|
So I've finished XABUNGURU. The show definitely picked up after that slump from episode 16ish (Whatever the first one after Timp Sharon "died" was anyways) to 32ish and mostly stayed quite good until the end. Still, it does feel like a pretty different show by that last chunk of episodes, feeling more like Gundam in the desert rather than whatever it was in that first cour or so (This is to say nothing of dropped plot threads from that first cour like the mystery of why Timp killed Jiron's parents. The "three day rule" thing arguably doesn't go anywhere either despite initially being an intriguing part of the setting). Also, some of the drama in the last few episodes is fairly forced even by Tomino standards. Like the brainwashed Elchi stuff I think is mostly really quite good both for its more dramatic scenes and a lot of the comedic ones, though the resolution to it being "lol we just HAVE to transfer the evil personality into someone else, thankfully dying Arthur Rank is here to sacrifice himself!" was reeaaalllly stupid. Why did they have to do that to begin with? You can't just leak it into the aether? After all of have that having Elchi go blind really seems out of place. I can't believe I'm saying Victory Gundam did a story beat better than another show but it at least seemed like a sensible karmic punishment for Katejina there. Not so much for Elchi Cargo. Despite the negativity in this post I did enjoy Xabungle overall- some of the gags are quite good (My favorite being Arthur not being able to get any of the girls' names right), and characters like Fatman ended up being surprisingly affecting by the end (Whole cast was generally pleasant actually, outside of that string of "[Character of the week] is running away from the Iron Gear" episodes in that middle portion of the show I previously complained about). This was definitely an influential show too- I think Gundam X and Gurren Lagann most obviously took some inspiration from Xabungle, though I wouldn't be surprised if the fourth wall breaking humor was an influence on Nadesico as well. I just wish Xabungle as a whole came together a bit better than it did in execution. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Aug 25, 2019 |
#
?
Aug 25, 2019 16:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:11 |
|
|
For the very last time, the same spoiler warning as usual. Gaogaigar VS. Betterman: Hakaioh - The Really Final One GGG VS. Betterman is the final chapter in the fable of the King of Braves, taking place about a decade after the end of FINAL. Mamoru and Ikumi are now captain and vice-captain of the new generation 3G, as well as copilots of the new King of Braves Gaogaigo. Under the supervision of the U.N. they fight against the crime syndicate Bionet, provide disaster relief after the Invisible Burst from Jupiter, and eventually fight against the old 3G after they come back changed. This review is going to be a bit different from the other ones. Not only is this a book with the obvious changes that bring to how the story is told and how I as a reader interact with it, it is also at the time of writing not finished yet. GGG VS. Betterman is a web novel which updates chapter by chapter and I am currently waiting for the next chapter. As such I don't have the same perspective I had in my earlier reviews and some of what I say here may end up outdated as the story finishes. The story is pretty fun so far, especially if you're aware of the real world circumstances of the franchise. One of the first things that happen causes Project Z, the project to get the Braves back from the other universe, to be delayed for several years, an obvious allusion to what happened to the real world Project Z. Just like the Dagwon OVA I really enjoy revisiting these characters and seeing how they've grown and changed. I didn't get that from FINAL since, outside of the new robots, none of the characters had really changed from the ending of GGG to the start of FINAL, so I'm glad it's here. That said though, most of the characters have developed into exactly the roles you'd expect. Mamoru and Ikumi pilot the new King of Braves, Hana smashes the final fusion button like Mikoto used to, Sueo (the fat kid) has joined 3G etc. These are all fairly obvious developments but they also feel correct, like if they had done something else it would have felt wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they integrated Betterman characters and concepts into the novel. Gaigo itself is a union of of Brave and Betterman robots, with a Kakuseijin-esque transformation scheme, one mode that looks like Gaigar and one that looks like Kakuseijin, and a Brave combination into Gaogaigo. While this is great as a metaphor for the union of the shows I was a bit worried that the Betterman side would get sidelined considering how much weaker the Betterman robots are