The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

[Dirty Hipsters]

Terminator Zero

My honest assessment is that this is dull anime terminator fanfic. I gave it about 5 episodes mostly because I was recovering from surgery and needed something to space out to. I say that because I don't think I could sit through that many episodes if I wasn't a little high.

In this a engineer in Japan had explicit dreams of the Terminator future and builds an Anti-skynet AI called Kokuru to try and stop skynet. A lady soldier goes back in time to help him..or stop him...I'm 5 episodes in and its not really clear.

The show is divided into two plotlines. The seemingly primary one is the engineer, who is a dick to his kids and unlikable, sitting in an AI room trying to convince Kokuru to save humanity as the clock ticks down hours til judgement day. The AI just goes on and on about how he sucks and humanity sucks and why should it help them?

The secondary one is a Terminator whos gone back in time to ..idk..stop the engineer? Maybe? but for whatever reason is hunting his annoying kids, one of whom is clearly a sociopath, who are sort of being protected by the future soldier lady.

The whole thing is, imho, dull and uninteresting. I don't like any character in this show and it takes great pains to be opaque in explaining why the audience should be invested. Theres literally a scene in the beginning where the soldier lady asks the elder why shes going back in time and what does it all mean and the Elder is like "CAUSE REASONS".

There's also a subplot where the kids nanny, not soldier lady, is also a robot and no one knows why.

The trickiest part of making Terminator good is giving enough information for the audience to get them in the car, but also keep it simple enough that they can enjoy the ride without asking questions. This show does the LOST JJ Abrams thing where every moment is just "MYSTERY BOX" and you're expected to be curious enough to stick with it until the end. I can't, this show is literally boring. 0/10

I sat through the whole thing. A 0/10 is harsh, it's basically a 4/10 show.

Most of the mystery is revealed in the last 2 episodes and...it's not particularly interesting.

Spoiler

The engineer is from the future, so he knows about Skynet and the exact time and date that the attack will happen.

Kokuru is an AI that he built in the future, and it was originally housed in the robot body of the maid. The humans are racist...roboist...? to Kokuru in the future and try to destroy her, so the engineer and Kokuru escape together to the past where the engineer puts together a plan to defeat Skynet by using Kokuru's advanced AI to counter it. When he takes the AI out of the maid robot's body and puts it into the network it has to be completely rebooted and loses its memory of the future which is why he spends the entire show trying to convince it of humanity's goodness so that it will do the thing that it was designed to do.

The soldier lady from the future goes back in time to stop Kokuru because in her future timeline the engineer failed and Kokuru was just as bad as Skynet and also killed the humans.

Also soldier lady is engineer man's mom in another timeline. This is important because reasons. No wait, it really isn't and gets shoehorned in at the last minute just for the sake of time travel shenanigans.

Honestly I kind of liked the first episode of the show. The first fight against the terminator is cool and sold me enough on the show to keep watching. Unfortunately the rest of the show is really not good.

The time travel plotline doesn't make a lot of sense, and the entire Kokuru idea just really sucks, and it's half the show.

A large part of the fun of the terminator movies is how the characters have to bullshit their way through defeating a terminator using sub-optimal weapons. This completely goes away when there's someone in the show building future tech in the 90s.

It says a lot about the show that by the end the character I empathized with most was the terminator itself.

 

[Piscian]

Spoiler

The engineer is from the future, so he knows about Skynet and the exact time and date that the attack will happen.

Kokuru is an AI that he built in the future, and it was originally housed in the robot body of the maid. The humans are racist...roboist...? to Kokuru in the future and try to destroy her, so the engineer and Kokuru escape together to the past where the engineer puts together a plan to defeat Skynet by using Kokuru's advanced AI to counter it. When he takes the AI out of the maid robot's body and puts it into the network it has to be completely rebooted and loses its memory of the future which is why he spends the entire show trying to convince it of humanity's goodness so that it will do the thing that it was designed to do.

The soldier lady from the future goes back in time to stop Kokuru because in her future timeline the engineer failed and Kokuru was just as bad as Skynet and also killed the humans.

Also soldier lady is engineer man's mom in another timeline. This is important because reasons. No wait, it really isn't and gets shoehorned in at the last minute just for the sake of time travel shenanigans.

 

[BrawlMan]

I sat through the whole thing. A 0/10 is harsh, it's basically a 4/10 show.

Most of the mystery is revealed in the last 2 episodes and...it's not particularly interesting.

Spoiler

The engineer is from the future, so he knows about Skynet and the exact time and date that the attack will happen.

