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Yeah, I recently saw the first and last clip around the time when you started the series. Those are probably some of the best. The second one is quite funny. Almost makes you wonder if someone on the staff knew Spanish and had him take this scene as an inside joke. :P

Who knows what that new Gundam movie will be like. I'm skeptical, lol. I don't have a lot of faith in Anno, given how he butchered the Evangelion rebuilds.

Yeah, that would be a good way of doing it. Think of it like the Zone in Stalker or just some alternative area. Standard anime production values, but when you get into the zone, it's uncanny value AI creation. Could be really cool and a kind of commentary on the spread of AI slop.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/60521/Twins_Hinahima

New trailer. It looks like they're running with the weirdness of AI. This could be really good if they're careful with the script. My expectations are really low, though.

I watched with eng subs, and I don't think they made a comparison to Virgin Mary, but that's what I was thinking of because they weren't committing to a likely suspect. So I'd guess that's what the Spanish dubbers were doing unless the eng sub was faulty. It's an easy connection to make either way. I'm wondering if they have any virgin birth legends in Japan. A lot of stuff thought to be "unique" to Christianity often turns out to be drawn from prior sources. With the Izanagi and Izanami myth, he gives birth to some deities after his wife dies, which is a little weird, but it's kind of like Zeus birthing Dionysus out of his thigh, yet he was unborn from Semele, so it was a transference (no idea if the specifics are that clear with Izanagi). There are also a few miraculous births, like Kaguya-Hime and Momotaro; there's also Kintaro, but that's too mysterious. But those are not virgin births in the sense of being born to a woman who wasn't exposed to sperm. That's about all I'm seeing. It might have just been because of the Jesuits introducing Christianity to Japan, as that's the most similar reference. Of her two personas, her hair is kind of silverish for one of them, so my only other input is... Ajo: "Hey, Sergei, Dr. Mima is hoarding his daughter, and it's not fair. Go make me a rape baby." But Ajo seemed ignorant of Key, so I don't think that makes sense. I was mostly just weirded out by how they were talking about the mother and then switch to talking about Sergei raiding the village.

Yeah, it's very well directed for being an exposition dump, and they crammed a LOT into that episode. I think the biggest weakness was indeed the rival. It should have mostly been voiceover set to imagery and flashbacks. He was walking around, typing away on the keyboard, and just rambling the whole time. It's a lot easier to do something like that when you have the Takaki/Wakagi scene. But also it doesn't help that he is introduced so late. lmao, imagine Tsurugi's shock that it's Beniko pretending to be Miho, but it's actually robot Miho, lol. I don't think Beniko was introduced until episode 14 as well, but they needed another person because Miho was practically a vegetable for most of the series. What I found weird was the discussion about Key's father. Wakagi says it wasn't him or Dr. Mima and suggests it wasn't any of the villagers, then he cuts to Sergei in a weird way... Yet I don't think it ever confirmed who it was, almost as if they wanted to imply a "virgin birth."

Ah, so Nausicaa manga has similar problems with length and bloat, like the Akira manga did? I wish Chiyoko had been taken out of the manga too. Too many action scenes with her. The movie feels far more tense because few of the characters have much combat experience or are all that powerful. Which makes the powers of the psychics more noteworthy. Yeah, I would guess that was influence. I'd be curious to watch the film again with that in mind, since Anno worked on it. You're not there yet, but I find the Beniko/Tsurugi scene interesting in that respect. All of them are pretty unhinged. The giant does feel more like an organic mech than is usual for giants, and EVAs are a bit like giants with armor in the more disturbing scenes.

