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]

15 hours ago, Gorth said:

After a bit of a break, I found a new series to watch.

[Gorth]

3 minutes ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

No, I haven't forgotten JoJo

[Bartimaeus]

Magical Angel Creamy Mami. Yes, that is the real name of the show; no, I did not pick it; yes, it is supposed to be for little girls. There were four different but very similar magical girl shows made by Studio Pierott all in the mid-80s, and Creamy Mami was the first of them. I've already watched Magical Emi, but there's also Magical Fairy Persia and Pastel Yumi, and though I tried both of those out, neither of them really clicked.

Creamy Mami's first episode introduced the "magical girl" element of the show...somewhat differently than the others. An invisible spaceship, which curiously looks like Noah's Ark, descends from the heavens. Mami is the only one that can apparently see said spaceship and decides to approach it. The aliens, who earlier came across a cat and who evidently decided to shapeshift into these strange "cutesy" versions of one, are quite impressed with this and suck her up into the ship.

Maybe you thought I was exaggerating, but no, that's literally exactly what happened. Inside the spaceship, she rides a goat into a mass of roaring blue flame and becomes some kind of holy warrior. Sorry about all the little girl underwear in these gifs, but this wacky crap must be seen by at least one other human.

After slaying a dragon and getting swallowed by a sea monster, she meets this...thing, the apparent master of the ship.

That's an alien. That's a literal space alien. Mami "hugs" the alien a little too tightly with her hands...

...and she is summarily ejected (by way of instant apparition) from the spaceship, and I guess now she's a magical girl thanks to some alien tech she got. She gets home and her mom spanks the hell out of her for being out so late at night.

What a great first episode. You know, something about all of this seems ever so slightly less wholesome compared to Sailor Moon...just a little bit. Forget the power of love and friendship, it's literally just aliens! This reminds me that there was a very weird episode in Magical Emi where Emi got lost with another girl that was new to the show, and the other girl kept talking about getting off Earth with no prior hint or explanation at what she could possibly be talking about...and it turns out, she was also a magical girl with her own little alien familiar! The episode ended with Emi getting back home and that other girl never coming back to the show: I can only assume that Studio Pierott was planning some kind of Magical Space Witch Girl cinematic universe that sadly never panned out.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World 43-the end

Overall a pretty decent series. Complex and interesting characters and it’s nice to see a non overpowered protagonist.

[Bartimaeus]

cowboy bebop episode 9

idk why i have such a difficult time mustering up any motivation to watch this show, it's generally fine, yet it's still really difficult

"Hey, Jet, did you know that there are three things that I hate? Rugrats, beasts, and tomboys..."

Spike has a very...interesting idea of "tomboy". I'm not exactly sure what Faye all qualifies as, but I'm pretty sure it isn't quite that. Maybe it varies from culture to culture.

(e): Episode 10, the one about Jet and his ex-girlfriend. So you know how Sailor Moon would often introduce "guest" characters who would be the target of the villains for that episode, before then disappearing forever from the show once that particular episode was over? They might even be someone one of our characters supposedly already knows or was friends with or whatever. It's frankly not an uncommon tool for a lot of shows, but for something fairly silly like Sailor Moon, who really cares, right? At the end of the day, it's about our characters, not the randos that come and go, and the show itself usually seems to know it and behaves accordingly. In a show like Cowboy Bebop, doing this sort of thing feels quite a bit more grave when the show tries to treat its random guest characters very seriously and attempts to make real emotional beats out of it. I mention it here because so much of the focus of this episode, instead of being on Jet and his struggles with how he was abandoned by her and had to cope and move past it, seemed to come from the point of view of the ex-girlfriend and her new guy, who were only just first introduced (heck, even just mentioned!) this episode. We don't even really get to see Jet experience any kind of real character growth for it, because not only was this entire thing just introduced this episode, from the moment he sees the girlfriend again, he already seems to have completely forgiven her and just wants some closure, so there's never really any question of how he's going to resolve the situation. It seems a very strange way of trying to develop and resolve what should be serious character arcs for your characters, and I think this is why the show feels largely ineffective whenever it tries to get serious for me. For silly popcorn entertainment, this show is fine...but I've yet to see it successfully do anything else.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Bartimaeus
got Spike's and Jet's names mixed up

[Bartimaeus]

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013). I don't know if it's just because I'm watching it for the second time, or because this time I watched it in Japanese, but it went from an "I like it" to an "I love it". Isao Takahata is the man, as always.

[Sarex]

New chapter of Berserk is out.

Spoiler

CLIFHANGER

Spoiler

But hey at least the story is moving forward.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

57 minutes ago, Sarex said:

New chapter of Berserk is out.

  Reveal hidden contents

CLIFHANGER

  Reveal hidden contents

But hey at least the story is moving forward.

