The Anime Thread

[OCH]

Normally Netflix releases show in full. I'm pretty sure Castlevania was the same. I'd have thought they only screen a show when the season is finished. So there's no reason to think otherwise of JoJo.

 

Book 1 of Golden Wind just arrived last week. I haven't even opened it yet. Doubtless Stone Ocean is a fair bit ahead of me. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well there is a good reason to think it cause of covid and the seasons are typically 40 episodes versus whatever Castlevania is, but anyway I hope it's a big batch if I do decide to watch it. I think watching weekly is another reason I got bored of part 4, weekly is a terrible way to watch any show imo. Just obliterates my interest when nothing happens for weeks on end.

[Maryokutai]

2 hours ago, OCH said:

Normally Netflix releases show in full.

 

Yes and no. A lot of their animated shows get "full" seasons but those are sometimes only around 6 episodes long, so it's basically them splitting up multiple seasons to drip-feed the content and make it look like more than there actually is. Voltron in particular had a very rough middle section with three seasons of 6 episodes each. So it ended up with a whopping 8 seasons, but "only" 78 episodes in total.

[DisturbedSwan]

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Damn, I just found out that the subtitled version of Evangelion 4.0 releases tomorrow on amazon, this seems like a particularly good way to check anime on an OLED.

 

I really haven't been a big fan of the new Eva movies, they've been kinda dumb. None of these films can touch End of Eva (which ended the first series). But will be nice to finally draw a line under this Rebuild series. It's been going on since 2007 and got delayed cause the director went and did Shin Godzilla.

[Maryokutai]

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Anime thread bump, last night I watched the first 2 Rebuild of Evangelion films again. Reason being is I've tried maybe 3 or 4 times to watch the beginning of '3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a time', which is the extremely normal name for the 4th film in this series. But I don't understand what is going on at all so I bit the bullet and started a proper rewatch as all of them are on amazon now.

 

I've never really enjoyed the Rebuild series because I can't really tell what it's going for. 1.0 (which is called 'You are (Not) Alone' is a film I've seen once before but because I've rewatched the TV series so many times I already know every scene extremely well to the point I could probably say the character's lines before they do. It's just a redundant and too fast paced retelling of the first 8 episodes of the TV show. It's not a bad version of those 8 episodes tho, but it's worse which is the problem. Still good but worse.

 

2.0 is when it gets good, that one is called 'You Can (Not) Advance'. Don't know why it's called that, but it's when they change the story and do different things. Some things are kept the same or changed slightly, or contain slight visual references to later material from the original run. Like when Shinji's Eva 

Spoiler

is strangling Asuka's Angel-Eva, which is paying 'homage' to the scene(s) from End of Eva where Shinji strangles Asuka herself

 

It sort of heads into weird territory by the end though where the ending is really weird and a character says a bunch of babbly nonsense to justify the direction things be headed in. Which isn't out of sorts for Eva, but it's particularly rushed here I think. But I like the second movie, I think it's not as good as End of Evangelion which is maybe my favorite anime ending ever though for how bleak shit gets. But it feels like an extremely long episode from the original TV series, with some exceptions like how the Evas basically have a devil trigger mode that pilots can turn on when they want. But there's a good enough amount of stuff which is familiar but also new, unfortunately the next film is just a complete departure to the point it's hard to recognise as having anything to do with the story they were trying to tell up to now

 

So I guess at some point then I make time to watch a double bill of 3.0 You can (Not) Redo and the other one with the even sillier name. I really did not like 3.0 when I saw it first tho, just seemed to change track entirely which is where I fall out with the rebuild series. It feels too much like they change direction multiple times. Perhaps a prelude of where things will go with FFVII Remake once they change their mind over and over with what they want to do with those games. Hopefully that gets to the point in less than a decade tho, because these movies have been going on for 14 years and it's hard to follow a story like that that has such massive breaks in between

 

Another reason I'm glad I didn't bother getting into Berserk until it was 'over'

[one-armed dwarf]

I wanted to just edit this on the last post, but unfortunately the site has an issue where that doesn't work. Sorry. I just copy pasted it on here.

