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Kunster
Dec 24, 2006

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I bet they don't even talk about Rose of Versailles.

Rose of Versailles is one of those shows that only very recently got an english translation and didn't have much effect other than "huh, ladies sure do like two male voices exasperatingly declaring their platonic brotherly totally not romantic love to eachother, h- oh they gently caress on the second to last episode. Huh." Until said translation.

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Paladin
Nov 26, 2004
You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it.


Adlai Stevenson posted:

It's like a list curated to appeal to the nostalgia of 30-35+ year-old anime watchers who remember when selection sucked so you just sorta watched whatever you could find on VHS or cable.

Ah, the Apollo Smile years.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Kunster posted:

Rose of Versailles is one of those shows that only very recently got an english translation and didn't have much effect other than "huh, ladies sure do like two male voices exasperatingly declaring their platonic brotherly totally not romantic love to eachother, h- oh they gently caress on the second to last episode. Huh." Until said translation.

No excuses.

Linear Zoetrope
Nov 28, 2011

A hero must cook

Adlai Stevenson posted:

At the very least one of his entries, Belladonna of Sadness, is about a 70s film that only in the past decade or so was released stateside in any form and seems like a pretty deep cut overall. There's also a clear line to be drawn from older series (namely Astro Boy, which the director of Belladonna also worked on) to it and beyond, so that's interesting. Never seen it myself though.

Belladonna is a lot to digest as a film. It's one of the most hella early '70s things I've ever seen. It's extremely surreal and psychadelic, and while the narrative is pretty straightforward it's also distinctly foreign (feeling more French than Japanese, probably because it was somewhat based on a French book with a huge asterisk on that). It's probably one of my top 20 films, just because there's so much to digest in it. Be prepared for a lot of panning over watercolor stills, though, they hand animated a lot of really surreal crap to the point I feel bad for the tweeners, but they had to save budget somewhere. It reminds me a lot of Fantastic Planet in that way, except it gets way more abstract.

I've only seen it once and need to watch it again just to digest it. It's also probably a hell of a ride high if you're into that.

Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Apr 19, 2018

Baka-nin
Jan 25, 2015

Kunster posted:

Rose of Versailles is one of those shows that only very recently got an english translation and didn't have much effect other than "huh, ladies sure do like two male voices exasperatingly declaring their platonic brotherly totally not romantic love to eachother, h- oh they gently caress on the second to last episode. Huh." Until said translation.

I was surprised just how late its translation was since I had memories of watching it on TV in the nineties. Then I remembered I watched on cables French language channel. It also reminded me that the German language channel had a lot of graphically violent 80s SF anime on it.

Vanderdeath
Oct 1, 2005

I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.



Bennett's no true sage of anime until he reviews all of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. :colbert:

Linear Zoetrope posted:

Belladonna is a lot to digest as a film. It's one of the most hella early '70s things I've ever seen. It's extremely surreal and psychadelic, and while the narrative is pretty straightforward it's also distinctly foreign (feeling more French than Japanese, probably because it was somewhat based on a French book with a huge asterisk on that). It's probably one of my top 20 films, just because there's so much to digest in it. Be prepared for a lot of panning over watercolor stills, though, they hand animated a lot of really surreal crap to the point I feel bad for the tweeners, but they had to save budget somewhere. It reminds me a lot of Fantastic Planet in that way, except it gets way more abstract.

I've only seen it once and need to watch it again just to digest it. It's also probably a hell of a ride high if you're into that.

I saw Belladonna when it was in a limited run here at a college film festival and even though there were only like fifteen people max, the confusion in that room was palpable. I really loved its aesthetic and direction but the story was rather...yeah.

Linear Zoetrope
Nov 28, 2011

A hero must cook

Vanderdeath posted:

Bennett's no true sage of anime until he reviews all of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. :colbert:


I saw Belladonna when it was in a limited run here at a college film festival and even though there were only like fifteen people max, the confusion in that room was palpable. I really loved its aesthetic and direction but the story was rather...yeah.

Also CW for rape. Like, real no joke CW. Like the plot centers on a woman who gets raped.

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008

Terrible Opinions posted:

Ah and now moviebob has moved on to doing virtually nothing but retweeting people saying he totally isn't wrong for hating poor people.

