What are you Watching?

Discuss anime, especially but not limited to 1950's~1990's series, and related sub-topics
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karageko
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by karageko »

I finished up Fist of the North Star 2, and watched the New Fist of the North Star OVAs from the 2000s. Lots of laughs but my brain is already dead so I'll leave the several movies and OVAs that came later for another time.

After that I also wrapped up Rose of Versailles. Excellent and lived up to its reputation for me. Even without the reputation of that particular series, I had pretty good confidence that Dezaki and Sugino would handle it well. I'm somewhat surprised that the first 15 or so episodes were handled by a different director, Nagahama Tadao, because even those episodes had many of the same visual trademarks and melodramatic tone I associate with Dezaki. For this reason, I kind of wonder how involved Dezaki was with the earlier episodes before he took over (Tadao passed away mid-production so it's safe to assume this is why the director's role changed hands). The mood did get more extreme later on but that felt like a natural consequence of where the story was going more than the change of directors. The guy who did the music, Makaino Kouji, also did the music for the Aim for the Ace movie as well as New Aim for the Ace. It's obvious even without looking this up because some of the music tracks used are taken without modification from Aim for the Ace.

In no particular order eventually I'd like to get to Nobody's Boy Remy, Treasure Island, Brother Dear Brother, and Hakugei - Legend of Moby Dick. Also some OVAs that don't appear to have ever been fansubbed or released. But before I continue my Dezaki & Sugino journey I'll probably check out some random shorter series, or maybe continue with the next thing I just remembered I watched.

Oh yeah, I actually finally got around to watching the original Patlabor OVAs and the first movie. I plan to watch the remainder of animated Patlabor but it's quite a lot. I even bought the fanzine but I'm not gonna let myself read it until I actually finish watching through the rest of Patlabor... so I may not be opening that for a while. I've literally owned Brian Ruh's book on Oshii for more than 6 years without actually opening it (okay I cheated very recently and read the first few pages before putting it down) because of how stubborn I am with wanting to check things out first before reading stuff from other people about those things. Watching the OVAs was interesting because I avoided all information about this universe besides knowing that Mamoru Oshii directed a bunch of it. I was expecting it to be entirely serious which I found out was completely not the case, but I enjoyed the comedic episodes very much as well as the tonal whiplash serious episodes. I will definitely check out more, even the stuff not directed by Mamoru Oshii. When I decide to watch any series I am pretty stubborn about watching it in its entirely, so whether or not it turns out for the better I guess I'll find out then (kind of goes without saying but I'm going to continue avoiding spoilers/reactions/thoughts from other people about Patlabor until I'm done).
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karageko
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by karageko »

... and a week of my life later, I'm done watching all the animated Patlabor that exists! (I am aware of EZY being in production)

Yet again another "why did I take this long to get to this" franchise. Hey, I guess at least I'm finally getting through my infinitely long to-watch list.

I walked into Patlabor knowing little about it besides Mamoru Oshii had involvement, there are robots in it, and that it is held up as a stellar example of classic anime by fandom people I pay attention to.

Just to put down a few of my random impressions that are on my mind right now:
  • I was already cracking up as soon as some of the same voices as characters from Urusei Yatsura started speaking. My voice actor kung-fu is pretty weak but this one was too obvious for me not to notice.
  • Richard Wong is an impressively spot-on name for someone from Hong Kong. If (all terrible) HK-dramas I remember my mom watching from my childhood are anything to go by, that is a name I can 100% imagine hearing in those. Yes, people will actually address each other by English names but otherwise use Cantonese entirely. HK people with legal English first name and Chinese last name is actually a thing beyond said dramas. I am one such person (although I hardly identify with HK or its language/culture at all; I can't even speak Cantonese!).
  • I was overall really impressed with the references to technology or computer sciencey stuff. I think they really nailed the sweet-spot of referencing these things to add realism/plausibility to the universe, but never really tried to go into too much detail to inevitably screw something up in explanation and invoke annoying nitpicky nerd rage.
  • With the last point in mind, the references to neural nets is interesting to see especially in the modern day. In the TV series itself it's mostly used as a substitute for "artificial intelligence, but real good" and this reference serves that purpose fine. The theory of neural nets has been around for quite a long time (well duh it was referenced in this show from like 25+ years ago!) but in the field of Artificial Intelligence it largely stayed in the realm of academia which is to say, there was theoretical buzz about it but it did not see much practical use or commercial interest. The primary reason for this is that computer hardware was not capable of actually turning this theory into something useful. However, in recent times this is no longer the case. Computing power has finally reached the point that we can now take advantage of the theory, and really only quite recently. Artificial Intelligence (specifically Machine Learning) has been trending very strongly in CS academic circles. Along with that, many commercial endeavors have been appearing that are centered entirely around the technology of stuff such as neural nets. This recent trend is starting to resurrect attention to the age-old SF question of "what happens if AI can train learn better than we can?" and something something the singularity. Indeed, the "This story is fiction, but in 10 years, who knows?" that caps the end of Patlabor episodes is moving past being merely a wink at the viewer.
  • Besides the neural net reference (I'm actually not really that into AI personally), I did enjoy the references and portrayal of operating systems which was my last significant academic interest before graduating not too long ago. Really there's just tons of stuff that CS people would get a kick out of (although knowing what the hell a half space even is or has to do with anything, as mentioned in a scene between Sasaki and Shige in the last episode of The New Files OVAs, would require not just having programming experience but also said experience in the context of Japanese text).
Thanks all of you who (I know several of you are on this forum) contributed to/edited the Colony Drop fanzine, art or articles. I don't know if there's anyone besides me, but you got at least one person who bought that fanzine before actually consuming any of Patlabor! After having wrapped up WXIII, I blasted through the 'zine and enjoyed it very much. I really appreciate that people are still willing to talk about this old stuff, cause it helps me feel less isolated about fandom than when I talk to most of my real-life peers about anime.

