What are you Watching?

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

Post by Drew_Sutton »

It's been on my mind for a while but as I mentioned in this thread here, I wasn't too thrilled with IRIA: Zieram The Animation when I saw it on the SciFi Channel as a part of their Saturday Anime block back in the late 90s but I wonder if age (my own mostly), would look more kindly on it.

It's not entirely one to one as I didn't realize that instead of a single movie, it's actually a six episode OAV and not remembering that well which set of episodes I saw on Saturday Anime, joining half way through could have impacted what I thought about it. Also, the original language version with subtitles is on RetroCrush, so I am watching that instead of a dub.

I got through the first episode and most of the way through the second before kidds got up from nap. I really like the space-horror feel of the first episode and sets things up well going forward. Second episode is a little meh but I'm gonna keep at it at least to finish this thing. Might be good for me to use as a marked lunch break to both physically and mentally check out for during the week.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

I dig Iria, but mostly for being just a good action anime, the action scenes really are well executed. Explosions, smoke, gunplay, hand to hand combat are crisp and mostly all on point. The story and plotting is OK, but mostly serves to move the action along.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Finally watched Girls Und Panzer Der Film. This movie...will not hold your hand. If you don't know these characters before you watch this, you'll be hopelessly lost as this film doesn't even try to introduce or explain the 20+ characters featured in the film. Hell, I watched the TV series just a year or two ago and I still forgot some of these characters. The tank battles were great but it does give off a feel of an extended TV episode. Still good to watch if you're a fan.

Yowamushi Pedal--Man, this show continues to be over the top lol. It's addicting though. Midousuji is one of the weirdest sports characters I've ever seen. He definitely makes an impression though.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

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So, I finished Minami Kamakura Cycling Club, which wraps up my current dip into the brief blip in cycling anime of the mid 2010s with Yowamushi Pedal, Long Riders, and Minami Kamakura.

Of the 3 titles, Minami Kamakura probably has the most lush scenic artwork and consistent character models, but it's probably the worse of the three when it comes to cycling content. There are a lot of meandering segments about nothing and the protagonist doesn't actually receive her own road bike until episode 10. A lot of other little details bug me about it like how the girls riding road bikes struggle against cruiser bikes with apparently little to no gears. There's a race in episode 7-8 where the main girls have road bikes and can't put away a team with cruiser bikes even though they're using several basic racing fundamentals like drafting, etc,. They explain this away by saying the main girls are really unathletic, but the amount of gears, the quality and roll of the tires coupled with the lighter weights of their road bikes should really be beating the cruiser bike girls by a decent margin. Money also isn't as big a problem here as it should be, in fact the main character's road bike is received for free! I actually wish they focused on the principal and her 1970s randonneur bikes more in episode 3.

Long Riders is probably my favorite cycling anime in terms of actual cycling content. The girls talk about cycling about 80-90% of the time, and the rest of the 10% is spent talking about food. That's more my gear. The main character buys a folding bike in episode 1 and upgrades to a road bike in episode 4-5 after putting in some miles on the folding bike. There are lots of comments on cycling expenses and the reactions are relatable to me as someone who likes to cycle on a tight budget. Unfortunately, as I noted a few posts ago, there are indeed scenes of suspect animation and various cheapo animation copouts when it comes to the character animation. The CG cycling scenes range from reasonably seamless to not seamless at all. I feel like Long Riders also better explains the importance of safety and maintenance than Minami Kamakura did. In short, Long Riders is aimed at those who know how to ride a bike, but want to get into more hardcore long distances (hence the title of the show) while Minami Kamakura is aimed at people who have rarely ever ridden a bike before, or anime fans who don't care about cycling.

Yowamushi Pedal is a shounen title through and through. Though fundamentals seem sound, the ridiculous characters, power ups, and various feats of incredible bursts of power and speed put it squarely in the realm of cycling fiction (unless PEDs are involved, lol). And yet I can't deny it's entertaining and motivating. I just finished season 2 of this so I've watched over 60 episodes of this show by now. Nearly every episode ends on a cliffhanger and it's excellent at building tension and raising the stakes of a sport that many people might find mundane.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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llj wrote: Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:53 am I dig Iria, but mostly for being just a good action anime, the action scenes really are well executed. Explosions, smoke, gunplay, hand to hand combat are crisp and mostly all on point. The story and plotting is OK, but mostly serves to move the action along.
Just finished Iria tonight and I would agree with this assessment. Overall, I thought it was rather average but it does have a few good action sequences in it and a unique aesthetic. I don't know that I'd watch it again but I am glad I gave it a second chance.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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Well, another round of "newish" anime:

Wonder Egg Priority--This is the 2nd Cloverworks work I've seen that has extremely strong Gainax homage vibes (the first being Darling in the Franxx). In a way, it's probably one of those things that turns off both old school fans and younger current anime fans who have either not watched or don't care for Gainax stuff in its heyday. But for me, I like that there are still anime makers that are trying to carry the torch forward. Wonder Egg is an alternately an ambitious work and vaguely generic at the same time (much like 90s Gainax). It also ran into production issues near the end and the ending is ambiguous at best. Unfortunately, unlike Evangelion, it seems Wonder Egg wasn't very popular and there's a sense that as a series it never really fulfilled its true potential either. Still, for anime fans who still want to watch anime with some daring, Wonder Egg is definitely worth a watch.

