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Droyer posted:Demonbane to me is a mixed bag. From a Lovecraft perspective it uses Lovecraft characters and concepts but doesn't really deal much with Lovecraftian themes. Lovecraftian horror is mostly about the feeling of powerlessness against an unfathomable harmful force, and having a ggod-robot that can destroy universes as a side-effect of it doing battle kind of runs counter to that idea. From a wow cool robots perspectives it has some neat robots and fights though, and seeing Demonbane slowly acquire upgrades until it reaches godmode status is fun. Endorph posted:there's an all-ages version of the vn with some new CGs and stuff but it isnt translated, though a translation is being worked on. there's also a sequel that doesn't have a TL. Thanks for the replies. I'll probably wait for the new tl if it has more content and skip the anime
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Sep 2, 2021 04:15
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ftr the all ages version tl seems to exist primarily as some guy going 'yeah sure ill do it' on vndb once a year ago but ive seen weirder things randomly appear complete at a later date.
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Sep 2, 2021 04:53
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Endorph posted:ftr the all ages version tl seems to exist primarily as some guy going 'yeah sure ill do it' on vndb once a year ago but ive seen weirder things randomly appear complete at a later date. Yeah, I figure if I wait a few years someone will unceremoniously release the PS2 demonbane alongside the kart racer game that apparently exists
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Sep 2, 2021 13:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZQdp9GN9g This '80s punk rock covered the Yuusha Raideen ending theme for some reason.
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Sep 9, 2021 03:34
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I dug into this and Raideen was one of many anime to be broadcast in Hawaii with english subtitles, and eventually rebroadcast in Chicago and New York as well. Interesting!
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Sep 9, 2021 22:39
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I wonder if those subs even exist any more. Given how desperate the old mecha fandom was back in 00s I'd have thought they'd have come up at some point.
Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 23:32
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Schwarzwald posted:I wonder if those subs even exist any more. Given how desperate the old mecha fandom was back in 00s I'd have thought they'd have come up at some point. I'd be a bit surprised if they're gone entirely. A quick google only found one screenshot, but I suspect that there's more. Also, I just found out that the protagonist of Raideen has a girlfriend named Mari and is friends with another girl named Rei Asuka. I'm not saying that Anno was lying when he claimed that Asuka and Rei's names were coincidental, but after a decade plus of people making the comparison, I find it much harder to believe that Mari's name is a coincidence. Especially not with the ending.. Moving on to another blue haired stoic, rewatched the Chirico kills video, and found that in just 52 episodes, Chirico gets 234 mech kills, more than any Gundam protagonist. Sure, he wrecks his KD ratio by losing his AT every few episodes, but that's still pretty impressive.
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Sep 10, 2021 23:58
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Schwarzwald posted:I wonder if those subs even exist any more. Given how desperate the old mecha fandom was back in 00s I'd have thought they'd have come up at some point. Weirder things have turned up in recent years. There's a fair amount of Gegege no Kitaro subs from the same station, and nearly the entire English run of Wonder 3 has been ripped from vhs tapes.
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Sep 11, 2021 00:22
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You should probably not trust Anno if he says something in Eva isn't a reference to anything else, especially something Tomino-related.
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Sep 11, 2021 00:53
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Justin_Brett posted:You should probably not trust Anno if he says something in Eva isn't a reference to anything else, especially something Tomino-related. He didn't say it wasn't a reference. He just said it was referencing Sailor Moon and a comedy wrestling manga. Edit: Just looked up an interview. Anno outright said that Mari Makinami was named for the Mari from Raideen, partially because Izubuchi went "Rei? Asuka? I get it. Nice Raideen callback." when Eva was wrapping up and Anno went "Wait. Raideen had a character named Rei Asuka? Seriously?" chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Sep 11, 2021 |
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Sep 11, 2021 00:56
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lmao
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Sep 11, 2021 03:11
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that rules
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Sep 11, 2021 03:33
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If anybody still cares about physical media, right stuf is clearancing out the old Diebuster and Wings of Rean DVDs for 2 bucks each.
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Sep 14, 2021 22:21
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chiasaur11 posted:He didn't say it wasn't a reference. He just said it was referencing Sailor Moon and a comedy wrestling manga. Not to be confused w Dear Brother's Rei AsAka.