The saddest meltdown.

Kunster
Dec 24, 2006

Baka-nin posted:

I was surprised just how late its translation was since I had memories of watching it on TV in the nineties. Then I remembered I watched on cables French language channel. It also reminded me that the German language channel had a lot of graphically violent 80s SF anime on it.

I only learned that after spoiling that Oscar dies at the end to a bunch of US folk. Whoops!

Sarcopenia
May 14, 2014

Linear Zoetrope posted:

Also CW for rape. Like, real no joke CW. Like the plot centers on a woman who gets raped.

Yeah, I always wanted to see it but it basically sounds like "Rape: The Animated Movie".

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Baka-nin posted:

I was surprised just how late its translation was since I had memories of watching it on TV in the nineties. Then I remembered I watched on cables French language channel. It also reminded me that the German language channel had a lot of graphically violent 80s SF anime on it.

Yeah, France got a lot of really cool anime in the 70s-80s-90s, including some great co-productions like Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31. Here in Quebec we got some of those, and even a few exclusive french-canada only translations like Le Petit Castor and Les Aventuries de l'Espace.

The funniest thing to me is how we translated all the openings. Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0FyOfOAOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rYeP29aljM

Aramis
Sep 22, 2009



MonsieurChoc posted:

The funniest thing to me is how we translated all the openings. Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0FyOfOAOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rYeP29aljM

In retrospect, it's amazing how hard the Quebec localization crew of the time latched on to 'cartoons are just for Kids' (except for the Simpsons, which I hold to be flawlessly adapted).

It gets really weird at times. Stuff like the fox and the hound are voice-acted like Caillou.

Kunster
Dec 24, 2006

Neon Genesis Evangelion was fully dubbed here and shown as a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Also, Space Adventure Cobra.

Then again, we just borrowed the french dubs, which lead to this situation I wish I taped where a Dragon Ball episode had a cartoony explosion with the onomotopedia "Boom", subtitles in french under saying "BOUM", and the portuguese narrator saying "Bum".

Yardbomb
Jul 11, 2011

What's with the eh... bretonnian dance, sir?

Kunster posted:

Also, Space Adventure Cobra.

I love that show's opening theme so much.

Mars4523
Feb 17, 2014

khwarezm posted:

Honestly whenever I see Nerdwriter (god I hate that name) mentioned these days all I can think of is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD-YZbeajeY

Nerdwriter gets a lot of flak for pretension and being too full of himself, so not speaking at all and just allowing the subject to do the talking for him helps a lot.

Robert Denby
Sep 9, 2007
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, huh? Nah, get fucked mate.

Adlai Stevenson posted:

Well, based on the intro I read in the Amazon preview, the whole thing seems to be centered around what he and his contributors found personally influential as opposed to larger media trends.
That's a shame. One could do a really fascinating book about the productions of 70s-80s anime and the people who became influential during that time and shaped the medium into the 2000s, focusing on the themes they went for, the animation styles, the conditions of being in animation at the time but no, instead of regurgitating the same things we already know about these shows.

I mean, just give this article a read about Naoki Urasawa just talking about mangaka in the 70s and 80s:
https://mangabrog.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/naoki-urasawa-and-hisashi-eguchi-talk-about-manga-in-the-70s-and-80s-mostly-otomo/

Or this one about the almost-made live-action Gundam movie:
http://www.zimmerit.moe/when-gundam-came-to-hollywood/

There's a goldmine of stuff waiting for a good writer or documentary filmmaker to pore over instead of this fanboy bullshit. Sad to see how little has changed from that bad Starz documentary from like 10 years ago.

Also Bennet is the Ricky Gervais of anime critics, trying and failing to be provocative. I remember anytime someone gave the tiniest bit of praise to Evangelion or Akira or Grave of the Fireflies he was on Twitter to be all "Well actually those suck and the creators are hacks and you're wrong for liking them!"

Adlai Stevenson posted:

I'm a little tempted to see what they have to say about Roujin Z, the least entertaining of all SciFi channel anime offerings, but not enough to spend any money.
Roujin Z is really good though? Its a fun satire, the mechanical designs are amazing, and its only like 80 minutes long.

