya apparently still makes a move on Usagi too, which is just... ugh. SO GOD DAMNED TAKEUCHI, really.

Or maybe fill one of the somewhat curious plot holes there is, namely how Galaxia without Chaos can still be separate from Chibi-Chibi. Because that makse no sense. It doesn't matter, ultimately, but it makes no sense. 

*Comments from randos and some reading up on what happens in the manga. Those things turned out to be inaccurate in the past, but hey, it seems to fit.

 

 

About Shinji, well, yeah. I saw the first two episodes of NGE. So nothing changes with him in the other episodes? Heh.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

26 minutes ago, majestic said:

That's going to be so much worse that just her using the Moon Rod.
 

  Hide contents

 

From what I gathered* Usagi jumps into a stellar nursery (well the Galaxy Cauldron, source of all stars and life in the Milky Way, anyway) to destroy Chaos from within, or some such, after some encouraging by Chibi Chibi who turns out to be Usagi's ultimate god form from a bad future. Because, if you do have some deus ex machina stuff in your story, why not make it literal.

Galaxia is also not just someone who came back from war changed, but was just plain evil to begin with and willingly teams up with Chaos for UNLIMITED POWER. And there's a panel where Galaxia blasts a planet apart with a snap of her fingers. Because why the hell not.

Oh, and Usagi sees Mamoru die in the first act and then spends the rest of it having PTSD and simply never acknowledges that she was ever in love with him. Or something like that, anyway. Seiya apparently still makes a move on Usagi too, which is just... ugh. SO GOD DAMNED TAKEUCHI, really.

Or maybe fill one of the somewhat curious plot holes there is, namely how Galaxia without Chaos can still be separate from Chibi-Chibi. Because that makse no sense. It doesn't matter, ultimately, but it makes no sense. 

*Comments from randos and some reading up on what happens in the manga. Those things turned out to be inaccurate in the past, but hey, it seems to fit.

 

 

About Shinji, well, yeah. I saw the first two episodes of NGE. So nothing changes with him in the other episodes? Heh.

That sounds like it could be good in some ways, like an evil sailor guardian could be interesting. But given how light the manga is, I bet there's not much there.

If anything Shinji gets worse as time goes on. It makes sense given everything, but it's annoying to watch.

[majestic]

Well, I can relay any first hand experience soonish, I guess, what with me now really reading the blasted thing. Fun fact: So far it's better than Crystal*, because certain things just work better in a comic than on screen, and even if everything looks and feels rushed, the manga's pretty in its own way. Very much unlike that Crystal atrocity. Except... everyone looks the same. The only way you can tell the girls apart is by looking at what they're wearing and their hair.

Guess that's one way to explain why nobody but Usagi and Ami wear the Juban middle school uniform.

*Faint praise, anyway. The stupid plot beats are obviously still here. I'm really looking forward to seeing Usagi stab herself, or the Moon supercomputer that's still running after everything was blasted apart. That's going to be hilarious, because not only does the computer still work, there are also ruins on the moon... and two arcs later it was shown that Sailor Saturn cleansed the ruins of the Moon kingdom and the ruins of Earth by casting DEATH REBORN REVOLUTION on it all.

That's some move there, Hotaru. I guess you missed something.

edit:

Rei's a real winner in the manga too. Comes across a video rental place called "DARK" and monologues: "Dark? I have a bad feeling about this place."

Well no **** Deanna, you're onto something here, I think.

edit 2:

I've been reading comments about how anime Rei is way too mean to Usagi, but her manga incarnation isn't nice to her either. At least not before she's revealed as Princess Serenity. Usagi even complains about Rei being mean to her. Snort.

Edited April 12, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I've been reading comments about how anime Rei is way too mean to Usagi, but her manga incarnation isn't nice to her either. At least not before she's revealed as Princess Serenity. Usagi even complains about Rei being mean to her. Snort.

So I guess Rei being a bitch is inherent to her character.

[majestic]

41 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

So I guess Rei being a bitch is inherent to her character.

