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Jul 17, 2015
Using animation as a medium often excels when the story calls for extravagance or impossibly fantastical setting and characters to literally jump out at it's' viewers.
Trying to paint drab, depressing pictures with such a palette would seem to be a confusing choice or worse, an exercise in futility.
Jin-Rou makes a profound statement with a quietly unsettling score, visceral images and clipped dialogue.
The ambiance that passes between scenes and the characters wandering a lonely landscape does an excellent job of complementing the film. The art works in much the same way, with people framed realistically and expressing themselves with very believable energy and poise.
The
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characters themselves are withdrawn and unhappy people; sympathetic and pitiable, mis-guided and naive, all kinds of very believable qualities that are superbly acted as well.
This movie makes up a quintessential part of the "Adult" section of animation. It sports no lewd jokes or exploitation of sex in extreme, but deals with the quiet, forlorn sadness of a doomed relationship and individuals destroyed by their respective groups.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 17, 2015
Deadpan BoringMan
Binge-Watching this over one evening I can safely say the best reason to view this is for the first four episodes or so; everything after that is a slow lesson in deflating tension and interested accompanied by a big pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft
Boy is convicted of Crime he didn't commit, and placed into a prison run by the guy that designed Oz after smoking with Charles Manson and Dr. Mengele.
He learns that being on death row with other crazy people isn't fun unless you find Loli's in skin-tight bodysuits and that he can make crazy stuff happen with his blood.
Really I liked the beginning of this how
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because it seemed like it was leading into some kind of dystopic descent into hell. The exploration of the prison, meeting the sexay warden, and seeing how the place operated seemed to indicate that we would be shown our hero trying to survive amidst the grinding wheels of gang violence and repression by the sadistic people controlling the place.
Instead, we start to get plenty of time for the hero to cry and moan about being the hero, characters describing how they need to be more stereotypical or coming out of nowhere and then being told their important to the plot with little or no explanation.
I had to force myself to go back and watch parts I skipped around episode eight. We start to go down the cliche checklist from here.
Cute character gets rejected by hero when we know he'll apologize later? Check
Bad guys corrupt one of the good guy characters and try to sick him on his friends he'll clearly betray very easily and never get inspired suddenly by?
Check
Really it was painful to see how incomplete this all was by the time the credits rolled in at the last episode.
Sounds like the Manga was supposed to be better but frankly I'm not inclined to read it at this point.
Story went from promising to broken and awful.
Nothing wrong with the art, some of the effects look good.
Liked the Intro song.
Characters that were interesting became flat and generic.
I went from interested to annoyed so little fun had here.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 15, 2015
The 08th MS team provides the viewer with a ground view of the One Year War and every moment it spends in the grime with front line troops it excels.
From the early skirmishes to the legendary battle with a Gouf, the series supplies almost unmatched, realistic style for the 0079 era of Gundam.
Engaging in self-masturbatory or gratifying review of this series wouldn't accomplish much, so suffice to say if you're a fan of the original Gundam series and would like to see what a great animation budget can accomplish read no further and watch.
My major gripe with the 08th is the Romeo and Juliet story
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IN SPAAAAcE that we get. I understand that nearly every romance in the Gundam timeline is doomed to either fail or be poorly developed/ignored, and that maybe we ought to be thankful that at least one made it through partly unscathed, but what would be the state of any art without constantly seeking to improve and critique the medium?
Aina and Shiro's relationship is the almost perfectly superficial star-crossed lovers bit that develops into a little bit of something by the end at least. In contrast we have Captain Packard acting as a surrogate father to Aina, Kiki's infatuation with Shiro and then subsequent horror at the loss of her father and friends; sure Ginas is an awful stereotypical, mustache-twirling kind of sociopath, but there was potential to knock this out of the park with the two-punch of brutal combat without any newtypes or copious numbers of aces with maybe a tragic story of an earth girl losing everything to a war that almost forgets her, or a goodly woman from Zeon, dealing with a family crumbling apart and only finding a passing comfort before an internal self-destruct.
My biggest gripe with a lot of the Gundam universe has been when it all shines through, it shows you just how versatile animation as a medium can be to show very real emotions and difficulties with situations that a viewer can relate to. But often it falls just short of the mark of excellence, losing some of the spirit of humanity in the technical details or shoehorning in suspension-breaking for the sake of plot convenience or even simplicity.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 15, 2015
TURN IT OFF! WHY ARE YOU READING ABOUT THE SECOND PART OF THIS???
Gantz second stage follows our hero whatever his name is as he continues to talk about the last five seconds he has to live while facing down aliens for half of an episode before managing to kill them.
