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Triggerhappypilot posted:in an effort to broaden my horizons I'm going to 
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Jan 3, 2023 07:26
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myself to watch the next 6 series/movies people recommend to me and post a rambling review of them here in this thread. I realize I'm probably gonna get some dumb poo poo or stuff ive already seen but I will faithfully rewatch and review all the same if so toxxed.
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 15:01 |
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Hard to put my finger on any one factor, but last year had me running into 70's anime as a topic often enough that I started to feel my inexperience with the decade. Some research into how I could address this did reveal likely reasons why: shows often having bloated episode counts, lack of available subtitles, and a small stable of staff and commercially-viable genres to draw from. Despite this, I think I've got a decent and reasonably varied starting point to work from for an anime resolution this year. So in 2023 I will, at the very least, complete the following series:
Assuming I complete those 6, the next set of titles to further fill in gaps would be:
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Jan 15, 2023 11:26
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Yep, I've got the slightest bit of 70's TV anime under my belt through First Gundam, Lupin III Part I, and Voltes V. Voltes V was a new addition last year which I ended up loving, but for this year I felt like giving the Robot Romance shows a resting period (plus Combattler is long and Daimos is very late 70s). Chargeman Ken at 65 episodes of infamously (so) bad (it's good) anime is probably too steep a cost for this, but I should chip at it someday. Other Tomino mecha from the era are definitely on mind, Zambot 3 at a breezy 23 episodes and Daitarn 3 a reasonable 40, but I suppose being more familiar with his work I deprioritized them as well. haypliss fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Jan 15, 2023 |
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Jan 15, 2023 11:45
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sb hermit posted:Galaxy Express 999? It and Lupin III Part 2 were ones I figured could be under an "x amount of total episodes" clause, I'd like to have some sort of comparison point for the GE999 movies. chiasaur11 posted:65 episodes, but they're about five minutes each. It's a much quicker watch than most. I must've glazed over and just read it as 25 or 26 minutes. A ~13 episode equivalent ain't so bad.
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Jan 16, 2023 02:30
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haypliss posted:So in 2023 I will, at the very least, complete the following series: Ultimately I think such a single-minded focus on one decade like this didn't help, despite the vast differences anime can offer in style before you even start considering the technique and technology gaps apparent on the opposing ends of this list. What I'll take forward is the same desire to explore this stuff, but let it diffuse and just be looser about how I actually go about watching a "backlog" or "project". I'll also say, having stuff like the clips and screenshots I can link below is nice, but the "documentation" aspect of watching these shows had me feeling chained to the PC when watching things, so obviously something needs to give there. General summation on the shows is, they were all good. The ones that have reputations still living after ~50 years were, of course, actually great! Some rambling, in the order I ended up watching them: Treasure Island - What still stands out to me most is the soundtrack, mostly made up of anachronistic electric guitars and funk vibes that nevertheless work with the energy of this pirate adventure. Visually it didn't overwhelm with the Dezaki-isms his reputation might have you expecting, especially with a later comparison point like RoV. Great variety in character design and the beautiful background art you expect when Shichiro Kobayashi is in the mix. Jim really has the whole package in this, I think the VA from Mari Shimizu is great and the animation perfectly straddles this ability to make him blobby and expressive or lanky and sharp in his motions. Silver gets similar praise, a great performance from Genzo Wakayama for a character that is believably kind and charismatic while also a brutal pirate. Other brief character highlights...Junpei Takaguchi's Trelawney is delightful to listen to at all but especially an enjoyable comedic contrast amongst the more serious characters, and the emotional stakes of the fort siege are perfectly done (especially with Redruth). Final shoutout to Abraham Gray. His defection from the mutiny seemed as likely to be a ruse as genuine, but it turns out he just is a totally honorable, handsome, knife-throwing badass. Loved seeing him through the whole series, and entertained by this adaptation apparently changing his little series epilogue note to fighting for Ireland in the 1798 rebellion. Anne of Green Gables - Yeah this one is just a perfect show. Like, to see this I can obviously realize why the book has been endlessly popular through the charm of Anne herself as well as characters from the Cuthberts all the way to Josie Pye's rude rear end. Same as Treasure Island I lack the context of source material or even other adaptations to really judge that kind of execution here, but I love it all. A slowly expanding 50 episodes in the life of this girl and her community, with beautifully-rendered nature and just as much care given to depicting daily life as her flights of fancy with princesses and flower fairies. 