Kokuru is an AI that he built in the future, and it was originally housed in the robot body of the maid. The humans are racist...roboist...? to Kokuru in the future and try to destroy her, so the engineer and Kokuru escape together to the past where the engineer puts together a plan to defeat Skynet by using Kokuru's advanced AI to counter it. When he takes the AI out of the maid robot's body and puts it into the network it has to be completely rebooted and loses its memory of the future which is why he spends the entire show trying to convince it of humanity's goodness so that it will do the thing that it was designed to do.

The soldier lady from the future goes back in time to stop Kokuru because in her future timeline the engineer failed and Kokuru was just as bad as Skynet and also killed the humans.

Also soldier lady is engineer man's mom in another timeline. This is important because reasons. No wait, it really isn't and gets shoehorned in at the last minute just for the sake of time travel shenanigans.

Honestly I kind of liked the first episode of the show. The first fight against the terminator is cool and sold me enough on the show to keep watching. Unfortunately the rest of the show is really not good.

The time travel plotline doesn't make a lot of sense, and the entire Kokuru idea just really sucks, and it's half the show.

A large part of the fun of the terminator movies is how the characters have to bullshit their way through defeating a terminator using sub-optimal weapons. This completely goes away when there's someone in the show building future tech in the 90s.

It says a lot about the show that by the end the character I empathized with most was the terminator itself.

View attachment 12119

Exactly why I refuse to watch new Terminator shows/movies ever again.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The Claymore anime starts off strong, gets better, and then falls apart towards the end, with a cliffhanger they never resolved.

 

[meiam]

The Claymore anime starts off strong, gets better, and then falls apart towards the end, with a cliffhanger they never resolved.

Anime original ending. Although I don't even remember if the manga ever actually finish.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The Claymore anime starts off strong, gets better, and then falls apart towards the end, with a cliffhanger they never resolved.

You've described 95% of all popular anime. Almost none of them have a good ending. Either the anime ends long before the manga does, and you get a cliffhanger/non-ending, or the anime and manga go on for so long (because they're marketable) that the author completely runs out of ideas long before the end, so the ending is flaccid or nonsensical.

 

[BrawlMan]

You've described 95% of all popular anime. Almost none of them have a good ending. Either the anime ends long before the manga does, and you get a cliffhanger/non-ending, or the anime and manga go on for so long (because they're marketable) that the author completely runs out of ideas long before the end, so the ending is flaccid or nonsensical.

Yu Yu Hakusho, Trigun, Shaman King, and Outlaw Star (the manga never made to the West) are about the only popular anime I know where the ending is better than their original manga counterparts.

Either the anime ends long before the manga does, and you get a cliffhanger/non-ending, or the anime and manga go on for so long (because they're marketable) that the author completely runs out of ideas long before the end, so the ending is flaccid or nonsensical.

Or worse: the author gets sick and put on an a indefinite hiatus and/or then dies. Leaving the work unfinished. Berserk at least has back up artist trying to finish Miura's work. Trinity Blood and Highschool of the Dead weren't so lucky. Trinity Blood is just shitty version of Hellsing and Trigun, while HothD, the author was just making up shit as he went along. I don't like either, but it sucks for fans of either IP. Both authors of those two works are dead. Ironically, HothD anime sorta has an ending where the group on an island that's mostly safe of zombies. So that's the closest fans are going to get.

 

[Ezekiel]

A year after the 24 of 26 episode Dirty Pair TV series was cancelled, these two final episodes were made for VHS, and the difference in fan service is obvious and nice. TV version of Kei never would have flashed her tits at the bad guys. Not even anything explicit. They're also killing baddies now when they never really did before. Wonder what time of day the show originally aired. Animation suddenly improved again too (its awfulness peaking with episode 18). The TV budgeting sucks, ALWAYS sucked. Liked these two final stories more than much of the TV show. 26 felt kind of like an old Bond movie. Next, the 10 episode follow-up OVA.

 

[BrawlMan]

Started watching Digimon Adventure again after not touching it in decades. I am still early in, but the anime holds up well. There's a sense of wonder and adventure. The dubbing still holds up well, all things considered. Even if a corny line/one-liner is thrown in once in a while. Though it wouldn't be Digimon without them. I still consider Adventure the best of the franchise.

 

[Satinavian]

You've described 95% of all popular anime. Almost none of them have a good ending. Either the anime ends long before the manga does, and you get a cliffhanger/non-ending, or the anime and manga go on for so long (because they're marketable) that the author completely runs out of ideas long before the end, so the ending is flaccid or nonsensical.

At least most manage to properly end a story arc.

As most anime primarily exist to promote manga/light novel sales, that is kinda ok. It is like an ongoing book series where you might buy the next book ... or not.


What i don't like much are anime original endings.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Started watching Digimon Adventure again after not touching it in decades. I am still early in, but the anime holds up well. There's a sense of wonder and adventure. The dubbing still holds up well, all things considered. Even if a corny line/one-liner is thrown in once in a while. Though it wouldn't be Digimon without them. I still consider Adventure the best of the franchise.

Definitely valid to do so. Adventure has a sort of Alice in Wonderland whimsy to it that still makes it unique among the series as a whole. Although I also love Tamers a lot for being effectively a cyberpunk show for kids... and probably my first introduction to the genre.

 

[BrawlMan]

Although I also love Tamers a lot for being effectively a cyberpunk show for kids... and probably my first introduction to the genre.

My introduction to cyberpunk was The Matrix. Crazy enough, the character designer based Rika/Ruki off a Trinity and is a total Matrix fanboy. Some fans theorize since Tamers takes place in our "real world", and that Ruki is total Matrix fan girl as our headcanon.Tamers is in my #2 spot of the Digimon TV franchise.

Digimon (with Adventure especially) I consider the best of the isekai genre.These shows at least want to tell an actual story, develop their characters, and there is that sense of adventure. It's why I'll take Digimon, Monster Rancher, three of the El Hazard shows over any modern anime isekai.

 

[Gordon_4]

Definitely valid to do so. Adventure has a sort of Alice in Wonderland whimsy to it that still makes it unique among the series as a whole. Although I also love Tamers a lot for being effectively a cyberpunk show for kids... and probably my first introduction to the genre.

Tamers is the best of the three first Digimon series, though Adventure 1 is the most fun. Adventure 2 was…some highs and lots of lows. Most of the lows involve Davis/Daisuke because he’s a twat.

 

[BrawlMan]

Adventure 2 was…some highs and lots of lows. Most of the lows involve Davis/Daisuke because he’s a twat.

Davis/Daisuke I don't hate as much as I did back when I was pre-teen and teenager. It's rough to like him in the beginning, and Takeru/TK should have just been the lead character from the start. But no, they had to hold on to "tradition" for a goggle boy. That ended up being pointless by the time Savers and anything afterward that came out. At least Davis gets better by the time Ken completely turns to the good side. To be far, Davis does come in with the clutch several times at the halfway point and the final episodes. Once you deal with bigger twats Holland, Bakugo, or Kagome, Davis is a walk through the tulips by comparison.

I don't blame you for still hating him, but my hatred is mostly gone, aside from the early episodes with him.

 

[Ezekiel]

Spoiler

Laughed for some reason. I remembered the stupid off-model face and sad line.

Wondered at the beginning of this episode in which Sonic rushes around the planet for sabotages to transportation centers about him ever getting tired running and if that would kill the character or be lame. But that's exactly what happens in this episode, and it's fine.

Sonic Says:

Spoiler

Fuck Sonic for saying this. He doesn't even know.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Started watching Digimon Adventure again after not touching it in decades. I am still early in, but the anime holds up well. There's a sense of wonder and adventure. The dubbing still holds up well, all things considered. Even if a corny line/one-liner is thrown in once in a while. Though it wouldn't be Digimon without them. I still consider Adventure the best of the franchise.

You should watch the sub, it's almost like a different show.

 

[BrawlMan]

You should watch the sub, it's almost like a different show.

Been done that years ago in my late teens. I noticed the difference, but I still prefer the dub. Warts and all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Watched an anime movie called Look Back, based on a one-shot from the Chainsaw Man dude. I thought it was quite lovely, in a bittersweet way. I've seen it described as a coming of age story and there's elements of that but ultimately it's the more adult version of a "midlife" crisis (which in Japan happens when you're 21 year old fogey) and coming to terms with your calling in life while dealing with some form of sadness or regret.

It's only 59 minutes long with credits and a bit on the cheap side, with tons of photo montages on top of the usual anime shortcuts, but I found the whole thing rather effective and touching.

 

[BrawlMan]

Loving Arcane Season 2. Shit is getting real, real fast.

 

[Ezekiel]

Dirty Pair became ugly with the 10-episode 1987 OVA. That shift to diminished, more aquiline features (like the chin and and upturned noses) and bigger eyes that would, sadly, become so popular in the 1990s. The old outfits were better too. The OVA made them more uniform, both plain silvery white, more revealing and flimsier for it, with these lame buttons connecting the wings of the bottoms beneath the buttocks and no way for the top not to ride up with a triangular gap in the back.

Spoiler

The WWWA got a few more characters that are treated like they've always been there. Stories are okay, I guess. It would be a 6 out of 10 if the designs didn't suck.