Anime and Manga - < To Be Continued I \ I /

[majestic]

ViVid Strike! Episode three.

Well, today there's finally some time to get back to watching stuff. The episode opens with a helpful training sequence from Rinne showing us how utterly badass she's gotten, only to be followed by a shower scene. The animators working on this really, really like their shower scenes for some reason.

There's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. In spite of this looking better than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, it's not looking good, and the animations are incredibly barebones most of the time, unless they want to show some really cool and awesome martial arts stuff, the characters slide across the screen more than they walk. It's... not choppy, like the Love Live! movie was where it looked like the animators ran out of time and just strung key frames together in an attempt to finish the film in time, no, that's just deliberately low effort, or possibly just low budget.

Yeah, understandable, who would want to bankroll this after that first ViVid disaster. On the other hand, it seems they really wasted all the effort on showing a random one-off character's transformation sequence, a girl just there to be beaten to a pulp by Rinne, as a semi-final to something or another where everyone is off to because Rinne invited them to watch. Good choice. Those fighting costumes are terrible too, and there's some more transformation sequence anime boob inflation.

As nice as the second episode was, this is just not good, or interesting. It's not offensively bad or anything, but we're back to having absolutely no reason to watch this, let alone at regular playback speed.

Episode ends with a major shounen-off between Rinne and Fuu after they meet each other and talk for a bit. It pulls out all the usual tropes for martial arts boys, really, doesn't matter that it's girls talking to each other. "I was weak, no more. I WILL CRUSH YOU ALL." Yeah, sure Rinne. If this goes like all martial arts shows or movies you won't. Some credit goes to Fuu who tries to reason with her first, but still goes all "Challenge accepted!" on Rinne. Yeah. Fine.

Next episode will be back to 2x playback speed. Second episode was probably a fluke.

[InsaneCommander]

[majestic]

ViVid Strike! Episode four.

Well, that was fun. Almost entirely a flashback explaining why Rinne is all ME WILL CRUSH YOU, CRUSH YOU TO GOO.

It ends with a ridiculous power fantasy scene.

Spoiler

She's being bullied by three other girls and they prevent her from taking a call by her parents who want to tell her that her (adopted) grandfather is dying so that she comes home. They trash her mobile phone and beat her senseless, and prior to that ruin a special keepsake. Rinne transforms into a supreme power fighter then and there, comes back to school the next day and beats the three into a bloody pulp. An actual bloody pulp, complete with broken faces and bones.

Yeah, not sure how I feel about that one. I'm kinda conflicted here.

 

[Bartimaeus]

Dennou Coil AKA Cyber Coil AKA A Circle of Children. In attempting to eliminate another show that I thought would obviously be bad, it seems like I found another good one, although I certainly wouldn't have guessed it from the premise. Stupid Madhouse, making me watch all these shows by having them be good. Wikipedia premise:

Quote

Den-noh Coil is an anime about children growing up in the near future, when semi-immersive augmented reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. The series takes place in the fictional city of Daikoku, a hotbed of AR development with an emerging citywide virtual infrastructure. It follows a group of children as they use AR glasses to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.

Like I said, doesn't exactly seem like something I'd be interested in from the premise...not really into augmented or alternative reality stuff. But the first episode was about trying to save the main character's and her sister's dog from being eaten by some kind of glitchy void space that's made a habit of eating up all their city's pets, and I don't know, it just worked really well. Slight Paranoia Agent vibes, although I'd actually probably put this first episode ahead of anything in Paranoia Agent - I liked the characters in this way more right off the bat, and this seems like it's not going to be as thematically burdensome like Paranoia Agent was. I'm not going to watch anymore for the time being, but it's being added to the list of stuff I definitely want to watch later along with Serial Experiments Lain. Also have to get to Cowboy Bebop, Angel Layer, Princess Tutu...and some others. At least I've managed to clear out some of the crud.

Slightly over halfway through Future Boy Conan. It's more or less exactly what I expected it to be, and that's O.K., but it continues to not be particularly interesting or engaging to me.  Guess that happens when you have late 70s-style characters that are pretty basic and uninteresting.

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Yeah, not sure how I feel about that one. I'm kinda conflicted here.

That uh...looks like a scene. Thank goodness that show is only 12 episodes long, .

Edited December 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Preface: It's good to be back on the Claw. Toiling in the fields and working the forge sure was back-breaking.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Dennou Coil AKA Cyber Coil AKA A Circle of Children [...] I'm not going to watch anymore for the time being, but it's being added to the list of stuff I definitely want to watch later along with Serial Experiments Lain. Also have to get to Cowboy Bebop, Angel Layer, Princess Tutu...and some others. At least I've managed to clear out some of the crud.

Slightly over halfway through Future Boy Conan. It's more or less exactly what I expected it to be, and that's O.K., but it continues to not be particularly interesting or engaging to me.  Guess that happens when you have late 70s-style characters that are pretty basic and uninteresting.

Speaking of Cowboy Bepop... that will be an interesting reaction. Except for the early CGI work here and there it looks absolutely fantastic, the shot compositions and the framing are brilliant, the voice acting is great (at least in the original), but a list like that isn't complete without a but, huh? But! Not sure how that'll work for you from a character point of view. Spike's (main lead) going to be a really though sell, me thinks.

Cyber Coil looks... uhm. Yeah, maybe once I'm through the backlog of terrible.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That uh...looks like a scene. Thank goodness that show is only 12 episodes long, .

The sound effects were something else too. It was surreal. You have this magical girl show, it's the fifth season, and it moves from non-visceral and at times downright silly action scenes to something that would not be out of place in a van Damme martial arts vehicle (say, Kickboxer), complete with splattering blood and crunching bone sound effects in an instant. Prior to the kicks Rinne casually breaks the arm of another girl.

Look at YouTube actually having the scene, albeit in ungood quality (not that it matters for this show).

"We do martial arts for fun and competitions" to "Alex kills a woman with her giant **** sculpture" in A Clockwork Orange in a matter of seconds.

StrikerS could have used some of that down to earth visceral feel of that scene in its action and it would have been appropriate there. In ViVid Strike!? Nope, totally out of the blue and feels completely disconnected.

Then there are the other things that make no sense, from Rinne recovering that easily from being beaten unconscious the day prior, or actually being beaten senseless if she just can... never mind. That's not worth analyzing in detail, and it would just annoy me.  

edit:

That ending of the scene where she steps on one of the girls lying on the floor made me burst out in laugther, what with the stock sounds and all. That's terrible, but really, that stock sound...

Edited December 23, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, not really sure how I feel about one little girl *watermelon squash sound*-ing another little girl's head. ...Actually, you know, now that I really think about it, probably not a great fit for a magical girl anime.

28 minutes ago, majestic said:

Cyber Coil looks... uhm. Yeah, maybe once I'm through the backlog of terrible.

It's probably a better idea to let me get back to it and watch a few more episodes before trying it out anyways...just to make sure it's not secretly terrible past the first episode.

[majestic]

25 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, not really sure how I feel about one little girl *watermelon squash sound*-ing another little girl's head. ...Actually, you know, now that I really think about it, probably not a great fit for a magical girl anime.

I guess the all survived being squished to bits too, because I don't see Rinne becoming the #1 contender for the world championship after that if the three girls are about as dead as they would appear to be after having their heads broken, smashed into a locker or having their nose pushed into their brains by way of knee.

Like... uhm. Yeah. I guess I'll see soonish, assuming the anime comments on it at all. Would be hilarious if Rinne's rich adopted parents would just buy their way out of this. Then we'd suddenly do social commentary too.

[majestic]

Komi can’t comm… no, Komi can’t anime. This gets stranger every time, and not in the good „the hell is this“ way like JoJo‘s. More like in the „these people all need to be sent to the loony bin“ way.

 

凄くなかったです。  

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

33 minutes ago, majestic said:

Komi can’t comm… no, Komi can’t anime. This gets stranger every time, and not in the good „the hell is this“ way like JoJo‘s. More like in the „these people all need to be sent to the loony bin“ way.

 

凄くなかったです。  

 

I think both apply to JoJo.

I haven't watched much anime because I broke down and started WotR.

I am cheating like a mother ****er. Because holy **** this is broken and yet I want a semblance of lore friendly.

[Sarex]

10 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

I haven't watched much anime because I broke down and started WotR.

Shame, shame, shame.

[majestic]

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I couldn't help it. Disco Elysium is too heavy to play all at once and I wanted to ride my horse down the old town road.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

I couldn't help it. Disco Elysium is too heavy to play all at once and I wanted to ride my horse down the old town road.

Horses are like bad, better use a wolf or a dog or maybe a boar, depending on what you can get with your class and want your pet to do.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

Horses are like bad, better use a wolf or a dog or maybe a boar, depending on what you can get with your class and want your pet to do.

I want to take my horse to the old town road and ride til I can't no more. Can't do that with a wolf or a dog or it ruins the song. And what if I wanted to name the pet "Hol"? If it's a horse I'm reminded of a hilarious character in my favorite anime, but that doesn't make sense if it's a dog.

Unfortunately you are right mechanically, horses are the worst companion in WotR (aside from the centipede or lizard, because poison sucks) that gets blown out as a mount or pet by the numbers and the abilities. I mentioned that I'd cheat before, but if you beef up the stats in ToyBox by 8 or so horse just breaks even with the wolf by the numbers, while still losing out on the trip bite for a measly +1 bonus to hit and ac vs medium or smaller enemies. I wish multiple archetype stacking were implemented like pnp, because a Gendarme/Beast Rider would be great.

[majestic]

ViVid Strike!, epsiode five.

Spoiler

Well, what do you know, it begins with the lawyers of the three bullies willing to settle on the condition that Rinne transfers to a different school. Apparently they won't have any lasting injuries, but the incident made quite a wave or two and the tabloids were all over it. Which is weird because up until this episode nobody has heard of or mentioned that incident, and you'd think that would be dug up much quicker if Rinne is a top contender for the best under 15 martial artist in the, well, "world" (more like galaxy, I guess), right?

Okay, so, no, this doesn't even begin to reach the level of quality of StrikerS. I'm not surprised, but still, it's a little disappointing. StrikerS didn't leave such insane gaps and plot holes in its world-building and character backgrounds, at least not until it pulled Vivio's adult mode transformation out of its butt - or else I was entertained enough to not notice. Either way works for me. Rinne blames herself for causing all that trouble and runs away from home. 

What the hell, now Rinne is kidnapped by two guys in a 1950ies car, and the woman who is now her coach sees that and runs after her.

Adult red haired guy who is apparently related to one of the victims from last episode is beating up Rinne, telling her that "Sara" has a broken nose and fractured skull and cries from being in pain all the time. Indeed, my heart goes out to the bully here.

Spoiler

Not. Not gonna lie, I know a fair few people whose faces I wanted to break like that too. It's probably a good thing I wasn't a magical girl martial artist.

Let's see if the coach shows up and beats the guys up.

"We will make you suffer, your cruelty deserves nothing less."

Coach shows up and starts breaking faces, red haired guy pulls out a knife and reveals himself to be Sara's brother and tells the woman how Sara only wanted to be friends with Rinne and she cruelly hurt them in response. Rinne doesn't take that bold faced lie too well, breaks her bonds and wrestles the guy to the ground, then tries to leave. Uhm, okay.

Oh hell no. Rio (one of Vivio's friends) shows up with tickets to the bathouse. Please, why, why is this in every one of these stupid animes. Please don't go to the public bathhouse. Yeah, sure, and everywhere in the galaxy it's Japanese style bathhouses. I get it, it's nude bathing in real life too, but that's bathing, and this is just wanting to draw nude 14 year olds. *sigh* Well, compared to the scenes from the original series and ViVid, this one is almost tasteful, if Fuu wouldn't...

...jump out of the water and resolve to punch Rinne out for <some shounen reason or another>. Einhart is suprising me by asking "What's the point?", and Fuu replies by saying she'll think about it after the fact. Good job. Also, I just noticed that there's a seventh girl around. It's Rio, Corona, Einhart, Vivio, Miura and Fuu and someone else. I have no idea who that character is supposed to be. How did that happen? Who is she?

ViVid Strike! wiki helpfully tells me her name is Yumina. Okay, she's not one of the athletes, but a member of the medical staff. Okay. Fine. Fuu's device is ready, so she'll get a transformation sequence now, I guess. Great, another thing to look forward to. There we go, and it's a new round of sparring, probably in the next episode, but there's two OVAs to watch first, helpfully called episodes 5.5 and 5.75.

Spoilered more for brevity and organization than anything else.

