Anime, the eternal Jettokōsutā

[ShadySands]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

Samurai Champloo

Yes

2 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Ergo Proxy

No

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

23 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Thinking of rewatching some old shows to see if I still like them.

On my liked list I have Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, and Darker than Black even though I never saw the second season. Maybe I'll start with the last one since it has a season I haven't seen.

I don't think I've seen any of those. Would you recommend them?

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The Sailor Moon Says channel is being taken down.

Well that sucks more than Serena's big moouf on hamburgers.

Oh and since @majestic mentioned it, in AoT DIO's VA plays a moneky titan (though here a monkey does defeat a human lmao). The guy who voices Jotaro voices the scout commander, the edgelord commando is voiced by the same guy who does Rohan, and the main character is voiced by the same guy who voices Koichi but in AoT he actually kill da hoe.

Edited June 16, 2021 by KP the meanie zucchini

[ShadySands]

Yes, I'd recommend them but since I don't know much anime I don't have anything to compare it to. I think Samurai Champloo is probably the easiest of the three to get into and Ergo Proxy the most difficult. How many times do you think you can hear raison d'etre before you go crazy?

[Lexx]

Binge watched Horimiya two weeks ago. It's ... well .. it's ... you know, it's not what I usually watch.

But man.

When it was over, I kinda wanted more. So I checked out the manga and ... This is the first time ever that I bought a manga. I'm in chapter 14 now, I think. (also, jeez, this stuff is expensive)

Seems Covid-19 lockdown turned me into a real weeb.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Lexx

[majestic]

On 6/16/2021 at 1:16 AM, Bartimaeus said:

@all: The Sailor Moon Says channel is being taken down. They're going to erase the sane Sailor Moon (YouTube) fans, . All those brilliant comments about Pegasus and Chibi-Usa, everyone going "WTF" over Usagi's retarded S3/S4 voice, Minako accusing of Artemis of cheating on her, Mimette and the security guard doing the meme gesture, all the other utterly bizarre and/or hilarious dialogue...all gone. RIP.

I was kind of surprised it took them this long (probably because it wasn't Viz Media holding the rights to the audio in the clips), some copyright holders have been hard at work cracking down on anything Sailor Moon related - many of the clips with the Viz dub audio are constantly reuploaded, or are just gone. 

 And it's a tragedy, consdering we have several new happy Sailor Moon fans in this thread alone that only watched because of these clips on YouTube. I mean, it all did start with you trying it because of the funny bad DiC dub. 

We'd not be discussing anything anime related in this thread at all withou that, actually. I most likely would never have rewatched Sailor Moon, never followed it up with Cardcaptor Sakura for instance. Huh. What a cascade there. 

Imagine never having seen Cardcaptor Sakura becaues that channel died earlier. 

Stupid copyright holders, now you've made Tomoyo sad!  

On 6/16/2021 at 5:06 AM, ShadySands said:

Yes, I'd recommend them but since I don't know much anime I don't have anything to compare it to. I think Samurai Champloo is probably the easiest of the three to get into and Ergo Proxy the most difficult. How many times do you think you can hear raison d'etre before you go crazy?

You know... 200 episodes of Sailor Moon, some, ahm, repetition isn't an issue, is it? By the way, are you watching Sailor Moon yet? Looking forward to your thoughts!  

(just kidding, but only half kidding)

Ergo Proxy looks pretty interesting though. Maybe at a later date. Too much open right now. 

 

Oh, and by the way, @LadyCrimson:

 

There've been moments watching Violet Evergarden where I had to pause an wait for a while to be able to see my TV again, and Violet is definitely human. Superhumanly strong in the war flashbacks, but human nonetheless.  

Edited June 17, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

Overlord Season 3

 

This was a great season. It started hilariously and ended in an impressive way. It paid off many things that were in development. And had some sad and disturbing moments too.

 

I forgot to mention when I talked about season 2, there is a character here that would eat everyone in Westeros for breakfast. And I’m not talking about those who do eat human meat. But in this season, the schemes were much bigger.

 

Below is a small spoiler, but most of it is mentioned explicitly in the description of the anime on some sites. Read at your own risk though:
 

Spoiler

Ains is going to conquer the world. But he didn't know this. His minions had already started doing it by themselves. Demiurge even says: “I hope no one here was stupid enough to not have realized we were doing this.” Well, Ainz had just discovered it. Here is his reaction:

 

"Huh?!"

