General anime thoughts/discussion thread.

I've never seen those compilation films. Death Note never felt like a story that would work if it was cut down so ive never even really looked into getting them.
That's exactly my opinion, too. It just couldn't possibly work, could it? Trying to condense such a complex plot — over a whole 37 episodes totalling nearly 15 hours — down into a pair of films with a combined running time of around five... Impossible.

That video sounds interesting. I'll watch that probably tomorrow. 👍
I'm intrigued to see which is your favourite episode. 😉
 
I've been watching Noein again, and I've just realised it's another one of those 'showing your age' rewatched, just like watching Akira or Blade Runner last year, or Back to the Future 2 in 2015. Noein was made in 2005, and its dimension jumping post-apocalyptic future world showed the characters 15 years hence.

This year is the year of La'Cryma!
 
I've been watching Noein again, and I've just realised it's another one of those 'showing your age' rewatched, just like watching Akira or Blade Runner last year, or Back to the Future 2 in 2015. Noein was made in 2005, and its dimension jumping post-apocalyptic future world showed the characters 15 years hence.

This year is the year of La'Cryma!
Well Noein has just jumped up my "need to watch again" watch list
 
And Crunchyroll have ****** up the queue again. They trialled this nonsense earlier and everyone raised a stink. They put it back today, a thing you can't sort or edit in anyway, just a listing of the shows you've added. Idiots!
 
Just been voting in the r/anime 2019 awards. There's 23 category nominations revealed so far with 7 to go.
The latest is Female VA, and has links to all the others categories, voting ends on the 17th February:

GENRE
Action = Mob Psycho 100 II
Adventure/Fantasy = Vinland Saga
Comedy = Kaguya-sama
Drama = Fruits Basket (2019)
Romance = Takagi-san 2
SOL = Ascendance of a Bookworm
Thriller/Mystery = AOT s3 p2

CHARACTERS
MC Comedy = Chika (Kaguya-sama)
MC Drama = Askeladd (Vinland Saga)
Support Comedy = Saku Mimoi AKA Loli (Wasteful Days)
Support Drama = Isabella (Promised Neverland)
Antagonist = Askeladd (was thinking of Muzan from Demon Slayer as Askeladd is more nuanced than just an antagonist, but Muzan wasn't in the show that much)
Cast = Kono Oto Tomare (was missing from other categories, so voted for it here)

PRODUCTION
Animation = Mob Psycho 100 II
Art = Demon Slayer
Background Art = Null & Peta
Cinematography = Kotobuki
Character Design = Carole & Tuesday
OST = C&T (I mean the OST is the show pretty much. A close second was Demon Slayer. Promare not nom'd due to their rules)
OP = Wa! Moon! Dass! Cry! - VAs (Wasteful Days)
ED = Torches - Aimer (Vinland Saga ED1)
Male VA = Naoya Uchida - Askeladd (VS)
Female VA = Ai Fairouz - Hibiki (Dumbbells)
 
Im not voting on that in opposition of them using the japanese names. If I have to spend 30 seconds in my head decoding it because of "Elitism" its not for me.
And the fact Precure and Beastars is there is it promotes piracy.
 
And the fact Precure and Beastars is there is it promotes piracy.
Yeah, I thought that. The reason they gave for Promare not being nominated was that the judges couldn't all see it so they had to wait till it had been fan-subbed 😔
But seems pretty obvious one isn't being arranged for AUKN this year and last year showed the reddit one lines up a lot more with my thinking than the Crunchyroll Awards.
 
Yeah, I thought that. The reason they gave for Promare not being nominated was that the judges couldn't all see it so they had to wait till it had been fan-subbed 😔
But seems pretty obvious one isn't being arranged for AUKN this year and last year showed the reddit one lines up a lot more with my thinking than the Crunchyroll Awards.
Hi! Just popping in to say that our Reader's Choice Awards are returning this year - it's just taken a bit longer than usual to sort out due to big changes, and a lot of the staff having to juggle day jobs and such. Keep an eye out on the site over the next week or so!
 
