Anime - coasting on emotion rollers

[Bartimaeus]

I thought that moment between her and Ikuko was sweet, but now it makes no sense. Retroactively ruined by a lack of continuity - good job, SuperS.

5 minutes ago, majestic said:

Considering how long it took me to realize that Asuka and Shinji have exactly the same problem with diametrically opposed coping mechanisms I'm kind of afraid I'll be left sitting bereft and in bewilderment of what's going on.

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I thought that moment between her and Ikuko was sweet, but now it makes no sense.

It was. That entire episode wasn't so bad, I mean, except for the obvious problems of SuperS. Usagi being super annoyed about food (that was the lemon pie episode, right?) is even something that's in character for her. Her reaction to it was completely overblown, but what can you do.

Not sure what the dub had there as dialogue, but the subs mentioned baby and or very young Usagi pictures specifically. Chibi-Usa should know that all of those would be back home. I mean, in her home time. It's not like she left Tokyo. Nobody leaves Tokyo in Sailor Moon, except for Minako. Or so she claimed, at least.

edit: Well, unless when going to strange enemy dimensions or the North Pole, but those don't count, right?

Edited April 26, 2021 by majestic

[majestic]

  

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Well, you're in for something.

That certainly was something, but not what I expected. I've known that the end of NGE was controversial and somewhat surrealistic, so much that "Gainax Ending" has become the anime synonym for Lynchian endings in movies. However, I expected an ending, to be honest. Something that resolves plot threads in an unexpected way that initially seems to make no sense, like the ending of Mulholland Drive, for instance.

But that's not at all what this was. It wasn't an ending to anything, it was a two part episode exploring the character themes present in the anime where Shinji overcomes his own insecurities, levels up and puts some character points into self esteem, what with the metaphorical cracking of the egg (world) at the end and everyone congratulating him, with a prior solipsist detour and an exploration of its varieties (which I won't comment on, because I have a very low opinion of solipsism).

And even that is somewhat unfinished, because Rei III and Asuka don't get their second parts (as teased by episode 25), although we can assume they manage too, they're functionally the same as Shinji both in and for this particular character exploration anyway, so a repeat would have been pointless. Level ups for everyone! Yay!

Uhm. Great. Here's the real kicker, that was a really good two parter episode, but a complete failure as an ending. F, no points for effort. Time to watch the movies, I guess, even if I can't shake the feeling that they'll just double down on the nonsense and will claim "hey our last two episodes were really intended as the ending, because the Human Instrumentality Project has begun now and that is its result!"

Edited April 26, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Congratulations!

👁👁   👁👁   👁👁

Spoiler

I've only seen The End of Evangelion, not any of the rest, as The End of Evangelion is the only movie that's part of the original series, while the others are...something else. Well, except for Death/Rebirth, which is just sped-up recap movie of the original series. You may or may not be pleasantly surprised by TEoE.

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

More complaining and some spoilers for Stargate SG-1 ahead..
 

Spoiler

 

This very unpleasantly reminded me of the ending of Stargate SG-1 where one of the long running plot threads was resolved in an incredibly inane way, with the rest of the series left hanging. SG-1 had three major plot threads left at this point, the ongoing war against the Ori (Stargate's version of a belligerent Q-like race), Baal's infiltration of various Earth based intelligence services and the Asgard's (Earth's Grey-like alien allies) failing cloning program and potential extinction.

Final episode rolls around, the Asgard copy all of their scientific data to SG-1's space battle cruiser (called the Odyssey) after refusing to share any knowledge with Earth for eight seasons, install super powered laser beams on the battle cruiser that can destroy the hitherto unassailable Ori battle ships in a couple of hits, then they wave goodbye to the humans, blow their planet up and are now really extinct. Then the Ori show up, shoot at bit at the Odyssey.

With no way out they set up a time dilation field and... now have all the time in the world to see the final Ori plasma burst creeping ever closer that will destroy their ship. With the characters now stuck in time, they live out their lives. One of them dies, two of the characters resolve their massive UST by becoming a couple, and five minutes to the end they figure out a solution, reverse time and escape.

The end.

Episode had the title Unending... unending. Get it? Because it's an un-ending? Yes? Haha. Hah.

...

They did get to make two direct to DVD movies to finish the other plotlines, but they bombed. No wonder after that.

Still, I guess I'm going to watch EVANGELION DEATH (TRUE)² first, recap or no. That's the proper order of things. Yes, yes. But not today. Well, maybe today, but not now, anyway.

[Bartimaeus]

I...think that's the version to watch if you're going to. There are like 3 different versions of the movie, one that was the initial cut that had a big chunk of The End of Evangelion added onto it (I believe that's Death and Rebirth), then one that was a cut down version that had not just that but also other stuff removed as well, and then a "final" version that was ONLY the recap no TEoE with the previously removed scenes added back in. I think that last one is ^2. I think I tried to watch ^2, realized it was not the correct English dub and immediately peaced out, then found a DVD copy of the original Death and Rebirth with the correct English dub, watched the non-TEoE half, and then wondered why I watched because I got absolutely nothing out of it, .

Yeah, non-endings are great - glad you love them too!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@majestic You can just watch End of Evangelion, the rest isn't really worth it..

What is worth it is SU, where Steven and Connie went into freefall.

[InsaneCommander]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

More complaining and some spoilers for Stargate SG-1 ahead..
 

  Hide contents

 

This very unpleasantly reminded me of the ending of Stargate SG-1 where one of the long running plot threads was resolved in an incredibly inane way, with the rest of the series left hanging. SG-1 had three major plot threads left at this point, the ongoing war against the Ori (Stargate's version of a belligerent Q-like race), Baal's infiltration of various Earth based intelligence services and the Asgard's (Earth's Grey-like alien allies) failing cloning program and potential extinction.

Final episode rolls around, the Asgard copy all of their scientific data to SG-1's space battle cruiser (called the Odyssey) after refusing to share any knowledge with Earth for eight seasons, install super powered laser beams on the battle cruiser that can destroy the hitherto unassailable Ori battle ships in a couple of hits, then they wave goodbye to the humans, blow their planet up and are now really extinct. Then the Ori show up, shoot at bit at the Odyssey.

With no way out they set up a time dilation field and... now have all the time in the world to see the final Ori plasma burst creeping ever closer that will destroy their ship. With the characters now stuck in time, they live out their lives. One of them dies, two of the characters resolve their massive UST by becoming a couple, and five minutes to the end they figure out a solution, reverse time and escape.

The end.

Episode had the title Unending... unending. Get it? Because it's an un-ending? Yes? Haha. Hah.

...

They did get to make two direct to DVD movies to finish the other plotlines, but they bombed. No wonder after that.

Still, I guess I'm going to watch EVANGELION DEATH (TRUE)² first, recap or no. That's the proper order of things. Yes, yes. But not today. Well, maybe today, but not now, anyway.

And
 

Spoiler

 

all the character development during that time was lost because only one character remembered what happened.

But I did love one thing in the movies: Baal time traveling and bringing only three things to take over the galaxy, a phone, a bomb and his knowledge. The phone was to call the US president when he came to Earth in the new timeline. The bomb was to sink the ship carrying the stargate on Earth, that he used to time travel, and all he needed after that was his knowledge.

That is why I suspected there was time traveling in one of the series we discussed recently. If you do it well, you can time travel without any fancy technology and grow to a very powerful position. And Baal knew how to do things correctly.

Edit: to make it clear, you would use time travel tech, but you wouldn't need anything else, just your knowledge.

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I...think that's the version to watch if you're going to. There are like 3 different versions of the movie, one that was the initial cut that had a big chunk of The End of Evangelion added onto it (I believe that's Death and Rebirth), then one that was a cut down version that had not just that but also other stuff removed as well, and then a "final" version that was ONLY the recap no TEoE with the previously removed scenes added back in. I think that last one is ^2. I think I tried to watch ^2, realized it was not the correct English dub and immediately peaced out, then found a DVD copy of the original Death and Rebirth with the correct English dub, watched the non-TEoE half, and then wondered why I watched because I got absolutely nothing out of it, .

It's the only thing available on Netflix where I watched NGE, so that's good to hear. I noticed that they also re-dubbed the German version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. That might have bothered me too if I had ever seen it with the original dub and tried the new one (I watched with subs now). Asuka has one more funny scene earlier where her stepmother called from Germany and she talked to her on the phone. Sounds like they stopped bothering to coach the VA on pronunciation or the EVA startup sequence worked better because it wasn't supposed to be a natural sounding conversation.

I also doubt Asuka would say "Auf* Wiederhören!" ("until we hear from each other again" or more literally "upon rehearing**") to her stepmother before hanging up, even if she doesn't like her. That's a formal goodbye that you would use in a professional conversation at work or after talking to someone you don't know. It's the telephone call (or radio) equivalent of saying Auf Wiedersehen, which replaces sehen = to see by hören = to hear. 

*Auf is a preposition that is usually translated as at, upon, to or onto, depending on the context. If it's not used as preposition, it means up or on (mostly on).

**technically im Wiederhören or beim Wiederhören would be the grammatical German progressive form, but German progressive expressions are so awkward that nobody really uses them (certainly not in speech, sometimes in writing - but for speech, if it is ever used at all, interestingly enough, a progressive form is used that is grammatically wrong... which is kind of hilarious when you think about it - precisely because the correct form is incredibly stilted and sounds wrong), and most of the time ongoing activities are expressed in a lexicalic manner and inferred from context, i.e. to say I have been working all day we'd usually not use "Ich war den ganzen Tag beim Arbeiten" but would say "I habe den ganzen Tag gearbeitet" - I have worked all day. Nevertheless, Wiederhören is what you would use to express an ongoing activity, hence the -ing.

Well, no wonder Mark Twain once said that you can learn English in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, non-endings are great - glad you love them too!

I absolutely adore them, really. Especially if they leave plot points hanging that were somewhat interesting. Doubly so if they don't resolve anything. Bah.

Edited April 26, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

8 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

@majestic You can just watch End of Evangelion, the rest isn't really worth it..

What is worth it is SU, where Steven and Connie went into freefall.

This is @majestic we're talking about - he has his own kind of OCD for completing everything of what he started even when he'll be the first to admit that it makes no sense to do so, .

majestic: I gotta say, it feels good to not know a lick of German and just be cool with whatever random broken German Asuka wants to say, .

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

This is @majestic we're talking about - he has his own kind of OCD for completing everything of what he started even when he'll be the first to admit that it makes no sense to do so, .

Guilty as charged. Even when I'm doing a rewatch of something I like, I never skip bad episodes. Not even Move Along Home or Let He Who Is Without Sin... when rewatching DS9. I might leave the series lying around for a while before getting back to it, but skipping an episode? Dear god, no. Which is also why I'm not sure I can skip SuperS, should I ever watch Sailor Moon again. I might talk about it, but actually doing it? Uh, that's hard.

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

majestic: I gotta say, it feels good to not know a lick of German and just be cool with whatever random broken German Asuka wants to say, .

Oh, don't mistake me posting half a ton about what she's saying as not being cool with it. I find it amusing. I also went over the phone call ten times and I'm still not sure what the second half of the conversation is supposed to be about. I even looked online for transcripts, but at best they say "unintelligible heavily accented German", it's just the German equivalent of having fun with Japanese Engrish (which was very funny in the Sailor Moon S episode with Mamoru's supposedly English older friend, who opened the conversation by saying HERRO or something like it).

[Bartimaeus]

The OCD thing *I* have is that I simply need to have all of the files archived in the exact perfect order and state that I want them in, down to muxing every single episode of every single show to a perfectly consistent standard (I've made scripts that help do this, thankfully). As long as the files are there, then it doesn't really matter to me whether I've seen every last second of every episode or not, . SuperS is probably the single thing I've most skipped big parts of while still making myself watch every episode - I even stopped watching the intro song, which...I went back to watching all of for Sailor Stars, which makes no sense considering I hate the animation of the intro and the song changed*! Tells you how much I didn't have the patience for SuperS and just wanted it to be over, I guess.

*Although I do admittedly like the song, so that helps.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I've kinda temperd my ocd by not caring about stuff as much and it has done wonders to relieve my anxiety issues. Tho like @majestic I do find myself watching everything in order when I stick with watching something. I'm not obsessive to the point where I'd watch SMC, buy normally I'd have a hard time skipping episodes in a series.

SU. Pearl ran from the cops. Reminder me of this from the Boondocks.

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

[Bartimaeus]

boondocks: what the hell did I just wwatch lol

Episode 195 of Sailor Moon, I'd started this episode about 4 or 5 times over the past week, but finally got it done:

Spoiler

Rei's relationship with Usagi really shined in this season, and so here's more of it! Although there's some re-writing with the dub here - for example, when Rei said "That Usagi! She didn't need to go through all this by herself. If only she had told us sooner... It's so frustrating!", the dub instead re-wrote it to be "I can't believe she actually tried to go through all of this by herself...if only she had told us sooner, we could've helped her!".

I'm getting a little sick and tired of seeing Haruka's alien face grimacing and Michiru's disapproving frown, guys. "How many times do I have to tell you..." I don't think you understand how this whole princess/Neo-Queen Serenity thing works, Haruka.

"Hey, it was me who couldn't stop myself from falling for you, so don't go blaming yourself about it. As soon as this concert is over, I'll steal you away." this guy is smooth af, ngl

Man, Tin Cat is all messed up. My guess of "she's reverting back to a Sailor Guardian" turned out to be accurate, at least. I mostly like Tin Cat, so that's pretty okay with me. Oh, gosh dang it, she just died. Why do all the fun ones always die? ...I mean, the bad ones do too, but I don't care about them, so that doesn't matter.

Wow, Princess Kaguya's star seed looks like utter trash compared to Usagi's. Guess that's why Usagi is the Big Bad...er, Big Good instead.

Haruka and Michiru are seriously so retarded, .

Episode 196:

Spoiler

Princess Kaguya's final wish and command to her Sailor Guardians was for them to work together with Earth's Sailor Guardians...............so they decided "nah screw that". Real great job, guys.

OH, SUDDENLY HARUKA AND MICHIRU CARE ABOUT THE SAILOR STARLIGHTS? MAYBE BECAUSE YOUR PLANET IS MELTING YOU SPEAK, JUST AS THE SAILOR STARLIGHTS SAID IT WOULD SEVERAL EPISODES AGO? Gosh, you two suck. Everyone's making dumb decisions, but you two especially over everyone else.

Hey, Hotaru's here. Looks like she's taking after Pluto, too...eh, that's fitting, and it's better than the other two bozos.

I'm not sure if I've ever told you guys this before, but I hate it when characters finish each other's sentences - it's a personal pet peeve of mine. I mean, unless it sounds super natural, but for some reason, it hardly ever does except in the absolute highest quality of shows/movies with really tightly written dialogue.

Another thing I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned before, but...I actually kind of love full team, full-length transformations. They're such a huge waste of time, but whenever the show breaks them out, they feel so right - also, we hear parts of the transformation song that we usually never do because it gets to go to its full length. The movies are the best at this, because each character even gets their own short unique transformation theme and they use additional sound effects they don't normally. I don't think @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP and maybe even @InsaneCommander ever heard them, because they didn't watch the movies(?), but trust me, they're pretty rad.

