Now I'm curious what you think represents the 5%.
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Spring Anime 2012 II | Welcome Home Eureka
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Jex
Member
Not at all. It's purpose was to explain why good background art, image composition etc. matters when you're telling a story in a visual medium and in particular why I thought that one shot in Kids on the Slope was effective. Usually I would just, as Branduil did, say that 'the composition in this shot was good' (because it obviously was) but the thing it's (apparently) not obvious to everyone, so I decided to explain it for once. I was simply backing up my opinion with an actual argument.
Ideally, ever time I had an opinion about an anime I'd go to the same lengths to prove my point, e.g. that the direction in episode 5 of some show was 'poor'. In reality, however, I don't have the time or inclination to explain in great detail every time I have an opinion about an an anime, which is why I usually state my opinion rather than defending it with examples.
Femmeworth
Banned
Upscaling always adds extra pixels that were not present at the original resolution.
When Fate/Zero ends, I'm thinking of doing a series of write-ups with screens, illustrating the various aspects of what the show does so well that isn't particularly common in the majority of animation works. I'm not sure if the best place to post them would be in here, or in another thread, or on an external site which is then linked. Honestly, I'm more concerned about formatting than anything else. Maybe Jexhius can advice on this...
chickdigger802
Banned
Start an anime snob OT.
Jex
Member
Senjoughara, Holo, Kurisu.
Femmeworth
Banned
What.
Jex
Member
Once one of posts hit a certain lengths and contained a certain number of characters and images it just made sense to make it a blog post (e.g. put it on Tumblr) rather than simply placing it in the thread. This gives you much greater control of formatting.
It sounds like your post would be extremely comprehensive, more so than simply a comment in a thread, so I would recommend placing it offsite and then linking to it, preferably with a sample of what you've written placed in GAF.
Are we sure that this isn't just a case of English-speaking otaku having shit taste in waifus and is actually intentional 4chan trolling?
Half of those are good picks though.
Jex
Member
You're right, that's more like 8%.
Who won the Japanese equivalent? Need to know which side of the world has better otaku
Add Homura to that and I support this 100%
Accel World 7
That was a good episode. The exposition levels were low, and the action was pretty cool (despite the fact that the
annoy me to no end). I'm liking this whole "Master" thing all Legion members seem to follow, but maybe that's just the MMORPG addict in me enjoying the guild-like structure finally showing up, haha.
That final scene with Aqua Current and the
was interesting... And it brought along one more cool new song from the OST.
But, yeah. It was good to watch some plot threads reaching a conclusion. Obviously, next week the
That was a good episode. The exposition levels were low, and the action was pretty cool (despite the fact that the
health bar antics
That final scene with Aqua Current and the
Memory Leak
But, yeah. It was good to watch some plot threads reaching a conclusion. Obviously, next week the
harem will keep on growing, with the loli red-haired girl showing up. I wonder what's her role in all of this. And I wonder when they'll give Chiyu her own time-stopping, avatar-fighting powers.
Femmeworth
Banned
So you agree that the studios should master at a higher resolution. Good.
Chet Rippo
Member
chickdigger802
Banned
kore Zombie of the dead 7
the return of ps1 polygon crowd!
That opening was hilarious. All the jokes were 'hits' this eps. Great stuff.
'oh what's happening?' 'I can fly!'Is this suppose to be riffing off Angel Beats? haha.
Sigh, what a shit curse.
the return of ps1 polygon crowd!
That opening was hilarious. All the jokes were 'hits' this eps. Great stuff.
'oh what's happening?' 'I can fly!'Is this suppose to be riffing off Angel Beats? haha.
Sigh, what a shit curse.
Why do it at a higher resolution when they can do it at a lower resolution and upscale to get the same amount of pixels?
Also, personally, I like a softer look to lineart. While there are other ways to achieve this than a lower resolution, it's a way nonetheless.
A Black Falcon
Member
I watched this movie for the first time a few months ago. It ... wasn't very good at all, really. I wrote a good-sized review of my thoughts here: [url]http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=34682315
Looking back, I think I have have more positive memories of The Sky Crawlers than of Patlabor 2, so I think I'd amend that last bit to say that Sky Crawlers is the better of the two for sure, if not by a lot. But yeah, I don't know why this movie is popular. Apparently a fair number of people love Patlabor 2, but don't ask me to understand why, I don't have a clue.
The plot really isn't that deep, complex, or interesting. It's just yet another random thriller movie evil military conspiracy movie plot, nothing more than that... but without most of the action that that genre usually centers around to keep you distracted away from the plot. It's not enough of a mystery to call it a detective story, either, so yeah, the story's just not that interesting. (I say more in my review, so I won't repeat myself, just read that.)