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Sep 16, 2021 02:33
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So, since I'm losing access to Hi Dive soon, and Legend of Galactic Heroes is too long to binge efficiently, I've finally been going through the 25-ish episodes of VOTOMs I still haven't watched, finishing up everything from the show. It's been a mixed bag. Big Battle and Last Red Shoulder were fun, but Roots of Ambition was boring, and Pailsen FIles is long and boring. (What I've heard about Shining Heresy and Phantom Arc does not have me awash with excitement.) Pailsen Files has all its combat be 2000s era cg, so it's handicapped from the start, but its focus also highlights a lot of problems with the original VOTOMs that, while clear, weren't as much of an issue with its usual format. First, the pacing. While individual episodes can have a satisfying amount go down, arcs drag like crazy without changing anything of significance. The original VOTOMs at least had a decent opening hook and some tension from not knowing what was going down. Pailsen files, meanwhile, spends a lot of time faffing about with characters with set fates doing nothing of interest. We already know the big reveals from the original VOTOMs, and Chirico not having any buddies around before he picked up his gang of idiots trying a heist suggests the newbies aren't long for the world. Second, the military situation. In VOTOMs, you had two factions in the hundred year war. They were both pretty much just vague "military assholes", but you know what? That was mostly okay. The war was over, Gilgamesh (or the other one) was after Chirico because he knew too much, and that was all the plot actually needed. Sure, the wider setting was thin, but the immediate surroundings were fleshed out enough to make due for the plot of the moment. Here, we get the war ongoing and in focus... but we don't get any more about the setting. Everything is power place between random assholes who vaguely want more power with no wider objective. It's pretty difficult to be assed to give a gently caress. Third, Chirico's can be a bit of a dead fish. His internal monologues helped a lot with that in the original, getting us in his head and fleshing him out, but here, no dice. He's mostly just sitting there silent, and unlike some of his successors in the genre, his actions aren't much help. You watch a scene with Rei Ayanami or Mikazuki Augus in the background, they're doing things that tell us a lot about their character, even when surrounded by other pilots. Chirico has less of that, and here he basically has nothing. He's supposed to be the main character, but he can't even keep focus in scenes with the disposable rear end in a top hat commander, coming off more as a space filling mook than as a major member of the central squad, let alone the protagonist. Looking back, Mellowlink stands out in the VOTOMs arcs for having decent pacing. Every episode, something interesting happened. Every episode until the final arc was a complete story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. What's more, unlike Chirico's squads, you get the feeling in the flashbacks that Mellowlink's team cared about each other, giving us more sympathy for Mellowlink's quest for vengeance. The military story was simple, but it had enough to make the narrative beats work. The wider military plots in VOTOMs don't.
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Sep 22, 2021 08:46
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chiasaur11 posted:So, since I'm losing access to Hi Dive soon, and Legend of Galactic Heroes is too long to binge efficiently, I've finally been going through the 25-ish episodes of VOTOMs I still haven't watched, finishing up everything from the show. I mean VRV Premium is only ten bucks and gives you both Crunchyroll and Hi-Dive so I'd just do that
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Sep 22, 2021 09:18
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drrockso20 posted:I mean VRV Premium is only ten bucks and gives you both Crunchyroll and Hi-Dive so I'd just do that VRV premium is dropping Hi-Dive at the end of the month. Thus the rush.
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Sep 22, 2021 09:20
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chiasaur11 posted:VRV premium is dropping Hi-Dive at the end of the month. What the gently caress?
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Sep 22, 2021 09:22
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drrockso20 posted:What the gently caress? VRV's a Crunchyroll brand, Crunchyroll was bought by Sony, and there's no benefit to propping up the competition when you own Crunchyroll and Funimation.
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Sep 22, 2021 09:45
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1st Stage Midboss posted:VRV's a Crunchyroll brand, Crunchyroll was bought by Sony, and there's no benefit to propping up the competition when you own Crunchyroll and Funimation. In that regard it's not surprising, more that I hadn't heard about it happening till just now
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Sep 22, 2021 10:24
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Well, Arc managed to make only marginally less of a non ending of that. If they hadnt faffed about quite so much they probably could have fleshed that out into something satisfying.
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Sep 26, 2021 15:14
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wait THAT WAS IT?
