I don't care how many posts back I have to dig, I'm going to recognize more 5cm love whenever I see it, dammit.
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Winter 2012 Anime Thread 2.22: You Can (Not) Outpost Cajunator
- Thread starter Haly
- Start date
- Status
Finally started watching this one...
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas 1-4
Man, I love how fast-paced everything is in comparison to the original series. Sometimes it's actually weird watching events unfold with such haste, haha.
Sasha's just as hawt as Saori, and now there's that other chick... Dayum.
Can't wait to know more about the other Gold Saints (not Shion and Dohko, I mean).
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas 1-4
Man, I love how fast-paced everything is in comparison to the original series. Sometimes it's actually weird watching events unfold with such haste, haha.
Sasha's just as hawt as Saori, and now there's that other chick... Dayum.
Can't wait to know more about the other Gold Saints (not Shion and Dohko, I mean).
PdotMichael
Banned
New Rinne no Lagrange characters:
CV: Megumi Nakajima (Ranka Lee)
Astelia Riesamary De Rochefort - CV: Kanemoto Hisako (Squid Girl)
I was a little disappointed at how short Act 3 was, but I've always liked implications more than statements.
Go read the manga, the third act was much longer in it.
Femmeworth
Banned
Yes? I guess so, if you want to put it that way. Though extend Jexhius' time frame to include 2001 for Fruits Basket and Read or Die. Cajunator is not worthy.
Maybe later. Montage is still in my head.
Is your avvy from Solanin? I found a print copy in Kinokuniya the other day. HAD to buy it. Such a good manga.
Ice Lightning
Member
Code Geass R2
What a ride. Since I completed the sub last month, I figured I would complete the dub too. I am starting to lean towards liking the sub more, even though I will always remember the dub as my introduction to the series (and probably the genre of anime).
Overall I enjoyed the 2D mech-action, the underlying story, and gratuitous amounts of Orange loyalty. The ending is heart wrenching to me,
.
Not sure if spoiler was needed, with debates on story plot and all.
What a ride. Since I completed the sub last month, I figured I would complete the dub too. I am starting to lean towards liking the sub more, even though I will always remember the dub as my introduction to the series (and probably the genre of anime).
Overall I enjoyed the 2D mech-action, the underlying story, and gratuitous amounts of Orange loyalty. The ending is heart wrenching to me,
but I could see how the series could have ended earlier (as was debated in the audio commentaries)
Not sure if spoiler was needed, with debates on story plot and all.
Also, I highly recommend eventually taking a look at this fansite; the guy has a fair bit of 5cm info, including a few trivia bits, a short interview summary, and translations of the first two parts of the official novelization, plus novel/movie comparisons for all three.
http://5cm.lhyeung.net/index.php
And once again, an acoustic performance of "One more time, One more chance" from Masayoshi Yamazaki.
Aside from the above recommendations also check out Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Gundam: The 08th MS Team
Daily Lives of Highschool Boys
Roundcats (By recommendation Natsume and Poyo Poyo)
Ice Lightning
Member
Same here. Waiting for more information on a release date now that NIS America has licensed the series.
Ultimadrago
Member
Fixed to my liking.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
The movies for the original are fine, but the Zeta movies are a horrible replacement for that series. The TV series is obviously the way to go.
Not to mention that the Zeta movies and Cha's Counterattack aren't even in the same continuity.
My way gets you to Char's Counterattack faster which is the superior property.
Crash Station
Member
Highschool DxD 6
Weaboo and a westaboo getting together. Is there anything more beautiful?
Weaboo and a westaboo getting together. Is there anything more beautiful?
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
But it requires watching the shitty Zeta movies instead of the awesome TV series.
If we're just interested in getting to superior stuff as quickly as possible, then just go straight into 0080.
Don't think, just do it, keep going until you're caught up. It's the show of the season.
Dedication Through Light
Member
Sket Dance 32-37
Everyones backstory makes me cry. So emotional. Loved the Quettion Quettion jingle and episode. I want a popman hat.
Shocked I watched 22 episodes since yesterday, so much ad money I must be earning for crunchyroll.
Everyones backstory makes me cry. So emotional. Loved the Quettion Quettion jingle and episode. I want a popman hat.
Shocked I watched 22 episodes since yesterday, so much ad money I must be earning for crunchyroll.
Do it.
Dedication Through Light
Member
If they give Tadakuni and the president more skits, then Id agree.