As for the characters, as I said in my review, the main two characters were boring. The part with the rest of the cast was one of the better parts of the film...
The first movie had a better plot for sure. It was somewhat more original, and was definitely more interesting too.
Eh, if you say so. I didn't find the visuals anything particularly interesting most of the time, though, and some of the camera choices are just weird... like, this stuff :http://i.imgur.com/EMYyX.jpg I mean seriously, that looks awful.
I mean, it's well animated overall, I just thought that too often, what they were animating wasn't that interesting.
As a history/political science person, I do know a fair amount about Japanese demilitarization... I've taken multiple classes before relating to that, read a substantial amount really about postwar (and beyond) Japan, etc.
However, I don't think that is required to find this movie's theme generic and ultimately uninteresting. I mean, this kind of thing is the plot behind movie villain stories so, so often... it's absolutely nothing special at all here. Up until the reveal, I kept thinking that because of the slow, detective-style pace, that the ultimate reveal would be something interesting. And as I said in my review, I love politics... but instead, it was quite the opposite -- it was, in many ways, just another lame movie villain story about someone who wants to make everyone suffer everyone because they haven't been through what he has.
I know that's oversimplifying things for his motivations, he was trying to get people to see the consequences of Japan's "peace", but seriously... no, the plot's nothing special. And the whole giant conspiracy element is something I really dislike. I just hate these stupid giant conspiracies that somehow have gotten through every level of government, but of course weren't known about by anyone who could stop it until it's too late... I complain about some more things relating to this in my review of the film, so I won't repeat myself (read that), but I don't know if I mentioned enough how annoying and stupid these "there's a whole secret army hiding among the regular troops, but NO ONE KNOWS!" plots are... no, that's not a credible story at all, I'm sorry! It's just not!
A small conspiracy, sure. Even a medium-sized one maybe. But a veritable army? Yeah, right. No.
Oh, and on another note, that battle at the beginning was pretty stupid too. Seriously, a whole UN team getting wiped out like that without being allowed to shoot back until they're all dead? That almost felt like anti-UN propaganda or something, and was pretty ridiculous... I know that UN peacekeepers have strict regulations and generally can't shoot, but in that situation, it would NOT have been that hard, I am convinced. And seriously, the only reason anything else in the film happened was because of that -- the guy wasn't bitter because that other war existed at all, but because his team had died. I'm sure that the rest of that motivation came later. And it's all based on something very hard to believe. That's not good.
As I said, I do like the concept of the gap between popular awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world to support the first world, versus the lives of people in countries like Japan and the US, but the movie really isn't that deep, and far too much of it is generic movie stuff, and not some kind of realistic exploration of themes, for it to work on anything like the level I think it was meant to.
However, I don't think that is required to find this movie's theme generic and ultimately uninteresting. I mean, this kind of thing is the plot behind movie villain stories so, so often... it's absolutely nothing special at all here. Up until the reveal, I kept thinking that because of the slow, detective-style pace, that the ultimate reveal would be something interesting. And as I said in my review, I love politics... but instead, it was quite the opposite -- it was, in many ways, just another lame movie villain story about someone who wants to make everyone suffer everyone because they haven't been through what he has.
I know that's oversimplifying things for his motivations, he was trying to get people to see the consequences of Japan's "peace", but seriously... no, the plot's nothing special. And the whole giant conspiracy element is something I really dislike. I just hate these stupid giant conspiracies that somehow have gotten through every level of government, but of course weren't known about by anyone who could stop it until it's too late... I complain about some more things relating to this in my review of the film, so I won't repeat myself (read that), but I don't know if I mentioned enough how annoying and stupid these "there's a whole secret army hiding among the regular troops, but NO ONE KNOWS!" plots are... no, that's not a credible story at all, I'm sorry! It's just not!
A small conspiracy, sure. Even a medium-sized one maybe. But a veritable army? Yeah, right. No.
Oh, and on another note, that battle at the beginning was pretty stupid too. Seriously, a whole UN team getting wiped out like that without being allowed to shoot back until they're all dead? That almost felt like anti-UN propaganda or something, and was pretty ridiculous... I know that UN peacekeepers have strict regulations and generally can't shoot, but in that situation, it would NOT have been that hard, I am convinced. And seriously, the only reason anything else in the film happened was because of that -- the guy wasn't bitter because that other war existed at all, but because his team had died. I'm sure that the rest of that motivation came later. And it's all based on something very hard to believe. That's not good.
