Short answer is, I don't know yet.
But since talking about Anime Writers has recently become a theme of this Blog I figured I should start putting some thought into it.
None of the writers who have already been the centerpieces of prior posts on my Writers tag are likely to be eligible. They just happened to be involved with shows I consider good case studies for why Writers are sometimes more important then Directors. They have written stuff I like (including both shows I've ever called my absolute Favorite Anime) specifically for their writing. But they've either only done a couple things that interest me or simply weren't/aren't prolific enough.
You see while a Director can reach a point where they only do maybe one project a Decade, writing is different, to me a great writer is always writing a lot of stuff, even if little of it achieves greatness. From Shakespeare to Alexandre Dumas and Paul Feval, to Stephen King to Digibro, and also Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone in the world of western Comics. So I expect the same from a truly great Anime writer, I'm expecting what I'm already a fan of to be only the tip of the Iceburg of what they've written.
The same is true of most of the writers involved in the shows on my 3x3. Though it's also the case that much of my 3x3 is stuff where the story isn't changed much from it's source material. The Anime I'm looking at for finding great writers are original Anime and Manga adaptations that are far from direct adaptations, or at least expanded adaptations. That said I might still note when one of those writers was also involved in a very well executed direct adaptation, because it still takes writing talent even to do that.
So the one writer with a show on my current 3x3 I consider eligible is Yousuke Kuroda the main writer of Pretty Sammy (both TV Anime and OVAs). He's done a lot of other stuff I also like from other Tenchi material to Madlax to Gundam 00 to SAO Alternative. But unlike the other two writers I'm going to nominate in this post he's also written a couple of things I already know I don't like very much, Hellsing Ultimate and Phantom Requiem for the Phantom. However both of those were also projects that were explicitly more faithful to the source material this time re-adaptations, something I feel has a shaky track record in general.
The other two writers I'm considering strong candidates for being my favorite Anime Writer are ones I have mentioned or alluded to in previous posts but they weren't the main focus.
Reiko Yoshida, who first and foremost is the main writer of almsot everything directed by Naoko Yamada, which does now include two movies likely to make my top 10 Anime films. But she's also written a lot of other material, starting with two of the later episodes of Dragonball Z and several episodes of Cutey Honey Flash. She's also written both Girls Und Panzer and High School Fleet, and was also a major writer of the Maria-Sama Anime. She also wrote Romeo x Juliet a show I think is sadly underrated even though I didn't like the ending, and a Ghibili film named The Cat Returns which has a fun Princess Bride quality to it. Plus she's also been important to the Digimon franchise.
Mari Okada is also a strong contender. Digibro made a video on her already, and I probably overall like more of her stuff then he does. I agree with VraiKaiser that The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is one of the most important Anime of the 20tens. I also really love Selector ____ Wixoss and Toradora. Wandering Son is a show I haven't watched enough of yet but I know it's been important to the Trans Community. Canaan was also an Anime I found to be very enjoyable.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
I've seen over half of Cutey Honey Flash now
I made a post about this Anime before I saw any of it yet. Perhaps you can say I should have finished the show before making the follow up, but right now after finishing episode 23 I want to chronicle how positive I currently feel about the show before it's third "season" has the chance to potentially spoil it.
The first arc, which was the first 13 episodes, I already had a positive opinion on, but had few specific thoughts to analyze, it simply was about what I was optimistically expecting when I made the pre-viewing post.
I then waited awhile before returning to it, and watched the next ten episodes and it's movie in the last couple days. I knew the movie premiered the same day as episode 18 aired and so decided to watch it between episodes 18 and 19 even though I expected it to not really matter much like the Sailor Moon, Pokemon and PreCure movies.
So far the movie is the only thing about this Anime I'm willing to call a disappointment. It's not bad, but I was watching this show under the meta knowledge it was something made to fill Sailor Moon's void, so I was expecting it's ambiguously canonical filler movie to at least feel on par with the three Sailor Moon movies even if it wasn't as good as they were. Instead it's something that could have been a two part episode of the show, except it'd be disappointing then in a different way because there is literally nothing else in the second arc that I consider skip-able.
