-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Spring Anime 2012 II | Welcome Home Eureka
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
- Status
Ultimadrago
Member
Black Lagoon 10
Multi-parter continues with Lagoon getting into a car crash and the confirmation of Roberta as something out of a Terminator film.
An action scene commences between a formerly unconscious Revy and Roberta. Now, I love me some action, but here's the problem. The entire beginning of the fight consists only of an assigned hand shooting a respective gun.
The first shots used with this (see:above picture) are fine as it is an official landmark for the beginning of the duel. However, it continues on showing the boring shipping yard environment and shocked faces in a crashed car instead of showing both combatants shooting at one another on screen simultaneously.
Thankfully, Balalaika saves the viewer from more mediocre fighting.
We get Roberta back story with a (expected, but nice) grainy "old film" filter describing her past atrocities as a
. The kid's voice is grating and almost ruined the scene. However, I enjoyed hearing Roberta's back story, though it still does not explain how she's made of adamantium.
The two end up settling things in a funny, bloody fist fight and that's that.
Overall, decent episode bogged down by bad action. Hopefully, the more emotionally packed action (ex.
and more fluid and bold action (ex. Revy on boat with thugs, Roberta in bar) returns in latter episodes.
Multi-parter continues with Lagoon getting into a car crash and the confirmation of Roberta as something out of a Terminator film.
Roberta is where it's at
An action scene commences between a formerly unconscious Revy and Roberta. Now, I love me some action, but here's the problem. The entire beginning of the fight consists only of an assigned hand shooting a respective gun.
The first shots used with this (see:above picture) are fine as it is an official landmark for the beginning of the duel. However, it continues on showing the boring shipping yard environment and shocked faces in a crashed car instead of showing both combatants shooting at one another on screen simultaneously.
The boss is back.
Thankfully, Balalaika saves the viewer from more mediocre fighting.
The snarling facial expressions in Black Lagoon are so similar, but I love them.
We get Roberta back story with a (expected, but nice) grainy "old film" filter describing her past atrocities as a
terrorist/revolutionary
The two end up settling things in a funny, bloody fist fight and that's that.
Overall, decent episode bogged down by bad action. Hopefully, the more emotionally packed action (ex.
Rock v Revy, boat massacre
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
Well, this was an interesting alternate take on the story, though as I understand it it's a different game route their telling. But beyond that there's not much to talk about that isn't spoilerific, so instead I'll talk about something that this movie does bring into sharp focus. It's something that tends to happen when an anime has a VERY big budget (like this does, being a movie and all) but the directors or other staff in charge don't use that budget as well as they should. It's not good animation, nor is it necessarily bad animation. Rather, it's what I call awkward animation.
It's actually a thing I've seen in anime movies for quite some time, but having just watched this presents me a good opportunity to talk about it. What I am referring to as awkward animation is bits of animation that look worse because they have more frames of animation than normal due to having a higher budget. Now normally you'd think "What's the problem? Having more budget means more fluid animation, right?" And indeed FSN: UBW has very fluid animation throughout. However it does make certain character motions throughout the movie seem "off", despite being very fluid.
Imagine you're directing an anime movie and you're given a much larger budget than you would for, say, a TV series. Now, having directed low budget TV anime quite a lot, you're used to having to cut corners for the less involved scenes to save them for the more action-oriented/more important scenes. As a result, the temptation when suddenly being given a very large budget to work with is to spread it out as much as possible throughout the movie in a way you might never have been able to in your TV anime, while still making sure those extra special scenes get the extra special treatment. However, this creates a problem. While I won't lie and say I'm a total expert on animation, I think most of us understand the basic principle that less frames can make actions look faster, while more frames can make action look slower. So what happens if a quicker action, like an arm falling to one's side, gets more frames of animation than necessary? The action can look slower than it should, taking a little too much time to complete and thereby feeling awkward (despite the fluidity). It can also result in things like a character's hair/clothing moving more than usual, as if they never settle to the force of gravity. Also common is characters making lots of random gestures in rapid succession because, fuck you've got the budget let's make them fucking move and shit, right? But because the motions are either awkward or make no sense, it's somewhat jarring.
But even more jarring than all of the above is the way everything seems to move at the same uniform speed. With the usual exception being bombastic action scenes, all of the character movements, walking, talking, dodging, jumping, eating etc. seem to happen at an incredibly uniform speed, and this looks worst of all because it's just so unnatural. People do not constantly do everything at the exact same pace. Instinctively we know it's wrong, even if we can't always put our finger on why.
