Forum - View topicCX's Anime Reviews (can be spoiler-ific). Latest: Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dir
|
Goto page Previous Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Captain X
 Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
I had more tolerance for boring and suckitude back when I first started doing this. Plus there was the Motor Club. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe I could have rated it a little higher, but to be frank I don't feel strongly enough about it to do so after so much time has passed.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Armitage: Duel Matrix
(2002 movie) A direct sequel to the OVA or the compilation movie depending on how you look at it, it also features some celebrity voice talent, including none other than Jar-Jar Binks. And no, I'm not kidding. Just as with the first movie, the plot deals with androids and the people who made them. In this case the androids look like Armitage and the people who made them all end up being murdered as part of the same type of conspiracy that took place in the OVA. The difference is, this movie takes place on Earth, where Naomi and Ross, now her husband, have been hiding out with their daughter. Yeah, that's right, and android somehow had a kid, but then the reproductive capabilities of the new "type III" androids that Naomi is an example of is what caused the conspiracy and systematic killing of those androids in the OVA. The main difference from the OVA is that Naomi is actually mostly the main character of the movie. The conspiracy manages to separate Armitage from her husband, who ends up on Mars. The two of them both work to solve it, which results in plenty of action and drama, especially when two android assassins who look like Armitage are activated and sent after the family. Armitage then has to deal with her daughter seeing her as the same kind of monster as the assassins for a while, which I guess is technically true except for the whole laughing cruelly and trying to kill them part. Jar-Jar turns up to lend an unexpected hand after Armitage gets her ass handed to her a couple times, and while initially his motives are somewhat suspect, he ends up being a good guy of sorts and makes it possible for Armitage and her family to defeat the assassins and escape back to Mars. I'd say the movie is at least as watchable as the original OVA, and I'd give it the same grade of 7/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
(13 episode series) Ah yes, the show that has apparently been the cause of so much butthurt from certain parts of the anime fandom. And personally, I think I enjoy that fact as much as I enjoy the show itself, which is hilarious. The key thing to enjoying this show is having a really great sense of humor when it comes to anime. I, for example, love to make fun of anime as much as I love to watch it, because for every good anime, there're probably about ten bad ones. Gainax seems to have a similar view on anime, which is why basically everything it makes seems to be making fun of anime as much as it celebrates it. Of course this also seems like something that alcohol was probably involved in the creation of. Apparently Drawn Together was a heavy inspiration as well, which is why having a warped and dirty sense of humor is also required to enjoy this show, because it tries to gross you out as much as it tries to make you laugh. Since this show is more about having fun and trolling the average anime fan that anything else, there really isn't much of a plot to speak of. The basic set-up, for lack of better description, is that the Anarchy sisters, Panty and Stocking, are angels who have been kicked out of heaven for being bad, and need to earn their way back by collecting enough Heaven tokens. They collect these tokens by killing the ghosts that are constantly troubling Daten City, which is an Earthly city that is on the border between heaven and hell. Garterbelt is an afro'd priest who keeps and eye on the sisters and hands out the marching orders they get from Heaven. So basically every episode, which is itself split up into two episodes, involves Panty and Stocking fighting one or more ghosts with their magically transforming undergarments.. There is no real overall continuity or purpose, though, except for a few where this is done just to throw the audience off. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are actually episodes where nothing is resolved, like say the episode where everyone actually becomes a zombie. Then the next episode everyone and everything is back to normal. So basically it's a lot like Star Trek: Voyager. 
It's really obvious though that the main purpose of this show is just to troll as much as possible, and by troll I mean everyone, but especially the otaku fandom that has been responsible for so much of the demand for the cutesy moe shit that has been so damn common since 2000. Apparently it's really important for these nerds that the show's fan service be "pure", in other words a virgin, on top of being clumsy and not terribly bright. Which is why Panty is a slut who loves sex and actually has made it a goal to have sex with 1000 men before she returns to heaven. Then there's the animation style, which I can only really describe as something along the lines of the Powerpuff Girls or Space Invader Zim. I'm not real familiar with the anime fandom myself, but apparently this animation style is another thing that makes a lot of otaku butthurt about this show. And just to drive this point home, there are often segments of the show that are really well-drawn just to show they could do it if they really wanted to. Mostly these segments coincide with the angels' transformation sequence, which itself is a shot at magical girls shows thanks to it being an out and out strip show. 
