R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Drawn or CGI, animated movies and shows fit well with the gaming crowd.

Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby Thoul » Mon Jan 7, '13, 4:35 am

I was never a big fan of the Sailor Moon, but I respected it for being one of those rare kids' action shows that tried to gather a female audience. That was such a rare venture in those days that it was a sign of companies willing to take what the industry perceived as a huge risk.

That last season just never had a chance in the US, though. If they had tried to air that, it would have killed any good will the show had managed to build up with most parents in the previous years. I was honestly surprised that they tried airing the third season as kids' programming in the US, what with all that dodgy "cousins" business. I don't think the fourth season ever aired back then either, did it?
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby myau56 » Mon Jan 7, '13, 10:40 pm

I've watched Sailor moon when I was a child, with my two brothers and as far as I can recall, I was a fan : but when I see know what is really the serie : oh my god !
What an "awful one" :lol:
But that's often the case : our child memories are telling us that the anime series were great but the truth is that these ones were really bad... ^^
Phantasy Star Forever

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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby R-90-2 » Mon Jan 7, '13, 11:42 pm

Thoul wrote:That last season just never had a chance in the US, though. If they had tried to air that, it would have killed any good will the show had managed to build up with most parents in the previous years. I was honestly surprised that they tried airing the third season as kids' programming in the US, what with all that dodgy "cousins" business. I don't think the fourth season ever aired back then either, did it?


The fourth season definitely aired, because I watched the whole thing when it aired on Toonami. :)
Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby Thoul » Tue Jan 8, '13, 11:28 am

Ahh, that explains why I don't remember hearing much about that season back in the day, then. I paid even less attention to Toonami's run of than I did to the earlier the syndicated run. I forgot that the show was even on Toonami. :lol:
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby R-90-2 » Sun Aug 10, '14, 8:03 pm

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Original run: 2012-2013
Native Language: JP
Genre: Action Fighting
Episodes: 26
-------------------

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is an extremely long-running manga series created in 1987 by Hirohiko Araki, and is still ongoing. The series itself chronicles the stories of various members of the extended Joestar family and their struggles against the dark powers of the supernatural throughout the world. Despite the fact that the series is one of the best-selling manga series of all time, and that Araki is the only manga artist ever invited to exhibit at the Louvre, the series never had a particularly strong Western presence- the only arc to ever be officially localized, either in animation or the original format was the third one, Stardust Crusaders. While that is the most well-known arc of the story (as it introduced the Stands, the setting's most distinctive feature), it still means that vast swathes of the material were not accessible, and even in Japan that arc is the only one to have received a decent treatment. In 2012, the 25th anniversary of the series, Araki announced that there would be a new TV series that would start with at the very beginning, with the first arc. Thanks to the work of services such as Crunchyroll, the series became available with English subtitles almost immediately, meaning that it became immediately accessible to other audiences.

The show covers the first two arcs of the manga, and this choice works despite the relatively short length of the series because those two, Phantom Blood and Battle Tendencies, were by far the shortest arcs in the JJBA manga series. The first arc covers the life of the young 19th century English aristocrat, Johnathan Joestar. Son of the wealthy George Joestar, he is the classic heroic gentleman, ready to throw himself into physical danger for the sake of others. He had even taken an interest in archeology, and the mysterious stone mask that came from Mexico, supposedly part of the rituals of an ancient immortality cult. However, his world is turned inside out once Dio Brando, the son of a poor man who supposedly saved his father's life, arrives at the Joestar mansion to live with them as part of the family. Devious and cruel, Dio will use all means he can to destroy Jonathan's life and place himself as the inheritor of the Joestar fortune, even if it means unlocking the mysterious power of that ancient stone mask.

The first arc is meant to serve as an introduction to the supernatural elements of the setting, and compared to many of the arcs that would succeed it, this section of the story is relatively standard. It starts as a Victorian period melodrama (and Dio Brando can and has been compared somewhat to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights until a certain point) but ends up taking a rather quick turn towards the action/horror antics that the series is known for. Even though this arc of the story is handled in only nine episodes, very little is sacrificed from the story, helped by the fact that there are very few characters that the plot needs to follow, so there is no lack of characterization.

