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Apr 25, 2020

Koukaku Kidoutai: SAC_2045 (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2045 is not Ghost in the Shell, neither standalone, and nor is it complex. This new “installment” mirrors more the drama level of their recent ULTRAMAN anime than it does the cyberpunk classic that established itself in the past. All that is left of the original series is diluted concepts and themes to placate the infamous “Netflix audience.” Such concepts as new beings literally called “post-humans” (real creative), blatant taking of Orwell in it’s backstory of a “sustainable war” along with pertaining to modern sensibilities in referencing “one-percenters.” Everything here is a silly recreation of what the average ... Netflix user would think Ghost in the Shell was about.

It is unfortunate that it seems Shinji Aramaki's vision takes precedence over Kenji Kamiyama on this one, corrupting part of their legacy with this series. I was generally apprehensive about their previous forays in to 3DCG things of the like, and although with this the 3DCG doesn’t look that bad on the Netflix budget and can actually look quite impressive, the show still becomes lifeless both writing-wise and in action. The fight with a naked Patrick Huge, the self-insert of the character designer Ilya Kushinov along with his anime girl maid harem that look like every image he has ever drawn, is laughable on many levels. I had already guessed the whole twist that unravels in that episode in the second episode anyway, since the writing in this is action Sci-Fi and not heady cyberpunk. Ilya Kushinov the known plagiarizer, and even without that bit, is a generally average artist that attracted too much praise given his worth and simply does not have an art style that reliably translates into GitS, especially seen in Motoko among other female characters.

Getting in to the new attachments to this show, we have the introduction of a new character, Stan, nicknamed Clown. His design looks like a Fortnite character and perfectly exemplifies what it seems the creators expect from the exposure to a Netflix audience. He is brash, says the most obvious statements, and serves absolutely no purpose. Pazu and Borma are gone for the first half, the Netflix audience wouldn’t remember them anyway, and instead we have Stan. Most of the first half of the show coincidentally also takes place in America, which has apparently been united under the Empire instead of balkanized with the previous Russo-American Alliance.

This whole sustainable war point simply isn’t interesting and feels like it came out of How to Design a Futuristic World 101, first take some 1984 and then make the concepts more "modern" hmm yes perfect. We already got a close-to-cyberpunk media that did the whole war industry thing better it's called Metal Gear Solid, and the person who did the soundtrack for some of the games on that is the composer for this show as well. A war industry has never been a new concept, and here it is surface level as hell. It even makes itself really obvious what the whole political implications are in the first scene of the show. You’ve got the new GHOST merc group under Motoko and Batou getting chased by “sustainable war victims” in dingy trucks and it just serves as a mindless car chase action scene that gives the little info dump about how The World Be. Then, across the next 3 episodes you will be treated to more car chase scenes which take up the main attraction of the episodes. They really cash in on this mainstream audience they’ll be getting by abandoning what made SAC actually interesting and turning it into stupid action backed up by a hackneyed mystery about “post-humans” (doesn’t even make that much sense given the existence of cyberbrains already inhabiting that concept and all that but who cares amirite) who are just cyborgs that downloaded aimbot and they decide to center the whole show around investigating these people.

There’s this part in one of the episodes where we get the whole virtual chatroom bit, Togusa is watching four disguised guys talk about GHOST so he can get info on them and one of the guys leaves the chatroom, Togusa intercepts him and FLYING PUNCHES him in the VIRTUAL WORLD to STEAL HIS DISGUISE. You cannot make this stupid shit up, none of this shit feels like the Cyberpunk world of the original series despite this supposed to be taking place EVEN MORE into the future. In the end one can’t help but wonder, what is there for anyone to get out of this except for those who have never seen Ghost in the Shell, that being the Netflix Audience? There is nothing, and even if you have not seen Ghost in the Shell, just watch the movies (not Arise not Arise not Arise not Arise), and the SAC show.

