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I watched the movie and spent the day reading the Manga and it was actually shocking how Yuasa it was. I was thinking the whole time about how this is pretty much the exact thing Yuasa loves to work on, and how close the themes and characterization are to Yuasa's other adaptations. Needless to say this is gonna be good. Fake edit: Peco and Smile's actors could definitely play live action Ozu and Watashi. Maybe if I get some more time off I can ride the train to the town Ping Pong takes place in and take photos of the location like I did during the Tatami Galaxy simulwatch. No promises, but I kind of want to do it if I can.
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Apr 5, 2014 18:22
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Captain_duck posted:I was scared he might have some problems getting new work after the kickstarter, but apparently thats fine. It's actually the opposite. Yuasa's said a few times that the kick starter 'saved his career' and pulled him out of a pretty serious depression. Thanks to the kickstarter they (Kevin Aymeric, Choi Eun-Young, and Yuasa) immediately got hired to work on Space Dandy as well. You can see their work in episodes 9 and 10, which are extremely Choi and Yuasa respectively. Aymeric did lots of work all over the show. I'm glad Yuasa got to work on such a well known property other than Shin-chan. People who haven't even heard of Tatami Galaxy or Mind Game are super stoked for this here in Japan. It's gaining some legit hype. Brings a goddamned tear to my eye 
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Apr 8, 2014 02:55
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aers posted:Er, Yuasa didn't work on any episodes in season 1 of Dandy. His episode is in the second season (its #16). You are right about Choi & Aymeric though. Mihara also worked on Dandy (#6) but when Choi's episode aired he tweeted that he had a fight with her at some point (probably during Kick-heart) and wont work with her again, so he probably won't show up on Ping Pong. Ah, you're totally right, I misread Miyaji Masayuki's name as Yuasa's for some reason in the credits of Episode 10. How I managed that I have no idea. Whoops, totally my bad. The alien animation looks super Yuasa at least, specifically Miaou. Same with the midcut section. Do you have a link to the tweet by Mihara? I can't seem to find it and I didn't hear anything about it from Choi. I'm curious what could have had them disagreeing because they all seemed relatively happy as a unit, at least as of ~3 months ago when I last spoke to them all. I follow all of them on Twitter as well and never noticed it either (all I can find from the airdate is Mihara posting about Idols, as usual), which makes me think maybe he deleted it? I wonder whats up. It'd be weird to see a Yuasa anime without Mihara. It's kind of sad to imagine. edit: ~animation production dramas~ more intense than anime drama itself. I found the tweet where he mentions that he didn't get along with "A person in production" anymore buried between tweets of idols but any information about the fight iself seems to be deleted. Hopefully this didn't hinder Ping Pong's production. 
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Apr 8, 2014 16:48
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I haven't been this unreasonably happy about a TV show since I watched Tatami Galaxy while it aired. I've missed this. With this and Mushi-shi there's basically no reason to watch any other anime this season because what a loving joke that competition is.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:11
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To be fair, Yuasa's animation itself is pretty loving stellar. It has an awesome attention to consistent anatomy -- Not that it's necessarily anatomically correct in terms of looking exactly like humans do in real life, but rather that everyone looks like they're the same species and move like they're the same kind of creature. It's rare to see that in anime. I also personally just like his overall art style, though most of his work doesn't really look the same. The art in Ping Pong is much more Matsumoto Taiyou than it is Yuasa. Imaishi work on the otherhand... poorly animated shlock.
