Active Raid is possibly my kind of dumb, but it wasn’t the masterful trainwreck I was expecting. It might end up being the fun, silly action show anime needs for the year.
I didn’t get to see The Wind Rises and Tale Of Princess Kaguya until last month, The Wind Rises is really interesting as a very different kind of film for Miyazaki, but I think Tale of Princess Kaguya is one of Takahata’s best films! Wow, what a treat. The film is beautiful and horrifying. It’s confident and complete in it’s vision and purpose. We’re not likely to see anything like it for a while!
Which brings me to my point of inquiry: who do you think are the interesting auteurs in animation today? Who are you keeping your eye on? I haven’t been paying as much attention as I’d like because I’ve been very frustrated in squandered potential recently, there’s no shortage of talent out there! Just misguided projects and awful stories.
I’ve been really interested in what Naoko Yamada of Kyoto Animation is up to. Kyoto Animation - talk about squandered potential! I remember watching Free! for several episodes and then early in one episode the way the show is directed changed, the images it used to communicate changed. The visual direction was suddenly interesting instead of competent. It was a dream sequence! I looked it up - it appeared to be an episode directed by Naoko Yamada. I stopped watching after that. Her last project, Tamako Market, was a real mess. It’s a complete mess. I feel like the concept was good - “here’s a place, and here are the people who live there”. Really didn’t work out. I don’t recommend it. They made a movie too, I don’t know if anyone bothered with it. It’s about two teenagers dealing with the emotional walls preventing them from admitting their love for one another. It’s got a neat narrative structure. There is no magic or fighting. There are no villains. It takes place in the real world. It’s alright. It’s not great. I think it has the “spirit of Ghibli” in it’s unconventional vision for an animated film. It makes me think of Whisper of The Heart or Only Yesterday. Much better films, but those directors aren’t going to be in a position to create a decade from now. I think Yamada has a lot of potential!
If you’re interested in Naoko Yamada’s work, you should watch Sound! Euphonium. Despite the “series director” credit going to Ishihara, it’s very much Yamada’s series. She had the unusual position of basically co-directing the show with Ishihara, as a “series episode director” or some other silly title, so it’s got her influence all over it. The show’s definitely harmed by its need to wallow in the Anime Lesbian Uncanny Valley, since it’s a late-night cartoon and that’s who’s buying, but it’s the first Kyoto Animation show I’ve watched all the way to the end in a long while.
(I don’t particularly follow Yamada’s work, but this topic’s come up on the Twitter circles I follow a couple times recently; it’s a lot easier to feel connections between Tamako Market and Euphonium than what I’ve seen of Ishihara’s productions, too.)
I’m down with these two shows for now. I watched like 3 minutes of Active Raid and then got distracted but I think I already feel like I’m not going to be very into it.
Active Raid actively sets up the audience surrogate character to be a hotshot know-it-all flawless genius, then spends the rest of the episode tearing her back down and showing her that, no, there people who have been doing this job for a while now actually know what the hell they’re doing and you’re totally out of your element youngin’. And for that, thank god, people with jobs who are actually competent at them and don’t need no help from a Mary Sue. Also, buddy cop dynamics.
I’m half ready to declare the shorts Sekko Boys and Galko as best-in-class because the former is gloriously stupid (sculpture busts of historic and mythological figures as an idol band) and the latter is pretty bluntly hilarious.
Because I have problems, I’m excited to check out PSO2 The Advertisement (I don’t know how they managed to mispell that as “Animation” but whatever) after I get home from work
I did not check out Sound! Euphonium because of what I perceived as a “wresting of control” after a number of unpopular experiments (Nichijou/Hyouka/Tamako Market) at KyoAni, leading to a bunch of safe projects that had all of the problems of their shows without any of the interesting parts. Does the show do anything interesting or new at all? I may have simply looked at the Wikipedia page and said “Oh they’re doing K-On again” and not had any faith. For it’s artists, that studio is both an incredible opportunity and a creative cage.