He has people that follow him that sometimes have interesting arcs or personalities, but you shouldn't even try to remember their names because they won't pan out to anything.
Imagine if you would, being smacked repeatedly in the face and told how awful the world is and how you have no hope or accomplishing anything.
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Then imagine being given a short sort of reprieve while only being roughly patted. In comparison, it's not so bad, but not enjoyable either.
Rarely have I ever told myself "This is so un-enjoyable that I MUST finish watching it so that I can be sure it never gets better" It never got better. In fact, it only got worse from the first season.
A cursory glance around this site will reveal how long and detailed a story that the manga of Gantz has. It likely has pacing that fits it's span of a story, and may handle the material better and in a more engaging fashion.
This anime does none of those things, compared to any material.
The ending is like your nameless torturer, tired of slapping and patting you, finally just bashing your head in with a bat; a sweet release from endless misery.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 15, 2015
TURN IT OFF! I HATED IT!
Of all the shows I've ever watched, Gantz is the only one I mentally realized I found revolting but that I needed to finish as to present a complete picture of the series.
Our hero is Kurono or some sort of spelling close to that, a character that I at first appreciated for that the fact that he was a pervert and we got to see an unapologetic look at him in all his mediocrity.
Then the plot gets started and he ends up in a room full of strangers, learning he has to hunt aliens to survive. Good potential for
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a mixture of conflict within and without the group.
The delivery however fell so flat you could feel your nose getting pushed up into your brain as you hit the concrete.
Do you like recaps? How about characters endlessly repeating what's going on around them ad naseoum and do nothing to change the situation but talk about it? If neither of these appeal to you, for the love of anything don't watch this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 15, 2015
Good god I didn't think I'd ever be wishing to wash Sengoku Basara instead. I encountered that game at a convention when the committee running one of the screening rooms had to fall back on their third or fourth option, and still have the memory of that Honda guy jetting around in his steam-powered armor; hysterical!
This movie, and the series that it sets up for, do not have any such moments.
Have you played Samurai Warriors by Koei? Have you ever walked into a store and saw something that you've seen every time you walked into the store and thought "Boy is that thing average, but
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I guess it's nice that it's always there? Wait why am I getting comfort from such an empty material thing?"
That could be any/all of the Warriors titles; mindless button-mashing that isn't bad so long as you don't expect anything from it but just that.
This movie and it's accompanying anime is like playing Samurai warriors, but only getting to watch the cut-scenes.
This boils the show (and game really) to overacting, silly representations of historical characters, and painfully paced and predictable plot points.
I was trying to hold out watching the anime to see if Yukimura's death would rival the end of Return of the King in terms of how drawn out it could be, but this movie and the first two episodes dissuaded me.
Yes I didn't watch all of the anime.
No, I couldn't be bothered to write a separate entry.
Go buy a used copy of Samurai Warriors and see everything in this movie and the anime, plus cathartic, mind-numbing destruction of pixels with Nobunaga's demon light-saber and other fantastic additions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 15, 2015
The second season of Druaga kept me more invested than the previous season, having a slightly more interesting twist in the story and a decent outcome.
I didn't feel overly impressed or enchanted by the whole entry, but found no major faults in it either besides some loose ends at the conclusion and some disagreements with the main character.
The premise is essentially sibling rivalry with a lot thrown on to it, with brothers Ji and Neeba fighting it out.
Ji is the lawful good entry and Neeba teetering from true to neutral to chaotic neutral and eventually...evil in some capacity or another.
I found the main character
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to be insufferably stupid and naive on occasion; not to say that unless every lead has to be a labyrinth of emotion and thought or Machiavellian, but the heroic ideal that he embodies seems to clearly hinder his progress for little more than thinly-veiled egotism that's never addressed or worse, seemingly encouraged as part of the tone and message.
Child-like innocence and ignorance make for great contrasts to gradual transitions in a long-term arc, but I felt that without a few secondary characters bluntly stating "Man, that Ji guy has come a long way" I would've scarcely seen that major of a change between episode two and twenty.
This is a bit of a minor point and I think one that might be more personal than anything.
I enjoyed watching the series and would recommend it to someone that wanted a lighter anime that wasn't too cliche or trope-ridden to be un-watchable. It accomplishes what it sets out to do with (mostly) fun characters and a weight that while mostly fantastical in tone and nature, still delivers a few mild punches to the viewer that weren't entirely expected.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 15, 2015
I found the first season of Druaga to be a solid entry across the board. I was never overwhelmingly surprised nor bored with the series, and enjoyed a marginally original take on a fantasy anime.