 

 

Another spoiler below. It is one of the funniest scenes in the anime, but it doesn't spoil the story. Again, read and watch at your own risk:

 

Spoiler

 

After Ains says he loves everyone in the Tomb because they are the creations of his beloved friends. Mare, who kind of sees him as a father figure, starts to cry. The maid fall on her knees crying. And the Succubus Albedo, who he programmed to love him, loses control and decides it is finally time to give him an heir. Not that a skeleton can do that...

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[majestic]

On 6/15/2021 at 12:17 PM, majestic said:

This is going to be depressing even without the film potentially being depressing. Which... is what most of the original anime was, so why would this be any different.

Turns out I was wrong, about a few things.

It's split in two parts, with the first and much of the second being setup for a moment that, for me, being the sap that I am, clicked perfectly. It was glorious. For a while I wondered how all the good reviews came to be, but after watching it all, I just realized I did not follow my own advice and be patient. This time, Violet gets an assignment that goes above and beyond her regular duties. She's supposed to tutor a young noblewoman in how to behave properly. That seems like a strange fit until you realize that strict military protocol and aristocratic behavior aren't that dissimilar from each other. Violet also gets to show off how much she's grown as a person since the first episode.

It's more heartwarming than sad, even though there's a bittersweet moment at the end, or maybe one that spans the second half of Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll. One that's obviously not drawn any attention to by the animation itself, because it relies on experience and knowledge of our own world to see what is happening. Spoilers for that:

Spoiler

 

The second half is set three years from the first one, after the end of the anime. Leiden, the city Lt. Col. DIO's company is in, has had rapid technological progress. This was already hinted at by the series proper and the construction of a massive trans-continental railway network to increase trade and promote the cultural exchange and the exchange of ideas. For peace and progress, as it were. Early cars are seen in the streets, public phone booths are showing up here and there and Leiden is currently constructing a massive radio tower.

While everyone's clearly recovering from the war, radio and telephone will soon make writing letters as obsolete as it has become in our day and age - at least until writing posts on forums or e-mails might once again be needed, but that'll be a while.

It's... such a great way to indicate that the story of Violet is soon coming to an end. The radio tower will be finished in the movie that I still have left to watch, because in the trailer, there's a celebration to commemorate the tower being completed. It's moments like these that elevate this even more.

 

Also...

Looking at this, maybe not all hope is lost for modern animation, right?

Can't see it from a shot, but the blades of grass are swaying in the wind here.

On the other hand, some things remain uncanny...

Ugh, dunno guys, this looks as fake as it probably is. I guess it's the lights.

Here the character models look much better than the background, for some reason. Something's off with the windows, right? It's not just me.

And then there are scenes like this.

Hmmm. Some of the scenes were also directed by Michael Bay. I mean, some scenes have CGI'ed lens flare effects. It's... yeah, well, it doesn't look totally terrible, but it's weird.

Overall this was an enjoyable film, even though it's more like two 45 minute episodes than one feature length animation, but the two pieces are connected, if three years apart. If there's one thing I did not like is that it doesn't as seemlessly integrate into the show timeline as the first special does. Probably because it's meant to stand alone at the end of the show, although there's no real indication either way when the first part was supposed to be.

And, finally:

Dear god, to the Isabella/Violet shippers, please: Go die in a fire.

Edited June 17, 2021 by majestic
fixed the second picture

[ShadySands]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

You know... 200 episodes of Sailor Moon, some, ahm, repetition isn't an issue, is it? By the way, are you watching Sailor Moon yet? Looking forward to your thoughts!

I watched it and it was good. 

My favorite part was when they, um, hopped on the train and, um, sailed to the moon. Totally explained why they named it what they did. 10/10

[Oner]

I'm trying really hard to watch Record of Ragnarok, despite the show's best efforts.

[majestic]

11 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I watched it and it was good. 

My favorite part was when they, um, hopped on the train and, um, sailed to the moon. Totally explained why they named it what they did. 10/10

Oh, I forgot to mention. You're not supposed to watch Sailor Moon Crystal where they go to the moon, but the real one from the 90ies.  

[Bartimaeus]

I saw a show called Eden on Netflix that showed art like this for the preview..:

Then I turned on the show for a minute and it looks like this:

I feel kind of bamboozled. Not everything can look like Hilda, I guess.

