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I wouldn't say Obsolete is amazing but a lot of little details just made me really enjoy it. The way the early cockpits just had cheap LCD screens taped everywhere, how early guns were little more than M2 HMGs in a frame that made it useable by the exo, etc.
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Jan 3, 2020 07:41
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it's definitely something that makes me say "i wish this was a video game" where you could customize your exoframe.
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Jan 3, 2020 07:47
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Continuing my journey through older mech anime, I finally watched the first episode of Orguss. Ever since I first heard of it, Orguss fascinated me. Starting with a philandering military veteran instead of a fresh faced teenager or a steely one man army was enough of a change to make me curious, but the dimension bombing, time travel, aliens, and theme song all pretty much guaranteed I'd check it out sooner or later. I always wondered why it wasn't a bigger deal. Well, like the man said, tomorrow comes today. Now I know. First, while the visuals look great in stills, they're not so good animated. The first episode's mech fights were duller than Delta, with pretty missile explosions trying to compensate for a lack of anything else. A shame, because, again, the basic art style is quite nice, but if I just wanted art, I'd grab a manga. Second... man. There's a fine line between "Likable flirt" and "Scumbag", and even accounting for the time, Kei falls on the wrong side. His first scene is mostly fine. He and Tina both seem to be on roughly the same page for their relationship, even if her father is planning to murder him for it. But his Mimsy scene? Kissing her due to hallucinations may not be his fault, but blaming her for it was his choice. Just a brief "Oh, hey, sorry" before going into flirting would have toned it down, but no. He's a creep. And he's also a creep who's willing to casually fire off WMDs against orders, and who ends the episode being really racist against the people who just saved his life. That's not a good look for a protagonist who's meant to be sympathetic. (And it's not even easy to pass off as shock, since he had the shock moment with Jabby) Then you get the villains attacking their supposed allies, not because they're at an impasse, but because they refuse to spend ten seconds trying to negotiate terms. The Emaan were offering to hand Kei over, but they wanted something in exchange. If the Chiram made a half-assed offer, or if the Emaan made a high demand, sure. That would feel like it fit. But saying two organizations get along in the same scenes where they pretty much immediately start shooting at each other just makes the conflict feel artificial. It's a shame, because the concept stuff is still cool, but the show itself is a disappointment, and reviews don't seem to say it gets a ton better.
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Jan 4, 2020 09:20
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It doesn't, but the opening and ending songs are really good.
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Jan 4, 2020 10:10
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MonsieurChoc posted:It doesn't, but the opening and ending songs are really good. True enough. (Of course, in looking up things about the show, I saw a positive review, not because it was good, but because the reviewer had only seen seven episodes, and can a show really be expected to get good in just the combined runtime of The Garden of Words, Space Patrol Luluco, and the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam?) Speaking of unreasonable pet peeves, I'm still watching VOTOMs. Third arc's just about finished. And... yeah. I'm disappointed. And from what I hear, the last arc's unlikely to fix that. As I said before, it's not all bad. Good looking, sound design isn't bad, and there's times (usually at the start of an arc) where it feels like it's coming together. But... Okay, first the pacing. I know somebody, probably Rax, is going to say that all mech anime is badly paced, so I'll try to have a little more detail in how the pacing bugs me, because even shows with equally bad pacing can have different bad pacing. Like, G Gundam has a ton of one-off episodes that don't do much for the overall plot, so someone who liked it less would bring that up. Or how IBO spreads its fights out and puts the two "MY BROTHER IS EVIL?!" arcs next to each other in the biggest fight drought of the show, which makes the middle of the first season a slog. (And then the second arc in the second season is all about a couple bit players.) Or how Turn A is just kind of slow and mellow in general, taking in the scenery instead of hitting the plot beats. VOTOMs, so far at least, seems to rush the opening to arcs, then slow way down so the resolution doesn't hit before episode 13-ish. And worse, sometimes that means skipping over the bits that seem interesting. Like, Chirico and Fanya in a Twilight Zone setup where he's constantly bombarded with his monstrous past, including his old unit's cheery theme song? That was great. I wanted a bit more. But then they got attacked and we shifted back to more dull fighting. (And yeah, showing the symbolic distance between Chirico and Fanya brought by war made literal, there's a point, but... still cuts away from the good stuff.) I'd gladly trade a few fights with Ypsilon to for more scenes that let Fanya feel like a person instead of a a cardboard cutout with a pullstring that says "Chirico!" And the fights... they really feel samey. It's not that they're badly animated, but with the structure of the arcs, there's rarely