Rate the last anime you watched out of 10

[WMD]

Yeah that's fair. I think in general Gundam struggles with creating convincing lead protagonists. They're usually either stoic emotionless heroes or utter brats. While I found Judau's "adults suck" attitude tiresome after a while, I would say he's better than Kamille, who I felt was billed as "just another Amuro".

Indeed though I do like how their 3 stories thematically compliment each other. Amuro (the war generation) was bound by honour but lost their ability to let go. As such he knows who he is but is always brought back to the fight. And in the end consumed by it.

Kamille is the next generation, always looking upto the previous generation but unable to live up to their percieved heroics. He loses his identity in trying to prove something that doenst need to be proved.

Then Judau is the generation removed from war, who has no interest in it. He only fights for those he personally cares about and in the end is the only character able to leave the war and find a peaceful and happy life. Because he sees value in life, not in fighting and killing.

 

[Neil.T]

@WMD:

Right. So. Genius Party...

I dug out that issue of NEO magazine (issue #168) to read over the review again. It's by one of their longtime writers, Andrew Osmond. I usually enjoy reading him, including the piece he wrote for the booklet that came with AL's original CE of A Silent Voice, but I found some of the criticisms in his review here quite surprising. I'll drop in the odd quote here so you can read them for yourself.

For what it's worth, as I mentioned before I once had a go at ranking the Genius Party shorts in response to a review by @Cold Cobra.

Links are right there above, but here's a copy/paste of my list:

1. Dimension Bomb
2. Toujin Kit
3. Shanghai Dragon
4. Baby Blue
5. Doorbell
6. Moon Drive
7. Limit Cycle
8. Happy Machine
9. Genius Party
10. Deathtic 4
11. Gala
12. Wanwa the Doggy

I don't even agree with my own list anymore! I'd likely move 'Limit Cycle' up two or even three places now. Then I'd also maybe have 'Moon Drive' and 'Happy Machine' the other way around. Maybe.

Osmond cautioned in his NEO review that "Many readers will find two of the shorts unwatchable." Incredibly for me, these are apparently 'Limit Cycle' and 'Dimension Bomb'!

'Limit Cycle' is the first that Osmond was especially critical of. He wrote that it's "like the dense bits of Serial Experiments Lain turned up to 11 for 20 minutes. The visuals make more sense if you ignore the subtitles and play REM's 'Daysleeper'."

He says that first part like it's a bad thing.


Coming off the back of that, he writes: "The equally plotless 'Dimension Bomb', by respected animator Koji Morimoto, is a deeply annoying troll of a film that could only make sense as a backing visual in a nightclub."

That absolutely baffles me, because I love 'Dimension Bomb'; it's my favourite out of all 12 shorts. I love the abstractness of the visuals, the darkness of them, and how they're set to the music. They even glitch up at a couple of points like the video's gone corrupt. I swear there's a bit of FLCL mixed in there, in the sequences where the human figure blows through streets and across various landscapes like a scrap of rubbish; it seems reminiscent of Naota being run over by Haruko on her Vespa in episode 1, but mixed with the scratchy line drawings of Hajime Ueda's manga incarnation.

'Dimension Bomb' shares several traits with the short film 'Beyond' that creator Koji Morimoto previously made as part of The Animatrix anthology, a spin-off project of The Matrix franchise. That short told the story of the discovery of an abandoned lot that had a bug in its coding leading to some broken physics that a bunch of neighborhood kids liked to mess around with.

A fun little fact about 'Dimension Bomb' is that the eccentric girl with the fish-shaped birthmark, Kuu, is voiced by musician and anime composer Yoko Kanno. She makes for a fun and quirky character.


I thought you were right on the money with 'Toujin Kit', WMD. It's my own second-favourite, and a quite close second at that. The silence and the greyness of it all, broken only by the liveliness of the plushies, is very compelling to watch. Osmond, too, praised it.


And you also enjoyed 'Deathtic 4', didn't you? Osmond was less enthused. He liked the gags but felt it was brought down by "charmless characters".

I've read the CE book, but I forget what the explanation was for the dialogue being in Swedish.


