Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Okay, so Guaporense and I were discussing this. We want to make a thread where we review animation together. This means animation in a broad sense, so not just anime although obviously there will be a lot of that. I've been wanting to do something with Guap for a while, so I'm pretty excited to do this.

This is just going to be for reviews, and I'll keep track of what gets watched and the ratings in the first post.

Guaporense's Essays
Miyazaki and Children's Movies
On the Relative Popularity of Comics and Animation in Japan
The Evolution of Taste: Liking and Disliking a Medium
Animation, Live Action and Photography
American Animation fans and Japanese Culture

Guaporense's Top Animation Directors
1st - Hayao Miyazaki
2nd - Hideaki Anno
3rd - Isao Takahata
4th - Masaki Yuasa
5th - Mamoru Oshii
6th - Tsutomu Mizushima
7th - Akiyuki Shimbo
8th - Ryutaro Takamura
9th - Yutaka Izubuchi
10th - Nobuhiro Ishiguro
11th - Kunihiko Ikuhara
12h - Makoto Shinkai
13th - Junichi Satou
14th - Seiji Mizushima
15th - Koichi Ohata
16th - Hiroyuki Imaishi
17th - Mamoru Hosoda
18th - Yoshifumi Kondo
19th - Naoko Yamada
20th - Hiroshi Hamasaki


Zotis' Reviews
A Tree of Palme
Persepolis
Serial Experiment Lain
Blood Tea & Red String
Armitage III: Dual-Matrix
Venus Wars
Rhea Gall Force
Gunbuster
Ocean Waves
Ping Pong the Animation
Knights of Sidonia (season 2)
Aquatine Hunger Force (season 5)
Paprika
Princess Mononoke
Tekkonkinkreet
Hellsing
The Twelve Kingdoms
Darkside Blues
Appleseed
Garasaki
One Punch Man


Zotis' Obscure Gems
Fight Iczer
Galforce
Armor Hunter Mellowlink
Iria: Zeiram the Animation
Curse of Kazuo
A Wind Named Amnesia
The Dark Myth
Dagger of Kamui
Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma
Bio Hunter
Baoh
Wicked City
The Cockpit
Big Wars
Lensman: Secret of the Lens
Megacity 23
Goodnight Althea
Goku: Midnight Eye
Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01
Battle Royal High School
Lily C.A.T.
Grey: Digital Target
Harmagedon
Roots Search
Hades Project Zeorymer
Roujin Z
Silent Mobius
AD Police Files
8 Man After
Psycho Diver: Soul Siren
Bounty Dog
Ninja Gaiden
Devilman: The Birth
Devilman: Demon Bird Sirene
Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman

Zotis' Comprehensive List of Anime Recommendations

1) Expelled from Paradise (2014)

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...khqgwh8kks.gif

Very nice sci fi animated film with mechas and stuff. :D Hah, there is even a plot. In the far future most of humanity lives as computer personalities as earth was turned into a wasteland due to a malfunction of nanotechnology (which lead to a self replicating nanomachines "eating up" earth's resources), as result due to depleted resources it was impossible to keep billions of people alive so their minds were downloaded into a massive computer mainframe (which is orbiting earth).

Virtual dystopia:
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...cca6hzu3qe.jpg

The film's plot is in part very similar to movies like Dances with the Wolves and Avatar. A element of a supposedly more advanced society comes in contact with supposedly less advanced locals and learns their ways and turns its back on the society which sent him/her. In this case it's an agent of that giant computer mainframe that is sent to devastated earth (with her conscience downloaded into a cloned body made with her dna) to take care of a earthling hacker who hacked into the mainframe's virtual world. It's also has western elements the supporting character is a copy of The Man with no Name from Leone's films.

The plot is a bit creative in the second half of the film,

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...mnxsctx3cl.jpg

I watched this film because it was originally conceived and written by Urobuchi who also wrote PMMM and Psycho Pass. Overall his writing here doesnt' feel as fresh and original as in the other stuff her wrote though the short run-time of the film meant that his writing it couldn't be exploited fully if compared to a TV series.

I also found the costume design for the main character to be excessively fetishistic:
https://data.archive.moe/board/a/ima...0034550257.jpg
At least in Ghost in the Shell, for example, the "male gaze" wasn't as explicit as here.

I lost my respect for Urobuchi after this picture (:D):
http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spi...28745_full.jpg

The film's staff singing the movie's theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5SGfqcyUSU

The fat guy there with bleached hair is the film director, who is also famous, Seiji Mizushima, portrayed in the great TV series Shirobako:

http://i.imgur.com/Yb9VhPA.jpg

My rating is because, despite it's flaws, it was an extremely entertaining film and it shows the potential of fully 3D cell shaded animation (to look like hand drawn animation). Though I still prefer hand drawn, by far. Though it's cool the movements allowed by 3D computer animation:

https://youtu.be/0nGe490qyr8

2) When the Wind Blows (1986)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lows_1986.jpeg

When the Wind Blows is a very nice film. It's one of the best western animations I ever watched and it's very powerful and haunting. Despite the very simple art style and minimalist animation.

http://www.discdish.com/wp-content/u..._01-film-a.jpg

I had the impression the movie was filmed in a physical location with the animation imposed over a toy house:

http://prettycleverfilms.com/files/2...as-Kitchen.jpg

In the 1980's the cold war was still on and there was a very high probability that the US or Russia might start a nuclear exchange which would have possibly left much of the world devastated. This film depicts what would happen to a couple living in a country house in Britain if a nuclear bomb exploded a few (dozen?) miles away. It's not a pretty film, in fact, shocking and very sad.

My rating is +

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Yeah. A good one that is, and very painful when the effects of the radiation start kicking in and the two naively discuss the safety of their adult son. Tough to stomach.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I think it's the toughest western animation I have watched.

3) Big Hero 6 (2014)

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.c...0&h=377&crop=1

I don't think there is much to say about it, it's as bland as a movie can get. Some of the computer graphics are spectacular but I they they are wasted in the rather cartoony character designs.

Well, they look good though I don't really like 3D animation because it loses it's abstract quality, looking more like plastic dolls:
http://images.fandango.com/ImageRend...ero6_guide.jpg

The first half of the movie was considerably better than the second, where it devolved into a bland superhero film. In the first half it was a cool Back to the Future style of film, which I prefer. Then things went into the wrong direction after the first 45 minutes (which I guess is why I am slightly older than this films target audience).

Now becoming bland superhero characters:
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...ransparent.png

Interestingly, this movie has much more in common with other big budget Hollywood films (besides being more children friendly than typical live action blockbusters) than with traditional Disney. Best thing in the movie was the pet robot.

Still it was a well made highly processed blockbuster product that suffers from the incredibly uncreative script (people who write that are just copying and pasting from other scrips). My rating .

4) Watamote OVA (2014)

This short 30 minutes direct to video animation is a "sequel" to the Watamote TV series. However, it lacks the particularly effective elements of Watamote and hence is just a plain mediocre short movie.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/ac587bad...91v5o1_500.gif

It has a very simple plot regarding some school relationship based on encounters on the school roof and problems related with the fact that to get to the roof the main character had to steal/acquire the key. It's a teenager romance.

It's well made enough but not for me apparently. This is those anime that only teenagers "understand". :D

+

5) Gintama: Kanketsu-hen - Yorozuya yo Eien Nare (2013)

Pretty confusing mess of a movie. I admit though that I have only watched about 6 episodes of Gintama before watching this film and that might have been to little to fully get immersed into the franchise which consists of over 250 TV episodes and several movies already. I watched this movie because right now it's the highest rated movie in the MAL database with average rating of 9.14. Yep, The Godfather level's of rating there.

So, how good is it? Well I managed to laugh out loud in some parts, which is a great achievement for me since I am a man who very rarely laughs out loud. Though it became quite confusing by the middle as it started to throw too many characters at the same time at me, which are characters familiar to those who watched most of the TV series but I had no previous experience with many of them so that I didn't care at all for the jokes involving them.

http://alive.in.th/files/thumbs/1370...005f-big-1.jpg

Good thing that the other half of the jokes of the film were references to famous elements of Japanese pop culture and hence understandable to me. The movie good relatively weaker by it's final moments when it started to get really serious and I am sorry but I couldn't get myself in the same frame of mind as the movie expected from me, it has to be either serious or comedic, mixing the two to such a degree doesn't work for me.

http://www.koi-nya.net/img/subidos_p...de-Gintama.jpg

I give a generous for now because it was highly entertaining overall.