I pulled these from the Viewing Journal thread...

I am shocked, sir. Shocked.

But no, I have heard similar sentiments expressed before from people who read the manga first.
I was shocked myself, to be honest; I'd expected to automatically like an anime adaptation of Azumanga Daioh. But... I dunno. I guess what with the source material being such a winner, I was expecting something brimming with vitality, but I just found that first episode to be curiously flat and rather lifeless. I mentioned before (earlier in this thread, I think) that I've had this kind of thing happen before with things I've read in manga form first, where I can't help but develop... I don't want to say preconceptions but certainly ideas about how certain characters would come across.

As you say, ayase, sometimes the version that's your first point of contact with something can't help but become your favourite. I've heard that said about the manga versus the anime of Death Note (although, in this case, I actually saw the pair of Japanese live-action films first, then read the manga, so I have a real soft spot for those films) and also of flagship J-horror title Ring versus its Hollywood remake.

To be fair, though, I have also had it happen the other way where I've read the manga first but then preferred the anime, so I think that, for me at least, the quality of the adaptation is still the dominant factor.

Maybe a 4-koma would be different, I've never actually read one.
Having said what I just did above, I'd probably find the original manga of K-On and Lucky Star kind of odd, being already so familiar with their anime adaptations. Especially Lucky Star! I really couldn't imagine it without the episode-ending Lucky Channel segments and the general KyoAni meta-humour.

Comedy in anime does tend to have some long silences, perhaps it's a Japanese thing
This is, yeah. Perhaps this would've been better suited to the Japanese Learning thread, but... this gets me thinking about something in the original Ghost in the Shell anime. It's the part where Aramaki's Section 9 team are ready to move in on a man they suspect of being the Puppet Master, and where Batou fills Aramaki in on some recent discoveries via intercom. Batou asks Aramaki "How's the Puppet Master looking at your end?"
Aramaki then pauses to think before answering "Like a puppet himself."

Incredibly, the makers of Manga's dub of the film must have felt that that pause was too long, because they have the off-screen Batou interject after only a moment with "Chief, are you still there?"

That genuinely annoys me because there is nothing amiss with the timing of the original dialogue whatsoever. Culturally, pauses like that are more of a thing in Japanese conversation, simply because the words and ideas are being given more room to breathe, without feeling the need to fill the space from end to end.
 
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I can't help but develop... I don't want to say preconceptions but certainly ideas about how certain characters would come across.
Totally understandable. I feel the same way about a lot of book-to-screen (or even animated to live action) adaptations and it’s why I don’t necessarily look forward to them. I think anime does have a better track record with this than western film and TV though, at least as far as my own opinions are concerned.

Culturally, pauses like that are more of a thing in Japanese conversation, simply because the words and ideas are being given more room to breathe, without feeling the need to fill the space from end to end.
That’s really interesting, and I think with Oshii’s films in particular seems very relevant. I know he’s quite a polarising director but I’ve always loved his style, and while I’ve never considered this to be a factor before it probably is. That extra space to think and dwell on ideas seems important to him, and the Ghost City scene in GitS is one of my favourite scenes in all visual media. See also the Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō OVAs, which I think do a wonderful job of evoking the manga.

Possibly a comment more for the politics thread (how many topics are we straddling right now?) but I just generally like the idea of encouraging more thought and more contemplation, when society appears to be going in the exact opposite direction with things like social media and its nature as attention seeking non-stop commentary (and not just from individuals - News media engages in this as well) positively encouraging people to speak before they think rather than the other way around. We need to do a lot more thinking and a lot less speaking, whatever happened to the wise old owl?