Moretsu Pirates 6
This show has some nice pieces of background art from time to time, there were a few in this episode like the one above that I really liked. The general environment design, particularly the buildings, is something I find rather pleasing.
Anyway, pirating time! That was a really fun episode. While I liked that they spent some episodes doing build up, introducing the characters, setting up a framework for the show, this episode easily could have come earlier. They surely could have chopped down a bit of the content from the first 5 episodes, and gotten to this sooner but oh well. It's a 2 cour show, I can forgive some plodding, particularly when there's many other aspects of this show that I like. I really like the character designs for the pirate crew, pretty unique honestly, and as a entire crew they sport some pretty solid costumes. They seem like a pretty cool bunch so I'm looking forward to get some more background on them. I'm eager see what other space pirates look like as well.
Also
This show has some nice pieces of background art from time to time, there were a few in this episode like the one above that I really liked. The general environment design, particularly the buildings, is something I find rather pleasing.
Anyway, pirating time! That was a really fun episode. While I liked that they spent some episodes doing build up, introducing the characters, setting up a framework for the show, this episode easily could have come earlier. They surely could have chopped down a bit of the content from the first 5 episodes, and gotten to this sooner but oh well. It's a 2 cour show, I can forgive some plodding, particularly when there's many other aspects of this show that I like. I really like the character designs for the pirate crew, pretty unique honestly, and as a entire crew they sport some pretty solid costumes. They seem like a pretty cool bunch so I'm looking forward to get some more background on them. I'm eager see what other space pirates look like as well.
Also
that sword fight was pretty ace, the whole pirating bit had the right kind of theatrics.
chickdigger802
Banned
Yeah... for some reason Moretsu Pirates 6 makes me wanna go back and finish up Eureka 7. I think I stopped around eps 30... I think I lost interest because of something... Don't remember lol.
Hnngh. I thought the orchestrated piece was bad enough. This is like a spear to my heart.
Natsume S1 9-13
This was pretty good. Last few episodes were still solid and entertaining. Even the final episode ended up being as the best festival themed episode I have seen.
I can't really think of any major complains outside of Sasada not playing a major role outside of one episode. I hate it when she gets ignored.
This was pretty good. Last few episodes were still solid and entertaining. Even the final episode ended up being as the best festival themed episode I have seen.
I can't really think of any major complains outside of Sasada not playing a major role outside of one episode. I hate it when she gets ignored.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
So what's it like not having a soul?
Sailor Nyan is more beautiful.
hahahaha, what the hell.
Don't... rewatch... it. It's aged worse than I thought. I'm going to have to give the movies a try sometime soon though.
chickdigger802
Banned
FMA movie 2
Is it just me... or does the movie look really, REALLY bad? Wikipedia says this is BONES... but.... ewww.
Hair moving has like 2 frames of animation!
Is it just me... or does the movie look really, REALLY bad? Wikipedia says this is BONES... but.... ewww.
Hair moving has like 2 frames of animation!
It's just you.
Hellsing321
Member
Lagrange 6
Space Kotetsu is awesome. I'm liking the where things are heading.
Space Kotetsu is awesome. I'm liking the where things are heading.
i must say mirai nikki has excelled when it comes to "quality" art.
Femmeworth
Banned
Clearly BONES animating it at 1080p
lol yeah right
Dat soundtrack mayn!
His knees are shaking so hard that they ceased to exist. Clearly.
chickdigger802
Banned
mmk slowly growing into FMA movie 2...
the environment visuals are nice... like the look of the ghettos and the animations look great, but the visuals are lacking as a result.
I don't like how they always change the visual style of FMA each movie/show though.
the environment visuals are nice... like the look of the ghettos and the animations look great, but the visuals are lacking as a result.
I don't like how they always change the visual style of FMA each movie/show though.
Hellsing321
Member
Why do people keep using this word in relation to Cowboy Bebop?
To be fair there are certain scenes where the art doesn't gel with CG backgrounds at all.
This statement makes no sense.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
Sailor Moon 44
Episode starts off with a bang, literally with more development than anything thats happened in the last 8 episodes or so combined, with
The series completely glosses over how this big moment actually was discovered but okay whatever, I can already tell they’re going to try to cram a ton of crap into this episode. Completely dig that background track by the way, it sounds like some shoujo ripoff to Eye of the Tiger and it really fit the scene perfectly.