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Sep 26, 2021 16:01
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Good to know I'm not the only one feeling like that. Arc added a bit to the ending but...it didn't really give us an ending, it just moved the non-ending later down the line. At least show the Dragon/BUG fight, jeez! Overall I can't say I'm disappointed or anything, it's still the most faithful adaptation we've ever gotten and it did improve on the manga, but...I guess I'll just wait until Arc is in a non-gacha SRW to get a proper ending...
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Sep 26, 2021 16:07
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Hope springs eternal that Go will get a decent adaptation one day, being an actually complete story with a satisfying end.
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Sep 26, 2021 16:22
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Kyoukai Senki started today. New Bandai mech anime, so I figured I'd check it out, even if the half length opening didn't have me excited. Figure I should start with the good. I'm pretty sure Sunrise made this to provide training for mech animators, and it's pretty good at that. Hand drawn mech combat with distinct, interesting designs, and it seemed well animated. Actually, the whole show was reasonably good looking, in a kind of generic way, but the mech designs are the standout. They're diverse and distinctive, making it believable that they're from multiple factions using the same basic tech base. I can see the model kits selling fairly well. Unfortunately, the show that's promoting them isn't up to those standards. I don't think it's horrible yet or anything, but it has some choices large and small that feel like they undermine the show. First, in a more neutral decision, most mechs in the show are unpiloted, meaning the hero doesn't kill anyone when fighting. Not a bad thing, per se, but it does make it feel targeted to a younger demographic than Gundam tends to go for. Where Iron Blooded Orphans got parent groups going mental from the jump, this starts the show with the most family friendly "terrorist" you could ask for. Which leads us into a wider setting thing I think is an actual problem. The villains. They're in an awkward place right now. To go overly broad, there's two main schools of anime oppressive occupying force. We'll call them the Titans route and the Zeon route for convenience, even though neither's a perfect fit. The Zeon route is the one you see from average Earth based Zeon soldiers in the original Gundam. Their faction can commit massive atrocities, but the regular grunts are just guys. Their goal is to make it home alive, and when they meet with the protagonists and random civilians, they're likable and often reasonably moral. Meanwhile, the Titans are shown being major assholes from the jump, even before they kill the protagonist's mom. We see them beat up Captain Bright, show no concern for civilian fatalities, and generally act like the solar system's biggest assholes just because they can. Now, they aren't exclusive routes. Normally, you get a mix, even if the grunts have a strong tendency one way or another. (For a recent example, IBO has Crank as a decent person even as his bosses are obvious monsters). The important thing is that you get a strong overall impression at the start, either "Oh no, the horrors of war, with innocent people on both sides suffering" or "gently caress 'em up, Kamille! Make those fascist pieces of poo poo pay!" Kyoukai doesn't quite land either. The Australian occupation forces are major pieces of poo poo, sure, intending to frame the protagonist and friends for terrorism to get promoted out of Japan, taking hostages, and roughing up innocent civilians when doing routine checks. But at the same time, they don't have that extra push that really gets the viewer invested in stopping them. There's vague talk about how there's no future in Japan if you don't have talent or money, but the protagonist has his own place and seems to be doing okay, nobody dies onscreen due to the evil Australians, the beatings aren't shown to be much more serious than the typical anime scene of friends in a punchup, and in general, they don't get the push to be either sympathetic people or enjoyably hateable villains. A bigger issue for me, though, was the protagonist. In a typical mech anime, (Even in many stories in general) there's a moment in the first episode where the protagonist Makes A Choice. Like Amuro getting in the Gundam, Shinji taking Rei's spot in the Eva, or even Yuji eating the finger, there's a moment where the protagonist voluntarily loses the chance to leave when it's presented, choosing to dive into hell rather than run away. Here, that doesn't really happen. Amou rescues the AI because it tells him to, makes his "I was pissing" excuse because the AI says to, stole the robot because why not (and also, gotta say, the whole "I have no future because of totalitarian oppression" narrative has a bit less impact when the protagonist has his own place and a giant-rear end garage to build a mecha in. It's not the same as money or a good career, but even without a legal title, that's some pretty nice property to be able to use.) and fought the bad guys because they came for him personally and the AI told him to get in the robot. There's no feeling of personal choice, nothing to make Our Hero the protagonist of his life rather than a pawn of fate. So, yeah. I've seen much better mech anime (even in this season, there's 86), I've seen much worse, and I guess I'm in for the season, assuming I don't have to start dropping shows due to time constaints.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:01
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Lol the bad guys are Aussies?
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Oct 5, 2021 02:16
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Again, Kyoukai Senki is by the writer of Gundam Build Divers, Noboru Kimura, who I don't believe has any seriously impressive original works to his name. It being bland and poorly-written mush tracks just fine.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:28
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he wrote the episode of cross ange where ange runs around the base in a mascot costume with an assault rifle, a modern classic. begone, troll.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:30
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Arc Hammer posted:Lol the bad guys are Aussies? Oceanian Union, which suggests Australia as the dominant power. Especially when their main mecha is called the Bunyip. They're not the only bad guys, and depending how the show wants to play things they may be one of the less bad villain factions, but yes. The first of the four countries that divided up Japan that we see in action is Australia. I guess they realized how mech anime tends to go for them and decided to be proactive.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:32
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Even in anime land Australians know you go to Japan for mecha. Give me a 90s dub with Scott McNeil and David Hayter doing goofy aussie accents.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:39
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chiasaur11 posted:Oceanian Union, which suggests Australia as the dominant power. Especially when their main mecha is called the Bunyip. drat, show sounds sick. I don't see what the problem is.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:45
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Darth Walrus posted:Again, Kyoukai Senki is by the writer of Gundam Build Divers, Noboru Kimura, who I don't believe has any seriously impressive original works to his name. It being bland and poorly-written mush tracks just fine. As I said, I watched the preview and wasn't impressed. This isn't a surprise, just reporting on the state of the game. SyntheticPolygon posted:drat, show sounds sick. I don't see what the problem is. The Australians are sober and at no point describe anything as 'fair dinkum' or 'a bloody cockup'. Moving to more hospitable climates (at least compared to Australia) I finished VOTOMS. I've now seen every episode and every OVA, except the recaps, including the (surprisingly cool, considering the CG quality) bonus scene from the opening of the Pailsen files movie. Man. The sequel stuff isn't very good, is it? It's not that it's impossible to write a good override for a happy ending. Zeta's a good show, for one of the most well known examples in the genre. The problem is that there's no real point to any of it. Fynana dies after being reduced over the course of the original to a cardboard cutout saying Chirico, and then... Chirico just kind of wanders off to just do the same stuff without a purpose.. You even have Phantom Arc end with "Wiseman is alive!" before killing him again in the same exact way. Tatiana has a ton of screentime in Heresy, and then just kinda dies before Phantom Arc without really amounting to much, then her dad dies pretty much just to clean him up as a loose end... the whole thing just doesn't really feel like it justified adding more to a completed story to begin with, and that goes double with Fyana's death erasing the hopeful tone of the initial show's ending. I think my least favorite thing, though, is Chirico. Or rather, how flat he is in all of the post-series stuff. Without narration or anyone to play off, Chirico is just an emotionally blank killing machine. And since he can't be defeated or killed... yeah. It's not riveting viewing.
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Oct 5, 2021 06:24
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I might watch Kyoukai Senki just to pass the time and because the robots are 2D. I'm neither excited nor offended by that first episode, but my expectations remain low. As for the Votoms sequels...there is a recent school of thought, so to speak, that would defend Shining Heresy in certain circles. I'm not a member of it though, at least not at the time of this writing, so I won't misrepresent their arguments. I never liked the choices made with Fyana and Chirico's story was already over.
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Oct 5, 2021 06:40
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Chirico works as a character in the original series because he has a cast of characters to play off of who are relatively normal human beings who both highlight how weird he is and also ground him. The Unkillable Perfect Soldier poo poo is literally the least interesting part of who and what he is and most of the OVAs go whole hog on that stuff so they're all bad.
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Oct 5, 2021 06:44
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God I got so mad about the stuff about how Chirico's heart beat at the exact right moment to dodge the bullet stuff. Which could be an interesting thing, in regards to how he is supposed to not die, but it just feels like space wolverine jesus instead of being an actual plot point
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Oct 5, 2021 07:37
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There's stuff about Shining Heresy I like, like how Chirico is basically a saint in their religion and him coming back triggers a crisis of faith, a lot of the action is cool and the Burglarydog owns, but the stuff with Fyana pisses me off so much it just leaves me feeling bitter about the whole thing.
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Oct 5, 2021 08:30
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Shining heresy never happened. Just like prince of darkness
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Oct 5, 2021 08:41
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The only Votoms spinoffs that truly work are the ones entirely without Chirico, like Mellowlink. Even that Case: Irvine one-shot was at least somewhat memorable since it was another look at the Votoms universe. Phantom Arc I thought was going to be similar, starting out with "what are the wacky sidekick characters up to now". If it had just been them touring around and thinking that Chirico had returned(but never actually finding him) it would have been a nice nostalgia trip, but nope we gotta try to salvage Shining Heresy's ending and oh I guess Wiseman's back.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:51
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Mecha posted:The only Votoms spinoffs that truly work are the ones entirely without Chirico, like Mellowlink. Even that Case: Irvine one-shot was at least somewhat memorable since it was another look at the Votoms universe. It's weird, since it basically abandons the plot hooks for the first couple episodes once Chirico shows up again. It plays up "Hey, there are assassins almost as good at piloting as Ru Shako and they're trying to find Chirico! Where did they come from? What are their motives?" ...And then it basically doesn't matter except to shove Chirico towards meeting Wiseman again. Moving on to current anime, (beyond noting that Takashi is apparently directing Muteking, which isn't something I would have called in advance) I watched the first episode of a couple more mech anime today, putting me at five for six for this season's flood. Well, I tried to watch Megaton Musashi, and I technically succeeded. The catch is that my limited Japanese and the amazingly poor auto-translation from Youtube meant that, while I could keep up with the plot, I didn't get much in the way of nuance. If there was incredibly snappy dialogue, or some really in-depth worldbuilding, well, I missed it. That said, what I was able to catch didn't suggest I was missing much. Megaton Musashi has a kind of cool premise, sure. It's a mecha version of Dark City mixed with early Attack on Titan where humanity is reduced to a single city after an apocalyptic war, the survivors brainwashed to not remember the old world. However, the protagonist can't quite shake his memories of his sister's death... And that should be the start to a cool episode, right? The protagonist investigating the conspiracy, lots of shots where things feel slightly off, and some really cool moments as reality fades back into play. Except they don't really do that, despite some token gestures in that direction. In fact, we get the same problem as Kyoukai Senki, where the protagonist is forced into the action rather than choosing it. Instead of playing detective, a fellow high school student forces him and his rival (another brash young martial artist, who didn't really feel that distinct as a person from the bits I could pick up) to fight some robots, then he gets dragged to the secret base of the hero government group fighting the aliens outside the city, and then when he tries to just ditch, then unbrainwash him so he remembers the aliens killing his entire family. It's the same thing where the protagonist isn't making choices, but is just following the plot. Unlike Kyoukai Senki, though, the mechs are CG instead of hand drawn, and they don't impress. Maybe a full on action scene with them will help, but for now, they're just dull. Sakugan, by contrast, is off to a decent start. While both are set in vast underground complexes where most of the population has forgotten the sight of the sun, they're night and day otherwise. And I don't just mean the whole visual angle where Megaton Musashi has artificial sunlight while Sakugan goes with the perpetual dark angle. I mean the craft. Sakugan has a strong core cast even the people who die in the first episode, really nice shots (a match cut of a foot stomp and a mech hitting the ground with a pile bunker was good enough I took notes) smoother exposition, and protagonists who want things. Even though the call to adventure isn't on their timetable, the daughter in Sakugan is actively doing what she can to go out into the caves to find a legendary explorer and the tower she sees in her dreams, while her father is trying to hold her back because she's nine, and the outside world is insanely dangerous. And the mechs might be CG, but they've got much more character. Big Tony looks cool and moves in interesting ways, unlike Musashi's big Getter knockoff. So, yeah. It's too early to call this season, but there seems to be reason for optimism for at least some of the pending shows. Just... not all of them.
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Oct 8, 2021 09:30
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Is orguss or braiger worth a blind buy at all? I was looking for info on discotek's site and saw they were available for pre-order. Both look pretty cool and I do enjoy some vintage robot stuff.
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Oct 9, 2021 14:39
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