Anime and Manga - It's time for you to finish what you've started and watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

22 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Speaking of anime features, did you ever get around to the other two parts of Memories?

I honestly forgot about them. I'm trying to play less videogames and watch more movies so I'll add them to my substantial backlog.

22 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Now, to be fair, I said "spiel" and not "rant". There's a difference. The difference is...that I tried to imply that I didn't sound completely unhinged, but, well, you know me: of course I sounded utterly deranged.

Good.

22 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Okay, but for real: I actually didn't limit my talk about it to anime at all. My nieces have grown up with both Disney and Studio Ghibli films and the like, so they don't really understand that there's a difference between Western animation and anime, at least not such as we would understand it. The issue of hand-drawn animation vs. computer animation is even worse for Western 3D animation, so it wouldn't make much sense to criticize just anime for that. There was a particular scene in the movie that was particularly impressive in terms of art and motion, and I mentioned to my older niece something along the lines of "can you imagine drawing each frame of this scene over and over, with all the little moving details, so that it looks like everything is in motion like this?". She responded by saying, wow, it must've taken months to draw this entire film. Yup. Definitely months. Hey, a hundred artists and animators taking a few dozen months to finish a film is still technically months, .

So the first thing I'll say is that I don't draw a distinction between anime and (western) animation in the sense that they are the same medium. The stylistic differences are akin to regional things similar to what we see in cinema, but it'd be hard to argue that Bollywood is a genre unto itself. So why are we in a thread specifically for anime instead of in TV or film? Because the rest of the forum is weak. Weak.

Now that my unhinged speil is over....the western animated films and shows I see today make me want to [redacted]. They look like garbage. Absolute trash. Not fit to wipe your ass with. The kids shows are the reason that the coming generation is so depressed and the "adult" animation is d-list comedy with terrible visuals. I was forced to watch the Netflix film Marmaduke and in addition to very creepy designs (why are their legs like twigs?) it moved like absolute ****. Disgusting. Sam Neil had the right idea to gouge his eyes out in Event Horizon.

Yeah, a LOT of work went into those classic anime films. It's not impossible to do that and using digital tools to aid drawing, rather than replace it, can make it easier to do.....but with LORD MARKET demanding over 9000 isekai adaptations a year to sell waifu bodypillows you're going to see a lot more ugly cgi stuff with minimal drawing because that makes bizness sense. Like you said it's not that different from western animation, but I'd also say that it's like tv and film as well in the sense of pumping out tons of cheap and ugly **** to hit market saturation while the medium suffers artistically.

Though I'd say right now is a very good time for cinema, but you won't find it from any big hollywood studios. Which I suppose is par for the course.

17 hours ago, majestic said:

Yes, maybe we can finally move towards the apocalypse.

By the end of the weekend we'll see if we're on the road to the end of the world. Fingers crossed.

 

[Bartimaeus]

On 2/23/2023 at 10:08 AM, Fire Walk with KP said:

So the first thing I'll say is that I don't draw a distinction between anime and (western) animation in the sense that they are the same medium. The stylistic differences are akin to regional things similar to what we see in cinema, but it'd be hard to argue that Bollywood is a genre unto itself. So why are we in a thread specifically for anime instead of in TV or film? Because the rest of the forum is weak. Weak.

There's a difference insofar that techniques, trends, tropes et al. are all fairly insular for each from the other. If Disney started requiring that all of their flagship titles be rendered in a cubist art style and it turned out to be wildly successful, you wouldn't expect the anime industry to start copy-catting them. That's an extreme example, but you get what I mean - they may not be different mediums (...although maybe 3D animation vs. 2D animation should be considered so given how different their limitations are), but they're distinct enough that it's very difficult to put them under the same umbrella and make anything but extremely broad statements that apply to both.

On 2/23/2023 at 10:08 AM, Fire Walk with KP said:

Now that my unhinged speil is over....the western animated films and shows I see today make me want to [redacted]. They look like garbage. Absolute trash. Not fit to wipe your ass with. The kids shows are the reason that the coming generation is so depressed and the "adult" animation is d-list comedy with terrible visuals. I was forced to watch the Netflix film Marmaduke and in addition to very creepy designs (why are their legs like twigs?) it moved like absolute ****. Disgusting. Sam Neil had the right idea to gouge his eyes out in Event Horizon.