Of course the scene itself couldn’t play out perfectly, you can’t just
The one thing that I haven’t seen in forever has been Kunzite being fabulous. He really is a terrible character on his own, the only reason I’ve actually liked him was because of Jadeite and
. Usagi has had a mean streak developing the past couple of episodes and she tells Kunzite to shove it but you don’t mess with a set of hair like that and get away with it.
All of this happens in less than 3 minutes. And now I feel like I’m playing a certain Final Fantasy game for a whole bunch of reasons.
Okay then. The firehawk12 shoujo serene background track hits and so does a flashback scene of some significant importance.
Okay if anybody is actually reading this post I need some help to make sure I’m actually getting this right so do help me out,
Somebody call my momma, its about to get funky up in here. Cue the battle scenes. Cue the panty shots. Cue the maniacal laughs. Cue the classical music. Cue the god damn roses. And then cue the sad music without a trombone.
The major plot development after thebattle ass kicking don’t really make any sense. Why exactly did the
The stuff that happens after also reminds me of that certain FF game, my head hurts.
Kunzite
Seriously that was garabge.
Honestly there are times when I watch this show that I kind of forget this is really an actual shoujo series. There are times when the show is simply about girls being girls - doing the cute, silly typical things girls of that age do like having interest in boys, gossiping and fighting with one another because they truly care for each other and on the side defeating evil by taking down the youma of the week.
This is not one of those times. This episode is completely in your face with developments. Revelaiton after revelaiton, full of the twists, angst and that over the top emotion that typically composes a shoujo series. This episode is the Justin Tuck to my Tom Brady. I’m flat on my back laid out by the blitz, hit by a sack so hard that I totally didn’t see coming. But there is no safety for me for its only one down and two to go in this finale to the season. That was one hell of an episode. This should be absolutely fun and enjoyable to watch down the stretch.
Though I don't think they could have picked a worse time in the episode to go all Sailor Meguca.
Episode starts off with a bang, literally with more development than anything thats happened in the last 8 episodes or so combined, with
the girls figuring out where the evil lair is.
Of course the scene itself couldn’t play out perfectly, you can’t just
waltz into the enemy’s headquarters without some major setbacks.
their hot yaoi romance
All of this happens in less than 3 minutes. And now I feel like I’m playing a certain Final Fantasy game for a whole bunch of reasons.
The girls are sent to some alternate dimension and into a different timeline. Anyway mega revelaition #1, Usagi is Queen Serenity’s daughter. She sent Luna and Artemis over to watch Usagi and the girls. Told in a pretty nonchalant state of the fact kind of the way.
Okay if anybody is actually reading this post I need some help to make sure I’m actually getting this right so do help me out,
the Sailor Scouts exist to protect the Silver Crystal and to make sure the people of Earth don’t goof up.
Usagi is Sailor Moon who is Princess Serenity of the moon is in love with Mamoru who is Tuxedo Mask who is actually Prince Endyimon of planet Earth. Endyimon unwillingly works as a servant to Beryl who has control over some other evil entity and wants to attack the moon for some unexplained reason. The two embrace and agree to take this on together or something. And something something North Pole, what?
Usagi is Sailor Moon who is Princess Serenity of the moon is in love with Mamoru who is Tuxedo Mask who is actually Prince Endyimon of planet Earth. Endyimon unwillingly works as a servant to Beryl who has control over some other evil entity and wants to attack the moon for some unexplained reason. The two embrace and agree to take this on together or something. And something something North Pole, what?
Somebody call my momma, its about to get funky up in here. Cue the battle scenes. Cue the panty shots. Cue the maniacal laughs. Cue the classical music. Cue the god damn roses. And then cue the sad music without a trombone.
The major plot development after the
Queen have to give up her life to use that power? I don’t mind contrived shit but at least make up some reason for me to try to accept it as anything but stupid. Did enjoy the symbolism though with her dying on the cross.
Kunzite
had the worst death scene in the entire series. Holy crap, that was WEAK. That was like the Jeremy Lin in three weeks from now of death scenes.
Honestly there are times when I watch this show that I kind of forget this is really an actual shoujo series. There are times when the show is simply about girls being girls - doing the cute, silly typical things girls of that age do like having interest in boys, gossiping and fighting with one another because they truly care for each other and on the side defeating evil by taking down the youma of the week.