Well, for one, things actually happen in Euphonium (I say this as someone who actually enjoys K-On as a comfy comedy slice of life thing, I swear I’m not moe for any of the keions please don’t hurt me). It feels really honest (well, aside from the pandering) and is absurdly beautiful for a TV production, some fantastic background work. Honestly, at this point, I would wait out the compilation movie to be released first then jump in whenever the second season happens.
Also, i think the only out and out experiment from Kyoani was Free!, whereas everything else had an LN counterpart they were based on (they publish their own LN’s IIRC and everything recent has been stuff they published sans Hyouka), Euphonium being one of those.
Free! is actually based on a light novel-- which they wrote a sequel to instead of adapting. Go figure.
Figures, though I don’t blame them for chasing the money if they have fun with it.
Okay the first episode of Active Raid was decent.
15 minutes into PSO2’s first episode
I can’t do this, it’s too much. This is probably the first god awful, terrible, ridiculous show of the year. It’s tremendous in how stupid it is in the pursuit of being advertainment. I can’t remember the last time I felt so actively insulted by entertainment.
I will probably watch all of it
oh god, I just remembered about the Ragnarok anime. now that’s how you make a show about a dumb MMO while still being objectively terrible (but still better than the commercial I saw today)
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/points to Steven Universe thread
Seriously, Rebecca Sugar is immensely talented and has a great instinct for the emotionally genuine + a wit that is sharp yet gentle, like a nurse who’s an expert with a needle. That’s a garbage simile but i hope you get the shape of my point. Her episodes of Adventure Time are probably the pinnacle of that series, considering the standard of goofy-yet-personable humor it aims for, and her “solo” work like Pug Davis and this short film are equally terrific examples of her style. She is also just a great artist – as a person who is known to pick up a pencil and draw with it, i’m in love with her emotive, delicate linework.
And Steven Universe is a flat-out excellent show, an excellent showcase of talented artists and writers. Plus it is has a DENSE collection of references to classic anime, both subtle and extremely overt.
That’s not a cartoon, it’s animation
This here’s a cartoon
(I just wanted an excuse to post Sports Cartoons)
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oh shit it’s my childhood
You need no excuses for greatness, dogg
When I first saw people talking about how PSO2: The Advertorial was, well, an ad, I thought they were exaggerating.
Nope, completely accurate. And amazingly shameless. And in spite of that, totally unwatchable! Kind of an acomplishment.
That Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju cartoon is pretty cool if you think an hour-long, minimally-animated episode about an ex-con spontaneously throwing himself into a very traditional style of Japanese comedy is something you’d enjoy watching.
To be honest, I almost stopped at the halfway point of the episode, after the reveal of how they were shoehorning PSO2 into Bland Milquetoast’s life, but then I persevered and got nothing for my efforts
It sure would be cool to get more of SeHa Girls and hear more jokes about how Dreamcast’s family is poor instead of the ad campaign for the next PSO2 update
One of these was on TV when my parents like revealed that they had bought a new television set for Christmas, and I was young enough to think that because the TV was different it meant all the shows would be different too, since I had never seen it before. Weird memory.
Yesterday i watched Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, you don’t need to know japanese to get it, just this episode it’s enough to said it will be one of the best thing this year, Is very well writen.
PSO2A was lame for real, the thing that always get me in those kind of show is the characters use generics designs, and come on, no one use random on the first character. gonna watch the next ep. my brain need some pain.
Right here, let’s establish the PSO2 Hatewatch Club
Yes holy fuck I have also stumbled into Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju I’m so in
morning after edit:
I feel a kinship with the protagonist in Dimension W for his stubbornly clinging to a petrol-powered car in an era of nearly universal free energy. Show seems kinda fun thus far.
I really appreciate that the protagonists of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash go through an entire episode unable to kill lowly goblins because they are utter shit at combat. This might be the best “trapped in an MMO world” anime yet.
Fuck me, practically everything I’ve watched is at least a little entertaining. And I thought after last season I might be finally kicking the habit.