AUKN's reviewer Cold Cobra rather liked 'Doorbell'. I did too, but Osmond branded it "soporifically low-key."

It's apparently directed by a manga artist with no previous animation experience. I had thought that the piece had an intentional 1990s retro aesthetic, but this is mentioned nowhere in the book.


One last notable Osmond criticism was for Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe's contribution. "Some serious animation fans may complain that 'Baby Blue' ... is too conservative and mainstream in its style", he wrote.

I concede that that could be argued when comparing it to his pair of Animatrix efforts, 'Kid's Story' and 'A Detective Story', but perhaps visual experimentation was simply not Watanabe's intent this time.


Osmond's opinion of the Dead Leaves-esque 'Moon Drive' was pretty similar to ours, though. He said that it "feels like a Hiroyuki Imaishi anime ... but has too little adrenaline to offset the meanness and pointlessness."


Bottom of the pile for both of us, by the looks of it, was 'Wanwa the Doggy' I've watched it twice, and... god, it's just a headache to me.

Which is a shame, because it's the work of Shinya Ohira, whose name came up during the FLCL simulwatch:

FLCL simulwatch [complete]

Question: what connects mysterious fighting robots, a semi-autonomous Vespa, curry bread, Puss in Boots, a Gibson EB-0 bass guitar and a transdimensional portal hidden under a bandaid? The answer, of course, is FLCL! FLCL's main cast: (from right to left) Naota, Haruko and Canti FLCL (known...

forums.animeuknews.net

There's no particular moral or anything to take away from any of this, I don't think, other than how obviously subjective it all is.

(And yes I put 'Gala' second from bottom on my list. )

 

[WMD]

I'll start this reply with an attempt at ranking them myself:

1. Toujin Kit
2. Dimension Bomb
3. Deathtic 4
4. Genius Party
5. Happy Machine
6. Gala
7. Limit Cycle
8. Moon Drive
9. Baby Blue
10. Doorbell
11. Shanghai Dragon
12. Wanwa the Doggy

Limit cycle could well move up that list once I give it a rewatch and can take it more. Honestly though Wanwa is the only one I'd cut if I had to. It was visually striking sure but didnt do anything for me. Sure Baby Blue and Doorbell drop down because they are SOL rather than something wacky but I still felt they hold real value in this collection and both had an interesting spin on the growing up metaphor.

Anyway now onto some reponses:

Osmond cautioned in his NEO review that "Many readers will find two of the shorts unwatchable." Incredibly for me, these are apparently 'Limit Cycle' and 'Dimension Bomb'!

That's insane.

'Limit Cycle' is the first that Osmond was especially critical of. He wrote that it's "like the dense bits of Serial Experiments Lain turned up to 11 for 20 minutes.

I mean that is literally why it's good and interesting.

Coming off the back of that, he writes: "The equally plotless 'Dimension Bomb', by respected animator Koji Morimoto, is a deeply annoying troll of a film that could only make sense as a backing visual in a nightclub."

To describe this as plotless entirely misses the point I feel. It was breathtaking to watch and part of the fun was trying to work out the plot under the layers of visual metaphor as it went along.

And you also enjoyed 'Deathtic 4', didn't you? Osmond was less enthused. He liked the gags but felt it was brought down by "charmless characters".

Sure they're lifeless slow zombies but to describe them as charmless is really harsh in my view.

One last notable Osmond criticism was for Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe's contribution. "Some serious animation fans may complain that 'Baby Blue' ... is too conservative and mainstream in its style", he wrote.

So Limit Cycle and Dimension Bomb are too out there but this one plays it too safe. Ok.

Osmond's opinion of the Dead Leaves-esque 'Moon Drive' was pretty similar to ours, though. He said that it "feels like a Hiroyuki Imaishi anime ... but has too little adrenaline to offset the meanness and pointlessness."

I mean I really enjoyed the aesthetic and the way the story was told. Not every story needs to go at 100mph. And in the end the group does get their comeuppance for their greed and general meanness. But I didnt enjoy the way the woman of the group was basically just an object and it was just left as that.