compared to Braves, but I am glad to be mistaken. The synapse attack does some serious work and Aono Keita does more to save the day in one chapter of this novel than he did in all of Betterman, the show he's supposed to be the main character of. The Bettermen themselves are very similar to how they were in Betterman, often speaking vaguely and cryptically, but I have greater hope that Hakaioh will deliver on that than Betterman did, and they're always really cool in the fight scenes. The new Bettermen have some very interesting powers that are fun to read about and there was a fight between Lamia and a Betterman that combined with prehistoric animals to form a biological Gaogaigar and it was so cool. I am a bit worried that once more of the old characters start coming back they're going to overshadow the new Braves. At the start of GaoGaiGar there was a period when it was just Gai out in the field before any of the Brave robos were built, but right from the start Mamoru and Ikumi have a supporting cast of new robots. Because of that they always have to share the spotlight in a way Gai didn't, and I worry that's just going to get worse and worse as more of the old Braves return. The fight scenes are all fun reads, and much like the development of the characters they feel obvious, but correct. What I mean is every character ends up fighting the most appropriate of the old Braves: Mamoru fights Mic since their friends, the new Ryu sisters fight the old Ryu sisters etc. Hopefully this will eventually lead to Gai and Soldato J finally settling their score, something they've been building to for lliterally 2 decades now, but the story hasn't gotten there yet. The robots are treated about the same as they were in Gaogaigar and Final, which is to say they have personalities and quirks but said personalities never actually impact what's happening in any way. The new robots Gekiryu, Nichiryu and Shouryu are all pretty fun characters, and it's nice to have female robots who's entire character isn't just "the girl one" which was a problem Kouryu and Anryu had. The three new Ryus can also triple combine, a nice reference both to the Brave tradition and early early concepts for Choryujin, where he would also combine with a jet plane. One thing I find a bit odd, though not necessarily bad: The Gaigar-like form of Gaigo is piloted by Ikumi, while Mamoru pilots the Kakuseijin-like form. Mamoru even points this out himself the first time they board but decides not to make a big deal of it. As I said not a bad thing, but a decision I don't really understand. Just like FINAL GGG VS. Betterman does an impressive job incorporating even the most obscure franchise lore, though unlike FINAL here it can be a bit of a problem. As an example: the novel starts with a married couple having their first child, but these characters only ever met before in a Betterman drama CD. Whereas Final had fun blink and you'll miss it references GGG VS. Betterman have these obscurities be important parts of the plot, and while it explains itself well enough that I never felt lost it does kind of feel like I'm missing out, and since many of the things it's referencing have never been translated there's currently no way for me to experience them. Finally I want to say something about how the book is written on a practical level. While I don't really feel comfortable criticizing the prose, both because I don't think I'm really equipped to do so and because there's no way for me to confirm how true the translation is to the original Japanese, it is in my opinion fine. Not exceptional or awful, just fine. The only real problem I have is the book tends to overexplain itself, especially when it reintroduces a character or concept from one of the older shows. I understand why they do this since the shows are 20 years old at this point, but as someone who's gone through it all over a few months time it gets annoying when the book keeps telling me things I already know. In conclusion Gaogaigar VS Betterman is great fun. If you have any affection for the GaoGaiGar characters you owe yourself to check it out, and you can find it right here: https://pyroxenescanning.wordpress.com/ The fights are fun, the characters are charming and there were parts where I genuinely teared up. Heartily recommended!
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2019 21:24
|
|
|
And with that I am entirely and completely done with the Brave franchise (at least until someone translates the rest of the GGG novels or the crossover videogames). It had its ups and downs but at the end of the day I'm glad I did it. To anyone who's been following these reviews of mine: Thank you, I hope you found some value in my incoherent babbling. I had fun, I hope you had fun and I'll see you whenever I get the urge to write too many words about a toy commercial for preteens next time!
