Anime, the eternal Jettokōsutā

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

8 hours ago, majestic said:

Assuming you like it enough to watch everything.

So far I like it.

Lt. Col. DIO really does seem like a nice guy and doesn't yell much. The characters seem to be more grounded than other animes, hell most of them seem pretty normal and mostly concerned with getting by in a post-war society which is pretty close to slice of life. I think the show has been a nice refresh after AoT's mix of melodrama and action. I'll see how it goes and try to watch the OVA after episode 4.

And speaking of DIO...

In Phantom Blood he tells Johnathan that a monkey can't defeat a human, then in Stardust Crusaders goes on to send a monkey to try and kill a group of humans. Seems like he wanted to set Forever up, which I can't blame him for. And assuming you've seen the Empress...

Joesph almost got killed by a tumor lmao

[Bartimaeus]

A couple more episodes of Utena. Though the show is not really very much at all like Steven Universe, this show is basically Pearl: The Origins Show - very obviously where so much of her overall design (personality, themes, the way some of her movement is animated, even her music and expressions to a degree) are inspired from. Pretty weird stuff.

(e): Another two - Nanami's a riot. Ikuhara's weird surrealism and self-memes are already out in full force...

Edited July 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

(e): Another two - Nanami's a riot. Ikuhara's weird surrealism and self-memes are already out in full force...

Nanami is a bit too, uhm, much into her brotherly love for DIO, but otherwise a fun alpha b*tch at school. She's a fun character, but someone I'd totally hate in real life (obviously).

8 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

The characters seem to be more grounded than other animes, hell most of them seem pretty normal and mostly concerned with getting by in a post-war society which is pretty close to slice of life.

Marked spoilers contain actual spoilers, so click at your own peril!

Sans Violet being part of a commando unit (at that age) and having mechanical arms, not just grounded, but from what I've gathered fairly realistic, if exaggerated for effect, in its depiction of dealing with post war life from the point of view of affected civilians and traumatized combat veterans alike. I never saw combat (well, duh, I spent my nine months in the service stationed at home in a nation that has not been at war since WW2), but for some of the things happening I can pretty much vouch for myself, which is a whole other can of worms.

Obviously everyone she meets and deals with that we see - as the show is fairly good at making it clear that there is a life for every character outside of what we see on the screen, so if course we only see what Violet does when it matters for her (character) journey - was negatively affected by the war on some level, but it never goes into edgelord grimdark territory. Terrible things happened to a lot of people and they're now all trying to make the best of it. It does have some very dark moments when dealing with survivor's guilt and coming to terms with the past

Spoiler

Especially when Violet finally begins to understand what Lt. Col. DIO meant with "You're burning, you just don't know it yet.", when her past emotionally catches up with her, which predictably ends in a (failed) suicide attempt. Also a reality for many veterans, from what I've read.

but these moments are never there just to be edgy or dark for its own sake, unlike certain later seasons of Game of Thrones did. They all have their place.

Speaking of DIO, one of the first things that happens is that we're shown that he's trying to fulfill his best friend's last wish for Violet, but that he's just as hapless as her in dealing with his new life (much less damaged, but also just as clueless), and doesn't know what he's doing, and it shows.

Then there are the small things you only realize little by little, or at least only I did. The way Violet keeps rubbing her plush toy in her face starts making sense when you realize that she has no feeling in her arms any more. She can't touch things to make them "real", so she does the next best thing - putting them in her face and mouth (just like babies do).

 

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Nanami is a bit too, uhm, much into her brotherly love for DIO, but otherwise a fun alpha b*tch at school. She's a fun character, but someone I'd totally hate in real life (obviously).

Yeah, I called out her oedipus-except-for-her-brother complex literally the first scene they appeared together because of the weird way she was acting towards him and said that was going to get real uncomfortable...and so far, it's been REAL WEIRD, but I guess not exactly uncomfortable yet even though it really should be. There's a lot of strange thematic stuff going on in this show that I'm just going to ignore and take at face value instead because trying to follow it all is just too difficult.

