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Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

It had been awhile, but a podcast reminded me to revisit it and lawd, Wings of Goodbye whips rear end.

Who's seen Mazinkaiser SKL? It's p wild and it's only three eps.

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Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

That old Rhythm Emotion techno remix owns

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

RahXephon was my favorite anime in the late00's. Dunno where I'd put it now but it's still gorgeous, thought-provoking and eminently watchable and cool. The first four eps are a tad slow, granted. It's really one of those shows where the appeal becomes loud and clear once the larger cast arrives.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Schwarzwald posted:

I have almost the exact opposite opinion.
The fact that Gridman SSSS exists and is pretty much the better RahXephon doesn't help, either.

Pffffft. Big agree on Blue Friend, but I could never see eye-to-eye w this. Gridman bored the holy hell outta me, it was so undercooked.

Rah's plot stuff wasn't really what drew me in. It's atmosphere was great and I guess it all pulls together thematically, but it also doesn't really make much sense. The web of character interactions really made that show something special, watching Ayato adjust to his life w all these weirdos, the way everyone's bouncing off each other adds to the mystery while still establishing character efficiently and just being fun to watch...it has the mood of a subtle artsy-fartsy post-Eva thing but the cast interactions have the breeziness and intricacies of somethin more like Patlabor and it builds into SERIOUS TIME as equally well. I like to point to how Rah handles its bridge commentary scenes during combat, compared to Eva. In Rah, it's the standard for nearly member present observing to have an entirely different reaction to what's happening to everyone else, in overt or subtle ways, there's just such careful attention and detail being paid to these characters. It's like candy for me.

It rules that after 20+ years of Gasarakis and SSSS's and Frannxs all straining to think of something new or edgy or different to say w this formula, we've already done had the post-Eva thing that hits all the beats w panache, treats its characters w respect instead of like tropes and satisfyingly reaches the ending where the two raging god mech pilots, simulteanously and for the own reasons,just stop and go, "wait, love. It's Love I want. My answer is Love." and lands on the coveted Post Eva happy ending w no muss, no fuss, and we've done been had it for nearly 20 yrs itself.

Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Aug 14, 2020

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

chiasaur11 posted:

Care to go into more detail on why Gridman didn't work for you?

No thx.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Schwarzwald posted:

I agree the plot isn't the draw, and I did like the characters in all their quirky weirdness. But even if the characters aren't relevant to the plot they still need to be relevant to something, and for the most part they weren't. A more generous reading might be that the carefree life they were offering was there to tempt Ayato into domesticity, and his growth was choosing to ditch them. But the way the show handles it is by having 12 episodes where nothing really happens, it seemed less like he overcame a temptation and more like he got fed up.

It's been 15 years since I've seen the show, however. Maybe I'd have a better opinion after a rewatch.


Fair enough if SSSS wasn't to your taste, but didn't feel like the show was edgy or strained at all?

Yeah, it'd prolly be more fair to have put something like, hrmmm, Betterman? lol

I don't really know how to get into this wo going into a big effortpost about the show, but I feel like the extended time w the large ensemble cast is meant to illustrate many different angles on the same point, RahXephon's biggest loudest theme, that being "You don't have to let yourself be stuffed into some box that sums up your value, love and connection bonds us together across time and space and even across opposing sides or the roles assigned to you in, say, some apocalyptic destiny war." Perhaps basic to some, but a really beautiful message to me, and one elaborated on naturally thru character drama. Nearly all of them struggle w or are obsessed w or resigned to their circumstances over unrequited love, or feeling unchosen or lesser or forever removed from others over what they are, or what they feel they can't be bc of what they aren't, or what they lost or had to lose to go through w all this(and also how it turns out that most of them are related lol.) All the worst things happen to the characters who lash out or break themselves down over never becoming what they're told they should be or being denied what they feel they can never have. Isshiki's arc illustrates that most plainly, in plot terms, but look deeper and it's all over the show.

The character writing does maintain a certain distance that reads oddly if you were to watch it fresh after Eva or something, I dunno that I'd recommend that.

It never occurred to me think of the first half in Nirai-Kanai as a trap Ayato needed to escape from, but I guess that reading does work, being escorted from one grooming bubble existence just to be taken to another. Ayato leaving seemed more about personal, internal reasons, tho a sense of betrayal is also there.