"If that's what you really think, we'll show you how powerless we really are!" Uh...yeah, I don't know if you realize how that actually sounds or not, but suffice to say, it's not good, girls.

Hey, can't our Sailor Guardians teleport? I feel like they forget that sometimes. At least this anime didn't give them the power to fly - that would've been lame as hell.

I'm starting to see some very familiar things here. Most importantly, when Nezu bit it, I said that her bracelet thing reminded me a lot of a a gem itself from SU, but having the four Sailor Guardians reduced to their star seeds and floating in a massive collection up above Galaxia...suuure getting a lot of SU vibes here.

Episode 197:

Spoiler

Galaxia seems to have just heavily implied that Mamoru himself is a Sailor Guardian with her talk about how only Sailor Guardians have true star seeds like...well, like the one she's holding in her hands, which is Mamoru's.

So, just to be clear...Galaxia was able to immediately identify Mamoru as a true star seed and personally took the time time to take his, but for some reason sent out a series of weaker enslaved Sailor Guardians to seek out the rest? ...Well, utterly contrived as it is, it got Mamoru out of the picture and gave us Seiya instead, so I guess that's alright.

So Chibi-Chibi, whom is presumably the Light of Hope since she didn't turn out to be Princess Kaguya, basically brought all of them in there just for our girls to get murdered, then teleport them back out? Why didn't she just...teleport all of them out BEFORE Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako got killed?

Why do these dummies keep splitting up? Eh, not that it really matters, I know this show - everyone will 'fight' until they suddenly won't and then will still stand around and talk and then get burnt to a crisp. That's the Sailor Moon way!

Yep, that's literally just what happened. They were all standing around talking, then Galaxia burned them all and they didn't try to move out of the way. Classic Sailor Moon.

Okay, I sincerely hope Haruka and Michiru know something that will make this not completely stupid, otherwise this is...uh, completely, truly, stunningly stupid.

Episode 198:

Spoiler

lmao, Haruka and Michiru's betrayal against Galaxia was so completely and utterly contrived, but...I'll accept it.

LMAO, their dying words:
"Please took good care of her, our princess is such a crybaby..."
"She sure is..."

I can kind of see KP's problem with Usagi here - kind of. It would be less annoying if how she was talking about and relating to everything wasn't so...self-centered? So many "I lost"s and "don't leave me"s from her while she kinda just sits around with her head down pathetically...I get it. Not as bad as Shinji, but I get it. Also, it's kind of weird how she's just been clinging to Chibi-Chibi for like the last...3 or 4 episodes - that doesn't help her image here any, .

Heh, their reactions to her saying the Legendary Sailor Guardian was herself.

Episode 199:

Spoiler

"Why do people always insist on trying to solve everything on their own?" beats me, bro - guess it's because it makes for more interesting shows

Wait, Galaxia could be overpowered by three people attacking at once? What the hell, guys, I told you to stop splitting up and standing around and talking! Imagine if all...uh, wait, let me, uh, let me count you guys up...5...8...10...12...yes, twelve...no, wait, I forgot Chibi-Chibi, so thirteen actually, imagine if all thirteen of you had attacked at once!

Episode 200, The End of Anime:

Spoiler

I'm feeling kind of personally attacked right now that Galaxia had like...perfect empress short hair when she was evil and then instantly gets absurd anime long hair when she turns good.

"You're not alone, Usagi...but you are naked." Slightly re-written by me there.

"You saved this world all on your own...by having faith in others." Hah, well don't that beat all?

Luna to Yaten:

That was a nice callback. lmao at Usagi friend-zoning Seiya. I mean, it makes sense, but boy, that's brutal - no wonder he has to leave.

The terrible animation for this season seriously hurts some of its moments, like with Usagi and Mamoru at the end here, haha.

Oh yeah, the original theme song - good call bringing that back one last time, guys. Though...the OG (and correct) end theme song is Heart Moving, IMO: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ys0os4d8i1deo87/Heart Moving (TV Size).flac

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Episode 200, The End of Anime:

  Hide contents

I'm feeling kind of personally attacked right now that Galaxia had perfect short hair when she's evil and instantly gets absurd anime long hair when she turns good.

"You're not alone, Usagi...but you are naked." Slightly re-written by me there.

"You saved this world all on your own...by having faith in others." Hah, well don't that beat all?

Luna to Yaten:

That was a nice callback. lmao at Usagi friend-zoning Seiya. I mean, it makes sense, but boy, that's brutal - no wonder he has to leave.

The terrible animation for this season seriously hurts some of its moments, like with Usagi and Mamoru at the end here, haha.

Oh yeah, the original theme song - good call bringing that back, guys.

That's so true, we can sit here and debate how bad the relationship between Mamoru and Usagi is or isn't, how it was intended, what was changed over from the source material and whatever else about it, but one thing is for sure: That final scene sure deserved to be done by someone else. It's even weirder because, while the character models are the same, the prior scene on the rooftop looks much better with its moody sunset lighting.