And I swear to Allah If I have to see that stupid ass pink haired woman and her moe anime girl idiotic mannerisms one more time alongside her generic dime a dozen kushinov face fuck you ilya kushinov you absolute hack draw a new face for once

(end rant)

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Dec 12, 2019

Psycho-Pass 3 (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Spoiler

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I’ll just be upfront about it, Psycho-Pass was never good. No, not even the first season. It has repeatedly solidified itself as a pseudo-intellectual entry with only pretensions to the truth as written by the hack writer known as Urobuchi whose writing technique is a session of confidence tricks. Though, even among the collective that disagrees with these notions, there is an air of ambivalence to the subsequent additions into the Psycho-Pass universe, with this new season only adding on to the pile. Though I believe this installment to be the best in the series and had a promising start, it is ... unable to deal with its own story and contributes to a never-ending series that shouldn't have existed to begin with.

Pulling away from the previous shows, Psycho-Pass 3 starts with a mostly all-new cast and a fresh outlook on the world. The positions of returning main characters have been seemingly retconned and turned on it’s head in a very odd way in between the movie and this particular show. Kougami goes from international terrorist leader against the Sibyl system to working as an investigator for them, while Akane is an imprisoned political activist working outside the Sibyl system. The change into this new cast is a promising change as Urobuchi has never been good at writing characters nor their interpersonal relationships and neither has anyone been good at attempting to do so with Urobuchi’s character setups. Alongside this, after two shows and a movie, they finally realized that in a NOIR-ISH SCI-FI WITH A DYSTOPIAN SETUP, it might be best to focus on macropolitics, the socio-political implications of the world, and implement the actual police procedural process into the overarching story rather than focus on character drama.

Although there is still character drama, it’s woven into the story though itself feeling underwhelming and melodramatic. The allusions to Arata’s father are too on the nose and “small world” while the forced incorporation of Kei’s wife into the conflict turns into a melodramatic romp that feels rather pathetic when he’s saved by Gino and his foreign affairs division. What makes Psycho-Pass 3 unique when compared to the rest however is how it handles its politics, or really that it actually handles the politics at all. Immigration, the political ramifications of the Sibyl system on a democratic environment, how this system feeds into a deep state of wealthy bankers, gun restrictions, democracy subverted by the system’s deep state, domestic terrorism, and special religious zones. All of which should have been issues to be developed in the previous shows that were not.

The way in which these issues are dealt with are rather nuanced leading into a rather vague final answer. There is care to be shown to immigrants wanting to escape the conditions of their home country, yet this issue is also being exploited by interest groups for cheap labor. Much like many countries in real life, anti-isolationist (pro-immigration) groups champion for the rights of immigrants to enter the country, yet not their once they get in. It’s all a ploy by the system to exploit for labor and political gain, with candidates on an anti-isolationist platform given the election by the system’s deep state and its exploitative bend. The solution? Well, in Psycho-Pass tradition it throws an issue at you but then doesn’t offer a possible solution, or the solution it does offer doesn’t actually solve anything. Of course, it inevitably handles the Sibyl system in this way. In the first season, Akane went full Suzaku mode and proclaimed she’d “fix the system from the inside” as opposed to armed revolution which was depicted as a “morally wrong” thing to do, despite this being aimed at a very obviously corrupt system. Then, much like Suzaku she proceeded to assist the system in its exploitation and murder while never actually solving the problem she set out to tackle in the first place.

We see the same here regarding the system, at first not as direct and in your face about it but falling into the trappings as before all the same by the end. This the eternal problem with the series which, different writers or not, it has not been able to tackle properly. The ramifications of its plot are fundamentally too nuanced to draw up any proper solution without controversy, and the writers are ill-equipped to deal with that. It shows angles and themes that point to the system being very clearly bad in multiple ways from its control of justice to it being actually corrupted from the inside, and especially in the first season was it shown as so. Yet it bounces back to the system being necessary. So it plays it safe, aiming for a “reformist” line of thinking, which has given me an infinite source of disappointment. We are presented with a corrupt and exploitative authoritarian police state, yet it will constantly view and display an armed revolution, the only way of rooting out the system, against it as morally wrong, and its participants “misguided.” Makishima was not a “good guy” but he was ideologically a preferable alternative, and the only reason he gets seen as a bad guy is because of Urobuchi forcing him to be a serial killer so NOW he becomes morally wrong. If he wasn’t, he’d be undebatably superior to a reformist angle that he wished to push without real legitimacy.