This is all making me want to rewatch it again haha.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

StrixNebulosa posted:

Every single time I wander into this thread I come away from it wanting to watch something. Y'all post good. I'm gonna do a rewatch of Rahxephon now that it's been like ten years since I saw it last.

That makes me very happy to hear.

Schwarzwald posted:

Honestly, same! :lol:

While we're talking about the show, there's an orchestral version of the ending theme that plays during the battle in the Blue Friend episode. Does anyone know if that's available anywhere? I remember looking for it way back when but never being able to turn it up.

That track is on the third volume disc, it's called The Second Sorrow.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Every solitary frame and note of Macross Plus and Giant Robo is just the dopest fuckin poo poo I've ever seen or heard. The AI stuff in Plus hits real different after Carole & Tuesday.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Macross Frontier Wings of Goodbye rules too, one of my fave anime flicks of the 10's.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Also I am fifteen minutes into the first episode of Rahxephon and I have to laud it for being hugely confusing. Intentionally so but this is really ridiculous, give me a bone, give me a hint. (I'm enjoying it a lot!)

Rah sticks hard to the "Show, don't tell" rule much more than most stuff out there, it can be a demanding watch. Hope ya keep at it, tho! Thumbs up!

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

WE ARE THE SOLDIERS OF ETERNITY YEAH

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Does Simoun count as mecha? Been meaning to watch that.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

wielder posted:

That said, it is true the genre does seem to be in something of a decline lately. Very few new mecha anime are coming out these days, outside of already established properties.

I guess nobody was that into Granbelm or Majestic Prince from awhile back? Expelled from Paradise counts and I liked that fine.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Anshu posted:

I still can't forgive how they changed Grace O'Connor from the TV version.

Didja not think she deserved redemption or was it that it turned out she was bein controlled the whole time?

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

wielder posted:

I admit though, never saw Granbelm myself. How good was that?

I didn't watch it either.

There's also Aquarion EVOL, from last decade, which I finished finally just a week ago and liked that a lot, too. Feels like the ideal version of what Kawamori was trying to do w that thing.

Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Aug 15, 2020

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Spent the weekend rewatching RahXephon and yup, still just an incredible show. Gorgeous, soulful, strange, tragic, creepy, apocalyptic and beautiful. Still rips out my heart before gently placing it back inside after all these years.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

I love the ending. Both RahXephons, for their own reasons, decide fuxk Bahbem's machinations and gently caress all the other circumstances, they want to remake the world in the image of love. Ayato's just happens to be the one who wins.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Relin posted:

i watched rahxephon with a friend and we couldnt remember any of the plot after. and it was his second viewing!

it's bad

lol it'll take more than two viewings to get it all straight

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

This week on Back Arrow: Arrow finally loses a fight. Bit gets wombo combo'd, complete w street fighter fx The princess is sometimes evil! and she may or may not be Prax as well. I'm guessing this is something she did to herself or that her mother or someone in the royal family set up, cuz I don't get why the sychopants surrounding her would have to go thru the trouble when she barely interferes w their schemes to begin with. Ah well, the writing in the show is not actually very good on average so we'll prolly get a big plot dump next week handily explaining everything. Also, I kept waiting for that ominousass opening shot of Bit blasting a target to pay off. Maybe next week.

I wish the show would figure out what to do w this annoying lil old dude whose sole purpose as a cast member is to be wrong about everything. Every week, he threatens to carry out his foreshadowed purpose of creating a generational rift in the villagers bc he's scaaaaaared, and every week, the show forgets about and drops that angle the second his scene is over.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

hostess with the Moltres posted:

It’s funny in escaflowne how prince Allen looks really similar to the earth boy love interest

Edit: why hyperlinks giving me trouble today? Ah gently caress it. The eighth ep of escaflowne opens on a series of shots that has always killed me, it's all on youtube

Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Mar 1, 2021

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Does anybody like Delta's music even? For a Macross thing, nobody ever really talks up that part of it, which feels telling.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

RangerKarl posted:

They've been pushing Walkure hard on everyone over the past 5 years, define nobody.

Y'all, I'm asking what the ppl here who've seen it think

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Tribladeofchaos posted:

Do not give Harmony Gold your money

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Glimpse posted:

Been watching Macross Delta and I'm surprised how much I'm loving it, considering how I bounced off of 7 when I checked it out like a decade ago. I'll have to give Fire Bomber another chance after (after a DYRL+ palate cleanser). I'm up to ep 21 so I expect to let down soon, but it's been fun so far.

