The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

[Dalisclock]

I was on a short Vacation this week so we ended up watching some weird stuff on netflix we wouldn't normally have watched.

Me and the wife watched The Midnight Gospel, which is....fucking weird. It's about a guy who goes into simulated realities and interviews people, podcast style, except there's like a ton of crazy and weird shit going on(the 1st episode is a zombie apocalypse) at the same time. So imagine this dude interviewing the (fictional) US president as they fight off Zombie hordes but spend most of the time calmly talking about drugs and drug policy and how to deal with life's stress podcast style. The dialogue and the action on screen have like nothing at all to do with each other and that's one of the reasons it's so fucking insane. I kept thinking "This is like if Adventure Time was even more bizarre" and then I found out it's literally made by the dude who made Adventure Time. So Yeah.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The latest episode of Rick and Morty was just kind of annoying. The creators say that they're embarrassed by the episode, and yeah maybe they should be. No clever dialogue, no unique sci fi twist. Just sperm jokes galore.

 

[Worgen]

Rewatched MLP FIM, at least the seasons they have on netflix, the last season is still missing. It really holds up and is still awesome.

 

[BrawlMan]

The latest episode of Rick and Morty was just kind of annoying. The creators say that they're embarrassed by the episode, and yeah maybe they should be. No clever dialogue, no unique sci fi twist. Just sperm jokes galore.

This isn't even the first time they said they're embarrassed by an episode. They never learn. The same thing happened before in season 3 where they made a "parody/deconstruction" of The Avengers and most superhero movies. They did a really shitty job, and even the creator is ashamed of the episode and doesn't like it.

 

[AnxietyProne]

I just introduced my circle to the wonderful, totally wholesome and not at all controversial film Coonskin...

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Tried watching Record of Ragnarok. Thought it was terrible. What is up with Netflix and their animes lately? We used to get things like Castlevania, now we just get... this.

So I ended up reading all 46 available manga chapters instead, and I quite enjoyed it. Not only does the anime have bog standard to dog shit animation, it fails to capture the uniqueness and craziness of the manga. The manga is far from a masterpiece, but it is fun, dumb fun.

 

[meiam]

Tried watching Record of Ragnarok. Thought it was terrible. What is up with Netflix and their animes lately? We used to get things like Castlevania, now we just get... this.

So I ended up reading all 46 available manga chapters instead, and I quite enjoyed it. Not only does the anime have bog standard to dog shit animation, it fails to capture the uniqueness and craziness of the manga. The manga is far from a masterpiece, but it is fun, dumb fun.

Netflix anime have been pretty poor. I think the amount of anime being made is so high atm that most of the good anime people (animator, director and so on) are busy and so outsider studio that might not have has much connection are forced to hire second/third tier people and you get crap.

 

[Dalisclock]

Tried watching Record of Ragnarok. Thought it was terrible. What is up with Netflix and their animes lately? We used to get things like Castlevania, now we just get... this.

Castlevania is a rare lightning strike that Netflix is convinced they can recapture. That's why they've done Blood of Zeus(which is clearly aping Castlevania), Dragons Dogma(which is apparently terrible) and DOTA(literally don't know if anyone cares about this) and they have a bunch more video game movies on the way.

 

[Gergar12]

One Piece is getting really amazing. The main character is about to fight Kaido who is likely one of the strongest fighters in the series. One Piece is downright the best currently operating anime ever since Attack on Titan is on break.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Castlevania is a rare lightning strike that Netflix is convinced they can recapture. That's why they've done Blood of Zeus(which is clearly aping Castlevania), Dragons Dogma(which is apparently terrible) and DOTA(literally don't know if anyone cares about this) and they have a bunch more video game movies on the way.

Blood of Zeus was alright. Not as good as Castlevania, but better than I was actually expecting it to be.

 

[Piscian]

I'm towards the end of Beastars season 2 on netflix. I'm not even sure I want to discuss it. I'm not a furry. I get it, but it's not my thing. I'm also only a fan of anime in that 1 or 2 animes each year will peaked my interest and I consider most to be shovelware. I think I ended up starting this randomly in the backround while cleaning or something and then it got "wtf" and I had to actually start paying attention.

I'm hooked on the show largely because of how incredibly bizarre it is. I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's not a furry highschool drama, thats only what it looks like superficially. Just under the surface there's all these creepy themes of sexual and predatorial deviance. There's no nudity or sex, it's all intimated through language and characters near constantly engage in subtle discourse around sex, violence, hyper masculinity and femininity.