While I'm sure a lot of anime fans would prefer the entire series to look like that above there, that isn't the point of the show, and if you ask why the entire show can't look like that, you have been successfully trolled. Instead, what you can expect a lot more of from the show is this: 
And I don't just mean the animation style, because the humor of the above picture is pretty much what you can come to expect from this series, too. Another thing this show loves to do is to cram as many references to other movies and TV shows into each episode as possible, whether it's the title, dialog, action sequences, or even the character of Chuck, who is a pretty obvious call-out to Gir from Space Invader Zim. This is also an aspect of the series I like, because, well, it's damn funny, like pretty much everything else about this show. This isn't a show that's going to make my favorites list exactly, but it's still a pretty good show if all you want to do is watch something that's mindlessly funny. So while I'm not going to give it an especially high score, I still like this show, and I would still recommend it to anyone looking for some good over-the-top humor. I hope this review has at least prepared you a little for what you're in for, because this show isn't going to be for everyone. Actually, even if you're the kind of fan this show is trolling, I would still recommend that you watch this series, because the thought of you getting offended by this show gives me an erection. 
6/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
FLCL
(6 episode OVA) So apparently this is the show Gainax did to get away from the depression that was Neon Genesis Evangelion. A lot of the elements are still there, though, like the whole older women wanting to have sex with a middle-school-aged boy, and a somewhat whiny male protagonist who does nothing but bitch about his lot in life. At least in this case he isn't nearly as useless. I'm convinced that there's a plot in this OVA somewhere, but it's really hard to make heads or tales of it. Whatever it is exactly that happens, it follows protagonist Naota Nandaba, a twelve-year-old boy living in the completely ordinary and boring suburb of Mabase as he goes on the weirdest coming-of-age adventure anime has bothered to come up with. And really I'm convinced that this is the entire point of the series, because thankfully, unlike Shinji, Naota actually manages to mature a little and comes out of the story a little better for it. Basically the reason he's such a whiny little bastard for the majority of the show is that his older brother has moved to America to go to school, leaving him alone with his father and grandfather in the bakery/home they have together. His father and grandfather are actually kind of cool, but Naota naturally feels differently. He also has to deal with his brother's ex-girlfriend, who is a high school student and has apparently latched on to this much younger version of her old boyfriend. She's also not terribly bright, but whatever. That's pretty much the running theme, because in this show, all the ladies seem to love Naota. 
The ladies love a guy with a nice big guitar. There's also a girl who's much closer to his age who obviously likes him, but naturally he doesn't notice and actually doesn't want the attention that he is getting. The attention that he likes the least is from Haruko Haruhara, the odd, pink-haired woman who he first meets when her classic Vespa Scooter runs him down and kills him, shortly before being brought back to life by a blow to the head with her pull-start blue Rickenbacker 4001 guitar and a little mouth-to-mouth. This seems to have created some kind of odd portal in his head that generates various monsters and robots from the mysterious Medical Mechanica corporation, which has a large, iron-shaped "factory" in Mabase. If that seems like a lot to take in, well, tough, because the OVA doesn't really care. Haruko constantly follows Naota around, waiting for the stuff to come out of his head so she can fight it. She does this by becoming basically whatever she needs to be, like say a nurse, or his father's live-in maid. She also seems to delight in sexually teasing him, and trying to make him jealous by doing the same kind of things with his father. Oh, and they constantly refer to "Fooly Cooly," which I'm convinced means the form of pedophilia when the grown-up is a woman and the kid is a boy. 
All of this innuendo revolving around sex, especially as it relates to Naota is pretty much where the vast majority of the "coming of age" comes from. Not that I'm complaining, because this is actually a big part of what makes the show so damn entertaining. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) this is yet another example of something Gainax has made that is mindlessly entertaining without making a whole lot of sense. But then what else do you expect from the same people who would go on to give us Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt? From what I've heard, the reasl reason behind this show was to try out a new animation technique, and that the story was something of an afterthought. This actually seems to fit, because at one point there's another rather strange character who actually explains everything that's going on not unlike Mulder from The X-Files. At first I thought this character might have only gotten things partially right, like Mulder tended to do, but after repeat viewings of the show, I'm convinced that he actually had everything completely right, like Gainax felt sorry for us and threw us a bone. The "story" and the point of what Haruko is doing to Naota's head seems to have something to do with Haruko wanting some alien's powers to the point that she's in love with him, and she's actually trying to get him to come through the portal in Naota's head. Everything else that comes out of there is from the apparently evil Medical Mechanica corporation, which is actually an alien invasion force bent on ironing the entire surface of the planet with giant irons pushed by giant hands. Really. The character, Amarao, exposits it in quite a bit of detail, actually. He also wears the biggest eyebrows this side of the Monarch which are made out of seaweed and apparently prevent Hanuko from using his head as a portal, something he seems to have some previous experience with. I honestly don’t know how else to describe this OVA or why it's actually a pretty good show and you should watch it. The characters aren't really anything special, though some of them do have their moments. Some of the fun is definitely had from trying to make some sense of the show, though to be honest I don’t really think there is much sense to be had from it. It is a load of fun to watch, though. 7/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Avatar: The Last Airbender
(61 episode series) This series was surprisingly good, considering the age group it was aimed at. While early on it was especially obvious that this show was meant more for children than adults, it still managed to have a complex plot that featured an epic journey and a battle between good and evil that might be compared in some ways to the original Star Wars trilogy. It even features a reluctant hero, Aang, who has a destiny but doesn't want anything to do with it. Set in an alternate world, there are a select group of humans capable of exerting a kind of telekinetic control over the 4 ancient Greek elements: earth, air, fire and water. Most of them only have control over one element depending on which nation they belong to, and each nation in turn is named after the element its people can bend. The only exception is the Avatar, who can bend each element and is reincarnated as a member of each nation in turn every time he or she dies. The Avatar's function is to keep the balance and peace between the 4 nations. As it turns out, Aang, the most recent Avatar and a member of the Air Nomads, was frozen during a storm a century before the series takes place and as a result, the Fire Nation has successfully conquered most of the world. Despite its rather mature story content (such as genocide), the series initially doesn't deal too much with it, focusing instead on immature humor that is obviously aimed at younger viewers. I found this rather annoying, to the point that I almost gave up on the series fairly early on, but fortunately the series matured a little to something one might expect to be aimed at the teenaged crowd. While the entire point of the series is that Aang has to eventually fight the evil Fire Lord who is currently leading the Fire Nation in its war against the rest of the world, most of the series actually deals with him learning how to bend each element (despite having access to the memories of the previous Avatars), as well as agonizing over his past actions and that his destiny may force him to kill despite being very much against it. He's also physically a child, so while he's more mature than any child his age would be, he still wants to be just a child and have fun, but fate keeps robbing him of this. He meets a lot of people and makes many friends in his search for teachers to help train him to bend each element, including in the Fire Nation itself. It was actually quite refreshing to have the "bad guy" nation shown to be as much a victim of its leadership as the nations which have been invaded by its armies, with sympathetic characters among them. Even the persistent villain who is obsessively trying to hunt Aang down throughout most of the series is shown in a sympathetic light at times. While I really would have preferred that the series would have been aimed at an older demographic and lose a lot of the immature humor it had, it was still a pretty good series, and I would recommend that you watch it if you have the time. It's a pity the story was completely ruined in adaptation to screen as so often happens with tv series being turned into movies. 9/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Baccano!
(16 episode series) This was a strange but very enjoyable series. It tells the story of a group of immortals and how their lives intersect during the 1920s and '30s... I think. Set mostly in Depression era New York, the series tends to shift around between time periods and locations quite frequently. In fact it was at times hard to follow along, but the complex web of a story was interesting enough to make it worth it. There were gangsters, silly thieves, and a ship full of French immigrants involved, and most of the story revolves around an incident on an express train called The Flying Pussyfoot of all things. Yeah, I laughed at the name, too. The characters themselves were very interesting, and while there wasn't a whole lot in terms of development, there also wasn't really any need for traditional character development. Even some of the villains turned out to be fun to watch, especially the rather insane one who wore white just so the blood of his victims would show up better. "Thank you, fudge you, the hero has arrived!" – He was definitely a magnificent bastard, and apparently literally too insane to feel pain. There was a lot of bloody violence, a mystery, and even a little romance, with some of it being rather twisted. I really don't know how else to describe this show, other than being awesome in an over-the-top action way. About the only thing I feel the series could have done without was the framing story, which didn't really do much as far as the story went. Still, this series is well worth the watch, scoring a 9/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Barefoot Gen
(1983 movie) This movie was good in a documentary kind of way. That's basically all it is, narrator and all, detailing the events of the daily lives of one family as they struggled to survive both before and after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. It focuses on one boy in particular, who was based on an actual survivor. It tends to come off as a bit of a white guilt movie, mostly because it completely omits the politics of the war. In fact, the war is only brought up at all in the first part of the movie as the cause for food shortages and the hardships that the boy's family faces. Any other reason could probably be given for that aspect of it and the story would basically be exactly the same right up to the bombing. Of course, it could also be that the politics are omitted because they didn't much matter to the main protagonist, which was a child, and only wanted to focus on the plight of the civilians who were effected by this war. As I think about it, the later is probably more likely, with the former viewpoint I had mostly coming from my experience watching so many shows that express an anti-US sentiment. In a lot of ways, this movie comes off as something for a younger crowd, though it deals with mature topics like the effects of radiation poisoning, mass body cremations, the death of the main character's father and younger brother from being burned alive in the collapsed remnants of their house, and the later death of his infant sister of starvation. This movie is worth a watch, though it wasn't quite what I was expecting for a movie about Hiroshima. 6/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Battle Angel Alita
(2 episode OVA) This is a good, but strange and ultimately frustrating anime, frustrating because it's obvious that the story is supposed to continue and in the OVA it simply ends. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, it seems that both artificial life and cybernetic life are commonplace, even if the slum city that the story is set in. The "Battle Angel", is actually dug out of a garbage heap, brought back to life and named Alita. The scientist who does this is actually from the futuristic and very exclusive city which floats above the slum city. Much like the Star Trek episode, "The Cloud Minders", the labors of the slum city's inhabitants are enjoyed by the inhabitants of the city above, and the slum basically only gets the trash from the city above. Basically the story is a mystery, about Alita and her origins, as well as the city above. There's also a mystery in the slum city involving the murder of individuals for their organs. Alita becomes a bounty hunter in order to solve this mystery, as the slum city has no police force. Along the way she meets another cyborg and develops feelings for him, though it ends badly. In the end, she finds out who is actually participating in the murders, but not the real reasons why, and the floating city remains a mystery as well, remaining just a long term goal for her to reach. And then the OVA just ends. Having read about this OVA in advance, I knew this would happen, because the OVA only covers about the first two issues of the manga (graphic novel) series it is based on. I would hope for this OVA to either be finished or remade, keeping as faithful to the source as possible. It's a pretty good OVA and worth a watch, but be aware that the ending leaves you wanting more, but there is no more, unfortunately. 9/10. |
||||
|
||||
|
Toucanbird
Posts: 126 Location: Winona, Minnesota |
|
|||
|
Does Avatar: The Last Airbender technically count as anime? If I'm not mistaken, that was an American TV show...it's not even listed in the ANN encyclopedia.
Sorry, I might be nitpicking but I'm sort of specific on what is considered anime and what is not. What I'd call Avatar is a very well-done cartoon...not an anime. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
They're all cartoons.
