Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

[SteelPlatedHeart]

The final episodes were a goddamn mess. They were condensing an entire season's worth of plot and details/world-building into a pinch of episodes, some plot-points came out of nowhere because of lack of proper build-up, and of course the "emotional hits" at the halfway point were so contrived because of how quickly it got resolved in the next episode/episode-and-a-half, as well as the "you can save her" bullshit which started the entire mess of the endgame because heaven forbid you can kill a character off for reals. I can put up with a genre shift if done well, but Charlotte is a perfect example of how not to do it. Apparently the Japanese viewers were outraged over it, but I can't find the source to prove it.

Angel Beats! gets a pass at times because people cried and it was coming off the heels of the CLANNAD/Little Busters! anime adaptations, but that was apparently meant to be a two-cour before they slashed it in half mid-production. It's why it felt rushed and underdeveloped, and supposedly the visual novel's going to fix that.

Shame Angel Beats got cut in half the way it did. I would have definitely watched a full long season of it.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Maybe I’m just not aware so forgive me for not being it, but does anyone notice that Princess Mononoke is being brought back to life, attention wise? I see more people telling others to watch it now all of a sudden.

 

[sasazuka]

Maybe I’m just not aware so forgive me for not being it, but does anyone notice that Princess Mononoke is being brought back to life, attention wise? I see more people telling others to watch it now all of a sudden.

GKids gave Princess Mononoke and several other Studio Ghibli movies a limited theatrical re-release last year as part of their Ghiblifest and then recently released it on Blu-Ray and digital.

 

[A single cheeto]

GKids gave Princess Mononoke and several other Studio Ghibli movies a limited theatrical re-release last year as part of their Ghiblifest and then recently released it on Blu-Ray and digital.

GhibliFest was fun! I got to see Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro that way.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Recently got into an older title from Karou Shintani, the creator of Area 88 and various other titles, Desert Rose. It's an action series with a sort of shoujo aesthetic for a seinen series, an interesting meld. It's sort of obscure but there are people who do enjoy it and recommend it.

What it's about is an all-female mercenary counterterrorism group, led by Marie Rosebank, who became committed to taking on terrorists after the loss of her husband and son in an airport bombing, leaving her with a rose-shaped scar on her chest - in particular she keeps her eyes out for Gryphon, the mastermind behind it. In the 1990s there was a one-shot OVA because it was that time period when all sorts of series had animated adaptions that were for in more than on case just one shot.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8V4yS4ldURk

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I watched the OVA in 2016 and loved it, I’ve only dipped my toe into the manga but would like to read more.

It reminds a bit of Gunsmith Cats and as a matter of fact there is a doujin crossover between the two.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The final episodes were a goddamn mess. They were condensing an entire season's worth of plot and details/world-building into a pinch of episodes, some plot-points came out of nowhere because of lack of proper build-up, and of course the "emotional hits" at the halfway point were so contrived because of how quickly it got resolved in the next episode/episode-and-a-half, as well as the "you can save her" bullshit which started the entire mess of the endgame because heaven forbid you can kill a character off for reals. I can put up with a genre shift if done well, but Charlotte is a perfect example of how not to do it. Apparently the Japanese viewers were outraged over it, but I can't find the source to prove it.

Angel Beats! gets a pass at times because people cried and it was coming off the heels of the CLANNAD/Little Busters! anime adaptations, but that was apparently meant to be a two-cour before they slashed it in half mid-production. It's why it felt rushed and underdeveloped, and supposedly the visual novel's going to fix that.

I think Charlotte had potential to be good, It fell into the trap of being 1.5 season length show being crammed into a single season. Darling in the Franxx felt to me like the opposite case where it would have been far better condensced into a single season than being padded as hell to fit 2 seasons. In general, it's a death sentence for VN-style/based games to be a single season.

 

[sasazuka]

I saw Kiki's Delivery Service during Ghiblifest. I wanted to see the others but I didn't have that much money to see movies last summer and I think some of them played in the morning.

I think I have every one that played at last year's Ghiblifest on DVD and/or Blu-Ray already except for The Cat's Return which I don't think I've ever gotten around to seeing. Not that it's the same experience as watching them on the big screen although I did already see Princess Mononoke at the cinema way back in 1999.

 

[Moguro Fukuzou]

Darling in the Franxx felt to me like the opposite case where it would have been far better condensced into a single season than being padded as hell to fit 2 seasons.