It reminds me a lot of a throw away line in Zootopia about how the city is the only safe place in the world and all these intelligent animals are still running around in the real world murdering each other. In zootopia its never mentioned again, but in this they talk about it a lot. Regardless of physical sexuality you have all these herbivores and carnivores not-so-subtlely representing the Feminine and Masculine in society.

To give an example of how bizarre the show is a deer student is kidnapped by a gang of yakuza lions to be eaten, turns around and kills their leader, has some kind of psychotic breakdown, and ends up as the Boss running a meat black market. Its a weird fucking show. Every episode I'm wondering if this show is creepy or not. It's on netflix so it must have passed some sort of test, but I'm not crazy it's definitely very very dark just under the surface.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Oh no, season 2 doesn't hit crazy.

They haven't started trying to cover miscegenation. Yet.

If you think discussions over Attack of Titan got heated, start popping popcorn now.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I finished Odd Taxi.

It's good, very good. An animated crime mystery series with multiple story lines all intersecting in the life of a taxi driver in Tokyo. It's well written and the dialogue is fantastic.

The subtitles are also very impressive. There's a character who doesn't talk, only raps, and his subtitles both rhyme and make sense which must have taken a huge amount of effort.

It's 13 episodes, just watch it.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm towards the end of Beastars season 2 on netflix. I'm not even sure I want to discuss it. I'm not a furry. I get it, but it's not my thing. I'm also only a fan of anime in that 1 or 2 animes each year will peaked my interest and I consider most to be shovelware. I think I ended up starting this randomly in the backround while cleaning or something and then it got "wtf" and I had to actually start paying attention.

I'm hooked on the show largely because of how incredibly bizarre it is. I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's not a furry highschool drama, thats only what it looks like superficially. Just under the surface there's all these creepy themes of sexual and predatorial deviance. There's no nudity or sex, it's all intimated through language and characters near constantly engage in subtle discourse around sex, violence, hyper masculinity and femininity.

It reminds me a lot of a throw away line in Zootopia about how the city is the only safe place in the world and all these intelligent animals are still running around in the real world murdering each other. In zootopia its never mentioned again, but in this they talk about it a lot. Regardless of physical sexuality you have all these herbivores and carnivores not-so-subtlely representing the Feminine and Masculine in society.

To give an example of how bizarre the show is a deer student is kidnapped by a gang of yakuza lions to be eaten, turns around and kills their leader, has some kind of psychotic breakdown, and ends up as the Boss running a meat black market. Its a weird fucking show. Every episode I'm wondering if this show is creepy or not. It's on netflix so it must have passed some sort of test, but I'm not crazy it's definitely very very dark just under the surface.

I'm not done with the season yet so I've been waiting for talk about it. Yeah, there is something fascinating about the way it depicts their culture. Like the Hen who sells her eggs to the shop and then watches others eat them with pride(and then gets sad when one of them isn't eating the egg sandwich anymore), the breakroom for the sheep/goats that looks like a bright sunny field and they all lay in the grass(astroturf). There's one bit where the Tiger headmaster of the school is at the City meeting and one of them says something about "Feline Aloofness" and I immediately thought "Was that the equivalent of the racial slur? Is that racist against cats? Can you be racist against cats?" *looks at the cat next to him*

I disagree with you on the nudity bit though. There's notably an episode in a strip club which feels like the showmakers know who some of their fanbase is and damn if they weren't gonna lean into it with a couple furries stripping onscreeen. I know it's justified by the setting, but it's hard not to see some fanservice there, at least before she's almost eating by a tiger.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Solar Opposites

Imagine if "Rick and Morty" was written as a gay couple by really smart people for really dumb people.

It's a mess of a show that you just have to watch. That's not a recommendation. I'm 5 episodes in, and I can't look away. Each episode is just full of incoherent, crude randomness, i.e.: a math book get shot with a "dumb ray," and turns into the Holy Bible. It takes "Rick and Morty's" self-awareness to 11. They even take pot shots at Hulu, their own network. I can't tell if I love it or hate it. I'm so confused.

 

[Piscian]

I watched TrollHunters: Rise Of the Titans yesterday. It was pretty good overall, but I have mixed feelings about this being the end of the Tales Of Arcadia universe. In that context it was disappointing. I ended up falling in love with every series and I feel like most of the setup for this story came from Wizards. It feels like it didn't quite hit the mark of rewarding anyone who has been closely following the whole thing from the start. Further more it has a weird "non-ending". The grim severity of the final act is deflated by the ending which is open-ended in the oddest way possible.

