Anime and Manga - How do you Live? Edition

[Bartimaeus]

The Animatrix (2003). I finally sat down and watched all of it. World Record (guy running so fast he breaks out of the Matrix) was the trash can sandwiched between my two favorites, Program (80s big hair lady samurai getting co-opted by her boyfriend to rejoin the Matrix) and Beyond (lady and her cat exploring a 'haunted house'). The Second Renaissance was also a pretty nice lore setup for the series...but the rest was mostly forgettable, I think. Not too shabby overall.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

19 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

The Animatrix (2003). I finally sat down and watched all of it. World Record was the trash can sandwiched between my two favorites, Program and Beyond. The Second Renaissance was also a pretty nice lore setup for the series...but the rest was mostly forgettable, I think. Not too shabby overall.

Yeah, certainly was better than any of the sequels...

[Bartimaeus]

1 minute ago, majestic said:

Yeah, certainly was better than any of the sequels...

Yeah, I'll definitely give it that. Just the 80s big hair lady samurai (now edited into previous post) beats the hell out of anything I saw in either of the sequels, and that wasn't even my favorite one.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

tbh, the older I get, the less I hate the sequels.

[Sarex]

The sequels were always fine. The cgi didn't stand the test of time, but they were a fun watch. I'm not counting the 4th one. I would have to rewatch it to give an opinion as already forgot pretty much everything about it.

[InsaneCommander]

Spy x Family 26

 

Spoiler

Yor gets shot in the butt and is in a lot of pain. Loid thinks she is in a bad mood and invites her to go on a date. She accepts because her work colleagues keep asking her about her dates and she never has anything to tell them. She can’t sit and just stands the whole time, including in the movies and on a boat.

Anya and Franky tail them and in the end Anya even defeats an assassin on her own, thanks to her telepathy. The girl has a bright future ahead if she decides to be a spy, an assassin or both.

 

I actually forgot about Anya’s shocked faces. They are back, of course, and she is not alone with that. But I gave up counting them since there are just too many ambiguous expressions and scenes when they simply just stay with the shocked face indefinitely.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

tbh, the older I get, the less I hate the sequels.

who re-watches them to even find that out in the first place

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

The sequels were always fine.

like many bad sequels (see: indiana jones' crystal skull), there may be parts that are fine or even good, but if they can't make up for the overall experience being bad, they deserve everything they get

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

the cgi didn't stand the test of time

that was definitely the only problem they had and why both of them received inordinate amounts of hate...in 2003

ftr, i think i liked the third one more than the second, but i only remember the second feeling like a giant waste of time where literally nothing interesting happened, and then later i found out that there was only supposed to be one sequel but they were contractually obligated to make two sequels, so suddenly it made sense that nothing happened in Reloaded

stretch that roll of garbage tape out as long as the roll of garbage tape will go, baby

56 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Franky

my gosh, why hasn't one of Yor, Anya, or the other guy killed this piece of crap yet

Edited October 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

look, i hate to double-post, but even @Hurlshort won't show his children the Matrix sequels:

i really feel like that says it all if we can agree on at least this

Edited October 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus
scroll up to the top of the current page if you want context for why you're being pinged, Hurlshot

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

Spy x Family 26

NANI!? It's back? Time to watch.

 

40 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

look, i hate to double-post, but even @Hurlshort won't show his children the Matrix sequels

This line alone would be worth a double post, perhaps even a triple post. 

[majestic]

22 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

ftr, i think i liked the third one more than the second, but i only remember the second feeling like a giant waste of time where literally nothing interesting happened, and then later i found out that there was only supposed to be one sequel but they were contractually obligated to make two sequels, so suddenly it made sense that nothing happened in Reloaded

There was one thing in Reloaded that made watching Revolutions wholly unnecessary. The architect dropped a big ass spoiler. Only logical conclusion of Smith being the Matrix trying to correct an error by introducing balance to an equation. One cannot defeat the other,  therefore, if Neo dies, so does Smith. Walked out of the theater talking to my friends how the next film is going to end with Neo's death.

The two and a half hours before that, yeah, nothing of interest happened. Almost fell asleep when Morpheus fell off the van while backflipping for the fourth time, and it is really hard for me to fall alseep in bright light while hearing loud noise. To make matters worse whenever the two films are not having ludicrously drawn out action sequences, they're dipping their toes way too deep into pseudo-philosophical musings.

Hey Neo, you're in Limbo. *wink* *wink* Get it? Limbo. Spelled out on the station name.

Not sure what the bigger disappointment turned out to be, Matrix Reloaded or The Phantom Menace. Leaning towards the former, but that might be hindsight (not to mention viewing the prequels in an entirely different light after the sequel travesty, err, trilogy).

Edited October 8, 2023 by majestic
watchung -> watching, silly keys next to each other. Boo!

[Sarex]

Tbh, I didn't mind the SW prequels either, there were some things that I didn't like but they are still miles better than the hot garbage coming out of Disney.

[Sarex]

Color me interested.

[majestic]

Well, would rate 5/10. Vivid Strike! clearly still has the best bullying revenge scene.

Crunch.

[Bartimaeus]

my ears, man

all the audio is straight up dumped into the left side and it is badly clipping, but...but on the other hand, there is no piano music

6/10, would prefer if they were less technically incompetent at making trailers

(e) Wait, this wasn't an official trailer, just some rando who made a clip. Okay, I guess I can't put the blame on the people working on the show for that. Still, if the guy that made/uploaded the clip doesn't have a good explanation for why it's so bad, off with their head and all that.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

What the **** did I just watch.

