Anime and Manga - ゴゴゴゴ

[Oner]

45 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

God damn it.

Just read the manga? xD

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Maybe they go for a different ending.

At this point I wonder if they even know.

56 minutes ago, Lexx said:

I thought part 2 is the final ... now there is a 3rd final final season? Jeez.

The year is 2026. The Prince symbol variant ravages the world. President Kanye West is bombing Sudan. Attack on Titan The Final Season Part 6 has finished and The End of Attack on Titan has been announced.

48 minutes ago, Oner said:

Just read the manga? xD

Maybe after I read JoJolion.

[majestic]

On 4/2/2022 at 1:03 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I said I would try not to compare this show to Evangelion...and I won't, because that's stupid since they're completely different kinds of shows[...]

Good luck with that, you're going to need it.

Spoilers for episode 13 and 14:

Spoiler

Van survives the battle of Fraid - not very surprisingly, at least - but the wounds he sustained in the fight do not heal. Hitomi figures out that Van fused with his Evangelion Escaflowne, and the damage of Escaflowne itself is reflected on Van's body. She blames herself for refusing to help Van, driving him into mentally joining with his mech in order to be able to see the cloaked enemies. Near the end of episode 14, Shinji Van fully fuses with his Evangelion Escaflowne and it activates its S² engine unlocks the blood bond power. Escaflowne goes into overdrive mode and annihilates Dilandau's entire squad and is only stopped after Shinji Van has an introspective breakdown, seeing the ghosts of all the people he just killed. The destroyed mechs and the people in them are reduced to LCL fluid some sort of goo.

A character called Kaji Dryden shows up, apparently to date Misato the other part of Princess Milena's politically arranged marriage:

Meanwhile, somewhere else, NERV the Zaibach Empire acquires the Spear of Longinus The Sword of Sealing and unlocks Lilith the fabled Power of Atlantis...

There was also one pretty big uhm, what the hell moment:

Spoiler

Kaji Dryden is a scholar (as if that wasn't apparent from the image) and knows that Escaflowne, as an Evangelion Ispanorian mech, can fuse with its pilot has a blood bond power that can potentially kill its user as they share damage when it is activated, and also has a very hand factory recall button that he activates, causing a flying Sand Crawler loaded with Jawas to appear and haggle over repair fees. That was pretty out there.

Utinni!

Funny coincidences, but probably not more than that, given when the manga began to come out and the release time of both animes.

[Bartimaeus]

On 4/2/2022 at 6:46 PM, majestic said:

Considering the force that Zaibach deployed at the end of episode 12, it's going to be another wholesale slaughter.

Holy crap, no kidding. The moment I saw the skies, I was like "welp, this is hopeless"...and then they also had ground forces as well. Freid doesn't look like a very large kingdom...if this doesn't end either diplomatically (i.e. surrender) or a complete slaughter, it won't make any sense.

Spoiler

The Emperor of Zaibach seems to have implied that he's from Earth - he knew its proper name as Earth, and not as "the Mystic Moon" (or your German equivalent). So there's at least one person who seems to have a connection to Earth! Perhaps Earth is what he's after with all this accumulation of power...

Also, I always sit through the intro, and right at the end, Hitomi is pictured like dancing with the "demons" that were whatever Van's mom was, plus she goes up like a celestial stairway to some Parthenon-looking structure where there are even more... Hmm.

That said...I'm going to now watch episode 13.

Spoiler

Turns out...it was pretty hopeless. Interesting choice to skip the meat of the battle, but I really can't complain though - the action in this show is pretty good as far as action goes (neither too slow or too fast...and decently weighty), but the non-action stuff tends to be even better, so skipping what I had thought was bound to be at least an entire episode of combat is fine by me, particularly given the stark contrast to the end of last episode where everything was okay. A sudden and brutal change of scenery, certainly.

Yeah, so the "demons" are actually Atlanteans (edit from later: or maybe not - everyone's calling them draconians instead, which...I'm not sure if they are or aren't the same thing). Well, that makes sense. I kind of forgot about the mention of Atlantis some episodes ago in all of this hullabaloo. Guess that makes Van some kind of human-Atlantean heir/king. Merle earnestly praying to a god she doesn't know for Van's protection sure is a feeling.

Oh come on, you can't end the episode with Shinji getting absorbed into Eva Unit-01...er, that is, I mean Van and the Escaflowne... Episode 14 it is. Okay, not absorbed like I thought...he just somehow did the whole Evangelion synchronization thing instead...looks like he got a pretty high rate, too. New record!

