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The Black Stones posted:Here's the funny thing though The USA aren't the "real" villains. The show certainly can lead you to believe that, but they aren't. Nine and Twelve were the "villains" the whole time who wanted a spotlight shone on them and they did terrible things to do it. Five was technically the real villain here, and the shooting at the end was to cover up poo poo she did, which the USA guy kept saying the whole time she went overboard. I think the show did a good job of passing blame onto every character and group, and didn't portray the US as some snidely whiplash thing to me. Nine and Twelve both fall into the category of antiheroes, Five as the antagonist (supported by Clarence/USA), the detective and his allies were the probably the most heroic members of the cast. Um, not sure where Lisa is other than bystander/minor character. I would agree w/Five being the villain if the US helicopters didn't show up and kill Nine (yeah he's going to die but that's one awkward way to go). Also, there is a odd thing where we can partly blame the higher JP govt officials (Athena Project) and for allowing an outsider (FBI) to interfere. I wouldn't call it anti-nationalism or anti-USA but one does have to wonder... Ofc this is all based on my own conjecture. Grim Up North posted:A mediocre story with really stylish direction and animation. I guess experimenting on children is bad, terrorism is bad, the powerful will protect their interests/cover their asses and are bad also. Who would have thunk. . Agreed, I hate how it's the case for many anime how young women are shown as existing just to prop up male character's plot or goals.
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# ? Sep 26, 2014 22:40 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:45 |
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I think in this case the ability of the director and story artists was able to overcome the somewhat meh scripting and characterization. The compositions, timing, backgrounds, and music style were all very intelligently used and worked towards a nice emotional catharsis at the end. In terms of characters, Twelve and Shibazaki ended up being the closest thing to interesting (Nine's stoic silence was a detriment in that it didn't exactly feel much like "still waters run deep" than "I want to create the illusion of depth to a character I refuse to characterize"), and it's unfortunate that Lisa's humanity and helplessness were really just tools for the narrative redemption of the anti-heroes. Maybe if they had a few more episodes and less Five, they could have connected a few more dots in how she was able to influence the others through her own agency rather than just her being there and needing to be taken care of. Twelve literally spells it out for them in the end with his "nobody ever needed us before" speech. Noitamina shows don't tend to have huge budgets, do they? Because I felt the visuals were pretty drat cinematic here. The animation wasn't as fluid as a film, but the richness and quality/detail of the main key drawings were top-notch.
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# ? Sep 27, 2014 03:39 |
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Neeksy posted:
IIRC Noitamina time slots tend to mean avant-garde or experimental shows instead other common themes like direct anime adaptations. They run later and aimed towards a different (niche?) audience. Ofc, this is all from reading SA threads and I will try to tune in shows which run during it. I would have liked at least 13 episodes but so it goes.
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# ? Sep 27, 2014 05:14 |
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Just finished off the last episode after a good 3 episode binge, so with it still fresh in my mind, here's my thoughts. Spoilers, obviously. I wanted this to be the show of the year, if not the show of the decade. It had everything going for it - stellar staff, unique (for anime) and intriguing premise, Yoko Kanno - and it started off well, but it didn't quite hit the mark. The story was a solidly plotted, and just a drat good suspense/thriller - which for anime is like Hollywood making a magical girl movie. The animation and cinematic quality were, for the most part, really good and made for a really good looking show. Last but not least, Yoko Kanno made music; I need say no more there. However, the directing was, unfortunately, not Watanabe's best. Of course, that still puts the show leagues ahead of average, but I really think he could have done better. Secondly, the English voice acting ranged from serviceable to god-loving-awful. I absolutely could not stand to listen to Five speak English; her English bits were laughably terrible. And lastly, what I think hurt the show most, from my perspective, was uninteresting characters. The main cast are all well written and though out, but I really couldn't get invested in anyone but Shibazaki and his co-workers. It seemed like Nine and Twelve were supposed to be really mysterious and intriguing while their history was slowly revealed, but the show tipped its hand too early by giving us too much info through the short, but numerous, flashback shots. I had the story pretty much figured out a little over halfway through, like 6 or 7, and I say this as someone who is not the most perceptive of people. Mishima Lisa was pretty empty, and what little characterization she had was half generic, half unendearing; the only reason I was interested in her was to see what role she'd play further down the line, but even that wasn't well established. With Five, contrary to how they handled Nine and Twelve, I think the show held back too much, and her motivations were really vague until the last episode. Shibazaki's story, at the very least, felt spot on, and he is by far my favorite of the show. All in all, Terror in Resonance was a solid, good-looking story with some character issues, subpar (for Watanabe) directing, and some really bad attempts at English. It's still absolutely one of the better shows of the year, but as a whole it was as bittersweet as the ending. The Black Stones posted:Here's the funny thing though The USA aren't the "real" villains. The show certainly can lead you to believe that, but they aren't. Nine and Twelve were the "villains" the whole time who wanted a spotlight shone on them and they did terrible things to do it. Five was technically the real villain here, and the shooting at the end was to cover up poo poo she did, which the USA guy kept saying the whole time she went overboard. I think the show did a good job of passing blame onto every character and group, and didn't portray the US as some snidely whiplash thing to me. Five was obviously the most direct villain of the show. The USA, on the other hand, was definitely not. Five got them into some deep poo poo with the airport bomb and the mess on the freeway, and they really badly needed to clean up her mess. Can't really blame them. The true villains were definitely meant to be the people behind the Athena Plan. As for Nine and Twelve... that's complicated. In a way they're martyrs, but they cause one hell of a mess to accomplish their goal. Granted, they would have caused much less of a mess if Five hadn't gotten involved, but where does that leave them morally? Alder posted:Animation: 8/10 The soundtrack owns, how dare you give Kanno a measly 8? I agree with you on characterization and animation, but I thought the overall story was pretty solid.
