To me, that’s not what the show is about at all and the bad guys are more a means of commenting on the nature of the society (compared to something like Criminal Minds), but I can see where you are coming from.
Yeah, I liked the cut of their jib, but I just couldn’t get over the gratuitous murders and the way that there was at least one character who was like, “Whoa, look at this… it’s art, man” But it’s been a while I could be making that completely up, lol
There was definitely some messed up stuff. And while I had heard people complaining about how bloody the second season was, to me the most violent thing in the whole series was watching this one poor woman getting the crap kicked out of her in the middle of a crowd of people. The idea was supposedly that violence had become such a foreign concept to people in that society that they didn’t understand what was happening. That was absolutely brutal to watch.
I’ve started watching Eureka: Astral Ocean. So far it’s better than the original by far, because there’s no Renton in it.
More grounded, at least in terms of sentiments invoked, than either of those. Basically a home invasion conducted by a sociopath with unstoppable superpowers who causes an extremely disturbing death scene (not that the others in the same home invasion aren’t disturbing, but one is exceptionally so).
Oh anime, never change. :|
I finally finished off the New Game! series. The first twelve episodes were great; the second set of twelve, decent.
If you like slice-of-life and cutesy workplace humor, it’s worth a watch.
Funimation announced yesterday that they have acquired the rights to 2199. Funimation will be streaming the English dub (star Blazers 2199) with no word yet on a Japanese version.
Huge news for any Yamato/Star Blazers fans out there. I’d given up on this ever happening. Hopefully it won’t take so long for 2202 (which is part way through the theatrical releases at this point).
Awesome news! It looks like they are releasing one episode a week (Simuldub), so I guess I will be keeping my Funimation sub a while longer. Now I wish they would come out with more Gatchaman, my other childhood favorite (though I would prefer something like the mid-90’s OVAs rather than the Battle of the Planets sanitized version we got way back when).
Funny you should mention that. So, I’m watching Eureka: Ao and there’s this scene where the gekko is plunging through the atmosphere toward the earth, more or less bathed in fire. It totally looked just like the fiery Phoenix.
I need some advice, hivemind. I’ve been asked for some anime movie recommendations. Not full series, and not movies that make no sense unless you’ve seen some TV series first. Most of my anime knowledge is in TV series; I don’t really know much about movies beyond Akira and Grave of the Fireflies. No strongly preferred genre, but probably nothing high on the scary/disturbing scale, and I doubt an all-about-the-fighting storyline would go over well. Any thoughts?
Princess Mononoke is the best anime movie ever made imo.
I mean, generally the recommendations for that are just to pick your favorite Ghibli’s (e.g. Mononoke or Spirited Away), or maybe Satoshi Kon (e.g. Paprika, Millennium Actress).
I saw Your Name on the big screen earlier this year and thought it was excellent.
In addition to the above.
Redline is fun. Sci-Fi car race, like F-Zero mashed with Wacky Racers.
Ninja Scroll is sort of a classic, but it’s a fighting one, and pretty bloody.
Sword of the Stranger is another with a lot of combat but it’s a bit more grounded and has a bit of a story to it.
Summer Wars. This is about a guy who gets dragged to a co-worker’s family reunion while a computer virus runs amok and the people at the reunion may just be the ones that can stop it.
The girl who leapt through time is good too, to add to prior suggestions.
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https://www.funimation.com/shows/recovery-of-an-mmo-junkie/ - this is turning out to be a sugary sweet rom-com so far, and for me touches on some issues I relate to in some measure. Continues the trend of creating fictional mmorpgs that I wish were real.
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https://www.funimation.com/shows/a-sisters-all-you-need/ - the first 5 minutes of episode 1 is probably the most disgusting, offensive thing I’ve seen on Funimation. Never the irrigardless, I love it. I have a feeling they are going somewhere good with it and I hope I’m not wrong. Either way it’s pretty funny so far.
Watched Fath/Apocraragdfsdfa on Netflix and… man is it not great.
I love the series (at least since the ‘reboot’), but I really don’t like any of the characters or give a crap about any of them. They doubled the cast and somehow ended up with less interesting characters.
Modred and Sisigous are by far the best. The paladin and Jean are passable. The priest is okay. Everyone else is infinitely forgettable and even the “Heroes” aren’t especially heroic for the most part. Jean, Modred, Achilles. Okay sure. Dracula, right on. Everyone else? Mostly people you have to google to even know who they are and their “legends” are nearly non-existent.
Maybe Gilgamesh held it all together previously by being so awesome.
Oh also, possibly the worst audio to ever be on a show:
Explosion! Audio literally clips itself.
That’s… no… what the hell are you doing? That sounds like dog shit and it’s done for… basically everything. Lots of static like you’re listening to heavy bass with shitty speakers in some teenager’s car, non-stop.
Like all the Noble Phantasms are pretty boring on top of it.
“I have a giant sword explosion thing that’s kind of a lame rip-off of Excalibur.”
“I have literally the same thing.”
That’s… fun?
The second half of Apocrypha doesn’t get any better, so save yourself the time and don’t bother whenever it shows up. Even if this adaptation is better than the original novel it’s based on, it’s still never better than middling and tends to be outright bad.
In my opinion the best “modern” anime movies are (in my personal favorite order):
Wolf Children
Tokyo Godfathers
Your Name
I rate these among my favorite movies of all time regardless of genre. They are pretty mature in subject matter (Wolf Children is about maternity, Tokyo Godfathers about family and finding your own way and You name is a more standard romantic comedy with an amazing twist that made me cry).
Of course anything by the above directors holds up really well (The Girl who Leaped through Time and Millenium Actress are really good imho, but not as masterful as the above).
I’m defining modern as non-Ghibli-styled and somewhat related to modern Japanese problems (city versus country, tradition versus cosmopolitanism, with a touch of magic realism -or an overdose, it depends-). I do think there’s a tonal shift between more standard anime fare (sci-fi and high fantasy), old school Ghibli (which I love, but I think it mostly presents an outdated sensitivity, more romantic and less relevant) and this sort of newer take on the genre (that you can trace back to Tokyo Godfather at least, but it’s becoming the current style of contemporary movie anime).
If you want also some of this older style masterpieces I would recommend:
Princess Kaguya (technically the most impressive animated movie I’ve seen. A Japanese fairytale rendered in a mesmerizing style)
Grave of the Fireflies (but you know this already)
Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke (I think these are the best Miyazaki, and also are somewhat more complex theme-wise than most of his other stuff).
Just realized that the first three episodes of Yamato 2199 are up on Crunchyroll. Apparently they are adding one episode a week. It is listed under Star Blazers, but is subtitled.