Anime and Manga - I respect the first human to have eaten a mushroom

[InsaneCommander]

Samurai Champloo 1-5

 

Mugen and Jin make a deal with Fuu and they set out on a journey to find the sunflower samurai. Not sure why they are keeping their promise, since they look good enough to have escaped on their own. But anyway, about one episode later they got tired of it and left in different directions, leaving a confused Fuu behind.

After that they basically just keep trying to go different ways (even if just temporarily) and end up together again somehow. Perhaps it happened off screen, but they don’t seem to have gotten any answers from Fuu about the sunflower samurai and they never said where they are going or why. I imagine this people just want an excuse to be on the move.

Very interesting series. Non stop action, crazy situations and enough laughing moments.

[Bartimaeus]

47 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

After that they basically just keep trying to go different ways (even if just temporarily) and end up together again somehow. Perhaps it happened off screen, but they don’t seem to have gotten any answers from Fuu about the sunflower samurai and they never said where they are going or why. I imagine this people just want an excuse to be on the move.

No, they have not received an answer, .

[Amentep]

Space Cobra

Episode 25 "Cobra Is Dead?!" aka "Kobura ga Shinda!?

Cobra heists some diamonds

Spoiler

Cobra steals 30,000 silver diamonds from the Pirate Guild, putting the guild into a financially perilous position. 

Little did Lady know, Cobra actually got them by guessing how many of them were in a jar correctly, which is why he knows there is 30,000...

Cobra chooses to, while he's in the area, visit his doctor in his mobile clinic.  But instead on reminiscing, the doctor instead runs a series of tests on him since he hasn't seen him in awhile to make sure he's still healthy which leads to an argument, and Cobra heads to spa for relaxation. There he makes time with a lady until a floating head interrupts him by telling him that the local arms merchant, Leord, has kidnapped Lady and will return her to Cobra only if he gets the 30,000 silver diamonds.

also your parking won't be validated if you wait longer than 6 hours...

Cobra goes to the HQ of Leord, but ends up captured by high speed, laser weilding, roller blade wearing mechanical army men who can roll up and down the wall at will.  Leord impresses upon Cobra the urgency of getting the diamonds, and demonstrates his dip pit that freezes whatever is in it by dipping the lady he was in the spa with and shattering her.  Cobra breaks free and manages to free Lady, but in doing so, Cobra ends up taking a dip.

Cobra was sure that it was gelatin.

Lady gets Cobra to the mobile clinic where the doctor manages to thaw Cobra out much like Han in Carbonite from Empire Strikes Back.  Leord's men attack and a chase begins over the Diamonds; eventually Leord is lured into a trap set by Cobra who manages to get away with the diamonds and gets in a final parting shot with Leord.

He was going to apologize for the trouble he'd caused Cobra, but inexplicably he found he no longer had the heart to do it.

A pretty strong episode; Cobra is probably at his most desperate for part of the story, and perhaps the least cavalier about things by the end.

Episode 26 ""Beyond the Fires of War" aka "Senka no Kanata ni" 

Cobra finds himself stuck on a war torn planet

Spoiler

Initially we're not told why he's here, or why he's strapping some old style guns on, but quickly Cobra waylays some goons at night and we find out that he wants to take from them what they've looted undercover of war.

And shoot you.  You're okay with that right? Right?

After getting a briefcase from the thugs, Cobra escapes through the city but stops when he finds an old man trapped under a collapsed wall and his grandchild.

Unlike me.  Not going anywhere soon.  Its like a ton of bricks fell on me. 

Cobra agrees to mans granddaughter, Koro to the airport where the kids mom is supposed to pick her up to get her off the planet just as a crashing bomber destroys half the city and kills the old man.  Cobra walks the kid out of the city, ultimately encountering a small group of army survivors in the cave systems he's using to avoid the surface. 

Not what you want to meet in a dark alley cave. 

The soldiers introduce themselves

Yes this is the second Duck headed character named Duck/Duk.

and Cobra uses his archeologist cover again, calling himself Johnson.  This becomes important quickly as two things happen, the soldiers discover that Cobra is carrying royal gems in his brieface and they all discover that one of them is actually a spy for the other army leading to them having to travel through the caves while suspecting that one another is the secret army spy there to kill them all.

