The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

[meiam]

You can't write spontaneity into a pre-determined dramatic narrative. Even random fuck ups are planned parts of the structure either for comedy or drama. You will not get the same random energy and chaos from this cartoon that you would watching the campaign. If that's what you want, I can only suggest watching the YouTubes of the campaign.

It's really not impossible to weave a good story out of random fuck up, most good DM will do so on the fly to take advantages of the random fuck, and those tends to be by far the more memorable part of DnD adventures. I'd much rather watch the character have to come up with some crazy strategy to fight a dragon because they messed up their charisma roll on the guy that's supposed to give them the big hint rather than them just using the hint to kill the monster in the way they were supposed to.

There's a millions show with pre determine dramatic narrative but very few with random fuck ups as represented on screen. The show, as if, doesn't really do anything to differentiate itself from the millions of other one, but it could easily stand out as one of the few shows that allow random fuck up.

 

[Gordon_4]

It's really not impossible to weave a good story out of random fuck up, most good DM will do so on the fly to take advantages of the random fuck, and those tends to be by far the more memorable part of DnD adventures. I'd much rather watch the character have to come up with some crazy strategy to fight a dragon because they messed up their charisma roll on the guy that's supposed to give them the big hint rather than them just using the hint to kill the monster in the way they were supposed to.

There's a millions show with pre determine dramatic narrative but very few with random fuck ups as represented on screen. The show, as if, doesn't really do anything to differentiate itself from the millions of other one, but it could easily stand out as one of the few shows that allow random fuck up.

The Vox Machina campaign is, as far as I know, completed: what we're watching is an adaptation of it as a completed work. And what flies on the tabletop when the DM is running the show for maybe six or so people is completely different to how you structure a television show. You want chaos and fuck ups? Either watch the campaign itself, or get in on a game of your own. Because what you're asking this show to be is something it cannot be and no amount of your wishing - or mine - will change that.

 

[laggyteabag]

I binged all of Arcane yesterday, and I fucking loved it.

I have only a passing knowledge of League of Legends, so its not even like this is coming from a fan of the franchise.

My mum just so happened to be visiting whilst I was watching it, and even she got invested. My 60 year old mum watched an entire animated series about a videogame and loved it - and this is coming from someone who (up until now) was convinced that animated shows/movies were for children.

If that still doesn't convince you that this is a legitimately good show, I don't know what will.

 

[09philj]

Belle, the newest film from Mamoru Hosoda
Positives: It's beautiful to look at, including being one of the minority of anime projects that actually use 3D animation well, and basically a good story. I enjoyed it.
Negatives: This is retreading a lot of ground Hosoda has covered before, especially in Summer Wars, and it's no Summer Wars. It's not as tightly written, and even though Belle is a pretty film, Summer Wars is a cut above. It's kind of messily assembled and feels like it's jumping forward too quickly in a lot of places, which drags it down into the lower tier of Hosoda's film making. As I said, I enjoyed it, but I know this director can do better.

 

[BrawlMan]

Belle, the newest film from Mamoru Hosoda
Positives: It's beautiful to look at, including being one of the minority of anime projects that actually use 3D animation well, and basically a good story. I enjoyed it.
Negatives: This is retreading a lot of ground Hosoda has covered before, especially in Summer Wars, and it's no Summer Wars. It's not as tightly written, and even though Belle is a pretty film, Summer Wars is a cut above. It's kind of messily assembled and feels like it's jumping forward too quickly in a lot of places, which drags it down into the lower tier of Hosoda's film making. As I said, I enjoyed it, but I know this director can do better.

And even Summer Wars was just a retread of the Digimon movie with one of its plots. I like summer wars, but I never felt the need to watch it again after two times. I still never picked up a DVD copy.

 

[BrawlMan]

Finally finished Soul Eater after starting it like 7 years ago. I like to watch shonen anime while I run on the treadmill, so I started this show and got about half way through, then I injured myself and didn't really run for a few years and by the time I took it up again I had forgotten the plot so I started over and got about half way through again, then I started shift work and haven't been able to form an exercise routine with my new schedule so another year passed, then I had 2 months off for school and got to episode 46/51, then another year passed and I recently decided enough was enough and I was just going to finish the show and watched the rest over a couple of days.

It was alright. The characters were fun and some of the action and scenes were pretty cool. The ending was pretty meh. It was basically the typical anime cliche of "now pull the power to win out of nowhere because it's time for the show to end" thing. Honestly it didn't really make any sense at all, but, whatever, the rest of the show was fine. It all looked cool anyway, so I guess it's fine.

The worst part was they brought back the first outro song to play over the credits, which usually works pretty well but the first outro was completely awful! It's sung by Soul's voice actor and he can't sing at all! His voice cracks constantly, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to have him sing a song. Listen!

I can never get into Soul Eater. Too boring and it already felt played out by the time I started watching.

