Anime - coasting on emotion rollers

[majestic]

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Steven Universe the Movie. It was pretty good. I'll try and write more later, but I'm feeling lethargic and typing is very difficult to do right now.

Both surprised and not surprised at the same time. Once the lethargy is over, do you think the character moments in the movie outweigh the plot holes? Because they are plentiful in this one. Enough for a Cinema Sins episode. Not that I watch their videos, I just know of them through Mike and Jay often complaining about them - as a stand-in for all these YouTube channels.

40 minutes ago I noticed that Attack No. 1 is on Amazon Prime Video. I have just finished the first two episodes, because I couldn't help myself. I loved watching this when it first aired and haven't seen it since, in spite of not really liking either volleyball or even sports anime. Similar to Sailor Moon in being a first in a genre, sort of, Attack No. 1 was pretty much the first sports shojo anime. It is from 1969 and it shows - both in the animation and the themes present in the anime, regarding late 60ies social dynamics at Japanese schools, the behaviour of the teachers and the coaches.

There's also the issue that the first, say, 15 or so episodes have a really meandering start. The animation doesn't improve over time, at least, not as far as I remember, but we're talking about a 52 year old anime now that, like many of its contemporaries, had troubled production, insane time constraints and not much of a budget.

There are many, many, many one star ratings on Amazon for this, citing violence as the primary reason for the low rating. Indeed, the anime comes with an age warning and a higher rating than usual for anime that was originally dubbed for our afternoon kid's entertainment programs - precisely because of the violence. There's no sugarcoating this, it's even directly present in the opening sequence:

 

The coaches all pretty much emotionally and physically abuse their athletes, sometimes to the point of them being battered, bloody and unconscious, and unless I'm entirely mistaken Kozue Ayuhara (in our dub Mila Ayuhara, so, should Mila slip through somehow at some point, keep that in mind) does get a slap or two by her friend Tsutomu (there's a budding romance going on, but... see spoiler below), which is framed as it was: Normal in that day and age. Not that the girls are any better when they fight amongst each other. They do happily slap each other just as much as the coaches clobber them with balls, right from the start.

If this is viewed through the lens of modern sensibility one would easily arrive at a one star rating too, on the other hand, all this did is show the reality of professional level sports training and the cruel competitiveness of Japanese schools in the late sixties. The matches themselves are, as usual for sports anime, not realistic. They start out okay-ish but become progressively worse the longer the show ran (it has 104 episodes, 101 of which aired here). The girls do have special moves at times that are magical in nature, and  eventually Kozue and her team become world champions. Pretty much because she's perfected a volleyball strike that has the ball cut 90° corners in flight. She can also hit balls in a way so they become invisible, and one of the teams they play against in the world championship move so fast they become a blur.

Here's a fun collection of what's going on:

This is one part sports anime, and one part shojo. Unlike Sailor Moon, which is very comedic when it comes to the shojo parts, this isn't. It follows Kozue and her regular teenager problems, and the problems that come from her intense ambition to become, well... the world's best volleyball player. What really is like Sailor Moon on the other hand is that the sports anime part isn't really interesting. I mean, the games themselves aren't. Kozue's ambition driving everyone to its limits is interesting to see. The invisible balls that cut corners in flight aren't so much. Just look at that ridiculous collection above. Heh.

It begins with her moving to Fujimi (from Tokyo, where she was a model student at an elite junior high school who does, however, not spend any effort on studying) at the age of 12 because the air in Fujimi is more conducive to her recuperating from a resperatory illness than Tokyo's smog ridden streets. Not knowing anyone, she befriends a group of outcasts that are bad students and have trouble with authority figures (the teachers, that is). She soon finds herself the target of viscious rumors and forming a volleyball team out of her little clique of troublemakers. She wants to win against the school's established team, and begins playing again.

Spoiler (not that I think it's necessary, it's 52 years old and I don't even know if there's a way to watch it with subs, as far as I know there's no English dub):

Spoiler

Kozue hits rock bottom when Tsutomu is invovled in an accident and lying in the hospital in critical condition. Unfazed, she decides to finish a game instead of rushing off to see him, and he dies before she can get to the hospital afterwards. The following epsiodes deal with her depression, she has violent mood swings and even stops doing the one thing she really loves - playing volleyball.

She only begins to play again after she reads Tsutomu's journal where he expresses his love and admiration for her and her desire to become the best volleyball player.

Mostly going from memory here. Parts might be exaggerated, others understated, but there's no hyperbole. At least, no intentional hyperbole. It's really that brutal, particularily for an anime aimed at pre to early teenage girls.

Edit: I should note, maybe, that I was 11 when this first aired and I watched it. Right age group for a change, still the wrong gender, but there's also a shonen anime that I watched and liked, which I might also talk about soonish, about, well... uhm a teenage Robin Hood. It's much less ridiculous than it sounds, really. Or at least... I think it was. Hm.

Edited May 2, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

Goblin Slayer 1-6

 

I totally missed the “viewer discretion advised” in the first episode and so was taken by surprise.

 

Spoiler

 

The goblins in this series brutally kill and torture low level adventurers that go after them. And if they are girls they are raped. That includes the frequently mentioned kidnapped girls. Although there are no explicit scenes of it, the first episode gets close to that, with goblins tearing some girls clothes apart and getting ready to do it. Later episodes include plenty of references. When the characters were discussing where do goblins come from, I was glad there was no definitive answer, because

Spoiler

I’m not sure I ever saw a female goblin. But maybe they all look the same.

 

 

Despite that, it is a pretty good anime with lots of fun references to rpgs, like adventurers being anything from lawful good to chaotic evil and some explicitly saying that they need to get experience to level up.

[Bartimaeus]

Spoiler

10 hours ago, majestic said:

It's also really relatable insofar as that's something I've heard the few times I actually tried to actually talk to people about problems with others. Everything from "Just man up" to "punch back!" as if that was an option (even from girls, this is so deepinly ingrained in society that it'll stay for a while yet I'm afraid). Like I said before, even from the on time I talked to a teacher about it, after the chewing gum in my hair incident. My go-to solution was to do a Rei there, and just be silent about everything. In a way that's toxic too. Also somewhat masculine, right? Tought it out alone. Yep*.

Definitely toxic...for yourself, .

10 hours ago, majestic said:

The Steven Universe fandom sounds really bad. How can you like this show and think that they would be a good couple? That's as baffling as watching Steven Universe and wanting Steven to keep the Breaking Point and start killing Jasper and the Diamonds. Guys, are we watching the same show?

Yeah, I don't really...ergh. Sections of the fanbase focusing on and obsessing with specific weirdities that they want the show to conform to. I guess that's kind of normal for every show with a following, but it feels especially weird for SU because one, it's such a character and character relations-focused show so naturally that's the sort of thing that fans are going to heavily obsess about, and two, it's still nominally a children's show even if much of the known audience is adults. The first factor will always be weird and uncomfortable for any show because the neanderthals and straight-up weirdos will come out of the woodworks to constantly mouth-vomit what they think will happen and how they feel characters should be and just speculate on everything based on the smallest hints (real or imagined), but then combining it with the second factor, the fact that it's a kids show, makes it all especially weird.

10 hours ago, majestic said:

That also relates to the Final Finale of The End of Evangelion. I'm not sure the implication there is so great. It's supposed - at least I guess - to demonstrate that Asuka understands Shinji now, that Shinji also does something similar with her, and that now means they have a future. What? Please guys, you can stay friends if you want now that you understand each other, but keep a distance. You two are clearly not healthy for each other.

I certainly hope not - Asuka deserves way better than that after everything she went through, including him letting her literally get ripped to shreds, .