Yeah, a LOT of work went into those classic anime films. It's not impossible to do that and using digital tools to aid drawing, rather than replace it, can make it easier to do.....but with LORD MARKET demanding over 9000 isekai adaptations a year to sell waifu bodypillows you're going to see a lot more ugly cgi stuff with minimal drawing because that makes bizness sense. Like you said it's not that different from western animation, but I'd also say that it's like tv and film as well in the sense of pumping out tons of cheap and ugly **** to hit market saturation while the medium suffers artistically.

I was going to say "the thing that really bothers me with 3D animation is..." with one specific idea in mind, but then like four other things that are also really huge problems for me popped into my brain as I was writing that, so never mind. I am not entirely against digital animation (after all, I certainly like a number of examples of it), but I'm almost definitely not ever going to get used to 3D stuff at this point - it would've happened already if it was ever going to.

I wonder if these industries need to like...straight-up crash so they can get a reset. Downsize the number of shows being made, get less niche, figure out what works and what doesn't. Well, at least with anime, I can take comfort in the fact that Japan is killing itself by being literally the fastest aging country in the world. No more Japanese people, no more trash anime, .

Unfortunately, Hollywood is going to take a little more time...

On 2/23/2023 at 10:08 AM, Fire Walk with KP said:

Though I'd say right now is a very good time for cinema, but you won't find it from any big hollywood studios. Which I suppose is par for the course.

Yeah, I'm appreciative in that I like a lot of simple character-driven stuff, and that never really requires much of a budget, so I'm probably always going to be able to find some movies that I like every year. If you're someone that instead likes the big movies but conversely find the medium has practically left you behind for a variety of reasons, you're going to be in a much worse spot.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Bartimaeus
needs -> need

[Azdeus]

Watching "Bastard!!", and I can't decide if I hate it or dislike it, but the references are great fun

[Gorth]

On 2/24/2023 at 2:08 AM, Fire Walk with KP said:

Now that my unhinged speil is over....the western animated films and shows I see today make me want to [redacted]. They look like garbage. Absolute trash. Not fit to wipe your ass with.

No idea what todays western animated films are like in general. I used to love the old Ralph Bakshi stuff like 'Wizards' or 'Fire and Ice'. That was from the 70's and 80's though.  Special mention to  'Finding Nemo' and 'Korgoth of Barbaria', although I don't remember which years it was these came out

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

Cowboy Bebop, episode 6: Faye eats dog food, Fatty eats cake, and Giraffe eats bullets. There was a very particular musical cue in this episode that was also used for Satoshi Kon's Magnetic Rose, which threw my brain for a loop when I heard it. Turns out, the same composer, Yoko Kanno, did both movies, so I guess it's alright even if it's pretty weird to re-use music like that. Magnetic Rose used it first, .

P.S. I kind of forgot I was watching this show.
P.P.S. This might have been my least favorite episode so far. I seem to not particularly care for when the show tries to get more serious about anything. So far, it feels at its best when it's being purely silly.

19 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Watching "Bastard!!", and I can't decide if I hate it or dislike it, but the references are great fun

You can dislike something while still finding it enjoyable. Go with that!

Edited February 25, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

You can dislike something while still finding it enjoyable. Go with that!

Yeah, it's soooo bad at times, but then Dark Schneider casts "Ozzy Iommi Geezer" or something and I can't stop chuckling

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:59 PM, Bartimaeus said:

There's a difference insofar that techniques, trends, tropes et al. are all fairly insular for each from the other. If Disney started requiring that all of their flagship titles be rendered in a cubist art style and it turned out to be wildly successful, you wouldn't expect the anime industry to start copy-catting them. That's an extreme example, but you get what I mean - they may not be different mediums (...although maybe 3D animation vs. 2D animation should be considered so given how different their limitations are), but they're distinct enough that it's very difficult to put them under the same umbrella and make anything but extremely broad statements that apply to both.