6) Otaku no Video (1991)

http://operationrainfall.com/wp-cont...eo-Opening.png

Classic comedy/mockumentary that parodies otaku culture. Divided into two parts, one animated narrative, another live action documentary. The narrative shows the descent of a man who had a job, a girlfriend and a healthy hobby, playing tennis. After he meets a few otaku and starts to get into the hobby of watching animation and reading tons of manga his life spirals out of control.

Main character get's his reading and watch list to become a full fledged otaku:
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OAeod3PU4iw/hqdefault.jpg

He loses his girlfriend, gets fired from his job while his otaku addictions consume his life. Later, he decides to take revenge on society and to become the otaking. or the king of the otakus. He opens up a an anime studio and makes billions selling merchandise.

King of otakus:
https://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...hu8fo1_500.gif

And brainwash humanity into otakudom:
http://i.imgur.com/reLe7.png

The mockumentary part is not as funny as the animated part (for me) though one part that I found the most funny was when they interviewned an american otaku, who looked like a pothead hippie who was saying: "I regret not being born in this promised land of comics".

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu...xo1_r1_500.gif

Another excellent part is when the main character and his otaku friends set up barracks at the sidewalk awaiting for the premier of Nausicaa in 1984! Then a guy walking with a girl walks by them and asks: "don't you guys have anything better to do than wait to watch a cartoon?", the reply: "It's not a cartoon, it's ANIMATION!".

Live action otaku:
http://operationrainfall.com/wp-cont...Collection.png

It's a classic without a doubt,

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Glad you saw and liked When the Wind Blows. The homeliness and innocence of the elderly couple brings the horror of a nuclear attack into sharper focus as we know what would really happen. The writer and illustrator Raymond Briggs has written some excellent books. If ever you have children, you have to buy Father Christmas and Father Christmas goes on Holiday, the grumpy Santa is subversively funny. There's also The deliciously disgusting Fungus the Bogeyman, and the famous The Snowman.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

When The Wind Blows is just beautiful and haunting at the same time, fan would be an understatement for me. It's one of the best films ever.

Guap, the Gintama movie is strictly supposed to be watched as a continuation to the series. There is a lot of character continuity and in-jokes. Take into account that it talks about a timeskip, and therefore the comedy that is related to seeing the characters in different outfits and attitudes is all missed if you are not familiar with them. For instance with the main trio, if you don't know how Shinpachi and Kagura behave through the series then you don't get the joke about the extremely proficient grown-up versions we have in this movie who try very hard to not reveal their old personality quirks. Or for instance with the appearance of post-timeskip Tama (the robot maid), there's a joke in the series about how she got a huge amount of ridiculously dangerous gadgets for a domestic robot and this movie makes reference to this by taking it to an extreme.

Many people even saw it as an appropriate closure to the series before a new season was confirmed one year and a half later. The last quarter sequences certainly seem to exploit this feeling, when all the regulars join together and fight for some sort of major fight. There's no wonder that so many people join the story, because the movie explores the whole world of interactions the main character has established in 265 episodes. So actually character continuity becomes actively relevant here, as a key point in the storyline.

Mix of comedy and seriousness is a constant in this series, it is part of its appeal. The character interactions are quite screwed up and filled with absurdity, even when they are serious, and the stories can become really crazy and overall nonsensical from a standard point of view (for instance one of the most revered tearjerkers in the show involves a mini-arc where an extraterrestrial supervillain who wants to destroy the Earth adopts the body of a cute dog). This movie was a positive addition to the series because it captured that spirit rather perfectly -sometimes the series tends to become too serious, specially when it wants to add a sense of spectacularity- as it deals with themes of loss and self-search, while having lots of jokes and an incredibly ridiculous premise: the whole story is grounded on an anti-piracy advertisement, after all.

Overall, I'm glad you enjoyed it that much, and more than I would expect for somebody who is not a follower of Gintama, but I think that you missed a lot of key context there.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I watched some of Gintama series before watching the movie (like half a dozen episodes). But you are right that I would have certainly enjoyed it more had I watched more of the series before watching the movie.

7) Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (2012)

https://ssl-static.libsyn.com/p/asse...ragon-Lost.jpg

As a fan of the Mass Effect science fiction shooter rpg videogame series, I found this particular movie interesting. Being essentially like a Mass Effect fan made mission campaign would feel like, it's like playing the game without having to actually play it. A shooter RPG for lazy people.

And the team is deployed, they have "magical powers" in a sense since they have force fields and shoot plasma using these:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...L._SL1500_.jpg

The animation was decent but certainly low budget. Mass Effect was developed by a Canadian company but they hired a Japanese animation studio in order to produce an animated adaptation, the writing was small made by a western english speaking guy though.

http://masseffectuniverse.fr/wp-cont...ragon-lost.jpg

So it's a mix between the West and the East. Eastern animation and art mixed with western military science fiction writing. While it can be regarded as junk food type of animation it's right up my alley so I give it +.

Well, that was surely an interesting point of view, seeing how a movie like Be forever Yorozuya would work to somebody who has little experience on the series. You turned out to enjoy it more than I would predict; the first thing I thought of when I watched it is that it was a movie strictly for fans.

By the way, how is this thread working? Do you and Zotis review your own movies individually? Can I join :)?

It's a really powerful movie indeed.

Even though I am a big fan of animation I particularly dislike the American genre of mainstream children's animated movies though, where the movies are made for small children and everything is simplified/dumbed down (over-explained, too ludicrous at some points), pacing is too fast which doesn't allow for atmospheric buildup (because small children supposedly have ADD) and made "child safe": nobody dies in the movie, not even the pet robot or the scientists daughter, etc. There is also the fact that the plot is extremely cliche and the animation doesn't take advantage of the vast technical possibilities of CGI, opting for a more conservative simple cartoon look.

I think that's essentially a problem with mainstream Western expectations regarding animation, they expect it to be only dumbed down small children's entertainment and so if a movie does everything "right" inside the kiddie box, it wins the Oscar. So expect lower ratings from me for these types of movies compared to a fan of the genre in general, not just this single film, it's a general problem not a particular one.

Yep I could notice that but you can deduce what's expected from the characters in such a movie.

Yep individually. Of course, you can ask Yoda to change the name to "Guaporense, Jal90 and Zotis review animation".

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Hey, I don't mind if you join us Jal90. I was really busy the last few days. I was planning to watch at least one animation, but couldn't get to it despite cutting my sleep short to 2-4 hours a night for three nights in a row. Anyway, I have my first animation lined up for tonight, and I'll post the review as soon as I can.

8) Hajime no Ippo Mashiba vs Kimura (2003)

And again I am watching an OVA that is a follow up from a series, Hagime no Hippo, which I haven't watched (even though I was planning on watching). But it's also a self contained narrative since it uses supporting characters of the series as main characters, so it's supposedly works as a standalone movie.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_qiJRjTq_ySw/Sz..._g/Kimura2.jpg

It's not as heavily based on the TV series as that Gintama movie in the sense that everything that happens here is contained inside the narrative of the film itself. This time it's a boxing series and this movie depicts a match between Kimura and Japan's boxing champion, Mashiba, using his scythe arm style.

It's a great 61 minutes, kinda like a rocky movie but with more over the top action and Japanese style of fight (i.e. the impression is that the fights are going beyond the fighters physical resistance several times over, I got the impression that by the end of the fight both would be dead and buried).

https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/5erFJDrQYb0/hqdefault.jpg

The animation quality is also pretty good, not as good as a Ghibli film but the match itself has some pretty cool animation for it, very low cost but creative in it's use of manga visual techniques to depict dynamic movements.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20110914123324

My rating is +

9) Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1kNRQHFwWc...sion+squad.jpg

Like Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, Starship Troopers Invasion is a Japanese film made with a western screenplay and voice cast, this time a continuation of the Starship Troppers' universe.

http://flash.sonypictures.com/shared...g/041012/4.jpg

The original film is a classic of B-movies, this film feels more like a 90 minute long videogame cinematic than a movie, which has good and bad elements. The good is that it doesn't have anything really "bad" because nothing feels quite real, lots of shiny eye candy graphics that looks like from a videogame running a graphics card from 2019, lots of explosions.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F74k7qqqAR...rl+Jenkins.png

Characters are completely boring and uninspired but I expected that and the whole film feels more like a single continuous action sequence rather a film with action sequences. It was fun while it lasted and became more entertaining towards the ending as well.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YK2wEsiv7b...n+troopers.png

Lot's of explosions make it have a rating of .

A robotic doll made from a mystical tree embarked on a dangerous journey to save the world. There was an obvious nod to Pinocchio, but this was a very interesting take on it. The world that the story was set in combined fantasy and sci-fi elements to create a rich environment that stirred my imagination. It was like a combination between Dungeons & Dragons and Fantastic Planet.