10 hours ago, majestic said:

It's not fine for Head!Six and Head!Gaius being literal angels that confirm the existence of a creator God in the final episode of a gritty TV show that dealt with genocide survivors and their trials and tribulations while running for their lives for four seasons.

lmao, okay, well - while I don't mind spirituality/religion when combined with sci-fi, something like THAT where it becomes like an actual important point in the show sounds cheap as hell.

10 hours ago, majestic said:

I sometimes find myself thinking a certain statement that I quickly swallow and pretend it never came to my mind. It's "Please stop complaining and suffer in silence, as I have." - as Rei does. It certainly is less annoying to watch, but it's way better to either Shinji or Asuka it in or out (does that make sense?). It's particularily bad when that happens to be because it often comes unbidden as an of course unsaid reply when people tell me about problems. Often at work when people complain about something they have to do but don't want to, but also about private problems, with friends, family and indeed even my wife. #dealwithit

Stoic acceptance of everything and trying to conform to what is needed and necessary looks good, but it's not something anyone should strive for. It makes for a more interesthing character to follow on the screen, but it's just as bad a way of dealing with problems as the other two are - compounded when you inwardly Shinji yourself off from everything. Although I'm not sure Rei doesn't do just that too.

It's one of the few things that eventually worked. If you appear unbothered enough by everything, people will stop trying to bother you. They're also not every likely to try an associate with you (much like when the other two of the idiot trio talk about Rei), but that's for the best. I mean, it isn't, but it beats being hurt, at least up until the point where the inner loneliness exceeds that feeling.

It is what I by far and large meant when I said Rei is too close for comfort. At least Rei II. Because Rei III did something I wouldn't have done there at the end - rejecting Gendo. But hey, as you've said, "ah, well..."

Makes sense, and it's hard to disagree. But as I've said a few times now, what is a relatable character and what is a character I like and what is an actual person that I like can all be three vastly different things for me... Shinji is a character that I relate to but don't want to relate to, and he is a character that I'll never be able to like, .

Attack Number One sounds pretty brutal. However, one thing I don't think you covered in your post was whether you ENJOYED the two episodes you just watched. Was it any good?

37 minutes ago, majestic said:

Spoiler (not that I think it's necessary, it's 52 years old and I don't even know if there's a way to watch it with subs, as far as I know there's no English dub):

Surprisingly, there are decent quality blurays of this (well, at least it's an actual bluray-quality transfer - i.e. not terrible upscales a la the Sailor Moon blurays).

Spoiler

...The bluray download I found was 600 GB-plus raw bluray dumps. Ye gods.

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

38 minutes ago, majestic said:

Once the lethargy is over, do you think the character moments in the movie outweigh the plot holes?

Yes. I've got a headache but I'll do my best to explain. I've also watched a large block of SU Future, but I'll probably talk about that later.

Spoiler

So to start with it's a musical, which is a slightly different take on Steven Universe but not out of bounds. There's not really much else to say here. The show itself feels like it could have been a condensed plot in the show, which isn't a bad thing. Arguably it's a good thing because it's still very much Steven Universe. As are the songs themselves.

I've watched 200 episodes of Sailor Moon, 5 seasons of SU, and we both like a show with a cyborg nazi and an Aztec gym god vampire throuple. I don't care about plot holes so long as the ride is fun. And the SU movie was fun. I was engrossed the whole time whether it was Spinel aping retro American cartoons, Stegg shredding a double headed guitar, Steven trying to get his aunts' memories back, or pulling a Usagi (again!) on a giant drill filled with a toxic chemical. It was a good enough time to make me stop giving a **** about any potholes and enjoy the movie. Maybe if I rewatched it I would be more focused on plot holes, but that ain't going to happen for a long time.

Now the character moments were all done well imo. But we've seen most of their beats in the show already and I'm really to tired to go into that much detail right now. Spinel was different and I did feel really bad for her, maybe not enough to approve of her destroying the SU Earth tho. The way Pink Diamond/Rose abandoned her just showed a huge disregard for Spinel as a person, which is to be expected from the Gem society. But we're talking about someone who rebelled against Gem society here, and not even sending Spinel a message over 5000+ years was just cruel. This was made all the worse by when Steven got what he wanted from Spinel (after restoring her memories by retraumatizing her), he just ignored her to focus on his closest friends. Now we know that Steven isn't a bad guy, but Spinel's response does make as much sense as anything in this show. It really does hurt to feel like people only want you when you're doing something for them. I guess what I'm saying here is that Spinel is a really good SU villain, arguably the best so far because when you get down to it she's not a space dictator or evil soldier or corrupted monster, but a sad woman who got her heart broken by someone she had only cared for. If anyone deserved the love blast, it was her.

That's all I have to say at the moment.

 

35 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Goblin Slayer 1-6

 

I totally missed the “viewer discretion advised” in the first episode and so was taken by surprise.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The goblins in this series brutally kill and torture low level adventurers that go after them. And if they are girls they are raped. That includes the frequently mentioned kidnapped girls. Although there are no explicit scenes of it, the first episode gets close to that, with goblins tearing some girls clothes apart and getting ready to do it. Later episodes include plenty of references. When the characters were discussing where do goblins come from, I was glad there was no definitive answer, because

  Hide contents

I’m not sure I ever saw a female goblin. But maybe they all look the same.

 

 

Despite that, it is a pretty good anime with lots of fun references to rpgs, like adventurers being anything from lawful good to chaotic evil and some explicitly saying that they need to get experience to level up.

Sounds like it's a little tame compared to the manga, where it is more explicit. I haven't read it in a while though, because it just isn't for me.

Spoiler

Lore spoilers

Spoiler

There are no female goblins, they reproduce solely by raping women they capture.

 

 

[majestic]

38 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Attack Number One sounds pretty brutal. However, one thing I don't think you covered in your post was whether you ENJOYED the the two couple of episodes you just watched. Was it any good?

One very quick reply before I'm off to sleep (4 am, again, and next week will be really fun at work too, so yay, I'll reply more extensively after some sleep).

I have a really hard time answering the question. Did I enjoy the first two episodes? Yes and no. The first one was so-so, the second episode was decent, but everything before Kozue's future best friend forever Midori shows up is middling (this happens somewhat early, I think), and even then there are a couple of episode where the two have a rather unfriendly rivalry before they overcome their mutual antipathy and grow into being fast friends. This then really is when the anime picks up.

Similar to initially watching Sailor Moon, I've started watching this one after Midori and Kozue became friends, and caught the beginning of the anime in a rerun. I was surprised and a little taken aback at how Midori treated Kozue initially.

Fun fact: Tsutomu and Kozue are actually cousins... uhm, twice removed.

In conclusion:

Spoiler

If you want a recommendation for downloading 600GB of blu ray dumps for a 104 episode anime you might not like, then that's a tentative yes, I guess. I can tell you that I liked watching this very much, and it aired here four years before Sailor Moon came out (so that's 24 years after it first aired in Japan), and yes, I also had it taped occasionally as to not miss episodes. I'm guessing that's an endorsement through ridicule by others. The things I remember most clearly about this I already posted.

It's worth watching, I suppose, for historical reasons, if nothing else. Attack No. 1 was a watershed moment in anime in Japan. It's fair to say that there'd be no Sailor Moon without this (Attack No. 1 is something of the origin of really popular shojo anime aimed at teenagers, rather than much younger girls) - even if Ms. Takeuchi read a different volleyball manga. While it first aired, it was one of the highest rated shows on Japanese TV - it even had an evenening prime time slot.

Edited May 2, 2021 by majestic

[majestic]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

  Hide contents

 

Definitely toxic...for yourself, .

 

Yeah, I don't really...ergh. Sections of the fanbase focusing on and obsessing with specific weirdities that they want the show to conform to. I guess that's kind of normal for every show with a following, but it feels especially weird for SU because one, it's such a character and character relations-focused show so naturally that's the sort of thing that fans are going to heavily obsess about, and two, it's still nominally a children's show even if much of the known audience is adults. The first factor will always be weird and uncomfortable for any show because the neanderthals and straight-up weirdos will come out of the woodworks to constantly mouth-vomit what they think will happen and how they feel characters should be and just speculate on everything based on the smallest hints (real or imagined), but then combining it with the second factor, the fact that it's a kids show, makes it all especially weird.