 

[Neil.T]

Ohh, interesting list, dude!
I find myself thinking that I might have the title film 'Genius Party' too low down my list now.

Limit Cycle

I mean that is literally why it's good and interesting.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm a fan of Serial Experiments Lain, so that's an easy sell for me. I'd honestly completely forgotten that the review had compared 'Limit Cycle' to Lain until I re-read it last night, actually, so it's quite telling that this short popped back into my mind during our simulwatch.

I know for a fact that I could never come up with such an unusual idea for an animation no matter how much time you gave me, and certainly wouldn't have the nous to make it into something that could hold a viewer's attention for 20 minutes, so hats off, I say. It's really stuck with me, both visually and in terms of the content.

Dimension Bomb

To describe this as plotless entirely misses the point

Again, I... couldn't agree more. "Plot" is not really the point of this one. Short animations are a rare opportunity to break free of constraints like the need for a story and wander into territory that wouldn't make for a feature film or a TV series — or perhaps even a single episode! (If you ever want to see a very pure example of that, try searching for 'Fumiko's Confession'. It's literally about two minutes long, and it's deliriously imaginative!)

I can honestly sit hypnotised watching 'Dimension Bomb', and have a grand time doing it.

Moon Drive

I mean I really enjoyed the aesthetic

So do I, actually, it's got this unusual look of being unfinished, like the production's still at the layout phase. That really catches my attention.

I do find myself agreeing with Osmond that it kind of falls into the cracks between being one thing or another, though. Perhaps the basic idea could be refined and redone more successfully with another try. This is something else I really like about short animation as a format: it can be used as a test bed for ideas. That was something that Japan Animator Expo did quite successfully, I think. It offered creators with an idea the chance to make a pilot episode of something that could be turned into a bigger production (like The Dragon Dentist), or to show a pitch of something that an animator would like to turn into a full series, showcasing the main ideas, like Eva mecha designer Ikuto Yamashita's 'Iconic Field'. (Full series WHEN??? And the same with Mahiro Maeda's 'Hammer Head'!!)

I didnt enjoy the way the woman of the group was basically just an object and it was just left as that.

I remember 'Moon Drive' being mean-spirited, but my memory seems to have discarded the reason why. That's not good.


I notice that 'Shanghai Dragon' is at near opposite ends of our lists, dude. Again, I seem to have forgotten about the exposition part that you said spoiled it for you.


It's pretty surprising, isn't it, that the first three shorts don't have a lick of Japanese between them!
The first is effectively a music video, the second is in Chinese, and the third's in Swedish!

 

[WMD]

"Plot" is not really the point of this one. Short animations are a rare opportunity to break free of constraints like the need for a story and wander into territory that wouldn't make for a feature film or a TV series

This is something else I really like about short animation as a format: it can be used as a test bed for ideas.

Indeed. Some stories dont need much time to be told. Sometimes it's fun to just do short experiments. That ultimately leads to innovation and new ideas.

There are several stories here that I'd be interested to see longer versions of:

1. Toujin Kit - I cannot express enough how much I want to see a full length series develop this idea and world.
2. Deathtic 4
3. Gala
4. Moon Drive
5. Doorbell

Possibly Limit Cycle as well but that would almost certainly have to morph into something very different to work so may defeat the point.

Fumiko's Confession

Just found it on youtube. Haha that was something and very funny. A very good use of 3D modelling to send the camera flying through the world!

I notice that 'Shanghai Dragon' is at near opposite ends of our lists, dude. Again, I seem to have forgotten about the exposition part that you said spoiled it for you.

I certainly didnt dislike it. But I didnt especially like or empathise with the little kid who finds the pen. And it was more fun for me before they explain they were "looking for the imagination of children" and it all seemed a bit more random.

and the third's in Swedish

I honestly thought they'd made up a language for it like elvish in LOTR.

 

[Neil.T]

Just found it on youtube. Haha that was something and very funny. A very good use of 3D modelling to send the camera flying through the world!

It's fun, isn't it?
I gave it 10 out of 10 on MAL, just because I can.