Until a moment ago I didn't actually realise that this was a Japanese Anime. I thought to myself, "I'm going to start off with a non-Anime animation." I would have to say that I've never seen an Anime look so Western before. From the moment I picked it up off the shelf at the video store to 20 hours after I finished the movie, I thought it was European or something.


The story overall was quite strong. Fantastical and charming, I was quite captivated for most of the movie. Towards the end I started to get some strange vibes, and eventually I realised things weren't really adding up. The ending was a bit disappointing. It wasn't bad, it just didn't really deliver it's moral message. Palme was a character stricken by grief who despite having an extremely important mission would allow others to completely trample him and the things of utmost value to him. It was pretty heartbreaking, but also quite profound. Gradually he starts to find hope and love, but then things become a bit weird. Antagonists become protagonists and suddenly go from being complete scum to saintly. Likewise Palme, the obvious protagonists exhibits psychotic behaviour at one point. The morality is all over the place in the second half of the film. Characters with abusive, narcissistic, and violent tendencies, with deep emotional scars from their troubled pasts, went from bullying, abusing, and trying to sell Palme for profit, to eventually become his companions and friends and suddenly exhibit emotional stability, compassion, and tender loving kindness. There wasn't even resentment from people who were abused and held at knife point. Everyone was really a good person inside, everyone understood everyone else's pain, and the deepest scars were completely healed without so much as a shred of lingering resentment. But as much as this bothered me at the end of the movie, it was the only flaw.

The animation quality was excellent. The characters and backgrounds were very well drawn, and there was plenty of motion so that you're never really drawn to notice the animation itself. It was smooth and beautiful drawing you immersively in. The designs of the exotic creatures and costumes were very cool and interesting. The overall composition was excellent.


Overall I enjoyed the movie a lot, and I was only disappointed towards the end when I noticed the morality and personalities of the characters weren't really adding up. The ending was a bit flat in terms of the delivery of it's message, but other than that it was very well drawn and a very good film.

Rating:

10) My Little Pony Equestria Girls (2013)

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mpf0Km-FY-Q/maxresdefault.jpg

This is the best American animated film I have watched over the past 5 years. Yes, it's really a good film, a great film for "adults" indeed. It's really cute and the characters are psychologically complex in a sense. And the jokes are actually funny unlike typical Disney/Pixar's films. It's a moe American movie in a sense. I am surprised there aren't any bronies in this forum, it's a big thing in the US actually.

This movie's plot is extremely simple and the film is very fast paced as usual for American animations, as result it's a quite short film running at 70 minutes only. However, it packs a lot of cuteness in those 70 minutes. It's basically an American version of a K-On! movie, made with American style animation and art (which is simpler in general).

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...97-d6jdifp.png

It's no wonder I even remember a American video of a gathering of fans of K-On! comparing/juxtaposing the characters from My Little Pony Magic Friendship with those of the moeblob series. Indeed this movie is very moeish.

11) My Little Poney: Equestrian Girls - Rainbow Rocks (2014)

http://totalgirl.com.au/images/defau...n.jpg?sfvrsn=0

Yey! Another My Little Poney movie! It didn't feel as fresh as the first one because it's basic structure was the same as the first movie, or in other words, it felt more like a reharshed version of the first movie. And I didn't like the songs very much, it's now very much like a watered down copy of K-On! (I think that combined with the magical girl transformation sequences this certainly looks like a Western (because I found out it's also Canadian besides American) moe title), but with everything inferior, the art, the music, the direction, the writing and the comedy is much less subtle. Also the fact that while K-On! is technically adult (but some Japanese schoolgirls like it), while this is technically for North American schoolgirls (but some nerds, like me, like it).

K-On!
https://thecajunsamurai.files.wordpr...on-5member.jpg

The band the girl's formed in this movie:
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...rs-d7kdcof.png

Even with a band now! But they had to have a epic clash (including beams of magical powers and everything) at the end? It didn't fit the movie at all. It was a bit of letdown but still competent film.

Also the characters in this franchise look cuter in poney form than in girl form. :) Only in the movies they made them into girls.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I do want to watch K-On! at some point.

12) Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker (2012)

Easily among the worst films ever made. It's really awful, really, I am sorry for the staff who made this movie but it's terrible. A terrible CGI movie, with terrible voice acting, character animation was really bad (I couldn't tell the emotions they were supposed to be feeling) script and overall one of the dullest movies I ever watched.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...ing_a_pose.jpg

Anyway, what can I say? Well, it's certainly the most boring watch of this year (more boring than Kiarostami's 10 even) and it's also not something with any artistic value, hence, it's completely worthless as a movie.

Graphics are those of a badly rendered videogame custcene, in fact, this movie is a 90 minutes long videogame cutscene, but in those cases you have to do something more entertaining than random fighting. The plot is terribly executed.

http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/6018_4.jpg

You don't seriously watch this do you? Please, please tell me you don't - lol ;)

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images.../facepalm1.jpg

But anyway lol - I don't watch much or any animated films (other than occasionally seeing a Pixar film like Toy Story 3) - but some video games with anime-ish cutscenes are pretty good, like the Metal Gear Solid games; the cutscenes alone are definitely action movie worthy stuff so to see that in a video game is pretty incredible, even though the plot ended up becoming way too convoluted in the end. Some of the older 90s' games with anime-style artwork looked pretty slick too (like Street Fighter, Streets of Rage, Mega Man X, etc).

I've heard of that one. Poor Guap.
http://i.stack.imgur.com/jiFfM.jpg

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

13) Starship Girl Yamamoto Yoko OVA 1 (1996)

Japanese version of The Last Star Fighter, it's a very well made OVA, it's nothing special though but it's a nice science fiction comedy to watch. I love the ludicrous sense of scale that they have there (a ship of 3,000 kilometers long!).

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2209/2...77e597b045.jpg

Nice to see where Shimbo started out.

14) Gunbuster (1988)

http://toponeraegunbuster.com/gunbus...sode-one06.jpg

I first watched Gunbuster about a year ago, it was among the 100 Asian films I watched for the "Asian film challenge" and it was the best of that large set of films, good enough to make into my super selective top 50 films list. Re-watched it today and it was better than first time, a genuine masterpiece of animation.

http://toponeraegunbuster.com/gunbus...sode-two03.jpg

It's classic Hideaki Anno storytelling style, similar in feel to the first episodes of Evangelion (before he wen't crazy with experimentation in the second half of the series). It's also the grand statement of love for nerd anime, in the sense of containing all the elements that characterize nerd's anime such as cute girls, plentiful science fiction elements, over the top mecha action inspired on these 70's kid's anime series (which also inspired Del Toro in Pacific Rim), however it mixes these "kiddie" elements with serious drama and a lot of nudity. The violence is not explicit however, considering most action occurs in space there is not much room for blood and corpses (ships explode and that's it).

http://i.imgur.com/yEOPq.jpg

Hideaki Anno is a really talented artist and he is capable of producing a very powerful atmosphere in all his work. It's a very characteristic feel which I find divine. His characters are also very memorable though he carried over archetypes from one of his works to the others, for instance, Jung Freud (yep, that's a character's name) serves as the basis for Asuka Langley's character in EVA.

http://www.toponeraegunbuster.com/gu...ode-four05.jpg

Another interesting element of the series is the utilization of relativistic time dilation as a plot element. In this case the main character watches her high-school friend age from 17 to 42 while she aged less than one year. It's a metaphor for the social stigma animation fans in Japan suffered (at the time this was made it was specially strong because it was the beginning of the adult anime era) of watching their relatives and friends age while they felt as eternal teenagers due to their love for the art form o animation and it's association with being juvenile.

http://www.animeclick.it/prove/upload/img/News6331.gif

While being technically science fiction it is mostly character driven and not driven by the science fiction concepts. That's the usual difference between Japanese science fiction and western and one of the reasons why most good science fiction produced in the world in the last decades consists of anime (the other is the low cost of producing animation compared to special effects movies). I almost cried at the end overwhelmed with emotion. It's one of the reasons why I watch more animation than live action these days is to experience the emotions I experience while watching Gunbuster.

http://i.imgur.com/ow57ObU.png

It's entertainment value is comparable to Star Wars.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29...2956384119.jpg

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Woah 5 stars? Man, I really need to finish Gunbuster.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Gunbuster is one of the best animations ever made. It's perhaps the textbook example of the use of animation as a medium for science fiction storytelling.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Persepolis (2007)

Okay, finally a non-Anime animation. So this was a French movie set in Iran. It was mostly character driven following the life of Marjane who began as a little girl, possibly around the age of ten. The course of the movie carried into her adulthood. It was a coming of age sort of story wich also dabbled with politics. I was really captivated by the artwork. At first glance it seemed kind of simple, but I noticed the fluidity of the character's movement and plenty of motion on screen. Little things like the angles of a character's hand and just everything as it moved about. Often animation has their characters set in limited movements, as if they can't draw from every angle. In this movie it felt as if they were able to draw from every single angle imaginable. There was a very interesting balance between cartoon feel and realism. The composition was superb. The film was based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel, and it defintely had documentary-esque vibes. Freedom was a predominant theme. On the one hand living in a country without freedom was very difficult. There was a lot of opression and fear. On the other hand living in a free country was also very difficult, and it's greatest hurdles were probably the many distractions that cause a person to loose sight of what's important in life. I think these contrasts were very well represented. Overall it was a very enjoyable watch for me. I could not find any fault or anything to criticise in the movie. The only thing that could have made me love the movie more would be content that appealed more to me, but that being said I would not actually want anything in this movie to be changed.