 

I certainly hope not - Asuka deserves way better than that after everything she went through, including him letting her literally get ripped to shreds, .

 

lmao, okay, well - while I don't mind spirituality/religion when combined with sci-fi, something like THAT where it becomes like an actual important point in the show sounds cheap as hell.

 

Makes sense, and it's hard to disagree. But as I've said a few times now, what is a relatable character and what is a character I like and what is an actual person that I like can all be three vastly different things for me... Shinji is a character that I relate to but don't want to relate to, and he is a character that I'll never be able to like, .

 

 

 

 

Look, quoting works again. That narrows it down to, I guess, an issue on the prior page. Maybe I made the thread kaputt with my Madoka post.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

  Hide contents

 

Definitely toxic...for yourself, .

 

Spoiler

 

It is. It's gotten a good deal better. I'll always be introverted, in the end. I notice this every time people talk about how the lockdowns affected them. For me, the one thing that bothers me is lacking some much needed external structure in my day, because I'm terrible at organizing myself. Professionally its missing out on what my colleagues do all day outside of the Teams calls we do, and how work has become associated with my home.

Interactions with people? Nope. Going out? No, not really doing that anyway. Partying? Clubs? Like hell. I avoided them like the plague before you could actually catch a plague there. I recently watched some more of Lindsey Ellis' video essays, and she often talks about how negatively the lockdown was affecting her. I just can't relate. This is both the root cause and a negative feedback loop of and for my social integration problems as a child. It was definitely there first though, and I don't think that will ever change. Nor do I really want it to (not any more, that is).

 

 

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

  Hide contents

Yeah, I don't really...ergh. Sections of the fanbase focusing on and obsessing with specific weirdities that they want the show to conform to. I guess that's kind of normal for every show with a following, but it feels especially weird for SU because one, it's such a character and character relations-focused show so naturally that's the sort of thing that fans are going to heavily obsess about, and two, it's still nominally a children's show even if much of the known audience is adults. The first factor will always be weird and uncomfortable for any show because the neanderthals and straight-up weirdos will come out of the woodworks to constantly mouth-vomit what they think will happen and how they feel characters should be and just speculate on everything based on the smallest hints (real or imagined), but then combining it with the second factor, the fact that it's a kids show, makes it all especially weird.

 

Spoiler

 

Indeed, it's a show for kids, so any themes present necessarily won't be mired in metaphor or filled with hidden meanings, but even for works that are, the fandom... well, take A Song of Ice and Fire, for instance. The two people who were given the task of supervising and helping with The World of Ice and Fire, Martin's (nominally, at least) world building book for the setting, Elio and Linda, are both extremely knowledgeable about the world and utterly obnoxious people who thought they were in possession of the one and only truth in the same way that religious nutjobs think they are, even before Martin and his editor further enabled them by making them part of the writing team for official ASOIAF material.

Well, why do I bother writing a paragraph like that when all I wanted to say is: Yes, I pretty much agree, and it fits with my experiences with "fandom" too. I'd like to say it used to be better, but it wasn't. Even in the olden days of the early world wide web this went on. X-Files and Sailor Moon, yeah, I already complained about that. A lot.

 

 

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

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I certainly hope not - Asuka deserves way better than that after everything she went through, including him letting her literally get ripped to shreds, .

 

 

Spoiler

It's not like she has alternatives here, does she. Nobody else appeared. Plus it's pretty telling that it is just the two of them: The two people on the show who wanted to connect to others but couldn't, with their diametrically opposed coping mechanisms are the first - potentially ONLY people to immediately get the hell out the moment all walls between people collapse. Good thing it's open to interpretation, but it really looks like Asuka is stuck with Shinji, and that's something she wanted (since Shinji started choking Asuka the moment he saw her, I... think she followed him after he left the gestalt being that mankind became after the Third Impact) even after everything that happened between them.

 

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

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lmao, okay, well - while I don't mind spirituality/religion when combined with sci-fi, something like THAT where it becomes like an actual important point in the show sounds cheap as hell.

 

Spoiler

 

Speaking of fandom, fans of this show excuse this by saying the show was always honest. In the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons take on human form and infiltrate the twelve colonies. One of them, only called "Six", portrayed by Tricia Helfer, seduces Gaius Baltar, who is responsible for designing software for the military-industrial complex. He lets her help with the software design and she adds a backdoor to the defense system that enables the Cylon to attack and destroy the Colonial defense force and almost wipe out humanity.

In order to cope with being responsible for the death of billions, Gaius develops his own coping mechanism in which he wasn't at fault for anything, and part of it is seeing and interacting with a mental projection of Six - hence the fan nickname Head!Six. Likewise, the actual first Six who seduced him actually has feelings for him and feels guilty about her role in everything, and begins seeing a mental projection of Gaius, i.e. Head!Gaius.

They're both shown to guide them, in ways, telling them information that they shouldn't know or enabling them to manipulate events in their favor, so Gaius Baltar is never really found out (and eventually even becomes elected president of the survivor group). Baltar, in the very beginning, asks Head!Six what she is. This exchange happens:
 

Quote

 

Doctor Gaius Baltar : Then who, or what... are you... exactly?

Number Six : I'm an angel of God sent here to protect you. To guide you. To love you.

Doctor Gaius Baltar : To what end?

Number Six : To the end of the human race.

 

The Cylons are monotheistic here, while humans have a polytheistic belief system loosely based on Greek mythology. This is plot point that goes nowhere, and was never meant allegorical or metaphorical or in any other way, other than perhap the obvious, how monotheistic believes supplanted our early polytheistic ones.

Now it bears to mention that the plot of show wasn't planned ahead, they came up with story ideas for two seasons, but then it ran for four and got mired in plot issues and not knowing where to go. Head!Six's explanation of what she is was a throwaway line, nothing more. You can see this lack of planning even in the Cylons themselves, there are supposed to be 12 human looking cylon models, but they accidentially messed up their count, and... what we really had were 13 models, with one benched model. Yay!

Until the finale, where it was shown that this exchange was meant literal. The humans and a group of Cylon rebels reach Earth - our Earth - roughly around the time when homo sapiens transitions from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle. They decide to join this group of humans and to leave the comforts of their technology behind. Thus, indeed, Gaius Baltar has lead the human race to its end.

Head!Six and Head!Baltar meet and can see each other. They talk about God, Gaius makes some comments and Six says: "Hey, you know, He doesn't like it when you talk like that."

The end.

Being called out on the BS they pulled, the writers doubled down on always having it intended this way (which is a very clear lie to excuse an otherwise really poor finale), and part of the fandom just went with is. THE SHOW WAS ALWAYS HONEST YOU ATHEISTS JUST HATE IT BECAUSE GOD. Yeah, right, nope. Nope.

So yes, in addition to making the Abrahamic god real, it was also a really poor finale, all in all. The best they could possibly come up with, given everything, but poor anyway.

Still, it's a show I can recommend for its exploration of the human condition for the first two seasons and the beginning of the third, which as a really interesting plot about the distinction between freedom fighters and terrorists, what is and isn't a collaborator (anyone who is not with us is against us?) and the merits of collective guilt vs. collective amnesty.

Plus it's incredibly riveting to watch that part, and Edward James Olmos does a fantastic job. It just falls apart after that. Warning, it is of course both sci-fi and also has male leads, even if the most masculine part of the show is played by Katee Sackoff. It's also really slowly paced (but in a good way), dark and gritty. Which was a good way back in 2004, nowadays that might feel differently. There's too much grimdark around these days.