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# ? Sep 28, 2014 04:49 |
Alder posted:I would agree w/Five being the villain if the US helicopters didn't show up and kill Nine (yeah he's going to die but that's one awkward way to go). Also, there is a odd thing where we can partly blame the higher JP govt officials (Athena Project) and for allowing an outsider (FBI) to interfere. I wouldn't call it anti-nationalism or anti-USA but one does have to wonder... Could be an allegory for how the US/Japan handled Unit 731
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# ? Sep 28, 2014 05:49 |
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ViggyNash posted:
But 8/10 is my highest rating ever. I don't think I've ever given a 10/10 before because perfection is impossible AnacondaHL posted:Could be an allegory for how the US/Japan handled Unit 731 Hmm---I did think about that but they never really go into it apart from the one time meeting with the rookie cop. It'd be too "political" even for a anime about exploding govt buildings and less than upstanding politicians. IIRC there are books about the topic published in Japan about the atrocities during WWII and how scholars have studied it.
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# ? Sep 29, 2014 04:40 |
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Alder posted:But 8/10 is my highest rating ever. I don't think I've ever given a 10/10 before because perfection is impossible Not even Paranoia Agent?
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# ? Sep 29, 2014 05:40 |
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Alder posted:But 8/10 is my highest rating ever. I don't think I've ever given a 10/10 before because perfection is impossible I think that's silly. On a scale of 10, if you don't utilize the highest rating you've basically turned it into a scale of 1-9. I rate my animu as a competition, 10 being the best stuff ever (relative to everything else). Maybe two or three times a year I go through my whole MAL and roughly scale everything for consistency's sake. ScottyWired fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 29, 2014 |
# ? Sep 29, 2014 06:35 |
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10/10 is the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack.
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# ? Sep 29, 2014 08:09 |
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Alder posted:But 8/10 is my highest rating ever. I don't think I've ever given a 10/10 before because perfection is impossible I refuse to give anything a 10/10 too, but I'll give it a 9.5 if it's just that close. There's probably less than a dozen shows I'd give a 9.5 to though. ScottyWired posted:I think that's silly. On a scale of 10, if you don't utilize the highest rating you've basically turned it into a scale of 1-9. Nothing's perfect, therefore nothing deserves a perfect score. There's only that which is so near perfect it seems flawless, which is what I reserve my 9.5's for. ScottyWired posted:I rate my animu as a competition, 10 being the best stuff ever (relative to everything else). Maybe two or three times a year I go through my whole MAL and roughly scale everything for consistency's sake. While I was at college, I'd send my personal ratings and a short description to my sister to give her a sense of what I liked/didn't like (she is also an anime nerd and it's all my fault). I didn't expect her to make a compendium of every show (or movie) I'd ever rated. So now she has a gigantic txt file containing nearly every show I'd ever watched grouped by rating.
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# ? Sep 29, 2014 14:37 |
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ScottyWired posted:I rate my animu as a competition, 10 being the best stuff ever (relative to everything else). Maybe two or three times a year I go through my whole MAL and roughly scale everything for consistency's sake. That's dedication and the most I do for MAL is rate it and mark it as completed so I can go to the next season. It helps me remember which shows I plan to follow or dropped sometime before. The entire reviewing system is just a echo chamber though.
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# ? Sep 30, 2014 03:05 |
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That last episode was worth watching this show for. The part with the jets was great.
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# ? Sep 30, 2014 03:57 |
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ViggyNash posted:Nothing's perfect, therefore nothing deserves a perfect score. There's only that which is so near perfect it seems flawless, which is what I reserve my 9.5's for. This is super dumb. 10/10 doesn't have to mean perfection, it just has to mean that despite any kind of flaw, it overcame them and show/book/album/whatever it is, is outstanding among the top its class. I'll give My Anime List credit on one thing (and really only one), and that is that 10/10 isn't titled as "Perfect" and instead they've used "Masterpiece" instead (still perhaps a bit too high wording, but doesn't have a connotation that Perfect does)
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# ? Sep 30, 2014 05:02 |
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Look, number rating are relative to our subjective understanding of what the numbers mean, so if you don't like thinking of 10/10 as perfection incarnate then that's your choice.
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# ? Sep 30, 2014 14:26 |
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I think this entire conversation just gives me more reasons to not like scores in reviews (For real though it detracts from what's being said and focuses on the score itself, case in point literally the posts above me)
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# ? Sep 30, 2014 20:46 |
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Srice posted:I think this entire conversation just gives me more reasons to not like scores in reviews I like to think it as a tool to learn my potential friend's interests in anime Anyone read low scores because it's a good way to judge if the viewer is thinking critically about the series? It can get tiresome when the top voted reviews are 8-10 and gloss over issues. Although I tend to ignore the 1-3 sentence reviews which seem to be arbitrary based on how the author feels during that particular day.
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# ? Oct 1, 2014 03:11 |
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I've settled on a pretty simple system: 5 - Loved it and/or it's a masterpiece 4 - Very good, would actively recommend 3 - Enjoyable, should you stumble upon it 2 - Bad, would actively recommend against 1 - Hated it Unfortunately I have no idea how to apply this to MAL's 10 point scale, so I just use it to keep track of what shows I've finished.
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# ? Oct 1, 2014 09:58 |
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That's really the only sensible rating system. With the others there's always confusion what the numbers mean (is 5/10 mediocre or bad and so on). But if you have a X/5 rating system I think most people interpret it like you do.
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# ? Oct 1, 2014 12:41 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:45 |
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I've always just rated things as "yes" or "no". I find anything more to be unnecessary. If I really had to maybe a 4 point scale could be used, but I fail to see why I would.
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# ? Oct 1, 2014 15:09 |