Uh...what the hell is going on in this episode? Between the Dryden comedy bit, him knowing way too much after having come out of nowhere, and THE BLOODY MOTHERSHIP COMING DOWN FROM A MASSIVE PORTAL CALLED WITH THE TOUCH OF A DIAL. Well, at least it had a huge repair bill...but still, they use portal technology/magic that casually? Have we seen portals elsewhere outside of the very beginning when Van arrived on Earth? Lmao, well, something about all that didn't feel quite right. Merle and Hitomi hugging each for dear life as Van was being repaired/tortured, on the other hand, did.

Hitomi + Merle: DON'T PILOT THE EVA, SHINJI-VAN! Yeah, they may have been right.

Well, I see you also saw the obvious Evangelion/Shinji comparisons that I did, . I feel like we reached the happy medium for his character a handful of episodes ago, yet we may still be falling...

Edited April 4, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Holy crap, no kidding. The moment I saw the skies, I was like "welp, this is hopeless"...and then they also had ground forces as well. Freid doesn't look like a very large kingdom...if this doesn't end either diplomatically (i.e. surrender) or a complete slaughter, it won't make any sense.

  Hide contents

The Emperor of Zaibach seems to have implied that he's from Earth - he knew its proper name as Earth, and not as "the Mystic Moon" (or your German equivalent). So there's at least one person who seems to have a connection to Earth! Perhaps Earth is what he's after with all this accumulation of power...

Also, I always sit through the intro, and right at the end, Hitomi is pictured like dancing with the "demons" that were whatever Van's mom was, plus she goes up like a celestial stairway to some Parthenon-looking structure where there are even more... Hmm.

 

Spoiler

If there's any one person originally from Earth that we don't know of, the Emperor is the logical choice, unless we introduce someone else - and I hope all relevant pieces are already on the board. The 'Mystic Moon' is sometimes called Moon of Illusions or Phantom Moon in the German subtitles, both seemingly a better translations for the original Japanese 幻の月 which means exactly that. Phantom moon, or illusioniary moon. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Hitomi had some connection to the mythical power too, after all she is pretty good at divination. 

 

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That said...I'm going to now watch episode 13.

Quotes be pretty broken in this here thread right now. I always thought the forum software is just extra buggy in Firefox, but I'm using Chrome right now and it's not really any better. Fun!

Spoiler

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Turns out...it was pretty hopeless. Interesting choice to skip the meat of the battle, but I really can't complain though - the action in this show is pretty good as far as action goes (neither too slow or too fast...and decently weighty), but the non-action stuff tends to be even better, so skipping what I had thought was bound to be at least an entire episode of combat is fine by me, particularly given the stark contrast to the end of last episode where everything was okay. A sudden and brutal change of scenery, certainly.

I was surprised too, I was kind of not looking forward to a full episode of fighting, and suddenly everything is more or less over off-screen. There was still some action, but it wasn't senseless. If I were more cynical I'd say it just saved a whole lot of production time and money, but that's probably not the case. The way the anime looks in both art and animation that can't have been cheap. Or they had a really talented team that got exploited more than usual.  

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, so the "demons" are actually Atlanteans (edit from later: or maybe not - everyone's calling them draconians instead, which...I'm not sure if they are or aren't the same thing). Well, that makes sense. I kind of forgot about the mention of Atlantis some episodes ago in all of this hullabaloo. Guess that makes Van some kind of human-Atlantean heir/king. Merle earnestly praying to a god she doesn't know for Van's protection sure is a feeling.

What they call them seems to be all over the place. It's demons, dragons or people from Atlantis. I'm guessing Atlantis serves as something similar to what Platon intended it to be when he told the story, the dangers of hubris and greed and too much power. Insofar calling them demons or dangerous and the root of ruin and whatnot else makes sense in context. The world-building in this is pretty decent, all in all. When it's not making mythical creator races appear from portals out of nowhere. 

Merle praying, all these little moments in between, they're really good. They also kind of make moments like episode 14 still, ahm, acceptable. 

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh come on, you can't end the episode with Shinji getting absorbed into Eva Unit-01...er, that is, I mean Van and the Escaflowne... Episode 14 it is. Okay, not absorbed like I thought...he just somehow did the whole Evangelion synchronization thing instead...looks like he got a pretty high rate, too. New record!

Yeah, they sure know how to end an episode wanting you to turn on the next immediately.

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Uh...what the hell is going on in this episode? Between the Dryden comedy bit, him knowing way too much after having come out of nowhere, and THE BLOODY MOTHERSHIP COMING DOWN FROM A MASSIVE PORTAL CALLED WITH THE TOUCH OF A DIAL. Well, at least it had a huge repair bill...but still, they use portal technology/magic that casually? Have we seen portals elsewhere outside of the very beginning when Van arrived on Earth? Lmao, well, something about all that didn't feel quite right. Merle and Hitomi hugging each for dear life as Van was being repaired/tortured, on the other hand, did.