Finally, last point: I don't mind faith and spirituality in sci-fi. I intensely dislike God being confirmed as real, and that only in sci-fi. It's a pet peeve of mine, really. I get that it doesn't bother most people, but it bugs me.

 

 

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

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Makes sense, and it's hard to disagree. But as I've said a few times now, what is a relatable character and what is a character I like and what is an actual person that I like can all be three vastly different things for me... Shinji is a character that I relate to but don't want to relate to, and he is a character that I'll never be able to like, .

 

Spoiler

I wasn't trying to endear Shinji to you, I don't like him myself, and I really don't think he should be liked. I also understand what you mean. If I came across Shinji in real life I'd probably instantly try to befriend him just to save him. Asuka and Misato too, obviously. Not sure about Rei though.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Spoiler

 

2 hours ago, majestic said:

even if the most masculine part of the show is played by Katee Sackoff

I don't know the actress name, but can I assume that this is Starbuck? I've actually seen little bits and pieces of BSG, and while I have a general dislike for TV sci-fi, Starbuck is the one that made it so I positively could not watch that show at all - a more grating female lead than her I could not imagine. Look at me, I can hate women who have strong traditional and/or toxic masculine traits as well!

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Well, why do I bother writing a paragraph like that when all I wanted to say is: Yes, I pretty much agree, and it fits with my experiences with "fandom" too. I'd like to say it used to be better, but it wasn't. Even in the olden days of the early world wide web this went on. X-Files and Sailor Moon, yeah, I already complained about that. A lot.

As far as I'm concerned, the only good general fandom is for is some stunningly good art. The problem with that is that are literally infinite waves of TERRIBLE art that is given as much power and influence in their respective communities as the actually amazing stuff, usually MORE if anything, that make it so it is literally quite impossible to find the actually great art. I know art is subjective and all, but when 99% of artists can't even draw on character design, either willfully or because they're just not there in terms of skill yet, while the people who can actually make spirited re-inventions (either in something similar or exactly like the original art style or in their own unique styles while accurately capturing the important design elements and souls of characters and scenes and such - this last category is probably my favorite because it actually creates something kind of new while still feeling faithful) are ignored, I just don't know - I've all but given up on ever deliberately trying to find anything, and it's usually accidental when I find art that I like, .

Attack No. 1: I probably won't watch this...if only because I already have so many other things to watch as it is, and it doesn't look exactly to my taste even though it seems like it might be sort of interesting with a sort of retro/historical perspective. I can sometimes get into a show or movie for that reason alone - a sort of historical curiosity. Maybe if at some point I need something new or different in the future...

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Interactions with people? Nope. Going out? No, not really doing that anyway. Partying? Clubs? Like hell. I avoided them like the plague before you could actually catch a plague there. I recently watched some more of Lindsey Ellis' video essays, and she often talks about how negatively the lockdown was affecting her. I just can't relate. This is both the root cause and a negative feedback loop of and for my social integration problems as a child. It was definitely there first though, and I don't think that will ever change. Nor do I really want it to (not any more, that is).

No kidding: I'm the type of person that only likes regularly interacting with a very small group of people indeed. If anything, the whole lockdown thing made me feel more at peace with the world, not less. Well, not in the very initial stages of the pandemic, because we had no concrete ideas of how quickly it was spreading or just how deadly it might be and to whom, but after we got past that stage! Cannot relate at all...BUT I can emphasize, because I can just reverse the situation and think "well how well do I fare whenever I'm placed in the opposite scenario - too often having to meet people outside of my preferred social group, particularly in too great quantities at once?", and well, ayup, .

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

 @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP Glad you liked The Movie! Massive plot holes/inconsistencies, endless singing, repeated character beats, and a kinda TV movie formulaic plot got on my nerves when I first watched it, but I liked it a lot more for what it was on a second watch and forgave some of its flaws and realized that it did some neat twists on even some of the repetitions. Plus, I mean, Pearl's in it, so...

By the way, have I ever told you guys that the only thing better than Pearl in SU is...

Spoiler

Yellow Pearl! ...This used to be my avatar on here. Actually, pretty much all of the Pearls are awesome, but YP is the god among gods, so to speak, .

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

45 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

I don't know the actress name, but can I assume that this is Starbuck? I've actually seen little bits and pieces of BSG, and while I have a general dislike for TV sci-fi, Starbuck is the one that made it so I positively could not watch that show at all - a more grating female lead than her I could not imagine. Look at me, I can hate women who have strong traditional and/or toxic masculine traits as well!

 

 

Spoiler

 

Yes, that's Starbuck, and the whole reason I ignored the show for almost as long as it originally aired. When I expressed a certain dissatisfation with the idea of making the 80ies womanizer played by a female lead, I had all sorts of allegations lobbed at me, as if my objections were in the same ballpark as people complaining when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall. When I watched the show then, after a while, because people kept raving about how good it is and I was indeed desperate for some more sci-fi, I started enjoying it a lot.

Except I never liked this Starbuck. It's not Sackhoff's performance that bothers me, she does a good job (all of them do, mostly - Aaron Douglas was probably the weakest part). The character was an late 70ies/ early 80ies stereotype and gains nothing by making it female. Well, no, it does show that women can have toxic masculine traits as well, but that's all it really does . That, and enabling a terrible love triangle with Apollo and Dualla, his eventual wife. It becomes even worse once the writers decided to kill Starbuck in a season three episode, only to bring her back shortly afterwards. She, too, is then an angel of god, sent to guide everyone to a new Earth.

The sort of "feminists" who enjoy power fantasies like Captain Marvel were probably slavering all over this - guys, really, have your cake and eat it too, either toxic masculinity is bad or it isn't, it can't be bad in men and good in women... would the world really be a better place by promoting equality in such a way that women change their patriarchy-assigned roles to be just like men, instead of finding a better way, and perhaps a suitable middle ground where everyone can be what they want to be in peace? I certainly don't want that.

Like it is in Sailor Moon, to bring that back up again. There's a reason I like Makoto and her struggles so much, relatability aside. Who says you can't like flowers, cooking and housework and still kick some serious ass?

 

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

As far as I'm concerned, the only good general fandom is for is some stunningly good art. The problem with that is that are literally infinite waves of TERRIBLE art that is given as much power and influence in their respective communities as the actually amazing stuff, usually MORE if anything, that make it so it is literally quite impossible to find the actually great art. I know art is subjective and all, but when 99% of artists can't even draw on character design, either willfully or because they're just not there in terms of skill yet, while the people who can actually make spirited re-inventions (either in something similar or exactly like the original art style or in their own unique styles while accurately capturing the important design elements and souls of characters and scenes and such - this last category is probably my favorite because it actually creates something kind of new while still feeling faithful) are ignored, I just don't know - I've all but given up on ever deliberately trying to find anything, and it's usually accidental when I find art that I like, .

 

Spoiler

 

Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. Spirited re-inventions* shouldn't be ignored just because they are that. And indeed, judging something by the state of the fandom seems like a terrible thing to do. I sometimes find myself doing that, but it is mostly games. Whether or not games are works of art is an ongoing debate, I'm leaning on the side of yes, but I can see why Roger Ebert for instance denied that, for him the authorial intent was supremely important - and in interactive mediums with win conditions that is automatically diminished because the experience is shaped in part by the player.

I too find myself dismissing certain super popular franchises or pieces based purely on how obnoxious the fandom is - or sometimes the creators. Halo is a good example. Might be that some of the Halo games are genuinely good shooters. The first one certainly wasn't, particularily not when compared to much older, more fun shooters on PCs, but the gamers who grew up with consoles and experienced their first online gaming sessions with Halo were - still are - the worst sort of fanboys, leading to me dismissing every other Halo game a priori.