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2019 21:29
|
|
|
Finally got around to starting Overman King Gainer and wow what a spot-on suggestion for the scale and shape I was aiming for. I also really like that this show gets straight into it. No exposition, no discussion, half a scene in a classroom: kid gets established as a gamer, gets thrown in jail, and immediately goes 'heck da cops!' and steals a robot and kicks some rear end. I seriously thought I accidentally skipped two episodes in or something.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2019 22:04
|
|
|
Nah that's just sorta what tomino does. In his shows there are always moments that make you feel like you missed something. Don't think any of them are as bad about that as brain powered though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2019 22:28
|
|
|
Droyer posted:The new Bettermen have some very interesting powers that are fun to read about and there was a fight between Lamia and a Betterman that combined with prehistoric animals to form a biological Gaogaigar and it was so cool. I am so fuckin' sold.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2019 01:39
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:Also, some of the drama in the last few episodes is fairly forced even by Tomino standards. Like the brainwashed Elchi stuff I think is mostly really quite good both for its more dramatic scenes and a lot of the comedic ones, though the resolution to it being "lol we just HAVE to transfer the evil personality into someone else, thankfully dying Arthur Rank is here to sacrifice himself!" was reeaaalllly stupid. Why did they have to do that to begin with? You can't just leak it into the aether? i'd recommend reading up about the alternative ending in the compilation movie. You might prefer it!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2019 03:57
|
|
|
EthanSteele posted:i'd recommend reading up about the alternative ending in the compilation movie. You might prefer it!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2019 05:02
|
|
|
As cool as it is to finally have the movie in English, man Xabungle Grafitti is choppy as hell even by compilation film standards. Like, it's significantly worse than 0079 trilogy or even Ideon: A Contact (Be Invoked expanding on only a couple of episodes of course makes it a very different beast). In a way, it seems to foretell the questionable decisions that would be to come in Zeta Gundam: A New Translation. Still, as bad as the movie is there are some interesting things in it. They actually increase a lot of the fourth wall breaking (To the point there's a title card about how one of the episodes didn't air in the Kansai region due to a high school baseball game. At another point, there's an apology for animation frames not even being finished on time!). There's even a cute bit where Chill sings about the "Aura Road", coinciding with Dunbine airing at the same time. The weirdest stuff though is what they choose to cut and keep in. Like, they straight up don't include Carrying Cargo dying (Leaving it only as something Elchi refers to in a one-off line. This almost seems equivalent to the Zeta movies leaving out the Dakar speech or the Kamille girl's name scene), but they keep in various pointless "lol I'm running away from the Iron Gear" episodes. For some reason they leave in Greta's character, but change her motivation from avenging her husband to...money. She just wants to kill Jiron for some cold hard cash. Timp killing Jiron's parents is left in, but the entire question of his motivation is (Perhaps wisely) cut. Likewise from what I can tell the Salt organization is gone entirely. The change to Elchi and Arthur's storyline is probably for the better too. Still, as an individual film Graffiti doesn't come together at all and is basically a Garzey's Wing level disaster (Which you probably could have expected from condensing 50 episodes into 84 minutes), only without even an amusing English dub to keep it watchable. I'm glad we can watch it for ourselves now in the English speaking world, but oh man. Xabungle as a TV show is too long for its own good but the film is faaaaaar too cut down to work as an alternative. Its interesting as a contrast to the show for people who watched that, but that's about it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2019 00:08
|
|
|
I can't remember it at all and I don't have it handy to rewatch, but how bad was the Gun X Sword bikini/swimsuit episode.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2019 02:16
|
|
|
Weird BIAS posted:I can't remember it at all and I don't have it handy to rewatch, but how bad was the Gun X Sword bikini/swimsuit episode. It's the best swimsuit episode of all time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2019 22:33
|
|
|