I honestly thought they'd made up a language for it like elvish in LOTR.

I thought the same until I read in the CE book that it's Swedish.
Maybe Elvish is based on Swedish as well.

Or on Sean Connery's pronunciation of "Elvis".


I meant to ask you as well, dude: what did you make of the end credits of Genius Party (the first set of shorts)? I've read that the films that make up Beyond are the ones that didn't make the cut for the first installment, but that credits sequence seems to show glimpses of some additional animation unseen anywhere else. Could this be from something that didn't make it into either half? Perhaps something incomplete? It's not mentioned at all in the CE book.

 

[WMD]

I meant to ask you as well, dude: what did you make of the end credits of Genius Party (the first set of shorts)?

I dont think I paid them that much attention to be honest. When I go back and rewatch Limit Cycle I'll have a proper watch of them.

 

[awadama]

FLCL

This was one of the first anime shows I ever saw, outside of the stuff that was on UK TV. I saw the first couple of episodes about 15-16 years ago, but never got around to watching any more.

I thought it was cool and I've had a feeling of nostalgia about it since then.

That nostalgia has met a crushing end, because FLCL is one of the worst things I've ever watched. Not just anime - I'm counting TV shows, movies, theatre, darts matches, everything.

It's kerr-azy and so random and everyone shouts all the time and it's the absolute pits. It doesn't make sense and it's not even great to look at.

I don't know if there's actually a story buried underneath the wacky and zany antics. I've read a load of reviews that seem to think it's an intellectual masterpiece. Maybe I'm just not on the right plane of existence to understand what the hell was happening.

There's some nice music in the episodes, but even that's random. None of it has any relevance - songs play here and there, just for the hell of it. It's like there was a cat in the studio and every now and again, it walked along someone's keyboard and made a song play, but no one knew how to edit the music out, so they just left it in.

I just think it's a really really bad show. I can't think of anything positive to say about it. It's not interesting, it's not funny, it's not sad, it's not exciting, it's not cool, it's just...nothing. Supposedly, it starts to make sense if you watch it over and over, but I've got no interest wasting my time watching something I know I hate.

The BD is going to the charity shop - I think the bin would be more fitting, but maybe someone else could get some enjoyment out of it.

Absolute nonsense - 1/10

 

[Yami]

This is an unfashionable view, but I actually like Tales from Earthsea and don't really understand why it gets so much stick. (I do know it's regarded as a poor adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's novels, but I've never read them and have no plans to; I'm judging the film purely as an animated film, and not even necessarily as a Ghibli one. I don't care at all for the snobbery that sometimes surrounds their films.)

I remember going to see Tales from Earthsea in the cinema, and it was probably the first anime (and probably the first foreign-language film full stop) that I saw on the big screen. I remember the feeling of crushing disappointment; I've revisited it as an adult and continue to see almost no merit in it. The narrative is just... I think Le Guin summed it up well herself when she complained that it was "taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the storylines with an entirely different plot." I've never found it to have an effective dramatic structure; it feels like I've put on the middle episode of a longer series.

I love both Genius Parties, I'm going to watch them again before offering a entry by entry take

 

[Neil.T]

Absolute nonsense - 1/10

Absolute b*llocks!!!

Dude, whaaaat??!?!

I've read a load of reviews that seem to think it's an intellectual masterpiece.

That's because it is! And they don't think it is: they know it is!

I love both Genius Parties, I'm going to watch them again before offering a entry by entry take

Excellent. Looking forward to reading that already, dude.

The narrative is just... I think Le Guin summed it up well herself when she complained that it was "taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the storylines with an entirely different plot."

Again, I've no way of knowing how it compares to her original story, but...

I've never found it to have an effective dramatic structure; it feels like I've put on the middle episode of a longer series.

... for me, I can't deny that Arren's motive for stabbing his father at the beginning of the film is vague in the extreme, and I'm unsure about the (Japanese) casting for the Wizard, Kumo/Cobb, but beyond one instance of clumsy editing (where Arren and Ged have done a day's work out in the fields without any indication for the viewer that time has passed), I honestly can't find anything else to direct criticism at. The final showdown in particular I think is especially praiseworthy.