 

Looks good 

What are the chances the boarding party is the group led by that not-ninja guy Rickert and the old Indian wizard guy ran off with? Would kind of make sense for the anti-Griffith groups to band together, but not really sure how besides magic they would know how to find Guts.

[Sarex]

Uf, it's been so long I don't even remember anymore. At some point I will have to reread it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Uf, it's been so long I don't even remember anymore. At some point I will have to reread it.

I barely remember Ricketts name and can't recall the rest of the cast but

Rickett and the blacksmiths daughter escape Falconia with the not-Indian wizard and the not-ninja and his swole bodyguards after they were attacked by the shadow apostle who wears a mask. The boarding party looked like the not-Indian soldiers that Griffith killed along with that king apostle who turned into a tree, so I thought maybe they were sent by the ninja guy instead of Griffith's assassins because I think Griffith would be more likely to send that shadow apostle or Zodd.

[Bartimaeus]

Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987).

Naomi was nineteen in cockroach years, just coming into the prime of her life. RIP.

Okay, real talk, this is an hour and 45 minute-long live-action/anime hybrid made by Madhouse of all people. The quality of the film is like...someone made a recording from a LaserDisc onto a VHS and then made a recording from that onto a DVD, and I'm watching straight from the full DVD (hence the small pillarboxes in the .gif). Half of the time, I can't really make out what I'm looking at too well.

Don't upset the rabbit.

The film is kind of like...umm, actually, not quite like anything I've really ever seen before. Basically, Naomi lives in a cockroach colony inside a guy's apartment who is cool with them living there. Previously, they had been in a constant state of war with the previous occupant of the apartment who the cockroaches had successfully driven out, so it has been a grand three years of peace and prosperity. When a cockroach from a different 'war zone' arrives, he is a welcome reminder to the colony of what life at war is like, and they celebrate their good fortune and promise to always be neat and friendly neighbors - love begets love and all that. After a brief respite, the outsider must return home...and Naomi suddenly feels compelled to follow him into the outside world. What she sees out there...is not pretty.

Spoiler

Technically, I started this a couple of years ago...and maybe three other times between then and now, and I kept getting like a minute in and going "what the hell is this and why do I have it...man, I can't deal with this right now, maybe some other time".  Anyways, it's basically A Bug's Life, except not really even a tiny bit at all like A Bug's Life. Highly recommended to everyone - this is clearly a film that will have general and universal appeal, as the above images demonstrate. Actually, I kind of feel like I didn't take enough images/gifs: I ain't never seen anything quite like this before, and I suspect I never will again...and I'm thinking nobody here ever will either, .

Spoiler

You haven't really seen genocide until you see this small Japanese woman swatting, gassing, stomping, and vacuuming an entire civilization straight into a mass grave. And not just the men, the women and children too!

"We never did anything wrong. They just didn't like how we looked." Gee, I wonder if there's any kind of overarching theme to this film...

Edited May 28, 2023 by Bartimaeus
Manually decensored post.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Don't upset the rabbit

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Highly recommended to everyone - this is clearly a film that will have general and universal appeal, as the above images demonstrate.

This but unironically. More people should watch stuff made by weirdos who may be unwell.

[Bartimaeus]

18 minutes ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

This but unironically. More people should watch stuff made by weirdos who may be unwell.

In this particular case, it's actually a fairly wholesome and cute film made by talented and creative people with good ideas and something to say - it just happens to be filled to the brim with some of the weirdest depictions of war, murder, and genocide that I've seen. And also, the picture quality is horrible...which is kind of sad for something so neat like this film.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

Watched Yakitori on Netflix. Terrible visuals, terrible music, stupid story. At least it was short.

[Gorth]

While waiting for more episodes of Hell's Paradise to arrive, I started watching another anime (of course, also not completed yet!) called Heavenly Delusion. Looks interesting enough so far (2 episodes in)

 

 

[InsaneCommander]

Gundam: the Witch from Mercury

This is gonna sound bad, but I love every episode when they destroy the school. What a contrast to the first season and the happy privileged people treating war machines as toys.

[InsaneCommander]

A Chainsaw Man Porn Parody Apparently Outsold The Anime In Japan

 

[uuuhhii]

2 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

A Chainsaw Man Porn Parody Apparently Outsold The Anime In Japan

 

is that the same horrible production that make all the other anime cosplay av

impressive they still exist

[Lexx]

Just found out the new Trigun is out for a while already. Gonna dive right into that, though I think the visuals are... not that great.