In our third installment, we see Kurisu O’Brien take stage as the armed antagonist to the system, though the writing is certainly sympathetic to him as Arata offers him compassion and understanding, he is still portrayed as misguided. Why should we view this way? Arata okay’s the actions of a puppet to the system who herself exploited the people under a systematic metric more than a revolutionary out to turn the tide against that indisputably corrupt system, and it’s now bad because his own persona vendetta of revenge came into play for such an act? Then of course, it turns into a reformist angle, instead aiming to remove the “blind spots” of the system rather than systematically change society for the better. Despite this series attempting to come off as Dystopian, it seems to love this system, as we and the populace are treated to the idea that the system is the entire reason that the country is stable compared to the rest of the world stuck in a perpetual civil war and uprising. Does it portray this as propagandizing? No, it seems to agree with this. As if the system of the PRC should be hand-waved as “not the best” but still, look at all those countries who aren’t so well off! We should be grateful for this system! Reform it from the inside if it gets bad!

You don’t even have to defend the system, just make something where the characters are forced to deal with the current world as is (like Blade Runner), yet it refuses this. It attempts to justify the system with the inclusion of Bifrost as not a consequence of the system, but the system a victim of their reign. The proof of this is that they supposedly predate the system or that they technically aren’t an official part of it, and this is a completely idiotic excuse. An authoritarian system that decides things in such a way will always come to be exploited by the wealthy, and the wealthy will always predate any system that is put into place. If your system cannot deal with either of those, it is not an efficient system in working for the people. It even dictates who and who doesn’t need government-assigned therapy, which will always be an extremely bad idea and morally wrong. Bifrost is interesting and has some cool sequences with its odd gambling game, though functionally it feels like a diet version of the Illuminati from Deus Ex, so just play that instead.

Because a system that is so brutally efficient that it measures it’s people according to their “hues” and deals with them according to it instead of individuals is supposedly so good at keeping things stable, we should keep this system in place and just rely on people always being there to “reform it” if it gets bad. Why? Because the alternative would be possibly less stable. At the very least, this new season did real world building and actually showed the intricacies of how the Sibyl system affected the political system as a whole along with the very obvious issue of this world which would come into play, that being Immigration. That’s more than I can say about all the other iterations before. Really, it’s the best you’re going to get out of this world when presented with hack writers every season, and it doesn’t help that they continue to hang on to the old characters, bringing them back for the final stretch of the show. Plenty of scenes where Kougami show up are just annoying fan service and I never liked Akane. She’s the quintessential “naïve idealist” that Urobuchi loves to write. Don’t even get me started on the YA-novel tier of writing in regard to the “criminally asymptomatic” across this entire franchise.

There are other issues with the story itself though, like Arata’s mental trace ability being a convenient MacGuffin both for the investigation and the whole backstory with his father that ties into the overarching plot. The weird incorporation of exaggerated anime faces and reactions for some humor bit comes across as out of place. Kei and Arata’s backstory into their relationship also feels melodramatic and Kei’s wife especially is really exploited for emotional points. In the end, it’s just SAC Lite, much like how the series always really was. At the very least they finally figured out exactly what made the world of SAC interesting but couldn’t replicate it. It would’ve been best for everyone if this series ended at the first season, even if this is legitimately the best season of the show. Cope harder Urobuchi fans.

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Aug 24, 2019

Granbelm (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Preliminary (8/13 eps)

Granbelm is your latest creatively bankrupt seasonal anime featuring bright haired anime girls with tragic backstories in chibi mecha. In essence, this work, by the director of the infamous Re:Zero, is an isekai (sort of) magical girl mecha battle royale where the last mage standing will get the mysterious macguffin that grants wishes. We are introduced to the protagonist Mangetsu who is your usual "do-no-wrong" character who mysteriously ends up in the Magical World despite only those with mage ancestry being able to, and totally does not have a super power lying dormant within her because plot twist plot twist plot twist. Mangetsu becomes aware ... she does not have a personality so she instead joins in the battle royale to help Shingetsu fulfill her wish.

In this world, magic existed once back in ancient civilization until it was sealed by a circle of mages who sacrificed their lives to do so, but apparently they didn't do such a good job since there are still magic users on Earth and they are able to use magic powers, in and out of the separate world. Despite this magic originally being used by the oldest civilizations of Europe and West Asia, all of the current magic users happen to be pubescent Japanese girls. It would've been much more interesting if it used Japanese history or folklore as to explain this, but alas the writers must've realized that would take effort.