So where does the clue for ET come up? I didn't notice anything about aliens. Or was all the alien stuff prior to the dance scene? If there is Turkish Star Wars, then is this Indian ET? :\

It has a cynical portrayal of the village. It's more of an ensemble cast, but Natsuno appears to be the main character in the beginning, and he's from the city and hates the village. Megumi is a girl who dreams of going to the city and becoming an idol (lol, funny, since we're talking about Key). You probably assume she will become his romantic interest, and they'll bond over their preference for the city. No, he hates her and is rude to her from the start, and she quickly gets turned into a shiki (the word for vampire in Shiki). It's a bleak, negative series (I especially dislike the monk character), that tries to balance the two sides but ends up becoming overly sympathetic toward the shiki over the humans in the village (even though they're just living normally and the shiki are the aggressors). And it presents a lot of the villagers in that kind of generic bigoted way that they tend to do in films when they're trying to portray a person, family, or location negatively. I also usually agree with the villagers even when they're presented negatively as well. XD

I don't recommend it, though I suppose you could do worse if you want a vampire horror anime.

I don't know, and I haven't watched a lot of later Spielberg. I didn't last even a minute. I was thinking Saturday Night Fever, but I don't think Spielberg was involved.

That guy is basically a representative of the cults that emerged in the post-war era. What is his religion? I don't know, but he's dressed in a gaudy, out-of-place way that immediately has one thinking charlatan. His backstory is that he was lost in the woods and a mysterious miko leads him back to society. It was a profound religious experience for him, which he tried to recreate through starting a religion, but he is a fraud. That miko (who seemed to be a ghost or some such) was the real thing then, in death, and when she was alive. So its critique is of the inauthentic, not the authentic.

Umm... I don't remember the specifics for the exact scene you are talking about, as I watched some of the early episodes far apart from the rest, but there is another scene like that in episode 14. There's also a dance, and she manipulates a puppet. The person shown was most likely her mother, as that would be more likely than the grandmother (in the episode 14 scene, though, it was the grandmother, but that was a flashback from the perspective of a different character). I would think it was because Shuichi was from the city, though I guess it's possible they might have thought he was another person like Ajo or connected to him somehow, since that seems to be the only person asking about such things. Though vaguely the village is connected more to tradition, religion, etc. Whereas the city is like the antithesis.

It's also very oppositional to something like Shiki, which is, honestly, I feel anti-village. XD

How many of them really have dance numbers? I could see them making it work in some contexts, but I feel like directors and writers making these things don't care that much about how it's integrated.

Although you could certainly view it from a Marxist lens, I don't think there is anything Marxist about it. I don't remember too many anime with this feel outside of Oshii, though maybe some of Tezuka and some other mangaka? You're correct about the laborer's alienation, and I agree with plenty of Marxism's critiques of capitalism, even though I reject it as a whole. But I think there are serious problems with looking at this series through a Marxist lens. Many competing modern ideologies/movements/philosophies had critiques of capitalism, but there is a Marxist slant in university so their critiques are prioritized. It strikes me as much more of a traditionalist Japanese critique. There isn't any kind of class struggle or anti-hierarchical tendencies, for one. There is also the religious component. Marxism tends to be atheistic, though that may not have been the case with all the various socialist and communist movements in Japan, they tended to be critical of religious practices there too, and shintoism would be a likely target because of its association with the old order and Japanese nationalism. I mean, I'm not sure how far you are yet, but there's this whole thing with the kagura dance and the village and its connection with spiritual power. That traditional practice effectively is replaced or reduced in importance by corporate idol music. The Zaibatsu system of Japan, which can be considered a kind of corporatism, was replaced by free market capitalism when they lost the war. Again, I don't know the author's perspective on that, but the replacement was less conducive to Japanese traditionalism. Capitalism destroys tradition (so does Marxism, lmao, which is also why I'm hesitant to adopt a Marxist lens here or, frankly, anywhere else). There's really not an example that we can point to where that isn't the case, as their sense of identity becomes lost and these traditions are gradually eroded, as this ideology is internationalist. The idol and general entertainment industry in Key is shown to be absolutely ruthless and connected to corporate giants like Ajo, with them extracting gel (I believe they reveal what the "gel" is in episode 14) from people and using them up, even their "own people," like the scientists and Miho, whether it was from gel extraction or the damaging effects of the technology they use.

