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Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

22 is nora. 1 hour ova about what i suppose comes closest to the western concept of a manic pixie dream girl teaching 2 old professors and skynet what love, fun and all that is to prevent the apocalypse. mediocre and not worth watching unless you really love random shouting and laughing

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littleorv
Jan 29, 2011

What are movies

Xinder
Apr 27, 2013

i want to be a prince
Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower
I'm not hugely into Fate but I loved Zero and UBW was also pretty good, so I figure why not? The fight scenes were loving gorgeous and are definitely what kept my attention the most. Beyond just setting details, this skips over a lot of plot so this is absolutely a bad idea to watch without previous knowledge. I was really enjoying the vastly improved pacing over UBW with things actually happening much quicker out the gate, but right near the end of the movie I started to have troubles keeping track. Not sure how Rider came back, or why Emiya lost his command seals when I'm pretty sure it was established that if your Servant dies you get to keep those and make a pact with another Servant if there's a Masterless one around (like Gil) but maybe all of that will be explained. Or maybe it already was and I just have trouble paying attention to details.

Anyway I liked it a lot and I'll keep watching this trilogy.


1. 5 cm per Second
2. Love Live! School Idol Movie!
3. Cyborg 009 vs Devilman
4. Night is Short, Walk on Girl
5. Paprika
6. Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower
7. Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower

i might just finish in time

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013
Watched Men Behind The Sun, Hong Kong movie about the atrocities committed by the Japanese biological weapons research unit 71 in Manchuria during WWII. Don't have a lot to say it was an unpleasant watch. Had never heard of this before though so glad I leanred. Will never forget the scene where the commander makes his rival pee into the water filter he designs and drinks it while staring directly into his eyes in front of the entire squadron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0DsHoJE5RM&t=1139s

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013
Apparently the scene where they dissect a young boy was them actually dissecting a corpse which is pretty hosed up

Xinder
Apr 27, 2013

i want to be a prince
Batman Ninja
I don't think I've ever seen an anime based on a western property that leans into the medium as hard as this did. I actually thought this would be some weird AU so it being a weird time travel thing instead took me by surprise. I was delightfully surprised when I heard DIO's voice come out of Gorilla Grodd at the start.

Overall this was really dorky but in exactly the way I'd have wanted it to be. It took a ton of generic anime cliches and played them straight with Batman characters, and that's all I could ask of it. Definitely would recommend. Also the artstyle rocks.

1. 5 cm per Second
2. Love Live! School Idol Movie!
3. Cyborg 009 vs Devilman
4. Night is Short, Walk on Girl
5. Paprika
6. Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower
7. Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower
8. Batman Ninja

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

23, there's been a lot of movies that have copied ghibli, and in origin - spirits of the past, gonzo mashes up castle in the sky and nausicaa. its far from being as well written though and the environmentalism message is shallow and not well thought out. the mc's constant screaming of toola gave me ptsd flashbacks of heavy rain. visually its mostly good, character designs and backgrounds are obviously ghibli inspired and look good and there's some very nice animation (most of it in the first half), but there's some godawful cgi in it for the tree monsters. the sound mixing is really badly done as well, which got quite annoying as the movie went on. but really its main problem is the idiotic story

heres some screenshots



Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

24: the mildly interesting story in this is sabotaged by terrible directing (shakycam and blur in anime gross), ugly cgi and uninspired artwork that make it a chore to watch

Strange Quark
Oct 15, 2012

I Failed At Anime 2022
I mean I know it’s eve no jikan, but you forgot to include the name

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

im sorry i spontaneously got the flu while typing

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Here I thought there was an anime movie of the hit show 24

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

I have to watch 6 movies before the end of the year to complete my challenge. Wish me luck

klapman
Aug 27, 2012

this char is good
Time of Eve had cool snippets but didn't hit any point in the story where I felt like I understood any sort of deeper message beyond robots being people too. And then it ended on what seemed to be like, a timeskip to wherever the manga would have ended. Kind of a weird movie.

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

GorfZaplen posted:

I have to watch 6 movies before the end of the year to complete my challenge. Wish me luck

good luck

25: i remembered to put down the name this time. Dragon's Heaven. gorgeous designs, ok animation, nothing to really engage with story or character wise. i'd rather just look at one of makoto kobayashi's artbooks, and luckily i've seen plenty

Delicious sandwich
Nov 6, 2011
I completed the challenge to watch 12 new (to me, though most of them were actually new) movies this year. :toot:

9. My Hero Academia: Two Heroes. I don't think I've seen a side film for a long-running series before, and now I know not to watch them! Actually the stuff before the serious plot started was mostly fine, although I rolled my eyes at the magic glove that was going to let Deku use One For All at full power. A lot of the comedy was pretty good too. I think I laughed out loud at Hagakure playing rock-paper-scissors (though in retrospect... shouldn't she just wear gloves? Like, all the time?). At a certain point the movie becomes the main characters fighting boring robots + boring Magneto and I sort of zoned out.