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Apr 11, 2014 08:15
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Zorak posted:Do other animators in Japan dig Yuasa? I know there are some animators considered "an animators' animator", and he certainly doesn't make stuff that feels 'generically anime', ever. Yeah! He's very well liked over here. The big "problem" with his work is that while he gets decent ratings no one buys his DVDs, so he just can't get a job due to credentials. Over here there's actually a big issue with animators and teams being "locked out" of jobs because of their credentials-to-performance ratio. Of course the big names like Oshii and Otomo and even Imaishi to some extent can get whatever work they want -- Most of the time the stuff that claims to be "directed by the Visionary that brought you Ghost in the Shell..." etc isn't actually directed by them as much as it is overseen. Almost all Animation direction is done by in-house people at the individual animation studios that most work is outsourced to. That being said, Yuasa is pretty fondly looked at in the industry over here. He does the animation for Crayon Shin-Chan so he's pretty well known. People recognize his style and back in the day he was hired to do a bunch of pilots and shorts for things that later became popular. The big problem is that most of the stuff he wants to do "doesn't warrant someone who deserves to be paid as much as him" (a huge overall dismissal that is common in pretty much all Japanese working environments). There's also an overall push for things to be animated overseas in Korea or by students in training at the companies' sponsored schools. This is actually pushing big names out of the industry into other industries. Similar things can be seen in the Games industry as well over here -- Big game corporations are pushing out their big name developers because there is more of a focus on their name than their contributions. That being said I think Yuasa is more well "admired" in the western world -- specifically France. Edit: And America, obviously. laplace fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 08:21
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aers posted:My favorite part of the episode was actually Choi's solo ED, but I'm pretty biased towards that kind of stuff. Choi's work there was super solid. Another highlight was just how great Wenge's voice actor was. Peco as well, though not the same kind of performance. I'm impartial to Wenge in the Manga and the Movie but I really like him in the show already, specifically after his monologue. Edit: it is also actual blasphemy that people in this thread are implying they think Tatami Galaxy and Kaiba weren't the prettiest goddamn animes to ever anime.
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Apr 11, 2014 10:43
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This show is the best. It is actually ridiculous and unfair to other shows. That is how good this show is. Differences to the manga-ish related talk about why Yuasa is awesome: Yuasa is sticking really close to the manga but his additions, specifically the broomcloset scene and the whole robot transformation are incredible. I rewatched that scene like 4 times. I'm really glad his additions are this good. It's maintaining the realism of the manga without compromising Yuasa's overall grasp of character and stylization. Basically: Thanks Yuasa. Also, I am glad the OP is changing every week. That's super cool. If the rumors about Ohira are true (And I'm sure they are -- Yuasa mentioned that he wanted to work with Ohira again when I interviewed him during all the Kick-Heart stuff) I'm sure the results will be impressive. laplace fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 16:17
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aers posted:Well, we got proof: Miyazawa Yasunori (maybe) Don't know why but that made me giggle. The guy's worked with Yuasa since all the way back on Vampiyan, so I'm curious why it's a (maybe) considering how he had a lot of contributions to Tatami Galaxy as well. What an exciting list of names. This show is too good.
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Apr 20, 2014 04:25
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Zorak posted:Hahahaha holy loving poo poo: This is like a return to Happy Machine, which is loving awesome. The animation fidelity (which is generally good in Adventure Time anyway iirc) was also pleasant. But this is hilarious because just imagining Yuasa attempting to direct a team of american animators (making something distinctly american) when he doesn't speak a lick of English is great. I'm glad his popularity over here is bearing fruit. Edit: seriously though what?! I can't even believe this is happening. It turns out the entire episode was animated in Japan with no outside supervision, which explains the really silly lipsync. laplace fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 07:34
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This episode is awesome and overall really Ohira-ish, but loving drat is that OP good. Totally rivals his amazing OP animation for the otherwise mediocre Sci-Fi Harry. Edit: as usual Aers beat me to it. Edit edit: My guess is Arakawa attempted in some way to 'follow' the new opening. On second watch it's more the composition than the animation itself that looks Ohira in this episode. laplace fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 03:20
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Neeksy posted:Also I'm pretty sure he understands some Chinese, and knows from the coach's yelling that Wenge is likely going to have his life ruined or at least he'd be crushed in such a way that he could never stand up again. I view Smile's decision in reference to his comments at the beginning of Wenge's first match of the tournament. I think the idea is more that since Smile and Wenge have a "connection" as ping pong players they can understand each others' ~true kokoro feelings~ as implied when Wenge first meets him in the first episode, but I also had the same thought earlier today about Smile having taken a Chinese class or something. It's not uncommon here in Japan, obviously. Not to get into too tumblr headcanon garbage territory but it definitely isn't out of Smile's character to have done something like that. The point in the end is just that Wenge and Smile can communicate -- whether that be through words, actions, or ping pong. That's a big theme for the whole show so far, honestly. People communicating with each other in more than just words but intentions and actions.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:52
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Level Slide posted:Three episodes in and I've just now learned that "skunk" is a legit ping pong term. All this time, I thought Peco was using his personal vocabulary to say that he got wrecked by China and that weirdass terminology rubbed off on Smile. Cuz the reputation of playing like poo poo sticks to you like a skunk's smell. That's my guess.