Yeah, I'm talking about how they're not separate mediums and how there is some influence between them. I think that it's a mistake to put anime into a category unto itself because within anime because well....I would struggle to put JoJo, Berserk, Sailor Moon, and Komi Can't Communicate under the same umbrella despite all three being anime adaptations of manga. So I guess my argument is that Western Animation and Anime are both animation and do influence each other somewhat and that both Western Animation and Anime are too broad to categorize simply by those labels, and you've got enough potential subcategories to give me a headache.

On 2/24/2023 at 1:59 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I was going to say "the thing that really bothers me with 3D animation is..." with one specific idea in mind, but then like four other things that are also really huge problems for me popped into my brain as I was writing that, so never mind. I am not entirely against digital animation (after all, I certainly like a number of examples of it), but I'm almost definitely not ever going to get used to 3D stuff at this point - it would've happened already if it was ever going to.

I wonder if these industries need to like...straight-up crash so they can get a reset. Downsize the number of shows being made, get less niche, figure out what works and what doesn't. Well, at least with anime, I can take comfort in the fact that Japan is killing itself by being literally the fastest aging country in the world. No more Japanese people, no more trash anime, .

Unfortunately, Hollywood is going to take a little more time...

Good news, climate change and/or WW3 will kill us all within a few decades.

I don't think the number of shows is necessarily the problem so much as the glut of repetition with the types of shows/movies. A lot of anime coming out is isekai adaptations with increasingly long-winded and silly names, and it is pushing out original animation or adaptations of other stuff that could have been made instead. To some extent it's always been this way because copycats make money....but it feels like it has gotten worse in recent years with virtually all kind of audio-visual entertainment, like whole genres are bein crushed to make the next superhero movie or a police procedural with a silly quirk. I don't think a lot of iconic stuff would get funding today because the entertainment industries have become much more lock step in producing similar things. If this doesn't make sense I'll try to elaborate more, but right now I'm tired.

On 2/24/2023 at 1:59 PM, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I'm appreciative in that I like a lot of simple character-driven stuff, and that never really requires much of a budget, so I'm probably always going to be able to find some movies that I like every year. If you're someone that instead likes the big movies but conversely find the medium has practically left you behind for a variety of reasons, you're going to be in a much worse spot.

It's easier to make movies than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that has been a real boon for a lot of indie cinema, like the (not quite) one-take films from Japan. We will probably see a contraction with this as more would-be creatives get squeezed by rent and stagnating wages, but in the meantime we're seeing a lot more interesting stuff that people are able to make for less and get money from sources outside of studios, who I think we've established I view as myopic and overly conservative. This isn't good if you're looking for a tarantino clone or big budget action thrillers reminiscent of the 80's and 90's but I think it's a big mistake to use that as your benchmark for cinema.

I should probably post less when I am running on 4 hours of sleep.

20 hours ago, Gorth said:

No idea what todays western animated films are like in general. I used to love the old Ralph Bakshi stuff like 'Wizards' or 'Fire and Ice'. That was from the 70's and 80's though.  Special mention to  'Finding Nemo' and 'Korgoth of Barbaria', although I don't remember which years it was these came out

They're extremely cgi heavy and look very bad to me. Finding Nemo is an exception I think because the characters aren't human(oid), while human characters tend to look awful.

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, Fire Walk with KP said:

It's easier to make movies than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that has been a real boon for a lot of indie cinema, like the (not quite) one-take films from Japan. We will probably see a contraction with this as more would-be creatives get squeezed by rent and stagnating wages, but in the meantime we're seeing a lot more interesting stuff that people are able to make for less and get money from sources outside of studios, who I think we've established I view as myopic and overly conservative. This isn't good if you're looking for a tarantino clone or big budget action thrillers reminiscent of the 80's and 90's but I think it's a big mistake to use that as your benchmark for cinema.

I should probably post less when I am running on 4 hours of sleep.