This is not one of those times. This episode is completely in your face with developments. Revelaiton after revelaiton, full of the twists, angst and that over the top emotion that typically composes a shoujo series. This episode is the Justin Tuck to my Tom Brady. I’m flat on my back laid out by the blitz, hit by a sack so hard that I totally didn’t see coming. But there is no safety for me for its only one down and two to go in this finale to the season. That was one hell of an episode. This should be absolutely fun and enjoyable to watch down the stretch.
Though I don't think they could have picked a worse time in the episode to go all Sailor Meguca.
chickdigger802
Banned
Sorry thinking while typing... or is that the other way around?
Environments
Animation (character movement)
Character faces/body proportions :S
Typographenia
Member
Forgive me if this comes off as too "reviewy" or something. I just needed to break my thoughts up in a way that made sense to me. I definitely won't do this with every post.
I'll be marking things that are spoilery, in case anyone reads this and hasn't seen it before/is inspired to look into it. You can click pictures to see larger versions too, and stuff.
-------------------------
They Were Eleven
Summary
This was an hour and a half movie about a group of individuals that were in the midst of testing for a very rare chance to study in a prestigious university. It takes place hundreds of years in the future, we've encountered other alien races, fought, made peace, and doing some, apparently, crazy tests for school. Of the thousands and thousands that apply, only an elite 700 are allowed through to the finals where they are split up into groups of ten (I'm sure you can see where the title comes in). However, the protagonist we follow, Tada, soon finds that his group has an additional member on board the ship they must survive on for 53 days (a single orbit around a planet). WHO IS IT!? WHY ARE THEY HERE?! WHY WASN'T THIS LONGER THAN AN HOUR AND A HALF?!
Story
From the start, they're trying their absolute best to set the stage as quickly as possible. It's really the biggest short coming of the movie that they didn't have enough time to flesh out the world and the alien races more, especially since we have a few on the ship. There are multiple other species that humans fought when we began space travel, but we eventually made peace with them. Now, the races have established lots of things together, but this one university is the grand-daddy of them all.
The test to enter is only held every three years, and the final test for the groups are to survive on a ship for a designated 53 days. Upon entering the ship, the group realizes there is one extra person from when they left the original craft, but an explosion interrupts their discussion, and they have to quickly contain the situation. Tada seems to know the layout of the ship and how to reach the control room a little too easily, which begins the issues of trusting others that creeps under the skin of the movie, only to flare up in critical situations.
The crew is told, by a recorded message, that they have an emergency button that they can activate at any time, if things get out of their hands. However, pressing the button means that all of them will automatically fail, and they will have to wait another 3 years before they can take the entrance exam again. Additionally, if any one person fails (or expires), they will all fail. If they succeed, every one of them will pass and be accepted. Yikes!
The crew works to keep things working smoothly, explore their new home, and learn more about one another.
I rather enjoyed the premise and progression. It felt almost like Lord of the Flies in space, but never quite took things to that extreme. I think another thirty minutes (or, heck, make it a mini-series) would have been an extreme benefit for the quality of the story-telling overall. We spend so much time with people that the scale of the ship, the slow passing of time, and overall tone tends to be a little incongruous with what they were likely aiming for. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that was the sense I got.
The lack of time is most evident by large jumps in time in a few spots of the movie. It's unfortunate that they didn't get to utilize it (as I'm sure it was more an issue of budgeting) for some slower, quieter moments. The film isn't without them, but they're rather brief punctuations along the more high-risk events that occur much more frequently.
Characters
I quite enjoyed the cast, despite my initial worries. With the titular cast consisting of so many for a short period of time, I figured I would never get to learn much about any one individual, but I was pretty satisfied with the coverage. It was unfortunate that some of the lesser characters were basically ignored in that respect, but it was good that they consistently gave them time on screen. Maybe not as much as Tada (tall blue hair, blue suit), Frol (red shirt, blonde hair), King (long blue hair), or Ganga (brown hair/purple suit), but screen time none-the-less!
Three of the eleven had the most character exploration, but they way they handled many of the group conversations, actions, and other dynamics helped to give you a good idea as to personality and character types of each. Did it really build towards the tone or plot? Eh. Kind of? It varied from situation to situation, but it didn't really detract from the overall experience.
Then again, only having the spotlight briefly highlighting a select few kept tension up of "who could be the eleventh person? What are their motives? Was anyone doing anything odd?" It was pretty nice that they managed to keep it relatively tense through the majority of the film, since that was one of its selling points. I guess my more vain side wishes we could have met everyone to really build up them all and make it difficult to admit that one of them could possibly be up to no good.
