I just found the "rather odd way of spelling" response catchier. I don't think there is a particularly well-defined standard of respectability, anyway.
And I never do self-parody. That Naoko-san post I made in the last thread? I fully stand by what was said in it. I have to admit that Minori Scramble also looks wonderful, though. They're what Ufotable works would look like if they decided to start producing good-looking anime.
What are your top 3 out of curiosity? I'm doing a Gundam binge at the moment (although I think I want to avoid the main series) so I wouldn't mind a pointer as to where to go next.
What are your top 3 out of curiosity? I'm doing a Gundam binge at the moment (although I think I want to avoid the main series) so I wouldn't mind a pointer as to where to go next.
Might be a bit odd because one of the series technically isn't finished but:
Unicorn Gundam, War In The Pocket and Zeta Gundam
I have not watched Zeta Gundam in a long time, however. It was my favorite shit when I first watched it in college. People here seem to think it's terrible. =( To be fair, I have watched a lot of Gundam after it. Unicorn Gundam isn't finished but it might be top 3 for sure if it keeps up it's quality.
I have also not watched Turn A, which is apparently the best TV series. I haven't watched 08th MS Team which is a very good OVA series.
In terms of OVA's, I don't know if anything can top War In The Pocket outside of Unicorn.
I never finished Victory Gundam because I found it far too depressing and at times nonsensical. It might get decent towards the end but I don't know.
What are your top 3 out of curiosity? I'm doing a Gundam binge at the moment (although I think I want to avoid the main series) so I wouldn't mind a pointer as to where to go next.
0083 is top-tier when it comes to visual spectacle. Unfortunately the writing is pretty horrible, but it is incredibly Gundam. Maybe that's why the writing sucks.
0080 and 08th MS Team are the most respectable Gundam works in general.
Turn-A Gundam is the most unique TV series with the most consistent execution.
0083 is top-tier when it comes to visual spectacle. Unfortunately the writing is pretty horrible, but it is incredibly Gundam. Maybe that's why the writing sucks.
0080 and 08th MS Team are the most respectable Gundam works in general.
Turn-A Gundam is the most unique TV series with the most consistent execution.
I think they play it a little too light-heartedly, but "that scene" is pretty realistic (especially in the aftermath) and vastly more respectable than any other
rape scene
in anime anyway. It's hardly a movie-killing moment unless you are completely averse to such scenes in any scenario.
I think it's a toss up between Perfect Blue and Honneamise.
Both scenes are done in very different ways, for very different reasons, but they're both done tastefully and treats the subject matter with an amount of respect by focusing on the psychological elements instead of the physical act.
0083 is top-tier when it comes to visual spectacle. Unfortunately the writing is pretty horrible, but it is incredibly Gundam. Maybe that's why the writing sucks.
0080 and 08th MS Team are the most respectable Gundam works in general.
Turn-A Gundam is the most unique TV series with the most consistent execution.
This mirrors my feelings on the Gundam franchise pretty closely. Except my nostalgia goggles won't let look at Gundam Wing in a poor light so that would tie with G Gundam for Gundam of my Heart.
This mirrors my feelings on the Gundam franchise pretty closely. Except my nostalgia goggles won't let look at Gundam Wing in a poor light so that would tie with G Gundam for Gundam of my Heart.
Oh I'm very fond of Gundam Wing too. It's just that I like G-Gundam better. It's more unique and the animation is generally better. Wing has awesome characters though. Nostalgia's a bitch. Lol.
He doesn't like 0083, I'd assume (as everyone likes Zeta)?
It's probably my favorite UC Gundam. The writing isn't great, I'll give you that, but for eye-candy it's wonderful. The mechas are some of the best and while many of the characters are duds, Gato is awesome.
He doesn't like 0083, I'd assume (as everyone likes Zeta)?
It's probably my favorite UC Gundam. The writing isn't great, I'll give you that, but for eye-candy it's wonderful. The mechas are some of the best and while many of the characters are duds, Gato is awesome.
The funny thing is I watched Stardust Memory before watching Zeta Gundam. Maybe that's why my opinion of Zeta is so high...
I didn't HATE 0083 (and it did have the unfortunate honor of being watched AFTER War In The Pocket) but I don't have fond memories of it either. I remember wanting to choke almost every character to death. I think the only thing keeping me from hating the series outright was the animation/battles (and maybe music?).
Almost everyone here actually hates zeta. =( Those who like it (and actually watched it in the past...2 years) are in a minority.
I believe Stardust Memory is one of Jexhius' most despised anime. I don't know if he's even of the "story is crap but it's eye candy" view.
The funny thing is I watched Stardust Memory before watching Zeta Gundam. Maybe that's why my opinion of Zeta is so high...
