The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

[TheMysteriousGX]

After an enjoyable stint in hololive hell, I managed to scrape together enough mental energy to watch something new for once.

So naturally the first show I watched was Heaven's Design Team. A real "turn your brain off and learn about animals" affair.

A group of contracted angels handle god's terribly described commissions for various animals. It's fun trying to guess what animals they're creating before they get to it. The meta jokes about how to/how *not* to commission art projects is hilarious. Seriously recommend this show to relax with.

Then I'm halfway through JuJutsu Kaisen. Not a show I'd normally watch, but it came heavily recommended by basically everybody I respect who watch anime and a random Polygon article about how good it's female characters are that weird Twitter nerds got mad at for reasons only they know.

It's...alright? The animation is top notch and the story so far is "what if you put Bleach and Boruto's Dad into a blender and strained it through a mesh sieve to take out the worst bits. I'm only halfway through and I'm wondering where these great female characters are at though. So far the only prominent lady loses her fight and gets jobbed off screen twice. At least throw her through a building on camera. If this takes 80 episodes to get to, let me know so I can stop wasting my time

Also, I cannot get a read on what power levels we're dealing with here. MC dude can burst through concrete like it's nothing and MC Gal thinks it's weird, but basically everybody can take hits that would damage Saiyan Saga DBZ characters. And we're doing a tournament arc introducing a dozen more characters with lengthy explanations thing already, sooo...I dunno

 

[Worgen]

I just rewatched A Certain Scientific Railgun Season 2. It still holds up and is pretty good and handles clones pretty well. Started on Season 3... its... too early to really tell, it kinda starts off annoying with school competition bullshit but its started getting into things so we shall see.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I watched Star Trek Lower Decks.......... I'm still trying to figure out if it was the worst Star Trek show I've seen or a giant meta joke that's actually trolling the hell out of new Star Trek and the Kurtzman era

 

[twistedmic]

Re-watched the first two episodes of Invader Zim for the first time in a long time. It is still as awesome and messed up as I remember it being,

 

[twistedmic]

I watched Star Trek Lower Decks.......... I'm still trying to figure out if it was the worst Star Trek show I've seen or a giant meta joke that's actually trolling the hell out of new Star Trek and the Kurtzman era

I watched one episode and it was certainly animated and had the name Star Trek.

 

[BrawlMan]

I copy and paste some of my old posts:

Spoiler: New Cutey Honey

New Cutey Honey (1996 OVA) - It's Sailor Moon before Sailor Moon ever existed. The franchise has been around since the early 70s. It's just a fun, entertaining, magical girl show with plenty of action and lots of nudity. I bought the Blu-ray box set on sale for $18.00 on Amazon. This version of the show was supposed to have 12 episodes, but was cut short and production stopped at 8. You can tell there were budget cuts, because the animation and line works looks rough in some areas for the final episode. Episode 9 is an audio drama that comes as a bonus on the blu-ray The English dub is amazing and still holds up as one of best dubs from ADV. May they rest in peace. So much, that they brought back all of the voice cast to do Cutey Honey Universe.

This is a show with fan-service, but it's fan-service done right. Fan-service can only work when done in small doses or the person with those tits, have a personality. And that personality better not be set to b(i)tch, asshole, or the c-word. This means you Asuka Langley or Naru Sarugawa! Honey is the complete opposite of them. Kind, compassionate, protective, and considerate. Don't let that fool you, she can clever, crafty, quick on her feet, and has all of those detailed transformation sequences. For those interested in some fun 90s anime with awesome animation, I highly recommended this version of Cutey Honey.