10. Liz and the Bluebird. People probably know this is good already, but just to reiterate, it's good. I did get the impression that the main conflict could have been resolved by the main characters' talking to each other instead of assuming they knew what the other was thinking, but whatever. Assuming you can put that out of your mind the drama's compelling, and the visuals and music are top tier.

11. Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions: Take On Me. A nice conclusion (I assume?) to the story. I admit I mostly forgot what happened during season 2, but from what I could pick up from the movie it wasn't much (apparently Rikka and Yuta have still only kissed once as of the start of the movie, jeez). Rikka and Yuta run around Japan and come to appreciate each other more fully, Dekomori and Nibutani bumble after them hilariously and may or may not fall in love, and Kumin only does one thing but it's amazing. There's only one [BV]anishment This World scene, oh well. A song called Take On Me plays, but it isn't the song called Take On Me.

12. Mirai. Not Hosoda's best work, but I'd lowered my expectations after The Boy and the Beast, so this ended up being better than I'd expected. It's a series of four stories about a little boy (four years old, I think) who travels through time, except in one where he turns into a dog instead (?). I don't think there was much of a common theme to the stories though maybe I just didn't notice one. Anyway, it's a pleasant film with a cute family and a cool house. I will say that the main character can be as irritating as an actual four-year-old, though, which is a bit off-putting.

13. Haikara-san, part 2. Bonus film #13! Not as good as the first part, though it does start with Benio beating up a gang of train robbers so she can talk to their boss, then drinking a bunch of vodka with him, so it's definitely not all bad. The premise of this second part is... weird. Benio's fiance gets amnesia, is convinced he's married to someone else, and eventually regains his memory but thinks it would be rude to abandon his fake wife, so he instead abandons his actual fiancee. So instead we follow another romantic interest for Benio, except it's kind of obvious that the original couple will get back together and the whole thing feels like a waste of time. Then Tokyo explodes at the end. There's a lot of quality side stuff I'm glossing over, and the movie is really good every time it decides to be funny, but the main plot was kind of a dud.

Well that was a fun year for anime movies. I probably would have missed some real gems (Maquia and Liz) if I hadn't been motivated by this thread to keep an eye out for anime movies, so thanks for that.

Xinder
Apr 27, 2013

i want to be a prince
Mirai

I went in with no expectations because I recognized Hosoda's name and I absolutely loved it. It had a lot of heart and really beautiful art and music. I am seeing a growing trend of anime about childrearing these days, but I'm not against it at all!

Mary and the Witch's Flower

Again I hadn't seen much about this before putting it on. It seemed very Ghibli, and honestly I don't think that initial assessment was that far off. I found myself mostly enjoying the animation and music, but the whole Harry Potter vibe was fun too. I had a good time with this movie but I don't think it'll stick with me.

Yo-kai Watch: The Movie

I actually just browsed anime movies on netflix to try and finish off this list the other day and started on Gantz:0 first. I got like 2 minutes in before tapping out because it sucked. So instead I decided to try this one. I don't know anything about Yo-Kai Watch but it seemed like a thing the littler kids are into these days, so I figured I'd see what was going on with it. It was actually super fun and charming and I'm glad that this is the modern kids anime. I think I probably like this more than my Indigo League Pokemon episodes from when I was younger! The moment that will definitely stick with me was the protagonist asking his grandmother if she knew his grandfather "Of course, we were the best of friends."


1. 5 cm per Second
2. Love Live! School Idol Movie!
3. Cyborg 009 vs Devilman
4. Night is Short, Walk on Girl
5. Paprika
6. Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower
7. Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower
8. Batman Ninja
9. Mirai
10. Mary and the Witch's Flower
11. Yo-kai Watch: The Movie

i'm so close now. i can do thissss

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

26: the year is almost over but here is 1 more ' Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom? '. rather bad adaptation from shaft. all the obvious shaftisms and the generic anime poo poo ruins the original story. the additions are all ill-fitting and you're better of just watching the original or any other live action shunji iwai. no idea why shaft even wanted to do this when they struggle to make any character that resembles a human being, as iwai's strength lies in his bleak and realistic portrayal of the hellish world of japanese teens. watch all about lily chou-chou, the original, or the recent excellent a bride for rip van winkle instead (tho thats about adults!)

Srice
Sep 11, 2011

I got bad at keeping up to date in the thread due to personal stuff getting in the way of basically everything for me in 2018 but fortunately I was still able to barely scrape by with enough movies! What follows is a lot of scribbled notes I wrote over most of the year that's largely unedited so if I say anything dumb I was scatterbrained at the time and if I say anything smart that was definitely on purpose and you should treat it as such.



Dragonball Resurrection F - It's just a dumb movie, and unlike most dumb things in Toriyama works it's not funny but frustrating. Since it's Dragonball more than enough has been said about it but it left me feeling like the only modern Dragonball content that has been worth my time has been Battle of Gods and I should just leave it at that.