[uuuhhii]

so many garbage light novel even have audio book now

was audio book cheap to make

why is this happening

have english translation already seem like a extreme waste of translator time

[Bartimaeus]

Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (1979). A mother gives birth to a miniature boy contained within a flower, who is then blessed by a passing god and instantly grows into a child. While Nezha is out playing on the beach with two other girls, a sea dragon eats one of them, so the boy chokes the dragon with his ribbon, bonks him in the head with his circus ring, and then rips the dragon's spine out before tossing the corpse back into the sea. Daddy dragon swears revenge for his son's death, and goes and confronts Nezha's father before running off and appealing to the gods to smite this impetuous boy. Somehow (I don't really know how), Nezha makes it to heavens before the dragon king can, and Nezha beats the snot outta the dragon king before sending him back to the depths with a promise to never bother them again. Nezha's father is outraged with his behavior (defiance of the traditional order?) and disowns him right as a bunch of very angry dragons invade and demand the boy's death or the destruction of their entire city. Nezha slits his own throat to appease them and save his family, the end.

Just kidding! Turns out, those stupid dragons forgot all about reincarnation...and this time, Nezha's got himself a spear and some sick wheels that let him both rollerblade as well as straight up fly around, and boy, is he pissed at those dragons. Oops.

Yep, it was pretty much like that. Well, that was some wacked out Chinese animation, I tell you what.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Palme no Ki AKA A Tree of Palme (2002).

So I'd never heard of this film until just a few days ago...and nobody else has ever heard of or watched this film either, as best as I can tell. When I looked at a few screencaps of it, I...had a few questions. Like, who even made this obvious Studio Ghibli film rip-off? And secondly, why does it look...surprisingly good? But for as good as it looks, it's rated quite badly, so it's probably not any good...right?

Spoiler

Well, you see, if you check its rating on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, you can actually see the number of critics and viewers that have rated it, and that number is practically zero in both cases. Which I can't say I really understand, because this was a major production. No joke, this had to have been one of the more expensive anime films to have ever been produced, and it's like...nobody's ever heard of it, nobody's even seen it, and nobody knows anything about it. Now I just got done seeing all of it, and...uh, huh, wow. I can't yet claim to fully understand this film, as I feel like I was missing a little background that would've really helped set the stage for my understanding of the world, overall plot, and stakes of/for this film, and I'm definitely going to have to watch it a second time at least...but what I did understand is that it was a pretty danged good movie even with my less than perfect understanding and I think it has to place in the upper echelon of anime films. This, in my opinion, quite frankly puts to shame a number of latter-day Studio Ghibli films, and I absolutely do not say that lightly.

In case anyone's curious, here's part of the opening scene: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/iaj6zmvjg4h89n0/mpc-hc64_WOvjR9gAbk.mp4

Now anyone who knows me knows I'm not really one for action, but I have to admit, this was...an intriguing opening scene from a audiovisual standpoint, especially for a film I had only happened to come across completely by accident. My single complaint with this film is that it's a bit like Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt, in that 95% of the film looks...superb, but the last 5% that doesn't can be...downright hilarious at times. But if you actually like the film, and I very much did, the last 5% not being very good usually just got laughs out of me more than anything else. Happens when you're enjoying and feeling good natured about the whole thing, I suppose.

Strongly recommended, although it is very difficult to find an HD copy of this film with subtitles (or even the English dub, which I have not heard yet - actually, this is how I came across the film in the first place, as it was listed as something ADV FIlms dubbed and distributed, the same people who did Neon Genesis Evangelion). From what I can tell, no blu-rays were ever released and only Amazon Prime ever carried the HD version and it was for a limited time, and they didn't include either English subtitles or the English dub with it, for some reason. Which is weird, because there is an English script for it out there. Initially, all I had was a terrible bootleg DVD, and I played it and I was like "whoa, whoa, hold on a second...okay, there has to be a better version of this out there, right?". Lo and behold, there was. I guess if anybody is actually curious enough to watch it and can't find any avenues for doing so, I could help you, just send me a PM.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[HoonDing]

 

[InsaneCommander]

 

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

. . .

The End of Bosco Adventure.

Spoiler

The basic premise of the show is that the elf princess has to reach her home, the Fountain of Life, so that the world's diminishing water supply may be replenished and thereby stop the alien world-eaters who are currently desecrating their world (whose one vulnerability is, you guessed it, water). We the audience only learn fairly late into the story that the Fountain of Life will, ironically, take the life of the princess if she fulfills this sacred duty, which is presumably what killed her absent mother as well. She ends up doing so (though not before falling in love with the steadfast Frog who, along with his friends, was instrumental in getting her there!), but she leaves no children who can follow in her footsteps in the future. What a great ending: the princess, our main character and who's basically still a child, has to choose to kill herself in order to save the world at present, but the world is presumably doomed anyways as there is no-one left who will be able to do it again. Her friends cry after her sacrifice kills the great world-eater who had been working the entire show to prevent her from reaching the Fountain of Life, and then they go back home.

Something about all of this feels just a little bit off to me. Oh well, it was a mostly lighthearted and decent show, though I probably wouldn't particularly recommend it to anyone here - it's kind of in that Legendary Idol Eriko tier of shows that's certainly watchable and fine enough, but not so much more than that that I would press anyone else to watch it.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Bartimaeus