Saw Castle in the Sky. I forgot how awesome this movie is. I liked the movie back when I saw it in middle school, but love it even more now! It's similar to an Indiana Jones adventure film, or serial shows. Yet with its own flair, and unique style. The animation, background art, and character design have a all aged like fine wine. The usual of a Miyazaki film. Looks even more beautiful on Blu Ray on the big screen. The score (2003 version) is amazing. From what I heard, even the original composer for the movie hates his own score from the 1986 version. I'll take his word for it. I have to say, Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke are my top favorites of Miyazaki films. Y'all have to see this if you have not yet. I don't care how you see it. Use Disney+ if you have to.

A quick ramble. Castle in the Sky feels like a proto-Uncharted in some ways. The male protagonist, Pazu, has some serious parkour he demonstrates through out the film. Especially when he is climbing. The lost civilization that destroyed itself, and the evil military that wants something from the ancient society. Then again, similar to Indiana Jones in some ways, so the influence always spreads around.

Though the Laputa civilization decided to abandon their civilization instead of growing proud and killing each other.

 

[BrawlMan]

Part 2:

Spoiler: Tenchi OVA

Rewatching some old anime. Saw Tenchi Muyo OVA Season 1. It's great looking back at older anime. A good first season and laying the groundwork for the Tenchi franchise. I still consider it the best harem series in anime. Also, the original Tenchi had the best animation, aside from some of the movies. Tenchi Univese for me is still the best of the franchise. TU is a retelling of the original OVA, but with a complete story and new added characters. That said, there are things that the OVA has that universe has. Better villain (no one has yet topped the original Kagato), better animation (for the first season anyway), and the best anime opening of the franchise. I am working my way through OVA 2, and there is a drop in quality that is noticable. The 2nd season is still good, but not as good as the first. OVA 3 we do not talk about, OVA 4 never made is stateside, and OVA 5 is being made, but I stopped caring for the original OVA continuity since the 3rd. They can stop with the spin-offs and continuations, because they milked this franchise beyond dry. At least Universe continuity had an definitive ending. Either with the last episode or the movie, Tenchi Forever.

The dubbing holds up well with a few misfires of the script. Otherwise, good job and give them some leeway. This was when anime shows were finally getting better dubs. Also, Ryoko is still best waifu from the 90s.

​

 

[BrawlMan]

I got my Tenchi Muyo Movie Collection (Blu Ray/DVD). It comes with all three films taking place in the Universe continuity. Though I only got for Tenchi Muyo In Love and In Love 2 (aka Tenchi Forvever in the West). Daughter of Darkness is non-canon and inconsequential. It was originally supposed to be the second official movie, until the creators decided canon discontinuity. Which the best option as it feels like an official fan fic, and adds yet another lover interest.

For those that don't know, the Tenchi series is about a regular guy who has encounters with hot space alien babes from different walks of life. It was not the first harem show, but it was one of the most popular and put it in to the mainstream of anime. I consider it the best the harem genre has to offer.

In Love 1 is basically Back to the Future with the Tenchi cast. A villain named Kain, breaks out of prison, goes back in time, and kills Tenchi parents in revenge for the Jurians (Tenchi's royal bloodline) justly imprisoning him. So Tenchi and the gang go back in time to prevent his parents death. The movie is good with better production values and an animation bump. The animation is back to high caliber like the first OVA of the original continuity. Universe had decent to good animation, but it's obvious they were working with a smaller budget due to being a 26 episode TV series. The film is something you should watch only after seeing Universe first (the same applies to Forever too) as it takes place after the TV series. The movie is one for the fans, and is all about the subtle character moments and them playing off of each other. That said, you get cute and heartwarming moments from seeing Tenchi's parents interact with each other when they were teenagers. My only problem with the film is that Ryoko and Ayeka's (the Betty and Veronica of all the continuities) bickering can be tiring around this point. The gag wears thin, and only got worst in OVA 3 and Tenchi in Tokyo; which are different alternate stories altogether. Thankfully, it does not drag on that much with even Tenchi telling them to put a lid on it. Then again, his existence is in jeopardy and he's right to be angry. Also, it feels less like a film, and more like an 1 and 20 minute episode. Good overall; a solid B.