It's fair to say that her being mean to Usagi wasn't such a big devation from the source material, even if the 90ies anime probably blew it out of proportion. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that fans of the manga that complain about certain 90ies anime things are wrong.

Although, I guess that's going to be dropped now. Minako showed up, and they all got her memories back. If Crystal stuck as much to the manga as it appears to have done, the rest of the acts are going to be about Usagi and Mamoru melodrama, ridiculous moon bases and a murder-suicide attempt.

Still, much to my surprise I'll have to admit that the manga is definitely better than Crystal. It's not good by any stretch, outside of the character introduction chapters, but it's slightly better. But... the real barn burners are coming up now that everyone is assembled and the "story" can kick into overdrive.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@majesticWell I believe they could be right about anime Rei, with the advantages of filler allowing Rei to be fleshed out comes with the disadvantage of that being taken by the writers as having her be mean to Usagi nonstop. Same as Ami studying or Makoto being reminded of her senpai evey episode they get attention.

It's not hard to believe the manga is better than Crystal, simply because Crystal is a CGI abomination that gives real bad uncanny valley vibes. It probably is still really rushed and most of the cast doesn't feel fully realized.

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

If anything Shinji gets worse as time goes on. It makes sense given everything, but it's annoying to watch.

 

Spoiler

He starts off as a total baby, there's a middle part where it SEEMS like he might be starting to understand and get the hang of things, and then he reverts to...I don't know, a fetus? ...Like you said, it makes sense given what's going on...lord knows I would've gone running for the hills almost immediately if it had been me in his shoes, but it's not pleasant to watch and I wanted anyone, literally anyone - preferably Asuka, but Rei, Misato, or even his father would have been fine too - to throttle him.

 

3 hours ago, majestic said:

I've been reading comments about how anime Rei is way too mean to Usagi, but her manga incarnation isn't nice to her either. At least not before she's revealed as Princess Serenity. Usagi even complains about Rei being mean to her. Snort.

Do you really feel like Rei is too mean to Usagi in the show? Honestly, I never really thought much of it - outside of when she's initially introduced in the first season when she's openly questioning Usagi's intelligence and her capability to be a Sailor Guardian, most of the things I can think of where she's 'mean' to Usagi seem to be out of a place of exasperation as a result of them (Rei and the other three) having to put up with Usagi's constant silliness and melodrama. As TV viewers, we're mostly insulated from it, but if Usagi were a real person I knew and saw on a regular basis, I could very easily see being pretty annoyed with her a lot, so it makes sense to me.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Do you really feel like Rei is too mean to Usagi in the show? Honestly, I never really thought much of it - outside of when she's initially introduced in the first season when she's openly questioning Usagi's intelligence and her capability to be a Sailor Guardian, most of the things I can think of where she's 'mean' to Usagi seem to be out of a place of exasperation as a result of them (Rei and the other three) having to put up with Usagi's constant silliness and melodrama. As TV viewers, we're mostly insulated from it, but if Usagi were a real person I knew and saw on a regular basis, I could very easily see being pretty annoyed with her a lot, so it makes sense to me.

To be honest, no. Not even in the German dub which, as I stated a couple of times now, makes Rei even meaner to Usagi. Not just mean, downright insulting at times. Incidentially, in the manga, it's Luna that questions Usagi's fitness as Guardian, she tells Minako and Artemis (through the arcade machine) that Usagi is essentially only half as good as the other three, and Rei more or less calls her stupid.

I also know a couple of actual people who are constantly fighting like that but are otherwise inseperable, so it's not completely unrealistic, both in sibling relations as well as romantic ones (depends a bit on how you want to see their squabbling and love for each other) and even friendships. The Japanese version, provided the subs were halfway accurately translated, takes a lot out of the edge by the way Rei addresses Usagi. She does that without any honorific, and it's not done to insult Usagi.