I almost watched another Sakura episode for the first time in over a week yesterday, but then I fell asleep before starting it instead. RIP.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I almost watched another Sakura episode for the first time in over a week yesterday, but then I fell asleep before starting it instead. RIP.

Well, that was probably for the best. The upcoming episode about strawberries isn't the best anyway. Better to watch that one fresh (fruit pun? Oh noes).

 

 

[majestic]

Watching the Violet Evergarden film right now. When this hits cinemas here, which it apparently will soon(tm) - after a two year delay thanks to the pandemic and the arson - I'm definitely going to the theater for this (assuming I can rope someone in to go with me).

It still dips into the uncanny valley sometimes when the camera pans over clearly static backgrounds while trying to make it look like the scene has depth, but I'll take that. I still think the character models of earlier anime looked better, but... hey, I might have said I made my peace with how modern animation looked after the Madoka movies, but Whisper of the Heart gave lie to that statement. This might bring it back. 

Anyway, that's enough with the sceneshots of her for now.

The film itself begins with a flash-foward to 50 years after the events of the anime. Mostly to justify some exposition given to viewers who haven't watched episodes.

Spoiler

Guess I was right, telephones and radio made the letter writing service obsolete, and the granddaughter of the recently deceased Ann, the girl from episode 10, is told by her parents what Auto Memory Dolls were in the past, and that Violet was a famous one, after she finds the letters that Violet wrote for her great-grandmother. 

Cue the film proper.

Referencing that episode in the film is also a nice wave to long time fans. In the Violet Evergarden fandumb, which... except for some shippers, doesn't seem as bad as others, it's generally known as "the episode we don't talk about" for a reason.

More maybe later.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

It still dips into the uncanny valley sometimes when the camera pans over clearly static backgrounds while trying to make it look like the scene has depth, but I'll take that. I still think the character models of earlier anime looked better, but... hey, I might have said I made my peace with how modern animation looked after the Madoka movies, but Whisper of the Heart gave lie to that statement. This might bring it back. 

The close-up character animation of Violet Evergreen (the show, but also the character) still makes me want to barf, particularly when it's showing characters' faces...

Spoiler

What's wrong with your face?! Seriously, I don't think I'm ever going to get over anime transitioning away from the more cartoony designs of like the 80s to these disgusting uncanny valley overgrown-hair cartoon/reality hybrids. All these characters look like literal flesh-eating monsters to me anytime we get too close to them. I guess I just like my cartoons to stay, well, more like cartoons...I mean, unless you're going to really put in the work to make stuff and characters really look more realistic within a certain style a la Perfect Blue, but I'd be surprised if literally anything is being made in that kind of style today. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, Daicon IV is the pinnacle of anime animation, .

Speaking of animation style, KP has repeatedly recommended me Devilman Crybaby, but the animation being like...maybe 25% kind of interesting-looking and the other 75% eye-meltingly bad combined with young male protagonists combined with being seinen(!) leads me to suspect that I will once again be the big fat meanie zucchini if I ever try it. I *hate* young male protagonists - it is almost literally impossible for me to identify with or like them in any capacity unless they straight-up...well, don't act like typical young male protagonists. Like...Steven from SU, Seita from Grave of the Fireflies, Samurai Jack from Samurai Jack (yes, that definitely needed explanation), Aang from Avatar, or...a very few rare others. It's just not my scene and I can't really do anything about it. Good luck to me with that when I try it, I guess.

From what I've seen of your screenshots, the general but not strict rules with the show seem to be that up close = bad / far away = good and inside = bad / outside = good. Follow only one of these rules and you may have a nice-looking scene...or you might not; fail to follow both and it's sure to be just horrid, .

Edited June 18, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The close-up character animation of Violet Evergreen (the show, but also the character) still makes me want to barf, particularly when it's showing characters' faces...

I... expected that would be the case. To be honest, I didn't like the faces that much either, but I've come to accept and maybe even like them. Actually, the character models and the way they express what the writers and animators were trying to convey were the biggest reason I originally put this into the "no" pile for a recommendation for you, although I think they're significantly better than the ones in Madoka.

Looked a bit into the production of this (there's a nice making of on YouTube), and apparently the series director went to film school and was originally involved in live action films before transitioning to animation. I think that shows in the series with the visual storytelling, but especially in the feature film specials. Kyoto Animation apparently also took quite a risk in giving lead character design and key animation to two somewhat inexperienced employees (one of which moved directly from in-between animation to a key production role).