 

[BrawlMan]

Tenchi Forvever takes place after the first movie and TV series, and is the final end of the Universe timeline. Tenchi gets captured by a mysterious spirit named Haruna that lives in a tree. She lured/hypnotized him after Tenchi ran away from Ryoko and Ayeka, once again, fighting over him. Only this time it's put better use in story and character. Forever actually has the best character development for these three: Ryoko, Ayeka, and Tenchi. Especially the first two on the list. The ladies actually have to work together, and are actually nice to each other when Tenchi is in danger. It's nice seeing character development actually stick. Given it's the final Tenchi product in the Universe timeline, it makes sense. The film also gets a different art style that is serious and slightly more realistic. Some people hate it, but it's not too different that it goes in to unwatchable or uncanny valley. My only main beef is with the villain, Haruna. She is supposed to be seen as sympathetic, but it's hard to sympathize with woman who's already willing to make a booty call/rape her former lover's teenage grandson. For the record, she raped him twice, and none of the characters acknowledge this (because they weren't there to witness it, and film chooses to ignore it). I hate double standard rape in stories. Otherwise, I do like the film and has a sense of finality. Tenchi does not choose a final girl, and both Ryoko and Ayeka realize to let him do what he wants and what makes him happy without having to force or pressure him. Tenchi loves drawing so they let him be. We need to see more in the zombie genre that is harem. When the protagonist ain't a total pushover and women all have personality instead of character stereotypes like: tsundere/major b#tch, shy girl, weird girl, etc. Despite my major problem in the spoiler, it is the best of all three Tenchi films. I give it an A.

Note:

Multi-posts, because of the stupid character limit.

 

[BrawlMan]

Another old post from the film thread:

Promare - Studio Trigger is basically the Platinum games of anime now. God, I love them. This movie is basically Fire Force, but better. Basically about people who can use fire called the Burnish. They started when people began combusting. Shit went bad, and now there are forces dedicated to putting out fires caused by the Burnish. But are the Burnish as evil as the film and in-universe news makes them out to be? Hhhhhhhmmmmmm....

If you're a fan of Kill La Kill, Gurren Laggan, and Panty & Stocking, you will love this. If you are not familiar with any of those, you will most likel love this film. The animation is once again top notch, and Trigger always seems to outdo themselves when it comes to action scenes. I did not get a chance to see it theaters, but it's still nice viewing it on the big screen. The dubbing has an all star cast: Kari Walgreen (Haruko from FLCL), Steve Blum, and Johnny Yong Bosch (Using his Nero and Ichigo voice, He even does Nero scream). Ironic, because at the beginning of the movie he pulls a, Urizen/Dracula slouch of villainy pose. The dubbing is on point, the movie does not waste time nor feels like it's going too fast, and it lands all the right beats on funny, heartwarming, tear jerking, and nightmare.

If there is a flaw, is that you don't get see enough of Galo's (main character) team on the fire fighter side. They are there, but it's pretty obvious the movie is more about Galo and Lio. If this were a TV series, it would not be much of a problem. Then again, I don't know how they would have topped the final battle in the film. So I am not that bothered by it.

​

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Yeah, Tenchi is my benchmark for harem stuff, which means I just don't watch harem shows these days
Far as the Haruna thing goes:

Spoiler

that wouldn't be a crime in Japan for another 18 years...or still not a crime, depending on circumstances.

Which, not an excuse, definitely bad, but product of its time type stuff.

 

[BrawlMan]

Which, not an excuse, definitely bad, but product of its time type stuff.

