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listen. i love some good worldbuilding, good art, inventive choices, a strong sense of atmosphere, seemingly stream-of-consciousness narrative choices. This series has all of this in droves. Masaaki Yuasa, as per usual, masterfully crafts each scene and its such a feast in so many ways.
The lighting is consistently non-daytime from what I've watched so far, which is interesting for the mood-and it is a very moody series. In fact, its got a... can I say film noir? type feeling.

To be entirely honest, that might be a part of what put me off 😅
I was so in love with the world and its crafting, and ... I'm not someone that needs the world to be CLEAR or well-laid out--I like it to feel intuitive, having its own influence on whats happening... and it does, but...

ok... the crux of the argument...
the show is SOOOOOOOOOOO HETERO
someone else reviewing said this in a different way. The show becomes so much about this moody hetero back and forth and the beauty of the setup gets totally lost. This is what I find constantly grating about Masaaki Yuasa, despite really appreciating him as an artist and animator. Even the romance at first adds a bit of an allure to the show but the way things pan out... I found myself less and less drawn to it, and it was becoming more and more central to it.

I encourage anyone else watching this for similar reasons or with similar interests to stick it out because I trust in Yuasa to deliver somewhere else down the road--it's not uncommon for experiments in animation like this to have a spot where it feels a bit lacking and usually I can pull through but this dude... oi. I needed a break

this little chunk of stuff was so full of masterful storytelling on multiple levels. really interesting music/sound design, the animation was simple and well done, the characters were great (so great that its sad there isnt more of them than this 30 minute short)

to be able to build up a world with that many characters and also tell a story where somewhat drastic changes happen, and to push all of it into 30 minutes, i just think that takes a lot of talent.

also its funny. they play with the pacing a lot. the toilet flushing every few minutes in the beginning was a delight ... for me 🤣🤣 very stimmy. it starts quickly and rolls over itself quickly but if you stick with it itll reward you with more flow later.

the animation reminded me of... Tekkonkinkreet in some ways, or No. 5 (manga), or... yknow, its that kind of irreverent avant garde-y skratchy style. if you like that, you'll love this.

this shit is awesome and beautiful. are you kidding me?? I found it inventive and I liked the intensity between the main slew of characters, I loved the art, I loved the mystery of the world and of these opposing groups... loved the eyeball lick... love the manipulation... so much jam packed into such a short little thing and doesnt overload you by trying to spell out every detail or confine itself to sense. hot. loved it.

i dont have much more to say but MAL is asking me to. dont really underdtand why characters responding to thing realistically is a metric because IDK how many ... boogers on here know how they would react in these situations i glossed over some of the negative reciews and they all seem to say the samesort of thing... bad voice acting (i watched the dub and found the voice acting spectacular), nonsensical plot (it really doesn't strike me as nonsensical... but if you need everything to have a reason spelled out for you or you don't enjoy media by way of letting it spark your own imagination, then this might not be your thing) (meant that not facetiously)
have i hit the word count? lets see...

Sinks into some gender tropes I don't love but this show is so beautiful. Great pacing, lovely audio, atmospheric, great scenery. I love this show most when it lets the drama exist in silent and spare imagery and when it distorts things. Love the excessive amount of fade transitions. Fabulous.

I read the series as being interested in questioning how group identities are constructed, and using main characters' own reconstruction of himself as the foil for this. For the main character to take an equal portion in the story to the larger dynamics at work (who will win total control? Hint: no one, there is no ... such thing) was a nice change of pace.

Ultimately, for me, it says a lot about stories and our relationships to them. How we force narratives to be responsible for our whole sense of self. And how needing to enforce the 'truth' of any narrative on a scale beyond your individual self can be destructive and violent, no matter what the ideology is.

Often in relation to themes like this, a story will obligate itself to show the viewer what is ultimately "real" or not. Oh, the transhumanists were right. The magic people were right. I don't think this show did that to itself either. Everything just sort of happened and kept happening. Something about the way it broke up sequence of events and vascillated between fast pace and stillness makes you lose the time and seems to, not Negate any rationalizing, but simply not preoccupy itself with presenting a throughline until much later when you've already been dipped into the atmosphere of this world.

What is clear at the beginning is at least that this is a sort of science vs religion thing, but Texhnolyze ultimately is like. Why does this question even matter. In the end, regardless of the trueness or realness of any of them, wielded in the same way they do similar destruction.

Anyway. Paired very well with learning about the CIA.

I've been meaning to write a review for this manga for some years now. This is a story that got me back into reading manga after many years of taking a break.

I'm an art fag, so the first thing that catches my eye is usually the art. The art for this series is absolutely beautiful.
It's not particularly lush, instead it's very simple and direct. I don't remember there being much shading, even--or at least much gradation. Just black and white. This sort of style is really fun and refreshing paired with such interesting and alien visuals. The story mostly takes place in one setting, but ... the way you explore the setting is very much similar to the liminal space trend... as in, its a lot of hallways, corridors, vaguely 'religious' and minimal architecture. Except there's creatures and customs that feel very organic.

I have to say that although this manga is surreal and imaginative, and I do LOVE the setting, it's not the type of manga where you are immersed in a large lush world with a million cities and people and crazy objects. The world is very tight and small, focuses on the same 4 characters more or less. It's like BLAME! In the sense that you only get a feel for the expansiveness of the worldbuilding through suggestion. You're mostly given small bites at a time, but they do add up, and they stay interesting regardless. The story is a bit typically a coming-of-age type boy's story, and a lot of the usual tropes regarding gender and romance exist, but I think something about the ingenuity of the entire thing made it feel much more interesting/fresh than other manga with similar tropes.

I will also say that I give this series a 10 only because it is special to me beyond how much I enjoyed the art or story. I'm sure many people won't see this as a 10. But, it's definitely worth your time and is only 3 volumes.

Listen. The best thing I can say for this movie is that the Art is really beautiful. The light, the spare scenery, simple animation, the limited blue/red palette, really nice. It oozes style.

Here's the thing. Its a trash movie. I love trash movies, but there was nothing I could find no matter how hard I tried that redeemed it. I tend to deal with bad or "underdeveloped" storylines especially at the expense of art or just a good original idea, or some interesting execution of it, but nah. I think the shitty dialogue and kind of ridiculous macho overtones are sort of fun as the ... movie starts, but just get boring as the movie goes on. The corny sounds... Part of me thinks it stands at the very least as an extremely 80s film, just like absolutely steeped in it, and if that's an era you really love or are curious about, this would be of value to you, maybe. But as for me, I'm giving it a big meh. Disappointing.

Oh, btw, it can be kinda sexy, which can be cool if you're in the mood for that, but the fucking old man really slices right through the mood/drama with a dull hatchet. Like, shards flying everywhere. I wish I could say I enjoyed that... Again, nah dude. And this is not mentioning the rape, which also kills some moments... And that dialogue... So bad... I really can't even recommend it as a nice lil cornball thing OR a nice lil hornball thing. Just a movie from a time.