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Apr 30, 2014 07:41
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A big thing with Smile is that he seriously takes pity on people who waste themselves getting caught up in fruitless things. He definitely shows Mercy, but it's as Dragon puts it during the competition - condescending and Petty. Smile doesn't really like himself, and clearly idolized Peco as his 'hero' and ideal, but doesn't want to reconcile that idea with the truth that he has surpassed Peco at the cost of Peco's feelings. This has so far been established as a major point of Contention for Smile, Joe, and even Peco to some degree. China's even noticed it. The juxtaposition between Dragon and Smile is a really interesting setup, because it pits someone who is dedicated and powerful, close to the ideal of Ping Pong, against someone arguably 'as good' who is about as far away from being an ideal sportsman. The theme writing is seriously one of my favorite things about this series and I'm glad that Yuasa is doing it justice.
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May 8, 2014 21:36
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It's been a few weeks since I read the manga but I don't remember basically anything with Kong's Mom coming to Japan happening in the manga. Thanks Yuasa.
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May 21, 2014 03:07
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I didn't notice on first watch through these episodes because I watch them as they air without subtitles, but after watching the crunchyroll casts -- These subtitles are horrible. Like... blatantly not what is being said. For example, when Joe walked into the gym in episode 6, The subtitles read "Is everyone here?" When he actually is saying "You ordered them, did you?" in reference to the captain talking about ordering the ping pong balls. There's another moment where Smile replies to the coach later "Are you saying I'm selfish?" when in japanese he's actually saying "Do you think I'm arrogant?" I never noticed before but drat these subs are kind of wack. There's also a bunch of quirks with Dragon's dialogue in the bath, where it breaks the sentence at odd places. The subs read something like "Heroes aren't real, only reality is real... [etc]" Whereas in Japanese he just says "Heroes aren't real and people who can't deal with that reality don't deserve to play." I've seen the subs for some of the earlier episodes and I never noticed it being this weird, so the translators must have been really out of it on ep. 6.
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May 23, 2014 08:17
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I'm not sure who does the subbing, or what gets priority or anything like that. Just that the subs were off really weirdly for episode 6. Episode 7 was fine.
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May 24, 2014 03:20
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Callick posted:It was the same poo poo with Flowers of Evil. Most regular anime fans find generic cookie-cutter anime art style to be "clean" or "pure" looking and it drives them out of their comfort zone to engage with a unique, artistic, or unorthodox style. It's a really unfortunate trend but most anime people really aren't paragons of taste in general so it's not that surprising either. The scary thing is that all of Yuasa's art is extremely technically good. Compare this to Angel Beats or Clannad, which has incredibly inconsistent anatomy and character design that borders on almost offensively gender dimorphic non-humanoids. People eat that instagram filtered garbage up for some reason and yet Yuasa's art is "bad". Anime fans.  Edit: I say Yuasa's art but I guess I should say his art direction/animation direction, considering how it's not just his own art in his shows, but still. Kaiba is about the closest we get to that, other than the Wakfu special, but then again Choi directed that and Mihara did a lot of actual animation for it so they shine through real hard. laplace fucked around with this message at 09:57 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 09:51
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Aku no Hana was awesome and super visually interesting  . That show is perfectly directed for its insane atmosphere.With the finale coming up I'm curious how the pacing is going to hold up. There is still enough content to play out that it could fall both ways, but Yuasa has been really good at maintaining pacing even amongst his additions that I'm not too worried about it.