I didn't HATE 0083 (and it did have the unfortunate honor of being watched AFTER War In The Pocket) but I don't have fond memories of it either. I remember wanting to choke almost every character to death. I think the only thing keeping me from hating the series outright was the animation/battles (and maybe music?).
I had forgotten about Perfect Blue, but that's true. Coincidentally, its LE blu-ray box has just about the best packaging I've ever seen. Too bad about the apparently poor transfer & the lack of subs. :<
What are your top 3 out of curiosity? I'm doing a Gundam binge at the moment (although I think I want to avoid the main series) so I wouldn't mind a pointer as to where to go next.
I think they play it a little too light-heartedly, but "that scene" is pretty realistic (especially in the aftermath) and vastly more respectable than any other
rape scene
in anime anyway. It's hardly a movie-killing moment unless you are completely averse to such scenes in any scenario.
If some hypothetical person were to take issue with it, it would be because the protagonist does it at all. It was handled about as tastefully as one could hope.
And I have SDF Macross, Macross 7, Hidamari cute girls doing cute things, and like 2 other shows that will be arriving over the next few weeks to marathon.
Anime is good for composing, and boy do I have a few commissions due in the next couple months.
I certainly don't envy those handed the task of making this movie. It feels so strange, like some grand lost episode of FMA: Brotherhood with spectacular production that was lost to time. But it's place in the larger fiction of FMA is rather...unintelligible. It tells a story that's been told dozens of times over in the show, and it doesn't have anything particularly new or interesting to say.
My primary complaint would be that even as a self-contained story, this isn't particularly well done. The twists feel awkward, the villains are strangely non-existent until the moment they are thrust into the ring, and there's never really any insight as to what's going on in any of the characters heads. Many of the familiar character simply feel like they're standing around to remind you that this is in fact a Fullmetal Alchemist movie, and none of the new ones are really able to fill the void adequately as characters who are so clearly disposable (so maybe it makes sense that they're never mentioned again down the timeline in the series). When the movie rather frankly has to ask who one of the main players is an hour and a half into the movie you've probably gone terribly wrong somewhere down the line. In fact there are only two sets of character bonds that really work here, Al and his new lady friend, and Ed's new boyfriend Pedro. One is cut short too early so the movie doesn't have to juggle so much, and the other never really feels like it's able to come to fruition because nothing that happens in the movie is really allowed to matter in FMA's larger narrative.
At the same time, even if the story is such a mess the movie kind of does enough to make up for it. This sense of scale here is really incredible. Brotherhood did an alright job of this, but SSoM does an excellent job of creating a very fantastical but believable world because the cities feel big enough to be proper cities filled with loads of people (even if you rarely see them). It's a small thing, but it helps a lot in making the action scenes feel that much larger.
I know I made some remark in this thread earlier about the CG in this movie, but I'm actually more forgiving of it because of how ambitious most of the action set pieces in this movie are. There's tons of movement, characters from multiple sides all battling against each other, and they take place in these very large open spaces with a lot of additional chaos in the background. It was fun to watch this mostly just for the action scenes, and even though that's all it really has to offer it does them well.
Movie was worth watching as someone who likes Fullmetal Alchemist, and it's probably the most you can ask for from a production like this, but it's not really all that memorable or meaningful.
As much as I hate Gundam SEED Destiny for ruining all that was good about the SEED franchise, it is still better than the Gundam 00 movie. Holy crap, that was a real turd.
Yeah, I wouldn't trust people. I've seen people complain about the grainy transfers of Ghibli movies, which is super duper headshake unbelievable territory, considering all film based Ghibli titles are 6K transfers. Most Hollywood movies don't get transfer of that quality. In fact, I don't think any non-70mm movie has been transferred above 4K, aside from the 8K scans that were done of effects shots for Blade Runner.
It probably has issues, but people think that every anime transfer ever needs to be squeaky clean and razor sharp.
(Oh and we need to add "city montage" and "monologue recapitulating the themes of the movie in case you were too dumb to follow" to the Oshii chart as well btw. :>)
Marathoned this yesterday evening. I shudder to think at how emotionally affecting it would have been if I hadn't spoilered myself to high heaven. Dodged a bullet there.
For all that the show is named after her, Madoka doesn't do much in the first two-thirds or so, although she's important to the foundation of the story in a way that doesn't become apparent until then.
I miss magical girls that just straight up punch their enemies in the face. Gonna try out Smile Precure later.
Man, I wandered into the wrong section of things once, and found a fan-fiction of
how those two had sex in the classroom in front of everyone, even as far as using them as props and nobody could do anything because of the curse, with those who finally acknowledged it, through any means possible, started dying all around them.