Regardless of the use of some CGI in the shots, some of which is really noticable, like Violet's typewriter, the overall product, i.e. the animation when in motion, is pretty impressive, regardless of stylistic choices, even if I found the uncanny CGI'ed camera movements to be much more distracting than they should have been.

edit:

Rumor has it that the typwriters were CGI because the first Violet Evergarden commercial made for the light novel was animated by the series director, and it featured her and the typwriter, and it was a month's hard work to get that animated traditionally, so they just made them CGI for the show. Don't know if that's true, but that commercial was an awful lot of work back then.

Talking about this, by the way:

There's something else, too, I don't think this would work in a more traditional 80ies or 90ies anime style. I'm not going to call this realistic* by any means, I mean, Violet was a very young special forces commando that would put Chuck Norris in Delta Force to shame, but the artstyle and animation choices made for the show were very deliberate.

Unless, of course, you'd blow an enormous amount of resources on the project to, as you said in the spoiler below, make it look more like Perfect Blue. The amount of time and money that already went into this is pretty impressive when you consider that Kyoto Animation makes it a point to pay their employees (and with them being actual employees, instead of self-employed contract hires) fairly and provide a decent work environment without the usual exploitation of young talent to shave as much off of production costs as possible.
 

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

 

What's wrong with your face?! Seriously, I don't think I'm ever going to get over anime transitioning away from the more cartoony designs of like the 80s to these disgusting uncanny valley overgrown-hair cartoon/reality hybrids. All these characters look like literal flesh-eating monsters to me anytime we get too close to them. I guess I just like my cartoons to stay, well, more like cartoons...I mean, unless you're going to really put in the work to make stuff and characters really look more realistic within a certain style a la Perfect Blue, but I'd be surprised if literally anything is being made in that kind of style today. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, Daicon IV is the pinnacle of anime animation, .

Speaking of animation style, KP has repeatedly recommended me Devilman Crybaby, but the animation being like...maybe 25% kind of interesting-looking and the other 75% eye-meltingly bad combined with young male protagonists combined with being seinen(!) leads me to suspect that I will once again be the big fat meanie zucchini if I ever try it. I *hate* young male protagonists - it is almost literally impossible for me to identify with or like them in any capacity unless they straight-up...well, don't act like typical young male protagonists. Like...Steven from SU, Seita from Grave of the Fireflies, Samurai Jack from Samurai Jack (yes, that definitely needed explanation), Aang from Avatar, or...a very few rare others. It's just not my scene and I can't really do anything about it. Good luck to me with that when I try it, I guess.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Daicon IV? So you like animated playboy bunnies, do you? That is certainly unexpected.

I get what you mean, it's exactly the same thing I get when looking at Sailor Moon Crystal's Haruka and Michiru. I expect their faces to open and to begin consuming the others. Like Reapers in Blade II or maybe like a Predator/Alien hybrid (but not those ridiculous Predalien things from AVP 2). There are certain scenes in Violet Evergarden that are similarily uncanny, and the one you picked to show off is probably the worst.

Tears also don't look particularily great. I mean, when characters are actually crying. It wasn't bad enough to ruin moments for me, but it might be for you. I mean, presuming you would get through the first episode without being completely put off by how the characters look and express themselves. While Madoka was "merely" a much different take on Maho Shojo animes, in this case I think that's a damned shame if that would happen. It's a really worthwhile watch, although I can't possibly be "objective" about this.

Violet as a character is, for me, not only entirely relatable, but incredibly enticing (not attractive, this isn't... anything like that, I mean, merely as the type of broken person I find myself gravitating towards in real life). That just pushes all the right buttons in my case.

As for Devilman Crybaby. I liked the show well enough up until the very end, which was a massive letdown for me**, but... between the gratuitous nudity, the borderline sex scenes, the insane way this is edited, the fact that nothing at all seems to make sense until the end (and even then it, uhm, doesn't) and the way the anime looks, it would be a major surprise if you'd like it.

Spoiler

To be honest, the first time I thought KP was trolling.

He is right about one thing. It really is something different. Plus it features Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus in the English dub, who both voice characters called Miki, which isn't at all confusing when others talk about them. Nope. Not confusing at all. Actually, nothing about this is confuing, what am I talking about?