Reading the wiki it looks like they just didn't want to commit to ending the story. Not a fan of that. Either end it or don't. It's not even a cliffhanger. I think I would have preferred that.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Solar Opposites
I can't tell if I love it or hate it. I'm so confused.

I enjoyed the first season, but I also don't particularly care about watching the second season. It's fun, but I'd also say kind of just Rick and Morty Lite.

 

[Piscian]

I watched War For Cybertron: Kingdom yesterday.

For those that haven't followed the series it's a new retelling of the Transformers saga with a bit more maturity, violence and death. Its sort of impossible to discuss the final part in the series without spoiling anything, but if you've even seen the trailer I'm not spoiling anything outside that.

This last leg was a weird one. Easily the most engrossing of the series, but at the same time confusing as hell. It involves time traveling and universe jumping, but not in the usual "we'll put it all back when were done" sense. Its very strange, you'd have to watch it yourself to try to decipher what exactly is happening. The easy mode is that instead of the finale seen in Beast Wars, this time the Autobots and Deceptions land on earth during the early part of the Beast Wars and team up with their counterparts to win the day. However even then it doesn't play out as cleanly as it may sound. Again this plays into the time traveling and possibly alternate dimension stuff. Some of the Maximals and Predacons aren't quite the same in personality as the original. Its also an all new voice cast. It's mentioned that over two hundreds maximals died during the Beast Wars. Since the original was a kid show I suppose that could have just been happening off screen? or is this a different Beast Wars? Idk.
This series also involves the pre-imminent rise of Galvatron and Unicorn.

The ending is very somber almost macabre. Overall I enjoyed the series. It definitely did enough to differentiate itself from anything that came before. The Maximals and Predacons look amazing with modern animation. They went the extra effort to base the animation on the Toys. In the original series the Toys looked nothing like the show until later on in the series. In this for instance, you can actually see Optimus Primals joints and he changes like the toys did.

If I had to make a complaint, honestly it was too short. Each series moves along at such a fast clip they might as well just been movies, but I guess thats the beauty of the Netflix. They had the space to tell a saga, not be forced into making them condensed movies. That said I would have liked each series in itself be at least 12-24 episodes Rather than just 6. Definitely could have let it breath a bit more. Total Transparency...I just wanted more Rat Trap.

 

[Gordon_4]

I watched War For Cybertron: Kingdom yesterday.

For those that haven't followed the series it's a new retelling of the Transformers saga with a bit more maturity, violence and death. Its sort of impossible to discuss the final part in the series without spoiling anything, but if you've even seen the trailer I'm not spoiling anything outside that.

This last leg was a weird one. Easily the most engrossing of the series, but at the same time confusing as hell. It involves time traveling and universe jumping, but not in the usual "we'll put it all back when were done" sense. Its very strange, you'd have to watch it yourself to try to decipher what exactly is happening. The easy mode is that instead of the finale seen in Beast Wars, this time the Autobots and Deceptions land on earth during the early part of the Beast Wars and team up with their counterparts to win the day. However even then it doesn't play out as cleanly as it may sound. Again this plays into the time traveling and possibly alternate dimension stuff. Some of the Maximals and Predacons aren't quite the same in personality as the original. Its also an all new voice cast. It's mentioned that over two hundreds maximals died during the Beast Wars. Since the original was a kid show I suppose that could have just been happening off screen? or is this a different Beast Wars? Idk.
This series also involves the pre-imminent rise of Galvatron and Unicorn.

The ending is very somber almost macabre. Overall I enjoyed the series. It definitely did enough to differentiate itself from anything that came before. The Maximals and Predacons look amazing with modern animation. They went the extra effort to base the animation on the Toys. In the original series the Toys looked nothing like the show until later on in the series. In this for instance, you can actually see Optimus Primals joints and he changes like the toys did.

If I had to make a complaint, honestly it was too short. Each series moves along at such a fast clip they might as well just been movies, but I guess thats the beauty of the Netflix. They had the space to tell a saga, not be forced into making them condensed movies. That said I would have liked each series in itself be at least 12-24 episodes Rather than just 6. Definitely could have let it breath a bit more. Total Transparency...I just wanted more Rat Trap.

I'll be honest, I wanted way more of Skyfire and Elita One back on Cybertron. They were great.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Been watching Beastars Season 2 with my girlfriend, except she's always so damn busy so it's been taking us weeks.

I like the season so far, although Legoshi's new look still annoys me. I thought the reveal of the killer was disappointing, but I already expected it to be so.

But man I love the season 2 opening... Been listening to it on repeat.