Forum - View topicShelf Life - Star Power
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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Reading the review on the DBZ blu-rays I thought, "Great, I was just starting to complete my collection of the remastered sets (Yes, the remastered sets, not that Dragon Boxes; I love the cheesiness of the dub, thank you very much) and thought maybe I should have waited for the blu-rays instead...
...but I am really, really put off by that color grain. It just looks terrible to me. Maybe I'll check out some HQ screencaps of it just to make sure that's the problem I have, but I'm kinda thinking I don't want to touch these with a nyoibou. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8499 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Ah, so grain is bad, but oversaturation, jitteryness, and cropping are no big deal? The Season Sets are a complete joke. Funimation did an actual, real remaster this time around, and that's nothing to sneeze at. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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What. How are any of these characters developed? Okay, maybe the main trio works okay, though they certainly don't explainspoiler[ Sugata's] sudden and inexplicable spoiler[face-heel-turn] which comes right the heck out of nowhere; maybe they just realized that spoiler[Head] was an awful pathetic excuse for a villain. Bizarrely, the initially fan-service girl Kanako gets more depth than most anyone else. Mizuno and Marino are decent. Everyone else - and I mean everybody - is utterly two-dimensional. The only "development" they get is "oh, I secretly had this crush on someone, not that it ever pans out in the story, and doesn't that explain everything about me and make the story DEEP?!?!" No. No it doesn't. There are just too many characters (more than 30), and they don't have enough time to make them more than caricatures. The overarching story is weak, since it barely explains itself. And I know, I know, Utena (which I see by your "My Anime" link that you haven't seen; go check it out for comparison), but by the end of Utena I could see the point to it, its deconstruction of fairy tales and the spoiler[villain-victim-hero] model. What, pray tell, was the point of Star Driver? What was its message? The only thing it seemed to be saying is spoiler[threesomes are okay], which I guess is fine? And no, there is no consistency in the narrative or in the characters. Again, see spoiler[Sugata's] random spoiler[face-heel-turn] or spoiler[Keito's] sudden elevation to spoiler[love interest for Sugata]. And then there are the two bondage lesbians and the bland trio who show up midway through, add nothing, then leave. Was that supposed to be the equivalent of the Black Rose arc? Did the guy who wrote the Black Rose arc forget that they used it develop side characters rather than be a waste of the viewer's time? And then there's the play episode, which is obviously intended to duplicate the puppet show episode in Utena that explains the back story. It's probably the most blatant Utena-wannabe moment in the entire series. And while the episode in Utena casts new light on everything that has happened thus far and lays out what's going to happen from now on, in Star Driver, it just tells you spoiler[aliens are involved.] Somehow? I'll will give you one thing: the animation, particularly in the battles, is unbelievably gorgeous, and it's worth checking out a few episodes for that. The arc for Mizuno and Marino is also not so bad, though its twist is rather predictable. I know it must have its fans to be getting an average rating of "good" here at ANN, but I don't know why. It's not an awful series, but it is a weak one, and made all the worse if you've seen the series it is desperately trying to duplicate. |
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KabaKabaFruit
 Posts: 1896 Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba |
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I don't see a need to re-invest in Dragon Ball Z again. I'm sticking with what I purchased from FUNimation back a few years ago.
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 598 |
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I meant how Suou became a badass.