Because it is a mystery, I won't divulge the answer of who is the spy but I did guess it and overall the episode works well, I thought.

Closing on the end - the next episode's set up sounds like the start of the last story-arc for the series.

 

[Bartimaeus]

The fact that you didn't make note of any kind of silly nonsense going on between Cobra and Shella, unlike quite possibly literally every other named female character that you've mentioned thus far, means it has to be her. Or it could be literally anybody else and it just went unsaid this time. Or perhaps it went unsaid this time because you didn't want to draw attention to her...shadows within shadows here, you've got quite the devil's tongue!

[Bartimaeus]

Angel's Egg (1985) by Mamoru Oshii, aka the director of Ghost in the Shell. Artsy, bold, beautiful, rich...mind-numbingly slow, repetitive, and runs almost entirely on symbolism without any meaningful semblance of plot or characters. I actually nearly fell asleep while watching this several times, which never happens to me, and then something would actually happen for a second and I would jump awake. Actually, I think there was one part where I did fall asleep for a few minutes, but then a bloodcurdling scream woke me up.

I don't know how I feel about it overall, guess I'm kind of ambivalent. I liked the aesthetic a lot, but I don't know, just not really my kind of film.

[Sarex]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't know how I feel about it overall, guess I'm kind of ambivalent. I liked the aesthetic a lot, but I don't know, just not really my kind of film.

So you are saying I should watch it?

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

So you are saying I should watch it?

Oh yes, I recommend this film to everyone, if only because I'm curious to see everyone's reaction to it and/or whether I'm the big dumb in not being able to appreciate it enough.

[Sarex]

25 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh yes, I recommend this film to everyone, if only because I'm curious to see everyone's reaction to it and/or whether I'm the big dumb in not being able to appreciate it enough.

It's in the process of dropping out of the back of a truck.

[kirottu]

47 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh yes, I recommend this film to everyone, if only because I'm curious to see everyone's reaction to it and/or whether I'm the big dumb in not being able to appreciate it enough.

I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's meant to be understood. It's the type of movie where you have to find your own meaning.

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

4 minutes ago, kirottu said:

I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's meant to be understood. It's the type of movie where you have to find your own meaning.

That sounds about accurate: I read that the director doesn't fully know what the movie is about either (although obviously he intended for some ideas and themes to come through even so). It felt like the anime equivalent of Eraserhead (though a lot less crude). It's not bad exactly, but I don't get it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

42 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

That sounds about accurate: I read that the director doesn't fully know what the movie is about either (although obviously he intended for some ideas and themes to come through even so). It felt like the anime equivalent of Eraserhead (though a lot less crude). It's not bad exactly, but I don't get it.

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh yes, I recommend this film to everyone, if only because I'm curious to see everyone's reaction to it and/or whether I'm the big dumb in not being able to appreciate it enough.

I pretty much echo your opinion on this... I'm not that in to these kind of biblical stories and as such this one was lost on me. I can't say I understood much, if anything at all.

[Bartimaeus]

25 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I pretty much echo your opinion on this... I'm not that in to these kind of biblical stories and as such this one was lost on me. I can't say I understood much, if anything at all.

I don't really mind biblical references or allegory at all, but it needed to do something a little more interesting and grounded with it for me to get it on some level - a film can't be 95% symbolism and work for me. I'd joke about it being @majestic's turn, but he has a stated (and understandable) dislike for this sort of thing, so while the film is pretty, that's gonna be a no for him. I might someday re-watch the film to see if I get more out of it a second time, I'm not sure yet.

It was kind of hilarious to go read the plot on Wikipedia - I thought it might cover what happened in broader strokes, but no, instead whoever made that section painstakingly wrote out literally just about every little thing that happened throughout its hour and fifteen minute or so run time. Apparently, a little more background for the film is that the creator lost his faith (in Christianity) before making this film.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

I feel dared to watch whatever it is you're currently talking about. I will try to resist.

[kirottu]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

I feel dared to watch whatever it is you're currently talking about. I will try to resist.