I still remember the subtitles for the scene where the girls talk about how Usagi never told them anything, and Rei - in our subs - says: "I can't believe that she never said anything, I feel horrible!" and I just checked the dub, Rei is wondering why Usagi didn't confide in her sooner (not them, her specifically). Sure would be interesting to see what the original Japanese said, but from what I recall "That, ..." is a more common turn of phrase with different meanings based on inflection and context. Subs (and by extension, some dubs) sometimes really are an issue when they become too literal.

"What am I not getting, Ami?"

If that scene hadn't made me laugh the way it did I would complain about it. I mean, Rei outright tells her to tell Seiya she's not interested. Usagi can be airheaded and obtuse at times, but not like this.

Haruka and Michiru should have wished for writers that wouldn't have needed their forced conflict to make the ending work.

SU stuff:

Spoiler

Huh, look at that, now that you mention it, the Star Seeds in their bubbles, how did I miss that? Forest and trees, I guess. Guess I got too hung up on the thematic stuff to notice the obvious ones.

Oh, and by the way:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Regarding that why and how did Galaxia know Mamoru would have a Star Seed but not the others, I think that was supposed to be because he has Earth's Star Seed. Not entirely sure, it's just a plot point that wasn't really thought through... like so many of them.

What did you think of the finale compared to other season endings?

  

7 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

SU. Pearl ran from the cops. Reminder me of this from the Boondocks.

I'm disappointed, not even a single tree in this painting. Just TREE on the license plate doesn't cut it.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

boondocks: what the hell did I just wwatch lol

 

Show ran just past midnight here. I used to stay up super late just to watch it when I was younger. Bob Ross is just awesome. So many episodes, and he makes the same "beating the devil out of the brush" joke every time and laughs about it.

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Oh, I know who Bob Ross is and I'm familiar with that show, but what the actual hell was he doing in that anime show...and running away from and shooting up cops? Don't remember hearing about that part of his life, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I still remember the subtitles for the scene where the girls talk about how Usagi never told them anything, and Rei - in our subs - says: "I can't believe that she never said anything, I feel horrible!" and I just checked the dub, Rei is wondering why Usagi didn't confide in her sooner (not them, her specifically). Sure would be interesting to see what the original Japanese said, but from what I recall "That, ..." is a more common turn of phrase with different meanings based on inflection and context. Subs (and by extension, some dubs) sometimes really are an issue when they become too literal.

I guess Ronaldo was right. The fight over subs and dubs indeed seem pointless...although for completely different reasons than when he mentioned it. Subs are just as liable to be as poorly or imprecisely written as dubs are, so just go with whichever one you like better, . Well, unless it pulls a Sailor Moon and just decided to inexplicably censor and/or rewrite characters, plots, and dialogues, I guess...in which case, you of course have to go with that version, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Haruka and Michiru should have wished for writers that wouldn't have needed their forced conflict to make the ending work.

No kidding. They were perfectly fine outside of those circumstances...unfortunately, that's by and large when they most showed up, particularly outside of S.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

What did you think of the finale compared to other season endings?

Hm, I'm not too big on any of the finales of the show, to be honest. I think my favorites would be between season 1 and this, though? If I'm not mistaken, I was somewhat mentally checked out with R's and S's endings, and obviously SUPER checked out with SuperS's. Ironically, I think...I think the filler arc of this season had the best finale of any arc? That's probably because the arc overall was pretty short and sweet and felt like it advanced at the proper pace without too much pointless/bad fighting, crying, standing around, over-explanation, repetition, or...other wastes of time that are kind of endemic to Sailor Moon finales, . That's usually my problem with these finales: if you want to get rid of all the fun stuff in exchange of severity and disaster, that's fine, but you're going to have to hit the mark just right. Characters need to not act totally unreasonably/stupidly - this happened in...maybe only the very first season, I think? It seems like somebody(s) is always being an annoying dummy in these finales for added forced conflict, and it unfortunately just never works or feels right to me. It also needs to be kept moving and not keep dwelling on the same points or repeating the same beats (I don't know if any season finales qualify for this - this show likes to drive home its themes and ideas over and over during its important story/finale episodes until you are practically beaten into submission with them, ). It should also have good and understandable character motivations and moments, even if they aren't fun or funny...I THINK seasons 1 and 5 probably best exemplify this trait, which is probably why they'd be my favorites. Suffice to say, the finales of this show have...tended to have SOME individual good points and moments, but they were never the crown jewels - not by far - of their seasons for me.

And in the Sailor Stars filler arc, in addition to its other good points unique to it, we actually get to directly see Mamoru get corrupted and be taken away in the way that he was and that was actually pretty compelling and sensible stuff compared to most other Sailor Moon villainy, and Nehellenia herself was a fairly decent villain overall. She didn't seem as completely lazy, silly, or impotent/incompetent compared to most of the rest (ironic after how she was in SuperS, where she was all of those...both in intentional and unintentional ways). She wasn't as fun or wacky as The Professor, but then again, The Professor wasn't the ultimate villain of S, so that's not a fair comparison anyways. It also came directly after the ending of SuperS, which I'm sure helped...and speaking of SuperS, the absolute worst is SuperS, of course - it's literally ALL of the bad things I mentioned, then you throw in the fact that it came at the end of an already not good season and one of the focal characters being, well, You-Know-Who, and yeah, bleh.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh, I know who Bob Ross is and I'm familiar with that show, but what the actual hell was he doing in that anime show...and running away from and shooting up cops? Don't remember hearing about that part of his life, .