Rating:

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

always appreciate and look forward to both of your reviews on animated movies and always get something new to search out and enjoy.
THANKS

Serial Experiment Lain (1998)

I imagine that this show must have been pretty mind blowing in 1998 considering how young the internet was. I myself started getting pretty active in some online forums around 2001-2002. To me it didn't really seem like it was that "new," but when I was 16 a year was a very long time and high-school felt like most of my life. Being an adult seemed like it wouldn't occure to me for a little over a hundred years, and 1977 was an eternity ago. Looking back in retrospective the internet was a lot simpler than it is today, and what we can do with computers has advanced a lot in such a short period of time. I no longer think of a decade as a long time, let alone a year. When I consider all of this, and I think about Lain's story revolving around the hypothetical potential for the internet and computers, I think it's pretty incredible.

So basically Lain is about a girl who starts getting interested in computers and quickly becomes totally engrossed. Computers and the internet become her life, and in a very short time things start to get surreal. The plot is very psychological and deals with topics like the nature of reality and the potential of the internet and computers in light of some pretty wild notions about reality. It's so complex that it's really hard for me to wrap my mind around. This was my second time watching the series, and I still feel like I don't have a clue what was going on. I think it's a bit ambiguous too, and intentionally so. At least that's the vibe I get. I would like to talk more about it's plot, but maybe I'll just PM you Guap, because I don't want to spoil it too much. I will talk about a few things here though that aren't spoilers beyond the first few episodes.

Before Lain even goes online there are rumors of another version of her existing that people have seen. Once Lain does start going online she learns of this other version of herself. Some people try to convince her that it is her, and she wonders if they're true, but she keeps denying it and calling it lies when she's sober minded. There are weird occurences, like her appearing in the clouds and children raising their arms in "worship" of her. When she begins getting into computers she soon modifies her own set up to an insane amount of wires and other computers all over the place. Her room becomes a cyber dungeon, and even when she's at school she's always on her device browsing the web. There are things in the series like a man who uploads his memories into the code of the internet so that even after he dies he lives on the net. But they call the internet "the wired." The plot is really fascinating and made me think a lot about what could be going on and what was real versus what was just illusion and deception.

Besides the plot being so stimulating Lain is very well drawn and animated. At first I kind of thought some stuff could have been drawn better, like figures in the background. It's true, but at the same time they aren't poorly drawn. Maybe there isn't a lot of detail in every picture, but what I noticed is that the shapes were interesting and not typical of animation trends. What is drawn, even when it's a bit simplistic, is well drawn. Overall it was all very pleasing on my eyes.

The characters are charming. Their personalities are interesting. Even the stereotypes seem like deep psychological commentaries on those stereotypes and in no way are typical portrayals of those stereotypes. Even the most minor characters have a lot of depth and personality. The voice acting is excellent. The English dubbing was not good though, so I definitely recommend watching it subbed.

This series gives me goosbumps it's so good. Fortunately I have it on DVD and Blu-Ray. I look forward to watching it again and again and gleaning more every time I do. Definitely one of my favorite Series of all time!

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

So why only 9/10? If you consider it one of your favorites you should rate it 10/10.

I also love Lain (as well as pretty much everybody who is into animation), it's a classic.

15) Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko OVA 2 (1997)

https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/ima...e/10/30935.jpg

Relatively obscure direct to video animation from 1997, it's a rather mediocre title that I watched because of it's ludicrous title. We have the same characters as before and it starts off as a slice of life type of thing in the sense of incorporating daily life in Japan of the 1990's while simultaneously being sci fi, because like in The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy, it's mostly set in a highly advanced interstellar civilization which happens to exist at the same time as current Earth.

Like the first OVA it's pretty average but I found this one more entertaining than the first one, +.

I've only ever given 10/10 to one movie in my whole entire life.

16) Steamboy (2004)

http://static.zerochan.net/Steamboy.full.191480.jpg

To call Steamboy visually impressive would be a severe understatement. The characters of this movie are not very memorable though their development is quite impressive given the short running time of the movie plus the film's relative lack of dialogue and extreme volume of scenes involving high volume of action and movement.

http://www.scifimoviepage.com/upcomi.../steamboy3.jpg

In terms of animation quality it's superior to Akira and comparable to the high end of Miyazaki's films. Among the most technically awesome animations ever made, specially given the insanely high level of detail of it's mechanical designs. In fact, this movie can be understood more as 2 hours of steampunk machinery/design porn. The plot is almost nonexistant and not interesting anyway (besides the insane fact that the main character's dad, grandfather and himself all happen to be engineering geniuses with the surname "Steam" :p).

https://visocki.files.wordpress.com/...boy_blond4.jpg

It took 10 years to produce and had a larger budget than Princess Mononoke. Indeed, it shows, it's insanely well made. In fact, the quality is so high that it makes one a bit spoiled and unable to enjoy normal TV budget animation. :D

http://www.herogohome.com/wp-content...teamCastle.jpg

Recreation of 19th century British cityscapes and landscapes is also amazing:

http://www.winonlyriders.net/thelost.../Steamboy4.jpg

+

17) Haibane Renmei (2002)

http://blog.kirkebykvalitet.com/wp-c...e-Renmei-1.jpg

Like Lain (1998), another ABe product, Haibane Renmei is an art film that is executed through the medium of the 13 episode long TV series so I think I can review it here. I am also putting it as my top favorite movie of all time.

https://theglorioblog.files.wordpres...ibanewings.jpg

Haibane Renmei is an extremely powerful and beautiful little piece. It was done on a minimal budget and indeed it shows that when its resolution is 480 points because it was made digitally at that low level of resolution. Hence its not eligible for an Oscar (:p), though I am not aware of any prizes for it in Japan as well though Lain won the excellence prize in medias arts festival.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u9hWZ_uyWB...00/Skyline.PNG

Its plot is extremely simple though also very ambiguous in its significance, like Lain (1998) its full of symbolism and its much slower paced than the usual animations. I also loved the very subtle colors of the show, reminiscent of Tarkovsky's movies like The Mirror, which reminded me of the scene of the country house in The Mirror as transmitting the feel of rusticity and how powerful its atmosphere is, specially considering the powerful atmosphere partly the result of Ko Otani's majestic soundtrack, perhaps the best soundtrack of any series or movie I ever watched.

They don't make anime like this anymore. Anyway, animation is so small a field that a masterpiece such as Haibane Renmei must be cherished. Its one of the few anime series that can be understood as being serious art.

10/10

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Haibane Renmei is one of the few animes that I actually like the music for. I can think of very few animes that I actually enjoy the music, but more than that the music was actually captivating. For most episodes I actually let the entire intro and outro credits play through while I was just mesmerised. I kind of felt a little bit of bordom here and there, but the ending was superb, and overall I enjoyed it a lot.

I saw it on the shelves of video stores for quite some time before the way you talked about it made me finally check it out, Guap. It kind of made me think about how mysterious real life is, and yet how we go through it taking so much for granted.

Blood Tea and Red String (2006)

Written, directed, and produced by Christiane Cegaveske, this film took her 13 years to make. There were no credits because she made it all herself, though Mark Growden did the music. And the music was quite enchanting. Blood Tea and Red String is all stop motion. It's an "adult" fairy tale about four creatures that dwell under an oak. Three mice commission them to build a doll for them, but they fall in love with their creation and refuse to sell it. The mice steal the doll in the night, and the oak dwellers go on a journey to try and recover it. It's quite the fantasy adventure, very charming and delightful. There is no dialogue, just the odd squack and squeek. It ran just over an hour in length, but the pace was not too fast. A lot of attention was paid to detail. The sets and characters were really beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it. A great film!