much tension, and there's not much... interesting about them either. A good chunk of my anime experience is Gundam. In Tomino shows, even routine fights tend to get cool moments to keep you hooked. G has the excitement of seeing a new absurd national stereotype mech, and the episode's plot is usually built around caring why this guy and Domon are going to throw down. (Or the guy and another Shuffle. But mostly Domon.) IBO spends whole episodes on talk so that the fights are the centerpiece of an arc, with plenty of buildup and denouement in addition to whatever is special about them (like how it's the one where Mika hits a guy on foot so hard he's just a bloodstain when he smacks into the snow.) VOTOMs, I expected really cool fights from how disposable Chirico's suits were. Like he'd regularly ram guys when his suit's cooking off, or he'd get caught unarmed because his suit was trashed, or whatever. It might have happened sometimes in the dozens of near-identical fights against endless disposable grunts, but overall, tactics have been in short supply. Chirico and the PS don't do cool moves and seldom make battle plans beyond "Shoot the other guy first and more". Chirico even gets to ignore fire sometimes like he wasn't in an angry can of C4. It's worse because I saw Mellowlink before this (as well as Irvine, for my sins), and they made a big deal of each fight. Like here's Irvine fighting along a wall as they both slide down, here's Mellowlink in the jungle, here's Mellowlink playing Donkey Kong. Other than the spaceship fight and to an extent the junkyard fight where Chirico wrecked multiple mechs for an advantage, I can't think of much in the main series with the same clear focus. All the mech fights with Ypsilon just kind of blend together. Probably should have character thoughts too. The sidekicks are alright, but their development is much less than their screentime, and their invulnerability hurt the show's ability to feel gritty. Also, they kept showing up in increasingly tacked on ways. As for Chirico... Well, I heard about him being THE stoic soldier mech protagonist... I kind of expected Mika. Not the same arc, but I expected to see a lot of moments where Chirico just stone cold executes people. And then he spends the third arc repeatedly sparing people who are trying to kill him. Still killing mooks, though. There's interesting stuff with him being haunted by his past, but the videogame morality sticks out. If he executes people with names at the end of their boss fight, he gets negative karma. If he gives oxygen to the woman trying to murder him even as he keeps sparing her, good karma. If he kills endless armies of line soldiers with no choice but to do their duty... eh. Nobody cares. We got, like, fifty of them. (It's also frustrating the reason behind the 100 year war is unclear. When it was just a background element, that was fine, but when it's a big thing for the Sunsa arc... would appreciate something beyond "They're opposite sides.") I guess if VOTOMs had just been another item on a long list of mech anime, then I guess (assuming I stuck with it) I'd be fine with it, but this is VOTOMs. It's supposed to be the big gritty robot show, an absolute classic. And hell, Gurren and Eva lived up to expectations, and when I got to the end I finally saw why people love Gunbuster. (Not as much as I liked Diebuster, though. I understand reasonable people may differ.) But VOTOMs... it's falling into the 08th MS team niche for me. This hyped up "gritty" show that on seeing it... turned out to be more loved for what it represented than for what it was.
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Jan 6, 2020 13:07
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VOTOMs (and Orguss I guess) are shows that I enjoy a lot more in SRW.
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Jan 6, 2020 14:53
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chiasaur11 posted:Well, I heard about him being THE stoic soldier mech protagonist... I kind of expected Mika. Not the same arc, but I expected to see a lot of moments where Chirico just stone cold executes people. And then he spends the third arc repeatedly sparing people who are trying to kill him. Still killing mooks, though. There's interesting stuff with him being haunted by his past, but the videogame morality sticks out. If he executes people with names at the end of their boss fight, he gets negative karma. If he gives oxygen to the woman trying to murder him even as he keeps sparing her, good karma. If he kills endless armies of line soldiers with no choice but to do their duty... eh. Nobody cares. We got, like, fifty of them. Chirico is stoic, if you were expecting Mika then I dunno cos yeah he is stoic too but that's not what makes him 'stone cold execute' people. And yeah VOTOMs isn't gritty in the way you seemed to expect. To me it's gritty in that its the 'realest' real robot show where getting the gun platform with legs ready with weapons and ammo and repairing it matters and the show's complete disregard for the mechs, which the show is still pretty unique for afaik.
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Jan 6, 2020 19:29
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chiasaur11 posted:IBO spends whole episodes on talk so that the fights are the centerpiece of an arc, with plenty of buildup and denouement in addition to whatever is special about them (like how it's the one where Mika hits a guy on foot so hard he's just a bloodstain when he smacks into the snow.) Is that what people generally liked about IBO? Maybe that's why I found it dull I guess, cause I didn't enjoy the build up and things like Mika splattering a guy didn't do anything for me. Then again, I love Turn A's slow pacing, so different strokes really I suppose.