I also watched a two-part OVA from 1989 called Assemble Insert. I expected to watch this for literally about one minute before turning it off (that's usually how experiments in random animes like these go), but it was decently funny, cute, surprisingly not embarrassing or fan service-y, and just overall competent in a goofy 80s anime kind of way, so I watched the entire thing. Basically, the gist is that there's a small-time super-villain group with powerful mech suits called the Demon Seed (named for reasons I was unable to discern, since the name didn't seem to have any obvious meaning related to what they do or even look like) terrorizing Tokyo, and the government has no idea how to deal with them. They don't really do anything except rob places to make money, though, so it's not really the government's highest of priorities to deal with what is basically just a really strong group of undefeatable bandits. A certain branch of basically reject/failure police that the government seemingly just wants to fire are tasked with finding out how to deal with the Demon Seed, and they come up with the crazy idea of finding an idol that will "fight" the Demon Seed publicly - not with the intent of actually defeating them, but just to make it so that the public feels better about the whole thing, since having a cute face be their public protector will necessarily make it so that people will be less upset with the government not being able to fix the actual problem. Typical government stuff, really.

Spoiler

...Except that when they hold a contest to determine who will become the city's protecting idol, they accidentally chance upon a socially awkward, nervous wreck of a girl who just happens to have actual super strength that basically wins the contest by default.

The very first time they send her to fight the Demon Seed, she cheerfully and somewhat accidentally destroys them so badly that, although they're able to escape, they're unable to repair their mech suits or remain solvent at all afterwards, necessitating that the police department then focus on trying to turn her into an actual idol lacking anything else to do with her (particularly given her sudden popularity for having actually solved the city's super-villain problem)...until a certain mad scientist that's an obsessed fan of hers decides to re-outfit the Demon Seed with brand new mechs for the express purpose of fighting her. Our hero has to make the choice between trying to become an idol or doing what she feels is her job, which is protecting the city. Well, the choice ends up being pretty obvious: she never cared for the public performance stuff anyways, it's just not her strong suit; what she really loves is using what she feels is her actual talent - her strength - to help others, so she says screw the idol stuff and goes and destroys the Demon Seed again in literally like 30 seconds. ...I can't understate how dumb of a show this was, and how much I expected to not watch more than a minute at most, but it somehow actually felt fun and right.

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

I'm really curious how Utena will continue. From what I understood of the articles I've read, the first 13 episodes are their own character introduction and setup "arc" and afterwards the more or less only hinted at storyline should begin. I'm kind of expecting that the anime will begin to change in nature at that point, and I've been stalling here and there, or rather, preoccupied myself with other things. Like Love Live! where the third episode was the inevitable drop in quality compared to the superb second one.

It had good parts, but part of the fanservice was suddenly back. Not much of a surprise given the two live performances in the episode, one by A-RISE and one by µ's. Out of which A-RISE was pretty cringy, in every way, from their costumes to the actual song:

There was also some fun stuff about them talking to the A-RISE girls or making a mess of a public annoucement at school, but there also was a terrible scene where they talked about their costumes and how they need to have sexy dresses to get some attention. At least Umi and Eri flat out refused to entertain such nonsense, but yeah, they still got badgered into wearing the other costumes you can see in the video*. *sigh*

In the end, Love Live! is what it is, and it has moments like these that are really annoying in an otherwise perhaps silly but decently entertaining enough show.

*Although, to be fair, actual real life pop stars don't wear anything better either, do they. Still cringe.

edit:

Assemble Insert sounds like great 80ies trash. I might look into that.  

Edited July 14, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

Assemble Insert sounds like great 80ies trash. I might look into that.

