anime

[BadHat]

Honestly the dominant pattern here seems to be that people like the first Miyazaki film they see and the second or third ones get kind of old, and that makes sense to me in terms of the target audience, the amount of time in between films, and their roles as eye candy and visual expression first and foremost.

The thing I enjoyed about Howl's Moving Castle is the small scale fantasy that seems to be present in folklore and goofy TV shows, ie a young woman turning into an old lady or a house that has a seamless transporting door. The rest of the movie is kinda weird and overreaching to me.

 

Counterpoint: I saw Porco Rosso after Howl's and Ponyo and loved the shit out of it. But then it's impossible to not love Porco Rosso.

 

I agree on Howl's. Part of why it frustrated me so much was because elements of it, namely the small-scale fantasy stuff you mention but also the animation and characters (an elderly woman protagonist, neat!), were wonderfully imaginative. But they jibe so poorly with the larger scale pieces that the whole thing topples under the weight of its own ambition by the end.

 

My favorite of his is Kiki's Delivery Service. Howl's Moving Castle was ruined for me by the ending. I can't recall how it actually ended, but iirc it made it seem like there wasn't much conflict before at all, like it only seemed that way.

The story is never complex or very inventive in a Miyazaki film, but what happens from moment to moment, in the background and foreground and at the fringes of a scene, is.

 

This was one of my main gripes. A main plot point is that there's a war happening, like... somewhere, for some reason. There's a sequence where Howl goes all birdman and fights in the war and it seems like they're propping it up as a big character moment, but then it's just kind of pushed aside for other stuff? Then you have the (sort of) villain (because Miyazaki movies never really have villains), who is ostensibly responsible for carrying out the war because she's Howl's jilted lover or something? Then

 

Howl and Sophie hook up and you get that moment at the end where the villain sees this through her crystal ball and says some throwaway line like "isn't that sweet, well let's end this silly war."

 

OH.

 

OKAY.

 

WAR OVER I GUESS.

 

Like what? Seriously, what?

[Twig]

So much hate for the best Miyazaki movie, dang.

[BobbyBesar]

Complaining that Miyazaki movies all feel very same-y is such a strange criticism to me. Their same-ness is part of the appeal.

 

I admit that I haven't had a chance to see The Wind Rises yet. But it's fairly clear that a large portion of Miyazaki's work is built around his alternate history where WWII never happened. So, The Wind Rises is interesting (particularly assuming it's  his last film) because he's finally directly addressing the matter instead of dancing around it, and the film seems to be making a kind of peace with the idea. It's a perfect narrative arc, something that one would assume is at least partially deliberate.

[BadHat]

So much hate for the best Miyazaki movie, dang.

 

Yeah, well your opinion is an idiot.

[Blambo]

:I

 

The war in Howl is so unnecessary to the plotline that I found the most interesting, which was Sophie coping with her insecurities (something that's really barely touched upon) and Howl's state of maturity. Pacifism and moral ambiguity could be great themes to put into a story but in this it just seems perfunctory and inhibiting. 

 

Complaining that Miyazaki movies all feel very same-y is such a strange criticism to me. Their same-ness is part of the appeal.

 

I admit that I haven't had a chance to see The Wind Rises yet. But it's fairly clear that a large portion of Miyazaki's work is built around his alternate history where WWII never happened. So, The Wind Rises is interesting (particularly assuming it's  his last film) because he's finally directly addressing the matter instead of dancing around it, and the film seems to be making a kind of peace with the idea. It's a perfect narrative arc, something that one would assume is at least partially deliberate.

 

Yeah I guess so. Maybe I'm expecting stuff I shouldn't expect.

[Twig]

You wound me, BadHat! )':

[BadHat]

The war in Howl is so unnecessary to the plotline that I found the most interesting, which was Sophie coping with her insecurities (something that's really barely touched upon) and Howl's state of maturity. Pacifism and moral ambiguity could be great themes to put into a story but in this it just seems perfunctory and inhibiting. 

 

Oh yeah I forgot the best part. She starts as a girl with poor self-image, gains confidence as an elderly woman, and then goes back to looking plain but learns to accept it. Oh, except for the part where she gets sweet shiny white hair and it gets perfectly singed into an attractive style, and then Howl tells her her hair looks like "starfire" or whatever and they kiss a bunch.