Jonathan Joestar is the closest character in the show to a standard shounen protagonist, but while he has the standard all-weather features of boundless determination and zero tolerance for villainy, he is also lacking the congenital denseness that seems to plague other protagonists in the genre- during his first struggle with a vampire, he comes out on top by using everything at his immediate disposal to survive, and even after he learns his own esoteric fighting techniques, he never really loses his environmental awareness, setting up one of the threads of JoJo's general fight philosophy- in a battle to the death, anything you can use to win is fair game.

Dio Brando is an appropriately monstrous villain for Joseph to fight, displaying a degree of theatrical depravity that is not all that common even nowadays. JoJo is not the place one goes to for sympathetic primary villains, and Dio is no exception, as this story was a product of the '80s, one of the prime times for characters to be written as altogether evil. Dio is gleefully villainous, having a dismissive retort for every bit of heroic indignation thrown his way, and towards the end, he even acquires an odd sort of twisted admiration for Jonathan's strength. While one of the lesser antagonists is allowed to be a sympathetic character, Dio is the only primary villain of note in this chapter of the JoJo story.

Phantom Blood's supporting cast is not large, but good enough to get the job done. Erina, Jonathan's love interest, is relegated a bit to the cheering after a point, but she allows herself to be startlingly defiant towards Dio in ways that fall just barely within Victorian social norms. Speedwagon provides a contrast to Dio- even though he himself came from a poor and violent background in the same way, he is more than willing to be a good person once given the chance to do so. the only possibly weak spot is Will Zeppeli, who's a fairly generic mentor/exposition character, and his role in this story really bears the most fruit in part 2.

The second arc, Battle Tendencies, takes place fifty years later in 1938, and follows Jonathan's grandson, Joseph, after the family moved to New York City. Because of the mysterious disappearance of Joseph's parents shortly after he was born, he was mainly raised by his grandmother, Erina, and his grandfather's best friend, Robert Edward O. Speedwagon. Speedwagon himself had struck it rich as an oil tycoon after moving to America, and used part of his money to fund the Speedwagon Foundation, which is dedicated to the study of ancient civilizations and the supernatural. When Joseph gets word that Speedwagon disappeared and is thought dead during a trip to Mexico to examine a particularly astonishing find, he heads there to find out what happened, only to find that the Germans had taken what Speedwagon unearthed and awakened the "Pillar Men", the remnants of a race of ancient, immortal Mesoamerican supermen whose leader was the creator of the Stone Mask as part of his plan to become the ultimate life form- and should the Pillar Men succeed, the doom of mankind is inevitable.

As each JoJo is in part a reaction to the previous, Joseph is a rather different sort of character than his grandfather. While Jonathan was the consummate gentleman, Joseph is the consummate troll, willing to taunt and goad his opponents at every opportunity. While Jonathan tended to fight in a rather standard, if aware fashion, Joseph will use every trick available to win, including weapons (manufactured and improvised), deception, and even stage magic as his means to help him defeat his opponents. While more boorish, Joseph still has a strong sense of right, as shown when he saves a black kid from being abused by racist police officers, and he treats fights seriously, even, and perhaps especially when it doesn't look like he is. With his strong ability to read his opponents and use the tools available to him to their best effect, Joseph is probably the brainiest main protagonist to appear in the genre.

The Pillar Men practically demand such an unconventional fighter as the protagonist, as they are shown from the get go to be physically overwhelming in ways that no human could hope to match. They aren't exactly intellectual slouches, either, meaning that the fights against the Pillar Men don't break down to whose true power is most true and powerful. The final fight between Joseph Joestar and Wham is probably one of the best shonen fight sequences put to paper and animation, as it's two skilled fighters attempting to use every technique and trick they can muster from themselves and their environment in order to gain some advantage over the other that could lead to a win. It's not a way of fighting that is commonly associated with the genre, but it's ultimately a better way to sell the idea that a pair of combatants are actually skillful.