Yardbomb
Jul 11, 2011

What's with the eh... bretonnian dance, sir?

Robert Denby posted:

Also Bennet is the Ricky Gervais of anime critics, trying and failing to be provocative. I remember anytime someone gave the tiniest bit of praise to Evangelion or Akira or Grave of the Fireflies he was on Twitter to be all "Well actually those suck and the creators are hacks and you're wrong for liking them!"

His gripe with Grave of the Fireflies is that things the director said afterwards warped the tone of it all a lot for him.

cosmically_cosmic
Dec 26, 2015
Bennet may be a socially awkward, pretentious and sexually perverted comedy figure who recently lost a lot of weight, but he's no where near the level of objectively awful as Gervais.

ricdesi
Mar 18, 2014

Does it really need saying?

Oh cock. That's definitely not a good development, especially when it looked like he was home free.

Mokinokaro
Sep 11, 2001

At the end of everything, hold onto anything



Fun Shoe

ricdesi posted:

Oh cock. That's definitely not a good development, especially when it looked like he was home free.

He's terminal. He was never going to really be home free.

This was sadly only a matter of time.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


rip made my twitter handle to mock him. feels bad.

ThePlague-Daemon
Apr 16, 2008

~Neck Angels~

khwarezm posted:

Honestly whenever I see Nerdwriter (god I hate that name) mentioned these days all I can think of is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD-YZbeajeY

Honestly if someone did an unironic in-depth analysis into the filmmaking techniques in The Room I would probably be really into it. Like from that video I noticed a lot of the cinematography for the closeups in that scene is fine, but it's all edited around a bland-looking master shot that seems like they only staged it for a couple of key moments.

Kunster
Dec 24, 2006


There's a two and a half men / big bang theory joke where a songwriter has to make a theme song for an anime and he makes two theme songs: a jaunty one that is entirely based on the name and poster and one guided entirely by the kid. The studio ends up picking the former. And that's exactly the vibe you get when you listen to the Cobra's french generique. If you know any french, you totally notice that the french opening theme is... That.

poo poo, Lady Oscar's theme also fits that.

Puppy Time
Mar 1, 2005


ThePlague-Daemon posted:

Honestly if someone did an unironic in-depth analysis into the filmmaking techniques in The Room I would probably be really into it. Like from that video I noticed a lot of the cinematography for the closeups in that scene is fine, but it's all edited around a bland-looking master shot that seems like they only staged it for a couple of key moments.

Hell, same.

stillvisions
Oct 15, 2014

I really should have come up with something better before spending five bucks on this.

Puppy Time posted:

Hell, same.

Brows Held High teases those comparisons near the end of his great video about the room, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7pUs-9C-gY but it's just a quick comparison to some classic movies.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

cosmically_cosmic posted:

Bennet may be a socially awkward, pretentious and sexually perverted comedy figure who recently lost a lot of weight, but he's no where near the level of objectively awful as Gervais.

I love how this reads as if "losing a lot of weight" was a negative. :allears: Goons!

Adlai Stevenson
Mar 4, 2010

Making me ashamed to feel the way that I do

Robert Denby posted:

Roujin Z is really good though? Its a fun satire, the mechanical designs are amazing, and its only like 80 minutes long.

I'll admit that I haven't seen it in what's gotta be well over 20 years, but I remember it as the only Saturday Anime film that I couldn't make it through a first time let alone a second.

e:

Libluini posted:

I love how this reads as if "losing a lot of weight" was a negative. :allears: Goons!

I thought it was to further the comparison to Gervais is all

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

Adlai Stevenson posted:

I thought it was to further the comparison to Gervais is all

I don't know who Gervais is, but I found his post too funny to not comment. It was basically cosmically comical :v:

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
I don't get how Bennett is pretentious exactly considering how he frames his distaste for those seminal titles based around his own experiences and the environment in which they aired. And he really doesn't say anything wrong about NGE, Akira or Fireflies.

All three products have big issues and he addresses them in his reviews. You don't have to agree with him but that doesn't make him pretentious.