It's especially interesting watching something like this movie and then comparing it to say, the first episode of Hyouka from Kyoto Animation. Now Hyouka also has a very large budget despite being TV anime (because it's what KyoAni does). But the direction is much better; the distribution of frames is much more skillful. Actions that should be fast are fast, actions that should be slow are slow. Gestures look more natural and less forced. More importantly, people move at different speeds depending on the action they're taking, and for the most part (supernatural sex hair and sparkling eyes aside) it looks right. It's the major reason I've always loved the work of Kyoto Animation above the vast majority of studios; they don't just have high budgets, they use those budgets more skillfully than most other studios would. However even Kyoto Animation isn't 100% free from this as well; I won't lie there are a couple shots in the Haruhi movie that did suffer from the exact same thing. But thankfully the majority of the movie didn't suffer for this, so they escaped my judgement. Barely.
I guess I don't have too much of a point beyond just bringing up something that I've had on my mind for sometime but never had a particular reason to write about it. Thanks for letting me indulge a bit. ^^;
Well, this was an interesting alternate take on the story, though as I understand it it's a different game route their telling. But beyond that there's not much to talk about that isn't spoilerific, so instead I'll talk about something that this movie does bring into sharp focus. It's something that tends to happen when an anime has a VERY big budget (like this does, being a movie and all) but the directors or other staff in charge don't use that budget as well as they should. It's not good animation, nor is it necessarily bad animation. Rather, it's what I call awkward animation.
It's actually a thing I've seen in anime movies for quite some time, but having just watched this presents me a good opportunity to talk about it. What I am referring to as awkward animation is bits of animation that look worse because they have more frames of animation than normal due to having a higher budget. Now normally you'd think "What's the problem? Having more budget means more fluid animation, right?" And indeed FSN: UBW has very fluid animation throughout. However it does make certain character motions throughout the movie seem "off", despite being very fluid.
Imagine you're directing an anime movie and you're given a much larger budget than you would for, say, a TV series. Now, having directed low budget TV anime quite a lot, you're used to having to cut corners for the less involved scenes to save them for the more action-oriented/more important scenes. As a result, the temptation when suddenly being given a very large budget to work with is to spread it out as much as possible throughout the movie in a way you might never have been able to in your TV anime, while still making sure those extra special scenes get the extra special treatment. However, this creates a problem. While I won't lie and say I'm a total expert on animation, I think most of us understand the basic principle that less frames can make actions look faster, while more frames can make action look slower. So what happens if a quicker action, like an arm falling to one's side, gets more frames of animation than necessary? The action can look slower than it should, taking a little too much time to complete and thereby feeling awkward (despite the fluidity). It can also result in things like a character's hair/clothing moving more than usual, as if they never settle to the force of gravity. Also common is characters making lots of random gestures in rapid succession because, fuck you've got the budget let's make them fucking move and shit, right? But because the motions are either awkward or make no sense, it's somewhat jarring.
But even more jarring than all of the above is the way everything seems to move at the same uniform speed. With the usual exception being bombastic action scenes, all of the character movements, walking, talking, dodging, jumping, eating etc. seem to happen at an incredibly uniform speed, and this looks worst of all because it's just so unnatural. People do not constantly do everything at the exact same pace. Instinctively we know it's wrong, even if we can't always put our finger on why.
It's especially interesting watching something like this movie and then comparing it to say, the first episode of Hyouka from Kyoto Animation. Now Hyouka also has a very large budget despite being TV anime (because it's what KyoAni does). But the direction is much better; the distribution of frames is much more skillful. Actions that should be fast are fast, actions that should be slow are slow. Gestures look more natural and less forced. More importantly, people move at different speeds depending on the action they're taking, and for the most part (supernatural sex hair and sparkling eyes aside) it looks right. It's the major reason I've always loved the work of Kyoto Animation above the vast majority of studios; they don't just have high budgets, they use those budgets more skillfully than most other studios would. However even Kyoto Animation isn't 100% free from this as well; I won't lie there are a couple shots in the Haruhi movie that did suffer from the exact same thing. But thankfully the majority of the movie didn't suffer for this, so they escaped my judgement. Barely.
I guess I don't have too much of a point beyond just bringing up something that I've had on my mind for sometime but never had a particular reason to write about it. Thanks for letting me indulge a bit. ^^;
lol One Piece HD is in the top 10 along with regular One Piece
How do I read these ratings? What's considered good
Dedication Through Light
Member
Guess we dont know if Naruto SD is doing better than Bleach was when it started. Otherwise, guess no one likes Sengoku Collection.