I sometimes think about Amentep saying that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is fine and more or less in line with the rest of that franchise, and I don't know, maybe he's right and I've just lost sight of the forest for the trees because of a few issues that I can't get over that at least some other people can. I was never the biggest Indiana Jones fan in the first place, but I can watch the first three movies - the fourth one hurts my brain to sit through (not being hyperbolic here, I have to cover my eyes at many junctures throughout the film in order to keep "watching" it), and that's not something I can really get over even if I wanted to, and it probably unfairly paints my view of the film and others like it.

7 hours ago, Fire Walk with KP said:

Good news, climate change and/or WW3 will kill us all within a few decades.

I don't think the number of shows is necessarily the problem so much as the glut of repetition with the types of shows/movies. A lot of anime coming out is isekai adaptations with increasingly long-winded and silly names, and it is pushing out original animation or adaptations of other stuff that could have been made instead. To some extent it's always been this way because copycats make money....but it feels like it has gotten worse in recent years with virtually all kind of audio-visual entertainment, like whole genres are bein crushed to make the next superhero movie or a police procedural with a silly quirk. I don't think a lot of iconic stuff would get funding today because the entertainment industries have become much more lock step in producing similar things. If this doesn't make sense I'll try to elaborate more, but right now I'm tired.

No, it makes sense, and I think it's something that every medium suffers to some degree. One only has to go through your Steam queue to see that it feels like the vast majority of games, particularly AAA games, suffer from the same issue: endlessly deriving and iterating on the same gameplay concepts that have been done so many times already. Companies usually go for what they believe is a safe return of investment, whether it's television, movies, or video games. That's probably not ever going to change because the people that run these companies view their medium as being a vehicle for making money first, being entertainment second, and being art...probably 9th or 10th or worse, .

[Gorth]

8 hours ago, Fire Walk with KP said:

They're extremely cgi heavy and look very bad to me. Finding Nemo is an exception I think because the characters aren't human(oid), while human characters tend to look awful.

Ironically Nemo is the only cgi heavy movie among those listed

Industrial Light and Magic became famous for cgi effects.... mid to late 80's. The 70's and early 80's didn't have cgi (or should I say much cgi? when did the first Tron movie come out?). What they did sometimes was the animators putting a sheet of paper over movie stills and draw their characters on top of the still. One painstaking frame after the other to simulate natural movement (what you would use motion capture for today).

I never liked cgi much. Hence why I liked the original Indiana Jones or the first Star Wars movie or the old Galactica etc. Something about models and cheesy effects, using models. smoke and mirrors just appeals more to me. My brain can process models as an abstraction of reality, cgi never convinced my brain of anything other than it being cgi (disclaimer/generalization warning, there are no absolutes, I've enjoyed shows with cgi and hated movies without it)

I've skipped a number of animes simply because the first 2-3 minutes of the first episode were "obvious" cgi and I just couldn't stomach it. I suspect some of the shows I've enjoyed on the other hand may have been cgi too, but they would have "masked" it so well it wasn't obvious

[InsaneCommander]

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea and Buddy Daddies were getting less interesting with each episode, but the ending in the last episode of each looked promising. Buddy Daddies may even have a main plot now. Let's see.

[Gorth]

I watched first episode of something called Tomo-chan is a Girl. I'm fairly sure I have to watch more episodes of this

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

I watched first episode of something called Tomo-chan is a Girl. I'm fairly sure I have to watch more episodes of this

That got an anime? It's based on a twitter one page a day comic and it was fairly fun. Especially because it was a new format at the time.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Sarex

[Gorth]

56 minutes ago, Sarex said:

That got an anime? It's based on a twitter one page a day comic and it was fairly fun. Especially because it was a new format at the time.

