Thunderbolt Fantasy: puppets galore

Books, comics, TV, music
1

Thunderbolt Fantasy is one of my favorite series of the last years, and well, it looks like this:

As you can see, it’s done with puppets. Puppets!
I don’t know about you, but that made me hesitate. I needed to read the opinion of several people saying it was very good to start it, and it was worth it in the end.

It seems this type of art is a Tawanese thing, where it’s somewhat popular and other series are done using the same style. Thunderbolt Fantasy is infact a Taiwan-Japanese production, leaded by Gen Urobochi, writer of some famous anime like Fate Zero, Madoka and PsychoPass. Although to be honest, I would place Thunderbolt above them.

The genre is pure wuxia, Chinese epic fantasy with heroes, magic and incredible swords. Same genre as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero, really.

So why is it good? Well, the creator is a experienced writer and you can notice it. The dialogue is good, the story is well executed with nice plot twists and developments, there are schemes that are fun to follow around, and there a lack of idiot ball passing around, more than a few times you can see how the characters are smart and react with the audience in a way that makes sense. Even when there are occasions when things doesn’t seem to make sense, later it’s explained successfully.

Second, this series is totally the creator’s (Gen Urobuchi) baby, he wasn’t hired to do it, this hasn’t been a show initiated by a Production committee or a initiative to serve as merchandise to a comic. And it shows, you can feel the passion and how they are having fun while doing it, in an almost tangible way.
I read time ago some rumors that the story is inspired by old tabletop rpg sessions the creator had years ago, and it really feels that way.

Third… mm I can’t say it? I mean, spoilers. There are some cool plot twists at the end of season 1. Not in ‘this is the Matrix, and the wuxia world is a simulation!!’ kind or way, or Mr. Robot style big twist, but there are things that aren’t like they seem at first, in comparison with the fist episodes of the series. It starts as a nice but very straightforward adventure romp to defeat some bad guy by a vagrant swordman, a helpless lady and a mystic (mage?) guy and it’s almost ironic in how it ends.

The action is good, the series is surprisingly violent actually, given that are puppets, and the music is good too.

There are already three seasons, and two films, the films are to be watched in between seasons, as they are prequels to the previous season.

The puppets can also sing

It can be watched at https://www.crunchyroll.com

2

This looks amazing! How legit is Crunchy Roll? I am not big into Manga so not familiar with it.

3

Huh. I expected this to be like the old Thunderbirds shows, but the addition of CG really kinda spuces it up.

4

How do you mean legit? They and Funimation are the game as far as anime streaming in the United States is concerned. (Outside of certain big-name series, and even then Hulu, Netflix et al seem to usually only have a portion of an entire series.)

5

Thanks, as.I said not into Manga usually. Just subbed and stream ep 1 . The puppeteering and miniatures are most excellent.

6

Show is really great, beyond the novelty and great fight scenes the characters are fantastic and the story arcs interesting.

7

That was much better than I expected. Access to crunchyroll must be region locked since I had to disable my VPN to get in, but I can live with that.

8

Manga are comics, you mean anime. Crunchyroll does do manga (because they are the source material for most anime) but they are known for streaming anime.

9

Thunderbolt Fantasy is good stuff. The worldbuilding has come a long way from the start (and wasn’t really slouching even back then), the characters are fun, the love and care that goes into the production shines through at all times, and it is something I consistently look forward to getting more of.

10

Potato, potahto. Spiky blue hair and huge eyes (and 13 year old heroines).

At least this seems to be lacking all of that mishegoss.

11

It’s really not. It’s like you’re saying comics are movies and vice versa.

12

It’s the netflix of anime, the first legit streaming site that got popular and now they are the big honcho worldwide on anime streaming.

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I’m glad some have already watched the first episode and liked it. This thread served a purpose!
I can only think the whole ‘puppets’ thing is a drawback for a lot of people, because I barely see any discussion of the series on Internet, even in more anime-friendly places.

I can say that there was a twist at the end of season 3, and I’m eagerly waiting the next season. By the way, I think the series is planned to be five seasons.

13

I think for me the puppets are the main draw. I don’t watch a lot of Anime (thanks for the correction @arrendek) mostly because a lot of the style I have seen doesn’t work for me. Hyper animations, weird facial expressions and body contortions and the like. Things they can’t do with the puppets, so for me it works great.

14

Looks cool.

Did you guys ever see Kubo and the Two Strings? It’s stop-motion puppets plus CGI and it’s a great fucking movie.

15

Kubo and the Two Strings is pretty freaking amazing.

16

+1 for Kubo!

Watched the forst episode of TF last night. The art, animation style and execution really is quite amazing and unique. Kind of wish there was an English dub though, since there is a lot going on on-screen.

17

Kubo and the Two Strings is cool, like Coraline and others. Although that is stop motion, which is different to the ‘puppetry’ used here. Watch here

18

The problem I have is that the setting in fantasy China, and it’s produced in Taiwan, so of course the names are Chinese, which are more confusing and stick less to my European mind than say, Japanese. In fact, unlike Japanese, the names I hear and the ones I read are different sounds, so it adds to the confusion.

19

Just finished season 1. And hot damn you where not lying. So many twists and surprises. Where the heck does this even go now? I love Edgeless Blade, he is so… “I don’t give a F”. I actually like them all. Even the villains! Great stuff. On to the first movie!

20

Glad you liked it!

Heh heh right? It has perhaps one of the bigger… well, not twist, because individually they aren’t that big, but biggest chain of twists I’ve seen in the last years.
SPOILERS OF END OF SEASON 1

-First, it’s revealed that Lin (or ‘Enigmatic Gale’) is not a mere mystic or wizard but a legendary thief, Lupin III-level, in this fantasy world. We got the rpg class wrong! The entire plot until that moment was only a scheme of him to steal the bad guy’s treasure. He is also revealed to be an amoral asshole.

-Second twist on the following episode: oh, but him saying he wanted to steal the villain was also a ruse, a scheme inside the bigger scheme. He is a more ‘special’ type of thief: he specializes in stealing pride, in stomping villains by humiliating them in the worst way he can find.

-Third twist about Lin: Did we say he was a thief? Well, that’s more a life goal than a rpg class… Before learning a bit of illusion magic, he was a swordman. One of the best in the world, a dvine-class level one. So good that one day he understood it didn’t make sense to pursuit that path anymore and he left it for more ‘fun’ things.
This is pretty funny because in this kind of wuxia setting, you have so many heroes and villains competing to see who has the bigger di… err, I mean, who is the bestest warrior, there are so many duels… and in the end the guy who is best is the one who doesn’t use a sword anymore because that would be too boring.

-Fourth twist, for Shang, ‘Edgeless Blade’. He is the MC, and there were enough clues about it, so we knew he was going to be good fighting, but up to the extent he is and the way is revealed is so good that is also a twist.
‘Oh, all those fights we have seen up to now, where he won? Oh, but that’s was with a wooden stick.’ Painted to look like metal. Yep. He is a master of qi channeling. With massive balls.
And it goes so well with his characterization, because as he says, it shouldn’t be easy to steal another’s life, but a last option.

-Fifth twist, the entire season story being about the villain getting or the heroes recovering a mythical magic sword? All the schemes and the pursuits and the deaths to get one? How the villain considered it the symbol of ultimate power?
Well surprise, Shang had 33 of them all this time, since before episode 1. All this time they were almost touching a way bigger treasure than a single sword and no one knew it. LOL.