However, I'm not sure you'd end up being the same meany zucchini that you were to poor Madoka and her friends. Maybe I got the wrong impression, but that was exacerbated by how it tried to do something potentially interesting with the genre and would have been a nice contrast to Sailor Moon, right? That's one component Devilman Crybaby won't have.  

It would also be really interesting to see how you react to Akira. I mean, both you and KP hated Shinji for his whinging and navel gazing and I didn't, but Akira being a Devilman Crybaby (literally! the title, it's literal, really... he is a devilman... and a crybaby) did bother me some throughout the anime.

That potentially means that he'd be diffent from usual young adult male protagonists.

 

* And it's very much toned down in the adaptation. The original novel has Violet wielding a massive, ungainly axe with which she regularily rent entire enemy platoons asunder. Seriously, what a great idea to drop that nonsense from the anime adapation.

** Major series ending spoilers, so be sure you know what you do when you click here:

Spoiler

Literal Satan and literal God, series ends with God pushing the reset button in a Noachian deluge style way, except with, uhm, light bombs instead of water.

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm completely sincere about Devilman Crybaby, it's a great show that works on so many levels. Hugely recommended it to anyone.

What I don't recommended as much is AoT, the 2nd season of which I finished. It's still got severe pacing issues, the characters pick the dumbest times to break down or monolog, and to boot big monkey DIO got barely any screen time. Still I'm keeping with it, it's not like Majestic and SMC because I do enjoy it, the best I can liken it to is fast food. You know it's not the best but sometimes you just want to eat a burger.

So long space cowboy.

[majestic]

53 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I'm completely sincere about Devilman Crybaby, it's a great show that works on so many levels. Hugely recommended it to anyone.

What I don't recommended as much is AoT, the 2nd season of which I finished. It's still got severe pacing issues, the characters pick the dumbest times to break down or monolog, and to boot big monkey DIO got barely any screen time. Still I'm keeping with it, it's not like Majestic and SMC because I do enjoy it, the best I can liken it to is fast food. You know it's not the best but sometimes you just want to eat a burger.

So long space cowboy.

Join the dark side and start hate watching with me. Either pick SMC or Discovery, and down that dark path we'll find many things other will consider... unnatural. *cackles*

No?

Ah, well...

Still hope Eternal bombed enough to put a can into the idea of adapting the last arc. I really don't want to see what they can come up with for Stars.

edit:

You were right about stands being weirder than any hamon. I though that hard to do, but wheeeeee, what the hell.

Edited June 18, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

52 minutes ago, majestic said:

Join the dark side and start hate watching with me. Either pick SMC or Discovery, and down that dark path we'll find many things other will consider... unnatural. *cackles*

I tricked got you to start watching JoJo, so we're already on that path.

55 minutes ago, majestic said:

You were right about stands being weirder than any hamon. I though that hard to do, but wheeeeee, what the hell.

While they do get weirder as time goes on, Tower of Grey was one hell of a divergence from Hamon.

[majestic]

Oh, and by the way, I finished watching the Violet Evergarden movie, obviously.

Not sure I like that ending. For a moment it looked like it would be really, you know, subverting my expectations until it suddenly wasn't any more, and started playing things incredibly straight. Or in other words... I think the film just pulled a Miyazaki there at the end, and I'm not entirely certain if I'm happy or angry with that. It's a strange feeling of being both at the same time. 

Spoilers, potentially cascaded:

Spoiler

The last hour of the film was on the verge of being really, really, really impressive in its potential bittersweet ending to Violet's character arc until it flipped and ended in the way every romantic movie has to.
 

Spoiler

 

Violet finds out that Gilbert is still alive, on a remote island. Dio and Violet leave to visit him, Dio talks to him first and Gilbert refuses to even see Violet. It's been a couple of years now, and he's full of regrets. Violet is confused, then sad, then runs to his home with Dio and talks to Gilbert through the door. He still refuses to open it. They leave, then Dio proposes to beat the door down and hit Gilbert for being an absolute ass, Violet says that if anyone is going to hit him, it's her.

A priceless look on Dio's face later Violet says that she's joking and will go home, and that she's content now, knowing that he's alive and well. She gives a boy a letter for Gilbert and walks to the pier and boards the boat back to the mainland.

At this point I actually thought that it would end with her leaving, but no, Gilbert reads her letter, chases after her, she jumps off the boat and swims ashore. Cue moonrise and an emotional scene ending in a hug.

