The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

[Drathnoxis]

The problem with moving pass L is that the story never really did that, they just got two L minus and just replayed the same beat. The story should have instead moved on and started looking at how society would reorganize around Kira being a thing and how people would start finding way to avoid the system, like hiding their name and such.

Maybe, but I don't think that was ever something that the author was interested in exploring because Kira wasn't really all that different from any other corrupt system of government other than in the limited and unavoidable nature of his power. I think the author really didn't want to end with Kira winning. Also, there wasn't really a way to avoid the system, beyond the fact that there were extremely few people who even had any idea how it worked and all of those were known to Kira. Mikami had the shinigami eyes and could see people's name without being told, so there isn't really a way to avoid that.

 

[Piscian]

Im 4 episodes into Captain Laserhawk and I honestly don't know wtf Im watching, but I am entertained.

Its this bizarre amalgam of Cyberpunk and Cool world featuring a bunch of displaced characters from various Ubisoft games. Its dark..like really dark do not let the opening sequence fool you this is a hard callback to Liquid television. It is some serious wackado nonsense.

 

[BrawlMan]

Its this bizarre amalgam of Cyberpunk and Cool world featuring a bunch of displaced characters from various Ubisoft games. Its dark..like really dark do not let the opening sequence fool you this is a hard callback to Liquid television. It is some serious wackado nonsense.

Suicide Squad: Ubisoft-verse Edition. I can see the appeal.

Its dark..like really dark do not let the opening sequence fool you this is a hard callback to Liquid television.

So what adult_swim used to do, before they went way overboard on the shitty comedies? Or are we talking 90s liquid televison? Because it looks like the show has both styles in the trailer.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

So many...

Starting with the good:

Frieren - Seen a lot of hype for this. The elf mage of the stereotypical fantasy party visits the human hero 50 years after they defeated the demon king. Hero dies of old age, elf realizes she knew practically nothing about her friend, chill fantasy adventure ensues as she goes on journey to learn more about the hero. It is gorgeously produced, and I am quite enjoying. But it is also not quite blowing my socks off like I thought it would. Things are heating up as of the last episode, so I guess we shall see.

Captain Laserhawk - At first, I thought this was just cheap Castlevania but Ubisoft IPs. And while the animation definitely is never as good Castlevania, it is decent and surprisingly, the story is the main draw. A lot of the "social commentary" feels a little weird when this is all about Ubisoft properties. I'm also not sure about the weird live action shit they're doing in Episode 4, but it was a... choice at least. Definitely keen to continue.

Mashle - I read the manga some time ago, and in the anime I have right about caught up to where I left off in the manga. Yeah, it was genuinely funny early on, but it seems like it wants to be an actual shonen, and the curse of uber genericness has begun to set in. Think I might hold off continuing.

Pluto - It was kinda interesting, but just way too slow. Anime episodes do not need to be 1 hour long. The world building is interesting, but it's exhausting even thinking about watching this.

Ron Kamonohashi - For a detective show to work, you kinda need it to be smart. And this show is very, very dumb. And not nearly as funny as it needs to be to pull it off.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Okay I just finished Captain Laserhawk, and while I was still entertained, kind of a dud of an ending. I will say though, I want to see season 2 if only for more Sam motherfuckin Fisher.

Also a note I forgot to add to my initial review, this show actually feels like it was written and made by people from different beliefs and backgrounds blah blah. Absolutely bizarre how much this show understands the appeal of Ubisoft IPs while Ubi understands so, so little.[/ispoiler][/ispoiler]

 

[Piscian]

Okay I just finished Captain Laserhawk, and while I was still entertained, kind of a dud of an ending. I will say though, I want to see season 2 if only for more Sam motherfuckin Fisher.

Also a note I forgot to add to my initial review, this show actually feels like it was written and made by people from different beliefs and backgrounds blah blah. Absolutely bizarre how much this show understands the appeal of Ubisoft IPs while Ubi understands so, so little.[/ispoiler][/ispoiler]

Thats my only real complaint, the ending was just like "The princess is in another castle". I think they missed the mark on providing a satisfying conclusion. Juxtapose that with Castlevania which ends on a similar cliffhanger, but also closed out part of the story and teased a reason to keep watching. Captain Laserhawk, for me, was just noise and thunder all the way to the end and it was awesome, but I'm left with my only reason to anticipate a second season is more of the same interconnected stories "inside" of each episode rather than the narrative as a whole.

For those curious Captain Laserhawk is a bunch animated vignettes, done in the visual style of Liquid television, that bounce back and forth between a series arc and just telling smaller stories of characters that play a role in the overall arc. Each "episode" is great, the arc ending however fell flat. Didn't make me throw my controller at the TV, it was just kinda..eeh.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Watched an old anime OVA: Goku: Midnight Eye. Two episodes total, on Tubi


See, he's called that because he's a private eye and has a cybernetic left eye that can hack into any database in the world. Why does he have a cybernetic left eye that can hack into any data base in the world? He was kidnapped and it was implanted into him by a mysterious voice-ed man. Why did *that* happen? Fuck you, that's why.