The second arc revolved around the character of Seira Hazuki/Misty Honey. This is the first incarnation of Cutey Honey to include any kind of "Evil Counterpart" or sister for Honey. And I also feel this story-line is the only time I've seen the Dark Magical Girl Rival trope play out in a properly Shoujo Magical Girl Warrior show, so that makes it quite interesting to begin with and in my opinion pretty damn well executed. And I was more then satisfied by the Yuri Bait it inevitably provided.
This show as I was hoping lacks the overbearing Otaku pandering style fan-service typical of this franchise, but it is still Sexy in the way a lot of Shoujo Anime are. Seira in particular is quite shockingly in my strike zone.
I talked before about the creative staff this show shares with the 90s Sailor Moon Anime. It might be the most important staff position not held by a Sailor Moon alumni was the Musical Composer Sahashi Toshihko.
The 90s Sailor Moon Anime had an iconic theme song and some other good insert songs like Ai No Senshi. But the actual score was mostly forgettable elevator music, even the people least forgiving of what DiC did are inclined to admit it gave the show better Music. But the Music on Cutey Honey Flash isn't just better then that Music but actually very good. And oddly enough I think perhaps musically anticipates Sailor Moon's future. One of the songs used for Transformation scenes sounds to me a lot like the Sailor Venus transformation theme on PGSM.
This show is also interesting to compare to Utena. For one thing the classic 70s Cutey Honey Manga and/or Anime is clearly among what Ikuhara wanted to homage, that teacher who nags Utena in the pilot is clearly based on Miharu Tsuneni. This version being designed to be a more Shoujo incarnation of Cutey Honey is almsot built around playing strait the same tropes Utena was deconstructing. And yet it was airing for the same number of episode at close to the same time, it started out a few weeks ahead but had more weeks off allowing Utena to catch up and then pull ahead. So it's kind of the perfect case study to watch along side Utena.
The first arc, which was the first 13 episodes, I already had a positive opinion on, but had few specific thoughts to analyze, it simply was about what I was optimistically expecting when I made the pre-viewing post.
I then waited awhile before returning to it, and watched the next ten episodes and it's movie in the last couple days. I knew the movie premiered the same day as episode 18 aired and so decided to watch it between episodes 18 and 19 even though I expected it to not really matter much like the Sailor Moon, Pokemon and PreCure movies.
So far the movie is the only thing about this Anime I'm willing to call a disappointment. It's not bad, but I was watching this show under the meta knowledge it was something made to fill Sailor Moon's void, so I was expecting it's ambiguously canonical filler movie to at least feel on par with the three Sailor Moon movies even if it wasn't as good as they were. Instead it's something that could have been a two part episode of the show, except it'd be disappointing then in a different way because there is literally nothing else in the second arc that I consider skip-able.
The second arc revolved around the character of Seira Hazuki/Misty Honey. This is the first incarnation of Cutey Honey to include any kind of "Evil Counterpart" or sister for Honey. And I also feel this story-line is the only time I've seen the Dark Magical Girl Rival trope play out in a properly Shoujo Magical Girl Warrior show, so that makes it quite interesting to begin with and in my opinion pretty damn well executed. And I was more then satisfied by the Yuri Bait it inevitably provided.
This show as I was hoping lacks the overbearing Otaku pandering style fan-service typical of this franchise, but it is still Sexy in the way a lot of Shoujo Anime are. Seira in particular is quite shockingly in my strike zone.
I talked before about the creative staff this show shares with the 90s Sailor Moon Anime. It might be the most important staff position not held by a Sailor Moon alumni was the Musical Composer Sahashi Toshihko.