 

 

I get why it ended the way it did. It's just like with the ending of Whisper of the Heart, I'm sitting here wondering if it didn't do injustice to an otherwise incredible piece of art.

Also spoilers, so click at your own risk.

Spoiler

 

It's not that I don't want Violet to be happy, to be honest, far from it. There's too many issues with this... let's call it relationship, and that's not counting the age difference, the fact that he knew her from what was implied to be age 10, or any other of the weird implications there (like being her superior officer and surrogate father), no. It's also not really good for Violet. It's Mamoru and Usagi all over again, except that Violet, in a way, is emotionally even less mature than Usagi ever was. Regardless of how far she's come by now, it's clear that she's way too dependent on Gilbert - or an idea of him that she carried with her - for this to be a good idea.

I don't doubt the sincerity of either of their feelings. Just that Gilbert was right when he said it would be better to not be in her life. Sigh.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Daicon IV? So you like animated playboy bunnies, do you? That is certainly unexpected.

When you can and do animate like that, who cares what the content is? Any and all objections are automatically overruled, .

3 hours ago, majestic said:

It would also be really interesting to see how you react to Akira. I mean, both you and KP hated Shinji for his whinging and navel gazing and I didn't, but Akira being a Devilman Crybaby (literally! the title, it's literal, really... he is a devilman... and a crybaby) did bother me some throughout the anime.

Yeah, I'll also be surprised if I like Devilman Crybaby, and also, good to know - I shouldn't expect to enjoy Akira either, .

5 hours ago, majestic said:

even if I found the uncanny CGI'ed camera movements to be much more distracting than they should have been.

That crap has looked terrible since like the 90s when they started experimenting with it (e.g. Beauty and the Beast), still looks terrible today (...also, speaking of western animation, Invincible did it as well, as it was the most jarring part of an already not very appealing animation style).

6 hours ago, majestic said:

Unless, of course, you'd blow an enormous amount of resources on the project to, as you said in the spoiler below, make it look more like Perfect Blue. The amount of time and money that already went into this is pretty impressive when you consider that Kyoto Animation makes it a point to pay their employees (and with them being actual employees, instead of self-employed contract hires) fairly and provide a decent work environment without the usual exploitation of young talent to shave as much off of production costs as possible.

Yeah, I definitely don't expect that. I just need...different styles than what we've currently got today. Might have to wait a decade or two for some other styles that I like better to become "in", I guess. Oh well, there's plenty of 80s/90s stuff to check out anyways.

[majestic]

10 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I tricked got you to start watching JoJo, so we're already on that path.

Not enough hate there to feed on. Speaking of hate watching, there's a new teaser trailer for Picard season 2 out now...

Time travel, Q and more Jeri Ryan, they're really getting desperate here. This is going to suck so much, and I'll hate to watch it.

10 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

While they do get weirder as time goes on, Tower of Grey was one hell of a divergence from Hamon.

JoJo really doesn't have any luck using planes, does he?

I also lost it when they played Walk Like an Egyptian as the music for the closing credits. Laughed a good five minutes. Such an awesome idea.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I'll also be surprised if I like Devilman Crybaby, and also, good to know - I shouldn't expect to enjoy Akira either, .

Wait a moment, that was totally unclear now that I re-read my post, Akira Fudo is the name of the titular Devilman Crybaby in, uhm, Devilman Crybaby. I wasn't talking about the anime film Akira, that one's a classic for a reason and something completely different from Devilman Crybaby.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That crap has looked terrible since like the 90s when they started experimenting with it (e.g. Beauty and the Beast), still looks terrible today (...also, speaking of western animation, Invincible did it as well, as it was the most jarring part of an already not very appealing animation style).

I saw Beauty and the Beast once in a theater, I think that was a school outing at the time. I don't really recall anything other than the plot and the characters involved.

Invincible is still sitting at one watched episode at the moment, which means I'll eventually finish it, but apart from the actually somewhat unexpected twist at the end of the first episode it had nothing that made me want to continue to watch. Except for that voice cast, maybe, but that's not much. Plus it looks terrible. I know you said it gets better, but I'll probably only get back to this once I'm done with everything else. Including the live action Sailor Moon.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I definitely don't expect that. I just need...different styles than what we've currently got today. Might have to wait a decade or two for some other styles that I like better to become "in", I guess. Oh well, there's plenty of 80s/90s stuff to check out anyways.

