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Spring Anime 2017 |OT| Don't be a SukaSuka for Gacha

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Ascheroth

Member
SukaSuka whatever 07

zyVAjI9.jpg
Off-duty Military Lizard Man is amazing.
 
I saw this on youtube recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xycecbwpIzE&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKrLQDNuMpI&t=103s

It focuses on people who need to use wheelchairs in Japan, but there seems to be decent support and services if one were to assume that everyone has the same type of coverage.

Thanks, those were really informative. Seems like Japan has improved quite a lot in regards to disability support within the last two decades. Interesting how they might accelerate that progression for the next few years with the Olympics and Paralympics coming up in 2020.

Though, disabled children are apparently more strictly send to schools for the disabled, which was another question I had on my mind watching A silent Voice. While I figure that lipreading might be substantially easier in Japanese, following the majority of the verbal segments of a lesson doesn't seem realistic. Shouko was clearly shown to struggle with it, too, so it would've been nice to now how she got to join a otherwise completely normal class. While watching the film I was actually wondering if schools for the disabled were actually a common thing in Japan and whether Shouko attended this school because that's not the case and her choices were limited. Now I now that the option for those should have been there at least.
 
Okay. Orieki and Chitanda are fine... I am fine with them now. Satoshi for some reason is bugging me...

Edit: I am talking about the English VOs. Should've prefaced that.
 

Hellraider

Member
The more years pass by, the more fond of Hyouka I become for some reason. By the 2020's I wouldn't be surprised if I consider it my favorite anime of all time.
 
Yep this was just as good as I'd been hoping. I read the whole manga but never really found myself sucked in, save for a handful of parts. This took the manga's wonderful designs and matched them with an easier to follow narrative and greater sense of storytelling/understanding of the world. Crossing my fingers it'll get another film or two. I'd love to experience more of the Blame! world this way.

Cibo kinda got shafted in the epilogue. Did she appear at all after the 'time jump' and I missed it? She spends a lot more time with Killy in the manga so I was kinda surprised they had her travel down with the villagers but then no one mentions her again.
 

Qurupeke

Member
Dennou Coil 13-23

I liked that the show successfully balanced many characters on its earlier episodes. Like, there was Isako, Yasako, Fumie, the Hackers, Haraken, his aunt and many more. It was mainly about their conflicts and how each group of characters wanted to achieve their goal, but each one was an important player to the "game" too. At its second half, it feels like half the cast has gone and the structure of the arcs follows just a few characters. Even Fumie appears much more less.

Also, I liked the stuff with Kanna and Haraken, but the whole arc seemed almost like a railroad. There were more factions, dangerous Illegals and more mysteries, but all of those made the arc more messy than I'd like. Haraken made a lot of illogical decisions, there were a lot of sudden infodumps and I wouldn't say that the conclusion of that was very satisfactory. This kind of repeats again now, as I'm not entirely sure what's going on with Isako's decisions.

Anyway, the show is getting interesting as it's reaching to its climax. The new Illegal types have given a very eerie atmosphere to the show, while the stakes have been raised. Episode 23's final scene was devastating.
 
I somewhat agree with this. Silent Voice has the subtlety of a sledgehammer hitting you dead in the face. Now there's nothing wrong with that but Takemoto doesn't tend to 'exaggerate' as much as Yamada. There's a lot of scenes in Fumoffu for example that are really subtle or quiet moments but they tend to flesh out the characters. I was actually watching the mecha stuff in TSR and there's a number of small character animations that relay the emotions of Sousuke in that moment. Takemoto can go heavy handed too but he's much more of a grounded director than Yamada, it's just that he has more surreal source material.

I don't know if "surreal" is the right word there; just because a narrative has elements of fantasy or science fiction doesn't make surreal. In my experience, "surreal" is a word best used to describe a world where discernible logic is flimsy if not entirely nonexistent, and that doesn't really apply to any Takemoto works I've seen aside from some parts in the later half of Disappearance. Perhaps "fantastical" would be better.