 

[09philj]

And even Summer Wars was just a retread of the Digimon movie with one of its plots. I like summer wars, but I never felt the need to watch it again after two times. I still never picked up a DVD copy.

I like Summer Wars very much and it's a toss up between that and Mirai for my favourite Hosoda film, although I haven't seen Wolf Children yet.

 

[BrawlMan]

I like Summer Wars very much and it's a toss up between that and Mirai for my favourite Hosoda film, although I haven't seen Wolf Children yet.

I haven't seen Wolf Children either.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Belle, the newest film from Mamoru Hosoda

I was enjoying the movie right up until the very end, where they deal with the true identity and circumstances of the Beast. The movie completely fell apart for me at that point. Enough that I came away from it seeing the movie as a whole as a negative experience.

OT: Demon Slayer Season 3 somehow manages to be better animated than the wholeass movie that they made for the Mugen Train arc. The animation is so much better in fact that it kinda of retroactively makes the movie look worse. Uzui feels so much more believably like a Hashira than Rengoku. I guess using fancy swords is more aesthetic than a plain old katana (although even Tanjiro and the gang's fights were also excellently animated, again making Rengoku's fight a little disappointing).

 

[Kyrian007]

Taking on my anime backlog this weekend. I had been catching up on the decade or so of The Simpsons that I never watched (got a 3rd shift job and stopped watching it.) And it was taking forever... I had to take a break. First went over to seeing what was on Roku channel or the IMDB TV stuff for a little while, caught up on new Leverage and watched a little Haven (the early episodic good episodes anyway before the story got way to heavy and off the rails.) So, Anime. And I had never gotten around to watching

Steins Gate 7/10 (just a little over halfway through, the ending could change that a lot)

I'm really enjoying this. I love the contrasts. The interesting nature of the complex time travel implications mixed with the hand-wavium of "they made a time machine out of a TV, smartphone, and microwave. The completely tropey and ridiculous nature of the protagonist was annoying until I caught on that we're literally watching him "grow the fuck up" just after we are getting done yelling that at him. How it can spend an episode or two being fairly light hearted, while leaving just enough "omg, how do they not understand how HUGE that would be" to hint at some heavy moments down the line. I shouldn't have waited so long on this one, it's really pretty good... provided they don't fumble the ending.

edit-1: Finished it, not bad. Didn't budge the 7/10 one way or another. So I started on Steins Gate 0. I fast forwarded through the 0 episode, it only has minor changes from being a complete rehash of the penultimate episode of the prior series. Just to show what timeline 0 takes place in. I like the premise, the original series has a happy ending... provided you consider the timeline you've spent the most time with ISN'T the timeline the protagonist ends up in. So the next series, follows up with what happens in that timeline that we got to know, that ended on a more bittersweet note. Interesting idea, let's see if it remains interesting.

 

[thebobmaster]

Quite late to the party on this one, but I've now watched the first two episodes of Beastars. It is not what I was expecting, and that's a very good thing in this case. I had heard really good things about the show, but I had the impression that it was, at its core, a standard slice-of-life school-based anime, but with anthropomorphic characters. It is so much more than that. Quite a bit darker, for one, with noticeable tension between the carnivores and herbivores, especially after an herbivore student is murdered in a very tensely shot opening scene.

Meanwhile, what appears to be the main characters (again, only two episodes in, so I can't say for sure how important they stay) are all already showing quite a bit of depth. From the focal character being a wolf struggling with his more predatory side to the point of coming off as aloof, to the bunny with a lot more steel in her than her small size would indicate, to the deer who is simultaneously one of the most popular students in school while seeming to hold himself to a ridiculously high standard for the sake of proving himself even more, this show already has a lot of promise for me.

 

[Dalisclock]

After the disappointment with the Boba Fett show and the fact Cuphead isn't out until tomorrow(Boo!), I decided to give Arcane a try. I've only seen episode 1 but...this is good. Like way better then it has any fucking right to be. Sure, none of this is super original but it's well executed. And it's based off League of Legends? I know little about the game but I didn't take it for having anything close to a story or worldbuilding, so what the hell happened here. People who know how to write and direct were invovled and it might just be me but I'm getting a little bit of a dishonored vibe from it that I think helps a bit.

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the season now.

 

[gorfias]

After the disappointment with the Boba Fett show and the fact Cuphead isn't out until tomorrow(Boo!), I decided to give Arcane a try. I've only seen episode 1 but...this is good. Like way better then it has any fucking right to be. Sure, none of this is super original but it's well executed. And it's based off League of Legends? I know little about the game but I didn't take it for having anything close to a story or worldbuilding, so what the hell happened here. People who know how to write and direct were invovled and it might just be me but I'm getting a little bit of a dishonored vibe from it that I think helps a bit.

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the season now.

You are in for a treat. Arkane was one of the better IPs last year on Netflix.