Even when I was around 13 (late 2002 was when I first saw the film), my thoughts and feeling were still fuck off Haruna and fuck off Japan. I know you are not making excuses and thank you for clarifying. This is me letting everyone know my attitude was more or less the same back then. Tenchi increasingly had this problem before with "sympathetic" villains. Uzaha from Daughter of Darkness (her alas villain moment with the flashbacks with Yosho) and later with Yugi from Tenchi in Tokyo. Speaking of Yosho, he's a dick constantly shirking duties and running away from responsibities and Tecnchi's the one that's almost always gotta clean up his grandpa's messes. I was okay with at the time, but by my late teens I realized how much of a lazy bum Tenchi's gramps can be. The only time Yosho, did not runaway from his problems nor drops his problems on Tenchi was in TiT, ironic enough.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Yeah, I never got through TiT. The whole "this character you liked with their own thoughts and feelings and identity never actually existed and was all made up" fucks me up hard on a personal psychological level, so I noped out as soon as that happened.

EDIT: Needless downer endings are also a big thing that sour me on a show. Basically haven't rewatched Gurren Lagann because of it

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Then I'm halfway through JuJutsu Kaisen. Not a show I'd normally watch, but it came heavily recommended by basically everybody I respect who watch anime and a random Polygon article about how good it's female characters are that weird Twitter nerds got mad at for reasons only they know.

It's...alright? The animation is top notch and the story so far is "what if you put Bleach and Boruto's Dad into a blender and strained it through a mesh sieve to take out the worst bits. I'm only halfway through and I'm wondering where these great female characters are at though. So far the only prominent lady loses her fight and gets jobbed off screen twice. At least throw her through a building on camera. If this takes 80 episodes to get to, let me know so I can stop wasting my time

Also, I cannot get a read on what power levels we're dealing with here. MC dude can burst through concrete like it's nothing and MC Gal thinks it's weird, but basically everybody can take hits that would damage Saiyan Saga DBZ characters. And we're doing a tournament arc introducing a dozen more characters with lengthy explanations thing already, sooo...I dunno

Hammer girl is pretty lame so far, but apparently she's not so bad later in the manga. There are lots of other female characters though who are much more interesting, and that's pretty much the only thing that JJK does differently. Otherwise it would just be yet another well animated shonen with no real substance. It really is amazing how in most shonen out there, female characters get no play unless written by a female mangaka. Apparently JJK's author is anonymous for now.

The worldbuilding is done at a snail's pace as well, which I am not a fan of. I've already kind of accepted that the magic system is complete bullshit, but I'm still annoyed that the main character is just doing magic punches. Why are the main characters always the ones with the lamest powers?!?

 

[BrawlMan]

Yeah, I never got through TiT. The whole "this character you liked with their own thoughts and feelings and identity never actually existed and was all made up" fucks me up hard on a personal psychological level, so I noped out as soon as that happened.

Sakuya does get in an awesome moment in the last episode and helps Tenchi escape from Yugi's (the voice actor also voices Haruna and you can tell by the voice) false reality knowing she would cease to exists. She encourages to leave and kick ass! Bravest woman in the entire Tenchi franchise. Even braver than Tenchi's mother in the Universe version. So there is that. This seems to be a curse for the Tenchi franchise. Nearly every time they try to add a new girl to the harem it either backfire by messing with the already established dynamic, or the woman in question might as well not exist, in-universe or out.

EDIT: Needless downer endings are also a big thing that sour me on a show. Basically haven't rewatched Gurren Lagann because of it

Honestly, I find GL's ending more insulting. It's why I always prefer Kill la Kill over Gurren. Even the writers and director knew they screwed up and did not want to make that same mistake again. At least Sakuya had hints about her not being real or being involved with Yugi unwittingly. Since Sakuya is part of Yugi, it's implied that with the "right care", she will more or less be like her when she "properly grows up". It's still sucks, because it is implied she will be another lover interest, and they ended on an open-ended sequel hook. Thank God, the show bombed so that would not happen. What's worse is that TiT started with the implication that it was a sequel Universe, with even references that can only be found in Universe. Tenchi's mom is a dead give away. It's only around the 6th or 7th episode where we learn that it's another AU. It's a blessing in disguise, so I am not up about that particular twist or revelation. It's like they wanted to make a sequel, but realize it has nothing to do with anything and opted out for something else half way in. The fact the two crooks who take something from the shrine in the flashback episode and are never referenced again are proof they had no idea what they wanted to for the story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I watched Moana again (or Vaiana if you live in Europe where there's apparently some pornstar called Moana, so Disney changed it for that region) and I liked it a lot more than I did the first time. Still not the biggest fan of the songs. Seriously Disney, why aren't you getting Alan Menkin back on this shit? You got the guy back for Enchanted and Tangled on which he did a fucking bang-up job, and then you just ditch him starting with Frozen, which songs pale in comparison.