I won't go farther into a dissection of Takemoto's style at this time - I really want to see High Speed to see what he ended up doing in that format - but I would disagree with your assessment of Yamada there. She is very much capable of subtle and quiet moments, and A Silent Voice features plenty of small, expressive character animations. I think the following excerpt from an interview with Yamada gets to the heart of why I admire her so much:

Each of the characters in A Silent Voice carries with them completely different emotions. There’s points where they don’t speak their real feelings, and there’s points where they do speak how they feel. This is an immensely loveable, priceless work where you meet characters holding various layers of emotions inside them. I think the viewers will also certainly get entangled with their emotions at points. Wanting to be allowed to repent and wanting to allow that repenting are both feelings you get caught up in. I think if it becomes that kind of work that gets people thinking about those things, it’ll be great. If you like, please tell me your impressions of it.

She has a desire to convey the emotional journeys of her characters, to make them feel fully real, and to motivate her audience to feel and contemplate the complexity of those emotions and states of being. That desire to communicate to her audience and the imaginative commitment to explore the possibilities for communication in her medium are things I value in an artist. There may be people who are not receptive to her work and do not appreciate the way in which she tries to communicate, but that's the reality of being human. As A Silent Voice illustrates, communication is imperfect, but it is not impossible and it is certainly worth trying.
 
THe Royal Tutor Episode 8

KAI EPISODE KAI EPISODE BEST EPISODE BEST!!!!!

I liked this one, Kai going through trying to be more talkative and expressing his feelings to the everyday staff that makes his life better was so touching. Shadow plot could have been pushed off to something else though as it kind of got in the way.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Thanks, those were really informative. Seems like Japan has improved quite a lot in regards to disability support within the last two decades. Interesting how they might accelerate that progression for the next few years with the Olympics and Paralympics coming up in 2020.

Though, disabled children are apparently more strictly send to schools for the disabled, which was another question I had on my mind watching A silent Voice. While I figure that lipreading might be substantially easier in Japanese, following the majority of the verbal segments of a lesson doesn't seem realistic. Shouko was clearly shown to struggle with it, too, so it would've been nice to now how she got to join a otherwise completely normal class. While watching the film I was actually wondering if schools for the disabled were actually a common thing in Japan and whether Shouko attended this school because that's not the case and her choices were limited. Now I now that the option for those should have been there at least.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised to hear that differently-abled children were just put in their own schools, and that children with physical disabilities were just lumped in with children with learning/developmental disabilities. They say that it's changing, so presumably the movie reflects that reality.
 

Jarmel

Banned
I don't know if "surreal" is the right word there; just because a narrative has elements of fantasy or science fiction doesn't make surreal. In my experience, "surreal" is a word best used to describe a world where discernible logic is flimsy if not entirely nonexistent, and that doesn't really apply to any Takemoto works I've seen aside from some parts in the later half of Disappearance. Perhaps "fantastical" would be better.

hahahahahaha

I literally had fantastical originally in my post but I wasn't sure if that was an actual word and so replaced it with surreal despite knowing that wasn't a great fit word-wise.
 
I'm sorry but when you name your manga "A Silent Voice" you can't expect me to not get people to go see that.

I did watch it, but without any knowledge of ZZ Gundam it just looks like an average, unremarkable OP to me.

They changed "I'm curious" to " I have to know"...

WHY!?!?! YOU HAD ONE JOB!

It probably worked better with the required timing/lipsyncing.

hahahahahaha

I literally had fantastical originally in my post but I wasn't sure if that was an actual word and so replaced it with surreal despite knowing that wasn't a great fit word-wise.

You learn something every day.
 
100% Teacher Pascal deserves to be on the chart, but Crunchyroll, as usual fails to market any of their kids shows. Like they dont even ever post about MonStrike or Buddyfight or CFvanguard (no gifs ever).
 

Kickz

Member
Inuyasha The Final Act Ep 8

cvdktOc.jpg
I7z0wmQ.jpg
JJPQ2Zc.jpg

Love triangles, love triangles everywhere

Kikiyo
dies again
, thanks to Naraku. Although she has
died
before so not sure if we will see her again. It was a nice touch to have an instrumental of one of the old classic endings from the first series play as Inuyasha had his
final moments
with her.

Thats Kagura and Kikiiyo now, Naraku is on a rampage, I fear for Miroku as he has been taking a beating lately. =[
 

duckroll

Member
We've gone over this before, but I can't share your view of anime directors as being all a bunch of cynical hucksters who only have eyes on commercial success. Besides, neither Your Name nor A Silent Voice are as bad as Avatar or the bad Nolan films.