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Jan 6, 2020 23:46
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tsob posted:Is that what people generally liked about IBO? Maybe that's why I found it dull I guess, cause I didn't enjoy the build up and things like Mika splattering a guy didn't do anything for me. Then again, I love Turn A's slow pacing, so different strokes really I suppose. I don't know if it's what other people like, but it's at least something I appreciate, especially with a lot more mech anime under my belt. (And yeah, it might be why you found it dull.) Instead of fights being obligatory interruptions, they were specific narrative points. Enemy pilots could be built up for a small arc and finished off in one fight instead of either being gone almost immediately (like the Black Tristars and Challia Bull) or playing Team Rocket for a chunk of the show (like the Frosts and the Druggies). The less frequent fights also meant the politics and talking didn't get interrupted like in G-Reco for an obligatory skirmish. We can get people just talking, allowing more characterization for bit players like Zack. I like Turn A too, of course. It's just that I get how people might not like those pacing methods. (It's why I picked G, Turn A, and IBO specifically. All different approaches, all shows I liked.) VOTOMs, by contrast, doesn't seem to have as firm a grasp on its pacing. Turn A, G, and IBO all feel like they knew what they were aiming for in terms of an episode, even if it doesn't always work, but VOTOMs doesn't seem to have an exact idea of what one week's worth of stuff should do, even within a given arc. As for grit... well, I agree that the mechs are more disposable, but there's always something around. Even aside from tonal questions, there's rarely moments were people have to make do. Even when Chirico's marooned in space on a strange ship going against an endless array of enemies, he always had replacement mechs and more ammo. It lacks Gundam's unique mechs, but I can't think of many things like the Zeta Zaku either. (Which may be memory failing me.) And it's not like that was the only grit people praised it for. "Oh, it's 'nam with mechs", "Chirico's an adult soldier, not a whiny teen", "more mature", yada yada yada. VOTOMs is definitely darker than most of its peer toy commercials, but it still has an unbeatable teenage hero (Chirico's just a year older than Kamille, believe it or not), invincible comic relief, and, honestly, less geopolitical intrigue than Gundam. On an even more juvenile level, I'm disappointed in Chirico. SRW makes him look like the coolest guy ever, but he just... sits by after Kan Yu blows up a civilian boat and wrecks the mission in the Kunmen arc after trying to tell the guy to stop. Which is made much, much worse by the fact that, on the mission, he'd been made CO, despite Kan Yu normally outranking him due to his experience. He got too involved (and it came too late in the show) for it to work as "okay, he's totally broken by war, he can barely bring himself to care about atrocities", but his failure to follow up despite, again, being supposedly in charge took away from him both as a moral figure (since he let people be murdered when he could have stopped it) and as a soldier (since people defying orders and not suffering any consequences doesn't look good on a CO). He's also just kind of tossed around by the plot a lot of the time unlike Mellowlink, who takes initiative and has clear, manageable goals. (Well, manageable goals by Pvt. Mellowlink Ality standards.) I know I'm going on for a bit, but when something doesn't quite work for me, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why, and when it's something with a reputation, that goes double.
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Jan 7, 2020 07:05
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Mellowlink is really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn8WfNMJ5I
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Jan 7, 2020 13:50
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SRW makes bad shows look really good
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Jan 7, 2020 16:24
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chiasaur11 posted:He's also just kind of tossed around by the plot a lot of the time unlike Mellowlink, who takes initiative and has clear, manageable goals. (Well, manageable goals by Pvt. Mellowlink Ality standards.) I mean what can Chirico or anyone else in that universe really do? All the major power structures are deeply corrupt. War is everywhere, and if not in your backyard then it'll find you like it found Kummen. Most people scrape by or die meaningless violent deaths in blasted wastelands. I think the most optimistic person in the story in Vanilla and even his dream nightclub gets firebombed. Where do you go after that? What are you gonna do, enlist in the military and push reforms? Put together a mercenary corps that only takes jobs from the Good Guys? Set up a community garden?
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Jan 7, 2020 21:47
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Marx Headroom posted:I mean what can Chirico or anyone else in that universe really do? All the major power structures are deeply corrupt. War is everywhere, and if not in your backyard then it'll find you like it found Kummen. Most people scrape by or die meaningless violent deaths in blasted wastelands. That'd be the 'grit' then.
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Jan 7, 2020 22:32
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Marx Headroom posted:I mean what can Chirico or anyone else in that universe really do? All the major power structures are deeply corrupt. War is everywhere, and if not in your backyard then it'll find you like it found Kummen. Most people scrape by or die meaningless violent deaths in blasted wastelands. Well, Mellowlink went with "Make a list of every single person even partially responsible for murdering my unit and framing them for treason, lure them into Armored Troopers, then kill them in their Armored Troopers using the lovely rifle that we were given when they took away our mechs." And then he did. Mellowlink Arity is a go-getter. I'm not saying I want Chirico to fix the universe. I just want him to have more things like, well, the robberies in the first arc. Give him a goal, have him take steps towards that goal, finish that goal in success or failure, have him make a decision on what to do next. (Even small goals like, I don't know, getting some decent coffee.) Instead, he tends to, especially in the back half of the series, just get a goal tossed at him.