As I said, I do like the concept of the gap between popular awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world to support the first world, versus the lives of people in countries like Japan and the US, but the movie really isn't that deep, and far too much of it is generic movie stuff, and not some kind of realistic exploration of themes, for it to work on anything like the level I think it was meant to.
I deleted the rest of this "visual themes" part because that stuff just doesn't interest me much, but this part I did like, yeah.
It was kind of interesting to see the reactions of the people of Japan to having military troops occupying the city. That's certainly something they would never expect to happen, in the modern day...
Maybe if you like GitS2, or even closer, The Sky Crawlers, sure, you might like this...
On that note, I can't really compare this to GitS2; I watched that only once, and too long ago to really remember what I thought about it (apart from it being definitely not as good as the first one). But Patlabor 2 just wasn't anything above "decent and I don't regret watching it, but not that great overall".
Dragonball Z 62-89
Freeza is such a loser. He's like a little kid with a lot of power. Also his second transformation looked dumb as fuck too, like he had a dolphin as a head or something. I'm guessing Toriyama was going for something like a xenomorph head but yeahhh it didn't work too well, especially with those spikes on his back -- how does he turn his head?! I think his Japanese voice is a lot cooler (maybe a pun) -- the Eng dub voice that I remember made him sound like an angry chain-smoking woman who was about 55 years old. Other than that, Vegeta
was a manly-tears moment. ;_;
Once Freeza took the stage it seems that the animation quality really picked up. It seems to have come at a cost though, as the pre-episode recaps are loooong now. I used to not skip them but now they're like 2 minutes each. :/
Freeza is such a loser. He's like a little kid with a lot of power. Also his second transformation looked dumb as fuck too, like he had a dolphin as a head or something. I'm guessing Toriyama was going for something like a xenomorph head but yeahhh it didn't work too well, especially with those spikes on his back -- how does he turn his head?! I think his Japanese voice is a lot cooler (maybe a pun) -- the Eng dub voice that I remember made him sound like an angry chain-smoking woman who was about 55 years old. Other than that, Vegeta
breaking down in tears and begging Goku to avenge the Saiyans before being finished off while he was down by Freeza
Once Freeza took the stage it seems that the animation quality really picked up. It seems to have come at a cost though, as the pre-episode recaps are loooong now. I used to not skip them but now they're like 2 minutes each. :/
A Black Falcon
Member
Japan's military role in international conflicts? What role? Japan's role in international conflicts is a support role only, because Japan will only deploy peacekeepers in safe areas where there's no chance of violence. They had no active role in Afghanistan or Iraq, apart from some ship-refueling (in the Persian Gulf) and other minor things like that, far from the conflict zones.
Japan has been increasing its military role in the world, very gradually, since the end of the Cold War though, that is true. The idea that this movie, releasing in 1993 just as Japan was indeed in that post Cold Wardebate over whether to increase their role in international peacekeeping, is something I thought of, yes. It's a reasonable guess. But what exactly does he want? Japanese troops to stay out? That doesn't really solve the problem, it just shoves the problem to troops from other countries. You know, like what Japan did in the first war against Iraq in 1991, when they just gave a lot of money but no military assistance, and were strongly criticized for it. Reaction to that criticism did help push Japan towards finally allowing deployment of troops outside of their nation's borders (that is something neither Japan or West Germany ever did during the Cold War), but there's been a strong reaction against it ever since at home...
I imagine Tsuge would probably look dimly on that 'dump the problem on other people and just fund them" approach
What you describe here isn't something I remember from this movie, but sure, maybe he was trying to very subtly mention it, I don't know... it's clear that we're looking for different things when we watch things, though (and this goes for either you or Typographenia, obviously). I want depth in the plot and motivations, you want lots of very subtle visual themes to anaylyze...
I mean, I have nothing against depth, but I think that at least something should be approachable, too, without that kind of extreme visual analysis. And that element of Patlabor 2 has some real problems.
Crash Station
Member
Welcome to Toei Shounen! Better than OP where you don't even see the title until the 5 minute mark.
Femmeworth
Banned
I can't say for sure, but I think the background art suffers from having to work at a lower resolution, more so than the foreground art. There's less detail when working at a lower resolution, I know that much. It likely matters when working with digital lighting and CG models.
Yeah, other people look for content in the film rather than somthing else on the web while it is playing.
I was joking!
Higher resolutions are great but I have no issue (at all) with lower resolutions. What really matters is good artistry, that'll come through no matter what the resolution is.
And the quality of the encode too, you can't appreciate artistry when it's crumbled into a series of digital blocks.
