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Spring Anime 2012 III | AITAKATTA YES!
- Thread starter hosannainexcelsis
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Sailor Moon S 125-127 (END):
The endgame went as expected, minus a couple of curveballs.
What I didn't expect was for
On the whole, S was an amazing season and I'm glad that I finally found the resolve to push all of the way through. It was superior to the previous two seasons in every aspect--a more complex, serious, and thematically-driven conflict, better characterization, really interesting direction, more creative combat, incredible humor, and overall a really energetic and inspired production. It really is what you'd expect out of a season of Sailor Moon directed by Ikuhara. I'm taking a break from Sailor Moon for the time being, but I can't help but be excited to continue on to SuperS eventually in spite of the fact that it's apparently an enormous downgrade from S.
Sailor Moon S The Movie: Hearts in Ice
This, however, sucked. It's not just bad by Sailor Moon standards, but it might be one of the most lifeless, cut-and-paste, empty movies I've ever seen. It's not directed by Ikuhara and has zero relation to any of the events of S other than Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto making brief appearances, but that in and of itself doesn't mean that the film is bad. It's bad because it's an hour-long movie with a plot that can be summed up in three sentences:
I'm not being reductionist here. This IS the plot.
Every scene in the film is so absolutely rote and barebones in its execution that it's painful to watch. Fight scenes are simply transformation sequences and stock attacks strung together with none of the actual fight choreography that films usually add. The characters don't even interact with each other. Hell, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto don't even exist outside of the fight scenes and might have three lines in the film between them. Luna's subplot is beyond fucking stupid and is an excuse to have a bishounen on screen saying romantic things about outer space. In the final confrontation, Usagi and the villain merely talk past each other and never address what the other is saying, Usagi spouting lines about love and the villain pulling random phrases from the bucket of stock villain lines. All of the other senshi, outer senshi included, go down after one hit. Tuxedo Mask is dressed up as Santa Claus for some reason. They even recycle wholesale the already-dull climax of the Sailor Moon R movie:
Abysmal. Even people watching Sailor Moon who are interested in watching this for completionist reasons should avoid this shit. Barring the SuperS movie being worse, it's the single most terrible thing to come out of the franchise.
The endgame went as expected, minus a couple of curveballs.
Hotaru went into total apocalypse meltdown, the conflict over Usagi's idealism reached its climax, there was the usual drawing of extra power from sacrifice and love and friendship, and Usagi overpowers Pharaoh 90.
Hotaru's body to be irreversibly lost. I was expecting her to survive and remain as Sailor Saturn, free from existing as a harbinger of doom any longer. Instead we have to settle for Usagi reincarnating her as a normal baby through who knows what unseen methods, which is slightly bizarre but (as Hito explained to me) a favorite end device of Ikuhara's alongside open-ended "I'm sure x character is somewhere out there" explanations for character disappearance.
The next two episodes are epilogue material, and their content is somewhat problematic. The first of these two episodes builds up to Uranus and Neptune challenging Sailor Moon to a fight, declaring her unfit to be the future queen of Crystal Tokyo because her idealism brought the earth so close to destruction. I actually liked this twist, and was glad that Neptune and Uranus hadn't decided to discard their belief in "doing whatever must be done" solely because Usagi was able to stop the Apocalypse without killing Hotaru. It was the ultimate affirmation that they were irreconcilably different in philosophy from the Inner Senshi and bucked the cliche of enemies becoming allies. However, this quickly changed in a really unfulfilling way.
Usagi decides to battle Uranus and Neptune by herself, and a short battle scene ensues where she dodges Uranus' attacks only to be pinned down by Neptune. Uranus runs toward her for the kill, but Usagi's brooch suddenly begins to radiate bright light, temporarily blinding Neptune and causing Uranus to crash into her instead. Without any explanation of what exactly just happened, the battle suddenly ends with Uranus and Neptune bowing to Usagi and saying that what happened was "just as expected of the queen" and that she had revealed her "true power". The shift in attitude was much to sudden to be believable, contradicted what Uranus and Neptune had just declared about Usagi's unfitness to be queen, and the nature of the glowing is never explained. Was it purifying the mutinous feelings in Uranus and Neptune's hearts? Did they simply feel overpowered? Was the brooch inconsequential and the whole thing just a front used by Uranus and Neptune as a final test of Usagi's character?