It may not have technically been anime since it wasn't from Japan, but it was pretty clearly influenced by it, so that's close enough as far as I'm concerned. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Black Cat
(24 episode series) This is one of those series that while somewhat serious, also has quite a bit of comedy mixed in with the drama. Overall, it is a fairly good mix of both, mainly as a drama with comedy relief. At times this is taken a bit far, however, mostly having to do with the main character's nickname, the title of this series (wearing a bell around his neck, drinking a lot of milk, etc). The storyline is split between two main characters, a "sweeper" named Sven, and a trained assassin named Train. The series contrasts the two, with Sven being very laid back and down on his luck, and Train being a trained, ruthless, mostly emotionless killing machine. The series then slowly introduces the secondary characters, including Eve, who is literally an engineered weapon in the form of a pre-teen girl, and Saya, another somewhat more successful sweeper who gets Train to rethink his life through late night visits. Train and Saya do develop some romantic chemistry, but thanks to a somewhat odd love triangle with another male assassin named Creed, she is murdered. The resulting antagonism between Train and Creed is both disturbing and interesting, and it kept me watching. Then there's the storyline with Eve. Sven saves her from the evil bastards that made her and intended to exploit her as a horrible weapon and teaches her how to be human. He basically adopts her as a kind of daughter, and after teaming up with Train, she tends to take what Sven taught her and attempts to teach the same lessons to Train. At times this can me interesting and/or humorous, but as I mentioned before, the connections she makes with Train being a cat tend to take it too far. The series does kind of mislead, though, as the antagonism between Train and Creed, while taking up most of the series, ends quite a while before the series does. There's more betrayal to be had, and Train ends up saving the organization he was originally part of, even though they've basically been hunting him down and trying to kill both him and Eve, originally his target they assigned to him. The series also misleads in its message of not killing others by advocating alternative uses of firearms that quite frankly would probably still result in people getting killed. But TV shows and movies tend to be like that with firearms, I guess. I'm still, in some ways, up in the air as to whether I really like this series or not. It has some good/interesting elements to it, but it also has some rather annoying clichés that would make me hesitate before recommending it to a few of my friends who might be expecting something else. Still, I think I feel safe giving this series a 7/10. |
||||
|
||||
Rukiia
 Posts: 1897 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
|
|||
It still isn't Anime though.....you don't see it listed in the Encyclopedia for a reason. Anime = Japanese Cartoons. Avatar = American Cartoon attempting to be an Anime. |
||||
|
||||
Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3011 |
|
|||
Well, I'd argue that Avatar isn't really attempting to be anime, but rather that it's simply attempting to tell a type of story that is much more common in anime than in US cartoons. Anyways, while it's not anime, there is a fair amount of crossover fans, so I think him reviewing it was fine. It's not as though it's unusual for people to go off on brief tangents in this forum. |
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Well, at least I know I have more than one person reading this thread now.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Captain X
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
|
Black Magic M-66
(single episode OVA) Ah, more androids, and they aren't the focus of the story ... more or less. In any case, the story actually follows a sexy news reporter, Sybel, who reminds me a little of April from the old Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles show I watched as a kid back in the late '80s and early '90s. She's arrogant, driven, temperamental, and has to constantly fight off the advances of her co-worker, who is something of a leach with aspirations of his own. Oh, and she's a hot brunette with short hair. In what is basically a fish-out-of-water story, Sybel noses her way into something big and ends up being hunted by both the military and the android killing machines created by some crazy scientist type. Some mishap occurred in transporting the things, and they end up on the loose, somehow programmed to kill their creator's spoiled granddaughter, though only after they've ripped a grizzly bear and a couple of hikers to shreds, just to show us how dangerous and indiscriminate they are. Sybel, being the just caring enough person that she is, takes it upon herself to break free of military custody, during an attack by the killing machines no less, so she can personally save the scientist's granddaughter. Thankfully this movie wasn't completely horribly clichéd, so the soldiers weren't all evil, even if they weren't real big on the freedom of the press, and actually catch on to the fact Sybel is trying to save the same person they are, and she basically ends up completely forgiven for nosing in on their big state secret. The end credits actually show us some mildly amusing snippets from her continued exploits, and let's just say that she doesn't change a bit. Hmmm... How to put this? Well, this movie didn't suck. The plot was straightforward, there weren't any hugely annoying and obvious political messages to ruin things, and the main character was an interesting if not really what a viewer could really entirely sympathize with. I'd call her a chaotic neutral anti-hero ... maybe. Yeah, there were some clichés, and really not all of the movie makes sense, but it was still fun to watch. 7/10. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group