The one time I watched Soul (it was very bleh), the biggest reaction was during the credits when I saw:
Because yeah, jazz movie?
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the curiosity about the soundtrack is the only thing that got me to watch it, really. but a pretty-thoroughly mid experience, through and through
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Yeah, I think half of why the soundtrack was surprising is because so much of the music was just licensed jazz that I didn’t think they would want to pay someone much for what was mostly incidental music. But then I remembered that Robert Rodriguez made the Spy Kid movies specifically so his kids could watch his movies, and maybe Soccer Dad Trent had similar desires.
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off the top of my head of the recent ones I liked Luca and Elemental, not so much the others. my wife wants to watch zootopia 2 when I get back. the squirrel mind control one coming out next month looks fun too.
I think the criticism that the movies’ values are aggressively middle class in a time when being middle class is more contradictory than ever definitely holds water, and I think it’s something that they both invite and try to defray by using so many assimilation narratives— off the top of my head this was true for Big Hero 6 which was huge in Asia, Turning Red which kind of caught shit for it (because, surprise, it was kind of guilelessly Canadian in a way that the broader anglosphere struggles to take at face value unless it becomes deliberately stereotypical), Elemental too to a degree. and the reasons for this are obviously pretty simple and inform a lot of current politics; “new arrivals” (which can mean lots of different things; you could say arriviste if you’re being deliberately ungenerous) are obviously often aspiring to a status quo that’s legitimized by being aspirational (especially when it’s a flagship 200M animated movie doing the legitimizing) in a way that reads as a lack of imagination to people who already had access to it. does this eventually regress to every argument about the politics of representation? yes. is it a politically nice enough form of risk aversion from a major corporation? Sure!
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the makers of dungeons and television have released an authentically 90s tv ad for their first merch
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Partner and I are continuing our Disney Pixar marathon.
I remember Peter Pan being more dreamlike. Instead it was full on racist and just full of mean spirited violence. I’m surprised at how popular it still is going by merch.
Raya and the Last Dragon was pretty good though apparently this was also lambasted for poor representation and subsequently has no merch despite having some pretty good designs. Oh well. I be crushing on Awkwafina.
We also started watching You’re Under Arrest together. Pretty relaxing show for how many car chases there are. These animators are fiends for detailed vehicles in motion. My inner old man longs for more shows like this.
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Been watching Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water with some friends, a 1990 Hideaki Anno-directed series based on a Miyazaki concept. It’s just great, we’re loving it:
Such a fun setting and era, every ep tends to have a nice little tidy adventure.
I hear it kinda goes south about halfway through, but, we’re 15 eps in and really having a good time with it. Nadia, Jean, and Marie a very likable core cast, the animation is vibrant, the plot moves, and all the Nautilus stuff is a delight.
All that said, the absolute MVP of this thing is Grandis Granva, socialite and swindler in the vein of Faye Valentine or Team Rocket’s Jessie. Sarah Richardson does an excellent job with her in the dub, and the show could genuinely just follow her antics and I think you’d have a real winner on your hands.
Her henchmen Sanson and Hanson are equally great to watch: they want things, they have varied and interesting personalities, and they’re extremely competent. They’re smart and they’re good at what they do! I love doofy villains who are capable.
Grandis’ competency is also a welcome departure from how these characters tend to go. I really like her playing to her strengths as she pursues whatever has fallen into her crosshairs. It’s impossible not to really root for this lady, she makes it easy.
Great intro and outro, too:
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Is greenlit.
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Red River anime coming this year
I’ve been reading the manga as the omnhibus volumes are released, I think it’s pretty good overall although it does get a bit too rapey. I assume the anime will tone that down a bit.
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We’ve gotten really into You’re Under Arrest as our comfort watch. We’re watching on Youtube and one of the upload is a horrible remastered version that does AI upscaling that fucks everyone’s face up. Too distracting to watch. Luckily we found an alternative.
Kinda weird they introduce Aoi as a crossdresser who was formally undercover just to do a bunch of gags about it and then she kinda just becomes a secondary character with the very occasional reminder that she’s actually a male officer.
I like that the series goes out of its way to never depict the cast as engaging in violent suppression of crime or actually even arresting anyone despite the show’s title. It’s arguably sanitising a depiction of the police but I think the creator’s are really just using the premise as a framework for a regular office comedy in which car chases and machines can be drawn.
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i’ve been rewatching / listening to episodes of To Heart 1999 and feeling infatuated with it again. it’s one of my favorite anime now and i think Naohito Takahashi and Yuriko Chiba’s masterpiece (with Shinichiro Kobayashi et al on art direction - still need to rewatch berserk).
verbose noetz
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i love the decision to make Akari the POV character by giving her all of the voice overs and flashbacks. this is a show about nostalgia, making it the mundane high school SoL to end all high school SoLs, and it achieves that by grounding us in a specific person and place: e.g. the seance at the end of ep3, which we see glimpses of in a montage while Akari’s VO tells us she only saw a little of it because she was hiding behind Hiroyuki’s back too scared to look. there’s also her recurring wish that such-and-such moment would last forever
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i like to compare the opening sequences of the first episodes of To Heart and Figure 17, both of which involve a girl getting out of bed and opening the curtains. The difference in craftsmanship is obvious, e.g. the use of music & the timing for the heroine’s face reveal, but there’s also a difference of intention: To Heart’s scene eases us in with details of akari’s room that we’ll see again throughout the show, like the partition where her teddy bears and childhood photos sit and the bedside table where Shiho leaves an unfinished pudding cup in the last episode. i.e. from its first moments its a show about ppls love for the places they inhabit (it also starts on a flashback to i think the flight of stairs below)
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dusks are especially pretty in this show
Shinichiro Kobayashi worked on Utena, 70s Dezaki, Windy Tales etc. yet was able to illustrate an ordinary high school and suburbs with just as much love.
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will reiterate that yuriko chiba does my favorite anime eyes and this show has my favorite yuriko chiba eyes.
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Hiroyuki is such a sweetheart, i think i fell in love with him more than any of the girls lol.
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And here I thought I was the only To Heart fan on this forum! Actually I loved this anime around when it came out, and went on to read the visual novel on PS1. This makes me cringe a little to remember, but when I was 17, I even put up a color printout of Akari in my CEGEP locker.
I used to relisten to the ending theme sometimes, and I remember the satisfaction of picking out more and more vocabulary as my Japanese got better, followed by the gradual realization of just how sad the lyrics are. They’re full of warm and uplifting words, but seem to be voicing the thoughts of a lonely and exhausted young adult in a long-distance relationship.
My favorite stanza
歩き出そう この場所から
輝いた宝物抱いて
きっと同じよな ぬくもりを
胸の中みんなもしまって
頑張っている
Let’s set off from this place,
Cradling the treasure that once shone so brightly
Surely, that same warmth,
All of us have something like it tucked inside our hearts
As we persevere
(songwriter: Sumiyo Mitsumi)
EDIT: I just rewatched Episode 2, and I was struck by a sequence similar to the staircase one you posted. Another image of standing alone with conflicted feelings:
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does anyone have an explanation for why the word ‘atelier’ is so wildly popular in japanese pop culture?
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i think its just not popular in america
::Hank Hill voice::
Atelier whut
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French culture has been pretty popular in Japan for a long time, so maybe just that aura of Frenchness?
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what make you think it’s wildly popular