I'm going to say that part of Key's strength is how universal it is thematically. It is distinctly Japanese, yes, but you can apply the same thing you see here to other countries. I saw a neg review that was criticizing it because he thought it seemed like this weird fixation on Japanese idols that he couldn't relate to. How is it any different in America when it comes to our pop music industry and capitalism versus tradition (certainly our identity is far less clear now, we are more materialistic, less religious, and so on)? Or your Argentina. What it is depicting is not exclusive to Japan, though it is presenting Japanese iconography and sensibilities and looking at the world from their perspective.

Although episode 14 is pretty rough, I actually quite like the Tsurugi/Beniko scene. Beniko especially has this kind of voice that seems deeply wounded.

lol, I've also seen some of the editing they do for Indian TV that was pretty hilarious, with the idea supposedly being that a lot of the shows are directed at housewives, and they use this explosive editing and music to indicate it's time to pay attention. XD

Hmm... well, looking at that, I think what would be a good idea for Bollywood is to draw more wuxia influence and make martial arts films that mix folklore and fantasy. Could be quite interesting. They have a sense for spectacle that I don't think pairs well with reality. So the more you incorporate magic and fantasy elements, the more believable it becomes and the more purposive the spectacle feels.

Oh, is Ramayana not that good? That scene is quite impressive, though. I've been meaning to watch it.

Uh, I've probably only seen 2-4 Bollywood films a long time ago, most of which I don't remember well, and I don't know much about these films. I saw a few from Satyajit Ray, but I don't think the more independent stuff counts, right? I've generally always hated musical numbers, though, so I imagine I wouldn't like a lot of them.

I was trying to think of scenes as strong in the same way as that big pirateship battle but nothing comes to mind. I don't think any other Toei had scenes as strong. Maybe the closest is some other Miyazaki and early Ghibli. Maybe Cagliostro is the closest? TV wise, you did show me some fairly impressive group scenes from Sherlock Hound. Probably the best I've seen from TV. Though I don't think any were as dynamic as that ATI scene.

Love the frying pan gag at the end:

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/230589

This was also posted in that thread:

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/230591

It's definitely one of the best widescale combat scenes in anime. That was a fun movie.

The manga would definitely have to be a part of it. Sometimes they deviate with storyboarding or spice the action up a bit but plenty of it is going with what's in the manga, and if they have to be faithful, there may not be much you can do to enhance a drab part in the manga other than to increase the flashiness. I just watched it, and I guess I'm a little distracted because I kind of had a tough time telling which was the remake at some points. But, yeah, both following the manga (and it showed some of the actual panels from the manga), with the remake being roughly similar but more camera moves and flashiness. Actually, it'd probably be enlightening to take that scene from One Piece anime and that one Yutaka Nakamura scene (not the one I sent you but the one in that thread) and compare the anime fight to the manga fight. If they're relatively similar, then the bigger problem would, indeed, be the manga or the tendency of the industry to not go more off script (but it's kind of hard to blame them if what they're doing works and the deadlines and all that).

btw, Yotoden is a fun watch for ninja action, but it's definitely plenty flawed. I like Ninja Scroll and Yoma better.

What do you think of Chansard? I guess not necessarily that clip but wasn't sure which one to link. Not sure if they note which animator did what, though.

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/228603

I find animation discussion kind of depressing sometimes XD. One thing I read in that thread gave me the impression that what was being said was that animators like Nakamura shouldn't show off because it puts pressure on the rest of the industry to be overworked and churn out more flashy animation, compared to the "just acceptable," like you might see with Sakamoto Days. SD looks fine to me based on clips I saw, but it's definitely not the flashiest shonen. It's very heavily a buddy comedy type thing, though, so the focus is a little different. Just seems odd to me, like an attack on animation expression because of industry woes.