The best part about that fight at the end is how
Revy actually falls for the old "you shoes are untied" gag
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Wow, that's pretty awesome for Space Brothers. I didn't really expect it to get ratings anywhere near that level. A very pleasant surprise.
Ultimadrago
Member
Oh yeah, that part made me smile. I was like,
"You know you wanna look!"
Sweet beans, Space Bros and Lupin!
Generally for anime, you have to differentiate between the shows that air on human time and which air on otaku time. I find Lupin super impressive because it aired at 2AM and enough people still watched it.
That list also doesn't cover the shows on UHF because there's probably no way to count them all.
Her eyes look so weird.
Crash Station
Member
Medaka
At least Space Bros is good. We could be getting the very first long running seinen adaptation while the manga is still going with those ratings.
Ultimadrago
Member
A part of my evening has been made, they even mock the terrible singing.
Hell sure looks neat and tidy, though.
I love them.
Decent numbers for Space Bros and Lupin. I'm glad.
chickdigger802
Banned
Nyaruko 3
lupin's Goemon reference in Nyaruko as well? Goemon week?
A bit too much smutty fanservice this week. Needs more random sugar/references/etc.
I like the Kamen Rider Decade reference with Shantak-kun though!
lupin's Goemon reference in Nyaruko as well? Goemon week?
A bit too much smutty fanservice this week. Needs more random sugar/references/etc.
I like the Kamen Rider Decade reference with Shantak-kun though!
In case anyone was wondering, Japanese ratings don't work like American ratings.
A 4 would be terrible ratings for a primetime show for example. The highest rated anime, Sazae-san, regularly gets 18. A "hit" as it were would need to be 15 and above but obviously the expectations of the timeslot and the target market for anime make something like the 3 for Space Bros pretty good.
A 4 would be terrible ratings for a primetime show for example. The highest rated anime, Sazae-san, regularly gets 18. A "hit" as it were would need to be 15 and above but obviously the expectations of the timeslot and the target market for anime make something like the 3 for Space Bros pretty good.
A compelling deconstruction of the Lovecraft mythos for a postmodern era in creative fiction.
Haiyore! Nyarlko 03
Damnit, you know what? This show is alot of fun. It's a real change of pace having the harem as the unrepentant leches, and it's just the right kind of perverted where you can giggle the Dr. Evil way. The third episode pretty much solidified it. This I'll be watching for the rest of its run.
One this IS sort of bothering me though. While I don't read Lovecraft (I've never considered him a very good writer), What exactly IS Nyarlko? I mean, if MC gives in (which he won't) or Nyarlko manages to successfully jump his shit while he sleeps (more likely), does that mean that the warp will corrupt Mahiro's body and he'll be horrifically and irreversibly mutilated? Will he be instantly be impaled by tentacles if Nyarlko gets some of that lust alleviated? Or will she just act like a normal human? These are pressing issues! I want to know if I should be repulsed in a sort of goofy "Ha! Mahiro's stuck with a clingy hot space babe!" way or "OH GOD, IF HE TOUCHES HER WRONG HE'S LOST TO THE WARP FOREVER" way. Pressing issues people!
Damnit, you know what? This show is alot of fun. It's a real change of pace having the harem as the unrepentant leches, and it's just the right kind of perverted where you can giggle the Dr. Evil way. The third episode pretty much solidified it. This I'll be watching for the rest of its run.
One this IS sort of bothering me though. While I don't read Lovecraft (I've never considered him a very good writer), What exactly IS Nyarlko? I mean, if MC gives in (which he won't) or Nyarlko manages to successfully jump his shit while he sleeps (more likely), does that mean that the warp will corrupt Mahiro's body and he'll be horrifically and irreversibly mutilated? Will he be instantly be impaled by tentacles if Nyarlko gets some of that lust alleviated? Or will she just act like a normal human? These are pressing issues! I want to know if I should be repulsed in a sort of goofy "Ha! Mahiro's stuck with a clingy hot space babe!" way or "OH GOD, IF HE TOUCHES HER WRONG HE'S LOST TO THE WARP FOREVER" way. Pressing issues people!
NeonZ
Member
So, Pharao/older brother Nyarlathotep killing the elder gods in the beginning of the episode was a reference to that fandom dispute? Kind of odd that they then go on to portray him, who seems to be directly referencing Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep, considering his pharaoh guise, as a total loser.