See I had a friend recently describe it as “pedophilloic” and I was kind of stunned because I certainly don’t remember it being that bad. Like I just don’t remember it much at all. Might just have to rewatch it, GxS owns.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2019 01:13
|
|
|
Weird BIAS posted:See I had a friend recently describe it as “pedophilloic” and I was kind of stunned because I certainly don’t remember it being that bad. Like I just don’t remember it much at all. I don't remember the GxS episode in particular but honestly it's pretty fair to point out (especially if someone is not super familiar with that kind of anime) that those episodes are near-universally dedicated to sexualizing teenage (or younger) girls.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2019 01:17
|
|
|
Well it was after we talked about another recent anime with the initials G and S and how gross that was. So seeing those two compared made my head spin.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2019 03:12
|
|
|
So I finished the last bunch of VOTOMS OVA's the other day. I liked the parts of Phantom Arc focusing on the side characters and their lives post-Shining Heresy. Whole thing in general was kind of a nice last hurrah for most of them on that front. The stuff with Chirico having to personally raise the baby Jesus I'm a little less interested in, though I would watch a sitcom involving Chirico as a parent. Case;Irvine was okay for what it was. VOTOMS Finder is probably the single worst thing in this franchise, though the worst thing I can say about is that its mostly just kind of average in all fronts. That it tries to remix basic parts of VOTOMS' early episodes in the broadest possible strokes is kind of neat in theory but eh. Chirico's Return ~ Alone Again was pretty solid. Even though it's set before Phantom Arc I kind of prefer it as a last word on Chirico. That ending in particular, I think, is more interesting if considered open ended and not as a lead in to Phantom Arc. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Sep 3, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2019 21:24
|
|
|
no wonder five star stories never finished, it begins with the ending a thousand years in the future imho story set ups like that (even with a much shorter gap) really suck the tension out of the plot
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 00:13
|
|
|
Isn't "Five Star Stories" still going? Im pretty sure I've seen mention of it's releases every month or two.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 10:17
|
|
|
tsob posted:Isn't "Five Star Stories" still going? Im pretty sure I've seen mention of it's releases every month or two. I think so, but it regularly takes massive hiatuses. At bare minimum, there was a new release last year. Moving on, I finally got around to more VOTOMs, and I can see why people say the Woodoo arc drags, because it really does. Thinking about it, a big part of it has to be how Chirico isn't really going anywhere. He gets tossed from one situation to another by the plot and by people assuming he's planning something, but it's not clear how it moves anything in the story forward. Maybe later I'll appreciate what the show's been doing, but right now it's not feeling like a story that needed 52 episodes. Mostly, the pacing is making me miss Mellowlink. There's still a lot going on that I like, but it's kind of a slog right now. Still a drat sight better than God Mazinger, though. I know Go Nagai's stuff by reputation, so it's not exactly a shock. but man. That manga sucks. Plot is basic isekai. Japanese high schooler is sent back in time, becomes the pilot to a prehistoric giant stone robot, kills a bunch of dinosaurs, and makes time with the hot, frequently topless local monarch. So far so... okay, so far so bad, since even at with highlight reel approach it sounds like a pretty paint by numbers read. But the devil is in the details, and there's a lot of devil here. First off, our protagonist is an intolerable loving prick. This isn't something I say lightly, either. Kaneda's one of my favorite protagonists in manga, and one of his establishing moments is finding out he knocked up the school nurse and basically laughing it off. But Kaneda's also shown to have good traits. He's a loyal friend, and he's willing to go through hell for his people. Meanwhile, Yamato Hino, the protagonist of God Mazinger, has massive telekinetic powers that he uses pretty much exclusively to perv on girls. He then threatens to sexually assault a childhood friend basically for the hell of it. Nobody can beat him at anything, and attempts to show him being anything but an rear end in a top hat come too late to do much good. Moving past our "hero", the plot has a ton of tangents that don't matter. For example, he's not sent back alone. A bus full of his classmates comes with him. Most of them die, his childhood friend is nearly raped and turned into a monster by the villain, but a few of the others manage to survive and talk about how they might be well