I don't get that comparison at all, and I'm surprised you're the second person to bring it up! By coincidence, I've been watching the Utena Apocalypse Saga all week. Unless the ending of Star Driver is radically different from the rest of the show... spoiler[Does anyone turn into a car?] I just don't get where you're coming from. |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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Was anyone else irked that it seemed that most every enemy contractor inexplicably had their powers grow as the series progressed, while Hei's powers started out magically dumbed-down from DTB1 and then by similar plot convenience became non-existent? I for one wouldn't have been too irked with it, if Hei had continued to kick Contractor ass whilst being deprived of his powers, but that ass-kicking streak came to a sad end. |
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bj_waters
 Posts: 234 |
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While I could go over that the things Sam Murai, vashfanatic, and I have brought up again as a pretty good list of comparisons, I would at least point out that it's as much as in the details as it is in pure feel. I had watched Utena and while I didn't think it was pure gold, I could see why a lot of people make a big deal about it. It was sort of like Evangelion for female audiences (using fairy tales instead of robots to explore various gender-related issues). However, Star Driver felt like they took the scripts from Utena and rewrote the sword fights with mecha fights and removed the symbolism and subtly to make room for melodrama and angst, but maybe that's just me. Like I said, it's a feeling more than anything else. I didn't think Star Driver was bad, just unoriginal. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to see the connections. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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There's a plucky non-conformist at a school run by a sinister student council group who are engaged in a series of duels over a mystical damsel in distress with the power to change the world if they can be played to completion. The very premise is Utena, with giant robots. It does do a few things differently. Takuto is aware of what's going on when he arrives, unlike Utena (the character). It plays down any lesbians (that part of Utena is all Ikuni) save with the throwaway middle characters I mentioned in favor of the threesome angle. The BIGGEST difference is that there really isn't an Anthy figure. I mean, yes, Wako has the damsel in distress element, but spoiler[she isn't the brutal deconstruction of the trope who caused the whole mess to begin with.] Though I suppose they were trying to do that with spoiler[Sugata's heel-face-turn]. Since Anthy is basically the key to understanding Utena, I think a lot of the weakness in Star Driver comes from her absence. But yeah, as I said, the most damning bit of wannabe-ness is the play episode, which you won't see until the second half of Star Driver. And hey, Utena only spoiler[turns into a car] in the movie, not the show. I haven't watched that with the director's commentary, and it'll be interesting to see how Ikuni explains what the heck he was thinking when he made it. I'm not a huge fan of the movie. |
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micpp
Posts: 9 |
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Regarding the "noise" on the episodes of the DBZ blu-ray... that's film grain. Since DBZ was shot on 16mm, rather than the 35mm of theatrical productions, there's quite a lot of it. In general, film nerd types tend to prefer that it not be filtered out because it's inherently part of the filmed image, and the artifacts left behind tend to look worse than the grain. I guess Funimation has taken a "leave it in" attitude with this release, probably due to the controversy surrounding their heavily noise-reduced orange brick sets.
In short, grain is supposed to be there. |
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Keichitsu0305
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I wouldn't necessarily call Suou a badass. She was just a high school girl spoiler[or rather a copy] who had powers but did not want the responsibility of taking another person's life despite the fact that is, indeed, her job as a Contractor. If anything, Hei was trying to prevent her from turning into himself spoiler[when he was a child solider]. She had maybe two good scenes but nothing extraordinary outside of walking around town with July and Mao. |
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opn
 Posts: 904 |
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I actually liked DTB 2 more then i did the first. I really liked suo as a character and i honestly hated the episodic bits of DTB 1 but i got used to it as it went on and i sorta expected alot of its events as it went on and DTB 2 did have some surprises so i guess it helped it. I haven't finished the ovas yet im on ova 3 so i only have two more to go and so far im liking them quite a bit. Star driver is something that i just learned to have fun with heck its craziness and over the topness is what made it fun to watch and the really great animation by bones helped.
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist
Posts: 598 |
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I had high expectations from the beginning, but you're right, Hei basically spoiler[stops Suou from using her giant badass gun] for half the season. I like a powerless Hei better than a badass Hei, but then, I don't generally like super heroes anyway, so I was in favor of his turn-towards-Batman. |
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CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
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Its my understanding that DtB inst completely shut off from the possibility of any more. ITs more like Shakugan no Shana or Louis familiar where they were fine with what was put out, but some time down the road they could make another season.
I feel mixed on the gates. They way it stands is like a really lazy written deus ex machina. I mean they are the critical plot device to the whole show and world. Then again like someone said, people might end up more pissed if the explanation is very poor, so its almost better to not try anything. Its one of those damned if I do , damned if I dont, unless they came up with some really awesome explanation. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I can understand that reasoning but I'd argue that it's not. The grain is an artifact of the film and not the animation. The actual cells don't have grain, so it's not supposed to be there. The only question is if the filtering produces a worse image (not compared to the film, but to the original cells) |
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GhostShell
Posts: 1009 Location: Richmond, B.C., Canada |
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A little anime will cure that. 
Interesting reading Erin's comments about Darker Than Black 2. I'm in the process of re-watching Season One as it's been so long since I first watched it. I'm looking forward to seeing the second season, plus the OVAs. Mao is no longer a cat?! Noooo! 
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