Oh come on, like you didn't laugh at
Nyaruko trying to rape Mahiro after he got hurt.
It's never going to happen, so I don't think they'll be touching this issue, haha.
Dedication Through Light
Member
Legend of the Legendary Heroes (dub) 23-24 (end)
Overall I liked the series, nothing innovative or such but fun overall. I enjoyed all of the spells even though the chants got to be quite wordy, but they stayed in the air for so long that it was believable (What I seek is thunder, Izuchi...I offer up the contracted words releasing the spirit of light dancing in the sky...). The battles were nice and complemented the politics well.
I just wish there was more as
FuniDub was fun, Ryner's va definitely made it work well. Something about his voice and how he would change tones and such throughout just made him really believable and human. Hope to see the VA in more roles. Definitely worth the 70 or so dollars, 8 / 10.
Overall I liked the series, nothing innovative or such but fun overall. I enjoyed all of the spells even though the chants got to be quite wordy, but they stayed in the air for so long that it was believable (What I seek is thunder, Izuchi...I offer up the contracted words releasing the spirit of light dancing in the sky...). The battles were nice and complemented the politics well.
I just wish there was more as
final episode had sion change a bit and everyone just rushing off to war, how does this war conclude, do they get the original one back? What about Ryner and other Alpha Stigmas? Is there an OVA or something.
FuniDub was fun, Ryner's va definitely made it work well. Something about his voice and how he would change tones and such throughout just made him really believable and human. Hope to see the VA in more roles. Definitely worth the 70 or so dollars, 8 / 10.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The Japanese rules allow for gambling on making hands, so that's the most immediate difference.
Also, Saki uses such arbitrary scoring rules that you might as well forget anything you know. lol
In what universe is that a change of pace
Oh I figure, I'm just wondering to what extent they're taking the whole Eldrich Abominations thing. Can they suppress their non-euclidean nature completely or is it inevitable that it'll peek its way out and disembowl the closest san pool? Is their form purely cosmetic for the sake of the fragile mortals, or something that goes deeper than skin? Seriously man, I need to know if I should be physically repulsed by Nyarlko or not!
the same one where only one member of the actual harem is interested in the MC and another one is a guy.
That's up to your own body.
But, seriously: I don't think they're taking it the whole way. She's probably benign.
It would be, but I seriously doubt the kind of writers who make retread magical girlfriend comedies have anywhere near the creativity to execute such a scenario.
Slow day. No one's currently watching Blood-C.
Because we can
The same reason why men of science were driven to dissect that which they could never hope to understand.
But within an hour and a half interest again rose to banish disappointment. Lake, sending more messages, told of the completely successful transportation of the fourteen great specimens to the camp. It had been a hard pull, for the things were surprisingly heavy; but nine men had accomplished it very neatly. Now some of the party were hurriedly building a snow corral at a safe distance from the camp, to which the dogs could be brought for greater convenience in feeding. The specimens were laid out on the hard snow near the camp, save for one on which Lake was making crude attempts at dissection.
This dissection seemed to be a greater task than had been expected, for, despite the heat of a gasoline stove in the newly raised laboratory tent, the deceptively flexible tissues of the chosen specimen - a powerful and intact one - lost nothing of their more than leathery toughness. Lake was puzzled as to how he might make the requisite incisions without violence destructive enough to upset all the structural niceties he was looking for. He had, it is true, seven more perfect specimens; but these were too few to use up recklessly unless the cave might later yield an unlimited supply. Accordingly he removed the specimen and dragged in one which, though having remnants of the starfish arrangements at both ends, was badly crushed and partly disrupted along one of the great torso furrows.
Results, quickly reported over the wireless, were baffling and provocative indeed. Nothing like delicacy or accuracy was possible with instruments hardly able to cut the anomalous tissue, but the little that was achieved left us all awed and bewildered. Existing biology would have to be wholly revised, for this thing was no product of any cell growth science knows about. There had been scarcely any mineral replacement, and despite an age of perhaps forty million years, the internal organs were wholly intact. The leathery, undeteriorative, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of the thing’s form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of speculation. At first all that Lake found was dry, but as the heated tent produced its thawing effect, organic moisture of pungent and offensive odor was encountered toward the thing’s uninjured side. It was not blood, but a thick, dark-green fluid apparently answering the same purpose. By the time Lake reached this stage, all thirty-seven dogs had been brought to the still uncompleted corral near the camp, and even at that distance set up a savage barking and show of restlessness at the acrid, diffusive smell.