suited to this era. Then they go offscreen until the end, when they all fall into an earthquake crater and die after having not moved from that spot or done anything in, at minimum, days, and possibly weeks. Despite there supposedly having been a search team sent out for them that knows their location. Most of the supporting cast has similar trouble justifying their screentime, showing up, doing some schtick, and vanishing with no real impact on the plot. (including the aforementioned childhood friend.) Oh, and you know how Go Nagai likes to reveal that aliens were the primitive humans, and also something something God, something something demons? Yeah, that's in play here too. Japanese people are descended from aliens, who fought other, evil aliens, except their giant mech was also God, who'd selected the Japanese aliens as pure and sinless, but since they were being attacked by rear end in a top hat aliens, he decided to blow it all for a game of soldiers and kill everybody until our prick hero argued that, hey, maybe don't do that? That kind of thing is a crazy twist if you do it once or twice. If you do it every time, it gets old. For all their faults, Shin Mazinger Zero and Mazinger Infinity look a lot better in comparison to this.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2019 23:53
|
|
|
You need to slow down with VOTOMS and drink in the mood. The pacing holds steady right up to the end. It's kinda like Escape From New York. Remember the scene where Snake rummages around for a chair, sits down, and just looks around? Marx Headroom fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Sep 18, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 02:01
|
|
|
Trip report: if you hated Gurren Lagann, you probably won’t like Promare either.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 03:01
|
|
|
Midjack posted:Trip report: if you hated Gurren Lagann, you probably won’t like Promare either. Which Gurren Lagann? Because over 26 episodes it's like six different shows.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 03:06
|
|
|
Who hated Gurren Lagann?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 03:18
|
|
|
Specifically it's a mix of the Assault on Teppelin and Rossiu's Ark portions of Gurren Lagann, as rewritten by the people responsible for Kill la Kill, and it's an alternate universe where Kamina didn't die.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 03:37
|
|
|
Shere posted:Specifically it's a mix of the Assault on Teppelin and Rossiu's Ark portions of Gurren Lagann, as rewritten by the people responsible for Kill la Kill, and it's an alternate universe where Kamina didn't die. With some huge Mazinger Z callbacks out of nowhere around 80 minutes in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 03:42
|
|
|
Gripweed posted:Who hated Gurren Lagann? 4 other friends i showed it to loved it so eh
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 05:41
|
|
|
I thought it was profoundly overrated in general but it's not the worst thing ever made, even if I'd rather watch literally any of the shows it's pulling from instead of it. I can't imagine hating it. It doesn't really swing big enough to inspire hatred.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2019 09:13
|
|
|
Gurren Lagann is a testament that you can build up a character and then destroy them only to rebuild again; and you don't even know who in particular I'm talking about. It's some of the best character writing I've seen in anime, across the entire cast, whereas most anyone who doesn't like TTGL probably went into it expecting strictly narrative writing. Someone who doesn't really pay attention to characters that change in the moment will find the show really flat, because they don't notice even obvious stuff like when Simon stops holding back in the very first episode. Not ever major character beat is spelled out in TTGL. The character writing was far weaker in Kill La Kill, which worries me, but still a step above most. The same kind of character beats just aren't there in KLK.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2019 05:07
|
|
|
I'd argue that KLK starts off with pretty strong character beats but then kind of spins its wheels, wastes that strong start, and then starts repeating itself to its own detriment wrt character arcs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2019 06:05
|
|
|
Unrelated: Caught some rando video of Macross Plus set to Danger Zone, watched a bit of that, and then went and watched the whole thing in movie form. That's some seriously good poo poo for 1995. Guld ...  I have zero background for Macross. That was an adventure.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2019 08:11
|
|
|