Finally I don't have to close the tab whenever I see the word "Patlabor" on a page, or hit stop on something I'm listening to when it gets brought up. I am glad that I can now let myself read up on what fandom's been saying about Patlabor all this time. What a relief.
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karageko
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by karageko »

One point that I forgot above is that the Patlabor TV series continuity reminded me somewhat of the pacing of the DCAU Justice League cartoons (specifically Justice League Unlimited) in that for the most part it's episodic but there's a loose ongoing story line that unravels slowly across the whole series.
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by usamimi »

Glad to hear you enjoyed Patlabor! I need to rewatch the TV series eventually (need to pick up the re-release still) but the OAVs and movies are always faves of mine.

Also happy to hear you liked the Patlabor zine! I think it turned out quite nicely, I feel honored to have a drawing I did in it alongside other really great work :D
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karageko
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by karageko »

Well I finally get why people keep talking about basset hounds whenever Oshii comes up in discussion. I had been perplexed for a long time because I hadn't seen the Patlbor 2 movie until only recently, all all of his directorial work prior to that contains no basset hounds! If I recall correctly there was only one (maybe two?) scene in the Patlabor 2 movie with a basset hound. I guess this is what happens when you decide watch through his stuff chronologically since that means getting through quite a lot of TV (besides the 105 episodes he directed of UY, I have actually watched the entirety of animated UY).

Also, sort of like Patlabor but even worse, I had been avoiding all information about Ghost in the Shell for I don't know, some 7-8+ years? Finally watched Ghost in the Shell (1995 version) and Innocence though. I liked the former although I thought I would have liked it more; maybe I just wasn't in a cyberpunk mood at the time. The latter was pretty on and off as far as being virtually stimulating (old 3DCG holds up poorly after all), and the nonstop philosophical quoting was a bit too extreme for my preference. I don't know when I'll get to SAC but probably not for a while.

I think for me something I realized is that I can enjoy visually breathtaking anime and also enjoy very dry dialogue heavy anime. But when the two are fused into the same title, I actually have a hard time following along because I'm distracted by how visually stimulating it is but I'm also trying to read a ton of subtitles and follow along and this ends up hampering my enjoyment of both aspects.

I also saw Jin-Roh and it's something I like visually a lot more than the ongoing story which didn't quite work for me. Maybe I needed to space out my viewing of these dialogue-bursty titles? In any case, whatever the romance was supposed to be felt largely non-existent to me. It sorta makes sense thematically for such a romance to be subdued (perhaps?) but to me there was far more dry emphasis on the political structures present in the world. I didn't really find the mix here to work all that well; I have to think on it more some other time.