50 episodes that they took as a luxury to have Anne slowly but subtly grow from some sort of bean-headed gremlin to a young woman. Minnie May is in this barely doing anything but the raw power of her character design seems to compel any view to post pictures of her being a little blob. Final Shoutouts: I have to link the beach scene from ep35 where the animation is just amazing and there's this moment where you can so strongly feel the fact of this show being right on the cusp of the 80s, and I also have to link the excellent piece that compelled me to include this on the list at all as well as giving great historical context to so much of it. (Just rewatched the beach clip before uploading and started crying lmao, also remembering how much I cried with/for Marilla watching this show man.) Like I mentioned above about these shows having 50 year reputations but I honestly don't feel like Anne really has the big & wide reputation on the Western side of things THAT IT SHOULD and it's truly a shame. Rose of Versailles - Some egg on my face here, as I'm pretty sure when making this list I was overlooking that Dezaki only does half of it...though this also seems like a common thing in the anime space. As I found myself thoroughly enjoying the Nagahama-directed first half, that's definitely something that started (and continues) to annoy me, I do wish there was more credit given there. It has all the fun court drama stuff to set up the nobility's fall and is the part of the series that most often plays with abstract visuals or breaking the expected format. The best of this I ended up associating with a specific episode director, Yasuo Yamayoshi (will def be checking out his other credits), as his episodes have all sorts of great stuff like approximating comic paneling, whip wounds cutting a cel to pieces, a mob of gossipers morphing into black sludge that consumes & inverts the colors of Versailles, overlaying lineart/silhouettes on the animation etc. Just always turning out striking visuals. Of course the Dezaki takeover is immediately apparent and just as strong visually, but the show begins to feel much more tangible. Like episode 19's recurring motif of a frog fountain, which gains an oppressive, malevolent aura yet remains a normal, physical object in the world. With the build to the revolution arc focusing more firmly on the material conditions of the common people and their perception of the nobility, it feels sensible that even your symbols are just part of the world vs the court arc being so arch and unreal. I did find my enthusiasm waning at times during the back half, it's definitely got more dour material and they mine a lot of frustration from Oscar feeling stuck as a middleman in all things (her gender, politics, love triangle etc) while Andre's slow decline before exiting the series is hammered on more than I'd like. Being able to look back on it in totality I can feel a bit better about the show though. Final Shoutout: The one-legged accordion player who emerges as a Greek chorus in the show's second half. Just such a great little character who they even build out with some family drama later. Wandering Sun - Aside from the ways this balanced the list, the premise of an antagonist hanging around and observing/poo poo-stirring a swapped-at-birth scenario they had engineered was the big hook for me. Turns out that mainly bookends the show with drama I could take or leave and the series' compelling edge comes in once focused on the two girls navigating the music industry. The basic structure with the girls' rivalry and Egawa's role as mentor remind me (positively) of Glass Mask, though there's a bit more melodrama here and Miki is mostly a one-dimensional, awful person unlike Glass Mask's Himekawa. This does allow for interesting contrast in their careers as Miki just buys her way to increasingly stressful and tenuous success while Nozomi wanders Japan trying to find herself and connect with the people, shying away from fame for a range of reasons. My favorite of these being her crisis of faith in becoming a musician at all after seeing Miki's career, fearing the industry could do something like that to even her. On that note, this is one of those music shows that falls into the problem of lacking song variety, in a way that goes beyond just the annoyance of repetition. The crux of this is Nozomi's signature song, which she composes for a school project and then proceeds to reuse in her travels before it catapults her to fame...which feels at odds with a journey of self-discovery, where she's gaining perspective and experience that should be put into a new song. Aside from that (Miki only