The 90s Sailor Moon Anime had an iconic theme song and some other good insert songs like Ai No Senshi. But the actual score was mostly forgettable elevator music, even the people least forgiving of what DiC did are inclined to admit it gave the show better Music. But the Music on Cutey Honey Flash isn't just better then that Music but actually very good. And oddly enough I think perhaps musically anticipates Sailor Moon's future. One of the songs used for Transformation scenes sounds to me a lot like the Sailor Venus transformation theme on PGSM.
This show is also interesting to compare to Utena. For one thing the classic 70s Cutey Honey Manga and/or Anime is clearly among what Ikuhara wanted to homage, that teacher who nags Utena in the pilot is clearly based on Miharu Tsuneni. This version being designed to be a more Shoujo incarnation of Cutey Honey is almsot built around playing strait the same tropes Utena was deconstructing. And yet it was airing for the same number of episode at close to the same time, it started out a few weeks ahead but had more weeks off allowing Utena to catch up and then pull ahead. So it's kind of the perfect case study to watch along side Utena.
Monday, January 27, 2020
My Top 10 DC Animated Movies
DC Animated movies seem to be one of the few areas where I'm more critical than conventional nerd culture wisdom rather than less, saying DC is overall better at Animation is silly to me when no Live Action Superhero film will ever be as offensive to me as that Gotham by Gaslight disaster. And I'm not even as in love with the fullness of the Timmverse as most people, but that's a rant for another day. That said I have still gained plenty of enjoyment from them, even the ones I’ve been very critical of in the past history of this blog have had some redeeming value I’ve enjoyed.
So I figure it’s time I talked about which ones I like the most. There do exist DC movies I haven’t seen. But I’ve seen most of what people generally recommend. The recent line of DC Super Hero Girls movies are the main thing I’ve missed out on, also the straight to DVD Lego movies.
Now the usual structure of a list like this is from the bottom up. But in this case the very top of the list is actually very predictable, what I consider the very best, maybe even the entire top 3 is a pretty common conventional wisdom. So I’d rather list these from the very best to the least of the best so the focus of the post can stay on where my opinions on them diverge from most.
1. Batman: Mask of The Phantasm.
As I said, a predictable opinion, why it’s so great is already better explained by others.
2. Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker.
Also an opinion I’m fairly certain is far from uncommon. Again others have no doubt talked about it at length. But my appreciation for it has only increased since I’ve seen Akira and now recognize the blatant Homage (the Laser fired from a space satellite looks exactly the same).
3. Justice League: New Frontier.
Perhaps I’m still unfairly biased towards this one for being the first of the 2007 initiated line I actually liked. It’s a pretty decent Adaptation of an interesting Comic drawing on ideas popularized by Watchman and DKR, so it’s interesting how it got a movie before they did.
4. Scooby Doo & Batman The Brave and The Bold.
I already dedicated a blog post to this one. It’s absolutely hilarious. There is still more I could say and perhaps will after the next time I re-watch it.
5. Superman Unbound.
I’ve also already written about why this is my favorite animated Superman movie. But I now feel more comfortable saying it may be my favorite Superman movie period. Also the Superman animated movies I hadn't seen yet when I wrote that I have seen now and it hasn't changed anything.
6. Batman Under The Red Hood.
In a way I’m disappointed that this is by a significant margin the best we’ve gotten from a Batman animated movie not directly connected to a TV series. But don’t take that as too much of an insult. It arguably improves on its source material by streamlining things and cutting out the tie ins to other DC story-lines of the time. I just wish Black Mask had been represented better and it’s Joker didn’t recycle jokes. Kelly Hu is fantastic in her supporting role, she’d probably make my top ten list of performances from the main line of animated movies.
7. Justice League Crisis on Two Earths
This one was the biggest surprise for me, I was not expecting how well it would hold up. Probably my main agreement with SUPER FRAME’s video on the DC animated movies is how high up he places this one (his unlike my list here is of only the specific line of films). It’s another one that I could write an entire post on someday.
I only have room for three more, I think these bottom three might be the most influenced by my current mood and moderately interchangeable with the honorable mentions. Above the order of 3-7 is also perhaps subject to change, but basically that is a pretty solid top 7.
8. Batman/Superman World’s Finest
Even though it’s transparently a 3 part episode of a TV crossover spliced together, it’s still the best take on how Superman and Batman first meet to date. And no it's not the only multi-part episode once packaged as a movie I counted as a movie for consideration for this list. I also love how it used both Mercy and Harley.
9. Allstar Superman
Most seem to like this the best of the animated Superman solo films. I do enjoy it a lot clearly since it’s on this list, but even as someone who hasn't read the comic I sense how this is an abridged version of something larger.
10. Justice League Flashpoint
The most recent film from the actual line I consider even worthy of consideration for this list. What I hate about it comes right from the Comics, as an Adaptation of a flawed Comic story-line this is perhaps even better then the above mentioned Red Hood.
The honorable mentions that almost made it would include both of the Adam West and Burt Ward animated movies made just before West passed away. Together they might be a perfect send off for the Bright Knight. Both Superman/Batman animated films which again arguably improve on their source material but the second of them is held back by an art-style I don’t like and the first by cutting Katana. Both Green Lantern animated movies which I found pretty decent introductions to the GL mythos for newbies, but I controversially actually like the Ryan Reynolds movie more. And finally the two Dark Knight Returns movies executed a lot perfectly, maybe even improved some details, and had great acting, they could have been on the list if they were one movie with the length of Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and weren’t afraid of using voice over narration.
A failure to make that top 18 out of over 50 hardly means I hate it, I’ve given on this blog overall positive reviews to even stuff from the New52 based series, there are only a handful I have significantly overall negative feelings for.
But those are the ones that exemplify what Superheroes can do in Animation. I wish Marvel had made enough for me to consider such a list for them, but their only true shining achievement is Into The Spiderverse which was actually made by Sony.
So I figure it’s time I talked about which ones I like the most. There do exist DC movies I haven’t seen. But I’ve seen most of what people generally recommend. The recent line of DC Super Hero Girls movies are the main thing I’ve missed out on, also the straight to DVD Lego movies.
Now the usual structure of a list like this is from the bottom up. But in this case the very top of the list is actually very predictable, what I consider the very best, maybe even the entire top 3 is a pretty common conventional wisdom. So I’d rather list these from the very best to the least of the best so the focus of the post can stay on where my opinions on them diverge from most.
1. Batman: Mask of The Phantasm.
As I said, a predictable opinion, why it’s so great is already better explained by others.
2. Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker.
Also an opinion I’m fairly certain is far from uncommon. Again others have no doubt talked about it at length. But my appreciation for it has only increased since I’ve seen Akira and now recognize the blatant Homage (the Laser fired from a space satellite looks exactly the same).
3. Justice League: New Frontier.
Perhaps I’m still unfairly biased towards this one for being the first of the 2007 initiated line I actually liked. It’s a pretty decent Adaptation of an interesting Comic drawing on ideas popularized by Watchman and DKR, so it’s interesting how it got a movie before they did.
4. Scooby Doo & Batman The Brave and The Bold.
I already dedicated a blog post to this one. It’s absolutely hilarious. There is still more I could say and perhaps will after the next time I re-watch it.
5. Superman Unbound.
I’ve also already written about why this is my favorite animated Superman movie. But I now feel more comfortable saying it may be my favorite Superman movie period. Also the Superman animated movies I hadn't seen yet when I wrote that I have seen now and it hasn't changed anything.
6. Batman Under The Red Hood.
In a way I’m disappointed that this is by a significant margin the best we’ve gotten from a Batman animated movie not directly connected to a TV series. But don’t take that as too much of an insult. It arguably improves on its source material by streamlining things and cutting out the tie ins to other DC story-lines of the time. I just wish Black Mask had been represented better and it’s Joker didn’t recycle jokes. Kelly Hu is fantastic in her supporting role, she’d probably make my top ten list of performances from the main line of animated movies.