It is weird though how Delta and Frontier are like "Private military corporations are good, actually". Governments are incompetent at best, if not downright sinister, and it's again up to the private sector to save the day. Maybe Macross has always had kinda hosed up politics, what with the "being anti-war is stupid, stupid" of the original series.

Tropes like "the scrappy, disciplined team of heroes break off from the military, breaking command to save the day" are old sci-fi stuff that, in the case of anime, goes all the way back to Yamato. The latter Frontier film has a big unsubtle surface-level spoonful of colonialist critique in the mix, so there's that at least!

God, Wings of Goodbye is dope. I can watch that flick any day of the week.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Frontier's the one where a macross rides a big chunk of space debris into a planet's atmosphere like a surfboard while the captain screams "INITIATE BIG WEDNESDAY"

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

We've already gotten to the princess pulling a berg katze and revealing her bind warper to be GIANT EVIL WOMAN so new Back Arrow is doin right by me

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

chiasaur11 posted:

So, I'm still watching Back Arrow, even with the terrible memories it's going to inspire for the next few weeks, and man.

It's bad!

They really had the princess' love mecha deus ex machina the war two episodes in a row lmao

Least this last one was 20% GIANT EVIL WOMAN

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

chiasaur11 posted:

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?"

Not to be confused w Dear Brother's Rei AsAka.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

chiasaur11 posted:

It still amazes me how much better looking Frontier is than Delta when it comes to fight scenes. Nearly a decade of improvements in CG, and yet...

The jump in CG quality from the first Frontier flick to the last is something to behold. Gorgeous.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Fathom better do a better fuckin job this time. So many mislabeled theatres that didn't actually run Macross Plus at all and faulty screenings.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Watching OG Macross and it's mad entertaining. Just got to the part where Hikaru is almost too busy being horny watching a swimsuit comp on his mech's tv to avoid flying into an enemy ship, and his ensuing freakout is just *chef kiss*.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Darth Walrus posted:

Incidentally, which is the good version of Plus - movie or OVA? I only watched one and I can't remember which.

the end of the ova in particular is so much more music video like and trancey that I've always enjoyed that version just a bit more(I typically watch that part subbed tho)

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011


Mmmm, there's that extra crispy kota hoshino

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Gripweed posted:

I remember Gridman got a lot of buzz, but it seemed like Dynazenon passed more under the radar. What was up with that?

Not really, far as I saw everyone who liked GRIDMAN also saw, talked about and liked Dyna

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

Clearly the answer is to make a Pokemon Mecha show or a Planet Robobot anime.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

drrockso20 posted:

Brain Powerd isn't spectacular but like a lot of Tomino's works after Victory Gundam it has a nice aesthetic to it, has a good amount of Tomino's classic weirdness*, and "In My Dream" is an absolute gem of a song

*more than anything else I think that's my favorite thing about Tomino and his body of work

And (next to TurnA) one of the finest scores produced for anime. Mid-late 90's Tomino's working relationship w Yoko Kanno produced some truly beautiful music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV_fH6v2QKA

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

There's Heavy Object, which is kinda about everyone driving one big armored core. Or is that more steel battalion?

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

FMP has a great villian

Arc Hammer posted:

I likes Geass better when it was solely a ground game with the roller blading knightmare frames using grappling hook cannons to swing around corners. The early episodes had some pretty fun fights using terrain geometry that you can end up losing when you transition to air or space combat.

If there are any supercuts of the spidermech cg action from Akito the Exiled, that's worth checking out

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

chiasaur11 posted:

It might be cheating to go to Kanno, but if we're going for a Gundam concert to beat the band, you go with Turn A.. Memory of Military Boots is maybe my number 1 Gundam track.

I agree to a point to not noticing much of Witch's ost(most bgm out there isn't gonna be remarkable), but holding anybody up to Yoko Kanno is straight unfair. S'like saying something is a lesser Fist of the North Star and, buddy, show me the better Fist of the North Star. It don't exist.

Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

nope

What's a good Getter Robo anime to start with?

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Pootybutt
Apr 5, 2011

I can work w that.

Great reccs, thanks yall!

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