Napping Princess - Wound up feeling a lot like a Disney live action movie in its plotting. I don't even mean that in an inherently negative way, though in this instance it left me lukewarm. Watchable but not something I'd dwell on.

Garden of Sinners - My experiences with both Type Moon stuff and the urban fantasy genre in general have typically been negative as all hell, but some folks I trust told me that the Garden of Sinners movie series would be worth my time. It's a rough undertaking and for someone like me who isn't on board with what Type Moon does it required a leap of faith, but I'm glad I watched them since the highs made it worth sitting through the lows. Having a different director for each movie was a mixed bag but at least when it worked it really worked. The fifth movie in particular will definitely be the one I remember the most (it helps that it was one of the longer ones such that it had plenty of time to build the conflict of that movie up, as many of the shorter movies would usually leave me feeling cold). Ultimately I felt it wasn't a waste of my time and considering my biases going in, that's definitely a pleasant surprise. I'm not getting into too much detail because if I get a single fact wrong then I'll be kidnapped by a Type Moon fan and be forced to read the Type Moon wiki at gunpoint. That was a joke (or was it?).

Arion - Yas is a fantastic artist and animator but many of the works he directs tend to leave me feeling a bit cold. Fortunately Arion manages to float above that standard by being a decent spin on Greek mythology. Something I find prevalent in his works is that he frequently has just a few too many underdeveloped characters, but that works to his advantage when he's doing his interpretation of Greek gods.

Dagger of Kamui - It's a movie that's over 2 hours long so of course, it's directed by Rintaro. Finishing any of his movies feels like a real accomplishment. They tend to be long as hell and even when it's obsensibly an action movie the pacing isn't all that quick. I don't mean that as a mark against him! Just that one could get blindsided by his pacing. What I'm gonna remember most about Dagger of Kamui is the way the music was integrated into the action scenes. Wikipedia describes the soundtrack as "combining rock music instrumentation with Balinese kecak vocals" and I've never heard anything quite like it in anime, it's worth checking out just for that. And if that's not enough to make it unique there sure aren't a lot of anime featuring Ainu protagonists. Is this the superior Kamui anime? I don't know enough to answer that question but I can tell you that there's no CG bears in this movie, friend.

Lupin: Dragon of Doom - Over the course of many years I've gradually been watching every single movie-length Lupin entry so it was inevitable that I'd watch a few this year. Unfortunately like many of the tv movies this one wound up being rather forgettable. It is unfortunate that a lame villain and a boring heroine (who, might I add, has a character design that makes her look like she came from an entirely different anime) damages what should have been a decent Goemon-centric movie. The movie winds up being a buildup to that classic bit from the Part 2 OP where Goemon cuts a plane in half. Like most of the Lupin tv movies it's watchable enough but the bulk of it is just outright unmemorable.

Major Movie - I love Major and when I saw that the sequel series was getting adapted this year I decided to finally hit up the movie. An adaption of a spinoff manga that exists to fill the timeskip between the first and second seasons, it manages to do a decent job rapidly going through the usual beats in a Major story arc. However the most memorable scenes in the movie were shown in the tv show and that's just the movie's problem in a nutshell, it's trying to fill a gap that didn't need filling and the new characters don't get enough focus to make a lasting impact.

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters - I think this might be the second worst anime movie I've ever seen? Urobuchi wrote a script that's almost nothing but infodumping and technobabble and much like basically anime they've done the Polygon Pictures aesthetic is a terrible fit for this, with Godzilla looking like a gigantic turd. The characterization is completely flat. An overview of the movie's plot feels like they stretched a first act into its own film. The only reason I'm not calling it the worst anime movie I've seen is because it's only about 90 minutes long.

Touch trilogy - Touch is incredible, one of the best sports anime out there bar none. So a recap movie series (albeit one with 100% new animation) would have to really drop the ball to be a bad experience. And fortunately it mostly holds steady. The first movie is the best of them by far and it's no coincidence that it's the one that makes the most changes. It perfectly keeps that sense of ennui that gives a lot of Adachi's works their identity while making some different choices to match the pacing of a film. It makes sense to me because in the original series it takes 30-something episodes before the protagonist joins the baseball team, but the movie decides to push him into that role earlier than in the series. The other two recap movies are fine, but they cut corners. Touch is a slow burn, not something to be rushed through, and the narrow focus of the other two movies hurts it by diminishing or straight up cutting out much of the supporting cast. But the core of the story is so strong that it's still very much worthwhile. An inferior take on one of the greatest anime is still a very solid watch.

Mary and the Witch's Flower - Studio Ponoc's debut film has an aesthetic that really wants viewers to think about Ghibli, but sadly while it looks nice enough it just lacks that extra care that gets put into the characters in most Ghibli works. It's very watchable but there's just not a whole lot to say about it.