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Jan 8, 2020 01:55
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chiasaur11 posted:
I think the best of IBO, in terms of arrangement and writing, is when the villain of the arc doesn't get away, doesn't get an extra word in, and instead just gets loving curbstomped like one always wanted to see instead of slinking away to be annoying again later like every other Gundam villain. This is played with so much in Iok, who is made super obnoxious in this regard entirely on purpose. It helps that there's no shortage of people standing against Tekkadan throughout the series. One has little doubt that Mika might just succeed in killing them, or that Tekkadan's crazy plans might just work, and it really does make certain characters that much more interesting and important (like Julieta) that one starts to hope they make it out. When Tekkadan finally fails to win for real, it's much more impactful. It's kinda why Gaelio/McGillis is a bit of a lovely side-plot, because it plays the old 'live to be annoying another day' trope almost too straight until one of them is finally dead for good and then it's just a relief. Don't even get me started on Ein. Ranzear fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jan 8, 2020 |
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Jan 8, 2020 19:57
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chiasaur11 posted:Instead of fights being obligatory interruptions, they were specific narrative points. Enemy pilots could be built up for a small arc and finished off in one fight instead of either being gone almost immediately (like the Black Tristars and Challia Bull) or playing Team Rocket for a chunk of the show (like the Frosts and the Druggies). I'd have said they still felt obligatory honestly, though certainly not to the same degree, because rather than having a fight every episode, I'm pretty sure IBO just reduced it to a fight every second episode. Every situation was still resolved with a fight, and some of them still felt tacked on and kind of lazy. Akihiro's brother being the most egregious case, since the faction the crew fought to save him were so cartoonishly evil in design. The whole arc felt like it was just stuck on last second to fill some time really. Ranzear posted:I think the best of IBO, in terms of arrangement and writing, is when the villain of the arc doesn't get away, doesn't get an extra word in, and instead just gets loving curbstomped like one always wanted to see instead of slinking away to be annoying again later like every other Gundam villain. This is played with so much in Iok, who is made super obnoxious in this regard entirely on purpose. I guess I just never thought many Gundam villains were annoying because they got away from the protagonists to reappear later, and never had the desire to see them dealt with immediately. I know Jerid among others in Zeta has a bit of a reputation for that as an example (Turn A has several like that too, notably Poe), but I also can't really think of any who slip away unearned in 0079 or who I felt should have been destroyed in one hit or anything. As much as you're saying that it meant the few who survive stand out, the only people I can recall in the entirety of season one of IBO (which is all I've watched) are Gaelio, McGillis and Ein; two of whom did constantly escape encounters with Tekkadan, and one of who escaped a seeming death to return in season two. I also didn't find Gaelio particularly interesting, and the main reason McGillis was interesting during that season is because his motives and plans were deliberately withheld and not actually explored at all. Ein was the only character with real motives that survived throughout the season, and while he was overly emotional at times, he was also the only one that was really sympathetic. tsob fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jan 9, 2020 |
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Jan 9, 2020 03:08
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Just finished VOTOMs. It's funny. I've mainlined shows before, but that's always been "Oh, man, this is exciting, what's going to happen, this is too tense to just let sit." Until trying to finish VOTOMs, I never watched more than a couple episodes of a show at once just to be done with it. So, at least it's a new experience. The last act of VOTOMs is interesting in that... wait. No. Scratch that. Discussing the last act of VOTOMs is interesting because it should be so much more exciting than it is. After all, now we're at the root of everything. We've got whole fleets of ships being trashed, Chirico taking on armies, and the answers to all the mysteries of the last few arcs. Thousands, maybe millions of people are dying, and maybe Chirico is evil now! Except that mostly doesn't matter. A deus ex machina to explain plot holes isn't compelling storytelling, even if the god in question is a dick, and some of it doesn't even make sense by that metric. If you want someone to make endless wars and desire power above all else, then going out of your way to make him develop empathy is incredibly counterproductive. The armies, meanwhile, are dull because the show has done so much to make you not care about the big galactic war. Balarant and Gilgamesh are two interchangable and endless collections of dickbags with no visible philosophical or social differences. Even in things like UC Gundam and 40K, settings built around all sides being bastards, they make sure to have one side being less bad in the moment, and even when they're all terrible they're terrible in different ways. It's still possible to care. Here, that's not the case. For the personal stories like Mellowlink or the earlier arcs, that's fine. We care about Chirico, and the universe as a whole. But when we're expected to be invested in the grand galactic stakes, it fizzles. We've also had it pretty well established that Chirico is better than a PS, and a PS is better than any number of regular soldiers, so having numbers as the threat works less well than in anime where numbers, you know, matter. As for Chirico being evil, it would matter a lot more if it felt like there was any chance it wasn't a bluff. He's the only fleshed out character on the show, and he keeps doing the worst things to villains while mostly just making evil speeches when it's a character we might be sympathetic towards. It also means losing a lot of Chirico's characterization in the last leg, cutting off his inner monologues for the purpose of the "twist". There were a bunch of other bits too, like the planet of trained mercenaries mostly loving peace without explaining why that leads to them killing people for money, the twins being just terrible characters in every way, how nobody asked questions about the Overman genocide for 3,000 years... yeah. Not a strong close, as much as I may appreciate 70s sci-fi. And I guess that's VOTOMs, other than the absurd mountain of OVAs about Chirico's life before, during, and after the original series. (I've already seen everything without Chirico.) I went in with high expectations, and they weren't met. Still, at least I can say I saw it, and there were a few moments, even a couple of episodes, that were pretty good.