15 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

I want to take my horse to the old town road and ride til I can't no more. Can't do that with a wolf or a dog or it ruins the song. And what if I wanted to name the pet "Hol"? If it's a horse I'm reminded of a hilarious character in my favorite anime, but that doesn't make sense if it's a dog.

Unfortunately you are right mechanically, horses are the worst companion in WotR (aside from the centipede or lizard, because poison sucks) that gets blown out as a mount or pet by the numbers and the abilities. I mentioned that I'd cheat before, but if you beef up the stats in ToyBox by 8 or so horse just breaks even with the wolf by the numbers, while still losing out on the trip bite for a measly +1 bonus to hit and ac vs medium or smaller enemies. I wish multiple archetype stacking were implemented like pnp, because a Gendarme/Beast Rider would be great.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Huh, can you create a wolf pet and just slap the horse model on it? that sounds like an easier fix than fiddling with stats.

Edited December 24, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

9 minutes ago, majestic said:

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Huh, can you create a wolf pet and just slap the horse model on it? that sounds like an easier fix than fiddling with stats.

With Toybox you can tweak attributes and other stats with no effort. Can't add trip or ferocity, but I think the winter wolf cloak is there for that.

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Adult red haired guy who is apparently related to one of the victims from last episode is beating up Rinne, telling her that "Sara" has a broken nose and fractured skull and cries from being in pain all the time

Hey, it beats having the old thinker being crushed entirely.

7 hours ago, majestic said:

What's the point?

A question all of these characters should be asking about this show every day, methinks...

[majestic]

47 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Hey, it beats having the old thinker being crushed entirely.

Sure sounded like it, at least.

48 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

A question all of these characters should be asking about this show every day, methinks...

Indeed. The comments you found were pretty much spot on. There's just absolutely no reason for anyone to watch this other than some compulsion to finish it. It really is just a waste of time, and nothing highlights it more than one main character asking the other what the point of it all is, and the other character replying: "I'll worry about that afterwards."

Yeah. That just about sums it up. It's less offensive than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, but that's not hard to do. Guess that makes ViVid Strike! the Joe Biden of anime. Nothing special, but at least not as offensive as Trump... what a mark of quality.

[InsaneCommander]

This is what I wanted to do with my tv after watching TWOT ep 8:

 

[Bartimaeus]

58 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

This is what I wanted to do with my tv after watching TWOT ep 8:

 

Okay, with that context, NOW this clip is funny, .

And to think, I had no interest in it because I thought the entire look of the show seemed like a bunch of cosplayers got together and didn't have a budget to make the show look nice - seems like I lucked out given that they've aborted the entire plot in addition to ruining all of my favorite characters...

Edited December 24, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Okay, with that context, NOW this clip is funny, .

DIO's final move has always been funny.

[majestic]

ViVid Strike! OVA ("Episode 5.5")

Fuuka wins a martial arts sparring fight against Corona by TKO (this seems to work like in boxing). Fuu is overjoyed and is sent to take a shower by Einhart, who promptly afterwards organizes a real sparring match against Rio and Corona where they are not limited to purely martial art style fighting, but can utilize their full range of powers. They handily beat Fuu without breaking a sweat. Fuu once more resolves to become BETTERER STRONGERER and TOUGHERER to take on Rinne.

I don't know why this was made. While this holds true for the entire series, I guess, this OVA in particular was a whole bunch of nothing that wasn't in the earlier episodes already. Well, no, that's not entirely true. We get shower fanservice scene, some transformation sequences and two supremely boring sparring fights, and a whole lot of shounen stuff.

Onwards to the next OVA, Episode 5.75...

edit:

Which ended up being the complete opposite of 5.5 and 15 minutes of pure character interactions. Now, if these characters were actually interesting, it would have been a nice episode, as it is, the best I can say is that it wasn't a bad episode by any means, and at least there was a reason to create this OVA to fill in a gap or two. Rinne has this super shounen moment where she wants to fight an under 19 world championship contender to show off how her pover level is OVER NINE THOUSAND and tries to provoke her and she pats Rinne on the head and is like nope, I'm good.

This watching episodes at double playback speed is working out pretty well.

Edited December 26, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

GioGio’s Bizarre Adventure, Golden Wind 7-16

 

 

GioGio and the team become Trish Torisho’s bodyguards.