Touch Sequel movies - Touch is one of the greatest anime ever made. It doesn't need one sequel, nevermind two. And it definitely didn't need those sequels coming more than 10 years after the original anime wrapped up. The bar is set so high that even a sequel that's merely good would be seen as unneccesary. And unfortunately they don't even reach that level of quality.

The first of the two sequel movies brings back the cast in their college years but they retread some of the exact same plot points from the tv series in the exact same way. Tatsuya has to be convinced to get the motivation to play baseball again. Minami begins to struggle with her performance in rhythmic gymnastics, and just like in the tv show it gets to a point where she makes just one mistake during a big competition. There's a new character who simultaneously adds little but takes up lots of screentime. Everyone is striped of most of their charm from the tv show, and the few that keep it in a "Hey, remember this guy?" sorta way that reminds you of a better anime. There's no reason to watch this, it takes

The second of the two winds up being incredibly average; a story that hits some real generic beats that nonetheless manages to carry itself with the novelty of Tatsuya having moved to America, slumming around as part of a minor league team. Not something you see too often in baseball anime. Unfortunately there's not a lot to say about it that the end of the tv series didn't say. I don't feel it's worth going out of your way to watch but on the other hand you can skip the first sequel movie and if you've watched all 101 episodes of the tv series then hell, what's 90 more minutes.

Well over a decade ago at this point, Justin Sevakis used to do a column at ANN on old/obscure anime and when he covered Touch he piled praise after praise upon the series but as for those sequel movies, well, he hit the nail on the head on why they're lacking:

quote:

Anime-wise, there are three movies (that are easily skipped, as they're only recaps of the series), as well as two TV movies made years later. Neither gets anywhere near the wit or insightfulness of the original; the first, 1996's "Miss Lonely Yesterday" attempts to substitute romance anime histrionics of the most cliché variety, while the second, 2004's "Cross Roads" relies entirely on the gimmick of Tatsuya joining a small town American minor league team in order to rediscover baseball without the burden of his brother's legacy. While the latter is actually watchable (as opposed to Miss Lonely Yesterday, which reeks of bad "reunion specials" in a way that made me want to yell profanity at the TV), both specials commit the sin of forgetting who their characters are. Tatsuya loses his trademark sense of humor and becomes the milquetoast, moderately depressed male romantic lead of countless, far lesser anime. Worse, Minami is reduced to the role of insecure melodramatic doormat in "Miss Lonely Yesterday." There's no chemistry between the two (and when they talk, the dialogue is stilted and unnatural), and in this way the two specials do a disservice to the memory of the far superior series. The sharp edges of more modern anime (and updated character designs) seem jarring in contrast to the softer, faded-photo look of the series, and aren't conducive to the sort of nostalgia the original conveys effortlessly. They're better off forgotten.

Lupin - Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure - Osamu Dezaki is an incredible director so I have no idea why his Lupin tv movies usually wind up being real mediocre. Seriously the dude did fantastic work on Cobra and his personality isn't too far removed from Lupin! Anyways this was such a nothing of a movie that the only thing I'll remember about it a year from now is that it had a nazi named Herr Maphrodite. Which, granted, is more than I remember about most Lupin tv movies. They tend to be very forgettable, unfortunately!

Urusei Yatsura 1-6 - That's a lot of Lum so I'll just tackle them all real quick here. Movie 1 was more or less a movie-length episode of the show with better production values. And that's great! Those better production values went towards packing way more detail into many of the jokes and considering how rote a "heroine gets kidnapped by movie villain for a forced marriage" plot is, it's nice to see it happen to the guy for once. Movie 2 is a masterpiece. It's the only film I've rewatched during this challenge and for good reason. Everyone and their mother knows that Beautiful Dreamer is not only the best Urusei Yatsura movie but it's also up there as one of if not the best Oshii film. It's the Castle of Cagliostro for Urusei Yatsura in terms of it being a great entry point that doesn't completely reflect what's in the series proper but that's okay because it's an incredible movie. Movie 3 is underwhelming. I complimented movie 1 on having a forced marriage plot with Ataru instead of Lum. And as if mocking me, movie 3 deals with Lum getting kidnapped by someone who wants to marry her. There are some decent jokes in it but the first two movies are so good that it's hard to not notice the immense drop in quality going from the first two to the third. Movie 4 is an oddity. It's not particularly funny but it frequently gets strange for the sake of being strange so you know what, it's alright by me. Movie 5 takes the final chapters of the manga and puts them in a movie. The secret truth of UY as a series is that while the manga is good in its own ways, I always found the anime to be the superior option. It takes a lot of liberties in how it delivers jokes, makes some one-off characters part of the cast in such great ways that you can't imagine them not being regulars, etc. So something that's a more direct adaption like movie 5 just comes off as underwhelming in comparison. It's not terrible but it's nothing to write home about either. And obviously since it's a Rumiko Takahashi ending, you wouldn't even know this was an adaption of the manga's ending since the end gag is a return to the status quo. Movie 6 exists. It's basically a reunion special so it doesn't even try to break new ground. No reason not to watch it if you've gotten that far, but no reason to specifically set out to watch it either.