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Jan 9, 2020 05:07
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Man chiasaur you and I are like night and day when it comes to VOTOMS. In the lead up to the finale I distinctly remember thinking "drat I can't wait to get home and see what happens next" and how unusual that was for me. quote:A deus ex machina to explain plot holes isn't compelling storytelling, even if the god in question is a dick, and some of it doesn't even make sense by that metric. I thought Wiseman owned actually. What if God was real, but he was evil? What if evil existed because of God? It also explained why Rochina was so obsessed with hunting down Chirico but kept letting him escape. The only thing I didn't like was the Illuminati aspect. imo the worldbuilding was more compelling when it was "The future sucks rear end because people are just Like That" quote:Balarant and Gilgamesh are two interchangable and endless collections of dickbags with no visible philosophical or social differences. *rips bong* all uniforms look the same quote:Even in things like UC Gundam and 40K, settings built around all sides being bastards, they make sure to have one side being less bad in the moment, and even when they're all terrible they're terrible in different ways. Yeah that's kinda  nobody's a good person here. Even Chirico's best friends are war profiteers, gamblers, mercenaries.But that's kinda like real life? We're all assholes on some level but we gotta stick together. That's only way anything good comes out of all this poo poo. quote:But when we're expected to be invested in the grand galactic stakes, it fizzles. I didnt get the feeling the writing was pushing grand galactic stakes. That is, I don't think the audience was expected to care about whether the universe would go to war. The show didn't show us many things obviously worth saving/protecting. No stakes if there's not much to lose. Maybe Rochina and Faceless General #2 etc cared about ruling the universe but it doesn't matter what they want. They'd be ruling over ashes. The bleak setting just renders their ambition as petty delusions of grandeur and vindicates Chirico for wanting to get the gently caress away from them and the whole system. I think the galactic war buildup was just necessary to get Chirico face-to-face with his creator. Wiseman is like Faceless General #2 True Forme. His ambitions are the pettiest of all and I doubt he would've shown himself unless his galactic moment of triumph was near at hand. Pretty sure Chirico even said something like "I knew I'd have to go all the way for you to expose yourself" seems like a valid strategy against probably the universe's best hide and seek player with impenetrable wonder tech defenses. quote:As for Chirico being evil, it would matter a lot more if it felt like there was any chance it wasn't a bluff. Well I bought it. I figured he was being mind controlled and would snap out of it. Or he'd go powermad and make a mistake in hubris leading to his downfall. Or maybe he finally embraced the darkness and would regret his decisions later (not like that's ever happened). I knew he'd come through somehow but there was still a glimmer of doubt in my mind. After 3 arcs of running from conflict and getting hunted down anyway and wrestling with his bloody past, God shows up and says "You're not hosed up and broken, you were made to fight. Accept who you were born to be and I'll be with you." I can believe Chirico would take that deal? Maybe even in a moment of weakness. But he's always had a good poker face so maybe he's bluffing? I was hooked, I wanted to see how it would all shake out. Idk you've got an eye for narrative structure and character psych but VOTOMS to me is more like a collection of absolutely striking set pieces and emotional beats. It's more like an attitude. Like, Quent isn't The Peace Planet (then why are there mercenaries???) it's the living tomb of a fallen god. It's like that Ozymandias poem. Imagine what the proud Overman civilization looked like, the peak of human development, and now all that's left is cave dwellers under an immense, blasted city and strange lights and noises coming from the deep places where dying people go and never return. There's vastness there, and mystery, and fear. Or the pursuit on Sunsa. I don't remember the exact plot points, but I remember Chirico salvaging oxygen tanks from a skeleton in a bombed out city. Against that backdrop, it's so loving absurd how badly this woman wants to kill Chirico. She'd even die if it meant killing him. All for what? What does it matter if there's one more skeleton in a planet sized open grave? You can feel the anger at being so utterly helpless, of wanting to do something in a universe that doesn't even care enough to bury its dead. You can see how that cycle of loss and hatred perpetuates itself and becomes bigger than any singular villain. There's vastness there too. You gotta feel it. Maybe you've seen enough stuff like VOTOMS that it doesn't really trigger those feelings anymore, but I felt it and that poo poo is real.