Tada, the protagonist, had a rather rushed backstory at the beginning that helped set up that the universe is going to be a little bit magic
. Tada seemed rather boring at the start, but they managed to keep him interesting and likeable enough that I wasn't wishing we had another protagonist, haha.
Frol was interesting from the get-go because of the fiery temper, haha. Everyone was very calm in introducing themselves, but Frol started throwing punches! Frol tended to hang out with Tada, and became the second most examined of the characters. Learning the motivation behind Frol trying out for the test was definitely something I didn't see coming. An enjoyable character, if only for the difference in personality from the rest of the crew.
Ganga and King were both very commanding and take charge characters. King
. Ganga was the more wise, older crew member. There was a contrivance to the character concerning a plot that developed about halfway through, but I let it slip, because there was already quite a lot being asked of me at that point. Both were great at their roles, and definitely entertaining.
The rest of the crew, I don't really know by name, but they were fine. Some of them actually had some nice quips to chime in regularly or say/do something kind of funny. They played well off one another.
Presentation
There's a lot to like and a lot to hate about the visuals here. The characters are varied enough that it's easy to not mix any of the eleven up, much of the technology was rather interesting looking, it had a very strong 80s sci-fi feel to many of the designs, and some of the more distant, introspective shots were really nice. However, the colors ranged from subtle to HEY, I'M AN ORANGE, particularly with outfits. There was a lot of rainbow technology back-lighting when it came to their surroundings, and it was disappointing that such a large ship was restrained to about four or five locations that got reused constantly. I understand wanting to maintain a sense of place in all of this, but it was a little disappointing that the overall scale was lost.
The animation was about average to good range for the most part. It was good to see some of the more tone focused and more exciting scenes were paid special attention to. Even if it's extremely easy to do, the elevator scenes had a great feel to them, and were some of the best shots in the movie.
The character designs, while varied, felt a little "bleh" for a couple of them. Maybe it's just a matter of my own personal tastes, but I felt two or three could have benefited from hitting the drawing board one or two more times before being finalized.
Final Thoughts
This was a thoroughly enjoyable film, but it could have really used some extra time to develop. A few of the plot points felt rushed, some of the actions later on seem a little nonsensical because we never got to have a great build up of characters wearing on each other, both good and bad. Some of it comes off as contrived, in order to keep from losing its pace, but it's good they left some things up to the audience rather than spelling everything out.
They bring up quite a bit of jargon, but that's it. They tended to just momentarily mention something and not worry about it again afterwards. The only exceptions ended up being heavily tied to the plot, so it wasn't a serious issue, but it hinted towards greater ambitions with the project than they got to follow through with.
One major point involving Frol and another crewmate (forget the name) felt really shoe-horned and handled poorly towards the end. MAJOR SPOILER:
Oddly enough, the one scene I felt was most out of place was the most light-hearted one. Maybe it was due to the nature of the mood breaking, but it was when the crew broke out into a food fight. It just felt like if they were going to do it, they should have moved it to another place somewhat early, early on, but it didn't ruin the movie. Just a somewhat odd choice, in my opinion.
I liked the setting, and I think there is some serious promise if someone were to take another whack at it. Still, the product currently available is certainly worthy of the hour and a half it asks of you. It's probably not something I could watch regularly, but I think it's something I will be revisiting in the future from time to time.
fake edit: Oh geez, how did this post get so long?! Sorry in advance, haha.
real edit: Oh, God, why the top of the page?! I spent way too long writing this...
I'll be marking things that are spoilery, in case anyone reads this and hasn't seen it before/is inspired to look into it. You can click pictures to see larger versions too, and stuff.
-------------------------
They Were Eleven
Summary
This was an hour and a half movie about a group of individuals that were in the midst of testing for a very rare chance to study in a prestigious university. It takes place hundreds of years in the future, we've encountered other alien races, fought, made peace, and doing some, apparently, crazy tests for school. Of the thousands and thousands that apply, only an elite 700 are allowed through to the finals where they are split up into groups of ten (I'm sure you can see where the title comes in). However, the protagonist we follow, Tada, soon finds that his group has an additional member on board the ship they must survive on for 53 days (a single orbit around a planet). WHO IS IT!? WHY ARE THEY HERE?! WHY WASN'T THIS LONGER THAN AN HOUR AND A HALF?!