The supporting cast is quite strong in part 2. Caesar Zeppeli presents a slightly more serious contrast to Joseph, and his grudge against the Joestar family and the Pillar Men combined with his own pride make a fierce and memorable character. Lisa Lisa plays the role of a harsh mentor, which is warranted, because Joseph is something more of an aimless boor than his grandfather, so a harder touch would make sense to bring him in line. Given that there are prominent supporting villains this time around, there are now antagonists which are allowed to have redeeming personal qualities, such as Esidisi's indomitable tenacity and Wham's own sense of honor. These qualities are not there to forgive the other horrifying acts these villains commit, however.

On more general notes for the series, the short length means that there is almost nothing that might be considered filler. Even the training sequences are quite brief, and aren't so much generally about bumping up a character's power level but to hone and discipline skills and abilities a character already had in some way- In Joseph's first encounter with Wham, he was able to actually injure the Pillar Man, but he lacked the knowhow to use what he had to pull out an actual victory. Beyond this, the show has no reluctance to move the story forward with each episode, aided by the fact that the source material itself was somewhat concise in its own right.

The animation is somewhat typical for a modern anime production, with some very impressive bumps in quality at important moments and instances. The only outstanding problem is that the animation animation doesn't quite capture the full measure of Araki's original artwork, but this is a common situation when the source artist has a particularly detailed style. The animated adaptations of various CLAMP properties tend to suffer the same fate. However, the opening animations tend to use CG animation and models that do manage to capture Araki's artistry in some very impressive ways.

One of Araki's particular idiosyncracies is the fact that most of the character names are music references, usually of bands or persons at this point- this would expand to songs, but that would happen much later. Other things of note is that Araki never ceases to remind us that while antagonists may look human, they are very decidedly not, giving us instances of things like a vampire cutting his own head off to try to survive the destruction of the rest of his body, or one of the Pillar Men crushing and folding his body to fit in a realistically-sized air vent. Araki is very much a horror fan, and he's not afraid to show it at any and all opportunities.

Beyond that, the soundtrack is quite excellent, with different tracks exclusive to each part of the story. The one way to tell if something is based on an older property in anime is if the opening theme is at least somewhat directly about the content of the show, and JoJo does not disappoint in that aspect. The ending song is "Roundabout" by the band Yes, and the verses used change depend on which part of the series the episode is part of.

Basically, fans of the shonen genre should certainly check out JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and even people who aren't necessarily fans should at least take a look, due to the fact that it doesn't carry many of the more annoying or tedious elements that have been associated with the genre.

--------------

So, OPs.

OP1:



OP2:



And you know what, there's a new Stardust Crusaders anime running right now, so I'll just throw out the OP for that, too. Review will come after the show wraps up at the end of next month.

Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby R-90-2 » Wed Jun 24, '15, 12:09 am

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Clannad + Clannad After Story
Original run: 2007-2008
Native Language: JP
Genre: Slice-of-life dramedy/romance
Episodes: 45 + 3 bonus
-------------------

Gonna have to break format a bit here- this isn't exactly a series- or really, an anything- which is within my usual review wheelhouse, so this review is probably going to be a bit untidy.

So, a lot of the time, the people who can do the worst disservice to a show are its fans, and one of the shows for which this is especially true are the two seasons of Clannad, consisting of Clannad and its follow-up, Clannad After Story. Perhaps the first contact that most people will probably have with fans of the show are the ones who will describe it as "So sad" or some other permutation thereof, and it's very, very easy to get the impression that the show is entirely, 100% tragic drama. This is false- and it's not even mostly tragic drama. This is a very good thing, as the show would be far, far inferior if either of the above were actually the case, as being written in such a way is the ultimate failing of a number of shows that bill themselves as dramatic- the audience is not allowed any room to breathe, and so the show bogs down in itself.