And that's just the talking, never mind the concern the two show for each other whenever something bad happens. There's a reason for Michiru's observation about the two, even though I kind of disagree with reading romantic subtext into it, but that's just me. I've said that before, with Rei's lonely upbringing and her general lot in life living alone with her grandfather in a Shinto shrine, being an outsider because her abilities scare people, it makes enough sense for her to latch onto Usagi as a sister that she never had, and it's perfectly normal to be both more forgiving and more critical of our loved ones than of other people, contradictory as that may seem at a first glance.

Usagi and Rei may be the characters I can relate to the least, but they're great. It took me a long while to really appreciate Usagi and even though I felt really bad for her in R and wanted her to be happy, she was mostly annoying up until S, and never mind SuperS.

The rest I chalk up to early installment weirdness. Like Rei being Minako at her school festival, or her pinching Ami to get her to back down. Or the transformation pen, or Ami slapping Usagi, and a couple of other things that happen here and here. It's par for the course for a show that was written by the seat of the writer's pants, trying to adapt rushed material and probably barely ever could get script reviews and revisions done.

In a way it's a wonder it turned out to be as good as it did. I love it, warts and all, and I'll probably never get tired of talking about Sailor Moon.  

2 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

It's not hard to believe the manga is better than Crystal, simply because Crystal is a CGI abomination that gives real bad uncanny valley vibes. It probably is still really rushed and most of the cast doesn't feel fully realized.

In some ways the manga is in the middle between the first anime and Crystal. Take Makoto's introduction, in both Crystal and the manga Makoto saves Usagi from being run over by car, in the anime she saves her from three almost JoJo-esque gym gods (hehehehe) trying to intimidate and shake her down. Anime and manga Makoto is friendly to Usagi after saving her, Crystal Makoto looks stern and tells her to pay more attention.

In both the manga and Crystal a teacher is accosting Makoto for not wearing the proper uniform, Crystal Makoto angrily rebuffs that, while manga Makoto just tells the teacher that the school has no uniforms that fit her. Manga Makoto also needs to defend her hair color because the teacher thinks she dyed it. In all the versions Umino is spreading rumors of Makoto. In the manga, the reader can probably guess by now that they're not true, in the anime we already know they're false, because even though Makoto is super strong, she doesn't fight without reason, and in Crystal... in Crystal Umino seems to have a point, given her belligerent behaviour so far (even though she saved Usagi).

Both Crystal and the manga have her throw back a baseball super hard that lands near her in a somewhat jerky-looking move o demonstrate her super-strength that naturally isn't in the anime because why bother, she's already beaten up two gym gods.

So that long excourse is there to show that Crystal doesn't just look bad, but made weird adaptational choices where they would not have been necessary and left things unadapted that should have been (namely all the silly narrating of things that happen on the screen).

The manga sure feels rushed, because it was.

Hey look, it's almost another essay...

Edited April 12, 2021 by majestic

[majestic]

Steven Universe, the musical movie.
 

Spoiler

 

So, another really horrible thing that Pink Diamond did. On the surface Spinel seems like a friend she abandoned because getting Earth as colony required Pink Diamond to leave childish things behind. I'm guessing Spinel was made solely for Pink Diamond to have someone to entertain her and she left her behind because she unthinkingly thought of her as a toy, not an actual person. The distinction is tough to make there, considering that she probably is just that.

A sentient toy that outlived its usefulness. I'm not sure what's worse, Pink leaving her behind, or someone actually making Spinel. Her looking like a jarring outlier of an animated character from the 20ies or 30ies (like Cuphead) just helps making sure that we really get how out of place she is. And oh boy, does the movie try to make you want her to go away. To, hey, ditch her, exactly like Pink Diamond did.

That made me guess the plot twist (plus @Bartimaeus mentioning that might make me hate Pink Diamond yet, so naturally I was expecting her doing something terrible) before it happened, but that's okay. It's not a moment that relies on surprise to work, the sheer emotion of seeing her stand in place and wait for six thousand years alone is horrible. It does beg the question where she got that injector from so quickly, but hey, let's not dwell on minutiae.