That's probably a good way to describe it. Yeah, it was like...the B-movie equivalent of a semi-magical girl semi-parody anime that's surprisingly not half-bad. Nothing groundbreaking by any means, but it was fun and I don't feel completely embarrassed to talk about it, . It's only available on DVD from what I was able to discern. The intro song bit for both parts has more action in it than probably the rest of the entire show combined, weirdly. Really, when I saw this (and similar stuff) in the intro, I figured it was going to be all or at least mostly action, and then it wasn't:

Spoiler

I should be watching Utena regularly until I'm finished with it, because I'm not watching it alone which means I actually have to put effort into maintaining a schedule of watching it or risk the wrath of my other party (who is the opposite of me and needs to regularly watch shows at more or less pre-determined times), so prepare to be quickly outpaced unless you immediately drop everything else to binge watch it, .

It is a seriously sad state of affairs that Clear Card has disappointed you so much that Love Live continues to be more fun, .

Edited July 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

56 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I should be watching Utena regularly until I'm finished with it, because I'm not watching it alone which means I actually have to put effort into maintaining a schedule of watching it or risk the wrath of my other party (who is the opposite of me and needs to regularly watch shows at more or less pre-determined times), so prepare to be quickly outpaced unless you immediately drop everything else to binge watch it, .

I see, then I have to up my game there, don't I? Heh. Which episode are you at now?

Funny how I don't have to watch stuff at predetermined times. I used to, and it was fun in the sense that we were usually more than one person watching the same thing on regular TV, but nothing forces me to stick to a schedule.

56 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It is a seriously sad state of affairs that Clear Card has disappointed you so much that Love Live continues to be more fun .

If Clear Card did not have that one episode where Meiling comes back from Hong Kong and stays over at Sakura's*, complete with some interactions between her, Sakura, Tomoyo, Chiharu and Naoko (who more or less has disappeared from the show, for some reason, she's only ever on screen when Sakura has cheerleading practice, which is like twice in 16 episodes so far - at least Rika is at a different school and has an "excuse" for not being around) then I'd even have to say that the second episode of the second season of Love Live! was better than any other Clear Card episode so far.

That is... I think the most shocking thing of that entire mess. I figured I'd watch Love Live! to see how bad it can really get, and it actually ends up upstaging Clear Card.

For all its problems, from the writers not being really able to deal with a nine piece cast (then again, that would be a tall order for anyone), to the bouts of cringy fanservice, to the terrible looking CGI dancing bits and the generally vapid, soulless look of the anime it's... entertaining and fun when its not cringy, and has more fun and entertainment than cringe, actually, so it really is a net positive. Clear Card, on the other hand, is a pretty fat zero so far.

*Sakura rarely ever gets alone time with Meiling, but when she does, it's pure magic (not in the magic casting kind). It's a bit of a stretch that both suddenly get a major boost to their maturity level only to lose it once they stop being together alone, but it's magic nonetheless. You'll see once you hit episode 43.

Edited July 14, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

It will be episode 7 + 8 tonight...probably! I'm reliably unreliable about these things, plus my team is playing in the Super Basketbowl tonight as well, so we'll see, .

40 minutes ago, majestic said:

*Sakura rarely ever gets alone time with Meiling, but when she does, it's pure magic (not in the magic casting kind). It's a bit of a stretch that both suddenly get a major boost to their maturity level only to lose it once they stop being together alone, but it's magic nonetheless. You'll see once you hit episode 43.

It's happened once or twice already, and those interactions have been very different and really good (e.g. relatively early on when Sakura and Meiling were discussing what kinds of gifts they should give, when Meiling thought for sure Sakura was going to more or less literally kidnap and murder her, ). Although I like Kero, him treating Meiling like garbage all of the time makes natural and pleasant interactions with her difficult and needlessly antagonistic.

[majestic]

3 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It will be episode 7 + 8 tonight...probably! I'm reliably unreliable about these things, plus my team is playing in the Super Basketbowl tonight as well, so we'll see, .

Since you seem to enjoy Nanami's shenanigans, these two should... be really great.

Minor word of caution, episode 9 jumps from the well of goofy of the preceeding ones right down into the pool of surrealist imagery and metaphor. It's a really hard break when watched back to back, and you might want to... I don't know, make it so you can watch it when you're reasonably un-mushy depending on the overall schedule and all that.

