Anime Thread of Doom

[Grop]

Has anyone caught Mary and the Witch's Flower yet? It is quite disappointing that Cineplex did not see fit to bring it to Canada. (Instead, for some baffling reason, we got the live-action Gintama movie.)

Expected in late february in my country. As usual with anime, I don't know yet whether it will be screened in my place. Likewise I would like to watch Fireworks, which has been screened in some places for a few weeks, but not here.

(ConMan, that is not obvious from your post, but you probably know that Mary and the Witch's Flower is not a Ghibli production).

Many action anime have bullshit action scenes. I watched some of Rurouni Kenshin a very long time ago, and the one thing I remember is that fighting scenes made little sense. On the other hand you cand find shows with very plausible, well choregraphed fighting scenes. I think Berserk and One Punch Man do that very well for instance, and probably Hunter x Hunter, My Hero Academia and several other series.

[Ginger]

It's very much what I've come to expect from recent Ghibli films, especially the ones that adapt children's books - pretty, a bit predictable, some nice emotional touches, but also sometimes feeling like they skipped five consecutive chapters and conflated a few roles together to save time. It was good, but probably not mind-blowing.

I LOVE LOVE Studio Ghibli. My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle were all excellent superlative films. And that one where they found the floating city and met that sentient robot thingy person? True classics of the cinemas these days I do say~ <3 And even if the anime you said is not one of theirs? I dunno never seen it? Anyways. Just wanna say that stuff about Studio Ghibli.

Many action anime have bullshit action scenes. I watched some of Rurouni Kenshin a very long time ago, and the one thing I remember is that fighting scenes made little sense. On the other hand you cand find shows with very plausible, well choregraphed fighting scenes. I think Berserk and One Punch Man do that very well for instance, and probably Hunter x Hunter, My Hero Academia and several other series.

I liked the giant robot fighting scenes in Gasaraki. AND they even had nerdy hypothetical thought experiments w/the scientists making the giant mechas re: "how they walk when they so top heavy?" And a conflict in the Middle East. It was a fun, funny movie. <3

[ConMan]

It's very much what I've come to expect from recent Ghibli films, especially the ones that adapt children's books - pretty, a bit predictable, some nice emotional touches, but also sometimes feeling like they skipped five consecutive chapters and conflated a few roles together to save time. It was good, but probably not mind-blowing.

I LOVE LOVE Studio Ghibli. My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle were all excellent superlative films. And that one where they found the floating city and met that sentient robot thingy person? True classics of the cinemas these days I do say~ <3 And even if the anime you said is not one of theirs? I dunno never seen it? Anyways. Just wanna say that stuff about Studio Ghibli.

Mary and the Witch's Flower is technically not a Studio Ghibli film, but the first production of Studio Ponoc which is staffed by a bunch of ex-Ghibli people, and pretty much everything about it screams Ghibli. So technically no, essentially yes. And that's fine, because Ghibli films are still good even if most of the best stuff seems to be their older work.

[ConMan]

Discussions of anime issues regarding girls' and women's consents you have been amply warned.

Spoiler:

So often in anime I DO wonder: "Does she like him or is he just being? Totally and wildly inappropriate?" Naruto hitting on EVERY. Woman he meets to copy his pervy sage master. Hinata being all coy and shy and getting hit on literally by mad little boys. And in hentai... consent don't matter. It's not really making love when a girls don't want to make love w/you. And people make fun of Sakura Haruno for being... too strong fem and not taking Sasuke's garbage about powers and training with Orochimaru, or Tsunade for secretly being an old lady too old to have a love life, or Ino for being a hypnotist girl that probably gropes people while they controlled or w/evs... 'cause she's a strong fem too. Anyways my general issues are: Girls and women get hella mistreated in anime, their consent in hentai is negotiable, they can get loved on or hit on inappropriately and must be shy, timid, submissive. Anime why? *Cries helplessly a/anime.*

You could write entire essays about how female characters are written in anime and how that relates to trends in other media and in Japanese youth culture. You could probably write a whole essay just about "kabedon", aka "that thing where one character pins another character against a wall". It's generally used to paint one character (typically the guy) as dominant, and the pinned character often blushes and/or gets flustered in that embarrased-but-kind-of-aroused way that is often used as shorthand for "even though she's feisty, she's got a submissive streak". It's one of those things that is fine if there's already an established relationship, but outside of one is a bit creepy and, at least to me, feels like a G-rated version of that questionable consent issue that you're talking about.