Clannad + After Story itself is an adaptation of a 2004 all-ages visual novel by Key Visual Arts. The Visual Novel itself is one of the most popular and important visual novels ever made- in a recent poll, it scored 50% more votes than the 2nd place holder, Fate/Stay Night. Created as Key's first all-ages Visual Novel because the president of the company wanted to make something that his kids would be able to play, the property finally got its own adaptation starting in 2007, and used all of the voice talent that worked on the voiced version of the game itself. Clannad and After Story received universal acclaim on both sides of the Pacific, though the official English release was of dubious quality.

So, the setup: Tomoya Okazaki has a good reason to be a cynical grump as he enters his last year of high school- his father is a distant, occasionally abusive, burnt-out alcoholic, he feel stuck in an unchanging rut, and to top it off, his only friend, Youhei Sunohara, is a rash hothead who doesn't know how to pick the right fights (in the first scene we see of him, he has managed to pick a fight with the entire school rugby club) and tries to drag Tomoya into things where he'd rather not be involved. On the first day of his senior year, he encounters a girl, Nagisa Furukawa, at the bottom of the hill leading up to school, working up the courage to go up as she's afraid of the opposite things as Tomoya- that things will change and that the things she loves will go away. They end up making the climb together, and Tomoya's decision to get entangled in her life, and the lives of others in his town, might well give him the chance he needs to learn to live again, for himself and others.

A show like this really lives and dies on its characters, and the first few episodes of the series are based largely around establishing the major and supporting characters that appear throughout the series, and it does so with unusual strength. It's fairly obvious that each new character pulled into Tomoya's orbit has a lot of stuff going on, so while the viewer doesn't know everything about the characters right from the get go, it's obvious that there's more to them than a name and a role (and the first two encounters with Kotomi border on the surreal). The major supporting characters even get equally strong introductions as the more central cast of the show- Nagisa's parents are well worth the price of admission.

Because of the origin of the show as a visual novel, the earlier parts of the plot almost feel like an anthology show that just happens to share Tomoya and Nagisa as the viewpoint characters as they work through and discover the stories and motivations of the other personalities involved in the show. While these arcs are outwardly focused on other characters, however, they also work as a springboard for the development of Nagisa and Tomoya's relationship as they work through the problems of re-establishing the school's theater club and help their other friends work through their own things. Even minor characters have their own miniature arcs which the pair get involved with later on- which works to give the feeling that these smaller roles don't just exist to support the larger ones. It's because of this attention that I ended up being caught up in the small struggles of these people as much as the fate of empires in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. the show does have some light supernatural elements like most Key works, but these exist largely to show off the humanity of the characters rather than consume the proceedings (though it's still a good idea to pay attention, or the ending might be hard to understand).

I think that this show is probably the one most deserving of the description "slice-of-life" is for two reasons. The very first is that there is no single way to precisely describe the tone of the series, as it is a mix of all manner of moments, from the comedic to the dramatic to the tragic, and the show is equally good at all of these- some of the comedic moments are on par with the genuinely funnier bits of dedicated comedies, like Azumanga Daioh, and it is these lighter moments of humor and other good feelings that lubricate the show and prevent it from being a series that chokes on its own pretensions towards drama. These are necessary for the other parts of the show to have real meaning, rather than allowing itself to become a dismal slog.

The second reason comes in with the second season, Clannad: After Story, because the show recognizes that life does not begin and end with high school, and a fair chunk of that season comes after Tomoya and the others actually graduate. From there the series follows him as he now has to actually deal with adult challenges and decisions, like living on his own, getting his first real job, dealing with being apart from many of his old friends, getting married, and accepting the responsibilities of fatherhood. This is considered the stronger season of the two, but a lot of what follows is only as strong as it is because the first season was spent setting up how Tomoya and Nagisa become an item and move forward from there, such as how Nagisa changed from someone who was almost afraid to go to school to someone who could stand up and make Tomoya back down from doing self-destructive things.

