What are you Watching?

[llj]

Eva was more of a show that Anno used to work out his issues at the time. That's what made it interesting. I don't think he really cared if he was making actual "entertainment"...more like he hoped that some of the themes he was grappling with at the time connected with viewers. If you were looking at the show from an angle of "entertain me" then you'd find it pretty puzzling and probably annoying.

[_D_]

Well, Eva 3.0 was a complete waste of both my $$ and time. And the "to be continued" after the credits was the last straw. I can see why any studio would be reluctant to risk big money on doing a live action version. Went into the film with at least some expectation of something with a coherent plot but left disappointed. Anno is like a rudderless ship...do animation so he can show what he really wants, leaves animation as its too limiting, fails as a live action director so returns to the form he said he was quits with, then still can't produce anything coherent. Maybe him and M. Night Shyamalan should do a collaboration...

[greg]

Yeah, maybe not "emo" per se... Actually, the shows that Evangelion spawned were more emo than anything. The true emo was Anno himself, really. That guy had some real bizarre issues at the time he made Evangelion. I didn't know what kuuderemeant, but I imagine that kuu is 空 or empty. A web definition says "A person cold on the outside, but inwardly sweet and loving." I am not sure if either Asuka or Rei were inwardly loving. Did Asuka ever do anything nice to Shinji? I can't remember.

Anyhow, I can't really hate on that show because despite how F'ed up it was (still is?), I still enjoyed the characters a bit. Evangelion is something almost inescapable, but I don't mind. One Piece is also inescapable, but I really don't care for it at all (not even good character designs, IMHO). I would like to see this new Eva reboot, especially just to see this new Maria girl and how she mixes it up.

Oh oh oh! Guess what? Kid's Station has been airing the new HD remasters of Urusei Yatsura! I'm not totally sure how much better they look because I'm only familiar with the first 15 or so episodes, but it looks nice. I saw three episodes starting at around episode 116. There were characters I wasn't familiar with, like a girl with bright red poofy hair who is good at blowing stuff up, and Benten (I've never seen where she is introduced). The episodes I watched today had a far more of an '80s feel to them. (In fact, on TV in the show, an SD Macross Valkyrie was flying by!) So the picture looked much cleaner, but I'm sure the '80s episodes looked better than the '70s episodes to begin with. Still, my daughter really gets a kick out of that show. They've also started showing Keroro Gunsou from the beginning, and she loves that show now. I wonder how many gigs are on the hard drive inside my cable box?

[usamimi]

oooh nice, HD Urusei Yatsura! Lucky~~!

Ok not entirely anime per say, but my friend Heather and I have been watching the new American "remake" of the live-action Hana Yori Dango together called "Boys Over Friends" that got made into a webseries on Viki. Now, we both figured it wouldn't be very good, but GOOD LORD, you guys...it's HORRENDOUS. The plot barely makes sense because they're trying too hard to keep elements in the story from the original without giving the plot points any sort of background or grounding in reality....so stuff just keeps happening with little to no explanation and it's just a MESS. That's not the only problem, either: they use the same 4-5 sets for ever scene, one of the main male characters wears a totally fake and ridiculous looking wig that's just distracting, they use waaaaaaaay too much stock footage for dumb stuff like exterior shots, they don't have NEARLY enough extras for set-up scenes (they're supposed to be in a school half of the time, but I can count on 1 hand how many times I've seen them in a hallway or an actual CLASSROOM with people that weren't the main characters), they've already had a creepy near-rape scene that was handled very poorly, they used the terms "tranny" and "lady boy" as insults in episode 2 (ugh, way to alienate any transgendered fans who might be watching...) and the cherry on top? The female main character gets a make-over in episode 2, and she looked SO DIFFERENT that it bugged me and Heather a lot. We were like "Wow, they really went heavy on the makeup and put a wig on her?? She looks like a completely different person!" But then we noticed she even sounded and acted kinda different...so I looked the show up on IMBD and sure enough--it's a different actress. THEY DID A MAKE-OVER SCENE AND INSTEAD OF MAKING OVER THE CHARACTER THEY REPLACED HER WITH AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PERSON. Just...wow. WOW.