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Ahh, an anime film in widescreen scope. Haven't seen a lot of those. Ultimately, yet another romance anime film to throw into the YA genre (seems like every anime film these days is YA romance), but it's a decent time waster all the same. I like it better than A Silent Voice (too after-school special-ish) and close to on par with I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. I am curious how real wheelchair user audiences think of this film. It feels like they did indeed took some care in portraying the obstacles for wheelchair users in a more detailed-than-usual light.

Bakuon!!--It's been lazily referred to as K-On! with motorbikes, though aside from the moe characters, it's more of a comedy series than a slice of life. There are a lot of weird gags and surreal touches that put this slightly one side of the slice of life genre. That being said, I'm growing to be s a sucker of these types of animes where a bunch of moe characters get into some niche subculture like bicycles, tanks or motorcycles.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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Pompo The Cinephile--I found it interesting to look up the reception it got after I finished this. It's either underseen or, at least within anime fan forums I've looked through, mixed reactions. I don't think it's a perfect film, yet it's doing something almost completely different from what you usually see in today's anime film industry of generic YA romances and 'precious' films. So I'd have thought it would have gotten more buzz or a better reception, which is a shame because I personally feel like we need to support stuff that's atypical even if they're flawed to a degree. As for the film itself, it's manic and cartoony and meta. It's clever, some might say to an overly cheeky degree. And the "feel good" ending might rankle some who enjoyed the cheeky and snarky tone of the first 70 minutes. That being said, it's still the best anime film (that I've seen) of the 2020s so far. Believe me, when you've trudged through 20 thousand YA romance anime films in a row (no matter how well made some are), something like this feels like a godsend.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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Getting back from AWA with goodies in my hand, I've been watching 801 T.T.S Airbats. I'm really enjoying this so far and im halfway through the OVA series. It's just new guy shows up on the job and two girls fall for him and he seems to be the Mr. "I Gotta Solve Female Co-Worker Quarles In The Workplace." The dub im really enjoying especially pink hair girl character who's accent is high pitch squeeking, New York/Southern dialect. I get a kick everytime she has to say something, because I can barely understand what she's saying. This was definetly worth picking up in my collection, I did not make a bad decision on getting a new anime at random at a con.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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Watched and finished Gokusen last week. This is a 2004 series in the " tough unorthodox teacher a bunch of punkass kids grow to respect and love" category of anime, though this one's a female teacher. Overall a lighthearted series in a similar vein as Onizuka, which is probably why the series isn't as well remembered. Though there is a J drama that apparently was well received and lasted several years. I'd seen pictures of the anime for years but never got around to watching it--the character design of the lead character always stuck with me, with her extremely nerdy non glamorous look. The anime doesn't go far enough into the manga to really go anywhere major, so we're left with basically a bunch of episodic stories. Thankfully, they are still entertaining enough.
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Re: What are you Watching?

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Back digitizing some tapes again and popped in a couple of fansubs I got from a distro and found some surprises (always fun).

The first tape was Pokemon S1E38 - the seizure episode - which ended up not being subbed (the things you forget after 20+ years). Unfortunately, the tape has some discoloring after all this time, possibly from loaning it to a friend while we were in college and BOTH of us forgetting about it, so it may have gotten stored in a bad place for a period of time. I had thought this was the only thing on the tape, since all that was labeled there, but it turns out a short 45 minute single episode OAV, Seirei Tsukai - Elementalers was added to the end of it. I don't ever recall, as many times as I watched that Pokemon episode, ever watching the thing that immediately came after several commercials after the end credits and next episode preview. Some good mid-90s animation but overall kinda average OAV. Gonna give it another shot cause it sounds like something 199x me would really like but 2023 me isn't so sure.

Funny thing is, apparently, this Seirei Tsukai Elementalers thing has two anime - based on completely different source material. I'd never heard of it before, so I started looking around on the Internet for it and there is a 2014 anime series, based on a 2010 light novel. Just based on the fact I've had this tape for over 20 years, I knew it wasn't that (despite the art style not matching). Turns out it was based on an earlier light novel, with a similar title, by a completely different author.

With that discovery the other day, I decided to pull another tape I got from this distro to digitize. This is the Sailor Moon SuperS theatrical short/special Ami-chan's First Love. The original source was LD, so since the short is only 15 minutes runtime, a subbed commentary segment from the LD was included on the tape, too followed by the Sailor Moon SuperS TV Special. The TV Special was pretty good but I don't ever remember watching them before.The Special is three short stories running about an hour. I had thought that Ami-chan was the only SuperS special and thought is was longer and ran on TV but it looks like I was wrong. I get to add a couple more things to MyAnimeList without even really trying!
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