After all of the attention given to the characterization of Haruka and Michiru, it was an incredibly lame and rushed send-off for them and maybe the biggest disappointment of the series for me. If the writers' couldn't find a satisfactory way for Haruka, Michiru, and Usagi to fight and for Usagi to emerge victorious while preserving everyone's character, it should have never happened to begin with.
As if this wasn't enough, the final episode builds up to Chibiusa's tearful, dramatic, very final-feeling departure back to her own time only for her to return a couple of minutes after her final scene. What makes this especially bad is that the explanation for her needing to return in the first place is that Queen Serenity misses her, and yet when Chibiusa suddenly returns, it was also apparently by Queen Serenity's wishes, so the writers completely fumble on trying to come up with a consistent explanation for why this is even happening. At best, the episode is just a dumb fakeout of the viewers and a waste of good drama that Chibiusa deserved considering the great strides her character made in S.
Usagi decides to battle Uranus and Neptune by herself, and a short battle scene ensues where she dodges Uranus' attacks only to be pinned down by Neptune. Uranus runs toward her for the kill, but Usagi's brooch suddenly begins to radiate bright light, temporarily blinding Neptune and causing Uranus to crash into her instead. Without any explanation of what exactly just happened, the battle suddenly ends with Uranus and Neptune bowing to Usagi and saying that what happened was "just as expected of the queen" and that she had revealed her "true power". The shift in attitude was much to sudden to be believable, contradicted what Uranus and Neptune had just declared about Usagi's unfitness to be queen, and the nature of the glowing is never explained. Was it purifying the mutinous feelings in Uranus and Neptune's hearts? Did they simply feel overpowered? Was the brooch inconsequential and the whole thing just a front used by Uranus and Neptune as a final test of Usagi's character?
After all of the attention given to the characterization of Haruka and Michiru, it was an incredibly lame and rushed send-off for them and maybe the biggest disappointment of the series for me. If the writers' couldn't find a satisfactory way for Haruka, Michiru, and Usagi to fight and for Usagi to emerge victorious while preserving everyone's character, it should have never happened to begin with.
As if this wasn't enough, the final episode builds up to Chibiusa's tearful, dramatic, very final-feeling departure back to her own time only for her to return a couple of minutes after her final scene. What makes this especially bad is that the explanation for her needing to return in the first place is that Queen Serenity misses her, and yet when Chibiusa suddenly returns, it was also apparently by Queen Serenity's wishes, so the writers completely fumble on trying to come up with a consistent explanation for why this is even happening. At best, the episode is just a dumb fakeout of the viewers and a waste of good drama that Chibiusa deserved considering the great strides her character made in S.
On the whole, S was an amazing season and I'm glad that I finally found the resolve to push all of the way through. It was superior to the previous two seasons in every aspect--a more complex, serious, and thematically-driven conflict, better characterization, really interesting direction, more creative combat, incredible humor, and overall a really energetic and inspired production. It really is what you'd expect out of a season of Sailor Moon directed by Ikuhara. I'm taking a break from Sailor Moon for the time being, but I can't help but be excited to continue on to SuperS eventually in spite of the fact that it's apparently an enormous downgrade from S.
Sailor Moon S The Movie: Hearts in Ice
This, however, sucked. It's not just bad by Sailor Moon standards, but it might be one of the most lifeless, cut-and-paste, empty movies I've ever seen. It's not directed by Ikuhara and has zero relation to any of the events of S other than Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto making brief appearances, but that in and of itself doesn't mean that the film is bad. It's bad because it's an hour-long movie with a plot that can be summed up in three sentences:
Evil snow goddess from the Moon blankets the earth in snow. Usagi defeats evil snow goddess. There's a subplot about Luna falling in love with a human astronomy buff who believes in the snow goddess.