God, I'm still so upset about how shit Darling ended up being, the only good parts of the later half were when it focused on Hiro and 02. I remember keeping up with the threads on /a/, a great time of shitposting and fanmade content ala other series like psycho-pass, and the amount of rage that came out of that garbage ending was something else. Most people could start to see the writing on the walls in the last couple of episodes as soon as the fucking aliens showed up, but that final episode made it even worse.

It's also really funny that, fairly early on when shit started getting weird, reddit of all places made the proper call that if the show ended up bad all the trigger fanboys would claim it was A-1 pictures/cloverworks fault while if it turned out good only trigger would get praised. Saw the exact thing happen once the ending dropped even though the last 1/3 ~ 1/4 of the shows story stunk of trigger. Darling was also where my feelings really soured towards Trigger, after just coming off of LWA which I really enjoyed even with its flaws (I also enjoyed Kizanaiver despite Mari Okada drama and Luluco/Inferno Cop were fun shorts). I don't know, Trigger likes to rip off things from other media and hide behind it "just being a homage" when people point it out how blatant it is. Masami Obari, a man who loves to see his works referenced in other shows, expressed upset about Trigger just ripping off one of his transformation sequences as a "homage" in Gridman along with all the other references made without ever consulting him. The Kill la Kill ending is also just straight up taken from Kamen Rider OOO, no matter how much Trigger fans say it's just a homage it leaves a bad taste since I love the latter.

I saw Kiki's Delivery Service during Ghiblifest. I wanted to see the others but I didn't have that much money to see movies last summer and I think some of them played in the morning.

I think I have every one that played at last year's Ghiblifest on DVD and/or Blu-Ray already except for The Cat's Return which I don't think I've ever gotten around to seeing. Not that it's the same experience as watching them on the big screen although I did already see Princess Mononoke at the cinema way back in 1999.

I have to actually get back into collecting the Ghibli films I like, only have castle in the sky on blu-ray and princess mononoke on dvd, given their popularity most are pretty easy to find in stores. Especially need to grab Whispers of the Heart since it's one of my favorites.

 

[Atatata]

I didn't watch any of the Ghibli movies, unfortunately, but I did manage to watch a couple of the Satoshi Kon flicks they were showing a while back. Perfect Blue was amazing to watch in theaters.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

God, I'm still so upset about how shit Darling ended up being, the only good parts of the later half were when it focused on Hiro and 02. I remember keeping up with the threads on /a/, a great time of shitposting and fanmade content ala other series like psycho-pass, and the amount of rage that came out of that garbage ending was something else. Most people could start to see the writing on the walls in the last couple of episodes as soon as the fucking aliens showed up, but that final episode made it even worse.

It's also really funny that, fairly early on when shit started getting weird, reddit of all places made the proper call that if the show ended up bad all the trigger fanboys would claim it was A-1 pictures/cloverworks fault while if it turned out good only trigger would get praised. Saw the exact thing happen once the ending dropped even though the last 1/3 ~ 1/4 of the shows story stunk of trigger. Darling was also where my feelings really soured towards Trigger, after just coming off of LWA which I really enjoyed even with its flaws (I also enjoyed Kizanaiver despite Mari Okada drama and Luluco/Inferno Cop were fun shorts). I don't know, Trigger likes to rip off things from other media and hide behind it "just being a homage" when people point it out how blatant it is. Masami Obari, a man who loves to see his works referenced in other shows, expressed upset about Trigger just ripping off one of his transformation sequences as a "homage" in Gridman along with all the other references made without ever consulting him. The Kill la Kill ending is also just straight up taken from Kamen Rider OOO, no matter how much Trigger fans say it's just a homage it leaves a bad taste since I love the latter.

If we're being frank here, Darling would have sucked if either Trigger or A1/CloverWorks did the show solo. Trigger just operates on the "rule of cool shit" methedology regardless of whether or not it works, while A-1's the literal embodiment of mediocrity 9 times out of 10 in terms of both story and visuals. So putting two studios with two different ideals together on one show pretty much made it dead in the water on the get go.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

If we're being frank here, Darling would have sucked if either Trigger or A1/CloverWorks did the show solo. Trigger just operates on the "rule of cool shit" methedology regardless of whether or not it works, while A-1's the literal embodiment of mediocrity 9 times out of 10 in terms of both story and visuals. So putting two studios with two different ideals together on one show pretty much made it dead in the water on the get go.