[majestic]

5 minutes ago, Lexx said:

What the **** did I just watch.

A scene from Vivid Strike!, a genre fusion between martial arts tournament and magical girl anime. It was a little less offensive than its predecessor series, but... that would also have been kinda hard to pull off. It is not very interesting and the premise is highly silly.

Oh, wait, you meant the other video, right?

[InsaneCommander]

I somehow decided to give Shield Hero another chance. The first episode looks a lot better than the previous season. Let's see how it evolves from here.

[Bartimaeus]

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: The Secret of Fuzzy: The Motion Picture: The End of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1991).

No, really, that's the real title. Okay, wait, no, I lied, I added "The End of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water". Anyways, I completely forgot that there was a movie to end the series, though it's a film everyone says is very bad and that it's basically a scam. Well...pictures can speak volumes in this particular case, I think. This is how the show started:

...and this is how the movie's ending it:

Spoiler

Enough said, right? It can be pretty rough sailing when they break out the D or F team to make the end to a series.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[uuuhhii]

On 10/11/2023 at 1:11 AM, InsaneCommander said:

I somehow decided to give Shield Hero another chance. The first episode looks a lot better than the previous season. Let's see how it evolves from here.

light novel version are pure garbage

recommend don't waste any time on it

[InsaneCommander]

Spy x Family 27

The Folgers run out of dog food. Foreseeing what Yor will cook for him, Bond runs away. Damian goes on a field trip.

On 10/14/2023 at 2:58 AM, uuuhhii said:

light novel version are pure garbage

recommend don't waste any time on it

The animation quality has improved a lot, compared to season 2. Episode 3.2 was better than the entirety of the previous season as whole. We will see if it keeps like this.

Edited October 15, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[Azdeus]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:11 PM, InsaneCommander said:

I somehow decided to give Shield Hero another chance. The first episode looks a lot better than the previous season. Let's see how it evolves from here.

There is one thing in the series that elevates it to a ten for me, the use of a Swedish song as the sombre music for Raftalia when shes heartbroken.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The Venture Bros. S1-7 and the movie.

I think the first time I saw The Venture Bros. was on a one-off when I was a kid and Adult Swim had just come out as the place to see dubbed "mature" anime on cable. It was different but I liked it, but since I didn't have cable and CN's schedule was insane I couldn't keep up with it. Later on I watched the whole thing again when I had cable and it was easily the best western animation I had seen, while still being extremely silly it was a beautiful long-form parody on the world of superheroes and scientist-adventurers that just felt right. When it was canceled I was pissed, when the movie was announced I was elated, and when I finally saw the movie I was satisfied.

Anyways with no series that were very interesting to watch and not wanting to play BG3 for too many hours on end (I ended up loving the game, would recommend even with the jank) I started re-watching The Venture Bros. again. And it hits better than I remember, moreso than any other show I can think of. It's mocking, sincere, heart warming, depressing, and more seemingly contradictory things all at the same time wrapped up in a wide ranging parody of everything from ye olde Saturday morning US cartoons to Ted Bundy. It was an amazing ride.

[Sarex]

23 minutes ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

The Venture Bros. S1-7 and the movie.

I think the first time I saw The Venture Bros. was on a one-off when I was a kid and Adult Swim had just come out as the place to see dubbed "mature" anime on cable. It was different but I liked it, but since I didn't have cable and CN's schedule was insane I couldn't keep up with it. Later on I watched the whole thing again when I had cable and it was easily the best western animation I had seen, while still being extremely silly it was a beautiful long-form parody on the world of superheroes and scientist-adventurers that just felt right. When it was canceled I was pissed, when the movie was announced I was elated, and when I finally saw the movie I was satisfied.

Anyways with no series that were very interesting to watch and not wanting to play BG3 for too many hours on end (I ended up loving the game, would recommend even with the jank) I started re-watching The Venture Bros. again. And it hits better than I remember, moreso than any other show I can think of. It's mocking, sincere, heart warming, depressing, and more seemingly contradictory things all at the same time wrapped up in a wide ranging parody of everything from ye olde Saturday morning US cartoons to Ted Bundy. It was an amazing ride.

I never could get in to it and I got pretty far with it (season 3 or something) I even "watched" the movie and I got the same felling as when watching the series.

The new VA for Rick (Rick and Morty) sounds like it's AI generated.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

29 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I never could get in to it and I got pretty far with it (season 3 or something) I even "watched" the movie and I got the same felling as when watching the series.

The new VA for Rick (Rick and Morty) sounds like it's AI generated.

Different strokes. For me it hits the right notes of nostalgia and parody, like the "boy genius" who is a 37 year old man that lives in a trailer with an albino ex-gameshow host or anything with Dr. Orpheus. 

I have never seen a single episode of Rick and Morty but AI is consistently terrible at anything so I assume the show is worse. Just get someone to do a completely different voice and have it be a running joke.

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I have never seen a single episode of Rick and Morty but AI is consistently terrible at anything so I assume the show is worse. Just get someone to do a completely different voice and have it be a running joke.

Even without the voice change the show went downhill a couple of seasons ago. The first couple of seasons had the shock value to carry the show and once I got used to the characters the rest kind of petered out. Although to be fair they did have a couple of pearls later on.