Curious, Spinel is set up to be hated in the beginning, but I... just didn't. I found it a little interesting to have a child-like character appear and ruin what looked like perfect happiness. Does that remind me of someone? Can this be a tie in for another... wait, no, not really. Spinel and Chibi-Usa don't have enough in common other than being children and their hairdo (and Chibi-Usa was only this antagonistic as Black Lady), but it was a good try, huh?

The one thing I was surprised to see was Steven and how he's gotten over his savior complex in the timeskip. Or maybe he just grew up a little. Regular show Steven would probably have tried harder or done some self-sacrificing in order to foist redemption on Spinel instead of realizing that change comes from within. And herein lies something that I can actually use to tie this into Sailor Moon, although in a way that I really do not think is intentional, because it relies entirely on... having seen the final episode of Sailor Moon in the German dubbed version. *cough*

Obviously the concept is universal enough that it can show up on two separate shows on its own, especially when one took inspiration from the other.

The end of the film has a song about change and how it comes from within, and how Spinel needs to make an effort. Because someone offering help is great, but one needs to accept that. Good thing that Steven learned his lesson before it became too self destructive.

At the end of Sailor Moon, the Sailor Star song is playing while Usagi and Chaos Galaxia face each other. Curiously, Viz opted to just let the song play out in its original Japanese form, while almost all other dubs from the 90ies, including the German one, wrote lyrics for melody. Because understanding the lyrics was supposed to mean something in context (granted, the Viz dub is clear enough without it - I guess having 25 years to translate something and read up on meanings helps).

Here's the German song (video has spoilers, obviously, but the music is taken from an OST CD, not from the episode itself):

The title means "Only you (alone) can" and is about... having to make an effort to change, especially the chorus about only oneself being capable of freeing yourself ("dreams") from anger and hate, and only you can be your own soul's savior. This song is playing right before Galaxia decides to take Sailor Moon's offer and free herself from her warped sense of what it means to be a Sailor Guardian (as symbolized by Chaos being both an external threat that possesses Galaxia but also a representation of a vicious cycle of fighting). Usagi offers a hand, but Galaxia takes it.

Interestingly enough a much better fit than the original lyrics, which are about never giving up (literally "makenai", don't give up in Japanese).

Tangent over...

So while Steven offers a hand, it's up to Spinel to take it. Good on you Steven, you've grown so much more than just a neck here.

I'm not sure justice is done by calling this "essentially a Sailor Moon movie" because not only does it play afterwards, it also clearly ties into the continuity and is thematically much stronger. Not that I didn't like the Sailor Moon films. I loved them. Just this is... well, both similar and more than an extra long Steven Universe episode. Which makes it even better than most movies based on TV shows. Although I can't be sure how well it straddles being interesting for new audiences and for fans of the show.

It's what usually makes these movies fail hard. Either you make them for fans only and risk it bombing, or you tell a completely separate story and nobody cares about it, or you try both and fail, not to mention that TV writers are asked to cough up a feature film script, TV directors then direct a movie, and... yeah, the latter parts are kind of circumvented by this being animated.

This might be just the best TV show turned feature length film since... oh, dunno. Forever. Unless one might count Star Trek movies two, four or six. Because even though the hack frauds love Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it really just is a feature length Star Trek episode with endless shots of the crew involved showing off that they had an actual budget for a change (we get it guys, really!).

So, did this make me hate Pink Diamond? No, not really, I already felt conflicted enough about her, and this didn't change it in one way or the other. The sad truth is I can see what Spinel represents and why Pink Diamond left her behind. It's terrible, loathsome, wrong and was probably done in the cruelest of ways, but how does that differ from other things Pink/Rose did? Spinel was simply made for a time of Pink's life that was over with the other diamonds giving her a colony. Moreover, it might just have been the first step to prove that even the higher up Gems in the hierarchy are capable of change - for better or worse - at all, prior to the rebellion.

It makes me more intensely dislike whoever created an immortal, sentient toy for a child.

edit: Oh, and @BartimaeusI'm really sorry to read that about your grandmother and sincerely hope that everything will turn out all right. At least in here the deplorables won't see the post.

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by majestic