Anime II: Back to Zero

[Rippounet]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:17 PM, Ran said:

Finished it. Blue Eye Samurai is excellent and lived up to its potential. Very much recommended to anyone else who's looking for good animated fare with an adult turn to it.

I watched the first episode and will continue the show thanks to your recommendations.

I also started Frieren, which is really moving. I'm usually not too much into this kind of "atmospheric"/poetic show, but it does its thing very well.

[Ran]

 

[Ran]

Netflix has put out the 6th episode of Blue Eye Samurai on Youtube, in a "special edition", i.e. black-and-white with occasional splashes of color:

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Ran

[IlyaP]

More Terminator? Whyyyyyyy.

[Rippounet]

Finished Blue eye samurai tonight.

It was a great show, with two episodes being absolutely amazing.

I'm lukewarm about the finale though. Too many small details that added up to draw me out of the show. This show had some great concepts and aesthetics, but the writing wasn't always flawless.

Spoiler

I'm unsure about where the show is going. Moving to London could be fun, but having parallel stories is always a challenge, and I'm not as invested in Akemi and Ringo as I am in Mizu. One thing the show did very well in this first season was replacing a story within an accurate historical representation. I wonder if they can repeat that.
Maybe it's just lack of faith though. 17th century England could turn out to be fascinating. If I get this right, Mizu should arrive there around Cromwell's Commonwealth (?), so it's possible that she is instrumental in other key historical events. I don't know if the show's themes of culture, race, and its links to Japanese mythology, can translate well to England, though the show could always build a solid commentary on aristocracy and birth, especially since it is hinted that Mizu herself could be high-born. I don't like Fowler surviving, but it could mean that the show will make Mizu's origins central to the plot.

 

[Ran]

Yes, I admit, the direction for the show next season does worry me slightly for the reasons you outline. 

Spoiler

I am actually interested in Akemi's story, to be fair, but still, a split narrative is a real challenge.

Re, your speculation, I wouldn't be surprised if they tie Mizu's appearance in England with the events leading up to Cromwell's death. The Great Fire took place in early 1657, the journey to Europe took the better part of a year, so ... late 1657 or early 1658? Cromwell's dead in September of 1658.

Actually, it's funny, but as soon as we saw Mizu was going to England, it put us in mind of Mary Gentle's alt history novel A Sundial in a Grave: 1610, in a weird way. That novel features a young French swordsman extraordinaire... who is actually a young French noblewoman with an unusual upbringing, and features the unexpected shipwreck of a ship carrying Japanese emissaries to the court of King James, most notably a samurai who ends up becoming allied with Dariole (aforementioned swordswoman-disguised-as-a-man), and Valentin Rochefort, a dissolute duellist who has a rather complicated history of his own.

Mizu is like Dariole and Tanaka (the samurai) rolled into one. I imagine it's just complete coincidence, the story has little similarity otherwise as it's not really a revenge tale, but just funny synchronicity.

It's a good book, BTW. Gentle's underappreciated.

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Ran

[JGP]

Blue Eye:

Spoiler

I don't have an issue with the split storylines. Mizu and Akemi's converged only a few times after all, but in the mean were largey unimportant to each the others character progression [imo]

The London excursion on it's own does seem a bit weird. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's hard to imagine Mizu speaks English, and trusting Fowler to even just translate for her, iono. 

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by JGP

[Rippounet]

Caught up on Frieren, and I'm diggin' it.

Have to confess that, as I grow older, it gets harder to contain the existential horror of the human experience (consciousness means knowing you are a thinking meatbag destined to die). Funnily enough, Frieren is the perfect answer to that, as it showcases mortality as a source of happiness. Almost all humans in the show are serene and content, while the near-immortal elf is the one who's so blasée that she can barely get out of bed in the morning.
It's funny how Japanese anime regularly addresses existential dread - the very first one I watched was Evangelion, har. I suppose in Japanese culture, death was never the worst thing (losing face is). Comparably, Frieren suggests that the worst is having nothing to live for - to be completely disconnected from others and the common interest. And Frieren's quest to connect with others makes it beautiful on several levels.

Come to think of it:

Spoiler

There's also a common point between Frieren and One Punch's Saitama, har har.

 

[TheLastWolf]

16 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

t's funny how Japanese anime regularly addresses existential dread - the very first one I watched was Evangelion

Just finished End of Evangelion! Probably the greatest since Akira...

