I think Pizzaroll made a really well written frame-by-frame analysis. He shows how Oshii used artistic direction to highlight the themes in innocence.
I think this is different from Ghost in the Shell SAC, which kind of just lays the theme out on the plate and puts some cyberized images around it. There is just much more feeling in the in-depth direction.
Now for the first stage of my endurance run, the Arjuna/School Days/Blood-C tri-marathon. Apparently I already watched Arjuna 01 a few weeks ago and posted impressions in the last anime thread, but I'll just re-post here since I have this whole theme going.
Arjuna 01:
Madness begins innocently enough, though there was already a healthy dose of heavy-handed environmentalism and shit was certainly getting weird by the end of the episode.
I am not trusting Chris for a moment.
Intentionally kill Juna with a magical rainbow aura thing just to revive her as the Avatar of Time? Offer her life back when it's established in the opening nature slideshow that human lives don't mean shit to the planet? Belonging to an organization that employs sinful modern technology and employing that tech to sustain his life? Fuckin' suspicious, man.
Moreso than the environmental themes, the sheer garishness of everything is already screaming amazing trainwreck to me. Horrid CG, surfaces and backgrounds that don't quite feel like they're on the same planes as the characters, use of actual photographs, hideous character design for Chris and his loli cohort, Juna's clothing magically becoming fanservice-tastic after she
revives
, freakish
glowing magatama womb transformation sequence
and her subsequent
neon alien-fish-rodent-WHATTHEFUCKISTHIS form
. Everything after the first few minutes was an assault on the eyes.
Of the three shows I'm watching, this one feels like it has the potential to inflict the most suffering on me.
School Days 01:
I hate the character designs, I hate this genre, Sekai's voice is annoying, Kotonoha is a horribly boring character, and really, knowing what happens is the only thing compelling me to watch this. I'll watch a bad anime far more willingly than I'll watch a boring one.
Oh, and dat twist at the ending.
The seeds of disaster were planted earlier than I'd expected. Excellent, excellent.
Blood-C 01:
Kyouuuuuu wa ii tenkiiiiiiiiiii♫
Saya is HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG. I mean absolutely, astronomically, thermonuclear weapons-grade HNNNNNNNG. The singing alone exploded my heart. I know that I'm
probably setting myself up for something horrible by getting attached to her
, but I can't help it.
The fact that half of the OP is dedicated to showcasing her clumsiness does not inspire confidence. I actually enjoyed the fight scene in this episode and thought it had fairly good animation, but there's no way that her tendency to fall flat on her face doesn't rear its head at the worst possible moment.
And what the hell kind of seifuku has a chain-fob-thing around the collar? It looks like a halloween costume from Hot Topic.
I think we need to add Mad Pierrot to suicide watch. Everyone, we need to be extra special nice to Mad Pierrot for now to help him keep what little sanity he'll have left when finished, okay?
Anyhoo:
The Secret of Arrietty:
I really LOVED the artistry of this movie. The backgrounds in particular had gorgeous paintings. And with the exception of Shaun, the rest of the cast dubbed their roles very well. I especially liked Carol Brunette's performance as Haru. Just the right mix of OCD and batty bonkers. XD The music was very nice as well, I"m used to Ghibli movies having very grand music, the folksy sound really worked here.
None of those are as fun as High School DxD, and for most of them it's not even close (Strike Witches is probably the best of those). Anyway, it probably should be more compared with other harem action shows, like IS, Hyakka Ryokan Samurai Girls, Majikoi, Daimao, etc.
Thanks. I kinda agree on HSotD, but don't really consider it an ecchi show - just action with an unusual amount of fanservice. Lotte and Strike Witches aren't my cup of tea, and Sekirei is just plain boring. Haven't seen Sora No Otoshimono, but it doesn't really look very interesting. It's a matter of taste I guess.
I don't get it. The reactions that I've read about this film were generally stating that it's average-to-bad, but it seems pretty good. Outside of a few Oshii-tastic flat exposition dumps I have no major problems with this movie.
I found it pretty boring, but I well might rank it above Patlabor 2... of course, as anyone who read my review of that movie in the last thread would know, I didn't exactly think much of that ("Sky Crawlers but maybe even more boring" might be the short summation.).
Oh, as for GITS SAC SSS, I mostly liked it and would almost certainly rank it above GITS2.
That show's definitely fun stuff, it's just too bad it never got another season... I'm pretty sure there was more source material than the show covers, so it doesn't have much of an ending. But yeah, it can be a pretty funny show.
Yessssssss! Another Nichibro. It's great for that kind of thing. Though through the early teens it gets a little dull except for a few great moments, it picks way back up once you get to about 14ish, or so I thought.
Yessssssss! Another Nichibro. It's great for that kind of thing. Though through the early teens it gets a little dull except for a few great moments, it picks way back up once you get to about 14ish, or so I thought.
Yeah, the animation is really impressive for anime, and the show's often very funny too; every episode has at least some good skits in it. It was my favorite anime of last year for a reason, and not just because the competition was arguably somewhat on the weak side. It's a legitimately great comedy anime, probably the best since Lucky Star indeed.