Even in the context of the Sailor Moon universe, believing something like this and seeking validation for your beliefs from your cat makes you FUCKING CRAZY.
Every scene in the film is so absolutely rote and barebones in its execution that it's painful to watch. Fight scenes are simply transformation sequences and stock attacks strung together with none of the actual fight choreography that films usually add. The characters don't even interact with each other. Hell, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto don't even exist outside of the fight scenes and might have three lines in the film between them. Luna's subplot is beyond fucking stupid and is an excuse to have a bishounen on screen saying romantic things about outer space. In the final confrontation, Usagi and the villain merely talk past each other and never address what the other is saying, Usagi spouting lines about love and the villain pulling random phrases from the bucket of stock villain lines. All of the other senshi, outer senshi included, go down after one hit. Tuxedo Mask is dressed up as Santa Claus for some reason. They even recycle wholesale the already-dull climax of the Sailor Moon R movie:
Abysmal. Even people watching Sailor Moon who are interested in watching this for completionist reasons should avoid this shit. Barring the SuperS movie being worse, it's the single most terrible thing to come out of the franchise.
Boring fanservice is boring
Chet Rippo
Member
firehawk12
Subete no aware
This reminded me that the movie came out. I remember the trailer being a total nuBSG riff, but the one space battle scene in the movie was basically straight out of the nuBSG playbook. Complete with Starbuck clone and verite space combat.
(The nature of the camera work here makes it impossible to capture any kind of still).
I guess if you're going to "be inspired" by anyone, it might as well be a science fiction show that no one in Japan has probably seen.
---
Meanwhile, Saki finally brings the Kobayashi (yuri) servisu.
I found it cute how they went out of their way to justify not spoiling the main series... it just makes me wish that a sequel to the original series was actually coming.
Looks like Kawamori is taking notes from Toriyama of SE / Horoyuki Yoshino.
please tell me thats not from the movie
DAT EYES
Kill it with fire.
Femmeworth
Banned
Casshern Sins Ep. 7
That was a pretty good episode, very well directed.
Could have been better if the story had been split over two episodes. ~20 minutes just wasn't long enough.
That was a pretty good episode, very well directed.
It was even sexual in a classy way. O_O
DAT EYES
So beautiful.
Hyouka 07:
Being Oreki is suffering. Satoshi doesn't respect his personal space, he gets hard just from seeing Eru in a yukata, and he ultimately ends up Eru and Mayaka's kininarimasu slave even on vacation.
This episode actually had TWO mysteries, but when one of those is "what smells like cheese?" and is solved in thirty seconds, it's hard to care. Dull, dull episode unless you like onsen manservice.
Bordering on Araragi-esque.
Being Oreki is suffering. Satoshi doesn't respect his personal space, he gets hard just from seeing Eru in a yukata, and he ultimately ends up Eru and Mayaka's kininarimasu slave even on vacation.
This episode actually had TWO mysteries, but when one of those is "what smells like cheese?" and is solved in thirty seconds, it's hard to care. Dull, dull episode unless you like onsen manservice.
Ultimadrago
Member
still not seeing why the eyes are anything special in stills
you see better coming from random art
I did like the animated glint though
PdotMichael
Banned
KyoAni - not even once
KyoAni is a better, classier studio now.
Classy sounds like a synonym for boring in this context.
Femmeworth
Banned
dat defined clavicles.Hyouka 7
Remember, Uranus and Neptune had never really acknowledged Usagi's status as leader of the Silver Millenium or even just the sailor soldiers, and weren't entirely convinced that everything ACTUALLY HAD ended happily through the work of Usagi and Chibiusa. That moment you speak of is when Usagi goes "yeah, I really am higher than you. I really do have the power to see things through my way". It's not that they did a sudden 180, it's that they were already undergoing one but felt incredibly split about it and Usagi reaffirming her superiority put them at ease about it all.