I love this film!

I actually like j-pop, I don't love it like heavy metal music, but its better than American pop, for instance. Though the best soundtracks in animation are certainly orchestral, like Haibane Renmei and Hisaishi's work. I like these soundtracks way more than almost all Hollywood soundtracks, with the exception of Star Wars, Kubrick's films and Back to the Future. Overall though most film soundtracks are bad.

Its really great. Very spiritual stuff.

Armitage III: Dual-Matrix (2002)
Directed by Hiroyuki Ochi

I bought this movie in a recent re-release package titled Armitage III: The Complete Saga. It also included the original four OVA's and the remastered movie Armitage III: Poly-Matrix (the original OVA's compiled into a movie with some additions). I didn't watch all of Poly-Matrix because the "new additions" at the beginning did not appeal to me. To be fair I'd have to watch it all to make an honest evaluation, but I just wasn't getting a good vibe. My inclination was that the original OVA's were better on their own. Anyway, that's kind of beside the point. I'll move on and talk about Dual-Matrix.

The plot revolved around Armitage, a sentient artificially intelligent cyborg. It took place some years after the events of the original OVA's. Armitage married a human and gave birth to a human daughter (not a cyborg, or half-human/half-cyborg). Little explanation was given as to how this was possible, but even to the characters in the story it was a mystery. Over the course of the film Armitage embarked on a mission of her own initiative to uncover a sinister plot that threatened robot-kind and her family's safety.


Dual-Matrix was not quite as well drawn as the original OVA's, and lacked their gritty texture and atmosphere. The plot and character development were weak. The antagonists were cliche. The plausibility department was at 16-year-old fan-fiction level. Let me give an example: Armitage's daughter (I'm guessing she was around 6 years old) was revealed to be super intelligent later in the film to the shock and awe of her parents who apparently had not even realised their daughter had photographic memory let alone a higher IQ than any other human being on the planet in the entire history of the human race. There was mention that she was a purely normal human, but hints that she was exceptional. It was unfortunately not very reasonable that her parents would not have even noticed until that point. This is one of those films where things happen purely for the sake of tension or dramatic effect, and the characters' actual skills fluctuate inconsistently based solely on desired outcomes. The way a character started loosing a fight and then kicked it up a notch and started winning kind of reminded me of WWE wrestling in terms of how fake the back and forth was. The addition of 3D animation for some scenes may have looked half-decent back in 2002, but they have aged very poorly. They glare out of place next to the drawings.

Overall I didn't really get a lot of enjoyment out of the movie. I got some, but I honestly had to force myself to finish it for the sake of this review. I wanted to turn it off half way through. There were good elements, but overall I found it a bit boring, and my eyes rolled in the back of my head several times.

Rating:

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The original Armitage III (Poly Matrix) I saw a LONG time ago. Once on the Sci Fi Channel censored and again on VHS via Blockbuster Video. The animation and character design was good (or so I thought at the time). But even then I thought the dialogue was off (I was watching the dub). Which makes sense since this stars the voice talents of Elizabeth "Showgirls" Berkeley. Whose acting is more "so bad it is good" then good in that film. In Armitage III, it came off more as just bad.

Never saw Duel Matrix.

Maybe not the exact same, and not as continuous as you get with that one, but for instance the Rio-centric episodes of Sora no Woto (3 and 10) are very purely Haibane Renmei-ish for me, and the series holds various other similarities in tone and themes, specially when it leaves the light-hearted comedic mode and explores the character drama more seriously. The instrumental soundtrack helps a lot to establish this comparison, as well.

The Japanese dub is way better. I love the original OVA's of Armitage. Btw, Poly Matrix is not the original. Poly Matrix doesn't even have the option to switch to the Japanese dialogue. I think that's probably the main reason I didn't watch it now that I think about it. The voice acting was horrible.

It's true I liked that one. But there is the fact that stuff from 1995 up to 2005 was more atmospheric and sophisticated than the stuff made in the last 6-7 years on average, anime was more serious during it's golden age from the mid 1990's to the mid 2000's than it is now.

Sora no Woto is a bit lighter but it's true it has a very similar setting and rather similar atmosphere. I didn't notice that before. I love that kind of atmosphere.

18) When Marnie was There (2014)

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.word...ng?w=580&h=314

Excellent Ghibli film this one. It's more sophisticated and psychologically deep than previous non-Miyazaki-Takahata films like Arriety and The Cat Returns. Truly excelent film overall. It features a certain ambiguity regarding the facts depicted on screen, it is as if the main character is schizophrenic.

One thing about ghibli's films is the artistic appreciation of animation. The recent Ghibli films feature perhaps the best animation quality of all time combined with very high amounts of detail. The animation is not 24 frames per second still, but it doesn't need to be and in fact, it's perhaps better to have the weird effect of 12 frames of animation per second, gives it a very characteristic effect, though in this case it's done perfectly. The movements are beautiful to look at and the art of the background paintings is perfectly done as usual.

http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/a...666_375_80.jpg

I don't understand why one would like to make CGI animation when traditional animation looks so incredible in fact. A painting always looks better to me than a digital rendering, which looks like plastic. And the cost of production of this 100 minutes long film was pretty low, at 1.15 billion yen.

8/10

19) Goku Sayonara Setsubou Sensei (2008)

http://om109.cdn.oose.io/static/7b/0.../88/a2/91.jpeg

One of those direct to video animations that represent the bulk of the animated movies produced in the world. In Japan most animation during the 80's and 90's was produced direct to video instead of being produced for theatrical release, Miazaki said that's perhaps because people prefer to watch different types of movies at home or at the cinemas.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qxcqoCjRPTE

This title whose huge name I will not repeat is a quite fun comedy though its extremely fast editing characteristic of Akiyuki Shimbo's style here is pushed to an extreme. Its so fast and aggressive that I cannot fully stomach it. Also, its fully contained inside Japanese otaku culture hence its not accessible in its references to people who don't know the subculture.

My rating is 6/10.

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Venus Wars (1989)
Directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

I love this movie. It's very well drawn and animated. This is one of the few animes that I actually prefer the English dubbing over the original Japanese. I think perhaps overall the voice acting in the Japanese is a bit more consistent, but there is a lot more emotion in the voices of the English voice actors. Also I don't know what the actual Japanese dialogue is, but the English subtitles suck. The most powerful, emotional scenes in the film are completely ruined by the dialogue in the subtitles and the lack of emotion in the Japanese. Those scenes, with the English dubbing, actually give me goosebumps. The plot revolves around Hiro, a member of a team of bikers who play a very aggressive racing sport. When their city is taken over by the enemy their lives are turned upside down. A reporter from Earth also gets involved with them as they try to make a stand against the enemy. The characters are charming, and the battle scenes are really cool.

Rating:

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I have to watch that one soon.

20) Pupi Puni Poemi (2001)

http://om112.cdn.oose.io/static/6a/3.../ce/f2/7c.jpeg

This two part OVA is a extremely frenetic piece of satire of the magical girl genre. It's adult indeed though also characterized by juvenile sensibilities as typical of otaku anime, which provide a very characteristic mix of emotions, something that is indeed unique to anime among all the stuff I watched so far.

https://theotakuboys.files.wordpress...12/11/puni.jpg

To call it crazy is to be conservative when reviewing it.

http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/It+s+...557e6938da.jpg

Though the narrative makes complete sense I had to stop and rewind several parts because I couldn't read the subtitles at such fast speed.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...Poemi_2_26.png

8/10, excellent overall. It's famous for a reason indeed.

21) Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (1995)

https://espressocomsaudade.files.wor.../06/zzz-11.gif

Among the most mediocre OVAs I ever watched. I liked the visuals a little bit, the rest is awful.

http://static.zerochan.net/Mahou.Sho...ull.466696.jpg

I didn't pay attention to much of it as well, though some parts were funnier than others. Overall it's a pretty weak shounen comedy.

4/10

22) Agent Aika (1997)

http://media.moddb.com/images/groups...agentaika2.jpg

Agent Aika is sort of a cult classic. It's essentially a comedy action OVA that features extremely excessive amounts of fan service. Indeed, it's the main distinctive characteristic and why it's famous.