Not everything modern looks like that though, I've been going through Kill la Kill at a slowish pace in the meantime, and while it also has uncanny CGI to "enhance" the rest of the animation, the character designs are certainly cartoony enough.

I also tend to laugh like an idiot while watching it. It's a magical girl ecchi shonen anime, which at first glance makes it sound absolutely terrible, until... yeah until you realize it's not taking itself seriously and is making fun of animes like it that are actually meant to be taken seriously. Everything is so over the top it becomes absurd and absurdly funny through it.

Best magical girl transformation scene ever, too:

Yeah, just in case that wasn't obvious from what I posted about it, not entirely safe for work. Sure, Barbie doll anatomy in place, but it does have the world famous jiggly boobs.

Edited June 19, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

30 minutes ago, majestic said:

Invincible is still sitting at one watched episode at the moment, which means I'll eventually finish it, but apart from the actually somewhat unexpected twist at the end of the first episode it had nothing that made me want to continue to watch. Except for that voice cast, maybe, but that's not much. Plus it looks terrible. I know you said it gets better, but I'll probably only get back to this once I'm done with everything else. Including the live action Sailor Moon.

It honestly does, especially past the first...3 or so episodes? There was some stuff I liked in those early episodes, but it was probably like 25% stuff I liked 75% stuff I didn't (...very roughly); the last few episodes, in comparison, were more like...maybe 90% stuff I liked, 10% stuff I didn't? Much better second half than first half. Was excited at the idea of a second season until my inner pessimism automatically kicked in - it will be trash until it's demonstrated that it's not, . And yeah, the animation does...mostly look terrible. It has a few good points, but it's not much. The key thing for me was that I didn't hate how literally *all* of the characters looked, just...some of them.

30 minutes ago, majestic said:

Wait a moment, that was totally unclear now that I re-read my post, Akira Fudo is the name of the titular Devilman Crybaby in, uhm, Devilman Crybaby. I wasn't talking about the anime film Akira, that one's a classic for a reason and something completely different from Devilman Crybaby.

Oh, okay. So I'm one hundred percent going to hate the titular character. Yes, that is indeed a very different way to interpret that!

30 minutes ago, majestic said:

Kill La Kill

The concept art doesn't look bad. Less sold on the art for the show overall, from the clip you showed me, particularly given the show's crassness, but I watched the following trailer and got a better idea of what you mean...

...But this trailer was positively awful and did the opposite of making me want to watch the show. You win some, you lose some.

Question for anyone who's watched Ranma 1/2 (@Amentep?): does the show radically change after the first 18 episodes (i.e. the "first" season)? From what I saw online, basically the show was a complete ratings failures and was effectively cancelled in the middle of the first season (those first 18 episodes), and they ended up overhauling and retooling the show for a second season, and that's what succeeded. What I want to know is what exactly this "retooling" entails, because I'm about halfway through this "first season" and it's been extremely character relationship-driven and very humorous while the fighting and normal shonen stuff has really taken a bit of a back seat to those elements. In other words, although I have had a couple of issues with it, this first season (so far) has completely kicked Yu Yu Hakusho's butt and dragged its sorry corpse out to the dumpster and then incinerated it, and I guess I'm wondering if all that's going to be thrown into the garbage in another 9 episodes or so.

Also, out of town for the next couple of days, don't expect any immediate replies/reactions if you reply to this any of you, .

Edited June 19, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

I read the manga (in translation), never saw the anime for Ranma 1/2.

[majestic]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The concept art doesn't look bad. Less sold on the art for the show overall, from the clip you showed me, particularly given the show's crassness, but I watched the following trailer and got a better idea of what you mean...

...But this trailer was positively awful and did the opposite of making me want to watch the show. You win some, you lose some.

Good thing I didn't watch the trailer but just jumped into the first episode, because that trailer is indeed awful, but I was using Kill la Kill as a point of reference for character design more than a recommendation. It's hilarious and (intentionally) overdone to the point of being satire, which you already said you don't really like.

Spoilered just in case someone else wants to watch it.

Spoiler

 

The basic premise of the show is the standard shonen fight to get stronger for revenge (Ryuko's father was murdered), it just drives everything up to eleven. The ridiculous ecchi moments aren't there to be erotic but to point out how ridiculous they are, directly parodied in one of the episodes where another character exposes her underwear at certain points, and male characters on the show get nosebleeds from looking at her panties and cause traffic accidents when they stare at her rather than pay attention. 