11 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Although I like Kero, him treating Meiling like garbage all of the time makes natural and pleasant interactions with her difficult and needlessly antagonistic.

Very minor but spoiler nonetheless:

Spoiler

That's why Sakura sends Kero to have his own sleepover at Tomoyo's in 43.

 

[majestic]

Yikes. Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 10:

Spoiler

Nanami asks Toga for a kiss, and Toga just says "we're not children any more", do I want to know more? I'm heavily leaning towards no here.

Toga is one hell of a manipulative bastard who doesn't shy away from using his beloved sister to achieve whatever his goals are (outside of trying to get into Utena's pants), and Nanami's obsession with her brother goes far enough to drown a kitten because was jealous of the attention it got from him, and it had the audacity to playfully bite him. A kitten that was her birthday gift to him.

That's one messed up family.

By the way, when watching this, keep in mind that Ikuhara made Revolutionary Girl Utena out of a failed Sailor Moon movie special script, one that according to him should have had Haruka and Usagi riding a black and white Pegasus to the "End of the World", a location where Michiru was sleeping a magical sleep of some sort.

The music that plays when Utena pulls the sword from Anthy reminds me a lot of certain parts of the Lexx soundtrack.

Edited July 14, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

By the way, when watching this, keep in mind that Ikuhara made Revolutionary Girl Utena out of a failed Sailor Moon movie special script, one that according to him should have had Haruka and Usagi riding a black and white Pegasus to the "End of the World", a location where Michiru was sleeping a magical sleep of some sort.

That boy ain't right.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Just now, Bartimaeus said:

That boy ain't right.

 

Let's not project Pedosus onto all pegasi. 

[majestic]

Here's a copy from the interview, it has some pretty hard Utena spoilers so not going to link.

On what the SuperS movie could have been:

Quote

 

Q: I have heard of an unused plot for Sailor Moon SuperS involving a black Pegasus as well as a white one. Was this a real plot idea, or something made up by fans?

A: That was a real plot I had thought up. I was once up to directing the Sailor Moon Super S Movie. It was going to be a story in which Uranus and Neptune were the main characters. It was going to be a story independant to the TV series and this was going to be the first appearance of Uranus and Neptune. And Sailor Neptune was going to be in a 1000-year sleep at a place called "The End of the World". And Sailor Uranus was needed to steal the talisman from the Sailor Scouts and use that to awaken Sailor Neptune. And Uranus was going to be riding the black pegasus. And the story was going to be that Sailor Moon would ride Pegasus to chase Sailor Uranus riding the Black Pegasus to the "End of the World". And the climax of the story would've been the rodeo scene between Sailor Moon on white Pegasus and Sailor Uranus on Black Pegasus. And so this was kind of story I had in mind. But before production began, the producer walked off Sailor Moon. It would've been possible for me to make the story still, but since I came up with the story with the producer, I also walked off. But I had an attraction to the idea of "The End of the World" which I thought up for this plot. So the same thing in Utena comes from the Sailor Moon plot.

 

Ikuhara on why Mamoru was all but written out of the show in the later seasons:

Quote

 

Q: Ikuhara-san, Utena and Sailor Moon are two of the most popular anime amongst yuri fans. Do you intentionally include shoujo-ai subtexts in your work?

A: No. I'm still able to make a story where it's between a boy and a girl. But I feel irritated to see my girl getting together with some other guy. I've tried to kill off Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon many times. But no matter how many times I tried to kill him, he gets resurrected so I only get angrier. So I decided it would be way better if the girl just didn't have a boyfriend to begin with. Of course I'm just kidding. In reality, if I have a guy in the show, the love relationship gets to have a bigger role than the show. And that would be an interesting element, but I wouldn't want that to make that the scene-stealer of the show. Most other shoujo shows are in that direction. It's about who-and-who are getting together, or who-and-who are breaking up. I thought it would be a loss if that would be the big motif just because a girl was the main character. I think there could be more shows with other motives than that.