And then the last leg of After Story began, and Clannad After Story earned the unique distinction of being the first piece of fiction to ever make me cry. Real and proper, not in the more usual and internal "boo hoo why is this show so terrible" sort of way. I'm not saying this to hype the show, but because if, as a reviewer, I am giving an honest account of my impressions of a series, such a reaction seems like too important a detail to omit. And that beginning of the end was preceded by some of the strongest episodes I've encountered in anime.

Now that I've spent a bunch of time on that, it's time to talk about the aesthetics. the animation quality is TV-level, but there is a bunch of things that were animated that didn't need to be, and this is meant in the best possible way- there are a lot of small actions and behaviors that receive animation that wouldn't in other shows, like the knee shuffle Kotomi does to turn around when sitting on the floor, or when Tomoya and Nagisa have to fumble around to find each other before they hold hands in the dark, or Sanae's excited little bounce when Tomoya is about to try her awful bread for the first time. Character is not only developed through dialogue. The only time the quality shifts is for the short Hidden World segments, where the quality becomes ludicrously high, possibly being done through computer generated models more than traditional animation. One thing to note about the art style is that the standard of Big Eyes, Small Mouth exists in FULL FORCE, possibly to a degree that might take even some veteran watchers of anime a little time to get used to.

Perhaps the greatest strength in the show's aesthetics is the soundtrack. Each major character, and some minor ones, each have their own theme, but it's not just the existence of a variety of pieces, but how they're used in service of the scenes in question, and Clannad has no difficulty using it well.

The reason that four of the episodes are listed as separate is because they were not originally part of the main series, and a couple of them are deviations from the main plot- one of them is a what-if that covers if Tomoya pursued Kyou Fujibayashi instead of Nagisa, and another is a what-if for if he chose Tomoyo Sakagami instead.

I won't say that Clannad is an entirely perfect show, however I would say that it's the best show in its own particular field. There are very many ways in which it is strong, and though I am not usually a fan of the genre the show represents, I got grabbed almost immediately by it. It was a strange choice, considering I picked up watching it basically on a whim to fill in the gaps between episodes of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but I don't think I can really be convinced it was the wrong choice, either.

(Note: The official English release was plagued with awkward translation and subbing, so, support the creators, but the fansubs make for better viewing.)

---------------------------
The youtube overlay will cover the subtitles, so move the mouse away from the video window when it's playing.

At the bottom of the Hill:


Meeting the Furukawas:


And remember to be careful, guys- It falls off sometimes.
Last edited by R-90-2 on Wed Jun 24, '15, 12:09 am, edited 4 times in total.
Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby R-90-2 » Thu Apr 20, '17, 9:10 pm

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Kemono Friends
Original run: 2017
Native Language: JP
Genre: Adventure?
Episodes: 12
-------------------

So, this is a bit of a departure for me, because normally I only watch shows which have been previously established as "good", and give it a hard eye to see exactly where it falls. In this case, however, I ended up having to come to a show with zero preconceptions because there hasn't been enough time for this particular show to have settled and hardened into a particular mold. While it is a show that, on the face of it, has nothing going for it, apparently there is still value in trying hard, and given that it was apparently a massive surprise success up and down the chain, apparently you can make no money go pretty far if you have an unexpectedly resonant idea.

So, Kemono Friends was actually a multimedia project consisting of a mobile game, a manga, and an animated series each taking place at different times in the same setting and with only barely-connected main plots. The series ended up being the most visible part of the whole thing for not always the best reasons, due to having been palmed off to a minor studio that contained about ten employees, not-exactly a-list voice actors, and being 3D animated in the same way that got 2016's Berserk adaptation raked over the coals on its animation quality. Even more than that, the production dragged on for long enough that the mobile game crashed and burned well before the show was set to start airing (though it was being managed by Nexon, which meant it was already doomed from the start). Initial reactions ended up being tepid, but favorability skyrocketed as the series went on, and it wound up, somehow, being the big surprise success of the winter season.