Story
From the start, they're trying their absolute best to set the stage as quickly as possible. It's really the biggest short coming of the movie that they didn't have enough time to flesh out the world and the alien races more, especially since we have a few on the ship. There are multiple other species that humans fought when we began space travel, but we eventually made peace with them. Now, the races have established lots of things together, but this one university is the grand-daddy of them all.
The test to enter is only held every three years, and the final test for the groups are to survive on a ship for a designated 53 days. Upon entering the ship, the group realizes there is one extra person from when they left the original craft, but an explosion interrupts their discussion, and they have to quickly contain the situation. Tada seems to know the layout of the ship and how to reach the control room a little too easily, which begins the issues of trusting others that creeps under the skin of the movie, only to flare up in critical situations.
The crew is told, by a recorded message, that they have an emergency button that they can activate at any time, if things get out of their hands. However, pressing the button means that all of them will automatically fail, and they will have to wait another 3 years before they can take the entrance exam again. Additionally, if any one person fails (or expires), they will all fail. If they succeed, every one of them will pass and be accepted. Yikes!
The crew works to keep things working smoothly, explore their new home, and learn more about one another.
The ship was, apparently, once a fully operational vessel that could hold over 600 families, but there are strange signs aboard that hint towards a potentially tragic past. As time passes, strange things keep happening that points blame at Tada, and he wonders what is wrong with him, as names and locations keep bringing a sense of deja vu (beyond his intuition) to him that breaks out a cold sweat.
Things come to a head when a strange series of "conductor vines" that the crew discovers early on begin to grow more rapidly as a result of their being knocked slightly out of orbit by the initial explosions when they arrived. Tada discovers a terrible secret the vines hold, and it becomes a frantic race against time to survive both the threat they hold and the growing hostilities of the crew.
Things come to a head when a strange series of "conductor vines" that the crew discovers early on begin to grow more rapidly as a result of their being knocked slightly out of orbit by the initial explosions when they arrived. Tada discovers a terrible secret the vines hold, and it becomes a frantic race against time to survive both the threat they hold and the growing hostilities of the crew.
I rather enjoyed the premise and progression. It felt almost like Lord of the Flies in space, but never quite took things to that extreme. I think another thirty minutes (or, heck, make it a mini-series) would have been an extreme benefit for the quality of the story-telling overall. We spend so much time with people that the scale of the ship, the slow passing of time, and overall tone tends to be a little incongruous with what they were likely aiming for. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that was the sense I got.
The lack of time is most evident by large jumps in time in a few spots of the movie. It's unfortunate that they didn't get to utilize it (as I'm sure it was more an issue of budgeting) for some slower, quieter moments. The film isn't without them, but they're rather brief punctuations along the more high-risk events that occur much more frequently.
Characters
I quite enjoyed the cast, despite my initial worries. With the titular cast consisting of so many for a short period of time, I figured I would never get to learn much about any one individual, but I was pretty satisfied with the coverage. It was unfortunate that some of the lesser characters were basically ignored in that respect, but it was good that they consistently gave them time on screen. Maybe not as much as Tada (tall blue hair, blue suit), Frol (red shirt, blonde hair), King (long blue hair), or Ganga (brown hair/purple suit), but screen time none-the-less!
Three of the eleven had the most character exploration, but they way they handled many of the group conversations, actions, and other dynamics helped to give you a good idea as to personality and character types of each. Did it really build towards the tone or plot? Eh. Kind of? It varied from situation to situation, but it didn't really detract from the overall experience.
Then again, only having the spotlight briefly highlighting a select few kept tension up of "who could be the eleventh person? What are their motives? Was anyone doing anything odd?" It was pretty nice that they managed to keep it relatively tense through the majority of the film, since that was one of its selling points. I guess my more vain side wishes we could have met everyone to really build up them all and make it difficult to admit that one of them could possibly be up to no good.
Tada, the protagonist, had a rather rushed backstory at the beginning that helped set up that the universe is going to be a little bit magic
(he has intuition/telepathy that he developed with his village leader)
Frol was interesting from the get-go because of the fiery temper, haha. Everyone was very calm in introducing themselves, but Frol started throwing punches! Frol tended to hang out with Tada, and became the second most examined of the characters. Learning the motivation behind Frol trying out for the test was definitely something I didn't see coming. An enjoyable character, if only for the difference in personality from the rest of the crew.