I only watched the first one, but I think the first 7-8 episodes are out now

[Bartimaeus]

Cowbop Bebop, episodes 7 and 8. There was an interesting omission at the end of episode 8. Stella the blind girl says her brother must've died doing something bad, and for some reason Spike doesn't do the obvious in correcting her - that her brother died doing everything he could to help her. But...I guess if your brother, the one person in the entire world that you love and trust, just died for your sake, that would probably just make you feel even worse about it to hear it, wouldn't it? Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Still, feel like that's something you kind of have to mention so she doesn't think he went off and pointlessly died doing something stupid. I don't know if the viewer was actually intended to read into that or not.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Minako ropes Rei into having to give a concert at the hospital for sick children. She's rehearsing with Usagi, who looks a little bewildered. Rei asks if she was that bad, to which Usagi replies that her singing is fine, but that Rei is a little kowai. So that's it then, Usagi also thinks Rei looks terrifying. Good to know I'm not alone.

Edited March 3, 2023 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

[Bartimaeus]

@Fire Walk with KP Is it greed and suppressing labor? Oh look, it is. Wow!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a message from someone regarding a comment I made about Wolf Children. Specifically, that they agreed that the first twenty or so minutes almost made them turn it off like I did, but they were surprised that they came around by the end of it and ultimately did enjoy it. Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shoot me in the face. So was I fooled again? Does Bartimaeus need to have his cranium crushed? Are catgirls actually real? Click the spoiler button to find out!

Spoiler

Yes...to all of the above! Please go to the next spoiler to watch my live stream where I have legendary catgirl sadist Meow-nyao shotgun blast my brains out before devouring my bloody but ever so tasty remains: make sure to smash those like and subscribe buttons!

Spoiler

In light of mousegals being objectively superior in every way to catgirls (as scientifically proven by world-renowned zoologist Sailor Moon and her team of Science Scouts), Meow-nyao has been sacked and removed from the premises. We are now searching for local mousegal talent to very tastefully complete the brain removal operation - please stay tuned for further announcements.

Spoiler

Due to the recent mousegal murders at the hands of mega-maniac Meow-nyao, we have decided that at this time that it is best we do not go through with the grey matter gonezo. We apologize. This is not what we wanted, but we promise to do better and make things right. MAKE SURE TO HIT THE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTONS!

Spoiler

The first 25 minutes are indeed doubleplusungood, but the rest of the film is...well, it's a bit meandering, messy, and mediocre, but it's at least significantly better than what I initially watched. It makes me appreciate My Neighbor Totoro a lot more, and how tight films of yesteryear used to be - My Neighbor Totoro is a full half hour shorter but manages to do so much more with its run-time than this was able to accomplish. A full 25 minutes devoted to the initial mom + dad relationship setup, close to an hour focusing almost exclusively on the mom finding her way out in the countryside in a setup with visuals that are very obviously meant to evoke memories of My Neighbor Totoro, then finally getting to the main meat of the film, the titular wolf children and their conflict between their human and wolf sides and how that ties in to the mom. And that...is just kind of unnecessarily anime and sappy, so it still doesn't really work for me, but I can say that it at least tried. From this same director, I've also watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I also thought was quite a mess - tough to see myself trying another from them.

Sorry Sarex, I did genuinely try to like it, but it just didn't work out.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Hiro Protagonist]

On 2/28/2023 at 12:26 PM, InsaneCommander said:

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea and Buddy Daddies were getting less interesting with each episode, but the ending in the last episode of each looked promising. Buddy Daddies may even have a main plot now. Let's see.

Been watching Kaina of the Great Snow Sea and I'm finding it has a Miyazaki feel to it. Enjoying it and looking forward to see where it's going.

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

A couple of weeks ago, I received a message from someone regarding a comment I made about Wolf Children. Specifically, that they agreed that the first twenty or so minutes almost made them turn it off like I did, but they were surprised that they came around by the end of it and ultimately did enjoy it. Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shoot me in the face. So was I fooled again? Does Bartimaeus need to have his cranium crushed? Are catgirls actually real? Click the spoiler button to find out!

  Hide contents

Yes...to all of the above! Please go to the next spoiler to watch my live stream where I have legendary catgirl sadist Meow-nyao shotgun blast my brains out before devouring my bloody but ever so tasty remains: make sure to smash those like and subscribe buttons!