I consider this part to be he first time the show stumbled a bit, it invokes an almost Deus Ex Machinaesque solution to a problem that could have been handled better. The interdimensional Jawa people were weird, and I doub they'll come back, unless it is to collect Escaflowne at the very end. On the other hand, seeing Hitomi and Merle react to Van feeling the pain of the repairs, well, that sure almost made it worth it.

I guess it had to happen eventually. It's fine, just not as good as the rest was. If it stays the only moment that's really strange and feels out of place in a fantasy anime about flying fortresses, the Power of Atlantis and divination, then that's... still quite a feat. 

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

Hitomi + Merle: DON'T PILOT THE EVA, SHINJI-VAN! Yeah, they may have been right.

Asuka would have called Van an idiot.  

 

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Well, I see you also saw the obvious Evangelion/Shinji comparisons that I did, . I feel like we reached the happy medium for his character a handful of episodes ago, yet we may still be falling...

Yeah, I don't know where it could go from here with him, I guess I'll see sooner rather than later.  

Also, going by the production team information, this was in production two years before it came out and was retooled before release, so that's even before NGE came out. We also probably dodged a bullet here (emphasis mine):

Quote

Without a director, the series was put on hold and Kawamori left to work on other projects. After two years sitting on the shelf, Sunrise revisited the project and brought in relative newcomer Kazuki Akane as the new director. In order to broaden the potential audience, Akane decided to add more shōjo, or girl-oriented, elements to the series. The suggestive elements were removed, several of the male characters were given more bishōnen—"beautiful boy"—appearances, and the plot element around the tarot cards were added.

So yeah, this really is what happens when you take a shounen series, strip the shounen elements down a little and bring in something more interesting. 

[Bartimaeus]

I just noticed this emote was a cat - I previously thought it was The Scream with horns. Thank you, Shouji Kawamori, for creating and then leaving the project, and thank you, Akane Kazuki, for shoujo-fying it - very cool. If there could be, like, other shonen series that do that, I would be a whole lot more receptive to the idea of shonen, that's for sure. One negative thing I've heard about the show is that it was originally intended to be like ten episodes longer, so it may get suddenly wrapped up or abruptly end. Still won't take away from it being very good show for most of its run, though. It's a little difficult to believe there isn't at least a little Evangelion influence, though...

42 minutes ago, majestic said:

I guess it had to happen eventually.

It did, and ultimately, it wasn't that important, just...felt weird next to all of the pretty grounded storytelling and world-building the series has done outside of that moment.

44 minutes ago, majestic said:

Yeah, they sure know how to end an episode wanting you to turn on the next immediately.

It is pretty ridiculous. I think episode 2 is still the only episode where I didn't want to immediately watch the next one, which is...uh, how watching episodes 3-8 all at once happened, .

52 minutes ago, majestic said:

I was surprised too, I was kind of not looking forward to a full episode of fighting, and suddenly everything is more or less over off-screen. There was still some action, but it wasn't senseless. If I were more cynical I'd say it just saved a whole lot of production time and money, but that's probably not the case. The way the anime looks in both art and animation that can't have been cheap. Or they had a really talented team that got exploited more than usual.  

Difficult not to be okay with the cheap option when it results in a better show, .

[Lexx]

Oh no, season 1 of My Dress-Up Darling is already done.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I just noticed this emote was a cat - I previously thought it was The Scream with horns

The wiskers were a dead giveaway for me. But I guess they are kinda small.

[HoonDing]

"edit2: @HoonDing That was a lie."

Nah.

My backlog: Chihayafuru 2, Shingeki no Bahamut, El cazador de la bruja, Madlax, Kemonozume and Gangsta. That's it.

[Sarex]

26 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Shingeki no Bahamut

This was surprisingly good.

28 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Gangsta

Need to get back to that manga at some point,

[majestic]

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I just noticed this emote was a cat - I previously thought it was The Scream with horns. Thank you, Shouji Kawamori, for creating and then leaving the project, and thank you, Akane Kazuki, for shoujo-fying it - very cool. If there could be, like, other shonen series that do that, I would be a whole lot more receptive to the idea of shonen, that's for sure. One negative thing I've heard about the show is that it was originally intended to be like ten episodes longer, so it may get suddenly wrapped up or abruptly end.

Or it'll introduce a plot element that was barely a hint before and show some other issues that came from the retooling of certain aspects, and the time passed between scenes feels a bit off. I've read that initially Dilandau and Falken were the same person and that later in production it was decided that there should be two antagonists. Mild spoilers for episodes 15, 16 and 17 (should be safe to read, regardless, I'll just mask them):

Spoiler

There's a certain aspect of Dilandau that comes a little out of the blue that was maybe originally a part of Falken's arc, Allen's family issues that were only hinted at in prior episodes what with his sister and mother make up much of the plot of episode 16, Falken gets a replacement hunter-killer squad seemingly out of nowhere and in episode 17 Hitomi drops a comment thinking back to a time when she saw something before - except that happened an episode and a half ago, with no real indication of a larger time skip.