Ganga and King were both very commanding and take charge characters. King
started throwing orders out from the get-go, and certainly had an air of a leader to him. Makes sense, seeing as King literally just became a King! Constantly suspecting and accusing people seemed to be the key to King's character, but they kept it from being full blown paranoia, which was nice
The rest of the crew, I don't really know by name, but they were fine. Some of them actually had some nice quips to chime in regularly or say/do something kind of funny. They played well off one another.
Presentation
There's a lot to like and a lot to hate about the visuals here. The characters are varied enough that it's easy to not mix any of the eleven up, much of the technology was rather interesting looking, it had a very strong 80s sci-fi feel to many of the designs, and some of the more distant, introspective shots were really nice. However, the colors ranged from subtle to HEY, I'M AN ORANGE, particularly with outfits. There was a lot of rainbow technology back-lighting when it came to their surroundings, and it was disappointing that such a large ship was restrained to about four or five locations that got reused constantly. I understand wanting to maintain a sense of place in all of this, but it was a little disappointing that the overall scale was lost.
The animation was about average to good range for the most part. It was good to see some of the more tone focused and more exciting scenes were paid special attention to. Even if it's extremely easy to do, the elevator scenes had a great feel to them, and were some of the best shots in the movie.
The character designs, while varied, felt a little "bleh" for a couple of them. Maybe it's just a matter of my own personal tastes, but I felt two or three could have benefited from hitting the drawing board one or two more times before being finalized.
Final Thoughts
This was a thoroughly enjoyable film, but it could have really used some extra time to develop. A few of the plot points felt rushed, some of the actions later on seem a little nonsensical because we never got to have a great build up of characters wearing on each other, both good and bad. Some of it comes off as contrived, in order to keep from losing its pace, but it's good they left some things up to the audience rather than spelling everything out.
They bring up quite a bit of jargon, but that's it. They tended to just momentarily mention something and not worry about it again afterwards. The only exceptions ended up being heavily tied to the plot, so it wasn't a serious issue, but it hinted towards greater ambitions with the project than they got to follow through with.
One major point involving Frol and another crewmate (forget the name) felt really shoe-horned and handled poorly towards the end. MAJOR SPOILER:
Frol turns out to be a hermaphrodite (as was another crewmate previously before becoming male), and will be granted the chance to become a male upon completion of the test. On Frol's planet, everyone is born genderless, and only the first born is allowed to be male. The males are allowed to marry many, many wives, and the wives do all the work. In order to escape being married off to a neighbor with 8 wives and is 18 years older, Frol wishes to become a male by proving the qualities through the test. However, when things seem dire towards the end, Tada suggests becoming a female, moving to his planet, and they marry. Frol accepts, but later on we learn that Frol still has the chance to become male after all. Tada breaks the news to Frol, but Frol says that she will become a woman if that's what Tada still wants. It made me angry at first, since the entire purpose for Frol's hard work was to become male but throws it away because of Tada's suggestion. However, due to the rushed nature of the movie, I realized later that they had essentially spent two months together over the course of the film, and it is entirely possible that these types of feelings had developed between the two of them. Again, this feels like a flaw with film runtime more than anything. It just came off pretty poorly, but I felt somewhat better afterwards about it. Well, you know, other than the many years Frol had been alive before these events driving that desire to become male. The whole thing about gender roles and inequality just felt really weakly handled. It could have worked just as well without it, since they didn't have the time to make it work well. I don't know.
Oddly enough, the one scene I felt was most out of place was the most light-hearted one. Maybe it was due to the nature of the mood breaking, but it was when the crew broke out into a food fight. It just felt like if they were going to do it, they should have moved it to another place somewhat early, early on, but it didn't ruin the movie. Just a somewhat odd choice, in my opinion.
I liked the setting, and I think there is some serious promise if someone were to take another whack at it. Still, the product currently available is certainly worthy of the hour and a half it asks of you. It's probably not something I could watch regularly, but I think it's something I will be revisiting in the future from time to time.
fake edit: Oh geez, how did this post get so long?! Sorry in advance, haha.
real edit: Oh, God, why the top of the page?! I spent way too long writing this...
Typographenia
Member
I just tend to see really short posts in here most commonly. Good! Glad to know I won't be shamed out of the thread on my first day!
Give it a week... mwahahahaha!
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