It's a gloriously stupid old-school OVA. I wouldn't call it good, but it's a fun watch with the right mindset. Goku is voiced by Steve Blum (Spike Spiegal, Roger Smith) before he developed the ability to have multiple inflections, so that's fun

 

[meiam]

Mashle - I read the manga some time ago, and in the anime I have right about caught up to where I left off in the manga. Yeah, it was genuinely funny early on, but it seems like it wants to be an actual shonen, and the curse of uber genericness has begun to set in. Think I might hold off continuing.

That's the curse of most anime comedy, I think writer just run out of idea for joke and so rely more and more on generic shonen stuff to fill in the gap.

 

[Gordon_4]

Watched an old anime OVA: Goku: Midnight Eye. Two episodes total, on Tubi
View attachment 9942

See, he's called that because he's a private eye and has a cybernetic left eye that can hack into any database in the world. Why does he have a cybernetic left eye that can hack into any data base in the world? He was kidnapped and it was implanted into him by a mysterious voice-ed man. Why did *that* happen? Fuck you, that's why.

It's a gloriously stupid old-school OVA. I wouldn't call it good, but it's a fun watch with the right mindset. Goku is voiced by Steve Blum (Spike Spiegal, Roger Smith) before he developed the ability to have multiple inflections, so that's fun

God damn, it has been a minute but I remember that one.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Thats my only real complaint, the ending was just like "The princess is in another castle". I think they missed the mark on providing a satisfying conclusion. Juxtapose that with Castlevania which ends on a similar cliffhanger, but also closed out part of the story and teased a reason to keep watching. Captain Laserhawk, for me, was just noise and thunder all the way to the end and it was awesome, but I'm left with my only reason to anticipate a second season is more of the same interconnected stories "inside" of each episode rather than the narrative as a whole.

For those curious Captain Laserhawk is a bunch animated vignettes, done in the visual style of Liquid television, that bounce back and forth between a series arc and just telling smaller stories of characters that play a role in the overall arc. Each "episode" is great, the arc ending however fell flat. Didn't make me throw my controller at the TV, it was just kinda..eeh.

My other complaint is that they did the whole "yes this assortment of strangers who hate each other are definitely family now after spending 5 minutes together" thing from Suicide Squad. Was very confused by that.

That's the curse of most anime comedy, I think writer just run out of idea for joke and so rely more and more on generic shonen stuff to fill in the gap.

To be fair, it is pretty hard to keep doing the same gag again and again and still have it be funny. How One managed to keep that up for One Punch Man is genuinely impressive.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Blue Eye Samurai

I don't pop in this thread much 'cause I don't watch a lot of anime stuff but I do dabble if something interesting comes my way and the plot and art style of this new Netflix jam caught my interest. Sure enough I binged all 8 episodes in a couple of days, and these are long episodes for a cartoon.
Premise is in 17th century a mixed-race woman seeks revenge by tracking down and killing all 4 white men that would have been in Japan when she was born because one would be her father that also tried to kill her and her mother. So the show trades in all the lone samurai/ronin tropes but with a modern racial/social reckoning theme going. All of this depends on the art and animation and action of course and those hit real nice.
There are some plot threads that are less interesting than others (there is a princess character that is ok but sometimes tedious and ultimately less interesting than the titular character).
The show is sometimes slow paced with lots of character moments- it reminds me of Warrior, the live action Bruce Lee inspired martial arts western, that is both trying to take itself seriously and be exploitative thrill action. I like this combo even though at times it can be tedious. But when it works it works. It's a nice mix of standard tropes and a new story.

Highly recommend if you want a new samurai thing.

 

[BrawlMan]

Blue Eye Samurai

I don't pop in this thread much 'cause I don't watch a lot of anime stuff but I do dabble if something interesting comes my way and the plot and art style of this new Netflix jam caught my interest. Sure enough I binged all 8 episodes in a couple of days, and these are long episodes for a cartoon.
Premise is in 17th century a mixed-race woman seeks revenge by tracking down and killing all 4 white men that would have been in Japan when she was born because one would be her father that also tried to kill her and her mother. So the show trades in all the lone samurai/ronin tropes but with a modern racial/social reckoning theme going. All of this depends on the art and animation and action of course and those hit real nice.
There are some plot threads that are less interesting than others (there is a princess character that is ok but sometimes tedious and ultimately less interesting than the titular character).
The show is sometimes slow paced with lots of character moments- it reminds me of Warrior, the live action Bruce Lee inspired martial arts western, that is both trying to take itself seriously and be exploitative thrill action. I like this combo even though at times it can be tedious. But when it works it works. It's a nice mix of standard tropes and a new story.