The other one is Half-Life 2. Supposedly one of the greatest games ever made, but Valve dealing with the release delays in such an obnoxious and deflecting manner, instead of just admitting that it isn't done yet, with the fanboys gobbling everything up that GabeN says or does, ugh, no. Even if I would try it now, I'm not sure I could give it a fair shake.

's a good part of the reason why I started ignoring fandoms, by far and large. I occasionally read wikis, but I no longer partake in discussions online.

*Friends vs. How I Met Your Mother is one of these. The amount of people who dismissed the latter a Friends clone is staggering, the similarities are there, but HIMYM was great, Friends... wasn't. Heh. Not that I would consider either supremely good art. I'm not even sure if I know something that would fit the criteria. I thought about this a bit when you mentioned finding a perfect piece of entertainment, but I can't really come up with an example.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

Attack No. 1: I probably won't watch this...if only because I already have so many other things to watch as it is, and it doesn't look exactly to my taste even though it seems like it might be sort of interesting with a sort of retro/historical perspective. I can sometimes get into a show or movie for that reason alone - a sort of historical curiosity. Maybe if at some point I need something new or different in the future...

 

Spoiler

 

Hence why it was only a tentative yes there - I'm also pretty certain that the tournament and volleyball game parts aren't overly interesting as an adult. Generally I can recommend watching this for a historical perspective insofar as I think it to be a good idea to be at least passingly familiar with the classics (regardless of how much one enjoys them or not) if someone appreciates a genre, if only to appreciate following entries more. It's like Citizen Kane, or Seinfeld, in terms of what it did for shojo anime. I never liked Seinfeld, never really found it funny, only watched a part of it, but I can appreciate it for what it did for the sitcom genre (which as a genre itself I don't care about, except for some very rare shows that I enjoyed).

I really enjoyed watching Attack No. 1 when I was younger, but I don't remember how much of it is dedicated to tournament arcs, and I honestly have no idea how it holds up when watching it as an adult. There's a lot of training and Kozue and her friends trying to figure out strategies and how to beat seemingly undefeatable opponents. What stuck with me were the other parts. I'll keep watching an episode here and there, perhaps even go looking for the three episodes that were never dubbed in the process.

There are elements in there that are kind of timeless, like some of the girls who are actively discouraged from participating in sports by their parents because they should focus more on a successful academic career, with Attack No. 1 arguing for more freedom of choice in a time where Japanese people did what their parents told them to without question. One of the things in the early episodes that I watched by now that still resonates is the group of girls Kozue becomes friends with, the outcasts who don't want to conform to what society expects of them. Once they learn that Kozue is a model student and only moved for health reasons and the rumors of her being transferred away from Tokyo because she couldn't hack it or behaved terribly and was expelled aren't true, they expect her to just abandon them, and she doesn't.

Even if that last bit sounds like it would give me a strong emotional bond to the show, that's not entirely the case. I watched it every day for the four or five months it took to air - but my attachment to it is nowhere near Sailor Moon's.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

No kidding: I'm the type of person that only likes regularly interacting with a very small group of people indeed. If anything, the whole lockdown thing made me feel more at peace with the world, not less. Well, not in the very initial stages of the pandemic, because we had no concrete ideas of how quickly it was spreading or just how deadly it might be and to whom, but after we got past that stage! Cannot relate at all...BUT I can emphasize, because I can just reverse the situation and think "well how well do I fare whenever I'm placed in the opposite scenario - too often having to meet people outside of my preferred social group, particularly in too great quantities at once?", and well, ayup, .

 

 

Spoiler

Quoted for truth. On an empathic level I fully understand the duress extroverted people are under in times like these. I simply can't relate to it. But that's fine, as long as we can empathize with each other we should be good, as society I mean. It's the people who lack any empathy at all that are the problem. Exhibit A, this board...

 

[Bartimaeus]

I'm sorry, I don't talk to people who fail to LOUDLY recognize the objective superiority and awesome power of Yellow Pearl!

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Hence why it was only a tentative yes there - I'm also pretty certain that the tournament and volleyball game parts aren't overly interesting as an adult. Generally I can recommend watching this for a historical perspective insofar as I think it to be a good idea to be at least passingly familiar with the classics (regardless of how much one enjoys them or not) if someone appreciates a genre, if only to appreciate following entries more. It's like Citizen Kane, or Seinfeld, in terms of what it did for shojo anime. I never liked Seinfeld, never really found it funny, only watched a part of it, but I can appreciate it for what it did for the sitcom genre (which as a genre itself I don't care about, except for some very rare shows that I enjoyed).

This sounds good in theory, but I'm just not that kind of person. It takes a lot of time, energy, and brainspace for me to watch things, and I viscerally negatively react to things I don't, so as always, I'm very particular about what I watch. Not that I'm absolutely ruling out Attack No. 1 - not at all. It's just that "regardless of how much one enjoys them or not" will never fly for me. It took me seven months to get through Sailor Moon, and I love that show! That was a sizable chunk of time and dedication. And I haven't watched Citizen Kane, and while I sometimes I have great appreciation for classics I take an interest in, I also often times have zero appreciation for supposed classics and wish I would've called it quits before I got in too deep, . Heck, I've actually learned that lesson and used it at times - if I feel absolutely certain that something isn't working for me and isn't going to work for me, then I'm done, doesn't matter how much or how little is left. For as much of an OCPD that I have, this is not one of its manifestations!

I might try out Attack No. 1 at some point in the future, particularly because I think I have a certain kind of fondness for oddball cartoons that came out during this era (so close to finishing Speed Racer, one of the most oddball cartoons I've ever seen...), especially because some of what you mention about it does sound promising.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. Spirited re-inventions* shouldn't be ignored just because they are that. And indeed, judging something by the state of the fandom seems like a terrible thing to do. I sometimes find myself doing that, but it is mostly games. Whether or not games are works of art is an ongoing debate, I'm leaning on the side of yes, but I can see why Roger Ebert for instance denied that, for him the authorial intent was supremely important - and in interactive mediums with win conditions that is automatically diminished because the experience is shaped in part by the player.

I too find myself dismissing certain super popular franchises or pieces based purely on how obnoxious the fandom is - or sometimes the creators. Halo is a good example. Might be that some of the Halo games are genuinely good shooters. The first one certainly wasn't, particularily not when compared to much older, more fun shooters on PCs, but the gamers who grew up with consoles and experienced their first online gaming sessions with Halo were - still are - the worst sort of fanboys, leading to me dismissing every other Halo game a priori.

The other one is Half-Life 2. Supposedly one of the greatest games ever made, but Valve dealing with the release delays in such an obnoxious and deflecting manner, instead of just admitting that it isn't done yet, with the fanboys gobbling everything up that GabeN says or does, ugh, no. Even if I would try it now, I'm not sure I could give it a fair shake.

's a good part of the reason why I started ignoring fandoms, by far and large. I occasionally read wikis, but I no longer partake in discussions online.

*Friends vs. How I Met Your Mother is one of these. The amount of people who dismissed the latter a Friends clone is staggering, the similarities are there, but HIMYM was great, Friends... wasn't. Heh. Not that I would consider either supremely good art. I'm not even sure if I know something that would fit the criteria. I thought about this a bit when you mentioned finding a perfect piece of entertainment, but I can't really come up with an example.

At least Halo 1 was released on PC and was playable. I didn't play it very much (5-10 hours?), but it seemed competent enough even if I didn't particularly care for it. Halo 2 they delayed for years for PC, and then Halo 3 only came out on PC last year... Playing shooters with analogue sticks? Ha ha, I might as well give myself a frontal lobotomy if I'm going to try to do that.

I don't think there's much to worry about re: Half-Life 2. It had some really neat innovations for its time, but in retrospect, Half-Life 1 is significantly funner to play now since it actually focuses on gameplay instead of style like HL2 does, . But yes, that fanbase is absolute cancer, as are most fanbases in general. All(?) of the big fanbases for my favorite things are cancer - guess it's just the way things go.