Spoilers for these in more detail:

Spoiler

Falken's new hunter-killer squad are two mature cat girls, or at least, larger cat girls than Merle is - assuming Merle is a house cat those two are something like cheetahs. They attack the Crused out of nowhere while only Escaflowne is ready to fight and Van has a shounen moment where he has a problem with fighting back because women are the pilots (that probably was left over from the initial concept), and then he goes back to having a Shinji moment as a result from his somewhat problematic experience in the prior battle in Fraid/at the Temple of Fortuna.

The two new hunter-killers want to end it then and there, then Merle jumps in front of Van, there's a flashback to the two pilot's past - presumably, at least - that makes no sense, and they just leave. Either cats don't kill cats, or, more likely, this was supposed to make sense and they simply ran out of episodes to properly introduce this transitionary phase between acts. Either way, the story then continues with an extended flashback to the adventures of Allen's father looking for the "Valley of Visions" (Mystic Valley in the English subs, I guess, because it's the same word in Japanese as in Mystic Moon) - the ruins of Atlantis.

Allen's problems with his family come up like once or so before when we see his sister disappearing, I think. Long story short, I'm thinking the show lacks what was probably supposed to be a post battle of Fraid prior to arrival at the Ruins of Atlantis middle part that would have introduced all these elements and expanded on them a little. Hitomi's comment ("'ve seen this before..." *think* "oh back when Van was stuck in Escaflowne") alludes to as much. Because that "back when" was literally 30 minutes, and didn't feel like much more in-universe.

Dilandau is perhaps also an Atlantean. Huh. He wa called a demon, at least.

Non-spoiler version:

Hopefully all of that means the missing runtime was cut from a now somewhat missing middle section in between the ending of the first major plot point (Zaibach finding what the Emperor wants in Fraid) and the finale. If so, then the ending might be fully there. Yep... well, I'll see soon.

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's a little difficult to believe there isn't at least a little Evangelion influence, though...

It becomes even harder with episode 17. I had to pause and compare when this episode and certain others from NGE aired, and the time difference is like three months. It's not impossible that they've been inspired by what they saw, but that's cutting it really close to come up with episodes and animate them (in this quality) and fitting them into an established story framework that was in preproduction much earlier than NGE's first aired episode and probably adapted before too. It sure looks like that is what happened though.

I also have a massive deja vu right now. I feel like I've seen myself writing this post before. Huh. Bizarre. Anyway, it's possible that the more NGE-ish elements were added to the original concept, that would make sense assuming the first ideas were much more like other shounen mech shows.

Spoilers for 17 (hard ones):

Spoiler

The group arrives at the Ruins of Atlantis, and the three lead characters all get drawn into a vision. Allen confronts his unresolved resentment towards his father for leaving the family, Hitomi confronts her fear and the reality it shapes through the pendant she has from her grandmother (who is revealed to have been whisked away to Gaia before) and Shinji, erm, I mean Van works through his issues of not wanting to fight any more after experiencing the horrors of war and seeing the dead while he cut Dilandau's friends apart.

Sounds familiar? Sure is. Because that's pretty much the original ending of Evangelion, just a little quicker, and much less obtuse.

Some major pointers to take away: Timeframes for interactions between Gaia and Earth are not fixed. Hitomi's grandmother appeared on Gaia twice, only a little apart while a longer time went by on Gaia (Allen's father sees Hitomi's grandmother and then goes looking for her, finding her again what seems like years later, in the same clothes, at the same age after being brought back from Earth).

Atlantis fell because its citizens put themselves above god and unlocked an ability to shape reality with their thoughts. This is similar to what Platon said about Atlantis, so that was nice. Hitomi, who has a vision of her grandmother, has probably the most powerful revelation. She's not telling the future with her abilities, she's using the pendant, which contains a fraction of the power unlocked by the Atlanteans, to shape reality according to what she thinks of when telling fortunes. She wants to forcably pull Allen and Van out of their visions, but her grandmother tells her to have faith in them.

Funny how that explains a whole lot in retrospect and how neatly that works with what happened in the prior episodes, just from a different angle. That worked really well.

Not sure what to think of the episode. On the one hand, it was fantastic, on the other hand, it's... ah, yeah. Let's call it inspired by something else, right?

Edited April 4, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Up to episode 16 of Escaflowne now. One: holy story dump, Batman! Two: gosh dang, it is so difficult to not watch the next episode. Three: man, is there really only ten episodes left?