You can find it free on youtube.

[Gorth]

On 6/14/2022 at 6:02 AM, InsaneCommander said:

Samurai Champloo 1-5

 

 

No idea if it's something I would like watching, but props to the animators. That has to be some of the most expressive facial animations I've seen in a long, long time

[Bartimaeus]

19 hours ago, Gorth said:

No idea if it's something I would like watching, but props to the animators. That has to be some of the most expressive facial animations I've seen in a long, long time

I think it has pretty general appeal for the most part - strong and distinctive characters, a bit of stylized action, good humor, serialized storytelling, and it's only 26 episodes long. Everyone that has watched it here (which is probably around five people) seems to have liked or loved it.

I finally watched Barefoot Gen (1983). It's that movie...I'm sure at least a couple of you have seen the famous clip. All of them on YouTube are in SD, while I got the joy of seeing it in HD (albeit not great HD).

Spoiler

As far as nuclear explosions go, it's not perfect, but the people melting does help strengthen the effect. Anyways, Grave of the Fireflies is a bit better and more refined IMO, but it was a solid watch. I was somewhat annoyed by the protagonist, who in his shrill voice practically never stopped talking throughout the entire film with the exception of the bombing section...I can't help but think that I would've enjoyed the film a lot more if it had been focused on the more solemn and responsible but only slightly older sister instead. Alas, she came down with a very sudden case of nuclearfireitis.

 

[InsaneCommander]

The Rising of the Shield Hero 2.11

 

Wow. The animation in this episode looked pretty bad in some scenes. Some characters looked like a grey alien doing cosplay. And the story was a bit disappointing too. Basically just one fight against an opponent in disadvantage and a few funny scenes.

 

All the heroes finally get together. Kizuna gets angry with her friends for attacking the other world and with Naofumi for not telling her about that. The idiot that Raphtalia forced to stay still or die decides to move and gets his Darwin award.

 

Naofumi gets a new armor, Raphtalia a scabbard for her katana and Filo gets new pajamas.  Before they could go fight against Kyo, he summons a new wave days ahead of the eta and his friend Yogomi (?) finds out he was never trying to stop the waves.

[majestic]

Komi went to Kyoto and insane stalker girl wanted to touch her boobies in the bath. That's it then, we're back to terrible. Okay, maybe the episodes wasn't as terrible as the really terrible ones, and for some utterly infantile reason I find the ongoing storyline that puts Tadano into situations where Komi thinks he might like the weirdo boy more than her is mildly amusing at times.

The biggest issue for this episode is that it is kind of the same as a K-On!! one where they go to Kyoto. Komi has a weird tourist guide and in K-On!! the girls get lost, but everything else is really similar, down to the pillow fight. K-On!! even had a situation where someone wanted to touch boobs in a bath but Mio just whacked Sawako for the idea and that was the end of such nonsense (in the entire second season, if memory serves).

Needless to say, the K-On!! episode was much better.

[InsaneCommander]

Spy x Family 11

Anya needs eight stars in four months. She gets horrible grades in her tests because she read the wrong people’s minds, so she decides to find out who is the best in each subject so that she can maximize her grades next time.

Loid considers other ways to get a star and tries to find out if she is good doing something else, like art, music, sports... but she is a disaster in everything. Maybe that happens because she is two years younger than what they pretend she is?

He ends up taking her to do some voluntary work in a hospital, where they are assigned with cleaning the dressing room. And that doesn’t work well either as she breaks a vase. Arranging the books in the library? Nope, she sits down and reads manga. In the kitchen, she drops a tray (who puts a child to work as a waiter????) and in the laundry room she falls asleep.

 

Spoiler

They end up being kicked out of the place, but before they leave, Anya listens to the thoughts of a boy drowning in the pool and goes there to save him. She even manages to pretend she is going there to swim after Loid gets suspicious when she says somebody is drowning. She dives in the pool, however she can’t hold her breath long enough and Loid has to save her and the boy. Despite that, she earns a star for her bravery, setting a new record for earning it in such a short time.