Aika is sort of a freelance detective/spy like James Bond but unlike James Bond, half of the time she is beating up other girls and carrying then around by their asses. :D

http://images.wikia.com/agentaika/im..._noriyasu.jpeg

Plot is typical of a James Bond movie in fact, the villain hopes to kill all life on earth except his and his 200 sex slaves. Like most old adult anime, it's very cheesy and aggressive.

https://rv.wkcdn.net/http://rigvedaw.../AIKa/aika.jpg
The animation is also excellent and the art is very good as well featuring a lot of detail. A genuine classic of animation.

8/10

23) Starship Troppers (1988)

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120307203336

And yet another OVA classic, this time an adaptation of the classic science fiction novel by Heinlein. However, differently from the Hollywood movie, this OVA is a faithful adaptation of the novel, even containing all the technological elements which were first shown in the novel such as powered armor (I believe the first time the concept was used in science fiction, now a standard concept widely used everywhere in sci fi).

Johnny Rico:
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130128103417

Though despite it's attempt to be a faithful adaptation of the novel, the low animation quality, art detail and lack of good direction and writing dommed this OVA to obscurity and mediocrity. Indeed, among the weakest OVAs I ever watched.

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...12-d3datjw.png

5/10

People only watch that to appreciate it to appreciate the cute facial expressions :P

Also that's basically softcore porn - surprised those images are allowed here. If someone was posting actual up-skirt shots, or women wearing just lingerie I doubt it'd be allowed on this site. That makes "Charlie's Angels" look like the 700 Club.

(And yeah, I did make a thread asking about good erotic websites, but I didn't post any photos or links).

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Well at least Guap's Starship Troopers anime looks pretty cool - more anime about robots, less about skimpy school girls.

The characters in the "Venus Wars" movie that Zotis posted also look a lot more slick and less exploitative, more like what you'd expect in a Western action movie.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Haibane Renmei and Lain are both fantastic. The first episode of Lain is one of my favorite pieces of animation of all time. By the way, I did dig up a copy of Angel's Egg, but haven't had a chance to watch yet.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Angel's Egg is great. It's very different from anything else I've seen, very artistic.

I'm sorry you didn't like Starship Troopers Guap. While it does feel a bit low budget, I thought despite that it was pretty well made. I liked it.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Not to derail but I have to admit that Zotis is great at drawing in MS paint, I never knew that people even did that.

Maybe he should make his own comic in MS paint.

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It's too much work, but yeah that's completely off topic. :p

I would recommend for you to watch Texhnolyze as well. Its one of the major 3 ABe's works together with Lain and Haibane Renmei. Lain is about the mind, Haibane Renmei is about the soul and Texhnolyze is about the flesh. :)

I guess I wasn't in the right mood for it.

24) Oseam (2001)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...seam_movie.jpg

This Korean animation was beautifully animated and features exquisitely designed art. However, I disliked it. Why? I don't know but I didn't feel anything for it and it felt more like an experimental/practice work by animators in training rather than a film made with a definite objective.

http://www.hancinema.net/photos/fullsizephoto428625.jpg

The plot is very simple and based on a Korean folk tale about siblings who lose their mother and are taken by monks of a temple. It feels uninspired though.

Interestingly how similar Korean and Japanese aesthetic sensibilities are. Not identical as well but certainly similar in many ways. Well, its all "East Asia". Today there are many animator in Korea because labor is cheaper there than in the US, Europe, Canada or Japan, hence both Japanese, European, Canada and American animation studios use Korean labor to produce the in between frames in animation which is a horrible and painful process.

5/10

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I saw a couple episodes of Texhnolyze, but it was a little boring. I'll give it another go at some point, but I couldn't really get into it last time I tried.

You've been giving quite a few critical low ratings lately Guap. What's happenning? Why are you watching so many bad ones? :p

Totally agree with this sentiment.

Its really snail paced but its atmosphere is incredible. I also though it was boring in the beginning which all the random violence and no dialogue but it good more conventional later or.

Most stuff is not good so high ratings will tend to be rare. I gave 8/10 to several titles among the last 7 I reviewed, I gave 5 to several as well, overall I don't think my ratings are low now, the worst thing I commented on was number 12 so far.

Even in films that mix up the two such as Ghost on the Shell 2, the CGI stuff looks a bit out of place and artificial. Though Steamboy was able to integrate CGI and still make an impressive looking piece of animation.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

The stills you posted speak 1000 words. Just beautiful stuff. I know I have mentioned this before, but in Mononoke, during the scene at the beginning, there is some riding going on and the backgrounds are whooshing by. No background is ever repeated. I am sure they could have gotten away with repeating at least some of the background content, as it goes by so fast, but the fact that they didn't just shows the level of commitment to the artwork.

RE: Texhnolyze: I am all over that. I googled some stills and they immediately drew me in.

25) Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991)

Essentially a series of 8 direct to video movies/shorts (some are 50 minutes long others are only 25 minutes and each kinda works like self contained episodes unlike a more serial narrative). Featuring vintage late 80's rock soundtrack and usually excellent animation (though some parts are not as good as others).

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aaxRejZRjR...25+Pic+001.jpg

After the late 1990's the anime industry shifted from direct to video animation to TV late night stuff. One of the effects was the substitution of movies to longer TV series whose animation quality was substantially lower. Some OVAs featured some incredible animation quality and Bubblegum Crisis is a classic of the OVA world, not quite on the same level as gunbuster which is perhaps the greatest direct to video animation of all time, but Bubblegum Crisis is excellent entertainment of the type that is rarely made these days.

http://s1.zerochan.net/600/32/49/379982.jpg

It feels very much like a Masamune Shirow manga, more so than adaptations of his manga in fact. One good thing as well is the more organic look of the designs and the colors if compared to contemporary computed colored stuff which has extremely straight lines and feels excessively angular and overproduced.

More organic looking 1980's animation:
http://ib3.huluim.com/video/50085598...S&size=600x400

Also, this OVA eachoes the atmosphere of 1980's cyberpunk science fiction better than any movies except Blade Runner (which is an obviously enormous influence on Bubblegum Crisis).

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/...crisis-gra.jpg

The characters are very memorable band of 4 female cyber mercenaries who work by taking out rogue robots that the police cannot deal by themselves. Though their equipment design is quite tacky I guess: such thin armor wasn't apparently stronger than much larger robots they fight against though they have bigger "suits" when the need arises:

http://miotd.com/images/20111113.jpg

As the OVA series progressed they also changed/upgraded their suits several time though design changes are a bit subtle to the eye. And overall is an highly entertaining and excellently executed piece of late 1980's cyber punk science fiction, even better indeed than movies like RoboCop.

9/10

OMG I love Guaporense-senpai's taste in anime. Really excited for the next 25 movies too. I am a big fan of anime and I reallt enjoy this kind of threats. I watched PuniPuni Poemy as it was related to my favorite kid's show Excel Saga but I wasn't too into anime right then so I didn't finish it, so I will watch it right now if senpai says it's an 8/10.

I have watch almost all of them (I still need to find some of the 100 than I didn't see) and still not sure why they call Kondo gorilla, because he is hairy I guess but I was hoping something else and still didn't find it. The first episode I have ever seen was first of the 2011 series so I didn't get sh*t of what happen but really happy I keeped watching it and then I fully understand all the inside jokes an all.

Basically because he has a quite big body complexion that stands out among the rest.

26) Dominion Tank Police (1989)

http://fantasyanime.com/anime/images...tankpolice.jpg

4 part OVA, excellent cyberpunk science fiction dealing with very sophisticated themes, as usual for adaptations of Masamunr Shirow manga, though this one in particular is very comedic in its style.

Its also very serious in some parts. Its more ambitious than the manga which is just light comedy all the way basically. The OVA has more developed villain as well. And the characters of the OVA are all pretty memorable.

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...ra-d55xpw8.png

The animation is also very good as its the characteristic of OVAs and the art is very unique if compared go other OVAs with its organic citiscape designs.

http://sv6.imageupload.be/wp-content...ank-Police.jpg

7/10

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I never really got into Dominion. I guess it was a bit too light-hearted and not funny enough for me. So it just end up boring me a bit.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

You told me before you didn't like Shirow's taste in comedy. I like his comedy however and this OVA is in many ways an improvement over the original manga.

27) Tokyo Marble Chocolate (2007)

https://kimaguresan.files.wordpress....kyochoco11.jpg

This 50 minutes long animation is pretty bland. The art style tries to be different and more retro looking than traditional Japanese art but I didn't find it particularly interesting. Though the animation quality is very high for an direct to video animation.

http://www.manga-sanctuary.com/IMAGE...hocolate_4.jpg

The plot is typical melodramatic/introverted Asian style romance. Almost like in the vein of Shinkai and Kar Wai's movies, but here an element of fantasy is present and it's a bit more simple considering the short running time as well and the fact that the narrative is split between the two characters: the first 25 minutes are from the girl's viewpoint while the last 25 minutes are from the boy's viewpoint.