Heh, that was my point regarding perfection - nothing is truly perfect for people who are able to think critically about what they love, and so it's generally only people who aren't able to think critically that will believe such things about their favorite things. At the same time, if people truly feel that way about something, then more power to them and let them enjoy it. For me, SU is by no means the perfect show, and I'm perfectly cognizant of that...but at the same time, it's probably the closest I'm going to get for a long time. The same is true of you for Sailor Moon!

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Yes, that's Starbuck, and the whole reason I ignored the show for almost as long as it originally aired. When I expressed a certain dissatisfation with the idea of making the 80ies womanizer played by a female lead, I had all sorts of allegations lobbed at me, as if my objections were in the same ballpark as people complaining when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall. When I watched the show then, after a while, because people kept raving about how good it is and I was indeed desperate for some more sci-fi, I started enjoying it a lot.

Except I never liked this Starbuck. It's not Sackhoff's performance that bothers me, she does a good job (all of them do, mostly - Aaron Douglas was probably the weakest part). The character was an late 70ies/ early 80ies stereotype and gains nothing by making it female. Well, no, it does show that women can have toxic masculine traits as well, but that's all it really does . That, and enabling a terrible love triangle with Apollo and Dualla, his eventual wife. It becomes even worse once the writers decided to kill Starbuck in a season three episode, only to bring her back shortly afterwards. She, too, is then an angel of god, sent to guide everyone to a new Earth.

The sort of "feminists" who enjoy power fantasies like Captain Marvel were probably slavering all over this - guys, really, have your cake and eat it too, either toxic masculinity is bad or it isn't, it can't be bad in men and good in women... would the world really be a better place by promoting equality in such a way that women change their patriarchy-assigned roles to be just like men, instead of finding a better way, and perhaps a suitable middle ground where everyone can be what they want to be in peace? I certainly don't want that.

Like it is in Sailor Moon, to bring that back up again. There's a reason I like Makoto and her struggles so much, relatability aside. Who says you can't like flowers, cooking and housework and still kick some serious ass?

I'm almost certain that there are reasons for why Starbuck acts the way she does, reasons that would humanize and make her behavior more relatable/understandable...but BOY do I want her dead, and not "dead for a couple of episodes before she comes back more important than ever", but regular old dead dead. And I think when you genuinely feel that about a main character who you're clearly not NOT supposed to feel that way about, and they're driving the whole show down for you constantly, well...the show probably isn't working for you and you should probably give up is how I feel, .

That last point is part of why I love Pearl so much. The capability of being so strong and deadly while yet being so weak combined with her endless lies or omissions and dastardly secrets...contrasted against her sort of soft yet obsessive motherliness. It's that perfect blending of weak and strong, good and bad characteristics that makes her so special. And then there's the sorry mess of a woman that is my avatar, but that's something else entirely...

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

41 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm sorry, I don't talk to people who fail to LOUDLY recognize the objective superiority and awesome power of Yellow Pearl!

That's because Blue Pearl is better AND  more powerful. Yellow Pearl's smugness can't compete with Blue Pearl's emotional turmoil or shy silliness. To top it all off, during the trial episode Blue Pearl showed how much better she was when

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Maybe I made the thread kaputt with my Madoka post.

Even this thread isn't safe from Kyubey.

[Bartimaeus]

Emotional turmoil? There's no turmoil there, she's perfectly happy! Can't you see how happy she is? ...What, that? That's just her face - don't be so judgemental!

Meanwhile...

[majestic]

I apologize for this joke in advance, and I'll spoiler it. You may only click if you promise to not hate me for it first!
 

Spoiler

 

You guys couldn't be further from the truth. Clearly there's only one Pearl who has achieved perfection, free from the taint of color, the one who has overcome the childishness of Pink:

She, the Super-Pearl, behold her White suprem... 
 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

43 minutes ago, majestic said:

I apologize for this joke in advance, and I'll spoiler it. You may only click if you promise to not hate me for it first!
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

You guys couldn't be further from the truth. Clearly there's only one Pearl who has achieved perfection, free from the taint of color, the one who has overcome the childishness of Pink:

She, the Super-Pearl, behold her White suprem... 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dude you have to finish up Battle Tendency. It gets ****ing wild in ways that are just amazing. Like when

I'm serious this is a massive spoiler.

Joesph and Wammu end up dueling in a chariot race with vampire horses because why the **** not? Still more normal than the stuff that goes down once everyone finds out about STANDO POWAH

[InsaneCommander]

17 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Sounds like it's a little tame compared to the manga, where it is more explicit. I haven't read it in a while though, because it just isn't for me.

  Reveal hidden contents

Lore spoilers

  Reveal hidden contents

There are no female goblins, they reproduce solely by raping women they capture.

 

 

Finished it. In the last episode
 

Spoiler

 

the goblin king confirms it, saying he can grow his numbers with the prisoners in his cave...

They didn't come too close to that subject after the first episode, so I enjoyed the rest of the season. Nice to see that the other adventurers, especially the arrogant ones, were actually capable heroes.

 

 

[majestic]

2 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Dude you have to finish up Battle Tendency. It gets ****ing wild in ways that are just amazing. Like when

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm serious this is a massive spoiler.

  Reveal hidden contents

Joesph and Wammu end up dueling in a chariot race with vampire horses because why the **** not? Still more normal than the stuff that goes down once everyone finds out about STANDO POWAH

 

 

 

Spoiler

I've just finished watching episode 22, so I've actually seen that already. Next up is knowing how ATMOSPHERIC RIFT will turn out, but I expect JoJo will survive that, according to the next Netflix episode blurb.

This sure is going places, I mean, whenever you think it can't get any weirder it one ups itself.

 

[majestic]

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm sorry, I don't talk to people who fail to LOUDLY recognize the objective superiority and awesome power of Yellow Pearl!

  Hide contents

This sounds good in theory, but I'm just not that kind of person. It takes a lot of time, energy, and brainspace for me to watch things, and I viscerally negatively react to things I don't, so as always, I'm very particular about what I watch. Not that I'm absolutely ruling out Attack No. 1 - not at all. It's just that "regardless of how much one enjoys them or not" will never fly for me. It took me seven months to get through Sailor Moon, and I love that show! That was a sizable chunk of time and dedication. And I haven't watched Citizen Kane, and while I sometimes I have great appreciation for classics I take an interest in, I also often times have zero appreciation for supposed classics and wish I would've called it quits before I got in too deep, . Heck, I've actually learned that lesson and used it at times - if I feel absolutely certain that something isn't working for me and isn't going to work for me, then I'm done, doesn't matter how much or how little is left. For as much of an OCPD that I have, this is not one of its manifestations!

 

Spoiler

 

Due to the way my life went I've often had ample free time to waste on things I didn't completely (or not at all) enjoy, and I have a hard  time dropping things I've started. This is why I'm certainly going to watch any further Star Trek offerings that come along, regardless of how bad they get. I'd like to think they can't get any worse than Picard and Discovery, but if there's one thing I've learned so far is that it can always get worse. Always.

It is a bit more difficult now with everything that's going on, especially with my workload exploding - it's noticable insofar as I still haven't finished the Sailor Moon manga even though I'm usually a quick read (more so for comics that barely have any content to actually read through).

The really ridiculous thing with this is, for instance, when looking at the topic of Sailor Moon. Going through all available material is like ticking off a list of checkboxes that a game gives me. I can't stop, even if it kills all the fun wile doing it. This is why I had such a negative reaction to The Witcher 3 (well that and the stupid loot and level system). I'm somewhat incapable of setting goals for myself undless I spend an extraordinary amount of effort on them*, but going through checkboxes? Yes, more of that please.