So yeah, this show is one hell of a train wreck. The only way I can watch it is with someone else who know just how much they're butchering the series so we can make fun of it together, but even then I'm like...I dunno how long I can keep watching this. It is truly awful and the heart & soul of the show bears no resemblance to the original other than the vague tie-ins to the title and their use of some of the names/plot devices. (They don't even have a decent explanation as to why the guys are called the F4...they just ARE. Wtf.) Unless you have some people to watch it with to laugh at how utterly horrible it is, stay far, FAR away from this pile o' garbage.

[Boite Diabolique]

A few of the titles I’ve been watching over the last month or so;

“Yamato 2199”. Pretty amazing remake of the original series. They haven’t strayed too far the original source material (some sequences are shot for shot), yet have managed to bring a lot of great new material and ideas into the show. It easily appeals to modern day fans as well as the older ones who remember the original broadcast. They’ve also managed to explain away the animation mistakes in regards to the skin colour changes of the Garmillan seen in the early episodes of the original series. Even the Beeland episode is referenced. It’s such a great show that even Voyager’s cringeworthy attempts to promote the show in the US can’t ruin it (though Voyager is having a good crack at turning US anime fans off buying the show).

“Code Geass: Akito the Exiled”. I wasn’t all that impressed by the first OVA/movie (the writers take a damn long time to set everything up), but the second episode was pretty good. The story seems to take place a couple of years before the events of the TV series and focuses on mostly new characters (some returning ones in the second episode). Due to the lead character and his situation in the show, it has more of a right wing nationalistic paranoid feel about it (for some reason it reminds me of the original 1984 “Red Dawn”). That feeling doesn’t really overwhelm the show though. The action sequences are really well done and what makes the show for me. The plot and drama are a bit over the top but fun. We’ll see how the final two episodes play out.

“Ghost in the Shell: Arise”. I’ve read a few complaints here and there about the first OVA/movie, but I really enjoyed it. Sure a lot of the elements and ideas have been seen before in the other anime adaptations, but they’ve presented them in different and quite interesting ways. For example the brain hack is seen from the person’s perspective and is really well done. The action scenes are pretty damn fine as well. Wasn’t as impressed with episode two. Probably was a bit distracted when watching it. May give it another chance and watch them all together again when the third episode comes out.

“Kids On a Slope”. I really enjoyed this one, mainly because the core of the story is the friendship between the two male leads. That’s pretty rare in anime shows. In fact I think most of the show revolves around male friendships and relationships in one way or another. While there are women in the show, they end up sidelined a bit. The era was realistically depicted too.

[greg]

I really hope Yamato 2199 will be released in the USA (not as Starblazers 2199 or whatever in English-only, but the real Japanese show). I just rented DVD volume 5 or so. I can't remember which volume, but it so far involves the coup d'etat. In that episode, Koudai and some others were on that jungle planet and are attacked by that huge insect. Analyzer is hooked up to some power loader-style "exo-frame" thingy and battles it. That was fawesome. Also the part when they go into the crashed space ship. It made me think of finding facehugger eggs laid inside!


They have really embellished this show to fantastic extent. The action is exhilerating, the characters are fascinating, subplots are intriguing, and I really, REALLY like how the Gamilans have been given more attention. They're showing the fascism and dissent in the Gamilus society.

Showing the battle between Gamilus and the Comet Army (or whatever they're called) was SO COOL and it was such a tease! I sure hope that they will be announcing a second series in which Yamato 2 will be remade! And then later the seasons that sucked can be un-sucked (Captain Santa stays dead and none of that, "He's not dead. He's mostly dead."