I also really like Ged's quiet musings on the nature of "the balance" (delivered brilliantly in Japanese by the late Sugawara Bunta).

 

[awadama]

Absolute b*llocks!!!

That (and variations on it) was exactly what I was thinking while I was watching it!

 

[Neil.T]

That (and variations on it) was exactly what I was thinking while I was watching it!

Oi! You salty b*stard, you!

 

[zrdb]

Wise Man's Grandchild-4 out of 10. This isekai series is badly written, the characters are merely ciphers but mostly it's about as exciting to view as watching paint dry.

 

[awadama]

Eromanga Sensei

I really liked it. It's from the same author as Oreimo (which I watched the first season of last year and enjoyed a lot), so I was hopeful for this. It didn't let me down.

It's very similar to Oreimo. The only major difference is the personality of the sister character. In Oreimo, she's very outgoing and also kinda mean to the MC - but in ES, she's a shut-in and mostly cold (rather than outright hostile).

But in general, it's more of the same. If you liked Oreimo, you'll probably like this. If you didn't...you won't.

The story seems like it would be pretty sleazy, but it's really not bad (in general, I think the creep factor is a lot lower than something like Monogatari).

There are a lot of sweet moments and the main cast of characters is nice. They're mostly pretty standard anime archetypes, but they're all pleasant and none of them annoyed me. The OP and (especially) ED songs are really catchy.

It's just a really nice, relaxed, silly harem type show. The sister stuff is mostly kept to a minimum and the main focus of the story is about making light novels, rather than comical fanservice hi-jinx. It's really nice - 9/10

 

[zrdb]

Astra-Lost In Space-I re-watched this dubbed (the 1st time subbed). This is really good science fiction with a well done plot, good world building, likeable characters and even has a little bit of humor. 8.75 out of 10.

 

[awadama]

Pokemon: Twilight Wings

What a lovely series. It's seven episodes at six minutes each and it's well worth spending 35 minutes on (it's all available officially on YouTube)

It's only short, but it's a very nice show. It's pretty different to the usual Pokemon anime (which I still absolutely love) - there's more of a thoughtful, sentimental style and not a lot of action/battling.

The episodes are based on characters from Sword/Shield (including the best girl in Galar, Nessa), so I think you'd probably appreciate it more if you've played one of them - but I think it's a nice (and short enough) series to watch even if you haven't. My personal favourite episode was the one with Hop and his Wooloo, but there isn't really a bad one.

It looks really pretty (especially Nessa TBH). It's got a different animation style to the regular anime, with more of a 3D/CGI style. The music and voice acting is all spot on too.

Overall, it's a very nice series and one I'll definitely watch again in the future - 9/10

 

[Professor Irony]

Mezzo Forte

Even with the pornographic inserts removed, the original Mezzo OVAs are a skeezier affair than I expected, but if you're not put off by some rather questionable content, its combination of graphic violence and slapstick black comedy is well animated and oddly charming.

Compared to the later TV series, which I think painted them more like actual private detectives, it feels as if the 'Danger Service Agency' is just a crew of thugs for hire here, conning other crooks by pretending to sell sexaroids, before getting more than they bargained for on a botched kidnapping. The idea that our ostensible heroes are Not Very Nice is actually quite refreshing though; there's no complicated questions of redemption or good conduct here, and it certainly feels like they remembered to put the 'punk' in cyberpunk.

It's also an unusually bright and jaunty take on the cyberpunk future, perhaps Umetsu reacting against the grimdark stylings of Parasite Dolls, having worked on that just shortly beforehand. Perhaps I'm giving it too much credit, but I feel like this is how I imagine Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash to look, at least until such time as the mooted TV adaptation of that arrives.

 

[awadama]

Pokemon Generations

Another nice series - not quite as good as Twilight Wings, but still a fun watch!

It's 18 short episodes (3-5 minutes each - all officially on YouTube), covering story elements from the first six generations of the games (Red/Blue to X/Y). Most of the episodes are focused on the sinister actions of the various teams over the years (Rocket, Magma, Galactic, etc), with a few random tales slotted in too (my favourite was the creepy Old Chateau story).