In games that have multiple solutions to certain quests or differnt paths to take, I often end up reloading a hundred times to see which outcome I like most - or if there's no outcome I like, the one I dislike the least. That's how I ended up with hundreds of hours /played in Torment: Tides of Numenera, a game which I kind of liked more than I should have, but nowhere near enough to justify the time spent playing it.

This is also the reason why I barely ever replay games.

Speaking of appreciating classics, well, here's the thing: I don't like many either. I just recently was metaphorically slapped silly in the literature thread when I bemoaned how uninteresting The Great Gatsby was, and that it is yet another classic on my list of books that are high art but utterly uninteresting to me. I get more out of a super silly, badly written Star Wars novel than a book like that, even though I can on some level admire the care and craftsmanship that went into writing it.

The absolute worst of which was James Joyce's Ulysses.

Still, I've read them. I finished reading them even though I didn't like reading them - mostly for myself, you know, to check a box on a list.

For Attack No. 1 that would be different though. I do like shojo anime, so if I had not seen it, going back to the origins of its current form would be interesting for me, even if I don't end up liking the anime.

*This is, I suppose, very similar to what you mean about entertainment taking up a sizeable chunk of energy and brainspace. If that is anything for you like it is for me, then I understand where you're coming from. If you don't mind me asking, does it help when someone else wants to watch too, because you mentioned Speed Racer being someone else's idea. Just asking because responding to an external impetus is so much easier for me than coming up with an internal one.

To provide an example: I've been the most active poster on the Interplay forum while it existed. I've been part of many, many spinoff communities, including this one. In over twenty years, I've made tens of thousands of posts, of various length - some even made with the highest of efforts (like the ones here).

And yet, I've started only a handful of threads on my own, three or four maybe. On a very small forum with what's now four leftover posters from Ashford City.

 

 

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

  Hide contents

I might try out Attack No. 1 at some point in the future, particularly because I think I have a certain kind of fondness for oddball cartoons that came out during this era (so close to finishing Speed Racer, one of the most oddball cartoons I've ever seen...), especially because some of what you mention about it does sound promising.

 

 

Spoiler

 

I've seen some more episodes now. Midori shows up at the very end of episode 3, and they begin reconciling their differences at the end of episode six.

Mr. Hongo, the coach of the team shows up in episode five. I already said that the show is a product of its time, but time and my inexperience with the world when I watched this the first time dulled my perception of just how true this really is. He asks the school directorate to become coach after he sees the girls lose a game because Midori is inexperienced but decides to make herself the center of attention (plus she's really conniving and mean to Kozue).

Mr. Hongo is someone who has the girls go through the School of Hard Knocks. In away he introduces military grade drilling to the volleyball team. He makes sure that Kozue's and Midori's ambitions are stoked in a way that make them even more competitive then they already are, and then punishes the entire team when they clash, for instance when Midori trips Kozue during a running montage.

The training montage itself is really similar to what you'd see in a full contact sport movie. Copious amounts of running up and down stairs, for instance, only with less Sylvester Stallone or Jean Claude van Damme and more 12 year old girls.

Later in the episode they are practicing digs, and when one of the girls is close to collapsing from exhaustion he just keeps throwing balls at her, hitting her in the back. At this point the other girls had it with him and tell him he should stop. Some parts of the team quit because this isn't fun any more, and he offers them a simple bet. He set up a training game with a team from a different school, and he'll quit if they win.

They do end up winning the game after losing the first set because their desire to get Mr. Hongo out of their lives outweighs the problems between Midori and Kozue, and they start working together instead of against each other (which is mostly coming from Midori, who isn't just ambitious but also wants to be in the spotlight) and win.

Midori apologizes to Kozue after they've won, because she finally can see that there's no I in "team" (decent lesson here, I guess) and that working together towards a goal is great. She also says she feels terrible about being mean to Kozue and tells her that Kozue should hit her so they're even.

Which Kozue of course declines, beause violence is bad. Kozue of course slaps her silly. WHACK. Midori says thank you and feels better about it, then the entire team runs after Mr. Hongo and begs him to come back. Because hey, some dril is necessary to win, and abuse is better than losing, right?

(Truth in television, I guess, there's no amounting to anything in pro sports without blood, sweat and tears after all)

Oh, right, the games themselves aren't very interesting, but they are used to have the girls talk to each other and figure things out, so it's not all bad.

 

 

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

  Hide contents

At least Halo 1 was released on PC and was playable. I didn't play it very much (5-10 hours?), but it seemed competent enough even if I didn't particularly care for it. Halo 2 they delayed for years for PC, and then Halo 3 only came out on PC last year... Playing shooters with analogue sticks? Ha ha, I might as well give myself a frontal lobotomy if I'm going to try to do that.

I don't think there's much to worry about re: Half-Life 2. It had some really neat innovations for its time, but in retrospect, Half-Life 1 is significantly funner to play now since it actually focuses on gameplay instead of style like HL2 does, . But yes, that fanbase is absolute cancer, as are most fanbases in general. All(?) of the big fanbases for my favorite things are cancer - guess it's just the way things go.

Heh, that was my point regarding perfection - nothing is truly perfect for people who are able to think critically about what they love, and so it's generally only people who aren't able to think critically that will believe such things about their favorite things. At the same time, if people truly feel that way about something, then more power to them and let them enjoy it. For me, SU is by no means the perfect show, and I'm perfectly cognizant of that...but at the same time, it's probably the closest I'm going to get for a long time. The same is true of you for Sailor Moon!

I'm almost certain that there are reasons for why Starbuck acts the way she does, reasons that would humanize and make her behavior more relatable/understandable...but BOY do I want her dead, and not "dead for a couple of episodes before she comes back more important than ever", but regular old dead dead. And I think when you genuinely feel that about a main character who you're clearly not NOT supposed to feel that way about, and they're driving the whole show down for you constantly, well...the show probably isn't working for you and you should probably give up is how I feel, .

That last point is part of why I love Pearl so much. The capability of being so strong and deadly while yet being so weak combined with her endless lies or omissions and dastardly secrets...contrasted against her sort of soft yet obsessive motherliness. It's that perfect blending of weak and strong, good and bad characteristics that makes her so special. And then there's the sorry mess of a woman that is my avatar, but that's something else entirely...

 

 

Spoiler

 

Using this forum software is annoying, I'll just reply to this block. I played Halo on the original XBox when it came out. My brother wanted one anyway, and at that time I was interested in a couple of other games that would come out. Little did I know that shortly afterwards I'd find a job where testing repaired consoles was a big part. Playing at home isn't much fun any more when you do it at work, strangely enough.

But yes, analogue sticks and shooters, no thanks. Certainly not in multiplayer. That's just frustrating.

Regarding perfection: Still didn't stop me from thinking about it. The closest I came would be the first time I played Ocarina of Time, but that too only works in the context of its time. There's enough about the game that I would find frustrating now - and it's a game, not say a book, movie or music.

Single parts can be nigh perfect, the visual storytelling combined with the score in Madoka's fight scenes for instance pretty much is. KP said that before, there are parts of the anime you can watch with the orginal audio track without subtitles and you don't miss anyhting that's going on.

I'll leave one in the spoiler tag below, it's a spoiler about one of the characters that is pretty much clear right from the start, and the scene means little enough without context, but hey, spoiler mode your brain should you venture in here:

Spoiler

 

Strange to see that this only goes for two minutes. The scene is so god damned uncomfortable to watch that it feels like going on for an eternity. Understanding what she says? Not at all required. Clear enough from context.

 

But something as a whole? That's going to be a tough call. I can see it most easily happening with music, but musical tastes are somewhat volatile, I've noticed. There are albums I once thought were almost perfect, and they're... certainly not any more. I'll try to stop thinking about that subject now, before it finally breaks something in my brain.

