(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

User avatar
Friday
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:40 pm
Location: Karma: -65373

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Friday » Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:31 pm

Yeah. I will give Suzanne Collins and the Hunger Games credit for basically being entirely about how awful adults are to children.
ImageImageImage

User avatar
Upthorn
Posts: 1027
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:41 pm
Location: mastodon.social/@upthorn
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Upthorn » Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:32 pm

Friday wrote:The reason why so many people create worlds where horrifying, terrible and nightmarish things are just seen as absolutely normal and not even remotely noteworthy should be pretty obvious.

And I don't mean the authors do it in a like, critical or satirical way. They just do it. They themselves don't even understand that their made-up worlds are incredibly nightmarish and subject children to deadly peril as just a matter of ho-hum don't even register this fact.


I do understand this, and I hadn't really thought it applied here. Like, many of the world elements are very obviously designed to be as horrific as possible, on purpose. And then the author writes a mostly-straight heartwarming adventure in a setting where no story type besides horror is even possible. My review doesn't touch on any of the extremely intentional horror elements that come in past episode three.

However, it occurs to me that it's possible that, while many of the horror elements are obviously purposeful, some of them may not be. That would explain a lot of the ways in which the series confuses me, actually.

Thad wrote:We were talking about Roald Dahl the other day (whose works, of course, HP owes rather a lot to), and while Dahl was a shitty person, he was one writer who got it. "Children are much smarter and more resourceful than we give them credit for, and grownups are fucking monsters" was a recurring motif in his work and probably the main reason that we're still talking about him 30 years after his death.

That's a good observation. I think the reservations I have towards Made in Abyss, is that while it does show that children are much smarter and more resourceful than we give them credit for, and grownups are fucking monsters, it's not clear whether or not it knows that the grownup behavior it's showing really is fucking monstrous.

I think I want to write a full-spoilers addendum that talks about some of the later instances of clearly intentional horror and how they're treated.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

User avatar
mharr
Posts: 1583
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:54 am
Location: UK

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby mharr » Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:10 am

Okay, what side of the horror divide does this land on? Is it something you watch, or witness?

User avatar
nosimpleway
Posts: 4514
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby nosimpleway » Tue Nov 02, 2021 11:18 am

I wanna say it was Neil Gaiman, about Coraline, but I don't remember 100% so that might not be it. Anyway the point was that some stories are utterly horrifying to adults and exciting adventures for children, because adults see all the various dangers that the children are in, and the odds stacked against them , &c. but the children see the kid protagonist heroically overcome all of them and win.

So whether a story is scary or exciting can be a matter of perspective.

User avatar
mharr
Posts: 1583
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:54 am
Location: UK

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby mharr » Tue Nov 02, 2021 1:53 pm

That combines well with a comment I think might have been Pratchett, that adults make the mistake of looking back on childhood as a smaller, less intense world but it isn't. It's all the same emotional rollercoasters as adulthood, but turned up to eleven because you're experiencing it all for the first time.

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby beatbandito » Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:24 pm

just finished Sonny Boy and it was pretty okay I guess? Everything I see about it sells the wrong aspects. A bunch of crazy shit is happening, but none of it really matters or will be explained. It's mostly about relationships and stuff. The metaphors seem to get out of hand and lose track of themselves with the dressing, but it was pretty okay. I guess.
Image

User avatar
Upthorn
Posts: 1027
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:41 pm
Location: mastodon.social/@upthorn
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Upthorn » Sat Jan 22, 2022 8:04 pm

I know what you mean, beat. If I were to return to the reviews I was doing... I would probably say

Sonny Boy is well-directed, atmospheric, and intriguingly surreal.
However, "Did I enjoy it?" and "Is it worth watching?" are questions I can't even begin to formulate an answer to.

Except, like, it was a studio taking a risk on original content. Maybe try to support it if you encourage studios taking more risks on original stories instead of banking on adaptations of popular light novel franchises?

Oh. also I should say that I was pleasantly surprised that none of the characters were named "Sonny."
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

Niku
Posts: 1807
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Niku » Sun Jan 23, 2022 12:16 pm

Image
Image

User avatar
Upthorn
Posts: 1027
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:41 pm
Location: mastodon.social/@upthorn
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Upthorn » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:26 am

I wound up rewatching Sonny Boy, and upon further consideration:
It's a powerful, if opaque, story about alienation, the formation of social bubbles, and the struggle of working out alone what rules they operate under.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

User avatar
Mothra
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3963
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:12 pm
Location: Boston, MA
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Mothra » Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:33 pm

Caught up on the 86. Season 2 takes a turn for something more conventional - war against legions of robot spiders - and in some places gets a lot less interesting.

That said, the new characters are all great, I like the Federation president, the new CO, and the bratty disposed princess girl. More importantly, the action is consistently a real delight: big, dumb mecha-spider tachikoma battles helmed by edgelords. This season also introduces, like, end bosses, which is another turn for the shlocky.

I’d say overall I’m still really enjoying it, but it’s turned into something way more dumb than the initial premise promised. It might get back to it next season, we’ll see.

I also finished watching Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut, an anime I watched because it was entitled “Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut”. It was kind of disappointingly not at all about vampeyere, and is instead about two people chosen by the soviet government to prepare for an early space mission. The fact that one of those two is a vampire is incidental, and she is not really a vampire, she’s basically just an elf - she has none of the weaknesses or strengths that a vampire typically has, and only very minor differences, like not being able taste. There's a very awkward racism storyline that they don't have the teeth to do anything with.