Spoiler

Not going to lie, kind of felt bad for Dilandau, who appears to be suffering from the same condition as Van...which seems kind of inexplicable after everything he's done up to this point, but those sorcerers were talking of "fate alterations", so I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but boy, those screams convinced that he ain't doing so well. I didn't understand exactly why the two catwomen refused to fight Merle, though - they had a little flashback where one of them guarded the other with the same motion, but why exactly that was so powerful to them remained unclear. Also pretty weird that both Van and his brother have catgirls as some of their closest confidants, apparently - these two really should've been introduced at least a few episodes earlier, methinks.

I'll get back to your post once I've seen 17; okay, now I've seen 17. I only have one question...

Spoiler

Did the soul of Van's mom really get absorbed into the Eva at the end there? Poor Shinji-Van...history repeats itself.

P.S. Agree with your analysis - stuff feels a little odd because they weren't quite fully setup as they perhaps should have. Hints of these things were dropped before, but compare and contrast us going from little hints ages ago to suddenly being super important now vs. the show practically beating us over the head with Prince Chid being Allen's son for a few episodes, and I think they probably would've liked to bring some of these elements to our attention more before the moment they were needed to pay off, .

[majestic]

  

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Up to episode 16 of Escaflowne now. One: holy story dump, Batman!

I'd watch an The Adventures of Shezar Sr. anime. That looked like it could have been a fun show all on its own, crammed into one episode. Rushed is a little bit of an understatement.

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Two: gosh dang, it is so difficult to not watch the next episode. Three: man, is there really only ten episodes left?

Yeah, I actually just extended uhm my usual cardio time for episode 17. I wanted to keep watching.

Spoiler

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Not going to lie, kind of felt bad for Dilandau, who appears to be suffering from the same condition as Van...which seems kind of inexplicable after everything he's done up to this point, but those sorcerers were talking of "fate alterations", so I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but boy, those screams convinced that he ain't doing so well.

That's the point where I thought this was originally intended for Falken to be an issue, because altering his fate (becoming king and being half Atlantean) seems like something that would be appropriate for the brother of Van, and thematically the two going through similar struggles for different reasons - one accepting, one rejecting fate - would be thematically appropriate, and yeah, Ms. Tall Mountain is sure doing a great job at voicing Dilandau.

高山 = tall mountain. Well, that's the meaning of the kanji combination, the actual word for tall mountain is kōzan because outside of names, 高山 has both kanji read with their on'yomi.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I didn't understand exactly why the two catwomen refused to fight Merle, though - they had a little flashback where one of them guarded the other with the same motion, but why exactly that was so powerful to them remained unclear.

Yeah, feels like some missing setup here.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Also pretty weird that both Van and his brother have catgirls as some of their closest confidants, apparently - these two really should've been introduced at least a few episodes earlier, methinks.

I'm almost sure their introduction scene was a leftover too, because "we're yours, body and soul" and groveling at Falken's feet is a bit weird for the rest of the anime as it is now. If Dilandau's current plot was originally intended for Falken, he might have had that introduction a bit earler, but eh, who knows without looking at the original material. Fun to speculate though.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Did the soul of Van's mom really get absorbed into the Eva at the end there? Poor Shinji-Van...history repeats itself.

It sure looked like it. Either her soul, or a fraction of her power, her essence, however you want to call it. Whatever was left of her, at any rate.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

P.S. Agree with your analysis - stuff feels a little odd because they weren't quite fully setup as they perhaps should have. Hints of these things were dropped before, but compare and contrast us going from little hints ages ago to suddenly being super important now vs. the show practically beating us over the head with Prince Chid being Allen's son for a few episodes, and I think they probably would've liked to bring some of these elements to our attention more before the moment they were needed to pay off, .

With the structure and pacing of the rest of the anime so far, I'd say there's definitely something missing here now. It's not so hard to see this stuff working better after some setup, so if 13 episodes worth of content were really dropped from the original intention and that wasn't all fighting and fanservice, then it might be a good deal of the setup for whatever happened between 15 and 17. Because that sure screamed "MORE TIME HAS PASSED THAN IT LOOKS LIKE!" at me.

Best guess, the journey to the ruins of Atlantis was intended to take a couple of episodes, at least. Allen having that journal of his father could have come up before, less out of the blue, them retracing his steps would have spread out the story-retelling a little. It still sort of works, but it feels like an overly heavy exposition and story dump for the sake of bridging a weird gap between episodes.

 

On 4/3/2022 at 2:58 PM, Bartimaeus said:

Princess Tutu: I don't think I'll have nearly as positive feelings towards it as you did, considering my current state of soft ambivalence towards it, but I'm hoping I'll eventually be won over at least a little. It's currently a very weird state of near perfect neutrality, which isn't really something I experience basically ever.