Now some students are angry and jealous while others admire her. And she gets a little snobby with her only friend. Ironically, Damian defends her saying that they are not in a third rate school that would be fooled into giving her a star. Btw, she calls him “second son”.

Once back at home, she asks Loid to give her a dog as a reward and then a dog is shown in a kennel having a vision of the Forger family. I guess it is psychic too.

 

[majestic]

Texhnolyze, up to episode seven. Seven episode into Utena I had an idea what was going on, but seven episodes into this much shorter series I'm still at a total loss, although with this seventh episode it seems like a die has been cast, and things will pick up from there.

Heavy breathing 'protagonist boy' is sure grating my nerves a little though.

Spoiler

Nice older guy starting a war was fun too, too bad I already expected it based on @Bartimaeus's comment about someone he thought was one thing turning out to be another.

My fault for reading spoilerish comments, I guess, but still, pretty interesting, all in all.

[Bartimaeus]

57 minutes ago, majestic said:

Heavy breathing 'protagonist boy' is sure grating my nerves a little though.

I found him pretty amusing for the first ~10 or so episodes because it seemed like just about literally every time he ever tried to do anything, everyone else would just summarily dump on him. But I definitely can agree that it's not the best, .

Spoiler

I think the character that annoyed me the most was Shinji, though.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Himitsu no Akko-chan aka The Secrets of Akko-chan, a post almost certainly only of interest to @majestic:

Wikipedia seems to suggest that this is the very first shoujo manga(?), originally published in 1962...but not the first shoujo anime, as it came out in 1969 after a few others had already premiered. The premise is pretty simple: Akko is a young girl obsessed with mirrors, but accidentally breaks her favorite one. After giving it a proper burial, the goddess of mirrors descends from the heavens to give Akko a magical compact that allows her to transform into any creature or person when she looks into it. There were three different series of it made, but only a tiny bit of this franchise is available with English subtitles - the first episode of the 1969 show, the first episode of the 1998 show, and two short "films" (~25 minutes each) of the 1988 show, and I watched them all.

Spoiler

In the 1969 version, Akko is pretty mischievous but more or less well-meaning: the first thing she uses her compact for is to turn into her own father, who is a sea captain that has been gone on a voyage for a long time, and teases her mother with his sudden appearance before disappearing just as suddenly and leaving her mother to wonder if she was dreaming. She then gets pulled into a scheme she can't get out of when she turns into one of her teachers to strong-arm a bully into behaving while accidentally losing her compact in the process; most of the episode is to do with trying to resolve this situation, as she is stuck being her teacher (who is also at the school and getting very confused when Akko's actions are ascribed to her) while Akko's mom and best friend are both scared that she was kidnapped as she just suddenly disappeared early into the school day...while also leaving behind her schoolbag and never coming home. Unable to find her compact, Akko cries and then muses to herself - without being able to turn back into herself, she can't even go home because her mom won't recognize her, and she doesn't know what to do because she's not actually an adult and hasn't learned how to do anything or handle these sorts of situations. In typical 60s/early 70s fashion, there's a bit of wacky silliness, but there's enough thoughtfulness with some of the ideas here that I can see why it's a shoujo.

The two 1988/89 movies (what the poster above is from), are a slightly mixed bag - the first one is actually quite good, while the second one is more just fine, I think. In the first movie, the local school children only have one unused lot to play in their local precinct, so it's an an area that is precious to them. It's owned by the father of one of Akko's friends, Taichi, who is a not particularly smart and also very portly boy, and who has apparently received a lucrative offer to turn it into real estate, thus denying the children the ability to play there.

Taichi and his odd family.

This is interesting, because the movie focuses more on him than Akko here - Taichi struggles to convince his father to not go through with it, as it's an area important to him and his friends. He tries to tell him how they have nowhere else to meet and play, he tries to give him all his money and say that he won't ever ask for anything if he calls off his plans, he straight up tries crying and begging...but the father is insistent that it will happen. Finally, Taichi does the whole "crazy nature conservationist" act by personally squatting and doing a hunger strike on the lot itself. Akko tries to help by scaring off Taichi's father with some silliness about a curse...