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Jan 10, 2020 00:26
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Marx Headroom posted:Or the pursuit on Sunsa. I don't remember the exact plot points, but I remember Chirico salvaging oxygen tanks from a skeleton in a bombed out city. Against that backdrop, it's so loving absurd how badly this woman wants to kill Chirico. She'd even die if it meant killing him. All for what? What does it matter if there's one more skeleton in a planet sized open grave? You can feel the anger at being so utterly helpless, of wanting to do something in a universe that doesn't even care enough to bury its dead. You can see how that cycle of loss and hatred perpetuates itself and becomes bigger than any singular villain. There's vastness there too. I suppose so. As I said, there were moments that worked for me. It's just everything connecting those moments that didn't. (And, as you said, I'd seen a lot of the big ideas before, which leaves them more reliant on execution.) Moving onto something I'm sure is less controversial, Starship Troopers! More specifically, the old OVA. I'll skip the politics... because the OVA does too, to a remarkable degree. While the book devotes a pretty big portion of its length discussing its political system, and the films spends much of their time parodying it, the OVA refuses to engage with any of it. Beyond an offhand mention of a supreme commander Hathaway, we get nothing of the wider political landscape, sticking with the story of Juan Rico (now blonde haired and blue eyed, presumably to mark him as American to the show's Japanese audience, contrasting with the rest of the standard-multinational cast) as he comes of age, falls in love, and kills a bunch of space monsters. It's a bit odd, in the wider context, but it nicely simplifies the questions. We can skip over political debate and definitions of satire to the final point. Is this any good? And the answer is equally simple. No. You'd expect, if nothing else, a 1980s Sunrise OVA would bring the goods. After all, right around that time their studios were putting out War in the Pocket, Patlabor, and the VOTOMs OVAs, stuff that still holds up surprisingly well today. But it doesn't. The armor looks nice, and the male characters look fairly average, but the women and the aliens look outright bad. The music is also reasonably painful, with one of the worst openings I've ever seen. Further, while most OVAs tried to have something compelling in each episode (you were, after all, asking people to shell out good money every time), Starship Troopers is mostly just people going through military training, and not particularly compelling training. There's only combat between the aliens and the Mobile Infantry in two episodes out of six, and the scenes between the recruits don't do much to make up for it. And speaking of the cast, they're pretty dull. You got the harsh drill sergeant who secretly cares (who's more of an rear end in a top hat than usual, considering he refuses to allow a soldier who died assisting a fellow M.I. to be buried with honors because he violated orders when doing it), you got the love interest, you get the usual fellow new recruits, and you have our hero. Who... never does anything to justify being the protagonist. Overall, yeah. Historically interesting, especially with the rumors it was unauthorized, but not very good.
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Jan 12, 2020 10:33
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chiasaur11 posted:Moving onto something I'm sure is less controversial, Starship Troopers! You may already know this, and just have skipped mentioning it for the sake of simplicity, but Verhoeven never actually intended to write Starship Troopers as having anything to do with the book. Executives just had the license and realized the movie he was making was similar enough to be vaguely compatible, so they pushed it on him. More to the point, Verhoeven never actually read Starship Troopers, and while he started after the decision to make the film based on that property, he only got one chapter in before putting the book down because he didn't like what he was reading. Any parody the film makes of the book is more based on happen-stance and the fact they were addressing similar subjects, rather than intent as such.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:01
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I did not realise anime Starship Troopers was an OVA. I assumed it was a TV show because it was so dull and unambitious. Pretty sure that says everything you need to know about it right there.
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Jan 13, 2020 01:22
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https://twitter.com/generalslug/status/1216212571499515904?s=20
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Jan 13, 2020 01:50
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not wrong
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Jan 13, 2020 02:10
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Darkman Fanpage posted:not wrong 
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Jan 13, 2020 03:41
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I started watching Gasaraki. No idea what's going on so far but the ED is absolutely fantastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GlkU_y-Pw
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Jan 14, 2020 05:59
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GorfZaplen posted:I started watching Gasaraki. No idea what's going on so far but the ED is absolutely fantastic I absolutely love the fights in that show. There aren't a lot of them but when they come they're so well-done. Also the best storytelling is in the first half, as the ending rapidly goes bonkers in a not entirely enjoyable way. But... hey. Keep posting about how you feel about it, I don't think there's anything out there like it, anime-wise.
