The last thing we watched, cartoon/animu edition

Bartholen

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Fullmetal Alchemist episode 2.

Honestly, I think this backstory is kind of wasted by just dumping it all in the second episode. There's a lot of ominous foreshadowing and hyping about it in the first, and showing it all straight away after just pisses most of its dramatic effect down the drain. We've known the characters and world for so little time that it's a bit hard to get emotionally invested, even though the episode deals with incredibly heavy subject matter. If this episode was like episode 9 or 10, or sprinkled in piecemeal throughout episodes, I think it would have been a lot better. It doesn't help either that we're still doing character introductions. It also feels rushed, with vital information being revealed or borderline handwaved with just a few sentences: the Elric brothers just happen to be brilliantly precocious prodigies because... they just are. Their mom just passes away in a few sentences. Ed's introduction to the military is just "whatever". These are all concepts which could almost have been episodes all by themselves. And let's not even get into the psychology of it all: being orphaned, having your only sibling irreversibly changed, getting mind-raped by an eldritch horror, being recruited essentially as a child soldier etc.

It's really feeling like this series is biting off way more than its age rating and writing style can handle. These concepts, themes and ideas call for a grimdark, hard R for adults. But seeing how little I remember of it I'm withholding overall judgment for now. I do wonder though, would the show be more effective if you skipped this episode altogether? Because it's not really saying anything that we don't get reminded of later and there's to my memory no unique plot information in it. Maybe having to parse the backstory together yourself might make it more effective.
 
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BrawlMan

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It's really feeling like this series is biting off way more than its age rating and writing style can handle. These concepts, themes and ideas call for a grimdark, hard R for adults. But seeing how little I remember of it I'm withholding overall judgment for now. I do wonder though, would the show be more effective if you skipped this episode altogether? Because it's not really saying anything that we don't get reminded of later and there's to my memory no unique plot information in it. Maybe having to parse the backstory together yourself might make it more effective.
The only reason those are skipped is because it's assumed you either already read the manga, or more than likely, saw FMA 2003. Going over those again, would have been repetitive and near pointless. It's a double edge sword, but I don't see it as a big waste. Brotherhood and the FMA Manga does get dark. If you want a grim dark "R-Rated" version of that, then you might as well watch FMA 2003 again. Assuming you did the first time around.
 
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thebobmaster

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The first arc of FMA: Brotherhood is definitely rushed. I think the people who made it assumed that anyone watching Brotherhood had seen the original anime, so they rushed to the divergence point between the anime and the manga, with Brotherhood following the manga. I can safely say, watching it again with friends who haven't seen it and being almost through the show again, it gets much better once characters from Xing get introduced.
 
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Bob_McMillan

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I remember finishing a "rewatch" of FMAB only to learn that I was actually watching FMA. It explained why about 70% of what I watched was completely foreign to me lol.

When I did an actual rewatch of FMAB, I skipped past all the "remade" episodes. A little sad that we couldn't have just one true, full version of the story in anime form, but I'd rather we get a weird start to FMAB than having the first series as the only anime adaptation.
 
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Drathnoxis

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The only reason those are skipped is because it's assumed you either already read the manga, or more than likely, saw FMA 2003. Going over those again, would have been repetitive and near pointless. It's a double edge sword, but I don't see it as a big waste. Brotherhood and the FMA Manga does get dark. If you want a grim dark "R-Rated" version of that, then you might as well watch FMA 2003 again. Assuming you did the first time around.
It's pretty dumb to skim over parts of the story just because a completely separate adaptation that diverges significantly already exists. It's making your own adaptation weaker on a baseless assumption.
 

BrawlMan

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It's pretty dumb to skim over parts of the story just because a completely separate adaptation that diverges significantly already exists. It's making your own adaptation weaker on a baseless assumption.
Hence why I said double edged sword.
 

Specter Von Baren

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It's pretty dumb to skim over parts of the story just because a completely separate adaptation that diverges significantly already exists. It's making your own adaptation weaker on a baseless assumption.
Well the problem is that the OG anime doesn't diverge too much until the point where Greed dies in the original anime. If they had come out father apart then I'd find it clear cut, but Brotherhood released so soon afterward that I completely understand how difficult a decision it was.
 