 

Emphasis added by the editor, in both cases!

Given the prevalence of Mamosagi in the manga and the focus on their miracle romance, it's no wonder he and Ms. Takeuchi didn't get along. Changing Rei was probably only a minor part of that. Sailor Moon is a partial self-insertion fic from Naoko Takeuchi where she (admittedly, even, I think - but that's taken by word of mouth from the fandumb) made up the relationship and the friends she wanted to have but didn't at that point in her life.

Also, good to see that there never was any subtext intended for Sailor Moon. Take that, stupid Ami x Makoto shippers. Not that it wasn't totally clear from the start (almost) that homosexual relationships in Sailor Moon aren't subtexted. They're overt. Very much so. That's part of the charm... especially for something from the mid 90ies.

[majestic]

Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 11.

Spoiler

All the conniving manipulation finally pays off for Toga. He manages to convince Utena that he's the prince who originally gave her the rose seal. Math doesn't seem to be the strong suit of Utena, because there's no way the age difference between these two is large enough for that to even be possible.

Utena ends up hesitating and loses the duel.

Anthy now belongs to Toga, and Utena realizes just how far and how deep this posession of the Rose Bride really goes when Anthy immediately turns into what Toga wants from her, erasing all her attempts at making Anthy an actual person instead of a posession in an instant.

Toga mocks her for not realizing that Anthy just does what her owner expects her to do.

That's not entirely 100% true, because in a prior dialogue between her an Toga while they were alone, Anthy was clearly apprehensive about potentially returning to her cage - the bird cage in which she grows roses and Toga promises her to never be allowed to leave one he possesses her.

I have no idea what's possibly going on there.

That was depressing.

[majestic]

17 minutes ago, majestic said:

That was depressing.

It sure doesn't stop. I didn't expect something like this so early in the show's run, but then... 12 episodes is almost a third through already.

Spoiler

Utena is broken. She begins wearing a girl's school uniform. When Toga hits on her in an unbecoming manner, she just sits there (instead of slapping him silly, like last time). Wakabe is trying her damndest to find out what's going on with Utena and to cheer her up, but for all her efforts it's her that earns a slap. Good on her for firing one back immediately.

Toga also really makes an effort to have Anthy around whenever he flirts with other girls. He might be a lot calmer than DIO, but he sure isn't any better. He also has a mobile phone. Cars, mobile phones, surfing elephants, exploding curry, boxing kangaroos, bowling balls, a medieval acadamy, sword duels... this setting sure is weird.

Wakabe manages to return Utena's resolve. She has no idea what's going on, but she seems happy with the result. She challenges Toga to another duel, who then promptly shows Utena that Anthy has the power to turn the summoned sword into a red lightsaber that can project force attacks. Predictably, even though Utena brought a real sword to this duel, it breaks in the face of Toga's onslaught. However, her resolve somehow de-powers Toga's blade and in a move that mirrors the first episode's she wins Anthy and her old self back.

The shadowplay in this episode has the shadows leaving on a shadow UFO. That sure was something. I have a vague idea what, but no more.

*headscratch*

[Bartimaeus]

Utena, the curry episode:

11 hours ago, majestic said:

Of course I'm just kidding

Narrator: He was not.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

I already used my Dr. Phil seizure gif, which is a shame, because what I just watched now deserved it a lot more than Utena: Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985).

Some sort of extremely theme-heavy, incredibly slow-paced, deliberately plot-thin metaphysical space journey about eternity, time, death, and being left behind with lots of strange philosophizing kind of movie. As slow-paced as it was, I have no clue what the hell happened in this film or really what it was trying to say in the slightest. I don't regret watching it, because the art's quite nice and it was weird and interesting, but it was not entirely dissimilar to watching The Tragedy of Man (2011)...

Spoiler

...which is also an animated film, but even more different still...