Ranzear posted:Unrelated: Caught some rando video of Macross Plus set to Danger Zone, watched a bit of that, and then went and watched the whole thing in movie form. Yeah, it's a lot of people's favorite Macross stuff, at least in the west. Most Macross has more focus on the power of songs and teenage love triangles, as opposed to the 20-something love triangle in Plus. Plus also has the Cowboy Bebop team, which gives it a different feeling than a lot of the others. Not that other Macross isn't good, but liking Plus isn't a guarantee you'll like the rest of it. Still. Crazy good. Well known fun fact there is that the dub stars Bryan Cranston before his big breaks. Also saw Promare. Like people said, the supporting cast felt underused. Like, I get it, limitations of screen time, especially with a movie consisting of at least 70 person absurd action scenes, but most of the other fire fighters felt like they didn't get enough room to breathe. Still, liked getting a Mayumi Shintani mad scientist. Something I did like was the villain. Kray being a Burnish was set up pretty clearly, but when he gave the little motive rant it made everything click into place. Of course he goes with the plan that wipes out humanity in fire. He's got a voice in his head yelling "BURN THEM ALL!" 24/7. He's convinced himself that he and he alone is immune to the pyromania inherent to the group, which means he does the end run to burn even more while double-talking his way around all the more logical solutions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2019 09:20
|
|
|
All Macross is good stuff, at its best it's great (DYRL, Frontier, Plus). This is also your reminder that Macross Frontier is on YouTube subbed at 720p. In other news, I just now finished Yamato 2202. Holy poo poo that ended well. I am insanely jealous of anyone who got to see the finale in an actual theater. The character stuff was great, the space explosions were amazing, and the philosophy and message were exactly on point. 2199 was a great re-make. 2202 went above and beyond to use the original second series to tell an amazing new story, while keeping true to the message the series has been preaching since day one. 2202 is definitely one of the greatest anime series in the last few years. I'll get some detail later, this is just an OMG reaction post.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2019 06:25
|
|
|
When did that actually finish up? I was waiting to watch until it was all done and out, but it's been a while and I kinda lost track.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2019 18:20
|
|
|
Helter Skelter posted:When did that actually finish up? I was waiting to watch until it was all done and out, but it's been a while and I kinda lost track. It finished up a few months ago, I'm shamefully behind. Get
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2019 06:56
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/GwynCampbell/status/1177823264380350466?s=09 A Delta sequel? Also, I forgot there was a movie out already and I have no idea if it's just an edit of the series or more like the Frontier movies where they make some big changes. Or if it's been subbed for that matter.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 07:02
|
|
|
The basic plot of the first movie is a condensed form of the series, though organized a little differently. The biggest change though is that the movie basically makes Freyja the main character with Hayate as her love interest, rather than a love triangle between Freyja/Hayate/Mirage.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 07:16
|
|
|
I dunno did people even want more Delta? Not many people seem to think highly of it after it wasted all the good stuff in the first half.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 07:33
|
|
|
I'm admittedly someone who loved TV Delta, but I think that people would have a much higher opinion of Delta if the movie was the original version because it's far better paced, focuses in on Freyja as the lead, and doesn't have time to waste on the stuff that didn't really work in the show.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 08:01
|
|
|
I liked Delta a lot and I'm glad they're making a sequel film. Just about its only shortcoming was that it dangles a few plot threads towards the last quarter of the show that it never actually does anything with, so maybe the sequel film will fix that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 10:37
|
|
|
I hope they don't waste more time on Windermere any more than they have to for this run.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 11:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:11 |
|
|
Lemon-Lime posted:I liked Delta a lot and I'm glad they're making a sequel film. Just about its only shortcoming was that it dangles a few plot threads towards the last quarter of the show that it never actually does anything with, so maybe the sequel film will fix that. They also need to polish up the action sequences. Macross Frontier blew Delta out of the water, and that came out a decade ago.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2019 11:21
|
|