  Hide contents

In light of mousegals being objectively superior in every way to catgirls (as scientifically proven by world-renowned zoologist Sailor Moon and her team of Science Scouts), Meow-nyao has been sacked and removed from the premises. We are now searching for local mousegal talent to very tastefully complete the brain removal operation - please stay tuned for further announcements.

  Hide contents

Due to the recent mousegal murders at the hands of mega-maniac Meow-nyao, we have decided that at this time that it is best we do not go through with the grey matter gonezo. We apologize. This is not what we wanted, but we promise to do better and make things right. MAKE SURE TO HIT THE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTONS!

  Hide contents

The first 25 minutes are indeed doubleplusungood, but the rest of the film is...well, it's a bit meandering, messy, and mediocre, but it's at least significantly better than what I initially watched. It makes me appreciate My Neighbor Totoro a lot more, and how tight films of yesteryear used to be - My Neighbor Totoro is a full half hour shorter but manages to do so much more with its run-time than this was able to accomplish. A full 25 minutes devoted to the initial mom + dad relationship setup, close to an hour focusing almost exclusively on the mom finding her way out in the countryside in a setup with visuals that are very obviously meant to evoke memories of My Neighbor Totoro, then finally getting to the main meat of the film, the titular wolf children and their conflict between their human and wolf sides and how that ties in to the mom. And that...is just kind of unnecessarily anime and sappy, so it still doesn't really work for me, but I can say that it at least tried. From this same director, I've also watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I also thought was quite a mess - tough to see myself trying another from them.

Sorry Sarex, I did genuinely try to like it, but it just didn't work out.

Appreciate the effort! We'll find a piano drama for you yet.

[InsaneCommander]

Attack on Titan Final Season 3 Part 3 Season 4 The Final Chapters Special Part 1

They are calling it season 4 now. lol Wouldn't it be season 5? I lost the count.

Anyway, it's a one hour episode so I can't watch it at lunch because I still have work to do today.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 1:58 AM, Hiro Protagonist said:

Been watching Kaina of the Great Snow Sea and I'm finding it has a Miyazaki feel to it. Enjoying it and looking forward to see where it's going.

It became a little repetitive with the constant jumping from the frying pan into the fire every episode, but it seems they have a plan now. Honestly, at this point they should realize that they are incredibly luck and just do whatever they want.

Edit: the one hour episode was nice. Interesting to see how far each character has gone and changed. I wonder how much story is left because the way this ended, they could have finished the story in half an hour if they wanted.

Edit 2: Can't believe they confirmed the theory that

Spoiler

Paradis is Madagascar. The map was mirrored but it was clearly like our world.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[Gorth]

Watched second episode of Tomo-chan is a girl...

I think I'm getting seriously hooked on this series.

Short version of the background, Tomo, a rather tom-boyish girl has a crush on her childhood friend. Problem is, for him, she's just another "bro", to be butt slapped and fist bumped. And no, that description in no way does justice to the characters, the story or the side cast.

[Gorth]

Third episode of Tomo-chan is a girl...

Ok, I'm too lazy to write an episode by episode guide and someone already described what happened in the first 3 episodes

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21210326/episodes

 

[Gorth]

Up to ninth episode of Tomo-chan is a girl. Most fun I've had in a long time. Carol (a friend of Tomo and Jun) is the proverbial "dumb blonde", that really is anything but dumb... at least when it comes to human relations. If the guy Carol has her eyes (a guy named Misaki) on is interested in Tomo, it's time to pitch in and give Jun a forceful shove (with a sledge hammer) in the right direction (figuring that if Jun and Tomo hook up with each other, her own intended boyfriend will stop looking up to Tomo).

 

[Gorth]

Finished episode 10 of Tomo-chan is a girl. Waiting for more episodes to get released

 

It's been a blast so far. Really enjoyed the humour

 

From episode 5:

 

[Bartimaeus]

Gorth, are there any animes that you've tried which you just didn't much care for? I know that the chances of me liking something you're enjoying are not particularly high, but I figure that we might be able to find some common ground if I try something you didn't like and would actively recommend against. If we can't enjoy something together, I think we should at least hate something together.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Bartimaeus