Anyway, other notable things. I went and watched the Crusher Joe movie, another long overdue. EXCEPT apparently I watched this in 2010??? I seriously only remembered events up to the disco scene at the beginning so I could have sworn I didn't actually watch the movie. What likely happened is that I was multitasking so much that I basically didn't actually watch it back then, which would make sense because there's quite a lot going on in the movie. Anyway, it was awesome and I can probably get my not-anime-fan-but-open-to-it friend who is into Star Wars to watch it. Apparently Discotek wants to do a Blu-Ray release of it eventually so I'll be grabbing that when it happens. In the meantime I ordered a Crusher Joe poster off ebay which should be arriving soon :D

An hour or two after Crusher Joe I decided to watch Belladonna of Sadness of all things. For whatever reason maybe this was the best scenario (watching something extremely slow after a ton of action packed goodness) in which to watch this because I was engaged enough to keep my attention the whole running length. I really like to go find and watch bizarre anime titles that completely break down my preconceptions of "what anime is" (something I always try to do whenever I arrange a viewing with friends), so from that aspect I knew I was eventually going to watch this movie. It's weird both how little animation this has for the most part but I still thought that it looked really cool overall. Reviews online bring up that Yellow Submarine thing and that is exactly what I had in mind while I was watching this. So since I really enjoyed the aesthetics of it, it ended up working really well for me. I think it really helps that it was released in 1080p/4K though because trying to get absorbed in the actual story/dialogue is a pretty herculean task. I can see that most of the reviews online (after the 2016 screening) are by arthouse type people (of which I don't consider myself one, but I will watch bizarre stuff for anime), but not so much by anime fans. It doesn't surprise me at all that this is the case. I did find it funny that one review I found started with "highly influential" which made me laugh; I'd like to know what this supposedly influenced either in anime (all I found was maybe apparently Ikuhara mentioned this as an influence?) or live action fare. My money is more on that the (not an anime fan) reviewer was just looking for words to prop it up as a significant art piece.
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mbanu
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by mbanu »

Finally finished watching The Legend of Black Heaven, a show about an office worker who used to be a rock star.

On the one hand, it's one of a very small number of shows that deal with characters who are adults. In addition to the main story about a giant weapon in space powered through rock music, it seems to be trying to tell a story about why people are tempted to cheat on their spouses, using playing music as a metaphor.

On the other, it's still a dumb show. It takes the "women are from Venus" thing literally; other than the bitter wife and gossipy neighbors, all the women in the show are aliens; the ending theme is just a song about how men are confusing panning over three of the alien women sleeping together in the nude. (^_^;)

I do think there's a good idea hiding in there though; I'd be interested to see where another director could take it in a modern re-make.
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by DKop »

Black Heaven was a fun show for me, and I watched it to do a review of it a couple of years back on my podcast.

I know the show comes off as a married guy going to cheat on his wife for an alien babe, but there was more in the show than just that. The main guy as living a dull existence, coming from a rock star lifestyle to being an average salary man. Having the attractive female alien spring that "life" back into him in reliving the glory days of his youth was what he needed to better his life, especially if it meant saving the space. Can't blame a brother for wanting to be attracted to a girl who seemed to appreciate him more than his wife did, but in the end he stayed true to his wife since she seemed to understand why music has always been important to him, since it's... well I don't wanna spoil too much.

The main protagonist can apply to anyone that's in their middle ages and life just seems to kinda be a drag, which is why I can really appreciate that anime.

Speaking of anime that's hugely popular that is not as good as Black Heaven, I got my Gundam Wing bluray sets in from RightStuf. It's making me feel like a young teen Toonami watcher again, especially since I haven't seen the whole series all the way through in about 18 years since it first aired on Toonami. I've had to laugh at a few of the character "traits" exhibited by Heero Yuy, especially how he don't know how to act around girls as crazy as Relena. I get in some ways why he acts the way that he does, and why fanficton written by teen girls about trying to fix him just makes perfect sense. The dub is great, in a "man, these early Gundam dubs are cheezy but I still dig them" kind of way, but I still dig it after all these years.
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Black Heaven was once considered a "sleeper" hit in anime circles. I'd only watched a few episodes of it. The concept seemed a bit stretched out even for the short length TV series it was.

A remake? I'd love to see a modern anime that dealt with anyone over 30 period. I'm not super up to date on modern anime series but they seemed to have settled firmly onto a "absolutely nobody over 20 years old" rule now. I think I've came across only 1 this year that broke the "protagonist over 20" rule.
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by mbanu »

Recovery of an MMO Junkie: http://www.crunchyroll.com/recovery-of-an-mmo-junkie

An interesting take on an older set of tropes, in more ways than one. (^_^) The main character is a woman in her 30s living off her savings after quitting a toxic job, and most of the supporting cast are working adults who move forward the story when they go against their best interests by spending all night gaming when they ought to be sleeping, rather than because they have an abundance of free-time.

It seems solidly done so far; I'm cautiously optimistic.
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

I almost got excited for a second when I thought you wrote "MMA Junkie". :lol:

It does seem like the only shows with adult protagonists these days are about losers and NEETs
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