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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Flowers of Evil Episodes 1-13 Streaming
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kazume
Posts: 129 |
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Almost all A+'s? Been reading the manga but not the anime, but going off of that premise alone I can agree with the scores; the manga is incredibly good. Warped, twisted and completely "wrong in all the right areas."
Oh boy, here we go 
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1034 |
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I...just couldn't get into Flowers of Evil. I was fair and gave it an episode, but it was just so dull and slow. Now, being slow isn't a bad thing, but you need to be able to get my attention somehow, and while the last minute or two kind of succeeded in doing that, if every single episode is as boring and monotonous as that first episode was, I can't ever see myself watching more of this.
As for the rotoscoping, my feelings on it are mixed. On one hand, I can appreciate going with a style that's unusual and different. On the other hand, it was REALLY poorly done. I think this might be my first time ever exposing myself to rotoscoping, but I'm sure it can be done better than this. |
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Chipp12
Posts: 332 |
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Confirmed for shit taste. Not that I'm too surprised myself though. |
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Peter Hunt
Posts: 87 |
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Amazingly well written review, and one I genuinely agree with. This is a superb example of defying a medium and succeeding.
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Karisu
Posts: 94 Location: PA |
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Excellent review of one of the best shows that's come out of the industry in years. Such a refreshing take on teen life.
It's also one of the most expressive feats of animation I've ever seen. The smallest emotions came over perfectly thanks to the rotoscoping. Really hoping for that teased second season! |
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Dop.L
Posts: 725 Location: London |
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Great to see this show getting the praise it so richly deserves, it's a masterpiece, and a real breath of fresh air compared to everything else.
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gauru
 Posts: 2 |
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Very interesting series, unless you decide to to marathon the damn thing, in which case you'll probably lose focus pretty fast.
Mysterious GF X was way better in that aspect, if you ask me. That was both interesting and enjoyable. Last edited by gauru on Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1337 |
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I didn't mind the slow pace. I especially didn't mind the rotoscoping, which I actually thought was the best part of the show. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about the characters. After everything Nakamura did, which included violating and humiliating Kasuga spoiler[ by tearing off his clothes, his conclusion in the end is that she's a lonely girl and he must be there for her]. I'm one of those people that always wonders if a guy did this to a girl, would it be easy to brush off, would we be easily swayed to empathize? Then there's Saeki, who's spoiler[genuinely flattered that Kasuga would steal her clothes, taking it as a sign of him liking her]. Seriously? I've heard people say that this show represents adolescence, but I've been seeing way too many moments of (twisted) fanboy wish fulfillment to even feel like agreeing.
I'm glad I checked this out, but with all the acclaim it's gotten, I thought this would get me interested in picking up the manga. Alas, no. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3670 |
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I hear a lot about how the rotoscoping is a great choice relative to traditional animation... is there any reason why it's a great choice relative to live action?
I really tried to watch the show. But in the end, all I saw was dumb kids doing dumb kid stuff, and had to give up. I recognize that a lot of kids go through dumb kid stuff, but I don't know what I'm supposed to get out of watching it. |
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EnigmaticSky
 Posts: 750 |
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I can see giving the series and story an A. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it is well loved by those who are into it. An A+ for art and animation though? Really? I know it's different, but I don't think that warrants an A+ for both. It is even poorly done; maybe student-film level good, but it is hardly fluid enough to get an A+ in animation. Seems kinda fanboy-ish to me. I really loved Bakemonogatari to death, but an A+ for animation would even be excessive (maybe not for art, but animation it would be).
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DmonHiro
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So, 2 days before going on sale, the Aku No Hana site was updated to announce that the release was canceled due to unspecified defects, being postponed until an unspecified date. Curiously, one fan seems to have gotten his copy though.
PS: 8 straight minutes of walking = mature direction. Right. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1461 |
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There were moments I thought Flowers of Evil got a bit too self-indulgent, especially during that spoiler[slooooow silent walk home] in episode 8, but I agree it was a beautifully directed show, and one of the best of the year so far. That teaser at the end was cruel, though. I can only hope critical acclaim will be enough to give this show a second season, because I can't imagine it selling well in Japan.
