Watched Season:Book One of the new Thundercats, wow! What a difference, I was very impressed. Much more adult and tragic, and the animation is consistent and of high quality. I noticed that one of the original creators is on the writing staff but the credits go by so fast I have not looked to see if any of them are on the art production team. I am assuming so because much of the original art aesthetic can be seen through the episodes (though it may be due to a licensing agreement), many of the character designs still have that Rankin/Bass look to them. The stories are not dumbed-down for children nor is the violence or the fact that actions have consequences, also I like the fact that there is a continuing storyline and thread to the episodes. They are rarely micro-stories that are wrapped up nicely and self contained within a single episode and can be watched out of sequence. And each story has the traditional life-lesson… The music has matured as well.
I finished rewatching The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye. I liked it as much as when I first saw it. Thumbs up, fc recommendation, all that. For a five year old series, the animation can be stunning especially at the end. There are two odd episodes where the animation style was different though.
I must have gotten a different version… I watched three episodes and it was awful, the writing was terrible, the humor was juvenile, bad mech designs, the animation was only slightly better than a powerpoint presentation. Lots of recycled footage, very sub par, it was just agony to watch and so I stopped. If I thought I could get my money back I would have mailed it back…
I dunno what you got (or whether it’s even the same series), but it’s on Blu-ray now.
I don’t recall much recycled footage outside the opening and ending especially in the first three episodes… I find it confusing because your description doesn’t match what I know from the first 3 eps.
That is why I think I somehow got something similar in name but not what you recommended, because I actually thought for a while that you were ‘having me on’ that it was a joke. It was just that bad… Many of the so called action shots were just STILLS with wiggly action lines, and some were stills that had a cell layer to the front and to the rear that would be slowly dragged across the screen to imply movement… It was like reliving a nightmare of the old Ralph Bakshi Spiderman cartoons from the 60’s that is why I could only bear three episodes.
Episode one she slaughters dozens of giant spiders, but you only see three of them… WTF? The rest are in shadow, you only see their red glowing eyes. And to add insult to injury you never see her attack them either, she vanishes off screen and then they cut back to the shot of the black screen with red eyes and then you see little white arcs appearing on screen to hint at her sword being swung. My God how cheap can you get? It was so bad that sometimes I just had to laugh, but mostly I groaned… Maybe it was some black market knock off? Dunno…
That sounds like the beginning of episode 1 to me. But, she clearly killed a few and I thought the quality and animation was well-done. Very smooth and fluid.
How much do you want for your DVDs? (:
They are not Blu Ray so I doubt you would want them. And I am generally not so hypercritical on my anime … if the story is good. Good storytelling and good characters will allow me to forgive a lot, and good music helps too. I mean in all honesty NOIR recycled a lot of animation and did a lot of cheating with backgrounds, crowd scenes, and especially with simple and highly stylized bad guys in large numbers. But I was so wrapped up in the moment that I did not care. Despite its flaws I loved that series.
The same could be said for a lot of the 80’s anime I watched, there are budget restraints and schedules to keep and often portions of the show are farmed out to other studios and IT SHOWS! But if the story is still good I have little problem looking past the flaws.
The anime of which have been speaking did not even seem to have a story, but I think most of that was due to really bad subtitling and translations. Another sign I got hold of a bad product… With my set there were entire sections of text that did not even get translated for me, which put me way behind in terms of the world and how it was set up, the politics and so on… And once you are in a bad mood from dealing with sloppy subtitles and poor translation all you are going to see are the series flaws, so it is no wonder I was soured on it pretty quick.
I ordered Summer Wars Blu-ray for $18 from Amazon just now. Hoping to get Broken Blade and Angel Beats sometime soon-ish.
Transformers Prime is available on Netflix instant watch.
While I am not a real fan of the production designs (I really don’t like the way they do the faces), I must admit the animation is pretty darned good. The music, like the transformers themselves are an amalgam of the Anime and live action films. The voice casting is quite impressive and the story so far is pretty good. If you already have a Netflix account I see no reason not to take a peek at this series…
Stumbled across this little gem while cruising Youtube’s JPOP and Para Para collection, I already had a soft spot for Scandal but this was just over the top awesome so I thought I would share it.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 
[b]Girls und Panzer
[/b]I love tanks so I thought I would give this a go. It was actually fun… The premise is absurd, the mechanics and physics of what goes down in the matches is laughable; but it is so fun to watch you forgive them for it. Kind of like the original Area 88, you are so engrossed in the visuals that you forgive the artists for making the planes do the impossible.
Only 12 episodes were available for viewing when I watched it so I have not even seen the whole season yet. But I would like to see how it ends, cute girls in WWII era tanks, what’s not to like?
I think Sean might like this…
I just marathoned Sword Art Online over the weekend. Very enjoyable. Individually I preferred the first arc, but I looked the way both arcs worked together. Reminded me of .hack//SIGN in places.
Tiggs
(via Tapatalk on iPad)
The fact that SAO and .hack have the same musicians (Yuki Kajiura) helps. (:
But yeah, the second arc has issues. But both arcs tie together nicely.
She’s been involved with a lot of the Anime where I loved the music. I remember Madlax pretty much opening with some action music that basically hooked me into the rest of the series.
Tiggs
(via Tapatalk on iPad)
Rideback
Enjoyed the series, nice blend of traditional animation and CGI. Decent story, nice voice acting, music was alright.
Caanan
Really liked this one, good characters, good animation. Good story, great music, good character design. Would watch this again…
5 Centimeters Per Second
Beautiful scenes, artfully put together. Good story, likable characters, good music. Very melancholy, sad ending. At first I was angry that it ended the way it did, but it is very realistic in the way that it does. And in a way the end is still open, so you can write your own ultimate finish if you like.
Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne
Sort of harkens back to Demon City Shinjuku, it is dark and shocking. It is not hentai, nor torture porn; but somewhere in the middle. It took getting used to, but eventually I got into it; and the story is actually pretty good. The animation is not great but it works, not sure if I would ever revisit it…
Kakurenbo (Hide and Seek)
Great backgrounds and good atmosphere, the story is good and the music works. Character designs are OK, the animation itself is stiff and unnatural, which really hurts the film. It almost pulls you out of the story it is so bad sometimes. Would never watch it again.
[b]Initial D
[/b]Watched some of the live action movie at an anime convention and thought I would give the original series a go. But the art-style was so offensive to my tastes that I had to give up on it, I just could not get past it to enjoy the story. Sorry, just not my thing…