Forgot to reply to that - well, assuming that by episode 13 your mind hasn't changed, the final episodes won't either. Out of all the strange things I've watched, which are probably not as many as @KP wants Blue Velvet did at least, this is certainly the one I can make both the most and the least sense of. In a way, Princess Tutu is more confusing than Revolutionary Girl Utena insfoar as that I had no idea what I was watching at the time, and I still really don't. I mean, other than the most surface level idea - a fairy tale that's based loosely on a couple of (Central) European folk tales and Swan Lake.

For Utena I figured by the time the Black Rose arc rolled around that they're all in some form of purgatory or limbo and that turned out to be pretty much what it was. Tutu? Tutu I don't even know if there's some deeper meaning to it all, or if it's just... you know, whatever it is. Out side of the cat teacher. I have no idea what his deal is, and I don't think anyone involved in the production did either.  

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Out of all the strange things I've watched, which are probably not as many as @KP wants Blue Velvet did at least, this is certainly the one I can make both the most and the least sense of.

I don't know, what would you consider strange? You've watched all episodes of Star Trek Discovery and I think it's strange that it continues to exist.

[majestic]

Van is such a Shinji sometimes… that is all, for now. Hitomi even calls him an idiot for it. Heh. 

[Sarex]

4 minutes ago, majestic said:

Van is such a Shinji sometimes… that is all, for now. Hitomi even calls him an idiot for it. Heh. 

He masturbates to sleeping girls?

[majestic]

42 minutes ago, Sarex said:

He masturbates to sleeping girls?

Not quite that bad, but let's say he has no idea how to read other people.

4 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

I don't know, what would you consider strange? You've watched all episodes of Star Trek Discovery and I think it's strange that it continues to exist.

Well, Ergo Proxy by your posts about it, Utena, the surrealist hellscapes of Madoka, David Lynch films, and so on and so forth.

@Bartimaeus there's a leftover shouneny weird scene with the cat hunter-killer squad that sticks out like a sore thumb and then suddenly segues into a regular dialogue in, uh... episode 19 or 20, I've lost track because I watched too much all at once. You'll immediatly notice when you see it though.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Well, Ergo Proxy by your posts about it, Utena, the surrealist hellscapes of Madoka, David Lynch films, and so on and so forth.

I guess those are strange, but you've seen half of them yourself and probably loads more stuff like the German or Austrian comedy music act you linked a while back or the early cgi show. 

Anyways, **** it. I like strange because it's usually entertaining (and because I am weird). There's just too many lukewarm rehashes all trying to replicate cultural phenomena that fall flat on their ass. In my lifetime (which isn't that long, I say coping) I've seen three separate DARKER, GRITTIER Batman franchises launch. I've seen several sci-fi reboots or ripoffs that just suck, I've seen tons of cookie cutter shonen shows, and now unfortunately I'm seeing a slew of shows aiming at being the next GoT. All of these can go to hell, they're boring and creatively bankrupt **** no one but those hardcore into fandom will remember.

[Gorth]

I watched the Ergo Proxy trailer on youtube and read a few lines about it. Sounds interesting enough for me to make it my next viewing project

[HoonDing]

 

[Amentep]

Supēsu Kobura/Space Cobra

Episode XVIII "Desugēmu! 0078 Ji" aka "Death Game! At 00:78 O'Clock"

The game between The Team 1 players and Cobra's Team Z begins (with a literal recap of the end of the last episode)

Spoiler

We open with a total fan service shot of Dominique showering.  It has nothing to do with the story, and Dominique as the scene is a set up for Dominique hearing while brushing her hair that Joe Gillian (Cobra) has a match with Team 1. 

 

"Somehow Cobra just knew I'd be showering when this news was announced! The pervert!"

Dominique goes to the game in case Cobra has the information she needs since she can't communicate with him.  Cobra and Team Z begin to get ready while crowds begin heading to the stadium for this major inter-squad game.

"Jabba will never think to look for me in another franchise!"

Having gathered the team together, Cobra lets him into his secret strategy for the match...MEDICAL RECORDS!

"I'm no medical expert, but I DO think the toe bone connected to the foot bone, the Foot bone connected to the heel bone, Heel bone connected to the ankle bone, Ankle bone connected to the leg bone..."

It seems that Cobra has managed to swipe the medical records of Team 1 and with them has figured out where all of their major injuries are - as no one gets time off to heal in Rug Ball.  With this knowledge, and knowing that Team 1 is out to kill them, Cobra proposes that they target these injuries to get a competitive edge on the Team 1 players.

The game starts and Cobra's team is set to pitch.  Cobra makes the first out at first base Team 1 player HIMMLER  by catching an overhead line drive and landing in time to punch him in the gut and toss him over the base.  Next batter is Gerd who gets to second base with a grounder into center field and by knocking over Team Z player Serombo, the martial artist.  Gerd continues to antagonize the other players by spitting on Serombo as well, who vows to kill him.