Highly recommend if you want a new samurai thing.

I'll get into that one later. Right now I'm watching Pluto. Similar to Blue Eye Samurai, each episode is about an hour or slightly over an hour.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Seems I'm quite on topic.

I gave Pluto a second chance, and did end up enjoying it (although the 1.5x speed button got a lot of use). While the presentation and production were fantastic, the characters were compelling, and the world building was engaging, I found the overall plot (and the ending) quite disappointing. My immediate complaint, which I can kind of overlook, is that the premise of the show is that the world's most powerful robots are being killed off one by one. And even after the first two or three deaths, the remaining robots insist on remaining on their lonesome instead of teaming up and confronting the murderer. Who would have definitely been overcome by all of them working together.

The second complaint is more of a spoiler, but I'll just say that the show loves to take shots at the US, which normally I am all for, but it was rather shallow and impacted the plot in a negative way.

So yeah, overall, a bit disappointing. Very much about the journey and not the destination. Just like Captain Laserhawk and...

 

[Bob_McMillan]

... Blue Eye Samurai.

As Old Hunter said, the art style is what got me interested in the show. And in the first few episodes, it definitely delivered. It's not quite the level of Arcane or Spider-verse, but it's pretty close. It made me really, really want to play Ghost of Tsushima again.

But yeah, just like the last two Netflix shows I watched, it petered out at the end. Not just the story this time, but the presentation as well. It felt like they finally bumped into the limitations of 3D animation, and it all felt significantly more generic.

Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from this. There are good fights, but no amazing ones. If anything, I'd say that the show sadly peaks at the first episode.

Still overall a good watch, but I was really hoping for more.

 

[BrawlMan]

Seems I'm quite on topic.

I gave Pluto a second chance, and did end up enjoying it (although the 1.5x speed button got a lot of use). While the presentation and production were fantastic, the characters were compelling, and the world building was engaging, I found the overall plot (and the ending) quite disappointing. My immediate complaint, which I can kind of overlook, is that the premise of the show is that the world's most powerful robots are being killed off one by one. And even after the first two or three deaths, the remaining robots insist on remaining on their lonesome instead of teaming up and confronting the murderer. Who would have definitely been overcome by all of them working together.

The second complaint is more of a spoiler, but I'll just say that the show loves to take shots at the US, which normally I am all for, but it was rather shallow and impacted the plot in a negative way.

So yeah, overall, a bit disappointing. Very much about the journey and not the destination. Just like Captain Laserhawk and...

I am the complete opposite. A show such as Pluto you can't watch a 1.5x speed to appreciate everything. Similar to Monster, it's a slow burn that builds up and pays off. As for robots doing things by themselves, it is pointed out how not a good idea it was. It was done either out of pride, no other choice with no back up available, or Atom was knocked out for the duration when Epsilon was next.

On your second complaint: the manga was made in 2003 and ended in 2009. When the War on Terror was still a big thing, and everyone had their own criticisms on the waste of war that was. And plenty of shit thrown at W. Bush (not unjustified). A lot of those pot shots don't exactly ring hollow; especially in today's political climate. I appreciate the defense, but I've seen so much worse potshots on the USA in anime or cartoons in general. You want really shitty and bad potshots of America or other countries not Japan? Look up Highschool of the Dead or GATE.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I am the complete opposite. A show such as Pluto you can't watch a 1.5x speed to appreciate everything. Similar to Monster, it's a slow burn that builds up and pays off. As for robots doing things by themselves, it is pointed out how not a good idea it was. It was done either out of pride, no other choice with no back up available, or Atom was knocked out for the duration when Epsilon was next.

On your second complaint: the manga was made in 2003 and ended in 2009. When the War on Terror was still a big thing, and everyone had their own criticisms on the waste of war that was. And plenty of shit thrown at W. Bush (not unjustified). A lot of those pot shots don't exactly ring hollow; especially in today's political climate. I appreciate the defense, but I've seen so much worse potshots on the USA in anime or cartoons in general. You want really shitty and bad potshots of America or other countries not Japan? Look up Highschool of the Dead or GATE.

My complaint about the US potshots is not that they exist, but specifically about the US president actually being puppeted by a supercomputer. The supercomputer aspect was so fucking random, to the point that I'm wondering if I missed an entire episode. But I checked the wikis, seems like this is the full story. To be clear, I don't mind the US being criticized (quite the opposite in fact). I just think they were done pretty poorly for the most part.

Instead of this whole conflict being caused by an endless cycle of hatred inherent in human society or the imperialism of the US, it turns out.... It was the teddy bear all along!