Who knows, I mean, look at this hairdo, there's a little black criminal just waiting to burst out. /racism reference to the BLM discussion in the political thread

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I guess Ronaldo was right. The fight over subs and dubs indeed seem pointless...although for completely different reasons than when he mentioned it. Subs are just as liable to be as poorly or imprecisely written as dubs are, so just go with whichever one you like better, . Well, unless it pulls a Sailor Moon and just decided to inexplicably censor and/or rewrite characters, plots, and dialogues, I guess...in which case, you of course have to go with that version, .

It's pretty funny, but was also a major disservice to the anime, I'd say.

Dub changes can be really interesting, I think we've talked about that before, there are films with Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill that were turned into comedies (they were always supposed to be funny or parodies, but not like that) in the German dubs, and they were hugely popular. There's a fun anecdote where one of the directors once said they had to reshoot a scene with a little stunt several times, and the one time the stunt landed properly the actor involved forgot his lines, and started to cry.

Director supposedly asked why, and the actor said: After all these tries, now I forgot what I was supposed to say. And the director just went: "Don't worry, the Germans will fix this in the dub."

To explain that a bit, these movies were actually shot without having any given original script and dialogue language. They always featured actors that only spoke either German, Italian, English or Spanish and often couldn't even talk to each other. So they just had stand-in dialogue, even the Italian "originals" were mostly dubbed. I have no idea how the films turned out to be this good, considering what a mess producing them must have been.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

No kidding. They were perfectly fine outside of those circumstances...unfortunately, that's by and large when they most showed up, particularly outside of S.

It's another one of the manga holdovers that should have just been left out. The are suspicious of the newcomers in the manga up until they realize they are fellow Sailor Senshi too (and not of the bad kind). Like everything that happens as story beat in the manga, Sailor Stars carried that with them until the very end.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Hm, I'm not too big on any of the finales of the show, to be honest. I think my favorites would be between season 1 and this, though? If I'm not mistaken, I was somewhat mentally checked out with R's and S's endings, and obviously SUPER checked out with SuperS's. Ironically, I think...I think the filler arc of this season had the best finale of any arc? That's probably because the arc overall was pretty short and sweet and felt like it advanced at the proper pace without too much pointless/bad fighting, crying, standing around, over-explanation, repetition, or...other wastes of time that are kind of endemic to Sailor Moon finales, .

There are two times the writers were able to make up their own storylines - the R and Sailor Stars filler arcs. The R filler arc has a one and a half episode resolution that wasn't bad, but not really anything special either, even though it was - and that is something I remember really clearly - the very thing that really got me into Sailor Moon back when it first aired. Back then I expected that a superhero show, even if it were all girls, would just burn down the tree and be done with it. But no, they just loved it away.

In a way, while I really fell in love with the show again, the parts that I thought were the best kind of weren't any more, i.e. Hotaru's arc in S and the filler arc of R.

The Stars filler arc was pretty good, yes, and not just because it followed SuperS. It was also written by the same two guys that made most of the final six episodes. It looks like every single season past the first one had the same problem at the end - being tethered to the source material and the writers doing what they possibly could do with it, with middling success.

I wonder if there were contractual obligations to fulfill. I can see Toei demanding that every epsiode has a fight scene because studios are sometimes like that, but I don't see why they thought they'd need to stick with the manga storyline framework and try to make it work in every season past the first one. S and Stars deviated relatively much anyway, but the holdovers are still there and drag it down. Or maybe they were just scared of the bad rep because the changes didn't sit so well with Ms. Takeuchi.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That's usually my problem with these finales: if you want to get rid of all the fun stuff in exchange of severity and disaster, that's fine, but you're going to have to hit the mark just right. Characters need to not act totally unreasonably/stupidly - this happened in...maybe only the very first season, I think? It seems like somebody(s) is always being an annoying dummy in these finales for added forced conflict, and it unfortunately just never works or feels right to me. It also needs to be kept moving and not keep dwelling on the same points or repeating the same beats (I don't know if any season finales qualify for this - this show likes to drive home its themes and ideas over and over during its important story/finale episodes until you are practically beaten into submission with them, ). It should also have good and understandable character motivations and moments, even if they aren't fun or funny...I THINK seasons 1 and 5 probably best exemplify this trait. Suffice to say, the finales of this show have...tended to have SOME individual good points and moments, but they were never the crowning moments - not by far - of their seasons for me.

I think repeating the themes is there because it was, at least, supposed to be a show for kids and (early) teenagers. I'm not sure it was at any point past R, but that's a different topic.

Season one's finale is objectively, and that means as objective as you can get, the best. It's the most concise, doesn't suffer from pacing issues, gives everyone something suitably impressive to do - even Ami, I mean, don't get me wrong, her defensive power was often the only reason they managed to get out of problematic situations, but making her do something important on her own that was still completely in character for her was pretty great - and has some much needed and major character development for Usagi.

S had the Professor, but his storyline and the actual story ending wasn't part of any character examination or had themes, they were just a backdrop against which the philosophical conflinct between the Outer and the Inner Guardians played out. It made the season much stronger overall, but it left the finale without the same impact that the first or last season had.