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May 30, 2014 01:50
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Mercrom posted:Calling generic art "instagram filtered" is the most hipster thing I've read in a while. What do you mean by "technically good" anyway? Yuasa's art and his team's art have a very strong sense of consistency and direction. While it is easy to tell when scenes or episodes are animated by different people in Yuasa anime, the art itself and its construction still maintains itself. Also, Yuasa has a very strong grasp for actual scene placement and cinematography, which most anime art does not. You can be not into its aesthetics it from a personal standpoint all you want but pretty much all Yuasa anime has been super well produced consistent fundamental-focused stuff. Yuasa characters have defined shapes and bodies, with an actual focus on their anatomy and how their bodies would work even under stylization. I'm not singling out Angel Beats for being generic, I'm singling it out for being a very popular show that has really confused art direction in that regard, where the characters anatomies aren't even consistent between character to character. The reason why Aku no Hana was interesting was that unlike things like Kids on the Slope, it actually utilized its rotoscoping as part of its overall direction and tone. It was a specific choice that worked with its presentation instead of just being hastily utilized to add odd 'realism' to certain scenes. A lot of people didn't like the rotoscoping but it was a solid design choice to utilize it the way they did so its hard to fault them for that. Specifically when the rotoscoping itself was pretty good as far as rotoscoping standards go. Also, when I say Angel Beats is Instagram Filtered I actually mean that the show has a post processed filter over it. I am not being a hipster, it is just a fact that the show actually has a red to green filter over it that is extremely visible throughout the show. laplace fucked around with this message at 19:19 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 19:13
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Mercrom posted:I haven't seen Angel Beats but the filter thing sounds terrible. Though having seen Tatami Galaxy and Ping Pong I don't see how Yuasa's stuff is more consistent or "technically" well made than what Kyoto Animation does. I'd say both those shows have way more conventual and realistic art styles though, and less of the Japanese stylization of which Clannad is pretty much the most extreme example. Well, there's a lot of good Kyoani stuff. Nichijou, for example, is super well animated and its art is "technically" strong. I guess the big sticking point with stuff like that is even under stylization you need to remain consistent, which is something that admittedly a lot of anime is bad at. Characters randomly changing heights, eyes moving around the face just because the art is lazy, mouths being in weird places even though the anatomy of the character in the art style would need it being elsewhere, stuff like that. There's more to it than that, specifically when you get into animation technicality (Stuff like hesitation, payoff, and weight motion) but yeah. It was sort of unfair to reference Angel Beats in that argument but it's a really good example of something that is relatively popular and sometimes lauded as being pretty/well animated when it is actually really marred in overall strength of its art and art direction. This isn't talking about stylization or whatever, Hyouka has moeblob rear end moeblob people and they still look great -- it's just the overall construction of characters and designs "underneath" those characters in things like Chaos;Head or Angel Beats that is problematic. That's where a lot of Yuasa stuff is excellent. Look at Kemonozume or even Tatami Galaxy, and even though their art styles and direction are "weird" or uncommon, you can actually tell that even under the stylization the characters have skeletons underneath their skin. Kemonozume is astonishing in that regard. Ping Pong is really good about that too, even if the art direction is pretty much "ape matsumoto taiyou's art". I have somewhat mixed feelings about Mind Game (probably my least favorite Yuasa work even though I like it a lot), which he did a similar thing for, which makes me kind of happy that Ping Pong has ended up as strong as it has. Anyway I guess the point of this whole tangent was Style =/= Technicality or Animation. You can animate stick figures extremely well if you want to, or even just white dots on a black background. Tokyo Loop has some interesting examples of that actually. So even if people don't like Yuasa's personal stylization it's really hard to criticize the actual fidelity of his ability to compose animation and "Art". Yuasa of course mostly being shorthand for his entire team but himself as well. Seriously Yuasa anime is some of the only anime where the mise-en-scene actually makes sense at all. So many anime are just bad at scene composition so it's really refreshing to see stuff like Mushishi and Ping Pong actually look like the directors know what they're doing.