The last few episodes helped me get through a splitting headache. Conversely it gave my peers (2 of em atleast) an even bigger one lol.

Glorious, absolutely fantastic. 

[Ran]

On 11/20/2023 at 6:55 PM, JGP said:

Blue Eye:

  Hide contents

The London excursion on it's own does seem a bit weird. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's hard to imagine Mizu speaks English, and trusting Fowler to even just translate for her, iono. 

 

Spoiler

Given how long the trip is, I suspect she will learn from Fowler and be as capable with English as everything else she dedicates herself to. But I can see him fucking around and giving her a couple of wrong bits of vocabulary just to fuck with her and because it amuses him.

I've started getting further into Pluto, and it's been nicely animated, and is rather interesting (it actually works as a bit of a accompaniment to The Creator, curiously enough, with robots integrated into every day life, a robot constable having a robot wife, an android detective having an android wife, another android having a human wife and a passel of adopted children, etc.). It's an adaptation of a manga series that in turn basically loosely adapted and greatly expanded on a famous 1960s-era Astro Boy story, as the seven most powerful robots in the world are being murdered one by one by a mysterious force. 

There is some homaging to other works, I think -- there's a decidedly The Silence of the Lambs-like consultation with a mad robot criminal. It's also rather long -- 8, hour-long episodes, not that usual in anime. But then, it's adapting a manga that stretched across 8 volumes and 1500 pages, apparently.

Edited January 9 by Ran

[Arakasi]

I am enjoying blue eye samurai. Just at end of episode six. Excellent characters and action scenes but a little too much of the super hero for Mizu. Like for a show that is mostly ground in realism she takes some injuries that really should totally incapacitate her. Also was amused early on by the amazing tracking skills of everyone. Apparently some tracks in snow just shows everyone where to go and instantly find people.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Arakasi

[JGP]

4 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Like for a show that is mostly ground in realism she takes some injuries that really should totally incapacitate her.

That aspect continually disappoints, unfortunately. I mean, I think they were trying to illustrate that Mizu definitely was not an absurdly adept warrior akin to Musashi or someone similar, so they injured her plenty. Like sure, grit, determination, all that, but the problem was a lot of those weren't merely flesh wounds lol  

 

I had to put it aside.  

[Ran]

 

[TheLastWolf]

Vinland Saga

Can I land on my feet running and continue the manga from the end of season 2 finale (ch 102 or whatever) or are they any marked differences and should wait for S3?

Thank you

[Ran]

My understanding is that it's very faithful, so shouldn't be an issue. But I've not read the manga, personally.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

 

I finished Season 1 at the weekend and this was pretty amazing in all respects. Looking forward to season 2.

[Ran]

I remarked when I finished One Piece, the live action, that it seemed nuts that the amount they spent on just one season could have funded 70 seasons of animes...

And then they went, well, actually:

So they're doing their own, brand new One Piece anime with Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, Ranking of Kings, Spy x Family). Clearly, the numbers on the live action were so good that they've decided they want a bigger piece of the One Piece gravy train.

[A True Kaniggit]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

I remarked when I finished One Piece, the live action, that it seemed nuts that the amount they spent on just one season could have funded 70 seasons of animes...

And then they went, well, actually:

So they're doing their own, brand new One Piece anime with Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, Ranking of Kings, Spy x Family). Clearly, the numbers on the live action were so good that they've decided they want a bigger piece of the One Piece gravy train.

Not even an original story?

Just an anime remake of the ongoing anime? 
 

(Though I’d assume without all the filler).  
 

If true, boo this decision. Boooo!

Edit: But honestly, I’ll probably watch it. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Rippounet]

Finished what's out of Frieren (the anime), and moved on to the manga, because I was truly curious to see how it develops further down the line. Without spoiling it, I'll say I was a bit surprised to see it develop with a lot of additional characters and a fair amount of world-building, which is a bit too much because the original concept is rather simple and much of what happens remains predictable. It's still enjoyable, but I dunno if it's worth waiting a decade to have the entire story - the atmosphere is great and all, but sometimes stories are best served by resolving the main plot points without too much development.

[Ran]

GRRM and Parris binged Blue Eye Samurai over three days. He's quite wowed by it. Also reveals that the Nine Voyages project about Corlys Velaryon's voyages has shifted from being aimed at live to animation, which makes sense.