Funnily enough, I think that also plays a part in my enjoyment not only of AzuDai’s comedy but also injecting a bit of thoughtfulness that makes the characters special. Particularly Osaka (as you say, easily the stand out character, even if I’m more drawn to Tomo’s impulsive nature and so laid back as to be horizontal attitude to responsibility) as she lives life at her own slowed-down pace. She’s weird, and that provides comedy, yeah. But she’s also possessed of a sort of (possibly even quite buddhist) contentment that hints at maybe, just maybe it’s not her but the rest of the world and its fast-paced, results oriented society that has the problem. That aspect of her character comes across much better to me in animated form.
 
Final reveal of the r/anime award nominees:

TEST (they selected a few awards to test out a different system)
Script = Vinland Saga
Sound Design = Demon Slayer (the one show I noted SD on wasn't nominated - Kotobuki)
Sports = Stars Align (even though the story was cut short the sport aspect was solid)

MAIN
Shorts = Aggrestsuko 2
Movie = None (I haven't seen any of the noms. Mirai missed out from noms last year due to the "it must be available to all the jurors" rule i.e. disc/pirate and wasn't nomed this year and Promare missed out due to the above rule!)
Original = Carole & Tuesday
AotY = Mob Psycho 100 II (Vinland Saga was second, from the noms. I went this way because VS is up there due to my bias from liking the manga so much)
 
I just generally like the idea of encouraging more thought and more contemplation
Mmmm, contemplative... Linking back to Mamoru Oshii, that's exactly the word that comes to mind when thinking about his films. By that token, I've written in this very thread before about how much I rate Innocence. In fact, I hold it in the kind of regard that most people probably reserve for his original GitS.

You mentioned once before, ayase, that you found Innocence tended more towards the self-indulgent end of the scale for you. I've never seen Angel's Egg, but that one sounds like it would push the boundaries a bit too far for me. Ever seen it?
 
You mentioned once before, ayase, that you found Innocence tended more towards the self-indulgent end of the scale for you. I've never seen Angel's Egg, but that one sounds like it would push the boundaries a bit too far for me. Ever seen it?
Yes, while I still do like Innocence a lot, I think it leans more towards philosophical pondering than it does storytelling, the story feels more like a vehicle for Oshii to explore ideas, (and make the audience consider them as well) what actually happens in the film’s narrative doesn’t seem to matter quite as much.

The same is probably true of Angel’s Egg too, but I’ve only seen it once and it seemed a bit obscure even for me, and I like David Lynch.
 
I have time for Oshii in general (funnily enough, the last anime film I watched was Innocence), but I must confess, the only time I’ve ever seen Angel’s Egg, it was playing on double speed...
 
Hah, it wasn't my idea to watch it that way, but I have to say, I don't think my appreciation of it was affected one way or the other. It's strange, I was talking to someone today about the Russian film Stalker and how you have to be on board with letting it take its time to really appreciate it, but I feel like Angel's Egg must be a very slow experience. One day, I will revisit it though, at the correct speed. Maybe if Andrew goes down to the crossroads and gets it for SLA.

Innocence though, I will try and write a couple of sentences on soon. Just taken on rather much work lately and I've struggled to string together anything much beyond 'it wus gud when the drawings moved'.
 
Mmmm, contemplative... Linking back to Mamoru Oshii, that's exactly the word that comes to mind when thinking about his films. By that token, I've written in this very thread before about how much I rate Innocence. In fact, I hold it in the kind of regard that most people probably reserve for his original GitS.

I for one love Innocence, so much so I always insist on viewing the original film and Innocence together back-to-back, whenever I show GitS to someone who has not seen the films. And, both have great soundtracks from Kenji Kawai, but I think the music in Innocence is even better than in the original movie. I love to watch this performance of music from both films - the visuals here just make the music seem so much more powerful.

 
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I've always thought GITS was good but not great. I've always been a hard core science fiction geek-I used to read tons of sci fi novels when I was younger and quickly learned to distinguish good stuff from trash. If I had to rate GITS on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it a 6.5.
 
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