It is.
Not really.
Edit: Oh yeah, also
the last episode may be pretty lame, but at least there's a reason for it. The matter of Chibiusa was left unresolved and the resolution for that is "yes, she's sticking around for now".
*undrops*
Hyouka Episode 7
A much better episode than last week. Once again the show proves that when the characters are actually out there engaging in an activity, it feels fun and natural. There is no point making a show around sitting in a room after school discussing nonsense. More of stuff like this please!
A much better episode than last week. Once again the show proves that when the characters are actually out there engaging in an activity, it feels fun and natural. There is no point making a show around sitting in a room after school discussing nonsense. More of stuff like this please!
I never dropped it (Since I never picked it up), but I might watch this one episode.
Dedication Through Light
Member
Hyouka 7
Apart from Chitande messing scenes up
, taking time away from Satoshi and Oreki, I think it was really good. They should have gone to the baths more, as both Satoshi and Oreki were funny. The objects obscuring views was rather creative and kind of funny, though that one was unnecessary, though that entire scene was good. Hilarious recap scene of what went on there and the morning after scene of them both.
Mystery was captivating especially with the visual genjutsus.
Apart from Chitande messing scenes up
Oreki getting overheated for one at her...
Mystery was captivating especially with the visual genjutsus.
Femmeworth
Banned
Only watch one episode? What blasphemy is this?
who was it that suggested 6 particular idolmaster episodes?
must be the new way to watch anime
It's a survival strategy.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Kyou no Go no Ni
Ah yes, all this collarbone talk reminded me of this gag:
Boy Kobayashi would love this episode of Hyouka!
Ah yes, all this collarbone talk reminded me of this gag:
Boy Kobayashi would love this episode of Hyouka!
KyoAni fans get hype! Everyone else abandon ship!
http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/kotenbu/story/09/
"Murder mystery in the abandoned town on the old hill"
Script: Shoji Gatoh
Storyboard/Director: Naoko Yamada (K-On director!)
Animation Director: Chiyoko Ueno
http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/kotenbu/story/09/
"Murder mystery in the abandoned town on the old hill"
Apparently it's a sort of continuation of the next episode, since they're investigating the truth behind the movie they watched at the screening.
Script: Shoji Gatoh
Storyboard/Director: Naoko Yamada (K-On director!)
Animation Director: Chiyoko Ueno
Sure, one of my possible interpretations of the scene was that it was Usagi reaffirming her superiority. If that's the case, I just think that the sense of Uranus and Neptune being overwhelmed by Usagi's "light", "presence", or whatever it was should have been less ambiguously communicated to the viewer if it was indeed a message about Usagi still being able to triumph with her ideals.
Oh boy.
Would you say that the SuperS movie is the worst, or something else?
I'm fine with that resolution, I just wish that they would have gone about it differently. There should have been at least a minute of Chibiusa telling her mother about all of the friends she made in the past and asking if she can go back rather than "she's gone" -> "she's back".
I knew coming back to Hyouka would be a good decision.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
Murder mystery? I'm down!
Only tough call was between Holo and Sengoku. Everything else was pretty easy.
Don't get too excited. This is Hyouka, so the victim is probably going to be a sock puppet, or a scarecrow, or someone's pajamas.
I miss Penguindrum thursdays.
I was actually planning on doing a Penguindrum rewatch at the rate of an episode a week (preferably on thursdays!) starting in summer. Penguindrum Thursdays are the reason I started lurking animegaf last year and I always kind of wanted the opportunity to discuss the series!
It's probably "there's a squished beetle on the bottom of my shoe. Where did it come from?"
Ikuhara? Less ambiguous?
Speaking of which, both Usagi and Utena end up unaware of their own victory.
If not the Supers movie then maybe the PGSM Special Act.
I miss Penguindrum thursdays.
That reminds me, i didnt finish the show.
I could have four more Penguin Drum thursdays
I am my own me!
I would have chosen Nymph but the had to put her against Illya.
Ultimadrago
Member
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