 

So, moral of the story, if you don't like what you look like, uh... get a haircut?

[Twig]

Haha why do all these new potential karuta club members only join after a bout of screaming and deeply personal revelations that you would normally not tell someone who's harassing you to join your club?

 

That dude just threw a desk! Chill out Taichi!

[Blambo]

Has anyone seen "Madoka Magica"? It looks like any exploitative magic girl anime but I keep hearing that it's deconstructive and kind of smart. I haven't seen it but ads kept popping up for it when I watched arakawa under the bridge.

[Smart Jason]

Has anyone seen "Madoka Magica"? It looks like any exploitative magic girl anime but I keep hearing that it's deconstructive and kind of smart. I haven't seen it but ads kept popping up for it when I watched arakawa under the bridge.

 

I'm sure anime thread regulars can offer more profound opinions than this, but as far as I know Madoka Magica is pretty essential viewing when it comes to the past five years in anime. (I'd be shocked if it hasn't been previously discussed here, as a matter of fact.)

 

If you are totally unspoiled to the show, I don't want to say too much more because I can see a lot of the satisfaction of watching it coming from discovering the ways in which it diverges from traditional magical girl stories. The first few episodes may be a struggle for that reason, in fact, as you wait for it to subvert expectations - but I'm not at all literate in this genre and by the end I still found the story extremely satisfying.

 

I will say that to call the art breathtaking is an understatement, and that the - however you'd refer to them - "action" sequences in the show are a creative joy to see in motion.

 

As to how qualified I am to speak to how exploitative it is, I don't know. I couldn't last one episode of Kill la Kill because I thought it was too gross. I can't remember any particular parts of Madoka being problematic.

 

The movie is bizarre, though. Not in a good way. Just my opinion. Feel free to stop with the show.

[Gormongous]

Has anyone seen "Madoka Magica"? It looks like any exploitative magic girl anime but I keep hearing that it's deconstructive and kind of smart. I haven't seen it but ads kept popping up for it when I watched arakawa under the bridge.

 

I'm not crazy about it, certainly not to the point of thinking it's a deconstruction of the "magical girl" subgenre with anything to say that hasn't been said by Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Princess Tutu years or even decades before, but I do think it has a number of interesting ideas, as well as a dark tone that some people (not 2014 me, but maybe 2009 me) see as central to a "proper" deconstruction. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone without much knowledge of the subgenre. The psychology of its characters isn't on the same level of, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion where it can be watched without any awareness whatsoever.

 

I also love the art that's not the hideous moeblob character design, especially in the movie, but you can also get a lot of that in the later seasons of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, which I'd recommend before everything always.

 

 

P.S. I'm finding it charming that you're always asking us if this or that anime is exploitative. Most of the good stuff isn't, by most standards, and you'll hear even among fans if it is. It's like asking people whether every American sitcom is sexist like The Honeymooners and King of Queens.

[Blambo]

Ah excellent. I feel like it's something I'll watch after making the anime rounds.

And yeah I guess I don't have enough of a taste of what anime is as a thing to distinguish what looks good and what doesn't (though I guess even with live action sitcoms I can't tell either). I'm coming off of rejecting it for years because of my idea that it's all forcefully marketed borderline cartoon pornography with soap opera plots, and its association with a specific kind of person who only eats anime and nothing else.

As for constantly asking...well there's the incredible potential embarrassment of exclaiming "HEY I like this thing," when it's considered the plague, especially with the worst of the worst anime. Some of it is personal taste (the popular style of drawing males as pointy, thin eyed ghoul dudes and girls as big headed eye monsters actually makes me retch a little. I'm also kind of sick of the character tropes and dynamics popular in anime I've watched, which often boil down to bad manzai routines) and I'd say it's about "cultivating a quality understanding" but ultimately it leads back to the anime stigma. And when I look up stuff that fits my really specific tastes I end up watching cancelled shows or ghibli films over again. I gotta get over it somehow I guess, and that might be by watching hours and hours of potato chip media.

So maybe I do have to get a taste of what's considered bread and butter to get what's considered high quality.

Also sorry if asking that a lot is irritating. It probably sucks to have someone constantly invoke stereotypes about a thing you enjoy.

[Gormongous]

Also sorry if asking that a lot is irritating. It probably sucks to have someone constantly invoke stereotypes about a thing you enjoy.

 

I don't mind, personally. I treat my anime advocacy like my video game advocacy. There's at least one anime and video game for any given person (but probably a lot more), it's just about finding the right kind and learning what to look for thereby. Since I've been recommending both types of media to people for about a decade, I'm as inured to "isn't that all perverted cartoons for pedophiles" as to "doesn't playing those things make you shoot up schools."

 

The biggest question for me is, since you've clearly taken to the "slice-of-life but a little weird" subgenre, whether you'll go for full mundane like Minami-ke or for complete left-field weirdness like Girls und Panzer and Upotte!! at the end of the day.

[Twig]

The psychology of its characters isn't on the same level of, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion where it can be watched without any awareness whatsoever.

I don't think Madoka is really that great (though I enjoyed it), but let's get one thing straight: it's way better than evangelipoops.

[Gormongous]

I don't think Madoka is really that great (though I enjoyed it), but let's get one thing straight: it's way better than evangelipoops.

 

I know you don't like Evangelion, Twig, but I like it a lot, and moreover I think it's a good example of a show that doesn't require insider knowledge of its subgenre to enjoy, not that I haven't been tempted to watch Gundam, Macross, and Mazinger Z to understand it better.

[Twig]

I actually don't know if I agree with that. Some of the stuff that initially put me off, I later learned was native to that subgenre. Though, to be fair, Evangelion may have been the originator of some of those tropes. And also, to be fair, I don't like those tropes in other entries of that subgenre. In fact, I don't really like that subgenre, with a few exceptions. The whole giant robot thing doesn't really do it for me. (Exceptions: Eureka 7 (not AO, though...) and Gargantia, pretty much - both very kinetic, colorful, and... fun. Oh, and Big O. Sort of.) I suspect I might be more tolerant of Evangelion were I to watch it again today simple because I'd be aware of a lot of those things - it might put it in a new perspective - but we all know that's not going to happen! Anyway, sorry, I obviously don't care if other people like or dislike Evangelion, but I am a child and I like to harp on it because I am a child.

[Blambo]

The biggest question for me is, since you've clearly taken to the "slice-of-life but a little weird" subgenre, whether you'll go for full mundane like Minami-ke or for complete left-field weirdness like Girls und Panzer and Upotte!! at the end of the day.

Hmm...I feel like the thing I liked about nichijou was that it was all about short, standalone visual/verbal gags without too much fluff (like whole segments of jokeless/pointless conversation or animation focused on moe). The slice of life elements felt kind of incidental to my enjoyment, like they're the comedic foil backdrop for the wacky crap that goes on. I dunno, recommendations along those lines feels like having someone who liked Armstrong and Miller watch Sherlock just cause there's British people in it.

That said I don't want to seem ungrateful, haha. Y'all know more about this than me.

[Gormongous]

Hmm...I feel like the thing I liked about nichijou was that it was all about short, standalone visual/verbal gags without too much fluff (like whole segments of jokeless/pointless conversation or animation focused on moe). The slice of life elements felt kind of incidental to my enjoyment, like they're the comedic foil backdrop for the wacky crap that goes on. I dunno, recommendations along those lines feels like having someone who liked Armstrong and Miller watch Sherlock just cause there's British people in it.

That said I don't want to seem ungrateful, haha. Y'all know more about this than me.

 

I'm mostly just teasing. Still, I tend to like comedy anime even though I don't like many live-action comedies. And Yet the Town Moves, Oh! Edo Rocket, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, The Wallflower, and Ouran High School Host Club are all good candidates for humorous everyday vignettes tied to a loose overall story, although I'm sure there's serious stuff out there for you, too.

 

Also, Tegan will probably drop in sooner or later to sell Ouran to you. She certainly did to me.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Also, Tegan will probably drop in sooner or later to sell Ouran to you. She certainly did to me.

 

Ouran is ace. Although it does suffer of being unresolved, as so many manga adaptations do.

 

If someone hasn't sold you on Daily lives of highschool boys Blambo, you'd love that, as it's very similar to nichijou. And is also funnier (in my opinion). It's very gag heavy and mainly revolves around 3 friends chatting and doing things.

 

Some hilarious clips:

 

 

 

It's pretty ace. Also plastic nee-san is brilliant, and is complete at half an hour long (you can watch it all here):

 

 

As far as ecchi shows that are actually good and have something interesting in them, The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat is ace, although it has the wost name ever, it's ecchi content is actually pretty low. The story in a nutshell is that there's a legend that states if you pray to a stone cat on a tree on a hill in this village, and provide it with a sacrifice, it'll grant any wish true. A guy does this and wishes to have no inhibition, so he then has basically tourettes and can't stop saying whatever he's thinking, and then he tries to get his inhibition back. It sounds kinda lame, but I found it was really good, and touching in places. Not that you were particularly asking for ecchi stuff, but it came to mind when reading the logs. sorry for rambling!

[Twig]

So, is there such thing as a good anime podcast? There are lots of options. All of the ones I've tried so far are no good. I don't even know if I actually want one, but if there's a good one out there I'd give it a shot. Not sure what it'd even be like. A week-by-week "this is the latest episode of X" doesn't sound all that appealing, I think?

[Gormongous]

So, is there such thing as a good anime podcast? There are lots of options. All of the ones I've tried so far are no good. I don't even know if I actually want one, but if there's a good one out there I'd give it a shot. Not sure what it'd even be like. A week-by-week "this is the latest episode of X" doesn't sound all that appealing, I think?

 

I actually got suckered into listening to AnimeNewsNetwork's podcast because it finally sounded like a format that'd work, basically reevaluating a random decade-old series every week, but it was a complete strike-out. Two of ANN's "journalists" and an animator friend did The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and just ended up bitching about how it's not as smart as it thinks it is and how moe's taken over everything. I'm getting to the point where I don't think there's a register of critical discourse in anglophone conversations about anime that exists sufficiently to be captured on a weekly or even monthly podcast. It's like how all fansub groups end up either hating anime or broken up over drama, maybe.

[Twig]

Haha dang. I was thinking something like that, covering an older series or movie in depth, etc. That's a shame. Another option would be a sort of sped-up version of our own Twin Peaks rewatch 'cast, just going over an older series a few episodes at a time. Hohum. That's a shame.

[Gormongous]

Haha dang. I was thinking something like that, covering an older series or movie in depth, etc. That's a shame. Another option would be a sort of sped-up version of our own Twin Peaks rewatch 'cast, just going over an older series a few episodes at a time. Hohum. That's a shame.

 

Yeah, it's been sobering to watch the recent growing pains in video game journalism, because I think anime's got a similar problem that it might never grow out of now that the anime bubble's burst and Cool Japan is mostly dead. Almost all professional journalism on anime is press releases and industry reporting. Most criticism happens on blogs and fansub circles, which are still very steeped in 4chan culture and therefore tend to be about assessing the "objective" quality of the shows versus commenting on their influences and themes. Some blogs write a little on the latter two, and there's an academic culture of media criticism for anime forever in its infancy, but they're all so isolated from each other and their audience that I can't imagine a Polygon of anime (or even an Idle Thumbs of anime) ever being a thing. It bums me out.

 

I have an anime blog I keep updated but never advertise, and I've thought of starting a podcast several times with some friends, but do I have anything to say about anime besides broad assessments of quality and myopic nitpicks? Maybe, I don't know.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I started an anime podcast, with some of my friends at uni, based on the society showings that occurred every week. Needless to say it was crap. We talked about the anime for like 15 minuets and then went on to play stupid games. It was fun, but I don't think it was necessarily an entertaining listen for anyone else. I agree with gormonguos. The anime discussions in stuff like genshiken and shiro bako is miles different than how we discussed it.

Edit: also I'd be interested to read your anime blog, gor.

[Twig]

maybe we should start a podcast ahurhurhur