Yes, that is Akko - there really aren't any limitations as to how much she can transform. No, she doesn't have magical fire powers, that's a few of the other children holding something flammable up with some wire for dramatic effect.

Doesn't work, so Akko and Taichi's mother both try to bring him food that he refuses. Akko learns from Taichi's mother that she and his dad actually met as children for the first time here when it was the grandfather that owned the land, and the mom shows Akko some pictures of when they were children. Finally, an angle...the father's own childhood memories:

Akko is finally able to reach him with this, and father and son reconcile and all the children are able to continue playing. It's simple and silly, but cute and effective - good short film. The second film is when Akko and some of her friends are on a local island to visit family and enjoy a festival being held there. Some of the boys decide to disturb a cultural/religious site that they're forbidden from going to with the intent of capturing a beloved white dolphin that is locally celebrated. They want to do this to this because, and this is a reason that perhaps only boys (of which I am not one) might understand, they want to show it off to the local townsfolk at the festival - the same local townsfolk that said "absolutely do not go there, do not mess with the dolphin". Akko learns of their plan too late to be able to stop it with the help of adults, so she decides to turn into a demon to scare them before they can finish the job. But this isn't enough, as they're still determined to capture it with some nets and when they actually do, she becomes a huge dragon to send them tumbling away from the dolphin. The dolphin ends up helping them and they learn their lesson and all ends well. Not as good as the first, but still enjoyable enough.

The 1998 version did not seem to be very good - instead of Akko accidentally breaking her favorite mirror herself, the overweight boy from the 1988 series (who was arguably the main character of the first movie and also one of her friends) bullies her and breaks it himself. There's a bigger focus on the magical aspect of the show and the fantastical silliness deriving from it compared to either of the other two, IMO. Additionally, the show was made in 1998, and looks...very digital. It's kind of sad in comparison to how simple but cute and pretty the 1989 movies looked.

Can you tell which one came from what?

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

Can you tell which one came from what?

Plain to see with the superior use of color and the sharper edges that the first one is the much betterer, newerer version!

[Bartimaeus]

Wolf Children (2012). @Sarex, look away - I could not even finish it. It's so extreme that I couldn't even get out of the prologue. I am now going to go on a completely insane and unhinged rant about anime drama films and why they almost never seem to work for me. Please do not take it personally, or better yet, don't even read it in the first place.

Spoiler

Honest question: is there some unwritten rule about modern anime dramas that they have to start out by making the absolute worst impression possible? My gosh, it's like the equivalent of a video game that punches you in the face with an hour of cutscenes before the game has even really begun. Please, just start the actual game right now and fill me in on the details that I need to know along the way through a combination of environmental and direct storytelling as is appropriate. In other words, do not give me the ten minute-long monologue & piano session where a character(s) drones on and on while acting pathetic before we actually start to get on the events of the film proper. I liked A Letter to Momo better because that part of the movie only lasted like a minute or two before the movie started - this one took twelve minutes of my life to tell me "my mom fell in love with a furry" (this is worse than it sounds, honestly - they somehow conspired to make the entire sequence feel final breaths of your life slow and pointless while also making them fall in love in what feels like two seconds based off of almost nothing, probably because the entire thing is such an obvious "we're at point A where they're not in love and we need to get to point B where they are in love while having literally absolutely nothing to fill in between those points because this is an utterly farcical and unnecessary prologue sequence in a bloated two hour movie"), and then another six for the monologuer that's been telling the story so far to get to "they had unprotected furry-human sex and then I happened".

This is where I've stopped - the protagonist was just born, she's still a baby, and it looks like this nonsense is going to continue on for a while. I'm already so irate with this movie, I don't see how I can possibly continue it and get anything out of it. It's like all of these drama anime directors forgot that you can tell a story without dumping every possible crumb of information onto the viewer right off the bat in the most clumsy and stretched-out fashion possible...you can leave the viewer to figure some things out on their own while throwing them some bones when it's relevant and convenient (and only if the information is actually necessary in the first place, which I quite frankly don't think any of this actually is, but I'll probably never figure out for sure because I can't watch this). GAH!

Anyways, pretty good movie, I fully recommend it to everyone here, .

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Bartimaeus