Bartholen

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Well the problem is that the OG anime doesn't diverge too much until the point where Greed dies in the original anime. If they had come out father apart then I'd find it clear cut, but Brotherhood released so soon afterward that I completely understand how difficult a decision it was.
It's a very interesting adaptational dilemma: considering the original anime came out only 6 years earlier it's perfectly understandable that at the time they wouldn't want to retread already covered material so thoroughly. But I think history will be unkind to the decision to speed through the first arc because it was already adapted in the first anime. Brotherhood has been the definitive adaptation of the manga for the past like 15 years and probably always will be, and the original is basically only ever mentioned in relation to it. So the fact that the first arc (or however you want to say it) has rushed pacing kind of means that the series has no "complete" adaptation. I've never watched the original anime. Could you watch the first arc from that and switch to Brotherhood afterwards for the "complete" anime? Or would the slight differences be too jarring?
 
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BrawlMan

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Could you watch the first arc from that and switch to Brotherhood afterwards for the "complete" anime? Or would the slight differences be too jarring?
It's too jarring due to different plot hints, structures, sub-plots, specific 2003 anime only characters that don't show up anywhere in Brotherhood/Manga, and different characterization for major characters at the beginning, during, and later on after the first arc. Not to mention two different art and animation styles, despite sharing some similarities. Not to mention, some of the early adventure episodes are FMA 2003 only and never showed up in the original manga.

Whenever you finish Brotherhood and decide to look at FMA 2003 (or not). Check out this video. Obviously big spoilers, so save it until you finish Brotherhood.

 

Chimpzy

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Chimpzy watches Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex (Part 20)

Season 1, Episode 22: SCANDAL

Been a while, but I haven’t forgotten. If I had to sum up this episode in a single word it would be ‘counter-attack’. Last time Section 9 managed to wrest a win from the brink of defeat thanks to Laughing Man’s intervention, but all that led to was the arrest of a middle man. The ring leaders aren’t too pleased to have Section 9 nipping at their heels. So now it’s war, and their opening shots try to cut the head off the snake. Aramaki is lured into a trap at a refugee camp using supposed information about his missing brother to frame him for illegal drug possession/use. While the Major is almost assassinated one of the corrupt narcotics squad members posing as a hot but fake doctor while the Major is swapping bodies and thus completely vulnerable, complete with some lesbian foe yay just to make the situation a little creepier, again only foiled by timely intervention by Laughing Man.

There are less elegant ways of announcing “We’re in the end game now”. There’s a significant raising of the stakes, as members of Section 9 have not yet been directly and deliberately targeted like this. While it is obvious it would fail somehow, the attempt on the Major is particularly tense, the seductive yet sadistic Ara Ara Onee-ness of the would-be assassin juxtaposed against the horror of being paralyzed and completely at their mercy. Then the release when the Major is given back control and absolutely roflstomps the impostor. So satisfying. The sudden reveal Aramaki has a brother is interesting, while hinting at some ideological differences between the two. Iirc, the brother is in 2nd gig, making this a bit of foreshadowing.

We also get some dialogue between the Major and Laughing Man at the end, and the former criticizes the latter with a quote from Austrian psychologist Stekel, accusing him of being immature and motivated by self-importance and a desire for fame. This combined with Laughing Man referring to the conspirators as phonies is once again reference to Holden Caulfield, main character of Catcher in the Rye. There are definitely parallels. At least on a surface level. We’re in the home stretch now. Shit’s gonna get cray-cray.
 
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PsychedelicDiamond

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War (1993)

Feature length pilot to the classic space opera Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It details a battle between two galactic nations, the democratic Free Planets Alliance, based on circa Vietnam War era America and the aristocratic Galactic Empire, based on the German Empire of the late 1800's. It mostly does so from the perspective of two young admirals on either side, minor nobleman Reinhard von Lohengramm on the empire's side, former history student Yang Wenli's on the Alliance's side.