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Jun 1, 2014 09:22
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Lurking Haro posted:Some anime I watched years ago had blurred borders. Every scene looked like a flashback. I can't find it, so I probably dropped it because of that bullshit. Boogiepop Phantom and Lain do this, but I actually think that Boogiepop makes it work. Anyway I wasn't singling out Kyoani as much as I was the specific production of Angel Beats for an example. I like Kyoani stuff and they have a lot of good stuff, I was just making a point with one of their more poorly animated series. I could have used Chaos;head or even Naruto or anything else. No hate to Kyoani at all.
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Jun 2, 2014 02:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It really doesn't. Boogiepop is practically unwatchable. Boogiepop looks really weird because the grain on the video destroys its quality and any attempt to increase the quality/rip from higher res stuff has made it clear that it is an unsolveable issue. Boogiepop is strange but that show has decent writing and its visual design is at least a part of its atmosphere. It's been a while since I watched it, and I did so on a CRT TV so I definitely don't know how it'd look on a monitor. If any show is a product of its era it's Boogiepop, though. I have been meaning to rewatch it.
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Jun 2, 2014 03:01
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The Black Stones posted:Angel Beats was P.A Works btw, and not a kyoani work in anyway. Just to give you a heads up on that one. I had thought so but since people brought up Kyoani I assumed maybe I had been mistaken. I was originally just referencing Maeda Jun stuff. Edit: to be fair, Kyoani's early Key stuff does look kind of jank. laplace fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 03:34
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Gnossiennes posted:If I'm following Ping Pong and really enjoying Tatami Galaxy, where should I go next in devouring Yuasa's work? Kaiba and Kemonozume. They're both incredibly good.
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Jun 14, 2014 06:34
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We're rooting for Everyone. That's what the show has been trying to teach us to do all along.
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Jun 14, 2014 18:07
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In some Animation news, Yuasa and Choi finally formed a studio together. Their first work officially with this new studio was the latest episode of Adventure Time, so they have already started off with some darn good work. As to be expected of Yuasa and Choi. I'm so happy for them.
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Jun 18, 2014 07:39
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I just rewatched the last half of the show and it just astonishes me how much Yuasa has developed as a director. He is too drat good.Mercrom posted:I would be so pumped for the finale of this show if Breaking Bad hadn't taught me to manage my expectations. I hope it's pretty good and not generic. 
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Jun 19, 2014 08:39
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aers posted:Science Saru is an extremely small studio that does animation in flash (check out the credits for Ping Pong, they've been credited every episode since the first; the same animators that worked on Food Chain, even) so don't expect anything big from them in the next, well, ever. When Ping Pong first aired and they showed up in the credits we did some digging and it was pretty obvious it was Choi/Yuasa's studio (http://www.sciencesaru.com/2013/01/). Yeah, it is obvious it was Choi/Yuasa's studio, but the news that they finally came out and announced that they'd begin working on things is cool. That being said, Flash isn't like instantly an indicator of bad animation. Choi has mentioned wanting to use it since the Wakfu special (Wakfu is almost entirely animated in Flash, and season 2/the specials look pretty darn good), so I'm not surprised they're using it. Yuasa doesn't do much work himself on computers (He usually drafts and then hands it off to his other animators to do) so I'm more shocked that he himself would move to flash. Still, all big studios have small starts. It is exciting to see Yuasa finally get a "home" of his own.