Also there is a magic mini donkey that acts pretty weird in the movie, I don't understand it's symbolic meaning but it probably is the reason why I didn't connect to this overall.

Donkey:
http://p1.pichost.me/640/22/1448674.png

28) Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya OVA (2014)

This is typical moe animation: it consists of nothing but slice of life of a couple of 4th graders. Plot revolves around the difficulty of the Edelfelt in learning how to dance for a school competition. Despite being quite good at sports and stuff she is stiff and cant express herself well in dancing.

Though after some cutesy and more cutesy talk and stuff she manages to overcome her stiffness and partly thanks to the success of the dancing routine (coupled with the success of other activities performed by the girl's class), their class wins the school competition, whose prize consisted of a bunch of meat, which would be awarded to the teacher responsible for that class. :D

http://anime.astronerdboy.com/wp-con...irls-Dance.jpg

The art and animation are not exceptional, typical of TV stuff, but contemporary TV stuff tends to be much higher quality than even a TV show from 6-7 years ago. Anime "graphics" have been improving very fast indeed.

http://i.imgur.com/CnWlUkQ.png

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29) Fist of North Star (1986)
http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/...onfirmed-2.jpg

This stuff is hardcore dude! Hardcore! It's like groove metal animated or something. It's so dumb that it makes Avatar look more intelligent than Spirited Away and 2001 put together, and it's so aggressive and macho that it makes The Road Warrior look like a chick flick. It's so over the top it makes The Matrix Revolutions' fights look realistic.

http://animediet.net/wp-content/uplo...uto-no-ken.jpg

The animation is relatively limited if compared to the stuff Miyazaki was making at the time (Castle in the Sky), and art is also not very unique though I liked the super deformed way they portrayed characters here. Instead of cute as is common in most contemporary animation, here it is gritty and ugly, indeed, less cutesy like than realistic designs with huge arms and body in proportion to the heads, with the exception of the little girl character who is moe indeed. Also, 90% of all characters are male and the gore and brutality is extreme, even for the standards of violent anime from the late 1980's and early 1990's.

http://operationrainfall.com/wp-cont...ar-Movie-3.png

Though the final fight was a bit too over the top for me, stretching my suspense of disbelief a tad too much (much like Akira in a way but here it's even more exaggerated and the art and animation are inferior to Akira as well). It's a movie essentially about being more aggressive and macho than the others and crushing anybody else that does not follow the correct way with your feet. Yes, it's extremely dumb and it makes it a rather special film in many ways, perhaps the single most authentically stupid film I ever watched (authentically because stuff like movies aimed at 5 year olds are made to look retarded to adults and do not reflect the creator's creative intentions but here the feeling and passion of the creators is actually genuine!).

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MTrQ_7pJmd...north_star.jpg

It can be regarded as a masterpiece in it's extremism of violence, brutality and manly aggression to subjugate others. Similar perhaps to 300 but even more aggressive and stupid.

https://199xhokutonoken.files.wordpr...pg?w=576&h=382

, for it's rather unique levels of aggression in animation.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-B...axf1o1_500.gif

30) Rango (2011)

http://www.deppimpact.com/gallery/al...s_rango038.jpg

Very well made CGI movie. Modern Hollywood these days delivers a very refined if perhaps a bit predictable product. In Rango we have the traditional structure of typical modern Hollywood narrative and sensibilities, including many jokes that aim to keep the audience entertained at every single possible minute! Though to be fair, it's overall plot structure is more complex than typical Hollywood animations and most live action features as well.

While the film was very well made and indeed I was entertained from the beginning to the end, I found it a bit weak in it's emotional power because of the excessive volume of jokes which reduced the dramatic intensity of the narrative. Well, this is actually a problem endemic to Hollywood animation and also many live action blockbusters made these days.

The graphics were also very good though I disliked a bit the excessively cartoony character designs though Rango's character design was very interesting. I specially liked the way his eyes moved.

Rango's characters as human chibi:
http://orig13.deviantart.net/2410/f/...rl-d6hc27e.jpg

Wouldn't it be better? If it were done in traditional animation with cutesy character designs I would perhaps rate it higher? Well, I didn't rate the Fate Kaleid OVA very highly and it's as chibi as it gets. :sick:

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Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I love Fist of the North Star. I think it's a bit unrealistic and over the top, but not stupid, and not more over the top than 300. The way it's over the top is different. In 300 the way the characters talk is more over the top, but in FotNS it's only the violence that's over the top. Even their power is at least explained, but 300 doesn't explain the weird things that appear.

Rhea Gall Force (1989)
Directed by Katsuhito Akiyama

In classic 80's style this action-packed sci-fi was a pretty entertaining ride. The characters weren't very developed, but they were charming in their own way. The story took place on a futuristic Earth and was somewhat linked to the plot from the original Gal Force: Eternal Story. Presumably after the human race was born and reached a technologically advanced state they discovered alien technology on Mars which lead to the creation of AI war robots that then turned on their human masters. With the threat these robots imposed the human race was facing extinction and decided to escape from Earth to Mars. The movie was one hour long. The animation quality was half-decent, but nothing exceptional. Overal I enjoyed it, and this was my second time watching it. I admit I liked it more the first time. There wasn't really much depth to glean more from a rewatch.

31) Flowers of Evil (2013)

http://otakusphere.com/wp-content/up...ersofEvil2.jpg

This is a series, however, like Lain and Haibane Renmei, it's more cinematic than most animated theatrical movies and features a very particular visual style. The animation is entirely rotoscoped and the backgrounds are also probably made from real world photos, an impressive feat for a TV show, and what a show: psychological drama, of the type that only someone who took his teenager nonsenses really seriously would understand.

I find it impressive how enormously complicated these teenagers manage to make their really light romance situations and with their libidos. How they manage to hate themselves just for having perfectly natural sexual thoughs and how they seriously plan to ignore their biological urges, something that it's almost unheard in Brazil, by the way.

Rotoscoping:
http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spi...59299_full.jpg

Also, all the characters are very complex and I find it interesting that it was based on a teenager manga adaptations instead of an adult manga because it's quite sophisticated and emotionally deep. What if K-On! was made like it? Well:

http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spi...40321_full.jpg

:D

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

I never got around to finishing Flowers of Evil. It was pretty interesting though. And that picturr of K-On if it was made like that, lol.

Yeah now I think that stupid was an incorrect characterization.

Yeah, Flowers of Evil is interesting... but I'd say it's a slow one, and it only shows its full potential in a few selected scenes of its second half. The open ending that is much likely not going to be continued was as well damaging to the final result. And I wasn't that fond of the overall story and characters. While it is an interesting take at a psychological romance drama, it does not really shine at its character exposition in my opinion; Nanako in special felt lacking and, compared with the other two, pretty much unexplored.

I have doubts about the rotoscope. It's effective in a few instances, but it's also a cheap, flawed and clearly inconsistant use of. To me, it stands as a valid artistic choice that is not properly followed by the amount of effort necessary to make it work. It's absurd how stiff the animation looks, how lacking in detail the character representations are, etc. from a technique that is supposed to make all of this more fluid and close to reality.

In the end I think it was a great idea with a not so great execution, making a unique and flawed series that deserves some degree of appreciation, but not even close to being a masterpiece.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

You though it looked stiff? I found it pretty fluid and I loved the realistic background art (similar technique was used in Whisper of the Heart in making the backgrounds though obviously not the character design and movements). Well IMO it's among the best animations of 2013. Weaker than some other series that began in 2013 like Kill la Kill or movies like Wind Rises and Tale of Princess Kaguya. I found it very memorable watch that's why the high rating since I never watched another rotoscoped TV series before. Though I would like they made more rotoscoped series but apparently it's not worth the cost.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Glad you liked Rango Guap :up: . I do usually look in this thread but as expected I've usually not seen the films.

It looks as if it was in a permanent slow motion state, to me. Which is kind of ridiculous seeing how the traditional limited animation can give more sensation of fluidity than this did. Maybe the reason is that they didn't have enough resources to make rotoscope look as good as it would in a Ralph Bakshi or early Disney movie.

There were a few scenes that clearly had a benefit from this, though; the school scene at night, in special, was really beautiful to look at and conveyed the emotions very well through this kind of limited rotoscope.