I had only ever watched the movies directed by Oshii (1 and 2) and I was definitely not surprised to find out that they were the best ones by a significant margin.

Venus Wars - I didn't even intend to watch another Yas movie, it just happened. Anyhow the first two acts of this movie work quite well! Goofy hoverbikes aside it's able to effectively communicate this sense of dread at not knowing what tomorrow will bring as a city is invaded and taken over. Underneath that particular kind of 80s sci-fi cheese it carries some real emotion at its core...until the third act comes along and everything gets resolved in some incredibly rote action, including the commander of the occupying forces getting into a duel with the protag (whom he has never seen before) for no good reason other than to be a face for the final battle. A pity that such a strong start ends with a fart.

Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Take on Me - I enjoyed the first season of the tv series. The second was generally terrible outside of a few episodes, focusing too much on the relationship between the two leads while taking many steps backwards with them. It's no coincidence that the few good episodes focused on the supporting cast. Anyways the movie has similar problems, there are a few funny scenes with the supporting cast but as the movie goes on they're seen less and less as the primary focus is on the two leads and their relationship and this time there's some sex-negativity added to the mix. It's an encapsulation of a lot of the issues I had with the second season but now in movie form. I'll be real I wasn't expecting much out of this movie but there was a brief period of time where I dug Kyoani's stuff and the first season aired during that time, but I guess you really can't go back.

Steamboy - I don't actually know why it took me so long to finally watch Steamboy. Ages ago when I was first getting into anime I remember people being hyped for Steamboy and posting every trailer that came out. And hell, who wouldn't have been excited for the next big budget entry from the creator of Akira. I remember the hype but I don't remember a lot about the reaction afterwards and watching this explained why. It's certainly not a bad movie, just one that doesn't manage to come close to Akira's pedigree. Were it a movie with no expectations it'd be remembered as a solid action movie with a ton of detail to its animation, and I say that's a good enough reason to check it out.

Maquia - There's a heck of a lot of stuff about fantasy that I'm not big on and hey Mari Okada managed to make something lacking a lot of those elements in her directorial debut. And it's a great entry in the single mom anime genre to boot, spinning a strong coming of age story for both the mother and the child. Earlier this year I read Okada's autobiography and in it she mentions that she writes a lot of her teenage characters in a way similar to how she acted as a teen. Her autobiography didn't go into too much detail about her personal life once her career was firmly established, but I'd like to believe that this is a grownup version of how she'd write similar characters. As an aside, I highly recommend her autobiography, legally available in English and short enough that you can finish it in an afternoon. Much of it would still be an interesting read even if she didn't enter the anime industry. After all, she describes how she'd test her boyfriends by leaving her bathroom door open while taking a dump. That's one of the highest level power moves imaginable. Anyways, this was hands down my favorite movie of the year and here's hoping that she gets to direct more. And hey if that does happen maybe they could screen them somewhere close to me this time? I swear, despite living near a large city the only anime movies that get showings around here are franchise films with the occasional average quality original movie thrown in. Never anything I desperately want to see on the big screen.

Dr Slump Movie 2 - The Dr. Slump manga is great. It's an energetic, maniacal experience and almost every page has something to chuckle at. Unfortunately my experience with the anime hasn't come close to it; jokes get dragged out and the translation from comic to animation gets rough when they try to show everything, ruining a lot of the comedic timing in the process as single panel gags are single panel for a reason. And even though this movie is an original story, much of it shared that same issue. Jokes get a bit dragged out. It takes an uninspired premise (for real how many franchise films have a plot about the love interest getting kidnapped and forced to marry the villain against their will? At least Urusei Yatsura had a movie where that happened to a man!) and plays it way too safe. I don't even know what else to say, I feel like Dr. Slump was a manga that was far ahead of its time compared to how anime comedies were handled during its heyday. I'd love to see a new take on the material that didn't feel so restrained.

Fireworks - Hey Shaft...you okay buddy? You guys made a movie that just sorta suddenly ends and also many of the side characters in it are defined entirely by where they stand on the contentious issue of: are firework explosions round or flat? It's a movie that I found more interesting than good. I love it when it works but the Shaft house style isn't a universally good fit and this movie is a good case of one where it's not!

When Marnie Was There - The final Ghibli film until Miyazaki unretired, and it might as well be the prototype for Studio Ponoc considering it's their main director. Much like Mary and the Witch's Flower, it's an alright watch that doesn't leave me with a lot to say!