Far from helping to place the strange entity, this provisional dissection merely deepened its mystery. All guesses about its external members had been correct, and on the evidence of these one could hardly hesitate to call the thing animal; but internal inspection brought up so many vegetable evidences that Lake was left hopelessly at sea. It had digestion and circulation, and eliminated waste matter through the reddish tubes of its starfish-shaped base. Cursorily, one would say that its respiration apparatus handled oxygen rather than carbon dioxide, and there were odd evidences of air-storage chambers and methods of shifting respiration from the external orifice to at least two other fully developed breathing systems - gills and pores. Clearly, it was amphibian, and probably adapted to long airless hibernation periods as well. Vocal organs seemed present in connection with the main respiratory system, but they presented anomalies beyond immediate solution. Articulate speech, in the sense of syllable utterance, seemed barely conceivable, but musical piping notes covering a wide range were highly probable. The muscular system was almost prematurely developed.
The nervous system was so complex and highly developed as to leave Lake aghast. Though excessively primitive and archaic in some respects, the thing had a set of ganglial centers and connectives arguing the very extremes of specialized development. Its five-lobed brain was surprisingly advanced, and there were signs of a sensory equipment, served in part through the wiry cilia of the head, involving factors alien to any other terrestrial organism. Probably it has more than five senses, so that its habits could not be predicted from any existing analogy. It must, Lake thought, have been a creature of keen sensitiveness and delicately differentiated functions in its primal world - much like the ants and bees of today. It reproduced like the vegetable cryptogams, especially the Pteridophyta, having spore cases at the tips of the wings and evidently developing from a thallus or prothallus.
But to give it a name at this stage was mere folly. It looked like a radiate, but was clearly something more. It was partly vegetable, but had three-fourths of the essentials of animal structure. That it was marine in origin, its symmetrical contour and certain other attributes clearly indicated; yet one could not be exact as to the limit of its later adaptations. The wings, after all, held a persistent suggestion of the aerial. How it could have undergone its tremendously complex evolution on a new-born earth in time to leave prints in Archaean rocks was so far beyond conception as to make Lake whimsically recall the primal myths about Great Old Ones who filtered down from the stars and concocted earth life as a joke or mistake; and the wild tales of cosmic hill things from outside told by a folklorist colleague in Miskatonic’s English department.
Naturally, he considered the possibility of the pre-Cambrian prints having been made by a less evolved ancestor of the present specimens, but quickly rejected this too-facile theory upon considering the advanced structural qualities of the older fossils. If anything, the later contours showed decadence rather than higher evolution. The size of the pseudofeet had decreased, and the whole morphology seemed coarsened and simplified. Moreover, the nerves and organs just examined held singular suggestions of retrogression from forms still more complex. Atrophied and vestigial parts were surprisingly prevalent. Altogether, little could be said to have been solved; and Lake fell back on mythology for a provisional name - jocosely dubbing his finds "The Elder Ones."
Yeah, I know he's a character, I was just confused about the "masked warrior" terminology.
I take it that's the
Switch backstory
Sankarea
That'll teach DEEN to actually put effort into something ever again.
Or in short,
(」・ω・
」うー! (／・ω・／にゃー!Except that Lovecraft was neither clever nor particularly original in the first place, so what's there to do but to make fun of it? I honestly think that Lovecraft's work is unnecessarily droll and melodramatic. Even Poe, allegedly Lovecraft's biggest influence, wrote comedies. That's why I'm enjoying this, it's making light of something that's always held down by this big heavy wet blanket of GRIMDARK DARKGRIMNESS. What if I like mixing my horror with my comedy? Gonna do something about it?
No, that's another joke altogether.
but that was my point... there is no horror
Sankarea
That'll teach DEEN to actually put effort into something ever again.
Well it's not like ratings really matter for shows like Sankarea.
R_thanatos
Member
Waoh i bet Defuser didn't expect such an answer from a simple question..
Dedication Through Light
Member
Sankarea
That'll teach DEEN to actually put effort into something ever again.
Thats odd, they didnt do ratings for hiiro no kakera?
Sankarea
That'll teach DEEN to actually put effort into something ever again.
Ratings doesn't really indictate anything, in the end it all depends on the BR/DVD sales.
Lovecraft is certainly more original than another magical girlfriend comedy which badly copies what's been done hundreds of times before.
Hiiro no kakera is on UHF. Its basically an infomercial. It has 0 ratings.
- Status