So, basically, the premise is as follows. The show takes place in Japari park, an enormous safari park situated on a non-specific island where the volcano spews out a substance called Sandstar, which turns normal animals into human-like versions of themselves in appearance and intelligence collectively referred to as the Friends, presumably because they've learned how to survive without killing each other. However, one fine day, a Serval catgirl discovers an amnesiac human in the middle of the savanna. As neither of them know what she is, the Serval calls her Kaban ( literally "bag") after her backpack, and decides to go with her through the park to the library, where they can certainly find out what kind of animal the human is, assisted along the way by a robotic park guide who the Friends call "Boss" but who only speaks to Kaban. However, the Sandstar that created the Friends may well have created other things, which pose an occasional danger to the park and the people.

The first and possibly most important thing to say is that, apart from the backgrounds, the show doesn't seem to have a single production value: The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, except, sometimes, in this show. The framerate, while consistent and decent, might only be so thanks to being tyrannically enforced by whatever program they used to create the show. However, they did not try to work beyond their obvious limitations. The character designs and animation framing is largely the same as one might find in a more conventionally animated show, so the creators didn't try to break their computer with overly-fancy designs and camera shots. The show's animation quality does improve over the course of the series, but it is understandable how people might bounce off the show at first glance. It wasn't much of a problem for me, as I occasionally watch '70s anime, but it might be understandable why others might be initially repulsed. There are a few clever design decisions to mark certain things about the animals that the Friends are based on- for example, friends based on critically endangered or extinct species have no eye reflections.

Good production values make a good show better, but can't make a bad show good, and a good show of any sort exists on the strength of its characters, which is actually where this show manages to shine. Kaban is a rarity in that she's an interesting main protagonist- while she's almost overly aware of her physical limitations compared to the more impressively dynamic Friends, the lack of an action focus means that Kaban has enough breadth to be one of the thinkingest protagonists one might find in an animated show, and not in the "Just as Planned" way, which often seems to be more of a magic spell than an actual exercise of intelligence. Kaban is able to make leaps of abstract logic and the best use of the limited tools her surroundings offer, working hard to earn the sapiens in H. Sapiens. Serval is an earnest and friendly (and historically interesting, as it's believed that the partnership between man and the serval cat is a long one on the scale of recorded history) companion, and while many of the Friends are one- or two- episode wonders, while they may not have deep personalities, they tend to at least have strong ones.

One of the bigger details, however, is that the show tends to emphasize that the Friends were all once animals. In some cases, it's shown that they're not entirely used to human-like bodies- Serval hasn't quite caught on to the advantages of thumbs, and is a bit hazy on fingers in general, as shown in a scene where she tries to drive a safari bus by whacking the steering wheel left and right with her curled-up hand (it ends about as well as you expect). In other places the Friends tend to display behaviors that are more actual than stereotypical, such as how Lion is strong, but would rather be a lazy catlump most of the day than do anything at all, how the first couple of times they try to interact with Otter she's using a piece of the park as a waterslide or is juggling rocks when they try to talk to her, or how Alpaca Suri spits on the counter after grousing about Kaban getting her hopes up about finally having a customer at the mountaintop café she took over. It even thinks about the physical advantages that humans do have, such as in the first episode, where after a long walk in the savanna, Serval flops over and pants in the shade for a while whereas all Kaban has to do to recover is just sit down for a little bit. Also, the time spend on the eyecatches is actually used to deliver information from animal experts about the actual animals that serve as the bases for the Featured Friends of the week- mostly Japanese people, but also people from Belize, America, and Canada. The show makes full use of tis run time- every episode has some amount of post-credits stuff.

(A small side note- the Friends are generally just called their species as their names- the only ones who take what we think of as names are the penguins, but they're a special case.)