Denpa and lagrange are such different shows it would be unfair to compare them. One is a slow paced slice of life pseudo harem by shaft with incredible doses of moe, the other is a slow paced mecha show with poor pacing and large doses of moe.
I haven't seen Eureka 7 or many of the Gundam shows, so I can't comment on those. As for Eva, a very complete and full explanation is given for the Mecha.
Although the explanation was bad.
I acknowledge that we're only on episode 6, but do you seriously think that
the masses of Ovids in this episode will receive an explanation? I personally consider it very unlikely, but in the chance that they do, I will happily admit I was wrong!
Furthermore, Eva was consistent in it's approach to the characters, the tone the show takes, and the world they live in. Lagrange, so far, is rather obscure about the world they live in (I don't count this as a negative, just so you know, I'm looking forward to the backstory of the origins of everything), the tone flipflops between highschool hijinks, super robot show atmosphere, and
DARK MYSTERIOUS PAST
. Inconsistent, to say the least. The characters are consistent, which then clashes with the inconsistencies of the plot. I don't think I am being particularly biased, I would point out these faults in any show they appeared.
I am sure that line will come back to haunt me someday
Lagrange certainly doesn't have anywhere near Eva's depth, but I don't think it was supposed to either. And yeah, reading these posts about it to me pretty much backs up my reasons for stopping watching the show. So many things about it sound so stupid, and in pretty annoying ways. It all just sounds so stupid, and that is part of why I stopped watching... it was too generic, boring, and average for me to care, with it in a genre I only sometimes like anyway, mecha.
Well, Rinne no Lagrange doesn't really have much going for it other than the hnnng and pretty visuals. The characters are annoying or dull outside of Lan and pimp villain, and even Lan is just a standard moe character that says wan. The scenario and plot are underdeveloped and mostly nonexistent. I don't like the characters as much as some people here so that's probably why I don't enjoy it as much, but even if that weren't the case, the entire scenario is so poorly developed/explained that I'd still have issues.
No wait, I'm not that bad. Really though, I'd as soon put up with a little stretching as watching 4:3 on an HDTV. Clearly I'm in the minority here, so I'm just going to change the aspect ratio back for future GAF posts and hope you guys forget all about this little incident :x
Thanks for the spiraling into auto-destruction of the latest pages, guys. Funny stuff!
As much consensus as you can obtain on the 'fandom' (dependable as we are) without a direct confirmation from Mr. Anno itself, and even then I'm not completely sure of it... in fact, although lacking more context, there has been quotations from him on that matter, and if those quotations were present on texts authored in collaboration with Carl Horn, then gain credibility for sure:
For some kind of respected consensus, it should be part of the matters discussed by the Reichu, Shin-seiki & friends' Fan-Geeks Commentary (FGC) 'committee', or in good-old ANF.
If I remember correctly, V called to discuss the topic in hand and later deviated the attention to other (his own) playgrounds... with the utmost respect for him and leaving aside this heated bickering with The Eva Monkey, he is still considered an outcast in communities like EvaGeeks.org (and still banned), and because of his sometimes inflexible stance he was always seen as that, hardly as representative. I like his approach to some of the discussions, definitely... however, the grudge continues (http://revolutionofevangelion.org/)...
As I said in my post before last, that quote from Anno certainly was my understanding of what EoE was about, for sure. It makes far more sense than that other theory.
If you're not going to put any effort into accurately portraying musical performance, why even bother to show the keyboard? It's very distracting to see the pianist playing a third but hear the pianist play a slow broken chord.
Yeah, I was kind of hoping they'd go for more of a "we're pulling out all the stops and just making a great movie the fans will love!" because, even if regular people didn't entirely understand what was going on, I think the passion in the work would have come through enough that it would make them want to check out the rest of the series. This, while not bad, just doesn't really have anything in it that I believe would make an average viewer want to investigate the franchise outside of the film.
It almost certainly would have been a far better movie had they done what you suggest there, but sadly, they had other ideas.
I felt bad that I hadn't even noticed the music was missing until about halfway into the movie. It's rather astonishing just how absent it all is. The music was practically a character itself in the show, and it's difficult to really comprehend why they cut it so much for the big screen. Although, if it were going to be more of what they did give us, I'm kind of thankful we didn't get more music...
I don't really remember the original series' soundtrack...
It certainly works on that level, but then why make it a Trigun movie? They could have removed the Trigun pillars from it and just made a movie about Amelia and Gasback, and not really have had to move too much around to make it work.
Perhaps so, and as I said in my review of the film in the last thread, I thought Gasback was a really annoying character too, as that kind of "I'm so invincible that I don't need to move to avoid hails of gunfire while wearing no armor and standing out in the open" character is one I find completely stupid and annoying (and he never gets touched until the last fight, never), so I didn't like the plot focus for that reason either. Amelia was a better character though, and fit decently into the plot I think. But yeah, the story certainly was lacking a lot, and it was disappointing that it had nothing to do with the main plot of the series.
As to that point directly though, while you might be right, they did have all of the major good characters in significant roles in the film, so it did feel like Trigun to me, most of the time... just not an important part of Trigun, just some random throwaway arc in the middle or something.