"Gerd is super serious about this matchup, he's put in his gameday teeth!"

Hildus is next up to bat, and Cobra give the signal to the players to begin their plan.  Hildus hits a blooper past the pitcher, and Serombo tosses it to Big the Big, who uses knowledge of Gerd's cracked ribs to take Gerd down.  Sadly, while he's in a lot of pain, he's not out yet.  Meanwhile Big the Big throws the ball back to Serombo who tags Hildus out with an elbow drop to his injured neck, leaving him wallowing in pain as the sides switch.

Geck is up to bat for Team Z and he bunts to get on base using his speed to get to the base before Brad can get the ball (and thus legally block him with a death blow).  Also we find out that Brad is his last name, and the character's full name is "Dan Brad".   Next up is Team Z's pitcher, Leo who also bunts to get on base.  Dan Brad blocks Leo with an elbow to the chest (even if the announcer calls it a shoulder block), but Geck's speed has him almost at third base.  Gerd illegally blocks Geck (knocking his helmet off) and making sure Dan Brad's throw hits him in the neck.  Geck is taken off the field in the stretcher, the referee is forced by the owner to rule the incident an "accident".

Team Z tries to rush the field, but Cobra holds them back pointing out that the referee ruling it an accident means a fix is in and their only way out is to take out Team 1 as they planned, not in a brawl that will give them an excuse to kill them all at once.  Its Cobra's turn to bat.  Hildus tries to back Cobra off with a pitch that almost takes his head off.  As Cobra gets up, its announced Geck has died and that Team Z will have to continue playing a man down.  Hildus fires the next pitch.

"Holy cow! Its a hit!"

Cobra hits the ball, almost taking off Hildus' head.  One of Team 1's player tries to catch it but it rips through the mesh on his glove and continues on until it bounces off the wall (damaging the wall in the process).  Cobra makes it past 2nd when the outfielder throws the ball to Gerd.  Gerd tries to knock Cobra's head off but Cobra does a ninja move, jumping over Gerd's punch as if he disappeared and appearing behind him so that he can kick him in the neck.

"That's gotta hurt!"

Gerd goes down like the proverbial 'sack of taters' and Cobra is safe at third.  Gerd is injured and carried off the field while Dan Brad seethes in impotent rage.  Joe taunts him by telling him they're 6 on 6 now while the owner seethes over Joe's injuring one of his star players. Big The Big comes up to bat and gets a hit, getting Cobra home.  Just as halftime is called, Big the Big narrowly avoids a kick from second baseman Dragon that slices his shoulder pad and would have decapitated him had it connected.

As the teams go to halftime, Dan Brad tells them its not over, they still have to get through the remaining 6, and Cobra resolves himself for the real battle coming up.

Fun episode; expected that the game would at least be two episodes long.

[majestic]

20 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

I guess those are strange, but you've seen half of them yourself and probably loads more stuff like the German or Austrian comedy music act you linked a while back or the early cgi show. 

Oh, yes, you should also enjoy these two:

 

Indeed, I've watched my fair share of weird stuff, and I enjoyed a good deal of it, all in all. I just get the impression that you've watched more of them. Discovery isn't strange, it's just really, really stupid. It sure is strange that it exists, I'll give you that.

Reboot on the other hand is one of the best shows I've ever watched, and well worth the effort of tracking it down. I've heard tales of a decent DVD transfer. I haven't checked it out, but that's probably a whole lot better than that NTSC resolution transfer that was the sole source for a long while. The first season is mostly standalone comedy bits with a younger target audience in mind, but no less funny - assuming one likes IT nerd humor and pop culture fun* - and it becomes more story and character driven in its second season, and even more so after the show "left" ABC (the end of the second season makes fun of this when a part of Mainframe, the "ABCs" start attacking the residents - Bob yells "The ABCs, they're turning on us!" ).

21 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Anyways, **** it. I like strange because it's usually entertaining (and because I am weird). There's just too many lukewarm rehashes all trying to replicate cultural phenomena that fall flat on their ass. In my lifetime (which isn't that long, I say coping) I've seen three separate DARKER, GRITTIER Batman franchises launch. I've seen several sci-fi reboots or ripoffs that just suck, I've seen tons of cookie cutter shonen shows, and now unfortunately I'm seeing a slew of shows aiming at being the next GoT. All of these can go to hell, they're boring and creatively bankrupt **** no one but those hardcore into fandom will remember.

I have no idea if I can suggest Princess Tutu or not. At its core, it's a magical girl show about a duck who transforms into a human who then transforms into a super-heroine whose superpower is being so good at ballet that she just dances every problem away - or in other words, what's usually the action part of magical girl shows is replaced by ballet dance battles.

