Anime Discussions

[deanb]

 

 

Watched Pluto, it was okay. I'm not too invested in Astroboy stuff so I imagine a bunch would pass me by. Felt like it was leading up to something that just never came, like it was sort off trying to say something, and had the trappings of that just..without anything behind it, or lacking in conviction in attempting to say anything.  Like you had the persia war/BORA fact finding mission as analogous to WMDs in Iraq. Nothing really to be said about these super robots still being puppets to kill other robots.
I dunno, just...empty. 

[deanb]

 

Blue Eye Samurai, a billion times better. Still thinking about it a few days after and half tempted to run through the whole thing again.

The title character is half-western half-Japanese in a time of intense xenophobia which drives a mission of revenge. 

The characters are great (and some great voice actors too; including Randal Park, George Takei etc), the animation is gorgeous and scenes just look pretty as hell. It's got no fear in throwing a few musical curveballs (including the For Whom The Bell Tolls as heard in the trailer, as well as the odd Kill Bill track). It's not one for kids; strong violence and peaches

 

Really my big thing is Abijah Fowler is voiced by Kenneth Branagh but is clearly Brendan Gleeson.

 

They've put the first episode on YT if you wanna watch (though err, not much point unless you have Netflix in which case you can watch it there...)

 

 

[deanb]

Just looking back on my watched Anime this year. Which I pretty much all watched on Netflix and dubbed.

 

Probably the overall winner is Delicious in Dungeon, which was my watch after Blue-Eye Samurai. Has been a delight in having the combo of followed SunWong Cho (ProZD) for years so cool to have the sort of "side bits" on Twitter. 

 

 

I then (mid-way cos this was just 4 episodes and Delicious in Dungeon was weekly releases) did Pokemon Concierge

Not quite anime (though Netflix seem to feel that way...). Was just a delight. Really the only sucky thing was just having 4 episodes.

 

Then to pivot once again in tone

 

Probably one of the better Terminator things by virtue of trying something a bit new with the concept (especially being set outside of US and the Connors). I like the cute house robot things (and I imagine there's a bit more of a point there given Japan seems to be looking at carehome bots for elderly population).

 

Next up was Dan Da Dan.

It's very weird. Certainly a "don't watch if you parents can pop in the room" type (especially given lots of talk about missing weiners and balls). The "occult versus sci-fi" aspect is kinda cool (though as it currently stands the team by virtue of their make-up seem more pro-occult which I think could be better to balance maybe).

 

 

And then finally Arcane (only just finished last night, held off watching it due to the mid-series break)

I'll be honest I wasn't super keen on the ending, maybe need to do a full binge of S1 and S2. Mainly just didn't get the Ambessa bits

Spoiler

so you have the council attacked, leading to the death of three councillors and maiming of others. The solution is to let someone from an external nation basically install herself as head of the council, bring in her own personal army, and not seem particularly bothered that two other councillors (and one ex-councillor) also then go missing for a protracted period (one of which being her daughter).  Also I maybe blinked at the wrong time but it's alluded she came to Piltover for a reason, and while she stumbles upon The Herald that can't have been her original reason for coming.

 

Spoiler

Also this whole thing about Viktor time travelling to set up a version of Jayce to stop him, and yet it was his interaction that inspired Jayce to do Hextech so if he'd not gone back in time it wouldn't have started. We're also shown what's essentially a "pefect" world where Hextech never took off, just with the downside of no Vi. And ultimately the final scenes on the tower were going to end up as Jayces future visit, except for Ekko able to pop through the robots  and throw his loop device at Viktor. Which "shouldn't exist" but was what stopped Viktor so ultimately the time travel of Viktor was for nothing as it's Ekkos parallel universe jump that helped them prevail.

 

Oh and I also binged Ouran midway in the year, but I've seen it before. It's fun and goofy.