Mecha battles within the magic world consist of characters winning based on how many times they say "envision" or which character remembers their backstory and motivations the hardest. There are also other asspulls such as characters randomly triggering super powers that allow them to win based on how angry they are or random magic powers that weren't ever used prior. The constant back and forth rivalry of Shingetsu and Anna becomes tiring when you realize Shingetsu is just a Mary Sue and Anna is your designated character to hate for that part because she's a pompous yandere that would likely just stop being that and become a good person in the future. Unfortunately it's not like we can really know because it drops it almost immediately after it reaches its crux to instead turn back to Shingetsu and the alternating path of bullshit.

Conveniently, these mecha called "ARMANOX" are the "reflection of the user's soul" or some drivel like that as to explain why characters don't ever have to be any good at using the mecha and can just rely on the writers to decide how it should all go. They then proceed to do this for other magical manifestations because yes.

The wish granting macguffin of this magical world battle royale only involves the most basic motivations when it comes to character's reasons for obtaining it. It's not like I was expecting something on the level of the movie Stalker when it comes to philosophy surrounding such a wish granting device but it's like they didn't even want to try, their motivations never really change or are questioned, they simply exist. It's not like there is any room for characters to even philosophize because everyone that is on the "good side" is a complete yes man for Shingetsu while every villain is just a crazy woman that lusts for power.

There's also some conflict between Suishou and uhh the other white haired girl over her sister which is so poorly conveyed that it's laughable. This conflict is also poorly concluded before it's vestiges are used just to power Shingetsu's motivations. At least the creators were smart enough to realize how boring and forgettable the characters were so they color coded them.

My initial predictions at the start of the show were aiming for a more "generic pseudo-deep" approach and while the show is certainly trying too hard to be deep, I did not account for the sheer stupidity of the writers and their infatuation with PLOT TWISTS. It showers in these plot twists to cover up for a lack of depth to the story, characters, and the narrative as a whole. It actually makes everything worse as it feels like they made it up on the spot with build up to it and roundabout dialogue just being for the reveal itself. Mangetsu's reveal encapsulating this with everyone going "MANGETSU IS...." and constantly reminding you that Mangetsu indeed is. It's soap opera tier of writing. Why do people know of Mangetsu's true identity? They just do. What purpose does it serve the characters to reveal this information? None, it's all done for the sake of a plot twist. Chalk it up to more shallow writing about "the soul" or something if you really want to.

As stated twice before the story has this really good trait of building up arcs, concluding them awfully, then adding the characters involved in it to the Shingetsu motivator waste dump, Mangetsu included. She goes from protagonist that is a Shingetsu worshiper to just a Shingetsu worshiper, and quite literally exists to be a useless motivator character because goddamn if anime characters always need someone to pepper them with platitudes across the show before they actually succeed. Then of course, every scene with Mangetsu doing so has the most manipulative music like they really break out the violins when characters are saying "The world is filled with feelings" as if it's some grand revelation, my god.

The artstyle and design is ultimately "whatever." There's a lot of "same face" which also explains the color coding and they over utilize the exaggerated faces for the sake of portraying someone as crazy or mad. Also the mecha have awful designs that look like toys more than anything dangerous.

If someone looks at this as a "dark magical girl" show and begins referencing Madoka then that's when you know it's bad. If you want "dark magical girl" just watch Utena. If you want mecha, watch Gundam. If you want a story with plot twists and character intrigue, read Dostoevsky. If you want an anime with a cast of bright haired anime girls then go watch whatever waifubait show is on this season. Don't watch this, it's a complete waste of time.

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Jul 28, 2019

JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 5: Ougon no Kaze (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Preliminary (37/39 eps)

Spoiler

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

JoJo has got to be the most overrated anime that people continue to take in like the world's greatest achievement. What started and continues to get touted as just an over the top yet cliched messy fun quickly turns into neverending gruel of meaningless repetitive filler as if it's written by a drooling old man with alzheimer's. This wouldn't be nearly as bad if it didn't get thrown around as one of the best shonens or just anime in general on the same level as its contemporaries such as HxH or FMA. If you want a story-driven anime with solid characters and ...

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