Oh man. Ohhhhhhhhhh man. If episode two is like this, I can't begin to comprehend how fucked my brain is going to be by the end.
Terrible CG like something out of the mid-90s. Kawamori effortlessly turning the conversation between Teresa and Dojima into a personal screed against nuclear power spoken through them. Chris
parachuting out of a helicopter in a wheelchair just to bitchslap Juna
. (I think I need a gif of that.) And, as for the rest of the episode:
Chris:
defeat the Raaja and save Earth, Juna!
Juna:
*materializes spirit bow and attacks Raaja to no avail*
Chris:
You thought I meant to literally ATTACK the Raaja? Apparently your tiny mind is too literal to comprehend the true meaning of words.
Juna:
Oh okay. I'll play hide-and-seek with the Raaja.
Wait--I'm having a flashback to some advice I learned in archery club. I guess I'll shoot the Raaja with the spirit bow anyway. Hey, it worked!
Chris:
You're a total failure and you suck. Go cleanse yourself of your filth, filthy filth-human.
School Days 02:
So much awkwardness.
I can't tell if Sekai
is intentionally giving Kotonoha bad advice in order to wreck her relationship and give her an opportunity to move in on Makoto, but things went well for Makoto and Kotonoha at the end of the episode
so this probably isn't the case.
Blood-C 02:
So sloooooooooooooow. This was pretty much Episode 1 all over again, except with a
boring tentacle fight
.
Saya still incredibly HNNNNNNNNNNNNG. Something actually needs to happen, though.
Oh man. Ohhhhhhhhhh man. If episode two is like this, I can't begin to comprehend how fucked my brain is going to be by the end.
Terrible CG like something out of the mid-90s. Kawamori effortlessly turning the conversation between Teresa and Dojima into a personal screed against nuclear power spoken through them. Chris
parachuting out of a helicopter in a wheelchair just to bitchslap Juna
. (I think I need a gif of that.) And, as for the rest of the episode:
Chris:
defeat the Raaja and save Earth, Juna!
Juna:
*materializes spirit bow and attacks Raaja to no avail*
Chris:
You thought I meant to literally ATTACK the Raaja? Apparently your tiny mind is too literal to comprehend the true meaning of words.
Juna:
Oh okay. I'll play hide-and-seek with the Raaja.
Wait--I'm having a flashback to some advice I learned in archery club. I guess I'll shoot the Raaja with the spirit bow anyway. Hey, it worked!
Chris:
You're a total failure and you suck. Go cleanse yourself of your filth, filthy filth-human.
Oh man. Ohhhhhhhhhh man. If episode two is like this, I can't begin to comprehend how fucked my brain is going to be by the end.
Terrible CG like something out of the mid-90s. Kawamori effortlessly turning the conversation between Teresa and Dojima into a personal screed against nuclear power spoken through them. Chris
parachuting out of a helicopter in a wheelchair just to bitchslap Juna
. (I think I need a gif of that.) And, as for the rest of the episode:
Chris:
defeat the Raaja and save Earth, Juna!
Juna:
*materializes spirit bow and attacks Raaja to no avail*
Chris:
You thought I meant to literally ATTACK the Raaja? Apparently your tiny mind is too literal to comprehend the true meaning of words.
Juna:
Oh okay. I'll play hide-and-seek with the Raaja.
Wait--I'm having a flashback to some advice I learned in archery club. I guess I'll shoot the Raaja with the spirit bow anyway. Hey, it worked!
Chris:
You're a total failure and you suck. Go cleanse yourself of your filth, filthy filth-human.
So, people are commenting on Araki's shape as he went fro ma fatass to a perfectly fit player in 10 days:
"Look at his physique. He managed to keep all his lean muscle while dropping all his fat. Probably the result of careful dieting and rigorous training."
Why do you do this to me mr anime? I can let it go that in anime world people go from fat to fit like it's nothing, by why do you have to remark it like that?!
anyone else watching the new last exile shit? I find the sheer amount of young children in it a bit saccharine but im bearing with it in hopes of older characters being re introduced. Waiting for translation of the latest to go up on funimations page.
Fast, frenetic and stylish. I was overwhelmed when watching the first episode, but I stuck to it and I'm glad I decided to hang on. The writing seems like it doesn't fall victim to usual conventions and I'm just sooooooo happy with the way this show handles recap sequences. One pet peeve I have about anime is that the writers typically use contrived and expository flashbacks as a way of keeping the viewers up to speed, but Baccano's integration of recap sequences in the OP itself is such a breath of fresh air.
I'm a bit weary about this episode though. I hope this show doesn't go all
Prestige (film)
and begin to rely on its
supernatural
elements. The 1930s vibe it has going with the minimal amount of references to the
regenerating properties some of the characters possess
is pretty good without going any further into it. In other words, I'd rather have an Inception where the
the alchemy and regeneration stuff
is just a means of telling the story and doesn't become the focus of the story itself. There are so many characters that I want explored without having said elements take over much of the spotlight.
but seriously, it's a lot of fun, I think I'm gonna enjoy this