I don't know if this is projection on your part but I at no point said anything about anyone being a cynical huckster. Entertainment isn't a business which you go into wearing a shirt that either says "I'M AN ARTIST" or "HERE TO MAKE $$$". It's a balance especially at the top end. Sure, there are directors who just work for hire and are there for a paycheck, but that's not what we were discussing here.

By saying that Your Name is a Top10 Pop Song and A Silent Voice is an Art Film, you are automatically suggesting that there is significantly more artistic expression in one compared to the other. That cannot be further from the truth. They are both expressions of art but also both very clearly commercial vehicles. One is simply much more successful than the other, but A Silent Voice is by no means some sort of niche bomb that is made just for the love of art that most people "cannot appreciate".

If you really think that Yamada makes no considerations at all about commercial appeal and the financial viability of her works when making them, I think you're just deceiving yourself. That's not being cynical, it's being practical. You want to express yourself, but you also want to reach an audience so that expression is appreciated.

Both are almost certainly 2018 titles.

I will be SHOCKED if Code Geass 3 isn't a movie series like Unicorn, Origin, Yamato, and GuP.
 
Hand Shakers is definitely an example where the people involved were interested in showing just how artistic they could be. Some of those landscapes really made me want to actually go to JPN and the camera work, this needs to be a ride at Universal Orlando.
 
I don't know if this is projection on your part but I at no point said anything about anyone being a cynical huckster. Entertainment isn't a business which you go into wearing a shirt that either says "I'M AN ARTIST" or "HERE TO MAKE $$$". It's a balance especially at the top end. Sure, there are directors who just work for hire and are there for a paycheck, but that's not what we were discussing here.

I wasn't trying to project; just trying to figure out your position since several times you've criticized me for being concerned about the artistic and expressive goals of anime directors. If I have misinterpreted you, I apologize. I agree that there's a balance. Most filmmakers and artists/entertainers in general want audiences to enjoy their work unless they're engaging in some extreme avant-garde or academic oddities.

By saying that Your Name is a Top10 Pop Song and A Silent Voice is an Art Film, you are automatically suggesting that there is significantly more artistic expression in one compared to the other. That cannot be further from the truth.

I would say they're different types of artistic expression. Your Name is a sentimental love ballad while A Silent Voice is a sensitive exploration of damaged human psyches. I would say A Silent Voice is a deeper, richer film than Your Name, due primarily to the difference between Shinkai's material and the manga material Yamada was dealing with, but they both exhibit very fine craftsmanship.

(Just for reference, I pulled up the original tweet where I first saw this analogy.)

They are both expressions of art but also both very clearly commercial vehicles. One is simply much more successful than the other, but A Silent Voice is by no means some sort of niche bomb that is made just for the love of art that most people "cannot appreciate".

I certainly didn't mean to imply that. I think A Silent Voice is a fairly accessible film, albeit with emotionally difficult subject matter. It's been fairly successful within its own sphere. Perhaps the problem is that the term "art film" implies something more exclusive and alienating to you than it does to me. I'm sorry for the terminological confusion.

If you really think that Yamada makes no considerations at all about commercial appeal and the financial viability of her works when making them, I think you're just deceiving yourself. That's not being cynical, it's being practical. You want to express yourself, but you also want to reach an audience so that expression is appreciated.

I'm sure Yamada isn't unaware of the commercial/financial side of film creation, and I wouldn't be surprised if considerations of those sort play some role in her decisions. Still, from all the interviews I've read with her, she doesn't seem like the sort of person who prioritizes commercial appeal or financial viability in her creative process. She talks about wanting to make an impact on audiences, but that's a somewhat different goal from figuring out what will make her company the most money. I hasten to add that I don't think Shinkai prioritizes commercial appeal in his creative process either - that's apparent by his embarrassed reaction to Your Name's massive financial success - he simply has his own style and goals he wants to achieve. In my observation of the anime-making process (and film-making in general I suppose), I've gotten the feeling that producers are the people who are primarily concerned with financial viability more so than directors. Please correct me if you feel I'm mistaken.
 
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