Just like any other Oshii movie it's pretty approachable and easy to understand without extreme visual analysis, because the core ideas are presented pretty... straightforwardly to the viewer. Maybe you are the element with some problems.
A Black Falcon
Member
I have no idea if you're joking or not here, but I'll respond seriously either way. (But no, I wasn't looking at anything else while watching Patlabor 2. Sorry. As I said in my review it did take a few days to get through because of how boring I found it, and I eventually had to just force myself to watch it (reminded me very much of The Sky Crawlers, in that regard!), but that's an entirely different issue...)
Seriously though, you're STILL complaining about that? Oh come on. And anyway, beyond the above, you of course entirely misrepresent my point. I WAS paying attention, but stuff like how a VR image appears relating to the central theme, or the use of birds, or whatever? I'm likely just not going to notice that kind of thing. Oshii and stuff in his style LOVES super-subtle stuff, and it is often a problem, as far as understanding goes. I mean, like, GitS SAC certainly is not boring, but it often is complex and layered, and often I was left saying "um, what exactly happened there?" without actually getting it. My point is that when you hide your themes that well, you run the risk of a fair number of people not understanding them. And stuff like how technology is used in Patlabor 2 relating to the main theme, that is NOT an obvious theme, that's subtle.
And as I said, that main theme itself was so, SO badly flawed, with the generic movie-villain badguy, the lame conspiracy, etc, that I don't know why I WOULD be looking for that depth. I mean, if I liked the story and the movie and was really into it, I can see trying harder to get it, like I often did with GitS SAC episodes (and the movies too of course)... but this? When the plot's not very good, the characters boring, and the pace so, so slow, why should I put an equal amount of effort into trying to discern the subthemes that I would in something better? You should have a better main plot and motivations first!
Femmeworth
Banned
That's putting it optimistically.
If you really want to tempt fate, take a drink every time Natsu calls an attack and you would have otherwise had no idea what attack he was using if he didn't name it.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
Crystal Triangle
Drugs. That's the only explanation.
Drugs. That's the only explanation.
Crash Station
Member
Accel World 7
Those were some good fights. The science explanations made me think of Oh! Great stuff. It definitely wouldn't feel out of place in something like Air Gear if not for the fact it was relatively easy to understand and didn't involve 30 diagrams.
Best avatar in the show.
Those were some good fights. The science explanations made me think of Oh! Great stuff. It definitely wouldn't feel out of place in something like Air Gear if not for the fact it was relatively easy to understand and didn't involve 30 diagrams.
A Black Falcon
Member
Are you saying that just based on that, or did you read my review and my reply to Typographenia? Because I did understand quite a bit, I think. I have a lot to say in those posts about the core theme!
another round, another exhibition of terrible taste
guess what other highly prominent studio also masters their works in 540p?
BONES!
Bad taste confirmed to be international.
Ultimadrago
Member
Hidamari Sketch 7
Time for some exercise! Gym time and whatnot.
Natsume tries to get in Sae's head because she
Miya has some fun running with the wind. Too much for the school to handle though, so outdoor day is cancelled/on-hold. The girls go to
.
Additionally, the manager shows up (I believe it's her first time on-screen). She's much more "chill" and even to an extent distant to the residents on this meeting than in Season 3. This is what one would observe as a natural relational progression, so the interactions check out. Though even in Season 3 she's not "buddy-buddy", more of the same leveled tone, but a bit more open.
Another eased episode with some light tension due to Yuno's nervousness about meeting the laidback landlady in proper and
.
Serious question: What was the overall budget on Hidamari Sketch? As much as I like the show for what it offers in other areas, it looks like it was made on a few weeks worth of lunch money in many places.
Time for some exercise! Gym time and whatnot.
Girl full of jelly instigates a challenge!
Natsume tries to get in Sae's head because she
can't get into her pants.
Miya's house so we can once again bask in how poor she is
The reaction to being able to bum off of Hiro's cooking again...shameless.
Additionally, the manager shows up (I believe it's her first time on-screen). She's much more "chill" and even to an extent distant to the residents on this meeting than in Season 3. This is what one would observe as a natural relational progression, so the interactions check out. Though even in Season 3 she's not "buddy-buddy", more of the same leveled tone, but a bit more open.
Another eased episode with some light tension due to Yuno's nervousness about meeting the laidback landlady in proper and
a typhoon alert
Serious question: What was the overall budget on Hidamari Sketch? As much as I like the show for what it offers in other areas, it looks like it was made on a few weeks worth of lunch money in many places.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
This is Shaft.
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