Sailor Stars feels like they tried to have a big, interesting ending with a much larger thematic exploration than usual, but it didn't work out so well due to pacing issues and the disjointed nature of them teleporting around hither and tither, and everyone dying on their own was in there to make a point about working together, but it felt so... forced and contrived. I really liked the final episode, so I'd agree and put it down as the second best ending of a season. As far as series endings go, this wasn't so bad. KP is right, a nice breather episode and better pacing before would have been good, but can't have everything.

As far as crowning moments go, for longer running shows, I'm more than happy with endings that aren't completely terrible. There's no need for them to be the crowning achievement. It's great when it happens, but really rare anyway.

SU spoilers:

Spoiler

Rushed as it came about, the Steven Universe finale is a better version of Sailor Stars', I think. White and Galaxia are defeated by Stevagi (sorry Connie ) in really similar ways after rejecting force as a way to solve things (albeit that happend directly in the finale with the sword, and earlier in Steven Universe with the Breaking Point).

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

And in the Sailor Stars filler arc, in addition to its other good points unique to it, we actually get to directly see Mamoru get corrupted and be taken away in the way that he was and that was actually pretty compelling and sensible stuff compared to most other Sailor Moon villainy, and Nehellenia herself was a fairly decent villain overall. She didn't seem as completely lazy, silly, or impotent/incompetent compared to most of the rest (ironic after how she was in SuperS, where she was all of those...both in intentional and unintentional ways). She wasn't as fun or wacky as The Professor, but then again, The Professor wasn't the ultimate villain of S, so that's not a fair comparison anyways. It also came directly after the ending of SuperS, which I'm sure helped...and speaking of SuperS, the absolute worst is SuperS, of course - it's literally ALL of the bad things I mentioned, then you throw in the fact that it came at the end of an already not good season and one of the focal characters being, well, You-Know-Who, and yeah, bleh.

I remember we were talking about making top episode lists after being finished watching Sailor Moon, and then wondering how I would even come up with a top 5 episodes of SuperS. There are three episodes I can come up with that were good, for different reasons, and a few half-decent ones that wouldn't even be on a short list in any other season. There's the dentist episode, which was really fun and found something where Usagi and Chibi-Usa worked together in a non-obnoxious way that very much felt like a season one episode without forgoing characer development or adding inane amounts of fighting over Mamoru or anything else, and Ami's and Rei's power ups.

The half decent ones would be either the maturity festival episode or the other power up episode, or maybe one of the first few. They're all not quite there. I know you have some problems with Minako being completely crappy to Makoto (why is it really always Makoto? ), but that could have been a nice episode.

SuperS has also some funny episodes that would otherwise not be so bad, but simply being in SuperS made them horrible. Like the episode where the girls are trying to find out who Chibi-Usa's boyfriend is. That would have been much funnier without the albino rhino. That scene where Mamoru and Chibi-Usa are in the restaurant and everyone's creeping ever closer under cover was pretty nice. Kind of like that totally insane shot of everyone hiding behind the waitress with Rei looking for them.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

what the hell did I just wwatch lol

An art teacher bonding with his student and protecting him from harm.

5 hours ago, majestic said:

I'm disappointed, not even a single tree in this painting. Just TREE on the license plate doesn't cut it.

Its because they didn't get the chance to finish.

[InsaneCommander]

13 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Episode 197:

  Hide contents

Galaxia seems to have just heavily implied that Mamoru himself is a Sailor Guardian with her talk about how only Sailor Guardians have true star seeds like...well, like the one she's holding in her hands, which is Mamoru's.

 

This could have gone like this:

Spoiler

 

Galaxia: Mamoru is also a Sailor Guardian.

Haruka: What!? You can be a Sailor Guardian and wear pants?

 

 

13 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Episode 197:

  Hide contents

Galaxia seems to have just heavily implied that Mamoru himself is a Sailor Guardian with her talk about how only Sailor Guardians have true star seeds like...well, like the one she's holding in her hands, which is Mamoru's.

 

They actually

Spoiler

turned their backs to her and she didn't take advantage of that.

 

Btw, let's not forget that

Spoiler

Chibi Chibi was the only one ever to knock down a monster without even transforming.

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[Bartimaeus]

10 hours ago, majestic said:

Who knows, I mean, look at this hairdo, there's a little black criminal just waiting to burst out. /racism reference to the BLM discussion in the political thread

 

Spoiler

Hey, I still have my Bruce and Skarpen superfilters if you need them, .

 

10 hours ago, majestic said:

a major disservice to the anime

Like the episode where the girls are trying to find out who Chibi-Usa's boyfriend is

Agree to disagree, . And speaking of...

If/when I ever watch Sailor Moon again, it's gonna be the original English dub. ...Except I'm going to have to skip a lot of at least the first season, because Molly (Naru) has the absolute worst voice I've ever heard in my life, and ain't no way I'm sitting through all of that during her Nephrite arc.

I have problems with accents, especially when they're as bad as this on a voice that's like the complete opposite of new Naru.

