I’m pretty sure the the run of abnormally good anime on Netflix has a lot to do with their production economy actually working great when they approach japanese studios with their usual bag of cash – a lot of factors that make sense when you think about them become less cynical under this particular exchange
godzilla singular point was like, fantastic, the cyberpunk show was really way better than people wanted to give it credit for, their witcher spinoff even was good, that bubble parkour movie was a lot of fun, the castlevania show took a couple seasons to actually persuade people that it was good as it was
anglosphere animator-writers in the last decade or so are also usually adults that grew up consuming japanese media so it feels more casual than aughts pastiche stuff like last airbender. e.g. bee and puppycat on paper sounds more calarts boom than it feels in practice because it gets the intangibles right
Reminds me of something that struck me last year, an interview of a french cartoon producer who explained 2D animation just isn’t taught anymore in many animation schools. 2D Storyboarding and layout, yes. So studios have to either have a pipeline that’s completely reliant on outsourcing the actual act of 2D animation to china or korea (and the associated problems that come with it, such as the near-ability to do retakes on a tight schedule so you’re limited in complexity in the first place), teach 2D animation and the associated toolchains to new hires or move to a pipeline where 3d skills can be used to produce a 2D look.
I do not know if it’s quite relevant for japan yet in the anime world, although I do know it’s already been for some years on the video game side.
just watched the manupichi episodes of turn a gundam. wow, what an ending! these two episodes had enough to them that they could easily have been spun into an entire series of their own.
I don’t think anyone involved has said it out loud but I can’t help but assume that Arcane had an obscene budget because it was the flagship show for Tencent’s streaming service in China
This is also why they’re not allowed to show the girls kiss
Gundam for girls wasn’t very good and this last episode was also not good but holy shit that post-credits scene made me lose my fucking mind. More like that in season 2 please
yeah it’s interesting to see 3D models with absolutely no animation, just kind of moving around like being dragged by someone’s mouse. on the one hand it’s like “cool, Nier.” on the other…
i had the opposite experience and your post made me reconsider last night and i attempted to pick up where i left off in season 3. i had to shut it off after one of the vampires said the phrase “walkies” in reference to taking the forgemaster out for a walk
my own distaste for the phrase aside (sorry Britain), the show is just full of these modern phrasings and attitudes that constantly ruin my ability to feel invested or believe in anything happening on screen
I’ve heard people rationalise the usage of modern phrases in older/mythic settings as a way of ‘translating’ the meaning content of what they are saying, as if the fiction is viewed through a lens of a universal translator. It doesn’t stop it from being jarring in the moment though.
yeah i guess i just don’t like the way it’s written, too. it reminds me of the comic “Saga” which…is also universally beloved, but which i bounced off of entirely. there’s just a specific type of English-language comics writing that i can’t deal with.
i enjoyed the netflix castlevania way more than i thought i would, and my appreciation of it is even stronger as a memory rather than an actual experience. i was expecting to just be kind of grossed out by the violence, but i really dig the way the worldbuilding incorporates just the right amount of magic and alchemy stuff alongside an equally appropriate seeming level of apparent historical interest in like… the administrative issues surrounding attempts to build an empire in medieval central/eastern europe. very unexpected terrain for the anime adaptation of the obscure side character from Captain N the Gamemaster, but i’ll take it
As a lapsed LoL player Arcane felt so removed from what I associated the game’s aesthetics and character/world flavors. I didn’t read the lore dumps in the newsletters or followed anything that wasn’t in the game via character quips or in game bio boxes. I was mostly gone by the time I heard they did a world wide retcon to the games metanarative so I’m even doubly removed. Arcane takes the trouble to setup a world that doesn’t support the existence a big majority of the roster that are some weird magic creature or person so all we get left are the punky teens that fit into the proto magic steampunk group. Himmerdinger is the only non human character with any real screentime besides the clockwork council member person thats just kinda there.
It’s still a beautiful production and the story that is there is told as good as it could be but I can’t help but still find it dry to what I would’ve thought a LoL world story would’ve been.