Liz and the Blue Bird - When I realized that Liz and the Blue Bird was playing at a theater within reach, I figured, heck, maybe I'll go see it since 30 minutes away isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things and there are a lot of anime movies that just don't screen in my area. When I found out about it there were only two screenings left. One in the middle of the week (I think it was a Wednesday? Let's say that) and the other on the weekend. I had no idea what the movie was even about at the time so on that Wednesday I looked it up, saw it was related to Sound Euphonium, and anime that I have not watched, and decided maybe I wasn't gonna spend an extra hour of driving that day to see it since I was already having a fairly busy week. Save it for the weekend and such. Wound up being a good idea since I had a mild case of food poisoning or something. Really dodged a bullet there, suffering at home instead of at a theater 30 minutes away from home. As for the weekend screening it happened to overlap with a date I had, and since I didn't check the showtime when scheduling the date, and I'd feel like a total rube if I rescheduled on short notice just for a movie. The date was okay.. we just didn't have much common ground to talk about so while she was nice enough we went our separate ways afterwards. The date was at a pretty good Mexican restaurant that I hadn't visited before so hey as far as I'm concerned it wasn't a total wash. And then some time later it occured to me to just check for a version I could watch at home. I'm telling this shaggy dog story because while I get why some love Liz and the Blue Bird it is the exact sort of movie that leaves me, the sort of person that doesn't, with basically nothing to say about it. It is precisely that kind of movie. Just like what I talked about with the Chunibyou movie, the era of Kyoani making stuff that speaks to me is over and I can live with that.

Nine Trilogy - I've been scrambling to meet my goal before the end of the year and so I hit up Orphan fansubs for the first time in a little while since they frequently sub obscure stuff that if nothing else tends to be interesting. And what great timing because I happened to check their site when they had released this series of movies based on Mitsuru Adachi's very first manga. It's rough around the edges; the designs feel just a tiny bit off compared to how his style would later evolve, and it's paced haphazardly. But as a big fan of Touch it was fascinating to see his very first work as he very much took a lot of ideas from Nine and incorporated them into Touch. But the double-edged sword with this is, that those ideas were more fleshed out for the better in Touch. It's unfortunate that the main love interest in Nine feels like an afterthought with little agency or personality to her, a stark contrast from how Touch would handle such things. Despite that roughness it's something worth checking out if you have experience with any of Adachi's works to see how much he has grown, but if you haven't then hit up Touch or Cross Game instead. Best to check out a completed work rather than something that feels like a first draft.

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas - I had some pretty low expectations for this one. And heck why wouldn't I, it's based on a web novel and my primary concern would be that it would try to be too emotionally manipulative. Fortunately that wasn't the case! I'd liken it to the sort of YA book/movie wherein one of the two leads is dealing with an incurable, fatal illness and they both learn to make the most of their lives. Is what I assume happens in those sorts of things, I'm not much for YA stuff! But hey it happens here and unlike most of the time I've seen such things in anime they aren't hopelessly melodramatic over the illness. What can I say, I found that to be a refreshing surprise even though it's usually not the sort of story I go for.

Hells - In a lot of ways Hells reminds me of Kill la Kill insomuch as you have this really stylish, freakish highschool setting with a lot of experimentation in its animation. And like KLK it winds up getting too bogged down by being way into its own uninteresting lore. Fortunately it doesn't sting as much when it's over the course of a single movie. But for real when you consider some of the religious deep cuts that anime has made over the decades, treating the story of Cain and Abel as mindblowing is incredibly basic!

Kindaichi Movie 1 - I've checked out a little bit of both Kindaichi and Detective Conan and frankly if that doesn't make me an expert on mystery anime then I don't know what does. This first movie, which happens to be the very first Kindaichi anime produced, couldn't be a more conventional beginning. You got your trip to an isolated island, the phone lines get cut, murders happen, you know the drill (amusingly enough I wound up watching this not too long after I bounced off of Umineko so it was impossible for me to not be incredibly aware of the shared DNA in play here). It's a decent enough murder mystery but what stands out about Kindaichi in general to me is that it tends to handle murders with more gravity than what you normally see, and the murderers are given enough depth too. Which uh is a real huge contrast from the Conan movie I watched haha (the villain there was practically a comic book villain). Not much else to say, it's a convential murder mystery but there's value in a solid execution of that.

Conan Movie 1 - If I had to pick between the two big murder mystery manga out there, I gotta be honest I'd usually pick Kindaichi. I'm usually not into the gamified sort of murder mysteries that Conan dwells in. Don't get me wrong I do respect what it's doing and there's a good time to be had with the series. But it's the sort of series where a little bit goes a long way for me. And heck maybe going forward that little bit will be the movies since this was a pretty serviceable one. I don't have a whole lot to say about the main plot of the movie itself but a nice touch was that the intro scene was like tuning into the last few minutes of a random episode, with Conan in the process of solving a murder. Good way to show viewers what they're in for.