A-1's biggest sin is that no one who worked on Space Brothers was involved with Darling.

 

[Pinot Pierrot]

I really wish Madokami is still as active as it used to be, after all the trouble I went through to make an account.

Colorless is a manga about the world after a massive solar flare gave it a good reaming, taking away all the databases and (more importantly) all coloration with it. That's right, Earth is a black and white world now. Humanity has also been irrevocably changed, their faces having developed primordial fish/lizard characteristics. They try to live their lives as best they can, but alas, it can never be like it once was.

However, this gave rise to special "colored" elements that possess more untapped power than any technology that existed in the glory days, which is why a cult is bent on accumulating as much as possible for their nefarious ends. The only one who can stop them is a PI with a grudge, and a young girl who has somehow evaded mutation 300 years after the cataclysm.

Spoiler: Chapters 1

 

[XYZpdq]

I skipped the ghibli stuff because Fathom movies look like some dogshit 480p streaming video.

 

[sasazuka]

The Kiki's Delivery Service screening I went to wasn't as sharp as a first-run screening but it seemed to be the same quality as regular Blu-Ray, almost as though they were playing a Blu-Ray (although I guess it was from a hard drive instead of an optical disc).

 

[XYZpdq]

The Kiki's Delivery Service screening I went to wasn't as sharp as a first-run screening but it seemed to be the same quality as regular Blu-Ray, almost as though they were playing a Blu-Ray (although I guess it was from a hard drive instead of an optical disc).

Interesting. I've caught Mazinger and the Gundam stuff they've run and it was very noticeably below 720, like Char's Counterattack has some amazingly weird faces on background characters and you couldn't make many of them out at all in the theater.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I just watched the first episode of the new Netflix Ghost in the Shell 2045 series... and it breaks my heart to say this, but they fucked it up.

The setting is some crude post-apocalyptic nonsense where students become terrorist warlords due to their pre-apocalypse student loans, even though the apocalypse fucked up banking making their debts null and void, currency and cryptocurrency has become worthless, yet we see people trade with regular money and a hacker is trying to get steal some cryptoshekels. I don't even. All of this is really weird and doesn't make much sense. SAC had very strong worldbuilding and this new show feel so slapdash and stupid.
But that's not even the worst part...

The animation is absolute garbage. The character models look like PS2-era cutscene models when static, but in motion, it looks even worse. They barely move their mouth when talking, let alone the rest of the face. I am a huge fan of GitS... but this... looks like they fucking blew it. Production IG used to be the gold standard of awesome animation, now we get this.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Interesting. I've caught Mazinger and the Gundam stuff they've run and it was very noticeably below 720, like Char's Counterattack has some amazingly weird faces on background characters and you couldn't make many of them out at all in the theater.

I wish that all anime shown in theaters could look as good as Belladonna of Sadness (I can speak from experience)... but evidently Fathom has to step up their game.

 

[sasazuka]

Interesting. I've caught Mazinger and the Gundam stuff they've run and it was very noticeably below 720, like Char's Counterattack has some amazingly weird faces on background characters and you couldn't make many of them out at all in the theater.

I'd seen worse at the same cinema, like the Wayne's World 25th anniversary screening I went to a few years ago which did look kind of like an upscaled DVD.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

The animation is absolute garbage. The character models look like PS2-era cutscene models when static, but in motion, it looks even worse. They barely move their mouth when talking, let alone the rest of the face. I am a huge fan of GitS... but this... looks like they fucking blew it. Production IG used to be the gold standard of awesome animation, now we get this.

I think the real problem here with the animation is Sola Digital Arts, the studio who actually animated this series for I.G. All of their work looks like a trashfire that it astounds me why I.G even hired them in the first place.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I think the real problem here with the animation is Sola Digital Arts, the studio who actually animated this series for I.G. All of their work looks like a trashfire that it astounds me why I.G even hired them in the first place.

Wouldn't surprise me if Netflix made that part of the deal in exchange for funding... I'll give this show another try I guess, but if the second episode doesn't blow me away, I'll just wait for the next iteration.

Edit:
So I looked up Sola Digital... Yeah, looking at this cover gives me infinite confidence in their skills.

And they also pissed over Appleseed, too. Goody, I get a 2 for 1 deal out of this studio...