Also he has definitely grown as a critic. Of those three I only think his fireflies review is pretty good, because he was starting to branch out from doing yuk yuk jokes at the expense of old titles to actually doing analysis and further research.

Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 19, 2018

cosmically_cosmic
Dec 26, 2015

Libluini posted:

I don't know who Gervais is, but I found his post too funny to not comment. It was basically cosmically comical :v:

:3:

It really was just to compare to Gervais, though Gervais losing weight turned him into more of an egomaniac, as far a I know Bennet is just in better shape.

Arcsquad12 posted:

I don't get how Bennett is The Sage pretentious

To be fair though, it's hard not to sound pretentious when you're doing an in-depth review of a hentai from the 80s.

EDIT:

quote:

Also he has definitely grown as a critic. Of those three I only think his fireflies review is pretty good, because he was starting to branch out from doing yuk yuk jokes at the expense of old titles to actually doing analysis and further research.

Oh yeah no doubt, and the whole 'The Sage' thing is just a relic of that early period, which was him dunking on 0 budget porn.

Bakeneko
Jan 9, 2007

The one thing I dislike about Bennett is how much he hates subtitles. He seems to think they ruin a show by distracting you from the animation, and he’ll always whine about it on the rare occasions where he has to review something that doesn’t have a dub.

Other than that weird hang-up, though, he’s a talented guy who always seems to have something interesting and funny to say even if he’s talking about some rightfully-obscure garbage. I’m someone who didn’t start watching anime regularly until the mid-2000s, so I appreciate the insight he gives into the era of anime culture that I missed out on.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Sub versus dub is an argument with no winner.

What I find more interesting is when he talks about context that is lost in translation when moving to a dubbed adaptation. When the language barrier plays an important part in a show, the dubbing process has to be very careful to maintain that dynamic or else it becomes awkward.

Media in translation is really interesting.

Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 19, 2018

Junpei Hyde
Mar 15, 2013




Bakeneko posted:

The one thing I dislike about Bennett is how much he hates subtitles. He seems to think they ruin a show by distracting you from the animation, and he’ll always whine about it on the rare occasions where he has to review something that doesn’t have a dub.

I mean, that's a valid opinion to hold, and one I share honestly.

FoldableHuman
Mar 26, 2017

On one hand dubbing VAs are often terrible.

On the other hand the original VAs are also often terrible.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
You mean you don't find squealing helium voices cute?

That's not even my major gripe with the way anime is voiced. No, that belongs to the rote performance aspect. Certain vocal modes in anime are so ubiquitous that you could swap out a dozen voice actors for one character and never notice. There's always someone speaking in a low emotionless voice here, always someone who screams all their lines there. The vocals can feel as standardized as the archetypes they're applied to.

Well, that and the constant gasping and grunting.

Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Apr 19, 2018

Junpei Hyde
Mar 15, 2013




FoldableHuman posted:

On one hand dubbing VAs are often terrible.

On the other hand the original VAs are also often terrible.

what if we're all terrible

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Anime is terrible.

Motto
Aug 3, 2013

hes right

Protodude
Dec 10, 2013

Fun Shoe

Arcsquad12 posted:

I don't get how Bennett is pretentious exactly considering how he frames his distaste for those seminal titles based around his own experiences and the environment in which they aired. And he really doesn't say anything wrong about NGE, Akira or Fireflies.

All three products have big issues and he addresses them in his reviews. You don't have to agree with him but that doesn't make him pretentious.

Also he has definitely grown as a critic. Of those three I only think his fireflies review is pretty good, because he was starting to branch out from doing yuk yuk jokes at the expense of old titles to actually doing analysis and further research.

What would you recommend are his better reviews? I watched a couple of his videos ages ago but remember finding them frankly pretty bad.

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Harrow
Jun 30, 2012

I wonder if it isn't so much the VAs as the translated dialog writing and voice direction for dubs. There are some voice actors who regularly put in fantastic performances who still end up sounding wooden and awkward when they're dubbing.

This is more on the video game side, but it's probably why I think Final Fantasy XII's English voices are probably the only time in the series (except for a few scattered spots in XIV) that the English voices have actually been pretty good. The localization team put a ton of effort into how the characters speak and I imagine had some much better direction during recording sessions, too.

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