has one single as well), I enjoyed Nozomi's song performances and the series also has great theme tunes. As the oldest show on this list you can definitely feel it in stiffness and limited animation but there's still some cool psychedelic sequences and I think Nozomi is such a standout, charming character design. Final Shoutout: Egawa's soulful, single-eyed gaze. Neo Human Casshan - There's a nice surprise to the bits of serialization in this, though it remains an episodic show and the shifts between those modes can be a bit jarring, especially related to the ambiguous passage of time or Casshan knowing Braiking Boss' location but aimlessly wandering through sites of hits diferent plots. Leaving those aside, it's very good at creating variety from similar cloth; intolerance between humans and robots is recurring but you'll get to see it from both sides as well as robots/humans who detest or betray "their own", and whatever events have motivated them. The show's world-traveling nature also allows for episodes focusing on aspects of a local culture like pacifism, religious tradition, or the value placed on art. Braiking Boss even contributes, with the cutaways to his villain base often including visual gags or comedic sidebars as he reacts to aspects of human culture (eating books, trying on new clothes, pampering a pet). There's no particular weight given to the series finale though, which was disappointing and I suppose an unfortunate consequence of the series' cancellation. I really love the detailed designs in this, it gives such a visceral feeling to the show, especially in conjunction with the surprising level of violence they're able to depict as robots are dismembered by hand and humans writhe in pain as lasers incinerate them, or bombs leave their charred corpses strewn about a city. Broadcast standards in the 70s were wild. Final Shoutout: The concert episode in this that was reused in Casshan Sins. I wasn't sure how much the series would relate given their divergent productions, but it's nice to confirm Sins had such a close homage. Also you can enjoy this clip. Space Pirate Captain Harlock - The second pirate show here, it handily joins TI in having music that really sticks with you...mostly for good! There's a handful of nice space shanties and other inserts but the bulk of this is great orchestral pieces that accent the drama of space adventure, both its bold and triumphant side as well as eerieness and danger. My feelings on the rest are still complicated, this being the show I only finished a couple days ago, but it has a sort of slapdash nature that doesn't help. The setting seems to shift randomly with details like the Mazone being introduced as a female race but later male civilians are shown, and similarly the first Tokargans to appear have absolutely wild designs that are abruptly replaced by normal humanoids in the span of an episode. This marries with other aspects of the show like fairly thin (figuratively) characters, e.g. Maji not existing until his focus episodes or Kei fading into the background after hers, to give a more negative impression of the writing. Mayu is a popular point of complaint with this series too, with her constant peril to motivate Harlock as well as her dreadfully overplayed ocarina theme. I agree her plotlines tend to grate but feel her role is necessary, and they do turn out a great gag as she tries to teach the crew her song and they later break the emotional tension in a farewell scene with their horribly off-tune version. Thankfully the larger Mazone storyline generally avoids much issue. They initially come off as "evil woman of the week" antagonists, but the show creates enough variety through their different appearances or abilties/tactics, and just as their villainy verges on one-note you get a dive into the internal politics of their earth invasion. This lends them nuance and tragedy, especially as they vainly throw themselves up against Harlock's stonefaced determination and adherence to his moral code. He's just a perfect fucker of a character, where his inevitable success is often as satisfying as frustrating, punctuated by a final smug smirk or remark to the Mazone he defeated. Despite the proximity in time to RoV, Anne etc, it's a much more limited looking show. There's a lot of great ship consoles and I like the takes on Matsumoto designs here in addition to some stellar, stylized sequences. The on-foot combat is solid outside of the disappointing final duel between Harlock and Lafresia, but the space laser battles are much less interesting and the fighter planes look like toys (derogatory). Final Shoutouts: Miime is the best crewmate, the giant knife blade in the Arcadia's bow is a much needed spice for the space combat, and I love the sound design choice to use creaking wood sfx in a metal spaceship (granted the Arcadia's stern is just a wooden ship cabin, which also owns). Would emphatically recommend Anne, strongly rec Rose of Versailles/Harlock/Treasure Island, and hinge recommending Casshan/Wandering Sun mainly on one's ability to handle their age and visual limitations.
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Jan 1, 2024 01:00
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