The overall storyline is about (spoilered mostly for @Bartimaeus' sake)

Spoiler

a storyteller whose penchant for telling tragic tales while having the reality warping powers to make them come true gets him his hands chopped off by an angry mob, and he's trying to use Ahiru, the protagonist, to tell the most tragic tale of them all - because even in death, his creations affect reality.

A fairy tale of princes, princesses, ballet and antropomorphic animals that sometimes are anteaters who lack the grace for ballet. Why? I have no idea.

Anyway, ReBoot had a reboot too, or rather, a sequel show that's so bad it broke reality and made me love every second. It's the worst thing ever made, probably. It's about a hacker in dark hoodie whose hacking powers are so powerful that he can create Dark Code, and then he steals a computer that can connect to the internet without wi-fi and begins to wreak havoc on the world... the name of the hacker? The Sourcerer. Posted a bit about it before, way back when it aired, in the TV thread at the time.

*I guess people are tired of hearing it, but the moment when Fax Modem is sitting together with Bob the Guardian and Data Nully, telling them his conspiracy theories about the Guardians and how there are no users and they're just made up by the anti virus thugs to supress the residents of the computer world is one of the best laughs I've ever had. Bob turns to Data Nully and in complete exasperation says: "Is your partner completely random?"

 

[majestic]

Keeping this thematically separate, so a justified double post, I think. Not that it makes any difference seeing how the human centipede ouroboros (have fun with the mental image guys!) in the Ukraine thread gets away with regurgitating their excremental ramblings in triple and quadruple posts for pages on end.

Just finished with episode 24 of The Vision of Escaflowne, and I'll probably be off after this post to finish the series tonight. There's some more fraying in regards the timeframes involved and parts of Allen's and Falken's storyline keep feeling rushed due to what more and more looks like a middle part missing. Not surprising with 13 episodes missing from the run, but even so, the quality of the show remains high even though some parts of what happens in Zaibach are a bit ludicrous.

At least until it reaches the end of episode 23 and all of the 24th episode, where it suddenly reaches a point that even the really good episodes prior didn't. That was just pure magic. The only problem is now that I don't see how the finale can live up to that, but let's see.

edit:

Uhm... huh? What the hell was that now?

edit 2:

Okay, done now. Spoiler for the what the hell moment:

Spoiler

The finale suddenly having a nuke used was a little strange, all in all. You'd think one of the parties in the war having a weapon like that would have changed the dynamics beforehand, but hey, maybe it was developed in secret.

Okay, so that was a pretty good finale, all in all. A few things could have used some more setup, but in the end it's fine. Tired and it's a little late, so more tomorrow or maybe after @Bartimaeus caught up.

Edited April 6, 2022 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Oh, yes, you should also enjoy these two:

One is blocked. Even if it wasn't.....well I'd probably watch it later.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Indeed, I've watched my fair share of weird stuff, and I enjoyed a good deal of it, all in all. I just get the impression that you've watched more of them.

That may be true, but I think it's very true that I'm more likely to seek out weird stuff.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I have no idea if I can suggest Princess Tutu or not. At its core, it's a magical girl show about a duck who transforms into a human who then transforms into a super-heroine whose superpower is being so good at ballet that she just dances every problem away - or in other words, what's usually the action part of magical girl shows is replaced by ballet dance battles.

The overall storyline is about (spoilered mostly for @Bartimaeus' sake)

  Reveal hidden contents

a storyteller whose penchant for telling tragic tales while having the reality warping powers to make them come true gets him his hands chopped off by an angry mob, and he's trying to use Ahiru, the protagonist, to tell the most tragic tale of them all - because even in death, his creations affect reality.

A fairy tale of princes, princesses, ballet and antropomorphic animals that sometimes are anteaters who lack the grace for ballet. Why? I have no idea.

I will probably check it out, but I'm not in the mood for magical girls (played straight) right now. Gurren Lagann is probably my next anime watch.

59 minutes ago, majestic said:

Not that it makes any difference seeing how the human centipede ouroboros (have fun with the mental image guys!) in the Ukraine thread gets away with regurgitating their excremental ramblings in triple and quadruple posts for pages on end.

That is quite an image. At least I keep my excremental ramblings in single posts. And I hope they are at least more funny than armchair expertise.

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

That is quite an image. At least I keep my excremental ramblings in single posts. And I hope they are at least more funny than armchair expertise.

That's a very low bar to pass, set yourself some loftier goals, hmm (look who's talking, heh)?

8 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

I will probably check it out, but I'm not in the mood for magical girls (played straight) right now. Gurren Lagann is probably my next anime watch.

That's on my list too, I just don't really, ahm... I really should stop watching new things and finish what I've started. I'll probably go back to slowly working through Futari wa Pretty cure and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles now.