...but more Japanese and in anime format. If you want a sample of the kind of scenes and dialogues you can expect out of this (although this particular scene doesn't really have any of the more interesting-looking backgrounds or compositions throughout the film, of which there are a number of), I made a clip: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/nrg2e94izop6w5y/xrAvhHikai.mp4

Your guess is as good as mine on what any of it's supposed to mean, because I have no clue. Nope, not even why the guy at the end just disapparated suddenly. Very much a "what you make of it" kind of film...not sure if I was ready for this at 5 AM in the morning. I think if this had been faster-paced and a little more extreme instead of the slow-paced plodding kind of style it had, it might've been able to melt my brain trying to keep up and make sense of anything that was happening. The sheer amount of interesting or weird anime I can find in just the 80s is a little bit much to grapple at times...

Edited July 15, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

That certainly looks interesting. The Scorpio story reminds me a bit too much of Japanese style societal pressure to just accept your fate and do the right thing. 

Not sure when I will get around to watching it for the time being. Too much to do already, plus work's a pretty bitch right now, stupid server thread keeps having exceptions for no reasons, so now we went for a full recompile on a running system, that's fun... (don't try this at home, dear readers, that only works if you have several layers to compile )

Speaking of Utena, do you have any idea yet what Miki and his stopwatch is supposed to mean (I don't, unless... maybe...)?

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Narrator: He was not.

I got a few fun takeaways from that. First, the name "SuperS" was conceived of before Sailor Moon S came up, because how else could the movie introduce Haruka and Michiru, and Naoko Takeuchi probably had the idea for Pegasus a while before. Or worse, she got it from that script? Who knows.

The other thing is that he just dropped the romance because he wanted a show with girls as main characters to be about something else than boys. Sure they come up often, especially for Minako and Rei, but in the end, that's a pretty interesting stance for a Japanese director in the mid 90ies. 

[Bartimaeus]

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

Speaking of Utena, do you have any idea yet what Miki and his stopwatch is supposed to mean (I don't, unless... maybe...)?

Have not been able to come up with any semi-intelligent theories on that yet. Weird show does weird things is all I've got so far, .

14 minutes ago, majestic said:

I got a few fun takeaways from that. First, the name "SuperS" was conceived of before Sailor Moon S came up, because how else could the movie introduce Haruka and Michiru, and Naoko Takeuchi probably had the idea for Pegasus a while before. Or worse, she got it from that script? Who knows.

The other thing is that he just dropped the romance because he wanted a show with girls as main characters to be about something else than boys. Sure they come up often, especially for Minako and Rei, but in the end, that's a pretty interesting stance for a Japanese director in the mid 90ies. 

Well, he certainly had the right idea, especially with what he was given to work with in Mamoru, .

[majestic]

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Have not been able to come up with any semi-intelligent theories on that yet. Weird show does weird things is all I've got so far, .

Ikuhara once said, when he was asked, that the scenes with the stopwatch reveal something fundamental about the nature of the anime's universe. In other words, they're totally not relevant and just there for fun, and the best explanation I've seen so far is that they're actually just number puns.

In one of the episodes, Nanami has the watch and stops it at 7:73, or - when read out aloud in Janapese - na-na-mi.

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I already used my Dr. Phil seizure gif, which is a shame, because what I just watched now deserved it a lot more than Utena: Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985).

Some sort of extremely theme-heavy, incredibly slow-paced, deliberately plot-thin metaphysical space journey about eternity, time, death, and being left behind with lots of strange philosophizing kind of movie. As slow-paced as it was, I have no clue what the hell happened in this film or really what it was trying to say in the slightest. I don't regret watching it, because the art's quite nice and it was weird and interesting, but it was not entirely dissimilar to watching The Tragedy of Man (2011)...

Based on a novel by Kenji Miyazawa, the book, ostensibly a children's book, deals heavily with the idea of those who sacrifice for others.  Miyazawa started writing the book shortly after the death of his sister and continued to revise it at least through the start of his own illness.  It wasn't actually complete (the middle section is missing parts) and was posthumously published in 1934.  Because its a seminal work of fiction, its influence shows up in a lot of other Japanese fiction, most strongly perhaps in Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999.