If you've not played all the games concerned, you wouldn't have a clue what's going on. Most of the characters aren't given any kind of introduction and their motivations are hardly explained. If you've only ever watched the regular Pokemon anime series, you might be aware of who some of the people are (Iris is probably the most prominent character from that in this one), but that's about it.

The series is really targeted at people who've played the games and want to see the major moments animated - on this level, it definitely works. The animation is nicer than the usual Pokemon show and it's enjoyable to see stories you'd only ever seen on a Game Boy screen in proper action. There's a good mix of characters and settings too. Each region has a few episodes and the only recurring character is Looker (who I think is pretty awesome).

Because the episodes are so short, the weaker stories never outstay their welcome. This works both ways though - I was really invested in some of the stories, then they just abruptly finished, with the characters never to be seen again.

If you're a fan of the Pokemon games, I'd definitely recommend this. If you've only got a passing interest, you mightn't be so interested (or may just end up confused). I'm a fan of the games though, so 8/10

 

[zrdb]

Natsu No Arashi (Summer Storm) 1 & 2-I watched these quite a few years ago and didn't remember much about them except something about ghosts from WW2 and time traveling. I didn't realize they were early shows from Shaft but upon rewatching both seasons I really liked the concept and the goofball characters, they mix comedy with some serious stuff. Good watch. S1-8 out of 10, S2-7 1/4 out of 10.

 

[awadama]

I fiiiinally finished Dragon Ball Super.

Of the shows I've watched this year, DBS was one of the hardest for me to choose a score for. I liked it, but I also had some frustrations with it too.

It's split into five arcs (with some other random stuff - like a baseball episode - thrown in too).

The first two arcs are just extended versions of two movies (Battle of Gods and Resurrection F). Luckily, I hadn't got around to watching those movies by the time I watched Super, so they were new to me. If you've already seen the two movies, you could easily skip the first 27 episodes (unless you loved the movies and want to see longer versions of them, I guess). I enjoyed them both anyway.

The third arc is a tournament and the fifth is pretty much a rehash of that (except the tournament format is a bit different). A lot of side characters get introduced in these arcs. Some of them are interesting, most of them are unmemorable (a load of robots and wolves) and a small number of them have some importance to the story.

I never enjoy tournaments in any anime, whether it's DB, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh or anything, so having 74 episodes of a 131-episode show about the build up, aftermath and actual fighting got to be a bit of a drain towards the end. Either way, the second tournament in particular had some exciting fights. It just went on for way too long.

(I mistakenly thought there was another arc after the second tournament, so I was looking forward to that - but it turns out that's a totally different show called Super Dragon Ball Heroes. OK then.)

The fourth arc (

Spoiler

Future Trunks

) was my favourite by miles. It was an enjoyable story with a lot of interesting characters (good and bad). It was also Super's only new content that wasn't just "LOL lets's do a Royal Rumble", so that's something.

Overall, the story was decent, but it was dragged down by the two tournaments, especially the second one which lasted 55 episodes (four of the blu-ray sets). The first, second and fourth arcs were all enjoyable enough to counteract this though - and the last two episodes of the series were exciting enough to end things on a high note.

The animation wasn't anything special, but it was decent enough for a shonen battle show. The problems with the early broadcast episodes were corrected, so no one looks strange and everything is nice and fluid. All the voices are the same people we've been hearing for the past however many years, so that's all familiar.

There are two different opening themes (it changes just before the second tournament) and both of them are amazing (they made me feel like I could take on the world). The ending songs are all over the place (there are 11 altogether) - some of them are absolutely awful and some of them are really really good. All the themes have an English dub on the English language track - I'm not usually a fan of this, but the good songs are good in both languages and the bad ones are still bad in Japanese.

It could have benefited from slicing the tournament sagas down (they could have easily reduced the series runtime by 25 episodes without losing anything worthwhile), but it was still very enjoyable overall. I was swaying towards a 7, but TBH the last few episodes were really good, so it's 8/10