32) Fate Stay Night (2005)*

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...stay_night.jpg

Fate Stay Night this is anime par excellence. It's the typical, most generic type of anime as understood as shounen fantasy action! But it's a very good example of the genre it's a very well executed one and contains great characters and a well executed story. It features a tad too much of silly things however (superpowers by the servant characters are a bit corny like Saber's Excalibur sword slash and her "Avalon" defense) which harmed a little bit my enjoyment of the show. Though I also

The art design is typical, in fact, almost canonical, of 2005 manga. If you wanted to show a cultural anthropologist how 2005 manga looks like you show him Fate Stay Night. But that is not a bad thing, in fact, it's a great thing!

By they way, this whole franchise began with a 2003 computer game of the genre called visual novel which is a novel with multiple narrative paths that you can play on the computer, it spawned a whole franchise of TV series, books, games and mangas. The 2005 TV series adapts one of the possible narrative paths of the visual novel into a 24 episode series. It indeed feels like a computer game at some points: the plot involves something called Holy Grail War which is a competition between mages to obtain the Holy Grail which yields great power, mages recruit heroic spirits in their quest. The main character is typical of teenager boy's manga: a teenager boy who almost without intention, recruits Arturia, King of the Britons (who is the woman clad in dress/armor in the first picture :rolleyes:) as his heroic spirit to fight for him against other heroic spirits to win the Holy Grail War (it's like Pokemon!).

Though some parts of it bored me others were excellent and overall I had a strong emotional response from the whole thing. Especially when the main character and his servant fell in love (though predictable it felt very well made). And by the end I had a great emotional response hence I rate it pretty high, higher than it probably deserves since it has a vastly superior sequel made in 2012-2013 as well, Fate\Zero.

Finally, note that despite being adapted from a computer game it is vastly superior to Hollywood game adaptations. Why? Reason is that Japanese visual novels are computer games with a literary quality and hence easier/better to adapt to film than a game like Mario or Mortal Combat. :D

*Well, since I closed down my animated TV series thread I decided to put new reviews of animated series here, the name of the thread is "... review animation", not "...review animated theatrically released films".

33) The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)

https://gothicreviews.files.wordpres.../04/kaguya.jpg

Since I nominated it for the HoF I decided to re-watch Isao Takahata's new film. It's an impressive work of art, of the type that makes me believe that the art of animation is perhaps my favorite medium of expression (even though it's the least developed medium). Animation is an extreme labor intensive art-form, the hardest to produce indeed and the fact it was traditionally relegated to children's entertainment also sucks, but finally, despite these shortcomings, masterpieces such as The Tale of Princess Kaguya can indeed emerge. Partly thanks to the existence of a large economy who loves animation (Japan's), which allows the employment of the vast manpower required to make this film.

It is indeed the single most visually stricking animation I ever watched. It's style is simultaneously very Japanese and simultaneously very different from most other Japanese animation and manga. It's a work of visual poetry, more in common with the short films by Alexander Petrov and Yuri Norstein rather than typical Japanese animation, dialogue is minimal and very simple while the focus is all on the visuals/audio: this is also the first Takahata film with a Hisaishi score, hence, perhaps his best score to date.

It's plot is simple, even a bit full of cliches (including the glorification of countryside living and the villanization of wealthy urban aristocratic lifestyle), though like other Miyazaki/Takahata works it is despite these cliche politically correct nonsense (which obviously includes Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke) it conveys through these rather tired old themes, incredible emotional power and memorable sense of style, in fact, transcedental.

Conveying the same sense of sublimity as Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies is perhaps one of the few true masterpieces of animation. I loved it when I watched it for the first time and on this second watch I appreciated it even more. An overall perfect movie without any apparent flaws.

34) Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou OVA (1998)

https://animahou.files.wordpress.com...okohama203.png

I watched this one about 3 months ago but I forgot to review it. Indeed a very interesting and engaging piece of animation. The first OVA adaptation of the manga classic which it's unique atmosphere, it's a great OVA, indeed, a nice example of the power of animation in producing a relaxing atmosphere. Although it is not comparable to the absolute masterpiece that is the manga.

Plot is inexistent as it spends it's 60 minutes of duration depicting the easygoing daily life of the main character who is a robot which looks very much like a human, main exception is her slightly weird hair color. Though she is also one of the world's oldest sentient beings as well since she takes care of a cafe whose owner probably died generations ago though she is always waiting for him to come back.

It's relaxing atmosphere provides the inspiration for additional similarly relaxing anime title Aria: The Animation. Though here the setting is more rural like, very sparse and also very reminiscent of 1990's manga.

35) Piano no Mori (2007)

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pu..._Mori_1274.jpg

One of the nominations for the Japanese academy award prize for animated film of the year is Piano no Mori. It's a very healing type of movie, similar in atmosphere in fact with the OVA I just reviewned. It's about the story of a piano talent who develops his talent while preparing for a piano playing competition.

The animation is of good quality but not up to the level of Ghibli's films, it's a small budget animated film. The adaptation of an adult manga it's a very quiet and sort of contemplative film, not as healing type as Yokohama though, but that's almost impossible. Instead here we have the light drama of a poor boy who also appears to have an almost miraculous gift for the piano. It's executed though in a realistic and not melodramatic fashion as typical of Japanese slice of life fiction.

I also disliked though the very standardized art style of the movie. Very generic manga look that previously I found interesting now I find boring. :D

36) Nurse Witch Komugi-chan OVA (2002)

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pu...0805_n_549.jpg

One of the titles regarded as essential for Otaku according to the Otaku Encyclopedia that I have been reading. It's considered a essential OVA for moe fans, a parody of Japanese pop culture in general and comics and animation in particular, from Speed Racer to DragonBall. It's also incredibly cute, even the opening song is almost "destructive" in it's cuteness.

Deluxe form of main character's alter ego, Nurse Witch: http://static.zerochan.net/Nakahara.....full.3797.jpg

Like other otaku oriented material, it appears like a children's stuff superficially but for experienced eyes of the otaku it is a highly sophisticated work of meta-pop culture. Self conscious at all time it was made for those who grew up on manga and anime works and just parodies everything all the way and all the time.

And her archenemy, Magical Maid Koyori, also her highschool mate and her cooworker as a model: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...89674a256a.jpg

Very similar to Puni Puni Poemi in many ways, in fact, superior to that title as well. The animation is of higher quality (very good at some parts) and I liked the art style more as well.

http://www.new-anime.com/images/nurs...h-komugi_1.jpg

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou looks so amazing! I am definitely going to watch that!

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

There are 2 OVAs of it. I only watched the first one but I think I will watch the second one at some point.

Re: Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation
 

If only MEMEME was a movie :(

Left this thread inactive for 2 months. Well, I didn't watch a single movie in the past two months, until yesterday. :D

37) Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../GITSARISE.jpg

Featuring state of the art animation (both CGI and hand drawn) and art,Ghost in the Shell: Arise is the newest iteration of animated adaptations of the famous manga series written by Masamune Shirow (original creator) and Junichi Fujisaku (among others).

It's very similar to other adaptations of the manga and all those adaptations preserve the style of the original manga by Shirow (I haven't read the other manga's yet), which consists of police procedural/investigation at the surface and science fiction dealing with the nature of humanity at it's core. It envisions a perhaps very realistic future where the ultimate technology has become the artificialization of the human body: the capability to manufacture prosthetic bodies to replace the original one, the capability to manufacture prosthetic brains as well. And the creation of artificial intelligence that is perhaps identical to human intelligence. In this world the difference between human and machine is not clear black and white but gradations in grey scale. It's something very disturbing that scared me a lot when I first watched the first GitS movie when I was 14. :D

While GitS is a very interesting franchise I think that all it's iterations suffer from lack of emotional engagement. At least very explicit emotional development if compared to other mangas (and their adaptations) about the same science fiction theme, such as Gunnm, which is superior to GitS in that aspect even though it's not as explicit in its philosophical content. Here though it's more explicit than in Oshii's films.

This series of 5 movies of 50 minutes each consists of five self contained movies that involve major Motoko Kusanagi and depict her transition from a soldier to an officer of a intelligence section of the civilian government and her daily work in that organization. It's very faithful in translating into animation the feel of the manga, more so than Mamoru Oshii's films which are more of Oshii's own auteur cinema: Oshii only uses the manga he adapted as settings for his own style.

The narratives are also quite complex and the presentation is such that not easy to understand precisely the plots of each. Although formulaic investigative crime fiction it's pretty demanding of the attention of the viewer. Well, the characters are detectives anyway. Though detectives that fight a lot and lose their prosthetic limbs as part of their daily routine. :D Still, it was an entertaining watch and I guess anybody interested in science fiction would benefit from watching it but those who are not heavily interested in science fiction will probably not enjoy it as much.