Not sure why the Anime re-envisioned Giovanni and Campanella as cats though.

[majestic]

Just now, Amentep said:

Not sure why the Anime re-envisioned Giovanni and Campanella as cats though.

For the same reason Utena has surfing elephants in the exploding curry episode. ^^

[Bartimaeus]

15 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Based on a novel by Kenji Miyazawa, the book, ostensibly a children's book, deals heavily with the idea of those who sacrifice for others.  Miyazawa started writing the book shortly after the death of his sister and continued to revise it at least through the start of his own illness.  It wasn't actually complete (the middle section is missing parts) and was posthumously published in 1934.  Because its a seminal work of fiction, its influence shows up in a lot of other Japanese fiction, most strongly perhaps in Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999.

Not sure why the Anime re-envisioned Giovanni and Campanella as cats though.

Thanks for the context. I'm not big on anthropomorphized animals at all, so I kiiinda woulda preferred they weren't cats, especially because I think that would've necessitated that the two main characters be at least slightly more expressive than they were (I think if I had really liked the protagonists, this film could've been less "weird and interesting" and more "legitimately great"...but they were just mostly kind of stoic and inoffensive; it really would help to have characters you're more invested in to steer the ship in something like this). And I had a real brain situation going on when humans suddenly walked into the movie out of the blue halfway through, and then sat down and talked to our main characters as if it were the most perfectly normal thing in the world - no note of it made at all. Real weird film.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Well I ended up watching CGI anthropomorphized horny teenage animals aka Beastars. It's very weird and apparently there is a ghost now.

[majestic]

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Well I ended up watching CGI anthropomorphized horny teenage animals aka Beastars. It's very weird and apparently there is a ghost now.

Hoe?

Anyway, leave it to Kunihiko Ikuhara to have the [(not so) bright idea | balls] (pick at your leisure) to make the 13th episode, and the end of the first arc, a clip show interspersed with narration by a both a mysterious stranger and someone else who suspiciously looks like Utena's prince.

Spoiler

I think the clip show made it abundantly clear that Utena's prince is related to Anthy in some way. While you can only see the outline and at times a short shot of his profile, he's always of a dark complexion, and the only other character with dark skin is Anthy, and his profile looks really similar to Anthy's. Not sure about the ages of the characters, but he's probably her father.

The episode ends with a shot of a black rose growing inside an enclosed space. Now I already know that the next arc is called the Black Rose Saga. More hints that Utena might just meet her prince, hm?

Something tells me that's not going to be as fun or pleasant as she might think it will be.

The two characters also named the duels Utena fought so far:

Amitié (Saionji #1)

Choix (Saionji #2)

Raison (Miki)

Amour (Jury)

Adoration (Nanami)

Conviction (Toga #1)

Soi (Toga #2)

This is a fun collection of French words where you can see how much it has influenced English: That's friendship, choice, reason, love, adoration (duh), conviction (duh #2) and self (just in case it's not as obvious as I think it is ).

Making sense of that is actually not that hard, which is a change for this anime. The first duel she fought in defense of her honor of her friend Wakabe, the second duel she chose, the third one against Miki's unreasonable idea that Anthy could mirror his twin sister, the fourth one against's Jury's cynical outlook on love, the next against Nanami's unreasonable obession with her brother, the one she loses against Toga to find/reclaim her conviction and the last one against herself. 

Viewers paying attention will notice that there were actually eight duels in the first 12 episode, not just 7 - and true, there is an unnamed one against Saionji that's missing, because that one was unsanctioned by the End of the World and gets Saionji expelled.

Shadowplay still has UFOs and the shadows in space suits with distorted voices. It also was right at the start of the episode. If that means anything, I have no idea what. Maybe the end of one arc and the beginning of another?

Fun fact: That was definitely the best clip show since the new Outer Limits arc welding ones. Actually, in spite of being mostly a clip show, this was pretty good.

Edited July 15, 2021 by majestic