In my opinion this aspect of the story did not need to exist at all. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They took potshots at the US by making the President look like an idiot and basically be the ultimate villain of the whole story, but didn't want to commit and added the teddy bear so the US isn't TOTALLY evil, they've just been tricked.

I will admit now that I don't fully understand what the heck happened in this show, and I don't think that's 100% my fault.

 

[BrawlMan]

My complaint about the US potshots is not that they exist, but specifically about the US president actually being puppeted by a supercomputer. The supercomputer aspect was so fucking random, to the point that I'm wondering if I missed an entire episode. But I checked the wikis, seems like this is the full story. To be clear, I don't mind the US being criticized (quite the opposite in fact). I just think they were done pretty poorly for the most part.

Instead of this whole conflict being caused by an endless cycle of hatred inherent in human society or the imperialism of the US, it turns out.... It was the teddy bear all along!

In my opinion this aspect of the story did not need to exist at all. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They took potshots at the US by making the President look like an idiot and basically be the ultimate villain of the whole story, but didn't want to commit and added the teddy bear so the US isn't TOTALLY evil, they've just been tricked.

I will admit now that I don't fully understand what the heck happened in this show, and I don't think that's 100% my fault.

People wanted a 1 to 1 adaption of the manga? They got what they wanted. As for Teddy Roosevelt, while it does cheapen in some fashion, I am not going to be complaining about it much. I do find it weird is that author holds back and tries to do a work around. If he wanted to do a no one is inherently evil or not all American are evil, there so many ways to do it. Hell, he already had it as part of his core message with other characters from different countries. It's even weirder, because before this manga, during the manga's run, and afterward there are so much more manga/anime that put America in worst light or made only the American characters evil/jerks, or very dark grey. Gantz (pretty much hated anyone non-Japanese and is xenophobic to anyone not Japanese), Ghost in the Shell: SAC (those two CIA assholes), and Blood+ (where the American government is knowingly working with Diva's chiropteran [vampires], but there are a few named American characters working on the good side or working with Saya to stop diva). All 3 of them didn't pull any punches, and none of them got any lasting consequences. Gantz is the exception, but it is really racist and sexist, so it can get fucked hard.

I will admit now that I don't fully understand what the heck happened in this show, and I don't think that's 100% my fault.

I didn't find the show hard to follow. It's pretty straightforward since it's an alternate retelling of Astro Boy.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

People wanted a 1 to 1 adaption of the manga? They got what they wanted. As for Teddy Roosevelt, while it does cheapen in some fashion, I am not going to be complaining about it much. I do find it weird is that author holds back and tries to do a work around. If he wanted to do a no one is inherently evil or not all American are evil, there so many ways to do it. Hell, he already had it as part of his core message with other characters from different countries. It's even weirder, because before this manga, during the manga's run, and afterward there are so much more manga/anime that put America in worst light or made only the American characters evil/jerks, or very dark grey. Gantz (pretty much hated anyone non-Japanese and is xenophobic to anyone not Japanese), Ghost in the Shell: SAC (those two CIA assholes), and Blood+ (where the American government is knowingly working with Diva's chiropteran [vampires], but there are a few named American characters working on the good side or working with Saya to stop diva). All 3 of them didn't pull any punches, and none of them got any lasting consequences. Gantz is the exception, but it is really racist and sexist, so it can get fucked hard.


I didn't find the show hard to follow. It's pretty straightforward since it's an alternate retelling of Astro Boy.

This is a genuine question, can you explain how the bear is related to the other villains?

 

[BrawlMan]

This is a genuine question, can you explain how the bear is related to the other villains?

The other main villains don't know he even exists. The other two villains are blinded by revenge, grief, and hatred to give a damn.

Teddy pretty much started the false rumors of the kingdom of Persia having wmds. Something that ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if the robot Prince did find out, he wouldn't have cared. Even though Teddy sees robots superior to humans, he doesn't give a crap about the robot population and sees them as just sacrifices. He considered himself a God among ants.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

... Blue Eye Samurai.

As Old Hunter said, the art style is what got me interested in the show. And in the first few episodes, it definitely delivered. It's not quite the level of Arcane or Spider-verse, but it's pretty close. It made me really, really want to play Ghost of Tsushima again.

But yeah, just like the last two Netflix shows I watched, it petered out at the end. Not just the story this time, but the presentation as well. It felt like they finally bumped into the limitations of 3D animation, and it all felt significantly more generic.

Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from this. There are good fights, but no amazing ones. If anything, I'd say that the show sadly peaks at the first episode.

Still overall a good watch, but I was really hoping for more.

I dunno I thought the one where she used/assemble a different weapon was pretty freaking great. It helped that it was paired with powerful flashback that had themes in another show my wife and I were watching so like it all came together. But the action itself was pretty freaking sweet.