I certainly don't envy those handed the task of making this movie. It feels so strange, like some grand lost episode of FMA: Brotherhood with spectacular production that was lost to time. But it's place in the larger fiction of FMA is rather...unintelligible. It tells a story that's been told dozens of times over in the show, and it doesn't have anything particularly new or interesting to say.
I don't think it is particularly unintelligent. Unambitious in the sense of the story maybe, but in that sense it does that same thing that Cowboy Bebop did for the movie. The storyline is basically a large scale evolution of the same sort of stories the series told, adding nothing significant new or different in terms of tone or character insight. I don't think the intent is really to blame here, but some of the execution in the script especially towards the end, definitely weakens the overall concept.
My primary complaint would be that even as a self-contained story, this isn't particularly well done. The twists feel awkward, the villains are strangely non-existent until the moment they are thrust into the ring, and there's never really any insight as to what's going on in any of the characters heads. Many of the familiar character simply feel like they're standing around to remind you that this is in fact a Fullmetal Alchemist movie, and none of the new ones are really able to fill the void adequately as characters who are so clearly disposable (so maybe it makes sense that they're never mentioned again down the timeline in the series). When the movie rather frankly has to ask who one of the main players is an hour and a half into the movie you've probably gone terribly wrong somewhere down the line. In fact there are only two sets of character bonds that really work here, Al and his new lady friend, and Ed's new boyfriend Pedro. One is cut short too early so the movie doesn't have to juggle so much, and the other never really feels like it's able to come to fruition because nothing that happens in the movie is really allowed to matter in FMA's larger narrative.
I agree that the script is troublesome, and in many ways I feel it is because the writer and director bit off more than they could chew. While the scope of the story is unambitious, and many of the themes are familiar ground for FMA fans, the actual content of the story they chose to write for the movie is relatively more complex and darker than many of the themes in the manga and previous series.
The political element here is played up significantly to create a setting where there is no real good or evil, just a clusterfuck of no man's land, with everyone involved being too stubborn to walk away, and in the process they create a situation which is bad for everyone else and themselves. This is an extremely appealing concept to me, and the way the movie initially explores it is pretty interesting.
Unfortunately, because this is a shounen action movie, it runs into two critical problems.
Firstly, none of the events in the movie can have a major impact on the main characters, since it takes place in-between the series. Secondly, and more offensive to me, is that there cannot be a total downer of an ending where everything realistically plays out to a tragic stalemate where there is no winner and the price paid by people who have gone too far in their stubborn ambitions is far too high. But yet that is imo the only ending which this movie was designed for. The scenario is set up to be one with no happy ending and a mirror of such situations in various parts of the world today, where there is no right solution because there is no solution. If they had decided to stick with such an ending, the entire theme of the movie would be that much more powerful.
At the same time, even if the story is such a mess the movie kind of does enough to make up for it. This sense of scale here is really incredible. Brotherhood did an alright job of this, but SSoM does an excellent job of creating a very fantastical but believable world because the cities feel big enough to be proper cities filled with loads of people (even if you rarely see them). It's a small thing, but it helps a lot in making the action scenes feel that much larger.
I know I made some remark in this thread earlier about the CG in this movie, but I'm actually more forgiving of it because of how ambitious most of the action set pieces in this movie are. There's tons of movement, characters from multiple sides all battling against each other, and they take place in these very large open spaces with a lot of additional chaos in the background. It was fun to watch this mostly just for the action scenes, and even though that's all it really has to offer it does them well.
I think my favorite thing about the movie is how they seem to have had a very clear vision for the sort of action they wanted the movie to have to set it apart from all the FMA animated works before it. This is definitely the highlight of the film, and the one thing where it feels truly unique and different.
In the previous FMA movie, to differ it from the TV series they went for pure size. Everything was "bigger" in the movie, including the villains who were represented by bigger monsters or bigger vehicles, etc. Here, what Milos does is that instead of "bigger", they went for "wider" instead. The action set pieces featured many extremely wide shots where you truly see that the scale in the movie is about the environments instead of the adversaries. All the villains are normal sized people, but yet the sequences are played over huge areas with a ton of movement which really allows the animators to go wild with the use of alchemy not just for combat but also for mobility. Great stuff.
Movie was worth watching as someone who likes Fullmetal Alchemist, and it's probably the most you can ask for from a production like this, but it's not really all that memorable or meaningful.
That probably sums it up pretty well. I do think the movie is memorable though, because it's a visual feast. If they had the balls to go through with an ending which was much more realistic, it would be meaningful too. Instead it remains a missed opportunity in the storytelling department because in the end it has to be "just a FMA movie".