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jymmy
 Posts: 1244 |
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This review contained too many adverbs for me to enjoy reading it. Even as the intricate, delicately-entwined sentences, coiling sinuously around themselves, slid into my eyes like a snake sensuously slithering slowly into a sack of shit, my eyes glazed over and I found myself searching for the next actual point. (Wow, this ended up long - more than 2/3 the length of the review, if you discount this parenthetical aside. The last paragraph is the conclusion to my thoughts on the series, and is more easily digestible.)
Complaints about style aside, I can't say I agree with this review. Flowers of Evil was good, but not this good! The animation was often lacking in detail, and fast motion looked awkward and cheap. The slower reaction shots and walking were the best. I'd give the animation a B, maybe with a + for being innovative. It worked very well and was a bold, effective choice, but that doesn't mean it was technically perfect. What if there were a second season with even better animation? Many more frames, conveying the same awkwardness and off nature? The animation is good, but A+ is an exaggeration. The art rating is spot-on. The backgrounds were fantastic, and you can't say the character designs didn't achieve the intended realistic effect (and with an uneasy weird vibe). I feel the slow pacing was often good but and sometimes meaningless. Throughout most of the show, the deliberate pacing worked well, and although I thought it was kind of silly, the big cathartic scene was well paced. The however many-minute walk in the next episode was my favourite scene in the series, though. In the last episode, I found my patience tested for the only time directly as Kasuga stared around at Nakamura's room meaninglessly for about five minutes. Some of the other episodes seemed to conclude with not enough having actually taken place. They weren't lacking in plot - well, they were, but that's not a problem - but they were lacking in substance. It wasn't a huge deal, though. I can't say Kasuga's character development was well-realised. His self-loathing seemed to lack an emotional core: he was all surface. Oh, he puts on airs for his too-edgy-for-you I-read-French-poetry nonsense, but his real feelings felt weak and unsubstatiated. I could follow his guilt and shame well-enough, but when he started ranting about how nobody understood him it just didn't connect with the rest of his character for me. The persona he affected was more convincing than his real emo-brat feelings. Nakamura was a much more consistent and believable character, she was good. I thought the "Kasuga being the key to her happiness" thing kind of dumb, though. Go on the Internet, Nakamura, there are many more pretentious edgy kids who think they're dark and cool. Saeki's angst sort of came out of nowhere, but that seemed more a plot issue than a characterisation one. I think my main issue with this series is that I couldn't take it seriously. There seemed to be no point to the whiny angst these characters were obsessed with. Rather than personifying a deep unnameable feeling, it felt more like they were complaining about random crap they couldn't put into words because it didn't actually exist. If they'd been depressed and subdued the whole time, I could have bought a deep-seated nugged of unhappiness; as it was, their screaming matches about how __ is making them despair seemed meaningless. Shinji Ikari is a neurotic headcase because he's been starved of affection and his mum's dead and his dad is sort of responsible for both of those. Kasuga's a neurotic headcase because... well, he just is. He wants to be special. He wishes he were a dark angsty brooding poetic tortured soul, but isn't. Well, time to cycle out of town in the dead of night and tear up my book and roll around in the mud and scream in each other's faces and cry and cry and cry and cry... 
Flowers of Evil is a fantastically-directed series with excellent music and art and great pacing. I get that some idea of directionless angst was the point (or, holy shit, were we actually supposed to take it at face value? I can't help but, which was why the manga became a fantastic comedy; the anime's pacing was too leaden to get much humour out of it), but it wasn't done convincingly, and it certainly wasn't deep or realistic or anything like that (well, that's what I think). I give the plot 4/10 for being contrived and silly, characterisation 4 for being lacking overall and lousy with the main character, thematic content 4 for being well-portrayed but ultimately meaningless, pretentious and infantile, art and music 8 for being very good, direction 8 for being very good and animation 6.5 for being effective but kind of cheap. I give the series overall 6/10, which is what I have it as on MAL, or 'Good', which is what I have it as here. |
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DmonHiro
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That would require critical acclaim from Japan, not America. Also, it seems that before the postponing of the release, the preoders were in the 50's. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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I'm six episodes into this and I'm loving it so far. The characters are so deep and layered, way more so than I'm used to in anime.
As for that contentious art style, it's kind of a mixed bag. Kosuga often looks weird to me (particularly the proportions of his head) but I love how Nakamura is drawn. The rotoscoping really brings out the intensity of her facial expressions.. |
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