If I had a BluRay player, I could be renting this show on BRDVD and getting to watch it subtitled. As it is, the level of Japanese is over my head and I need to sometimes pause it and ask my wife to give me the gist.

I also rented Macross F, volume 1. I'll give it a try. I've often called it Macross B ("B" for "bewbs") which has been a turnoff for me and enough to make me seriously not want to watch it. However, for 100 yen rental at Tsutaya, I will give it a try.

But oh man, between Animax and Kids Station, I am in anime heaven since we finally got cable TV last month. Animax is showing Keroro Gunsou and now recently New Yatterman to make my daughter extremely happy. You can stay up late and watch Kid's Station for Slam Dunk (I was never interested in this show, though), Lupin, Ranma 1/2 hi-def transfers, and I think now they've started Cardcaptor Sakura again.

Maybe when I am at home I can pull up the cable listing and just give you all a rundown of what is on every day. I think you can maybe find them listed online, though. I'm at work now, and what I can access is limited.

[Boite Diabolique]

Clearing away my backlog. I used to have boxes of unwatched stuff, now I'm down to a few discs. I don't buy as much as I did a decade ago, which is probably a good thing (for space and the bank balance).

"The Rebirth of Buddha". Yes, this is a Kofuku no Kagaku (or more amusingly in English "Happy Science") movie. I thought "Hermes: Winds of Love" was utterly unintentionally hilarious, so for some reason I picked this one up. Unfortunately it's way more preachy than "Hermes". I really don't know who these films are for. Surely it can't be used as a recruitment tool as it's just so mind numbingly weird. The climax of the film involves a salary man looking guy, who is supposedly the Buddha reincarnated, entering a baseball stadium riding a large white elephant, surrounded by poorly rendered CG angels, in order to fight his "evil" opponent who had previously entered the stadium riding a floating tentacled platform and holding the heroine of the film hostage.

Who's going to look at this film and go "Wow! These people seem reasonable. Sign me up!"? The message of the film ironically seems to be wary of false prophets, but offers absolutely no reason or compelling evidence that our hero is any more the reincarnation of Buddha than his "evil" opponent. Like just about every other religion, they seem to offer no real case as to why people should sip their kool aid over anyone else's except "we're right, they're wrong!". Animation was pretty decent for the most part, but looked more mid level TV at times rather than movie quality. For some reason Toei distributed the film in cinemas. One would think that no mainstream distributor would touch this stuff with a bargepole.

[greg]

Wow. I've never heard of that one before. It' interesting to see the anime world displaying great ignorance of Buddhism and not just of Christianity as usual. Weird.

[labsenpai]

This thread must be where everybody is...
Acquired but yet fully seen: Yawara. Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (US BluRay). Kill Me Baby. Devil Survivor 2.
Current year stuff I don't miss: Log Horizon. Tokyo Ravens. Seitokai Yakuindomo. Mikakunin de Shinkoukei. Nobunaga the Fool. Witch Craft Works.

I concur that the new Yamato series should see an unmodified release here. I also admit to favoring anything with designs by Nobuteru Yuuki...even Weathering Continent.

[Boite Diabolique]

Wow. I've never heard of that one before. It' interesting to see the anime world displaying great ignorance of Buddhism and not just of Christianity as usual. Weird.

Well it's an anime written and funded what can only be described as a cult. Kofuku no Kagaku have released a number of anime films. Hermes got an English subbed release by Image a few years back, you can get Rebirth of Buddha on DVD with English subs and dub (!) included, and The Mystical Laws which was released on Blu-ray also with English subs and a dub. The Mystical Laws actually got a (very limited) theatrical release here. The Australian division of Kofuku no Kagaku somehow got the Hoyts Cinemas in George Street, Sydney to play the film. Not some backyard cinema out in the middle of nowhere, but the biggest cinema in the country. It's unfortunate that their "The Laws of the Sun" anime film never made it on to home video in an English language format. I hear that's the wackiest film of the lot.