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Jun 19, 2014 13:45
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I'm really glad they nailed the ending. Even though I knew it was coming, the team really took a step above and brought it home. One of the things I really like in Taiyou's manga is how the constructed themes and symbols all have really clear parallels and arcs, and while characters grow, they never deviate from their established themes. Smile has always been about having fun, and reconciling that with how other people play. It is interesting that he managed to both become a better player and understand his opponents and respect them while at the same time understanding that if he had gone all the way he would have destroyed the theme that had come together over the course of the series. By ruthelessly beating Peco in the final match he would have gone back on everything constructed thus far. It's really great that Peco and Smile end up together because, naturally, Peco (The Hero) appears right when Smile is about to really lose himself. Smile did more than just learn about others, but also really neatly linked everyone else's narratives with the core narrative of Peco and Smile's childhood arc and the reason why he played to begin with. The conversation between the Adults was also really good, as it demonstrated that while Joe let the poseidon CEO win because of some form of pity or righteousness, Peco and Smile are above that. The following montage really clearly demonstrated the youth arc as one that "absolved" in some ways the sins of the adults, and why it was so important to the adults' arc as well. It makes Smile's turn as coach even more poignant in that regard. Yuasa's use of visual metaphor did a lot to construct and build on that from the start, and it really helped the source material. The anime really does end up being the "best" version of the story if only for the fact that it only adds relevant content to the Manga that improves its overall reading/viewing experience. Wenge and Kazuma really benefit from these additions, specifically. This show was really great. Yuasa has grown as a director, Choi has grown as an animator, Aymeric as an artist -- It's really clear that this is a culmination piece and sort of a ~graduation thesis~ of sorts for them all. I'm so glad they nailed it. Mercrom posted:It was a pretty good ending. It was all in the execution, not the writing.
laplace fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 04:21
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Mercrom posted:Smile still tried to ruthlessly beat Peco though. He obviously had to, otherwise Peco's victory wouldn't have meant anything. But the ending to Smile's arc depended completely on Peco, not Smile. Because the other character's arcs are so heavily dependent on Peco being a near-mythical hero, heroism becomes the biggest theme of the series, even though it the one with the least substance. That's why I would have liked to see Smile win, because that would force the story to confront these issues. But it's not like Peco is intrinsically the "hero", but rather whole "spirit of ping pong"/"Alien from planet ping pong". Peco fades in and out of this character (as we see over the course of his arc) but he always finds himself back in it when he is having fun, and when he is playing the game from a standpoint where he respects other players. Smile was the opposite, ruthlessly destroying everyone like a robot and becoming a machine that couldn't be overcome because that was Smile's way of dealing with things. It's not necessarily Smile's defeat as much as it is Peco saving Smile himself from the Robot he became -- Hence the actual visual metaphor of Smile breaking free, tumbling into a heap, and then emerging more powerful than ever once he, like all of the others, understood the reason why they began to play to begin with. It's not that Peco himself is just some depthless god hero, but rather that he tuned back into what made the game feel good and thus so did the others, who over the course of the show learned to understand their opponents. That's the thing -- As children, the characters played for fun. They played to their most, but for fun and enjoyment. At the start of the series, Peco is playing to Win and Smile is playing for Fun, but they've lost that connection that makes the game valuable to them. It's really thematic then that Peco's arc would involve returning to having fun, and then embodying that to the other characters who would be so close to falling over the ledge of "playing only to win" and "staking one's life on ping pong" that Peco had at the start of the series. I would hardly say that the hero motif is one with little substance. It's entirely constructed and well backed up within the narrative of the show. Peco isn't near-mythical with no reason. We witnessed him get there through hard work and determination and it made sense that he would get to where he was. Having Smile beat him in the end would have just retreaded water -- We already know what happens when someone "plays to win" and gives up on enjoying themselves. Peco existed entirely to prevent that from happening, and that's why him going through that is important. Also, Manga Spoilers, but It's heavily implied in the manga and the movie that Smile, while not "throwing the match", doesn't play the same way he had been because he knows how much it means to not only Peco, but himself and the others, that they play Ping Pong for the reasons that they originally had. I think Yuasa established this pretty hard with the children scene as well.
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Jun 20, 2014 11:13
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I don't think things necessarily need to be meta or make grand overarching statements about things though, is all. Sure, It doesn't say much about heroism as a literary symbol but it doesn't need to because that would be sort of irrelevant and unconstructed? It'd be one thing if the show was about conflicts of heroism and what heroism *is* or what have you, but it isn't. I get what you're saying now, I just don't know if that really applies as criticism because that's more an issue with the content than an active flaw in the writing.