 

----

 

I watched the other two just now, no point in making a second post about it cause there's just not a whole lot to say. Visually they are excellent but introduce a new idea or plot concept every 5 minutes and are basically the narrative equivalent of being trapped in quicksand. Cause the more you struggle to get something out of it the more swamped you become. That's a terrible analogy, but there's just so little to connect to. It's just too incoherent and the characters get drowned in seizure inducing visuals and inscrutable plot delivered via multiple deus ex machinas (literally)

 

Except for one exception, the final 20 minutes of the last film are pretty neat cause they do the thing where they put a spotlight on the inner lives of characters. But that's 20 neat minutes out of 4 hours of perfectly skippable nonsense. So the long journey complete, finally able to conclusively say that Rebuild of Evangelion sucks. It only took 14 years to be able to say it.

 

But eh, whatever. I will probably watch Shin Godzilla next cause I hear that is basically an Eva film with a big dinosaur. Very happy to be finished with these films tho and no longer be pondering the possibility if it would ever turn into something other than what it ended up being

[one-armed dwarf]

This is cool

 

[OCH]

On 08/08/2021 at 14:05, OCH said:

Book 1 of Golden Wind just arrived last week. I haven't even opened it yet.

Still...

 

Meanwhile, these turned up last week:

 

 

Junji Ito's latest release. We're back to Cosmic Horror. There are vague similarities to his previous cosmic work Remina. Except this one is about ...volcano hair, and Christianity, and psychic eyes. Anyway, one of his smaller volumes and it does give enough context in the right places, to not be one of his more frustrating ones. 7/10. 

 

 

This Monster Association Arc, started in volume 15 with a kidnapping. Fast forward to volume 23 and although the arc is still ongoing. The hostage has just been rescued... 🤷‍♂️

The glacial pacing of this one is becoming offputting. The fact that the previous arc to this one, the Hero hunter, is also ongoing... The plus and increasing minus of this series, is that it is a very quick read. Action heavy, dialogue light. But there is a point wherein pretty pictures isn't enough. This arc is just spinning it's wheels and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. 5/10 

 

[Jimboxy]

I'm fully up to date with OPM and once I got there it felt very anticlimactic. I still like it, but I think I need to pop it back in the oven for a few years. The story is snails pace

[OCH]

Berserk had hiatus' that lasted years and still had better pacing than OPM. I just don't understand why this arc has been dragged out for nearly ten volumes? Other than as a prolonged pitch for the other Heroes to get their own spin-offs??

[Maf]

A new 45 second trailer for the Dragon Ball movie. Really not much to see here other than a closer look at the new animation style…kind of looks like the cutscenes from a bad Xbox 360 version of Dragon Ball. When there’s fast movement it looks like regular Dragon Ball. Slow shots make the 3D character models not look great.

 

Also news that Korrin is back, Piccolo, you could infer, is going to play an important role considering how much they’ve shown him off. Also Pan is going Super Saiyan or something?

 

Apparently Broly is in the movie as well. I saw one shot where he has red hair like the God form. But I can’t find that anywhere officially so might be garbage.

 

The only question really is…will there be UI Goku? 
 

Best Goku 😁

[Maryokutai]

I think it's less the animations but more the shadowing that throws me off. It has this weird effect with gradiants among surfaces and skins that looks like some of those cheaply coloured fanarts. Just pause and look at the last short of Piccolo for example. I think they should emulate the hand-drawn look here and go for clean lines for shadows, like it's always been done for manga and anime: 

 

 

[Snaggletooth]

Yeah, not a fan of the cg but not a deal breaker, certainly dont get the impression its going to be much of an advancement

in term of story from the end of Super to start of the hopefully forthcoming Moro arc.

But I may be wrong.

[Maf]

I think @Maryokutai is right about the shading and line art and such. Also it's just weird when the camera pans a little and you see the characters have depth to them. It's the same problem (although not as bad) as what DBZ: Kakarot had. The characters look good head on but you also get lots of angles where it looks wrong. 

 

Looks good 

 

 

Looks not as good

 

The movie isn't looking as drastic as this but the scene with the characters in the car for example reminds me of it.

[mmmark]

 

[Maf]

Trailer 2

 

 

My Japanese is a bit rusty but I’m thinking the RRB have made an Android and convinced it that Goku and pals are evil and it is a superhero. 

 

This is post ToP Goku how can Earth create anything that can fight him at this point 😐

 

HE BEAT THE STRONGEST MORTAL IN THE MULTIVERSE 

 

lol

[DANGERMAN]

@Mafthe android is Knuckles?

[OCH]

I mean the trailer alludes to Gohan being in the starring role. I've missed ..a bit, of Dragonball since Z. But isn't Gohan still supposed to be the strongest in the series?