ITMT: On Amazon Prime, "The Boys, Diabolical"

The Boys has 2 seasons so far loosely based upon a comic series of the same name. Another deconstruction of super heroes and a very good one. No real unanswered questions for a season 3, so I don't know if there will be one or not. But they did just drop this animated anthology. I just watched the 1st episode, "Laser Baby's Day Out". It is styled to be like those old WB cartoons. No talking, tons of slapstick with funny orchestrated music. And tons of blood shed. Played for cartoon like laughs, as a knowing audience knows the horror behind these "jokes." I'm looking forward to viewing more.

 

[Dalisclock]

You are in for a treat. Arkane was one of the better IPs last year on Netflix.

I'm close to done with the series. They just put up checkpoints on the bridges, which I already know is going to end badly for everyone.

So far my annoyance is Jinx doing the Harley Quinn "I'm so Cra Cra" thing but at least it doesn't seem like Arcane is trying to glamorize unlike "Birds of Prey" and to a lesser extent "Suicide Squad".And I slightly rolled my eyes at Imagine Dragons getting a cameo in the show playing at the bad guy bar in the slums but whatever. I don't have strong feelings about ID one way or the other but it feels wierd for the band providing a lot of the music to suddenly show up in the actual show. Minor Quibble.

Otherwise it feels quite solid and I still can't get over how much this feels like Dishonored as an animated show but just different enough to both avoid a lawsuit and not feel like fan fiction. That part isn't an annoyance since I liked Dishonored quite a lot. So yeah, still having a good time.

 

[gorfias]

I'm close to done with the series. They just put up checkpoints on the bridges, which I already know is going to end badly for everyone.

So far my annoyance is Jinx doing the Harley Quinn "I'm so Cra Cra" thing but at least it doesn't seem like Arcane is trying to glamorize unlike "Birds of Prey" and to a lesser extent "Suicide Squad".And I slightly rolled my eyes at Imagine Dragons getting a cameo in the show playing at the bad guy bar in the slums but whatever. I don't have strong feelings about ID one way or the other but it feels wierd for the band providing a lot of the music to suddenly show up in the actual show. Minor Quibble.

Otherwise it feels quite solid and I still can't get over how much this feels like Dishonored as an animated show but with just different enough to both avoid a lawsuit and not feel like fan fiction. That part isn't an annoyance since I liked Dishonored quite a lot.

After seeing this and Uncharted, and knowing Halo is getting a show, I'm seeing a real push by gaming IPs to get into the the film/tv show business. Fingers crossed we get plenty of great stuff. You've got me thinking about a Dishonored show now. That could be a blast.

 

[Dalisclock]

After seeing this and Uncharted, and knowing Halo is getting a show, I'm seeing a real push by gaming IPs to get into the the film/tv show business. Fingers crossed we get plenty of great stuff. You've got me thinking about a Dishonored show now. That could be a blast.

I don't have much opinion on Halo either way but I hope it's good for the fans sake.

There's a lot that can be done with a Dishonored show without having to use the events of the games. Dunwall and Karnaka(?) are both varied and suitably scummy/decadent locations you could easily adapt them for any plot you wanted to do.

And of course, there's the murder continent briefly mentioned in some of the lore which is where the plague rats came from IIRC and apparently every attempted expedition to explore it has ended in horrible failure because everything is trying to kill you(thus "murder continent").

 

[WindKnight]

Den-Noh Coil, on netflix. haven't finished it yet, but its good.

Its about a young girl moving to a new city where pretty much everyone wears Augmented Reality Glasses, and thus can interact virtually with pets and each other. Complicating things are Obsolete Spaces, areas where the virtual presence hasn't been updated, and Illegals, strange virus like creatures.

Interesting, thoughtful stuff., and times funny, heartwarming and deeply scary.

Also has an episode where everyone gets infected with virtual facial hair that houses sentient, developing civilizations that, eventually, lead to one side of a girls face to launch a nuke against the other. And then everybody's beards start trying to nuke all the others.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Started on Arcane, and while it kinda failed to meet my very high expectations, it's still definitely an amazing show. Makes me wish League of Legends had more interesting ways to experience that universe through gaming.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;Surrection
I'm actually rather impressed the movie holds together as well as it does, particularly in the last half of it when it starts shifting between different characters a lot. Rather enjoyable I found, good action and plot, though I would have liked to have the non-action scenes be a little longer. Ah but the ending though...

So romantic. Ahhhhh!~ Even if there's issues with other parts of the movie, that ending is perfect.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

My Dress Up Darling

I'm actually rather impressed with this. It's very much about nerds and their hobbies and it cuts deep for me with the insecurities of sharing your interests with someone else or wondering if the thing you devote yourself to is even going to pay off in the end. I really like how Marin and Gojo are just two weirdos enjoying the things they love. I dunno, it just feels like a very sweet story;