I’d say overall this was unbelievably mediocre for such a strange premise. Kinda just ends up becoming a thing about anti-vampire bigotry and how the space race solved racism.

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby beatbandito » Mon Feb 14, 2022 11:56 am

beatbandito wrote:just finished Sonny Boy and it was pretty okay I guess? Everything I see about it sells the wrong aspects. A bunch of crazy shit is happening, but none of it really matters or will be explained. It's mostly about relationships and stuff. The metaphors seem to get out of hand and lose track of themselves with the dressing, but it was pretty okay. I guess.

Okay. Taking in more manga, anime, and, weirdly, Kevin can Fuck Himself while still absorbing the show, I think I've figured out the main theme/idea. There's individual stories and morals in every episode, and series-long metaphor. But primarily it's:

The standard cliche of a loser who has a dream girl unexplainably attracted to him and improving his life, but focusing on the dream girl. This is made obvious. It's in the primary text from the first episode, and the subject of the main conflict in the finale. But the extent which it's explored escaped me until I experienced the cliche uncritically again. Even with Naraka as the main character through the series, the actions he takes to solve conflict is directly thanks to Nozomi's influence. Mizuho, Asakaze and other more secondary characters also grow and influence events due to Nozomi up to her major influence and the resulting fallout of Summer and the Demon. Her Compass power was too obvious a reflection of this, I think I overthought it. Though I still can't fit in the reveal of her real world death, than immediate reversal, I think looking at either result independently gives enough to inform her attitude.
Image

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby beatbandito » Sun Feb 20, 2022 9:14 am

Been doing a manga roulette again and found some noteworthy stuff:

Yuusha no Hiza ni wa Neko ga Iru (Cat on the Hero's Lap/Knee) doesn't seem to have any scanslations yet, cut is a cute and simple enough concept that I've enjoyed a few chapters with no ability to read Japanese. Hopefully it'll get picked up.

Catastrophe of the Neighboring Town is a short and sweet disaster manga. The first half (of 27 chapters) are sweet/tragic little two-parters before getting into what is frankly a pretty zany actual plot. But it's enough to stay appealing, and I liked the end a lot.

Goblin Hiroimashita was just found by a scans team and hopefully will regularly update along the main series they do. Two easy-going sisters and their hot-blooded mom agree to take care of a cute goblin that was found on the side of the road.

The Hundred Ghost Stories That Lead to My Death CW: the framing device for these short horror stories begins with stopping what appears to be the attempted suicide of an elementary schooler. Each individual story is about what you would expect from a book of 100 scary stories you might read as a kid of lower-tier twilight zone stuff. But I'm being kept interested by the bits of the home life of the elementary schooler we see between each story.

Mashle is not great. It's a comedy/action story about a strong kid who beats up elitist magicians. It does a decent job of not ever getting bogged down in its own lore or setting, but falls into every imaginable cliche, anyway. There is one character who is presented as female, and she doesn't get to use magic, only be horny for the MC. There is also a strong character who is treated like a puri-puri prisoner lite and just kind of sits on that characterization, until they transform into a more moe design and positively identified as female. It doesn't come across as... great.
Image

Niku
Posts: 1807
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Niku » Mon Feb 21, 2022 7:25 pm

somehow i didn't find out about Spy X Family until this weekend

he's a spy; she's a contract killer; their daughter is a telepath; none of them know any of this (except of course the daughter, because telepath).

it's like someone brundleflied together Yotsuba& with Mr. and Mrs. Smith and i love it

Image
Image

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby beatbandito » Thu Mar 03, 2022 9:01 am

beatbandito wrote:Goblin Hiroimashita was just found by a scans team and hopefully will regularly update along the main series they do. Two easy-going sisters and their hot-blooded mom agree to take care of a cute goblin that was found on the side of the road.

Chapters 2-4 were all low-rent ecchi SA/rape implication jokes and it got worrying. But chapter 5 was more what I was hoping for from the series.
Image

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Büge » Thu Mar 03, 2022 10:09 am

Image

Niku
Posts: 1807
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Niku » Thu Mar 03, 2022 10:19 pm

we've fallen so far since lodoss war, aka hunting in another world where i'm elf wife
Image

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby beatbandito » Sun Apr 03, 2022 11:03 am

new manga discoveries:

Ousama Ranking is pretty good. This has been the hot anime of the year so no surprise there's a good story behind it. I was surprised by how different it was than I expected though. There are some... ableism issues that I'm willing to continue to write off as in-universe opinions even though it's universal across every culture and in lore. Also it's a lot darker than I expected from the wholesome descriptions I've heard. Very Crusader Kings fantasy world politics. Sadly the manga seems to not be fully translated, so the best way to get the full story is the anime. Manga is currently at chapter 66 of 155 that the anime covers (according to sources I saw).

Golden Gold is a very interesting concept. It's basically a Junji Ito horror story of the manipulation of an isolated island by an ancient unseen force, but the main perspectives are comedic. It's done well from what I read so far. It's not horror or thriller by any means, but it keeps me feeling really uneasy about the implications of main events.
Image

User avatar
Mothra
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3963
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:12 pm
Location: Boston, MA
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Mothra » Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:11 am

Holy hell, Ranking of Kings is amazing.

User avatar
Mothra
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3963
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:12 pm
Location: Boston, MA
Contact:

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Mothra » Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:10 pm

Update: Moctobot told me that the anime covers everything that happens in the manga up to like Oct 2021, so if there's going to be another season, it's going to be in 4-5 years.

Image

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Animes

Postby Mongrel » Sun May 15, 2022 10:08 pm

Image
Image

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests