Anime Nation

[dragontamer5788]

Well Lupin was a blast, turns out next three anime screenings will be Ghibli classics:
- Spirited Away
- Princess Mononoke
- Howl's Moving Castle

Happens to be my favorite three Ghibli. Strong recommend on all of them, for different reasons.

 

[Chomiq]

Happens to be my favorite three Ghibli. Strong recommend on all of them, for different reasons.

Howl's is the one that I haven't watched yet but I'll go see all three of them.

 

[kurosagi01]

Well I watched the Netflix City hunter movie last Friday, I thought it was a series for some reason.
Anyway I enjoyed it, the balance between the comedy and seriousness was about right.
The action sequence were great with some cheesy stuff since it's based on a manga so you can't take it serious.
The pacing kinda reminded me of Shin Ultraman and Kamen rider, it felt quick with getting the chars introduced and plot. But I guess they were targeting it for the fans first.

 

[Hyderz]

so was having some breakfast... decided to turn on netflix and i put kaiju no.8
a bit of a cheesy anime

 

[kurosagi01]

I have still not watched any of the new anime from Netflix yet or picked up any new anime to watch. I've been watching Captain Tsubasa every sunday still though.
I may not be as big as of a Gundam Seed fan like I was 20 years ago but I want to watch Gundam Seed Freedom again, I honestly hope this netflix Gundam movie will be half decent and not another G-Saviour flop.
I mean they released Hathaway..give us the sequel, if I had to rank Gundam movies right now(which I think there is only 3 big movies?): Gundam Hathaway, Gundam seed freedom then Chars counterattack.

 

[Assimilator]

She recommends watching "The Witch from Mercury" so I'm automatically going to dismiss any of her opinions. (She recommended some of the worst shows in Gundam, but dismisses some of the best, so definitely not worth listening to.)

What, exactly, is wrong with The Witch from Mercury?

 

[dragontamer5788]

What, exactly, is wrong with The Witch from Mercury?

I'm not a Gundam fan, but my understanding is that "The Witch from Mercury" is very different from other Gundams. In particular, female main character + Yuri elements.

I know some people who are fans of Gundam who like Witch from Mercury. They tell me that its solidly in the Gundam universe, but its just so different its hard to recommend it to other long-running Gundam fans. In many respects, its something you need to think of as its own thing, despite being part of the mainline universe.

Its very much the Gundam writers going experimental and trying something new in their universe. Not all older fans agreed with the changes, they clearly were writing a story made for a newer audience and refresh the presentation of Gundam.

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Gundam is its own subculture almost distinct from Anime. There's "anime fans", but then there are "Gundam fans" who have their own thoughts / drama / discussions within there. When you have these long running series, it happens.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

I'm watching Astro Note, I miss hand done anime, too much Cgi in a lot of it.

 

[Fokker]

What, exactly, is wrong with The Witch from Mercury?

The writing is awful.

 

[Assimilator]

I'm not a Gundam fan, but my understanding is that "The Witch from Mercury" is very different from other Gundams. In particular, female main character + Yuri elements.

I know some people who are fans of Gundam who like Witch from Mercury. They tell me that its solidly in the Gundam universe, but its just so different its hard to recommend it to other long-running Gundam fans. In many respects, its something you need to think of as its own thing, despite being part of the mainline universe.

Its very much the Gundam writers going experimental and trying something new in their universe. Not all older fans agreed with the changes, they clearly were writing a story made for a newer audience and refresh the presentation of Gundam.

-----

Gundam is its own subculture almost distinct from Anime. There's "anime fans", but then there are "Gundam fans" who have their own thoughts / drama / discussions within there. When you have these long running series, it happens.

This is all fair. I do however like TWfM because it isn't as deeply steeped in crippling depression as the rest of the franchise, and as such I think it makes a decent introduction to the wider Gundam universe - especially for women, given that its leads are female.

As for the yuri, I mostly saw it as a massive step forward for big-name anime. Yuri in anime has almost always been either in non-mainstream series, or series that are yuri for yuri's sake, and such characters are very rarely the leads and very rarely depicted as anything more than stereotypical "lesbians are horny sexy fap material lol". TWfM was, to me, two people in love with each other who just happen to be of the same sex, and it can't have been easy to convince a conservative Japanese media conglomerate like Bandai-Namco to agree to allow such a respected franchise as Gundam to put a homosexual relationship front and centre. For that reason alone it deserves kudos for breaking new ground, in my books.

TWfM is certainly not the best or deepest Gundam, but it has heart and its own identity.

The writing is awful.

Also true.

 

[dragontamer5788]

TWfM is certainly not the best or deepest Gundam, but it has heart and its own identity.

Thanks. Maybe I shouldn't have responded the way I did then. I actually haven't seen Gundam or Witch of Mercury at all. I was just talking about the general vibes within my social network / how other people talk about Gundam.

It sounds like you've seen it already, so I'll take your opinion on the anime . Thanks for letting me know!

 

[kurosagi01]

I tried to watch the 1st 10 episodes for witch from mercury.
I don't have a problem with the whole main char is female or the LGBT bull crap, but I just didn't find the story or chars interesting.
I still haven't found the motivation to sit through and watch the rest.
I wasn't a fan of the sequels for the build fighters after try, where they go all VR/MMO which to me is going backwards than forward.
I hear people talk about thunderbolt being a fun UC side story to watch but again, not found the motivation to watch it.
The same with ZZ after binging Zeta years ago, what put me off is the initial start of it before it gets serious with it's plot.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Im a big fan of this parody.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I gave the first 4 episodes of Go Go Loser Ranger a try

The author is on the record as saying he wanted a "The Boys" version of Super Sentai. Effectively, the "Dragon Keepers" (aka: this universe's version of "The Power Rangers") are an incredibly corrupt group of assholes (akin to "The Seven" from The Boys). The Dragon Keepers beat the aliens just one year into the war by killing all of their bosses. The only remnants of the aliens are the "Dusters", a group of Putty-patrol like mooks. The "Dusters" / mooks have disguises and regeneration, but otherwise are just cannon fodder.

The Dragon Keepers have decided that the best role for the Dusters to play is for them to "invade" at the stadium arena every Sunday, putting on a giant show to a cheering crowd. That way, the Dragon Keepers can continuously improve their reputation as worldwide heroes who saved the world. This has clearly become a commercial event where lots of civilians regularly attend for some excitement every week.

The main character, "Fighter D", has grown tired of this charade, and has begun to fight back.

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Alas, Fighter D is stupid, weak, and pathetic. While he's good at putting on disguises to look like various humans he meets, "Fighter D" is quite ignorant of the human world. Fortunately, the first two humans he meets are Yumeko and Hibiki, two people who are seemingly interested in helping this hapless mook enact revenge against the Dragon Keepers.

The main benefit of these three is that the Dragon Keepers are incredibly arrogant and don't see any of the "Dusters" as a threat. Red Keeper makes a point to say that Red Keeper literally can't tell these mooks apart, nor does he have any plans to look at them more closely and figure out their differences.

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The worldbuilding and inversions of Super Sentai tropes is handled pretty well. It seems like each "Color" is closer to a gang as opposed to a unified team or unified force. Red Keeper is the leader of the Reds. Blue Keeper is the leader of the Blues. Etc. etc. At the bottom are the "Colorless", basically interns who haven't chosen a color yet.

I don't think the various colors are quite at war with each other yet, but... Red vs Blue vs Yellow (etc. etc.) are quite self-serving. Red Keeper himself is a very "Homelander" like figure who rules his Red Battalion with an iron-fist, an entire group of people who believe that might-makes-right, with Red Keeper the strongest of them all. I'm expecting that Yumeko's plan is to somehow pit the Keepers against each other or otherwise cause the colors to fight against each other, because as this show continues its clear that there's some pent-up anger between groups.

Furthermore: its clear to me that "Fighter D" is just not strong enough for any kind of direct confrontation. "Fighter D" is barely strong enough to take on a regular human (and Yumeko has proven that she's far stronger than Fighter D... let alone the Henshin/Transformed Dragon Keepers who sit atop the food chain).

Still, "Fighter D" has an incredible shapeshifting / disguise ability. With more knowledge of the politics between the groups and how these forces are laid out, its not so hard to imagine them succeeding in their plan of chaos and revenge. Its a difficult and high-risk road ahead, but... who doesn't like a good underdog story?

Forget a direct fight with these guys. Even normal humans totally outclass Fighter D. The transformed Dragon Keepers are on a superhero-level of strength.