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Jan 14, 2020 09:33
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GorfZaplen posted:I started watching Gasaraki. No idea what's going on so far but the ED is absolutely fantastic I've heard it has something to do with grain prices. I'm sure knowing that will clear everything right up. Meanwhile, in non-grain price related mech anime, I finally got around to watching some of the Zone of the Enders anime, years after finishing the game. It's always been fascinating to me how that universe worked out. They didn't just make a game about giant robots and write out some plot blurbs to explain who you were shooting. They were trying for a whole setting in one blitz, starting with a one-off prequel anime. Then they released the game that followed on the prequel a month later, tied into the anime but focusing on a different protagonist in a different setting. Once that was out, they immediately went for a full on seasonal anime following up different threads from the prequel. And THAT lead into a GBA spinoff. This wasn't just an attempt to make some fun robot games. Konami and the KojiPro tea were trying to make their own Gundam ex nihilio. And the remarkable thing is, they didn't completely gently caress it up! The opening shot, Zone of the Enders: 2167 Idolo, is a tight little 50 minute OVA on the history of the first Orbital Frame, the Gundams to the rest of the setting's Zakus. The neat little twist is that the protagonists of the film are the villains of the game, the terrorist group BAHRAM. The hero of the day is Radium Lavans, military test pilot by day, and terrorist military test pilot by night. He's basically a good guy, even if he has some anger issues, well liked by his peers and supported by his girlfriend Dolores. She works on Idolo, a cutting edge superweapon that will hopefully free Mars from Earth's oppression. And tying things to Z.O.E. proper, we have Viola, presented in the game as the token recurring psycho ace. Here, she's a BAHRAM recruit who tried to kill Radium until he gave her something to live for. Something that's a lot more awkward when she realizes he doesn't feel the same way about her as she does about him, but these things happen. It's a short little anime, but Viola and Radium get about enough to do to feel fleshed out, especially compared to the game, where the hero is all the internet complaints about Shinji given flesh, and where Viola's basically just a psychotic rear end in a top hat. We even get a really nice little scene with Radium and Dolores where he admits the reason he's been going more and more berserk in the testing is probably that, now that he's forced to confront himself, that he doesn't have high ideals, or a good cause. All he's got driving him to pilot is hate against Earth. Dolores responds by saying it's okay, as long as he acknowledges his flaws. He's still doing good things, or trying to. This leads to him deciding to finish the work and quit, with the head scientist on the project also planning to drop out after being horrified at the effects of Metatron on the human psyche. Things... don't go well for anyone from there. 50 minutes, in and out, with some good fights and a bleak little ending. I wouldn't put it anywhere near a must see list, but it's worth a look, especially if you played the games. Oh, and it's apparently the last cel animated work from Sunrise, so that's kinda neat.
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Jan 14, 2020 10:28
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jackhunter64 posted:Link to the F-16 sequence so everyone who's already seen the film can watch it again cause it loving rules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTHeQu3S98E I'm curious whether Ace Combat ended up with Wizard and Priest squadrons as an homage to Patlabor 2, or whether they both draw from the JASDF's actual squadron names.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:55
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I never watched Gasaraki but it has an amazing opening.
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Jan 15, 2020 00:51
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gasaraki starts incredibly slow, and it seems even slower due to the noh dances. the urban combat mech vs. a fighter jet episode was pretty sweet, though.
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Jan 15, 2020 04:26
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So, keeping up my run through old shows and OVAs, I just finished Orguss II. Admittedly, it seemed a bit of an odd choice to watch it after ducking out of Orguss I, but it's only six episodes, and by the director of War in the Pocket, so what the hell, right? There are times when what the hell really pays off. And Orguss II was one of them. Set 200 years after the original show, Orguss spends most of its runtime barely acting like a sequel at all. Instead of the weird multidimensional world of the original, it's set in a pair of warring nations combining general social structures from around WWI, mechs from WWIII, and political structure from the war of the five kings. (They've even got a Joffrey.) Our hero's a regular 18 year old mechanic's assistant named Lean. He's a bright kid, with a bright future digging up and repairing old mechs. And then he falls into the cockpit, joins the military, and that future gets a lot messier, especially when he gets involved with international fugitives, a massive war, and working for one Lt. Manning. To be clear, Manning deserves a lot of mention of his own. Dude's a Kaneda level dickbag, in the best way. While he might do the right thing for the right reason, and have more of a conscience than a lot of the other characters playing the game of thrones, he's quite willing to kick off wars for money, leave people who trust him in the lurch, and betray employers if the price is right. You know how I said Kei in the original fell on the wrong side of the line between "lovable flirt" and "scumbag"? Manning goes on the wrong side and keeps going until you can hardly help but like him. Oh, and I should probably mention the female lead too. Nataruma's the aforementioned fugitive, a young woman running from her government for reasons we don't initially know. What we do know is that she's got a chip on her shoulder and people willing to pay a lot of money to bring her in. She's a solid character, with her own arc and plenty of scenes where she actually does things instead of just being the thing everyone is trying to get. So, yeah. We got a good cast, and that's not even going into the whole deadly court politics subplot. But a mech show usually sells on its mechs. ...Usually. While Orguss 02 ramps up the fights towards the end, and has some neat bits, it's not terribly concerned with robot fighting most of the time. Mechs exist, and they make up some major plot beats, but there's more time spent holding people at gunpoint for the first 4 episode than there is spent on the mechs. This isn't a show that wants to have awesome robot fights as much as it wants to remind us that war sucks. (Also, that kings suck. This show isn't terribly fond of monarchy in general.) It's not perfect. The last two episodes suddenly expect the viewer to know about the original Orguss, most of the mechs look pretty generic, and the dub... is not recommended. But overall, it's quite good. Definitely a better watch than Orguss 1, and quicker on top.