[Ginger]

That is such a good idea. You know I always wanna write all the time so? I might as well. And the shy blushing sort of aroused stuff turns me on and turns me off at the same time? It seems wrong and natural for a submissive shy woman to acts in such ways? But. It's totally, wildly inappropriate and Japanese men AND women did it. In Sailor Moon: Written by a real woman, sexist depictions of school girls' outfits w/short short skirts and tight tops. Inuyasha same deal written by a woman re: Kagome gets hit on sometimes literally by her dog demon BF, flirts heavily w/him and... he acts all totes inapprops on her again and again. </3

[Jorpho]

By the way: is it unusually worthwhile to read the Full Metal Alchemist manga before watching FMA: Brotherhood, or is it fine to watch the series as-is?

I watched the original FMA series back in the day (an increasingly distant time in the past) and I know that diverged significantly from the manga.

[Grop]

By the way: is it unusually worthwhile to read the Full Metal Alchemist manga before watching FMA: Brotherhood, or is it fine to watch the series as-is?

I watched FMA:B without having read the manga or watched the first series, and I didn't feel lost.

[Derek]

I still think that Summer Wars is the much better version of the movie, though, partially because there was no contractual obligation (as per all kid's films in the 90s) to include Smashmouth in the soundtrack.

But the soundtrack was half the reason that movie was so fucking great. That was like every 90's kid's introduction to ska punk.

[Ginger]

Thoughts re: 'kabedon' or, 'putting your female love interest against a wall.'

Spoiler:

It... seems both sexy and wrong. Sexy because it appeals to my animal attraction to physically stronger partners. Wrong because... what if he turns out to wanna hit the woman/girl or something? And if your boyfriend puts you up against a wall to, 'put you in your place and show that He is Dominant,' does that mean he loves you More Or Less? I am use to physical displays of affection, being guided by both words and physical actions so. I relate to kabedon a lot... and. It feels like a natural extension of my shyness and girlish selves to wanna... submit to a man so strong he can put a 5'11'' girl against a wall w/his sheer physical prowess. Me-ows.

[Jorpho]

I'm sure I was one of many people who was all excited for Fireworks, but it is, alas, every bit as bad as the reviews would suggest. A couple of pretty bits here and there, but hardly enough to make it at all worthwhile. Be warned.

[Zohar]

Thanks for the warning. I saw a trailer for it at the theater. They've been showing a Ghibli movie every month, I'll just go to a couple more of those.

[Grop]

I did like Fireworks, although I agree most criticisms are founded.

[ConMan]

I think the main problem with Fireworks is that it suffers from the same issue that you see in many anime sci-fi/fantasy films and shows these days (and probably Western ones too) - rather than "Show, Don't Tell", they sit more on "Don't even bother telling and assume the audience can follow the same thought process that's in your own head to understand what's going on". Lots of nice visuals, some really interesting ideas created, enough questions left unanswered to make an entirely new movie.

[Flumble]

This is the place whether people have named Kimi No Na Wa (/君の名は。/Your Name) most "recently", so I'll leave my appreciation for the film here. Very good!
So many scenes! Together with quite a lot of story, it felt like I was watching a trilogy in the span of 1:40 hours. This was further reinforced by pop song interludes in between the parts of the story and at the start and end of the film —which I detest as in any film because I associate pop songs with blandness and orchestra with film.
The first half hour could've been a short film by itself. It had a fast pace, lots of setup of which the majority was "show, don't tell" and kind of had a conclusion.
Unfortunately, a lot of the drama in the middle of the film and some of the heavy-handed exposition came from, in my opinion, unnatural ignorance. Well, fine, you can explain away quite a bit of ignorance:

Spoiler:

at the start they clearly had the impression they were just dreaming, so they had no incentive to find out when and where they were.
And, like a dream, they may have forgotten most of what happened in the other's body the moment they wake up —they definitely had (reality-altering) amnesia in the latter part of the film. Still, they could've proposed (while in the other's body) a date and location to meet up or try and call themselves, rather than postponing that to the moment reality started interfering.

In any case they should've noticed very early on that they were 3 years apart because of different recent and upcoming national events and, in case the day and month were the same, different weekdays.

But something like the side characters explaining to each other what ritual the main character is performing, despite all of them living in the same little community for all their lives, feels stupid.

Also surprise Disney ending that they didn't really build up to.

Hmm, why did I say "very good" at the start? Oh right, it looks very pretty, I could feel empathetic for the characters and the story feels fresh and gently changes genre to defy my expectations (no, it's not just body swap or astronomy fetishism).