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REVIEW: Cannon Busters

Why doesn't this series have a page in the encyclopedia?

OK, it was based in an american HQ, but the production was entirely japanese. It is an anime like every other anime we watch. The original language is japanese, the credits are displayed in japanese, etcetera...

It should have a page in the ANN encyclopedia.

Thomas is directing and serving as executive producer for the series. He is also writing the scripts along with Natasha Allegri (Bee & Puppycat), Anne Toole (The Witcher), and Nilah Magruder (M.F.K.). Matt Wayne is serving as story editor.

How is it an entirely Japanese production? It's based on an American comic and quoting ANN

Quote:

Thomas is directing and serving as executive producer for the series. He is also writing the scripts along with Natasha Allegri (Bee & Puppycat), Anne Toole (The Witcher), and Nilah Magruder (M.F.K.). Matt Wayne is serving as story editor.

Not saying it shouldn't be in the encyclopedia, but it's not like a Japanese studio picked up the license and decided to make their own project. To me it seems like this production is no different than any other western title animated by a Japanese studio.

Edit: I should clarify that I'm not trying to say the series is any lesser for it (I haven't seen it so I can't comment on it). Just saying that the production of this series isn't the same as say, Vinland Saga or something.

I think this review hit why the show never really worked as well as its many influences.

It wants to have Bebop style characters, it wants to resemble Trigun (seriously, Philly’s gun is Vash’s with blue neon) it wants to have mecha fights resembling Gunbuster, it wants to have Afro Samurai style schizo tech. But it never blends these elements together in a way that is completely natural. Like a kid saw all these shows on TV and just chucked the elements in a blender.

Beatdigga wrote:

I think this review hit why the show never really worked as well as its many influences. It wants to have Bebop style characters, it wants to resemble Trigun (seriously, Philly’s gun is Vash’s with blue neon) it wants to have mecha fights resembling Gunbuster, it wants to have Afro Samurai style schizo tech. But it never blends these elements together in a way that is completely natural. Like a kid saw all these shows on TV and just chucked the elements in a blender.

Genre intersections are difficult to do effectively. It requires finesse and thought, plus decent reasoning behind how the genres themselves interact with one another.

The thing that annoyed me the most was when the show clumsily cut to the prince and his bodyguard. That didn't need to be shown at ALL.

The appeal of the show was the friends in the car, not some randos doing whatever. It added nothing to the story because the relationship between the girl android and the prince was implied in the ED anyway, and the two plotlines didn't converge until the very end of the seasoning.

Also, they introduced those four villains in like episode 3 or 4, but then we don't see them again until episode 10 or 11, there was no point to introduce them that early in the story.

The thing that annoyed me the most was when the show clumsily cut to the prince and his bodyguard. That didn't need to be shown at ALL.

The appeal of the show was the friends in the car, not some randos doing whatever. It added nothing to the story because the relationship between the girl android and the prince was implied in the ED anyway, and the two plotlines didn't converge until the very end of the seasoning.

Also, they introduced those four villains in like episode 3 or 4, but then we don't see them again until episode 10 or 11, there was no point to introduce them that early in the story.

Then maybe they should have started with some actual thought and finished with some basic editing to remove what wasn't working instead of just pouring every half-baked idea in the sausage machine and extruding this.

The influences on the series are clear, as an overt homage to what made anime cool in the '90s and early 2000s. The most obvious references are Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, with perhaps some Outlaw Star mixed in, but the series as a whole is a mishmash of elements from a broad number of sources, flavored with more American sensibilities in terms of character archetypes. As a result, the series often comes across as an American animated series aping anime aesthetics, although the animation are distinctly Satelight's in style.

The problem with all this eclectic design is that it doesn't come together well to generate consistent world-building. It feels like a mishmash of whatever the writer thought was cool, rather than a lived-in world with cohesive traits.

Isn't that kind of the point of anime-influenced western media? You like anime to the point you want to emulate it, otherwise you'd just make your work a traditional American cartoon or comic and not bother with getting a Japanese production team, shoving as many references and homages into it as you can, and doing everything you can to get it the highly coveted anime label. These kinds of shows live or die by being the sum of all their parts. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

The new Castlevania was clearly Anime Inspired, and we're not dunking on that as hard.