Starbuck, I don't know. I've seen the series twice by now, but I don't recall anything that dealt with her character development that would explain why she is the way she is. Other than always having the hots for Apollo and filling the need for him with various other men. I... not sure. This might be cynical, but she's just there, and a she, to check off the inclusivity list. Really. Maybe I missed something or ignored it on a subconscious level due to being biased and not open minded right from the start.

And Pearl, yes, Pearl is just great, and even though it seems strange at first, everything she does has a reason. She's not just a great character, but she's also expertly crafted.

edit: I do have Perfect Blue on my watchlist and plan on watching it soon(TM).

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

 

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I've just finished watching episode 22, so I've actually seen that already. Next up is knowing how ATMOSPHERIC RIFT will turn out, but I expect JoJo will survive that, according to the next Netflix episode blurb.

This sure is going places, I mean, whenever you think it can't get any weirder it one ups itself.

 

I don't think it ever stops doing that. It's kind of strange in that when you look at when the manga came out it both set a precedent for a lot of shonen manga while moving past it in a lot of ways. It also doesn't get very close to tournament/training arcs besides a few episodes, and it generally does that better than hyperbolic time chambers and similar stuff.

[Bartimaeus]

12 hours ago, majestic said:

I apologize for this joke in advance, and I'll spoiler it. You may only click if you promise to not hate me for it first!
 

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You guys couldn't be further from the truth. Clearly there's only one Pearl who has achieved perfection, free from the taint of color, the one who has overcome the childishness of Pink:

She, the Super-Pearl, behold her White suprem... 
 

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Spoiler

There was a fun fan theory for a while about Pearl and White Pearl. Blue Pearl and and Yellow Pearl's gem locations match that of their diamonds'; oddly, Pearl and White Pearl have reversed locations, and instead of matching their diamonds', Pearl's matched White Diamond's and White Pearl's matched Pink Diamond's. While this theory wasn't totally correct, it wasn't totally incorrect either - Pink Pearl was obviously made in the likeness of Pink Diamond, while Pearl was seemingly made to be more of a...compromise between White and Pink, or maybe even between all four diamonds (if Pearl's wacky yellow/blue/pink/white color schemes are anything to go by). (e): I should also note that there was a six month hiatus between the episode where Pink Pearl (as White Pearl) first appears (S5E24, Legs from Here to Homeworld) and the next episode, during which the fanbase was running absolutely nuts with theories.

Also, I'll reply to your other post later.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

The advantage of watching something in my native dubbed version is that I can have it running in the background while doing menial tasks at work, what with being stuck at home anyway, so Attack No. 1 has been playing for a bit now. That's not something that works for Japanese originals with subs. The showrunners really treated the idea of playing volleyball like martial arts. Kozue and Midori are currently learning the "Falling Leaf" technique, which is a slow service ball that drops all momentum in mid flight.

The girl teaching them is all properly mysterious about it, telling them that the key to learning it is "in their own hands", this might just as well be some kung fu or karate shenanigans.

Only took 8 episodes for the magic balls to show up. Huh. I thought that took longer. 

edit:

Found some old reference material, this show's ratings were insane when it first aired here. 44% in the target demographics of children aged 14 and lower. So far this has been mildly amusing and really feels a bit dated. I wonder if my original impression that this gets better when the girls age up a bit remains true. I sure hope so. Hmmm.

edit 2:

Amazon really puts a LOT of effort into bringing these old shows back to life. The outro even has the original TV station signation in it, they just bought the distribution rights and did nothing else. Probably didn't even transfer the original video material to digital on their own. Good job there Jeff.

Edited May 3, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I finished Steven Universe Future. Pretty sure that's it, unless Cartoon Network or WB pull something to drive up subs to HBO MAX. It was a ride.

If you haven't finished the show I'd stop reading.

So in the beginning it felt close to SU and the movie, but it quickly changed in tone to something else. Steven turning into a kaiju and being his own monster was both funny and a little too close to home. While sometimes I did want to slap him the way I did Shinji and Usagi, it felt more.....real for Steven to have his breakdown after going through all of the apocalyptic stuff he'd been through previously and not right as the world was ending or his friends were getting killed. As such I was more sympathetic than annoyed for the most part.

[LittleArmadillo0]

1 hour ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

I finished Steven Universe Future. Pretty sure that's it, unless Cartoon Network or WB pull something to drive up subs to HBO MAX. It was a ride.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

If you haven't finished the show I'd stop reading.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

So in the beginning it felt close to SU and the movie, but it quickly changed in tone to something else. Steven turning into a kaiju and being his own monster was both funny and a little too close to home. While sometimes I did want to slap him the way I did Shinji and Usagi, it felt more.....real for Steven to have his breakdown after going through all of the apocalyptic stuff he'd been through previously and not right as the world was ending or his friends were getting killed. As such I was more sympathetic than annoyed for the most part.

 

 

It think overall it was good way to go.

Spoiler

I was irate with the series from time to time but still I had a deep appreciation for the show. The ending of the original show felt too rushed to receive a proper fleshing out of the ending and some of the character conflict/growth. But I really enjoy Steven Universe Future. The inner conflict Steven when through about feeling like you are the only person who can fix everything, the sense of abandonment and self worth, and the emotional stress that he suffered from his youth were things that I was not expecting the season to touch on but I'm glad that they did.

 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

It think overall it was good way to go.

  Reveal hidden contents

I was irate with the series from time to time but still I had a deep appreciation for the show. The ending of the original show felt too rushed to receive a proper fleshing out of the ending and some of the character conflict/growth. But I really enjoy Steven Universe Future. The inner conflict Steven when through about feeling like you are the only person who can fix everything, the sense of abandonment and self worth, and the emotional stress that he suffered from his youth were things that I was not expecting the season to touch on but I'm glad that they did.

 

Hi there, I hope you don't get scared off. The only one who stuck around after we made this thread our personal playground was InsaneCommander. I'm not sure why, it can't be the smell. There's no smell internet yet, right? Right... yes, no, there isn't. Mental note: Brush teeth before posting next time just in case.

Anyway! Welcome to our little anime thread. We may not be many, but we sure post a lot. Would you care for some refreshments? Or maybe some gouda?

 

Ahem. So! The others ran away so fast, need to change the approach to this. Hmm. But how? Oh, yes!

Can we interest you in some anime? Hm. Pictures first, asking later. Yes, yes.

 

[LittleArmadillo0]

26 minutes ago, majestic said:

Hi there, I hope you don't get scared off. The only one who stuck around after we made this thread our personal playground was InsaneCommander. I'm not sure why, it can't be the smell. There's no smell internet yet, right? Right... yes, no, there isn't. Mental note: Brush teeth before posting next time just in case.

Anyway! Welcome to our little anime thread. We may not be many, but we sure post a lot. Would you care for some refreshments? Or maybe some gouda?

 

Ahem. So! The others ran away so fast, need to change the approach to this. Hmm. But how? Oh, yes!

Can we interest you in some anime? Hm. Pictures first, asking later. Yes, yes.

 

Thank you majestic! I know that when I first posted on the forums about anime and manga majority of the time it fell on def ears so it is nice knowing there is a thread dedicated to it.

Also I'll take that entire plate of Gouda 

[majestic]

2 hours ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

Thank you majestic! I know that when I first posted on the forums about anime and manga majority of the time it fell on def ears so it is nice knowing there is a thread dedicated to it.

Also I'll take that entire plate of Gouda 

Marshall would be so happy now that someone finally wants his cheese.

The actual reason for this post was that we, or more accurately, I, asked everyone who popped in here if they'd like to watch Sailor Moon with us, which was next to Steven Universe and JoJo's Bizarre adventure the dominating topic of the past... 65 or so pages. Almost everyone immediately left, only InsaneCommander stuck around. I think it's fair to say that he enjoyed it.

You wouldn't happen to have watched it? I mean, it's 30 years old by now... 

Other recent topics were Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Attack No. 1, Goblin Slayer, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Castlevania.