Happens three times in the same 25 minutes episode. Once with Mako's (the girl next to Ryuko in the concept art picture) father, her brother and the family's dog.

One of the episodes is, for its entire length, a fight of Ryuko against the leader of the disciplinary committee who uses tentacle whips as weapons, and just ends up whipping her arse for a few minutes. Not only in the "kicks her ass" way, but also in really, like, uhm, the playfully slap her ass with a tentacle whip sort of way, while wearing a gag (well, he IS the leader of the disciplinary committee and likes to punish himself too!). This is transmitted live on TV.

The fights are... well, they're either ridiculously short because Ryuko handily kicks the enemy's ass, or blown out of proportion and drawn out like in any other good shonen anime series (of which I barely watched any, like I've said before), complete with the ridiculous yelling and title cards that you've seen in the trailer.

Sometimes it tries its hand at social commentary, like when in an episode Mako's family, with the help of Ryuko, rises high in the show's socially darwinistic Nazi like "the strong rise to the top" setting to the point where they lose what made them a great family and each of them becomes greedy and materialistic, which is what the academ'y glorious, radiant leader (literally radiant, as you've seen in the trialer) calls behaving like pigs in clothing.

 

 

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Question for anyone who's watched Ranma 1/2 (@Amentep?): does the show radically change after the first 18 episodes (i.e. the "first" season)? From what I saw online, basically the show was a complete ratings failures and was effectively cancelled in the middle of the first season (those first 18 episodes), and they ended up overhauling and retooling the show for a second season, and that's what succeeded. What I want to know is what exactly this "retooling" entails, because I'm about halfway through this "first season" and it's been extremely character relationship-driven and very humorous while the fighting and normal shonen stuff has really taken a bit of a back seat to those elements. In other words, although I have had a couple of issues with it, this first season (so far) has completely kicked Yu Yu Hakusho's butt and dragged its sorry corpse out to the dumpster and then incinerated it, and I guess I'm wondering if all that's going to be thrown into the garbage in another 9 episodes or so.

I have no idea about Ranma 1/2 (although I'll take that as a semi-recommendation for the first season then), but I'm sure if you keep this up then Tomoyo will stalk and drag you out to the dumpster if you keep her from being able to film Sakura for much longer.  

Spoiler

Just kidding. CCS is to be treasured. I think I blew through it too fast, and all I have left now is Clear Card.

 

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Also, out of town for the next couple of days, don't expect any immediate replies/reactions if you reply to this any of you, .

Have fun, assuming it's not for sad reasons, and related to summer holidays.  

Edited June 19, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

On 6/17/2021 at 10:58 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I saw a show called Eden on Netflix that showed art like this for the preview..:

This looks gorgeous. I felt like watching it as soon as I saw this image. But then I saw the other image.

 

17 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I'm completely sincere about Devilman Crybaby, it's a great show that works on so many levels. Hugely recommended it to anyone.

What I don't recommended as much is AoT, the 2nd season of which I finished. It's still got severe pacing issues, the characters pick the dumbest times to break down or monolog, and to boot big monkey DIO got barely any screen time. Still I'm keeping with it, it's not like Majestic and SMC because I do enjoy it, the best I can liken it to is fast food. You know it's not the best but sometimes you just want to eat a burger.

So long space cowboy.

I binge watched AoT's first 2-3 seasons, so I don't remember very well what happens on each one, it is just one thing for me. I didn't care that much for the monologues, but I felt really annoyed by how much they delayed

Spoiler

showing what was in the basement.

 

16 hours ago, majestic said:

Join the dark side and start hate watching with me. Either pick SMC or Discovery, and down that dark path we'll find many things other will consider... unnatural. *cackles*

 

4 hours ago, majestic said:

Not enough hate there to feed on. Speaking of hate watching, there's a new teaser trailer for Picard season 2 out now...

Time travel, Q and more Jeri Ryan, they're really getting desperate here. This is going to suck so much, and I'll hate to watch it.

I swore I wouldn't watch any more Picard. But I confess I'm interested. I'm going to hate it anyway.

 

Finally started Legend of Galactic Heroes. I'll post my impressions later.

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by InsaneCommander