I also saw Onward which felt like Sherk's toiletpaper cling-on. The ending is actually quite nice, but it's not worth sitting through the most generic fantasy parody.

Oh, and can we talk about Disney's rather annoying recent mandate to change movies dependent on the country you're watching it from. This already popped up in some Pixar movies, like Inside Out where someone watching sports will be watching rubgy, or soccer dependent on whether you're watching the US or the European version. This in itself is small, but it's starting to get way more pervasive. In Onward, eventhough I'm watching the original english dialoge version, all the writing that is related to the plot is in dutch (as I live in the Netherlands). Not subtitled, but fully rendered within the scene. Like a scene where the main character is writing a list and on his hand, and it's dutch. And it's really bugging me, because I can't fully immerse myself into the movie without feeling like someone pops up with a marker at certain points. It also means I am refrained from ever seeing the original movie as was intended. If they want to do this in the dubbed version fine, but why are they being so weird about the original english version?

Also, wow Disney+ censors the shit out of some movies (it deems meant for children). Adventures in Babysitting got freaking gutted.

 

[BrawlMan]

Also, wow Disney+ censors the shit out of some movies (it deems meant for children). Adventures in Babysitting got freaking gutted.

It's why I always advocate for physical media. That is a major flaw of streaming only. Either certain stuff gets censored, or if your internet goes down good luck watching anything.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's why I always advocate for physical media. That is a major flaw of streaming only. Either certain stuff gets censored, or if your internet goes down good luck watching anything.

The weird thing is though, Disney+ has X-Men: Days of Future Past, which drops the F-bomb, and it's uncensored. Plus, they got that Star addition now that has adult content, like Alien and Deadpool. There's some things about Adventures in Babysitting that I can understand they edited out, like the gay bashing and the rape joke. But just regular swears like 'asshole' are now awkwardly changed to 'airhead'.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I rewatched Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, the Netflix movie/revival.

The gross designs and spastic animations are still true to the show, as well as the random stupidity of everything. Which I think is admirable, frankly. After being cancelled for 17 years and nursing such a reverent fanbase it must have been tempting to use the movie opportunity to celebrate itself and "get even" with its cancellation by tying everything together and do some kind of emotional grandstanding. Instead the movie is just one more extra long episode that doesn't even try to glorify itself. As dumb, loud, irreverent and anarchic as it's always been (though not as dark as some episodes). The characters haven't changed, everyone's been wasting their time and by the end status quo is reaffirmed without a shred of insincerity. I guess Dib gets a cute moment with his dad, and as heartwarming a moment as he can get from his sister, but nothing fundamentally changes.

I wonder how disappointed were the weirdos that ship Zim and Dib.

 

[BrawlMan]

The weird thing is though, Disney+ has X-Men: Days of Future Past, which drops the F-bomb, and it's uncensored. Plus, they got that Star addition now that has adult content, like Alien and Deadpool. There's some things about Adventures in Babysitting that I can understand they edited out, like the gay bashing and the rape joke. But just regular swears like 'asshole' are now awkwardly changed to 'airhead'.

I remember the first time Disney's done something like this. When Disney's movie, The First Kid, aired on the Disney channel, they took out the word suck and replaced it with stinks. And that was all the way back in 1998.