Anime - Oh No! Oh My God!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

10 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

[majestic]

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

The show is weird for me because I enjoy it ok but I really don't care about any of the characters.

Yes, that's pretty much what happened to me too. I liked Juri/Jury (the subs aren't sure themselves, I've noticed) well enough, but even that was tenuous. That's by design though, and the biggest problem is that the anime isn't upfront with necessary information. You'll see that with the last episode in the Black Rose arc, that's a major "ah, ok, I get it now" situation, or at least I thought it was. Especially beacuse it suddenly turned to full on visual exposition of a rather hilarous kind.

Not really a spoiler, but kind of revealing, so I'll spoiler it anyway:

Spoiler

The Black Rose arc ending episodes have - literally - pointers on screen to the visual clues you were supposed to pick up on but probably missed while watching, as a sort of guideline or map, it's really hilarious in a way.

 

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Touga is probably my favorite right now because he's DIOa magnificent bastard, but unfortunately he's currently hiding in his room. I wish it would pull a JoJo, a Devilman, or even a Berserk and kill off some of the characters, for dueling with swords no main or side character has bit it yet. Seriously, let Miki get the SHIZAAAAA! treatment or let Nanami get dismembered by a mob and her head driven through with a stake while they dance around a burning house. ****, pull a god damn Eclipse and have Touga put on a ****ty batman costume. Or have someone lock Chu-Chu in a box and burn him alive. Just kill someone already. Please.

Yeah, good luck with that*. Touga will stop sulking in his room eventually.

 

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Now that my desire for a surreal shojo to morph into a brutal seinen or josei is out of the way, the episode itself. I really am not enjoying this Black Rose **** very much. While some parts were cool, it's become repetitive and copied the worst parts of Sailor Moon where Utena defeats every enemy with the Dios attack. Which doesn't actually kill them because lmao. Anthy is less of a person now than before, with the exception of visiting Akio every week. The way that's framed I can see why Nanami is jealous of Anthy, because it looks like Akio is closer to Anthy than a brother should be.

 

Now, now, really, what do you think is going on between Anthy and her brother?

Spoiler

Yes, exactly what the show implies.

The repetitive nature of these sequences has a point, and it's one of the things that'll never make sense until you've figured everything out. Back when @Bartimaeus and I watched Utena, I've often talked about how the pacing of the show isn't great, and how it is a bad idea to have all these elements going on and the information necessary to decode it only trickling in near the end of the arcs. The Akio Ohtori arc is sadly enough even worse in that regard.

Black Rose sort of still plays relatively fair, what with the elevator rides and their implications. Was the episode with Wakaba's schoolfriend yet? That'll be a change.

I've speculated that the anime must have bled a good deal of viewership at that point. I can't really corroborate that, of course, but it seems like a forgone conclusion that at least some people would tune out given the repetitive yet mindscrewing nature of all the "what the hell is going on?" moments.

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Oh, I guess I should talk about the episode itself. Jury is a lesbian (big shock there) and the girl she is crushing on hates her so much she turns evil and steals her heart sword. She predictably loses, because Utena has the plot armor of Dios. Just like Miki's sister (what is it with this show and incestuous implications lmao), I don't have much reason to care about Jury's crush and the show didn't make me care about Jury more. A pity, because Jury is the closest character I genuinely like, even if Touga is way more entertaining.

Poor Jury. She just can't let go of her crush. I'm not sure if that is something that worked better in the manga, or comes from padding the anime a little too much for runtime, perhaps, but none of the characters are particularily likeable. Like I said in the opening paragraph, that's by design, but it doesn't make for too interesting episodes in between the revealing ones if there's nothing you can look forward to.

Except the shadowplay aliens. They're always great.  

*We can come back to that later. Mhm.

Edited September 3, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Following Vampire Hunter D (1983 1985) yesterday, we have Venus Wars (1989) today. Two colonies on Venus fighting for control of the planet, with our group of older teenagers/young adults being caught in between it all as their city is invaded and they have to decide what they want to do - hide, escape, or fight. I thought this reporter lady that came from off-planet was going to be our protagonist because it sure seemed that way for like the first fifteen minutes or so, but in retrospect, I don't think you can generally have a protagonist gleefully exclaim at the prospect of "total war"...

...while having their eyes light up like this and rightfully expect them to be the protagonist, but I sure was excited at the idea. No, instead, our protagonist is this stupid little prick:

He's about as dumb and shooting-self-in-the-foot as you might expect. I'll never understand why young male protagonists have to be so consistently painful...and he's constantly antagonizing everybody else for no good reason, including his girlfriend, and I just...I don't get it, I really don't. To be fair to this movie, it's still pretty decent overall (leagues above something like Iczer One, for example) and it takes turns at focusing on different characters, but every scene involving him I was just praying that someone would blow his brains out or run him over or something.

Anyways, if you want an 80s scifi-adventure-war movie with an absolute boatload of well-animated action, you could do a whole lot worse than Venus Wars. Not quite as good as the Crusher Joe stuff (helps that those characters are all good and pretty likeable), but still pretty solid.

@Utena: Yeah, all the characters kind of suck (besides the shadowplay girls...and sort of Nanami for being loathsomely terrible but also an absolute lovable meme legend) and it makes it about impossible to enjoy when nothing particularly good ever really happens either, .

Edited September 3, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

K-On!!, Epsiode 1.

Yeah, so, like Sailor Moon, K-On! doesn't have season numbering. It's K-On! for the first one, and K-On!! for the second.

The episode continued with the very towned down crazy from the end of K-On!.
 

Spoiler

Sawako made them new costumes for the annual new schoolyear show, but they all summarily rejected wearing them. What a wonderful improvement. Although, the costumes weren't that bad. Just maid outfits, which is a huge step up from the playboy bunny getup she put Tsumugi in last season.

They didn't get any new members this year, so when the girls graduate, Azusa will be the only junior member left. Azusa pretended to be OK with it, but it was fairly clear that she's worried. Seems like this might come into play later.

The new intro song is worse by a factor of infinity. While I actually sort of liked the first one, this one's simply horrible. Didn't like last season's outro song, don't like this one either, so that's less of an issue. Well, what do we have chapter markers for.

This is the second opening:

You don't need to check your settings, this is intentionaly chipmunkified. It's playing on normal speed, really. I sure checked my video player's settings.

So far, so good. With twice as many episodes, I still expect four instead of only two beach episodes, so there's every chance they'll mess up again. The opening of the first season was pretty good and kind of understated (compared to the rest of the season) too.

Anyway, I doubt I'll do an episode by epsiode blurb unless it suddenly turns into ecchi nonsense or turns out to be Sailor Moon Crystal awful all of a sudden.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 hours ago, majestic said:

Except the shadowplay aliens. They're always great.

The only constantly interesting characters tbh.

Right now the show is wearing on me, not to the degree that say Super S did, but enough to put me off from watching as quick as I did with the first arc. A big part is the repetitive nature of the black rose duelists. Some side character shows up, turns evil, loses to Utena, then it's over unless Anthy goes to visit her brother for teh secks. Nothing seems to change after each episode, we have no idea why the creepy professor and his boy!Anthy want to kill Anthy, and apparently no character has thought to look into it. Maybe it all gets explained at the end, but the journey is starting to suck.

I also hate the puffy sleeves on the girls' uniforms.

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

This is the second opening:

That really was terrible.

2 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Maybe it all gets explained at the end

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

12 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

That really was terrible.

I'm alright with bizarre and unexplained stuff, I'm not ok boring. Utena is quickly becoming the latter.

[Bartimaeus]

Dead Leaves (2004). A guy with a TV for a head and a lady named Pandy wake up one day with no clothes and no recollection of whom they are, and decide to immediately go rob a place for money and guns and go on a wild police chase. They are then caught and sent to a prison facility called "Dead Leaves" on the moon. That's all I can say because that's as far as I got before I asked myself "is this going to become any less dumb?" and read the plot summary for the movie and immediately concluded "no, no it's not" and turned it off.

Sort of neat animation style though, I guess:

Spoiler

...But brainless action stuff is just never for me. Into the trash it goes.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

...But brainless action stuff is just never for me. Into the trash it goes.

I don't mind brainless action stuff and find it somewhat entertaining when done badly enough (or wenn done really well), but that art style is seriously putting me off, and what, guy with a TV for a head, uhm, I think I'll pass.

Pretty Cure episode 1!

Well that was something...

Spoiler

YOU FELL FOR IT, FOOL!

 

4 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

The only constantly interesting characters tbh.

They get a massive upgrade in the movie to boot!

2 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I'm alright with bizarre and unexplained stuff, I'm not ok boring. Utena is quickly becoming the latter.

Mid Black Rose arc is the show at it's most uneventful, I think. The duels make no sense, the Mikage seminar makes no sense, everything repeats with a steady rythm and barely any comic relief or any change on the horizon.

The Akio Ohtori arc also has some repetition focused around the duels - that are essentially retreaded combation duels of the Student Council and Black Rose arcs (you'll see once you get there), except with a lot of half-naked Akio to look at.

Spoiler

And some implied, hot Akio and Touga secks. Because Akio really bangs everyone he can get his hands on.
More spoilers:

Spoiler

Including his mother in law.

Spoiler

And Utena, eventually.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

A big part is the repetitive nature of the black rose duelists. Some side character shows up, turns evil, loses to Utena, then it's over unless Anthy goes to visit her brother for teh secks.

Well, the duels are thematic character building of a sort. The side characaters all relate  to the main characters they steal the pure heart crystal heart sword of in some way. It's not working too well.

4 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Nothing seems to change after each episode, we have no idea why the creepy professor and his boy!Anthy want to kill Anthy, and apparently no character has thought to look into it. Maybe it all gets explained at the end, but the journey is starting to suck.

I thought that was in the first Black Rose arc episode, creepy professor wants to replace Anthy with Boy!Anthy to save his life from some wasting disease he has. There is an explanation of a sort at the end of this arc, that for me at least, retroactively saved the somewhat repetitive and boring preceeding episodes. It never really specifies what the professor thought was going to happen when Boy!Anthy becomes the rose bride, though, or if replacing Himemiya is even possible at all.

However, I'm willing to accept that I'll be the only one in this thread with this opinion.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 minutes ago, majestic said:

And some implied, hot Akio and Touga secks

It seems DIO is consistent, because in JoJo he also has implied sex with a dark skinned guy with white hair. Lmao.

Edited September 3, 2021 by KP the meanie zucchini

[Bartimaeus]

Genius Party (2007). A collection of six different shorts: it mostly sucked and so I mostly skipped through all of it. The very first one was the only one semi-worth watching.

It seems to officially be garbage day. Anything else terrible I should get out of the way now, guys?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Just now, Bartimaeus said:

Anything else terrible I should get out of the way now, guys?

Beastars.

[Bartimaeus]

Just now, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Beastars.

[majestic]

45 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It seems to officially be garbage day. Anything else terrible I should get out of the way now, guys?

This is so bad I have to spoiler it:

Spoiler

If you're in the mood for some more super brainless action you can put into the trash bin immediately:

MD Geist II: Death Force

What could possibly go wrong with a VHS tape cover like that?

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

This is so bad I have to spoiler it:

  Hide contents

If you're in the mood for some more super brainless action you can put into the trash bin immediately:

MD Geist II: Death Force

What could possibly go wrong with a VHS tape cover like that?

 

Besides watching only two minutes of it before going "ight imma head out"? Nothing, I guess, .

Edited September 3, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Besides watching only two minutes of it before going "ight imma head out"? Nothing, I guess, .

Well, you wanted something for the trahsbin, right?  

 K-On!! keeps being better overall than K-On!. I'm fairly happy with the way it is going. Guess K-On!! is free of the shackles of its source material now.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

[majestic]

K-On!! had an episode with the four senior girls on a school trip, and the next episode showed what Ui, Azusa and the other juniors were doing.

Yui also deposited a wish at a temple: She always wants to have enough food. Ritsu wants to play a large venue, and Mio and Tsumugi just want to get into a nice university/college. Does that sound familiar to anyone else?  

Some scenes actually included Sawako, and were all without any wild insanity like guessing who the girls are by their bust size, forcing them to wear playboy outfits or any of the other nonsense. The "worst" thing she did was pull on Ritsu's cheek as punishment.

K-On! officially went from a less embarrassing Love Live! to - so far, at least - a really nice and fun slice of life comedy anime. With only some music. Well, and a really terrible intro song. But hey, can't have everything, I guess.

The characters are all the same too, they behave the same way, just a good deal toned down. The school trip episode made Mio a bit more relaxed too. She's usually super annoyed when Yui and Ritsu don't behave like regular Japanese school girls. Which is pretty much all the time.

It's even the same writing team. Not sure what happened, either they got more creative control or really made the second season without having to reference the manga. Doesn't really matter. Time to sleep, tomorrow will feature a birthday party for my great uncle, which will be fun, but stressful.

I guess having a small video on K-On! as suggestion from YouTube made watching Love Live! and posting about it worth it. I mean, Love Live! was occassionally funny and sometimes quite nice, but not with any consistency and never without being embarrassing to watch. Yay!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Utena 18: Mari appears.

Unfortunately this Mari didn't destroy the entire show after some surreal sketches and cgi stuff, instead she just slaps Nanami's underage whatever Tsuwabuki is to her a few times. Just like the last duelists I have no reason to really care about this. Oh, and apparently Anthy and Utena do adult stuff together. Who could have seen that coming.

[Bartimaeus]

On 9/2/2021 at 3:18 PM, majestic said:

Good idea, I'm looking forward to see if repeated exposure to that bleh intro song will mellow your opinion on it (it didn't, for me), what you think of the Sakura card arc, especially of the first handful of episodes, and the couple of killer episodes that happen in there.

Spoiler

Actually, this song stinks. There's a couple of parts in it, the faster and high energy parts, that aren't that bad, but too little of it is that way.

Yukito being back to himself feels a little weird but that's fine, I guess. There were a couple of odd fade transitions between shots that felt a little out of place and inexplicable that should've been just normal cuts...

...followed by "the peak of happiness...the very peak!". Okay, Tomoyo, okay.

Rika hitting the jackpot with the teacher...woof. And Xiaolang and I seem to feel the same way about this transfer student at first impression...

...but then again, I didn't care for either Xiaolang or Meiling (RIP) immediately either, and I love both of them now. ...But YIKES, this guy DEFINITELY seems creepier than either of them were.

Tomoyo, you have problems, . Also, the gross meat splattering sounds every time Xiaolang's frustrated head emote thing pulsed...ick! Oh thank God, Xiaolang is staying: I was not going to be happy if Eriol or whatever his name is tried to totally replace him. Also, the Xiaolang and Sakura (...and Xiaolang and Tomoyo for different reasons) interactions in this episode were top-notch.

Lmao at Toya's new transfer student "friend". Even more change it seems, but this one seems like it should be good for some laughs.

Why do I immediately like her but also immediately hated Mari? Theoretically, they aren't all that different...but they sure FEEL different!

A question for the ages, Sakura...

If Eriol is supposed to be someone we know, my first guess was Eriol was either Clow Reed reborn OR somehow that lady he loved that was also his rival from the first movie. Well, he clearly has a lot of magical power, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

The outro song isn't *great*, but at least it's significantly better than the intro!

 

6 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Just like the last duelists I have no reason to really care about this.

9 hours ago, majestic said:

I guess having a small video on K-On! as suggestion from YouTube made watching Love Live! and posting about it worth it. I mean, Love Live! was occassionally funny and sometimes quite nice, but not with any consistency and never without being embarrassing to watch. Yay!

It's a shame that if I ever try K-On, I won't ever be able to tell anyone. There are some things that no-one else simply should ever know about, RIP.

(e): Also tried somewhere between 2 and 10 minutes of Steam Boy (2004), Summer Wars (2009), Brothers Grimm: The Golden Bird (1987), The Boy and the Beast (2015), Sword of the Stranger (2007), Colorful (2010) each, but all of them were more or less instant rejects for various reasons. I don't know what y'all can do with this information particularly given how finicky I am, so I guess I'm just throwing it out there, . Basically just trying to clear out some random garbage I glanced at for like two seconds...once in a while I get a solid or even good one (Crusher Joe, Vampire Hunter D, Your Name I guess, ...), but most of the time I sadly seem to get something either mediocre, simply unappealing, or worse, .

P.S. I have not been able to sleep for more than four hours on any given night in over two weeks, my brain feels like a scrambled egg, please send help.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Cardcaptor Sakura talk:

Spoiler

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Actually, this song stinks.

You won't be getting any arguments from me on that, like ever. The intro song from Clear Card isn't any better.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Tomoyo, you have problems, . Also, the gross meat splattering sounds every time Xiaolang's frustrated head emote thing pulsed...ick! Oh thank God, Xiaolang is staying: I was not going to be happy if Eriol or whatever his name is tried to totally replace him. Also, the Xiaolang and Sakura (...and Xiaolang and Tomoyo for different reasons) interactions in this episode were top-notch.

Ah, Tomoyo gets something else to obsess over, next to making costumes for Sakura and stalking filming her all the time: Shipping! Unlike real life shippers, Tomoyo is pretty boss about it. You'll see.  

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Lmao at Toya's new transfer student "friend". Even more change it seems, but this one seems like it should be good for some laughs.

I found her super annoying at first. It gets better, in time.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Why do I immediately like her but also immediately hated Mari? Theoretically, they aren't all that different...but they sure FEEL different!