Bremen 4: Angels in Hell - Tezuka did a lot of tv movies and this was another one of them. I've watched a fair amount of them at this point and if it wasn't for the Tezuka connection only Marine Express would be worth it. There's not a lot to say about this one, it swings between being childish and violent in a way that never quite meshed well for me. But heck at least it wasn't forgetable; in most of the Tezuka tv movies the best parts have been seeing how he used his existing characters in new contexts and in this case I'm always gonna remember this as the movie where Black Jack shows up at the end and melts the villain's face off. Yeah!

Ghost Sweeper Mikami: The Movie - This movie is from a peculiar era, in which practically any anime that ran on tv could get its shot at its own movie. Ghost Sweeper Mikami got good ratings when it was new but has been mostly forgotten today. And hell, why wouldn't it. As a comedic action series the action was nothing special compared to its contemporaries and its comedy frequently makes use of that particular 90s kind of loud overreaction to everything that usually doesn't age well! It's a perfectly adequate show, the sort where watching a few episodes is interesting enough to get a glimpse of the anime landscape in 1993 but unless you're on a mission to watch everything with yokai in it you're probably not watching the whole thing. I'm mostly talking about the series here because the movie is such a generic by the numbers kind of franchise movie there's really nothing novel to say about it. I'm trying and the only unique point I can bring up is that they had Goro Naya, the old voice of Zenigata, voice the villain (Vampire Oda Nobunaga, which isn't as exciting as it sounds) is just a terrible fit and I'm sad of it. He uses his Zenigata voice on a typical shounen movie villain and that sure took me out of it!

Tales of a Street Corner - Old Tezuka stuff is cool as hell and since Dororo has a new adaption out, it's the best time to be watching his old works. Tezuka loved to experiment with a lot of his classic stuff and here he made a short film that's entirely without dialogue. It's exactly the sort of animation that I could see being made today since the concepts being used are timeless. But unlike this film it'd be 5 minutes long instead of 40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2vDgtsaWOw and since it doesn't need to be subbed to be enjoyed I can just link this here in the hopes that at least one person clicks it!

Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space - I knew that New Year's Eve was gonna be hell for me. I also knew that I wanted to finish reading The Crying of Lot 49 before watching this, as the creators of Tamala 2010 specifically cited it as a huge influence on the movie (And I'm glad I did because it made me appreciate a character going insane over repeated iconography that much more). So I wound up finishing both on the day before NYE and that sure took its toll on me! Tamala is a strange movie from top to bottom, from its mixing of old and new aesthetics, to its narrative, to its heroine that swears a lot but has a heavily sedated, monotone voice. I'm not sure if it entirely succeeds at its anti-merchandising message (best as I can figure it tries to be a rebuttal to Hello Kitty specifically?) but of all the movies I watched this year it's the one that's gonna stick with me the most. Definitely a movie I'll rewatch some day.


Final list:

1. Short Peace
2. Book Girl
3. One-Million Year Trip: Bander Book
4. Crayon Shin-chan Movie 01: Action Kamen vs. Haigure Maou
5. Princess Arete
6. Dragonball Resurrection F
7. Napping Princess
8-16. Garden of Sinners movies (I guess I'm counting the 2 OVAs at the end as one movie??)
17. Arion
18. Dagger of Kamui
19. Lupin: Dragon of Doom
20. Major movie
21. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
22-24. Touch trilogy
25. Mary and the Witch's Flower
26-27. Touch sequels
28. Lupin: Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure
29-34. Urusei Yatsura movies
35. Venus Wars
36. Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Take on Me
37. Steamboy
38. Maquia
39. Dr Slump Movie 2
40. Fireworks
41. Liz and the Blue Bird
42-44. Nine trilogy
45. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
46. Hells
47. Kindaichi Movie 1
48. Detective Conan Movie 1
49. Bremen 4: Angels in Hell
50. Ghost Sweeper Mikami: The Movie
51. Tales of a Street Corner
52. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space


With the new year's resolution thread being active I'm not sure if I'll make a 2019 thread since folks can always piggyback on that, but I'm also fine with making a new thread if there's enough demand for it.

dogsicle
Oct 23, 2012

what's up 2018 thread i'm coming in hot with the first movie of 2019, Modest Heroes

i'll preface this by saying 1) you should absolutely see this in a theatre and 2) your only other chance to do so for the foreseeable future is this Saturday, January 12. unfortunately those showings are dub only but the movie is overall light on dialogue so it's probably not a huge difference either way.

anyway this is the second film from Studio Ponoc and after the conclusion of Mary and the Witch's Flower they dialed back the workload and released a three-segment anthology film, uniting the shorts under a theme of "life" in all it's various uses.

the first segment, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Arrietty, When Marnie Was There), is Kanini and Kanino. the titular characters are anthropomorphic crab things who are in turn separated from their mother and father, and have to journey out to reunite their family. this short had no meaningful dialogue, short of the characters calling each other by name or familial title in crab language. this concept of a low dialogue story was very interesting to me and i feel it was executed well, in addition to some stellar cg work in both water and a scary-rear end fish. the backgrounds were also excellent, as expected of Ghibli alums working in a nature setting. unfortunately the short suffers from a rather uninteresting and shallow story, neatly resolving the mother's rather mysterious disappearance at the end.