While the story of the show generally concerns itself with the week-to-week adventures of the pair as they make their way across the park, there is a very strong implicit backstory that impacts their ability to traverse the various areas. Early on, the guide robot, Boss, actually stutters and locks down quite a bit because certain paths and bridges and machinery made for navigating the park that should be there just isn't there anymore, having been washed away or are otherwise missing. While the parts of the park that the Friends have appropriated are in generally good shape, a lot of the places that were intended mainly for use by humans are worn down, faded, rusted over, clogged with rubble, or otherwise dilapidated, so you get these cute animal adventures alongside things like a character finding a coin and geeking out, going on a tear about what currency used to be for. this means that the real suspense isn't over what kind of animal Kaban is- the viewer can tell she's a human from the first second- but rather what they're going to find out about humans when they reach the library.

And the journey to the library actually only lasts about half of the series- the rest is about what to do with what they've learned. However, they series doesn't really lose its shine after they reach that first goal, because the show is more Kaban's story than the world's story. And the end of the story brings everything together in one last challenge, where Kaban has to use everything she learned from watching the Friends, and, in turn, the Friends used what they learned from watching Kaban. But one of the bigger takeaways is that it presents man as an animal, rather than anything special or separate- the question about Kaban is always- "What kind of animal are you?", and that's not something that really changes throughout the course of the series.

At the heart of it, though, Kemono Friends is a show that's mainly about being itself and letting anything good about it flow from that. It's not about metacommentary on a genre, or espousing an overt philosophy, succumbing to fashionable irony, or anything of that nature- and while that may sound shallow, it's not like we all don't remember shows who have tried that but have ended up being no more deep for all their half-hearted trouble. Perhaps also unusually, despite the large cast of cute animal girls, the show is indifferent at worst about imposing fanservice- when the director said he wanted a show that was okay for kids and adults, he apparently meant it.

Kemono Friends is an unusual show, in some respects- it has a lot of factors that should have made it an awful show, such as being a barely-budget series by a small studio tied to a deceased free-to-play mobile game. However, the other aspects behind it- the creative team, the soundtrack, and all that, still manage to carry what is a kind of pure adventure show that takes the adventure part the most seriously, as almost every episode is about going to new places, meeting new people, and doing different things once you're there. This show is an example of being able to make something out of almost less than nothing.
Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby Bragatyr » Fri Apr 21, '17, 12:10 am

Just got around to checking out the Sailor Moon review (first season) because I just finished watching it a couple months ago. Excellent and well written as always.

Been trying to work my way through some older anime, was never really a huge fan of the genre until I found the older stuff and started watching it subtitled. Outside of the first two seasons of Power Rangers (the US version) I'm not really familiar with the Super Sentai formula, but I thought you made some interesting points about the way Sailor Moon played with that formula: personally I enjoyed Sailor Moon a lot and found that a lot of the reason that it worked was that it was playful about tropes and clichés and things like that, to the point that it was almost self-satirical.
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Re: R-90-2's Review node- animated edition.

Postby R-90-2 » Fri Apr 21, '17, 12:47 am

Bragatyr wrote:Just got around to checking out the Sailor Moon review (first season) because I just finished watching it a couple months ago. Excellent and well written as always.

Been trying to work my way through some older anime, was never really a huge fan of the genre until I found the older stuff and started watching it subtitled. Outside of the first two seasons of Power Rangers (the US version) I'm not really familiar with the Super Sentai formula, but I thought you made some interesting points about the way Sailor Moon played with that formula: personally I enjoyed Sailor Moon a lot and found that a lot of the reason that it worked was that it was playful about tropes and clichés and things like that, to the point that it was almost self-satirical.


Funny you should mention that, because Zyuranger, the show that was adapted to make the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, was actually kinda goofy in and of itself, but the general thing about Sentai is that the extremes tend to be more extreme then their Power Rangers adaptations. When Sentai shows are serious they're really serious, and when they're silly, they're really silly. Like there's an episode of I believe Timeranger where the Time Blue is tired of monster attacks interrupting his love life, so the next time a monster showed up he got into his giant robot immediately and crushed it before it could grow.
Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
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