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Jun 21, 2014 12:01
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Mercrom posted:I'm not talking metafiction though. Heroism and the parts of it's make-up are as much literary symbols as love is, and I think suddenly including a love triangle as a main plot point would be a significant flaw in the writing. Not that the show did anything resembling that, but I felt the relationship between Smile and Peco maybe could have been expanded upon a little more at the end. You get the sense through the whole series that Smile used to admire Peco so much in the past and the loss of that is crushing, and having Peco revert back and become a role model again is the easiest way that situation could resolve itself. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it's not exceptional in the writing department. But because of the exceptional execution, seeing Peco meet every past expectation still gives catharsis. Gurren Lagann is not a good example of anime writing but that's sort of a strawman argument. I know what you're saying isn't about metafiction, but I'm saying the literary function of a "hero motif" and "what makes a hero" as a theme are two different things and are not mutually exclusive. It's not poor writing to write about one of them and not the other. I would say it's worse to just throw extra unnecessary stuff into a plot than it is to focus on the elements that are important and supported. That being said: It's not just about Peco "reverting to the hero" nor is it that role the actual end-goal of the character's arcs. It's a function of Peco, sure, but the end release is getting back in touch with why they played Ping Pong in the first place and acknowledging eachother's reasons for that. Peco played Ping Pong originally because It made him feel good, and he could connect with his friends -- mainly Smile, through it. Smile played Ping Pong because he could connect with Peco through it, something that made him genuinely happy. So while Peco's heroism is a core aspect of his character and the overall arc and his relationship with Smile, the interaction isn't ABOUT heroism as much as it is about the function of that heroism in that relationship. You're missing the forest for the symbol trees there. That's not poor writing at all. Also, this: Phobophilia posted:You're assuming that Peco wasn't also deeply grateful to Smile for pushing his boundaries. Peco has no choice but to face his demons and live up to his opinions of himself and the opinions his best friend has of him. laplace fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 14:57
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Mercrom posted:It is a good example of anime writing, it's just not an example of good anime writing. I think losing the hero motif would lose a huge aspect to the relationship between Smile and Peco, how they relate, and how Peco has always lead the group and embodied the "spirit" of the ping pong players. Removing the Hero motif really does complicate and leave things (Mainly the value of Peco's arc itself) hanging in the overall arc. Sorry, I didn't mean to come across like I disrespected you, I know we both like the show a lot and such. I'm just going back and forth for the sake of argumentation kind of. Still, I think what I'm trying to say when I was criticizing your viewpoint there was just that I think you are getting caught up in a symbol when it's deliberately the way it is for a reason, specifically when it still functions the way it's intended to. I know you aren't saying it's like the most poorly written thing in the world, I just am trying to make a case for it from the way I read the series. I don't know exactly if it's the best/most well written anime ever, that wasn't really my intention in the argument (I still think I'm more partial to Tatami Galaxy even if I think Ping Pong might be Yuasa's best work as a director?), I just think it's a good example of strong writing overall. Then again, Most of the things that really blew me away and made this season "better" compared to the source material are in Yuasa's additions to the storytelling, mostly in the form of visual metaphor and scene placement. Also yeah, Gurren Lagann is very Anime Writing. laplace fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 11:50
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glomkettle posted:That's exactly how I felt about Tatami Galaxy. I'm in the middle of watching Kemonozume right now (just started, really), and as far as I know all I have left of his to watch after that is Mind Game and his short in Genius Party. I'll be pretty sad when there's nothing left of his to watch. Kick-Heart, the "Food Chain" episode of Adventure time, Noiseman: Sound Insect, and the Noximilien L'horloger Wakfu Special all have Yuasa's touch and are all excellent. So is Cat Soup, but his work on that was less than the other things listed.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:41
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Oh I loving love this movie, I'm so glad someone else knows about it. It is a goddamn acid trip.
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Jul 2, 2014 07:23
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All of Yuasa's stuff is incredible and you should watch all of it.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:38
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We will never get a Ping Pong blu-ray in America just like we will never get a Tatami Galaxy blu-ray in America. I have e-mailed funi about this multiple times and each time they tell me they have no plans to release any, so I would assume the same is for Ping Pong as they both were released online.
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Oct 23, 2014 04:48
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 16:48 |
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Well I am eating my words.
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Nov 9, 2014 06:42
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