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Jan 15, 2020 10:49
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chiasaur11 posted:It's not perfect. The last two episodes suddenly expect the viewer to know about the original Orguss, most of the mechs look pretty generic, and the dub... is not recommended. But overall, it's quite good. Definitely a better watch than Orguss 1, and quicker on top. They retcon some parts of the older series. Which isn't a big deal, on paper, except that this adds confusion and was mainly used to increase the drama. It feels...mostly unnecessary. Either way, I agree that Orguss II is a much better standalone watch. I'm still oddly fond of the original TV show, despite its meandering and weirdness, but it's harder to get through.
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Jan 15, 2020 15:40
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A really great thing about the Wiseman arc of VOTOMS is how, after building up this scientific-religious progress myth and propping up an emblematic knowledge-head of the ubermensch teleology used to justify millennia of warfare, the ending of this incredibly violent series is a ponderous process of Chirico quietly, diligently removing the power banks from Wiseman’s core while the system pathetically tries to bargain with him.
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Jan 16, 2020 00:56
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tsob posted:You may already know this, and just have skipped mentioning it for the sake of simplicity, but Verhoeven never actually intended to write Starship Troopers as having anything to do with the book. Executives just had the license and realized the movie he was making was similar enough to be vaguely compatible, so they pushed it on him. More to the point, Verhoeven never actually read Starship Troopers, and while he started after the decision to make the film based on that property, he only got one chapter in before putting the book down because he didn't like what he was reading. Any parody the film makes of the book is more based on happen-stance and the fact they were addressing similar subjects, rather than intent as such. And the best part is how quickly one can catch that somebody's take is entirely based on Verhoeven's interpretations of a book he didn't read, mostly the moment they bother to mention fascism. They also 100% of the time think a dude from Argentina named Rico is white. Starship Troopers's society is a meritocracy with too little information beyond military service being a path to citizenship in the midst of an interstellar war with a hivemind race that slings city-busting asteroids. There's a throwaway line about the space equivalent of the Merchant Marine wanting their service considered for citizenship, and more a lack of other paths mentioned rather than military or hard labor being the only paths. Put another way: Rico wouldn't bother to mention science or academics because those weren't options to him, whereas military, hard labor, or space merchants was. There is no 'dichotomous enemy' or other major mechanics of fascism in the book at all. One should not confuse jingoism and military structures for fascism, else one might watch Jarhead and declare the United States to be fascist just the same (well ain't that a can of worms). It's still a lovely hypothetical society because no decisive body populated and organized by ex-military would ever deign to bring about peace and eliminate the need for a military at all, but the bugs do well enough to perpetuate it.
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Jan 16, 2020 03:08
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Ranzear posted:And the best part is how quickly one can catch that somebody's take is entirely based on Verhoeven's interpretations of a book he didn't read, mostly the moment they bother to mention fascism. They also 100% of the time think a dude from Argentina named Rico is white. And the usual confusion of "portrays" with "promotes".
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Jan 16, 2020 04:14
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Philippines, not Argentina. But maybe the film changed that, I dunno.
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Jan 16, 2020 04:25
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Anonymous Robot posted:A really great thing about the Wiseman arc of VOTOMS is how, after building up this scientific-religious progress myth and propping up an emblematic knowledge-head of the ubermensch teleology used to justify millennia of warfare, the ending of this incredibly violent series is a ponderous process of Chirico quietly, diligently removing the power banks from Wiseman’s core while the system pathetically tries to bargain with him. VOTOMS has a wonderful ending and honestly I feel like any of the sequel stuff just sours it.
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Jan 16, 2020 04:33
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ImpAtom posted:VOTOMS has a wonderful ending and honestly I feel like any of the sequel stuff just sours it. Unfortunately Shining Heresy's gonna Shining Heresy.
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Jan 16, 2020 04:41
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ImpAtom posted:VOTOMS has a wonderful ending and honestly I feel like any of the sequel stuff just sours it. I agree wholeheartedly. Chirico's arc comes to an immensely satisfying and complete conclusion in VOTOMs, and all the OVAs reopening the proverbial book feel immensely lovely. Kanos fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jan 16, 2020 |
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Jan 16, 2020 10:59
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Ranzear posted:And the best part is how quickly one can catch that somebody's take is entirely based on Verhoeven's interpretations of a book he didn't read, mostly the moment they bother to mention fascism. They also 100% of the time think a dude from Argentina named Rico is white. I may be missing something here since I don't know either the source material or the adaptation but this reads really weirdly to me. Argentina is a mostly white country, descended from Spanish and Italian people. It'd be weirder if someone from here wasn't white. I'd know, I can't leave home on a sunny day without feeling my skin will melt.
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Jan 16, 2020 14:23
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