Story follows young protagonist on an exceedingly standard quest for heroic glory. Along the way we meet a few few extra party members next to a few standard entries; none too tired to be irksome or annoying if you're willing to roll with some standard fantasy fanfare. The series does actually make a point of being slightly lethal which does prevent it from falling into the vacuum of awful cliche.
A
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good series to watch over the course of a week that keeps things interesting enough to keep you wanting to see the end result.
Particular note goes out to the opening for juxtaposing all the characters into a modern setting, which might have served as a great filler episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 15, 2015
The compelling numbers you see here are meant to keep some degree of consistency with everything else I've ever written a review on.
Inferno cop looks and sounds like it was a well made high-school computer class final. Complete with clip art that only moves in the simplest fashion, stock sound effects and around two or three voices for all the characters, this is by all rights garbage...
...which makes the fact that it's hysterical all the better. Going beyond the genre of parody or inverted tropes, Inferno Cop simple lets loose a torrent of insanity that continuously tries to outdo itself in the scant hundred and
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twenty seconds or so that each episode is. I can't stress enough just how stupid and crazy everything that occurs in what might laughably be called the "Plot."
I'm reminded of a vestige of Adult Swim humor at work here, but the concepts don't feel tired or inaccessibly abstract or niche targeted. The show is surreal insanity done perfectly well and it deserves the meager amount of attention that's required to sit through it. As of this writing it can be watched on Crunchy Roll so take a few moments to have yourself a laugh and maybe buy a badass T-Shirt.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 20, 2014
Another solid block of nostalgia, I didn't get around to finishing "The Big O" until many years after the show had run its course. Certainly trope-ridden and unashamedly inspired by many outside elements, the art, characters, and ending certainly stand above mediocrity.
Paradigm City, a place where forty years ago, everyone lost their memories. My name is Roger Smith, and I'm a negotiator..
Accompanied by a soft piano and saxophone, our main character takes center stage. Smooth talking Smith, accompanied by his mercurial butler, sarcastic android Dorothy and backed up by the ubiquitous "Megaduece" Big O takes on Paradigms dark side, composed of criminals,
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cutthroats and it's very past.
The episodes are a fun mix of a little detective work and Mecha combat/destruction. The slow reveal of the cities past and development of characters is kindly treated, and I found myself happily re-watching the series just to revisit the interactions and growth of both. The ending is an unmistakably polarizing event for many I've spoken to. Respected or hated, it IS sad to know that a third season was at least at some point a distant possibility; though one website comically points out that this would have likely resulted in even more confusing plot threads.
The element of mystery that is prevalent could frustrate some viewers whom see it as a glossing over details or never explaining itself. I find that the airs Big O puts on is part of a neo-noir charm. It's not a labyrinth of complexity and depth, but a comfortable amount of detail that's style with respectable substance
The art is wonderful, the hard edges and colors giving a severity to the backgrounds and characters. Much like the acclaimed animated Batman series, this helps the minimal amount of animation stand out, as the gloomy city evokes a tangible moodiness in all of it's shadows. True the animation itself may not be all that much to right home about, and the occasional guffaw that interrupts the sleekness is noticeable. Overall the art compliments and enhances the story and characters.
The soundtrack belts bluesy melodies and classical pieces at the right moments. An ominous, wistful tone is very present here, and helps establish the city. The fight scenes are accompanied by appropriately energetic and loud bits. As for sound effects, nothing superhuman, all proper. The voice work in the dub is great. Not much cringe-worthy "Engrish" is present, and Roger's quips can be genuinely funny. The dialogue can take on Saturday Morning Superhero Special quality, but when the tone is series it's played straight without much narm.
Roger isn't particularly complicated, but a fun character to see go about his business and relationships. The supporting cast each have their own quirks, but make nice compliments to Roger and one another. Roger's rogue gallery is an interesting sort: not-Lupin III Beck, the forever preaching and philosophical Schartz, and vaguely Joker-esque Alan. All mix well in an assortment of tales and interactions, the series even bringing one-shot characters to the forefront with old concepts that still seem interesting.
I don't hesitate to re-watch The Big O because I know it delivers. The end of the second season compromises outright explaining the plot with a stereotypical, drawn-out soliloquy to instead require the viewer to think just a little bit. An understandably foreign concept in a standard giant-robot-punch-everything anime, but not an unwelcome one. Otherwise the episodes are varied and entertaining.
If I read correctly, the show is supposed to re-air on television sometime this year (2014) One can only hope that a renewed interest might breathe some life into a third season. If not I'll drop the $100 to get the complete set one of these days, as I can't find a pressing reason not to own this classic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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