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I wonder who's going to do Aku.

 

Greg Baldwin (who was Mako Iwamatsu's student) voiced Aku in the Samurai Jack video game. He also voiced Iroh in A:TLA season 3, after Mako passed away. It'll probably be him.

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Feeling a little weird about new Samurai Jack after the loss of Mako. I'm assuming they'll get Greg Baldwin to play Aku.

 

The world seems to have accepted Baldwin as Mako's understudy with pretty open arms (at least in the context of the Avatar franchise), so I do too. He does a damn good imitation, in any case. I've also got nothing against Phil Lamarr's performance as Jack. But it makes me a little uncomfortable thinking that the only two real recurring characters, one an Asian man and another with a distinctive Japanese accent, will be played by a pair of non-Asian actors.

 

To be clear, I am super white. These are white man thoughts.

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They finally put the season 2 episodes of Steven Universe on Hulu. I still have a few left to go but just wow. I did not expect this show to be quite this good.

 

I've also been making my way through Adventure Time and am mostly through season 3 now. It is also the best. Tree Trunks is one of the most brilliant characters I've ever seen and I love her to death.

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Apparently My Little Pony has eclisped Transformers as their most profitable licenced franchise thingie, which is so damn bizzare to me, and the upcoming not-high-school-human-ponies pony film in 2017 is going to have Emily Blunt in it.

That level of success was so damn unthinkable back in 2010.

I wish that the show was as free as something like Steven Universe, which I don't think anyone would argue isn't a better show, but executive meddling has undercut MLP multiple times. It seems like Rebecca Sugar must have some serious dirt on her bosses to be able to explicitly endorse non-herteronormative relationships on a show destined for international markets, while you have garbage like that Derpy Hooves controversy a few years ago, and stuff like the season three finale being rewritten by people not on the writing team of the show, and those damn Equestria Girls schlock.

There's so much potential in just the setting, a 1890s/1910s fantasy world without fucking dwarves and elves running around, and they squander the team on fucking high school movies.

Then again, its a media juggernaut according to shareholder meetings, so I guess what do I know.

Rick and Morty being called ugly is strange to me, because I find adventure time to be unsettling and squiggly, and Archer to be infuriatingly stiff and unnatural in motion, while R&M is a joy to watch, especially when they're on alien planets. There's a ton of great visuals happening around the fore and background in almost every episode.

SU and R&M are weirdly connected in my head, as they both examine fundamentally broken individuals and how they interact with their families, but on polar opposite ends of the cynical/idealistic spectrum. The Crystal Gems are fucked, Pearl and Amesthyst especially, and the whole Sanchez clan is absolutely dysfunctional.

Also, fuck those high school films.

Edit: Having realised while writing this that the Gravity Falls finale was out, I went and watched it. I won't lie, it made me tear up a bit. I think the Y7 rating prevented some punches from truly landing, but it was still a fantastic end to a great series.

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Rick and Morty is very well animated, but that doesn't mean it's not ugly. It definitely dives facefirst into grotesque in a very intentional way.

Actually, honestly, Adventure Time does something very similar a lot of the time.

I haven't seen Archer but everything I've seen looks a lot like Frisky Dingo, which was very cheaply skeletal-animated in a way that didn't look great but was sufficient for the show's needs.

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Archer looks great as a still image, and just listening to it I'm fine, but I can't stand to see it in motion. I feel like I can see the flash puppets or something.

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Unfortunately true of a lot of animated shows targeted at adults. As much as I love Bojack Horseman, it also falls into that trap a lot of the time. They've put more effort into it recently, but early Venture Bros also often had that problem.

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I think grotesque and ugly are not mutually inclusive. I admit to initially being incredibly turned off by Rick and Morty, but it's legitimately grown on me in a huge way. I think it looks good! I love it.

Well, that's how I see it anyway.

(Archer looks okay at best and is terribly animated, but it's saved by the writing.)

(I'd argue Bojack is way above Archer, but it's been a while since I saw the latter. I could very easily be working off poor memory. Also bias, because Bojack is my favorite goddamn thing!!!)

(Completely agreed on Venture Bros.)

(Parentheticals.)

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On this topic I saw a funny GIF recently:

 

Gapj0Xo.gif

 

nnnooooooooo!

 

In watching Rick and Morty, I really enjoyed that it was animated like a Disney Channel or Nickelodeon cartoon, and not like other "adult cartoons" that make me sad. It was surprising and fun whenever a character would flip out and do something cool.

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I think Bojack's animation is better than (what I've seen of) Archer, but still a far cry from the fluidity of rick and morty.

 

Oh yeah completely agreed!

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Steven Universe has started back up again.  I watched the two latest episodes last night.

 

I really like how the two episodes contrasted with each other.  Its interesting that the Crystal Gems' solution is to fuse and fight while Steven's solution is to use empathy and reason.

 

I'm hoping that Lapis doesn't actually join them but goes off and does her own thing while occasionally appearing to help out.  But I'm betting she does join them.

 

I was hoping that while Steven was inhabiting a watermelon person, the watermelon would walk around in his body.  Also I enjoyed the scene with the watermelon wife going off to fight and the husband staying behind.

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I rewatched all of Daria earlier this year but skipped the movies. I watched the first last night "Is it Fall Yet?" and man I miss Daria. I can't stop listening to the Posies now. Also the movie should definitely be watched in order with the episodes , but oh well it's probably my 4th time watching Daria including when I originally watched it on TV.

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I like the characterization in the new SU episodes, but where's the singing??? Also, has anyone noticed the animation got a lot more sterile, with harder lines, more consistent models, and less stylistic variation?

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I watched the new Netflix produced Voltron.  I know I'm not the target audience for the show but I still found it pretty underwhelming.  There are a good number of callbacks and references to the classic Voltron but I wouldn't say the show relies upon nostalgia as there are a lot of changes and updates, some good some bad.  I don't find the storytelling particularly compelling and for the most part the characters are pretty standard archetypes (ie the cocky playboy, the skilled stoic guy, the large goofy sensitive guy, etc).  I'll admit a number of scenes did make me laugh.  My favorite in particular is early on the leader gives an inspiring speech as they try to form Voltron as asks "Are you with me?".  The rest are shown nodding in split screen, then after a beat Hunk says out loud "I'm nodding, is anyone else nodding?".  The season ends in a cliffhanger but frankly I'm not particularly interested in seeing how it resolves.

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After many many rumors, it appears that Young Justice is coming back for a third season.  It got pretty convoluted at times, to the point that there's more than one episode that's almost entirely a plot dump just to straighten everything out, but man did I ever enjoy watching it.  I'm always skeptical about a show returning and not living up to my expectations but I've got some high hopes for this.

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young justice was pretty great, and i'm completely surprised it's coming back, although they have been trying basically ever since it got cancelled

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