 

Why are they mistranslating the Stando names??? Six bullets instead of Sex Pistols, wtf? Aerosmith becomes Lil’ Bomber?

 

Spoiler

Can’t GioGio turn a rock into a horse and go after the truck?

 

“It would be better to have only three bullets.” Then save one for later, Mista. For all his stupid superstitions, he was genius when he hit the other bullet already in his opponent’s head so that it wouldn’t be frozen in place.

 

I don’t know how dumb Narancia is, but his Stando plane is pretty smart. Btw, even if he was getting smaller and weaker, he could still send Aerosmith into the guy’s ears and blow his brain!

 

How did Abbachio reatach his hand?

 

Stando Turtle!

 

And of course Torisho has a Stand!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

14 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Why are they mistranslating the Stando names??? Six bullets instead of Sex Pistols, wtf? Aerosmith becomes Lil’ Bomber?

They want to avoid lawsuits.

[majestic]

Wrapping things up, or not, part XIX:

Watched 20 more minutes of Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. At this rate, it'll four more watch "sessions" until I'm done, but it's hard to take this in more than series-sized chunks. I did get a slight kick out of being able to read part of the names on the duty roster for the day care Cherry works at, and I've spent a whole lot of time trying fo figure out what ショッピングモール ("shoppingumōru") is supposed to be - well, shopping was easy enough, but to get from mōru to mall is a bit of a stretch for poor old me. Transliteration by syllable approximation is super confusing. 

I got to the part where Cherry has to read his haiku in front of the old people, then I went all Mace Windu on it:

Except it was well past midnight and no Yarael Poof in sight to get any pizza.

The most frustrating thing about this film is, I mean, aside from getting sore eyes from looking at it, is that it simply doesn't work for me even though by all means it should. Cherry's friends are super annoying, for instance, as is Yuki's family, and that video call, dear god. "Japan" dude als causes the worst sort of Daru flashbacks, even though he's more harmless and less hentai (in the original meaning, i.e. perverted). 

Nope.  

Spending more effort on things than I should, part XXI:

Finished another rewatch of Akira, as we talked about that recently. I've seen the film three times now, the last two times in an effort to appreciate it beyond being impressed by the sheer effort that went into making it, and no, I just can't.

It tries to do too many things at once (and I absolutely don't like dsytopian or post-apocalyptic biker gangs, so this starts out from a very bad place for me), is thematically all over the place to a point where some people write entire essays - real essays, that is, not just overly long streams of consciousness on the Obsidian forums - about what it could mean. In a way that makes it a bit like 2001: A Space Odyssey which is another film I... yeah, never mind.

That's about the thing, it's hybrid between Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey and any sci-fi film warning about the dangers of genetic engineering/technology/weapons (any and all work here, which just adds to the film feeling thematically all over the place). While I like Blade Runner more than most posters here (not just visually), it also falls a bit short here and there and is more saved by the impressive mood Ridley Scott sets and the performances in the film than by its actual content.

There's too much too unpack to properly talk about it. The characters are all pretty much intentionally unlikeable, so I won't hold that against the film. It's part cyberpunk/dystopian social commentary that isn't followed through, it's partially techno-critical which is doesn't follow through, and it continues on to try to be philosophical with "the potential in each of us" where at the end

Spoiler

Tetsuo becomes a new universe, or something,

in a scene that curiously resembles the Birth of the Starchild in 2001, not so much by mirroring the visuals, but by doing something similar, albeit much more jarring and with a whole lot of body horror).

It is all over the place and way too unfocused. That might be because of the source material, however, allegedly this movie began with a script over 700 pages long. As a comparison, a typical feature film script is anywhere between 90 and 125 pages long, although this isn't entirely comparable between live action and animation, it really just shows how much they compressed - or tried to - into a two hour animated film.

You could take any of the themes present and make a decent, focused film out of it. Or you could just throw everything but the kitchen sink at it and come out with a mess.

Needless to say that this film was a major influence on anime and even filmmaking as a whole, and as such it has a historic impact that cannot be denied. It's an origin point and it is easy to look at it today and ascribe problems with the story to it being to ubiquitous or crude compared to the more focused and modern offerings it spawned. That is partially true, but not quite. The film was a mess of themes back when it released, and it still is that today. 

It's not bad by any means, but it's also not exactly enjoyable, and I don't think I'll watch it again. I'm not ever going to like this.