10 hours ago, majestic said:

There are two times the writers were able to make up their own storylines - the R and Sailor Stars filler arcs. The R filler arc has a one and a half episode resolution that wasn't bad, but not really anything special either, even though it was - and that is something I remember really clearly - the very thing that really got me into Sailor Moon back when it first aired. Back then I expected that a superhero show, even if it were all girls, would just burn down the tree and be done with it. But no, they just loved it away.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the R filler arc too, now that you mention it. While the ending of it isn't necessarily anything to write home about, it was, once again, at least fairly short compared to everything that's not the Sailor Stars filler arc finale or the season 1 finale, so it's automatically up there as well as a result.

10 hours ago, majestic said:

Season one's finale is objectively, and that means as objective as you can get, the best. It's the most concise, doesn't suffer from pacing issues, gives everyone something suitably impressive to do - even Ami, I mean, don't get me wrong, her defensive power was often the only reason they managed to get out of problematic situations, but making her do something important on her own that was still completely in character for her was pretty great - and has some much needed and major character development for Usagi.

I'd say so. The whole way it actually resolves with Queen Beryl and stuff isn't particularly better or anything than other arcs, but besides that it is more concise, less repetitive, and gives things to do for all five girls, so it kind of wins by default.

10 hours ago, majestic said:

As far as crowning moments go, for longer running shows, I'm more than happy with endings that aren't completely terrible. There's no need for them to be the crowning achievement. It's great when it happens, but really rare anyway.

No kidding: most shows have somewhere between very mediocre and utterly lousy endings. SU's a little strange in that most of its major story arcs usually had good to great build-up all the way to their ends, but then the final moment that would finally resolve the story arc had a tendency to feel...kind of flat and anti-climactic, in a sort of "oh, I guess that just happened" kind of way. I think the Cluster finale in S2/beginning of S3 best exemplifies this - literally just about everything leading up to the end moment was awesome, but the end moment itself where the Cluster just decides to take care of itself was totally deflating to me after all of that build-up, .

11 hours ago, majestic said:

SuperS has also some funny episodes that would otherwise not be so bad, but simply being in SuperS made them horrible.

Or the episode where Minako does her double-date, which is actually a fantastic use of the Amazon Trio...............um, right up until the end of the episode where it's not so funny anymore for reasons I don't want to talk about, . Ami's beach episode was also quite good...once again, right up until it wasn't. Like I said way back when, there were actually good ideas and even villains buried somewhere in SuperS - even the Amazon Trio could've been a hilarious group of bad guys with a little retooling. Unfortunately, buried they were indeed, and very deep at that. And there was, quite frankly, no way to save the horse romance plot - Ms. Takeuchi really dropped and then shattered the ball on that one, .

2 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Chibi Chibi was the only one ever to knock down a monster without even transforming.

Is that actually true? I could swear...I thought Makoto might have knocked one down at some point without transforming, but I guess I can't recall for sure if that's the case. Hotaru KILLED one without transforming, the shell lady that tried to help her in the Sailor Utena (S328) episode...but that doesn't really count given her, uh, personal problems at the time, .

[InsaneCommander]

22 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Is that actually true? I could swear...I thought Makoto might have knocked one down at some point without transforming, but I guess I can't recall for sure if that's the case. Hotaru KILLED one without transforming, the shell lady that tried to help her in the Sailor Utena (S328) episode...but that doesn't really count given her, uh, personal problems at the time, .

You are correct. Makoto did it first. And Hotaru... is Hotaru.

[Amentep]

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Season IV: Eternal the Movie picked up by Netflix.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

If/when I ever watch Sailor Moon again, it's gonna be the original English dub

You're a brave person.

Who isn't a brave person is Jerknaldo, who got me to dislike him in the Rock People episode. There was also some stuff about rescuing Greg from a zoo and more Pink Diamond, as well as the duo of Lapis and Peridot who I just enjoy seeing together. I also ended up watching the Onion Gang......which was not expected.

6 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Season IV: Eternal the Movie picked up by Netflix.

I guess @majestic is going to lose his mind on or shortly after June 3rd.

Edited April 28, 2021 by ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Season IV: Eternal the Movie picked up by Netflix.

Oh, now you've done it. Look at what you did. Look at it! Now @majestic has to do it all over again. How could you do this to him?

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

I also ended up watching the Onion Gang......which was not expected.

There's one good moment towards the end when Steven realizes it's not Onion but actually himself that's the one with no friends close to his age, but that's about it.

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

the duo of Lapis and Peridot who I just enjoy seeing together

You and everyone else, .

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Who isn't a brave person is Jerknaldo, who got me to dislike him in the Rock People episode.

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

There was also some stuff about rescuing Greg from a zoo

Now I can finally post this: (removed because related videos spoilers pop up, whoops)

Okay, uploaded to my dropbox instead: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/76ndwfzx9iiqpiq/You rePEARLsted in the Wrong Neighborhood-yH1-dR_dfNs.mkv

Edited April 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So about Pearl

Spoiler

So Andy, we hear you like marriage.....so we thought why don't we all marry each other! And if that's not human enough for you, we can through in a little beeing booooooorn and some dyyyyying. We tried to cover as many celebrations in the human lifespan as we could.

lmao this show slaps