That's because jumping on Toya like that reminds you of Wakaba, the more or less only normal character on Utena.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

If Eriol is supposed to be someone we know, my first guess was Eriol was either Clow Reed reborn OR somehow that lady he loved that was also his rival from the first movie. Well, he clearly has a lot of magical power, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

Part of the reason why I thought the first couple of episodes were not up to the quality of the last arc is mostly because they try to make a mystery out of what's going on. Not for Sakura or the other characters, but for the viewers, while it's really readily obvious. It stops doing that soon, and the question isn't "who" is doing what, just why. Which is a lot better.

Spoilz:

Spoiler

Also, your guess is correct. Which one? Yeah, the more obvious one. Just imagine never having seen the movie. Heh.

 

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's a shame that if I ever try K-On, I won't ever be able to tell anyone. There are some things that no-one else simply should ever know about, RIP.

If you end up trying, just let me know. I promise I won't tell anyeveryone!

Besides, it's still anime made in 2009 and 2010. Essentially... I guess the best it can aim for is getting the Your Name mark of approval: It was fine.

Although I do know what you mean. The school trip episode has a pillow fight started by Tsumugi, much to the dismay of Mio who is put out by the otherwise well behaved and proper Mugi initiating such a childish activity. My immediate social circle's reaction to Sailor Moon was a relatively negative "Maybe if I was still 14 that would be interesting." (yeah, they all suck, I know), to Cardcaptor Sakura they just said "You're so weird sometimes..." and I really don't want to know what they'd say to K-On!'s pillow fight.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

P.S. I have not been able to sleep for more than four hours on any given night in over two weeks, my brain feels like a scrambled egg, please send help.

 

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Also, your guess is correct. Which one? Yeah, the more obvious one.

I was kinda hoping the second one TBH for extra weirdness, but I guess not.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

That's because jumping on Toya like that reminds you of Wakaba, the more or less only normal character on Utena.

...I'm not a hundred percent sure that's it, but sure, let's go with that!

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Besides, it's still anime made in 2009 and 2010. Essentially... I guess the best it can aim for is getting the Your Name mark of approval: It was fine.

No, that's the scary bit: the series of clips you sent I thought were pretty funny (even if also facepalmingly cringey), so if I actually got to know and like the characters, I could really be in trouble. That would be unacceptable, for many reasons, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

My immediate social circle's reaction to Sailor Moon was a relatively negative "Maybe if I was still 14 that would be interesting." (yeah, they all suck, I know), to Cardcaptor Sakura they just said "You're so weird sometimes..." and I really don't want to know what they'd say to K-On!'s pillow fight.

The only necessary response to them:

Edited September 4, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Devilman: The Birth. Everyone looking ever so slightly little different from how I remember them:

Lot of similarities to Devilman Crybaby...but a whole lot of differences too, including story and even these main characters. It's still pretty nuts, but a bit slower and more digestible (...and a more stripped-down, just-the-essentials story)...but it is also a lot more my speed. Here are the first few minutes of the film in HD if you want to watch it, : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/kjqvcaa942xfa5p/u1I9kKxqt1.mp4 Little bit different-looking...little bit.

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I was kinda hoping the second one TBH for extra weirdness, but I guess not.

That's the sad part, the first movie doesn't get referenced like, ever. It was really meant to not alienate anyone who didn't get the chance to watch it.

Oh, that reminds me, now that you've seen Mystery Transfer Student #2, you can go and watch the Tomoyo video diary as soon as he starts befriending Sakura. Which won't take that long, Sakura likes everyone. Heh.  

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

...I'm not a hundred percent sure that's it, but sure, let's go with that!

Yeah, didn't think that was the case, but it sure reminded me of Utena when it happened the first time.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

No, that's the scary bit: the series of clips you sent I thought were pretty funny (even if also facepalmingly cringey), so if I actually got to know and like the characters, I could really be in trouble. That would be unacceptable, for many reasons, .

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

The only necessary response to them:

There's still some hope, maybe I can corrupt my nephew when he's of the proper age. So far he likes watching DreamWorks' Spirit: Riding Free, and while I absolutely hate that CGI monstrosity with horses, it might a good sign.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

46 minutes ago, majestic said:

maybe I can corrupt my nephew when he's of the proper age

If he's old enough to watch YouTubers (who usually end up being creeps in one way or another), then he's old enough to watch Sailor Moon.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

P.S. I have not been able to sleep for more than four hours on any given night in over two weeks, my brain feels like a scrambled egg, please send help.

What's the status of medical or recreational marijuana in your state? While I've obviously never taken it because Texas is a dumbass hell world that rewards switching, I've heard from reliable sources that edibles of relatively small doses assist in both falling asleep and getting more restful sleep when it is virtually impossible for your body to just shut down even though you're exhausted.