the second short, Life Ain't Gonna Lose, is directed by Yoshiyuki Momose, a frequent collaborator with Takahata. you can see a bit of their relationship in the style chosen for this short, which is similar to Takahata's work on My Neighbors The Yamadas. visual influence can also be felt from In This Corner of The World, which shares some staff with this short. anyhow, it follows a young boy named Shun and his mother as they struggle with daily life due to Shun's intense egg allergy. as much as i had low expectations for Yonebayashi's short, knowing literally nothing about this one going in i was blown away by how invested i became to what outwardly seemed like it might be a sappy family story. the presentation of Shun's allergy is incredibly frightening, and honestly made me consider what the gently caress i had thought allergies were. obviously they can vary in intensity and Shun's are particularly bad, but for someone who didn't have any or grow up around people with them it wasn't something i had ever considered to the depth that this short explores, all in a way that is matter of fact and not preachy. beyond the educational/empathetic aspects to the story, the son and mother pair are a delight to watch interact, and the short is bursting with lively character acting to really emphasize their range of emotions.

the final short, Invisible, is honestly the entire reason i dropped money on a ticket for this. directed by Akihiko Yamashita, one of the top animators at Ghibli, it's about an invisible man... though in this case he also is nearly weightless and it's all a metaphor for depression. apparently the concept of the short was posed to Yamashita by the producer (Yoshiaki Nishimura) as a sort of sadistic challenge, to make the best animator from Ghibli animate something that was impossible to animate, an invisible man. it's safe to say that Yamashita and his team rose to and eclipsed this challenge, with every second of Invisible making me more and more giddy at the creativity and talent on display. there's a rich texture and sense of weight (or weightlessness, when needed) to everything in this world, with drab and smeared backgrounds reflecting the protagonist's dismal mental state. the story follows a simple arc as the invisible man has a progressively worse day before nearly dying and then receiving a little push from an old man in the right direction, out of his funk. the simplicity and slight ambiguity to the plot left a bit to be desired but ultimately this is a mood piece carried by wildly creative animation and i'm so glad it both exists and i was able to see it like this.

a couple quick other notes. each short of course has different music befitting their disparate tones and styles, but it's all very good and the credits theme is catchy. there was also a post-movie interview with the producer detailing pretty much everything from the film's conception to completion to a mission statement for Studio Ponoc going forward. despite my issues with Yonebayashi and what seemed to be his status as the face of the studio (given their first project was his), i have a renewed appreciation and interest in Ponoc and look forward to their future anthologies if nothing else. they did end up putting Volume 1 in the title of this one, after all. it was also both sweet and sad to hear the original concept for the film was four shorts, one being directed by Takahata. aside from mentions made about him in the interview, he's also given a shout out in the credits.

Phantasium
Dec 27, 2012

I would love to see it in theaters but it seems like my local theaters have pretty much abandoned fathom events and don't show even one tenth of the stuff that's scheduled.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Can't believe I haven't seen the second Lum movie in all my years of watching anime. Gonna check it out.

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Srice posted:

Dagger of Kamui - It's a movie that's over 2 hours long so of course, it's directed by Rintaro. Finishing any of his movies feels like a real accomplishment. They tend to be long as hell and even when it's obsensibly an action movie the pacing isn't all that quick. I don't mean that as a mark against him! Just that one could get blindsided by his pacing. What I'm gonna remember most about Dagger of Kamui is the way the music was integrated into the action scenes. Wikipedia describes the soundtrack as "combining rock music instrumentation with Balinese kecak vocals" and I've never heard anything quite like it in anime, it's worth checking out just for that. And if that's not enough to make it unique there sure aren't a lot of anime featuring Ainu protagonists. Is this the superior Kamui anime? I don't know enough to answer that question but I can tell you that there's no CG bears in this movie, friend.

Dagger of Kamui has some of the most original, resonant and striking imagery I've ever seen in a film but I will never be able to watch it again because it's just too drat long. Also what's up with that part where they go to the American Wild West for a half hour? Wild stuff, but the duel against the gunslingers was breathtaking

Srice
Sep 11, 2011

GorfZaplen posted:

Dagger of Kamui has some of the most original, resonant and striking imagery I've ever seen in a film but I will never be able to watch it again because it's just too drat long. Also what's up with that part where they go to the American Wild West for a half hour? Wild stuff, but the duel against the gunslingers was breathtaking

I don't know why they took that detour but I'm glad of it. Not just for that duel but also the fact that they chill with Mark Twain (complete with using his real name, kudos to that) to learn where to go next is just a straight up fascinating choice to me and definitely made it better than if it was just some random dude dropping exposition instead.

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Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

made a sequel thread
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879962
please enjoy!

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