The Anime/Manga I Bought Today Was...

Bought a fair bit today:

The Shinkai Collection - For those that don't know, thats Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days..but you probably will, hah. Been after this for a while now, glad i got it now.
Fruits Basket 12 & 13(Manga)
Berserk 27 & 28 - Finally was able to pick these up, every time i looked for them in store they weren't there, so twas good to get them today.
 
I was terribly disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing! I think I'll re-watch it at some stage as I'm sure I missed something (everybody seems to adore the film).
 
CitizenGeek said:
I was terribly disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing! I think I'll re-watch it at some stage as I'm sure I missed something (everybody seems to adore the film).
Click to expand...

The film is ridiculously complex under the basic love story on the surface. The other thing about it, is that there are so many unanswered questions at the end, and subplots hinted at throughout the film that it does take quite a few watches to really get your head around a few of them.

5 Centimeters Per Second is a great contrast, however, being exactly what it says on the tin: a brief, beautiful romance story.
 
Boring sums 5cm up better. I went into expecting hard-hitting material that would live up to its title and I got sleep inducing material instead. When I watched it I kept needing to pause it to take a break, even though it only went on for something like an hour.

As for TPPIOED, it was excellent for the first part and fell apart when sci-fi rubbidh got thrown in. It went from an intriguing love triangle to something vastly inferior.
 
Maltos said:
CitizenGeek said:
I was terribly disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing! I think I'll re-watch it at some stage as I'm sure I missed something (everybody seems to adore the film).
Click to expand...

The film is ridiculously complex under the basic love story on the surface. The other thing about it, is that there are so many unanswered questions at the end, and subplots hinted at throughout the film that it does take quite a few watches to really get your head around a few of them.

5 Centimeters Per Second is a great contrast, however, being exactly what it says on the tin: a brief, beautiful romance story.
Click to expand...
Good post. I think this is why Place Promised... is my favorite movie ever, whereas 5cm/s is just top ten material.
 
ilmaestro said:
Good post. I think this is why Place Promised... is my favorite movie ever, whereas 5cm/s is just top ten material.
Click to expand...
I myself consider Place Promised to be merely a good film, as opposed to a quietly and poetically devastating masterpiece, such language being that which I'd use to describe the films which preceded and followed it. Perhaps it's the happy ending. To its credit though, I did tear up a little, and the audiovisual standard was distinctly high.
 
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ilmaestro said:
Maltos said:
CitizenGeek said:
I was terribly disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing! I think I'll re-watch it at some stage as I'm sure I missed something (everybody seems to adore the film).
Click to expand...

The film is ridiculously complex under the basic love story on the surface. The other thing about it, is that there are so many unanswered questions at the end, and subplots hinted at throughout the film that it does take quite a few watches to really get your head around a few of them.

5 Centimeters Per Second is a great contrast, however, being exactly what it says on the tin: a brief, beautiful romance story.
Click to expand...
Good post. I think this is why Place Promised... is my favorite movie ever, whereas 5cm/s is just top ten material.
Click to expand...

Personally, it's what makes it the other way around for me. 5 Centimeters Per Second just seemed more focused and to the point. Also it basically just had a stronger effect on me than Place Promised.
Though I can appreciate the complexity of Place Promised I just think 5CM managed to get to a similar point, however without all the excess.
 
I totally lost interest in Place Promised when it started with all the sci-fi nonsense. It took me a year to finish that film. I much prefer 5cm Per Second, although the terrible song montage near the end almost ruined it.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
I much prefer 5cm Per Second, although the terrible song montage near the end almost ruined it.
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I must be a very sappy person then as that montage caught me totally off guard and I still rate it as one of the most emotional pieces of animation (or any media for that matter) that i've experienced.
 
I think I facepalmed my way through it. During the on-disc interview Shinkai said he used the song because it had been popular a few years back. It seemed like an exceptionally cheap way of trying to make the audience feel nostalgic, and he's better than that.
 
From what I've read and watched in the way of interviews; rather than nostalgia, it seemed more like Shinkai was going for a sense of familiarity. Though I suppose nostalgia might play a part of it, it appeared that he used it because it was song that almost everyone in Japan would know and thus a sense of everyday normality would be there in the scenes that were shown in the animation along with the music.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
I think I facepalmed my way through it. During the on-disc interview Shinkai said he used the song because it had been popular a few years back. It seemed like an exceptionally cheap way of trying to make the audience feel nostalgic, and he's better than that.
Click to expand...
In all honesty though, when I saw 5 centimetres I wasn't acquainted with the song, thus I didn't realise that I was supposed to feel nostalgic upon hearing it. I'd fathom that this lack of prior awareness applies to many others here.
My suggestion would be not to hold this alleged 'cheapness' against Shinkai, unless one genuinely sees through this device, viz. one was already aware of the song before having seen it.
 
Maltos said:
ilmaestro said:
Maltos said:
CitizenGeek said:
I was terribly disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing! I think I'll re-watch it at some stage as I'm sure I missed something (everybody seems to adore the film).
Click to expand...

The film is ridiculously complex under the basic love story on the surface. The other thing about it, is that there are so many unanswered questions at the end, and subplots hinted at throughout the film that it does take quite a few watches to really get your head around a few of them.

5 Centimeters Per Second is a great contrast, however, being exactly what it says on the tin: a brief, beautiful romance story.
Click to expand...
Good post. I think this is why Place Promised... is my favorite movie ever, whereas 5cm/s is just top ten material.
Click to expand...

Personally, it's what makes it the other way around for me. 5 Centimeters Per Second just seemed more focused and to the point. Also it basically just had a stronger effect on me than Place Promised.
Though I can appreciate the complexity of Place Promised I just think 5CM managed to get to a similar point, however without all the excess.
Click to expand...
Ha! :D

I also have this suspicion (please anyone step in and tell me I'm wrong) that people don't like Place Promised... quite as much as they should do because it's more similar to Voices... than 5cm/s is to either of the "other two".
 
ilmaestro said:
Ha! :D

I also have this suspicion (please anyone step in and tell me I'm wrong) that people don't like Place Promised... quite as much as they should do because it's more similar to Voices... than 5cm/s is to either of the "other two".
Click to expand...

Quite possibly true! Though on my initial discovery of the Shinkai collection I much prefered Place Promised to Voices, which just generally didn't seem as good.

Though that's still probably the case, after re-watching both a number of times, I've learnt to appreciate Voices a lot more.
 
Zin5ki said:
In all honesty though, when I saw 5 centimetres I wasn't acquainted with the song, thus I didn't realise that I was supposed to feel nostalgic upon hearing it. I'd fathom that this lack of prior awareness applies to many others here.
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware of it at first either. My initial problem was that instead of an ending, we got an anti-climactic montage backed by a syrupy, overly sentimental ballad. Very disappointing.

It's still a magnificent film, though.
 
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