I haven't seen the rest of the, overwhelmingly long, series yet, but Overture certainly sets up something grand in scale and ambition. While, like practically all 80's Sci-Fi, its iconography owes a lot to Star Wars, there is practically no trace of George Lucas's swashbuckling adventure movie influences to be found in it.

Overture treats its events as if they were actual history. The outcome of battles is not decided by bravery, but by strategy. There is no victory without sacrifice. Both sides of the war are humanized and dimensionalized to an equal degree. Both protagonists are struggling against the entrenched military hierarchies of their respective nations.

The entire fictional conflict is treated seriously and patiently to the point of occasionally feeling a bit stuffy. There is definitely a noticeable difference between the way something like Star Wars depicts space battles as fast paced dogfights where LotGH: Overture imagines them as a wagnerian ballet of large battleships, set to a soundtrack that consists almost exclusively of classical music. There is a sense of gravity to it that is only rarely afforded to genre fiction.

It's not that the material is unapproachable, strictly speaking. There is enough pathos and human drama to it that keeps it relatable. It just feels like it's made for a very particular kind of person that can really get into the history and military exploits of an entirely fictional setting. It's to materialism what Star Wars is to idealism. History instead of myth. Not exactly cynical, but apprehensive towards any kind of sentimentality. Borderline Kubrickian in finding a sense of poetry in the brutality of war, expressed in abstract movements.

I will be sure to watch the Legend of the Galactic Heroes series as a whole. Regarding Overture, I feel like I get it. I feel like I can see why it's held in such high regard. As far as space opera goes, it certainly represents the genre at its most operatic, yet at the same time its most grounded in the dialectics of real history. I reckon Heinlein would have loved it.
 
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BrawlMan

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I always found this better than the original Blair Witch movie. 10 year-old me loved this shit!

 

Bob_McMillan

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Binged the whole Witch from Mercury Season 1 today.

I quite enjoyed my first Gundam experience. The production values are through the fucking roof, even with the CGI and all that. The political intrigue somehow doesn't clash horribly with the high school setting.

I do have complaints though. One is that the MC is the worst character in the show, and while her innocence can be endearing, by the end it gets tiresome. Considering how the season ended, this might have been purposeful, but it really got on my nerve. Second is that the use of Gund-bits is flashy and pretty cool sometimes, but I think if they had just stuck to more conventional robot fighting, it would have been more interesting.

All in all, I'm excited for the second season, whenever that will be. I don't know if this is a Netflix original, but if it is, for the love of God Netflix, don't fuck it up for once.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Witch from Mercury is on Netflix? I watched it on Crunchy because I haven't set up a vpn to watch it on YouTube.
 

meiam

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I do have complaints though. One is that the MC is the worst character in the show, and while her innocence can be endearing, by the end it gets tiresome. Considering how the season ended, this might have been purposeful, but it really got on my nerve. Second is that the use of Gund-bits is flashy and pretty cool sometimes, but I think if they had just stuck to more conventional robot fighting, it would have been more interesting.
Sadly that's very standard for gundam show, Zeta is atrocious for that.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I just started on Iron-blooded Orphans. Am I making a mistake?
IBO is...divisive. It's another self-contained AU though, so that's something

Witch From Mercury is probably one of their more subtle series, so far anyway. Gundam politics stands to err on the side of sledgehammer
 

Bob_McMillan

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IBO is...divisive. It's another self-contained AU though, so that's something

Witch From Mercury is probably one of their more subtle series, so far anyway. Gundam politics stands to err on the side of sledgehammer
Hmmm. Well it didn't really grab me, so guess I'll just wait on season 2.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Hmmm. Well it didn't really grab me, so guess I'll just wait on season 2.
I mean, the AUs especially are hit and miss. I started with Gundam Wing and G Gundam and those are pretty out there too. Gundam Official's youtube channel has all of Zeta Gundam if you want to have a go at a more "traditional" Gundam story set in the big Universal Century storyline