7. Justice League Crisis on Two Earths
This one was the biggest surprise for me, I was not expecting how well it would hold up. Probably my main agreement with SUPER FRAME’s video on the DC animated movies is how high up he places this one (his unlike my list here is of only the specific line of films). It’s another one that I could write an entire post on someday.
I only have room for three more, I think these bottom three might be the most influenced by my current mood and moderately interchangeable with the honorable mentions. Above the order of 3-7 is also perhaps subject to change, but basically that is a pretty solid top 7.
8. Batman/Superman World’s Finest
Even though it’s transparently a 3 part episode of a TV crossover spliced together, it’s still the best take on how Superman and Batman first meet to date. And no it's not the only multi-part episode once packaged as a movie I counted as a movie for consideration for this list. I also love how it used both Mercy and Harley.
9. Allstar Superman
Most seem to like this the best of the animated Superman solo films. I do enjoy it a lot clearly since it’s on this list, but even as someone who hasn't read the comic I sense how this is an abridged version of something larger.
10. Justice League Flashpoint
The most recent film from the actual line I consider even worthy of consideration for this list. What I hate about it comes right from the Comics, as an Adaptation of a flawed Comic story-line this is perhaps even better then the above mentioned Red Hood.
The honorable mentions that almost made it would include both of the Adam West and Burt Ward animated movies made just before West passed away. Together they might be a perfect send off for the Bright Knight. Both Superman/Batman animated films which again arguably improve on their source material but the second of them is held back by an art-style I don’t like and the first by cutting Katana. Both Green Lantern animated movies which I found pretty decent introductions to the GL mythos for newbies, but I controversially actually like the Ryan Reynolds movie more. And finally the two Dark Knight Returns movies executed a lot perfectly, maybe even improved some details, and had great acting, they could have been on the list if they were one movie with the length of Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and weren’t afraid of using voice over narration.
A failure to make that top 18 out of over 50 hardly means I hate it, I’ve given on this blog overall positive reviews to even stuff from the New52 based series, there are only a handful I have significantly overall negative feelings for.
But those are the ones that exemplify what Superheroes can do in Animation. I wish Marvel had made enough for me to consider such a list for them, but their only true shining achievement is Into The Spiderverse which was actually made by Sony.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
I have watched PLL The Perfectionists
All 10 episodes, which it turns out are all the show is going to get.
I enjoyed it, there is a lot of fan-service for fans of Pretty Little Liars but I also liked the new characters.
Spoilers will abound.
It's popular now to be cynical about this kind of fan service. They all organically serve the plot at hand in my opinion. And in my view no different then any completely new show that implies a lot of back story. Hell I still think the reign of the Mad King would make a better TV show then Game of Thrones.
But I ultimately don't and can't have the perspective of someone watching the show as a complete stand alone. As much as I loved PLL I currently have no interest in watching new shows of the same genre, not on American TV anyway. I was tuning in first and foremost to get more Ali and Mona and what they gave me was a treat that brought back all my positive memories of the show but none of the negative.
I will be talking about my criticisms below, but be aware my overall opinion of the show is still currently a positive one.
The decision to make the new Ali a male character was perhaps a short sighted one.
The reason a character like Alison DiLaurentis can become a Hero to Feminists in-spite of the almsot villainous first impression we're given of her is because of the role her archetypes plays in how Sexism works. How girls in real life and other fiction are condemned as far worse over doing far less. Because before PLL shows about Dead Girl murder mysteries were usually from a male perspective, and the inevitable shift of her perceived moral character goes in the opposite direction. The brilliance of PLL was that as much as it started seeming like a generic Teen Girl Drama it became a feminist subversion/deconstruction of the tropes popularized by Twin Peaks.
But a character like Nolan, a Ciz White Male (and Het as far as the public knows) blackmailing and manipulating his sexual partners who come from marginalized groups, and hurts the woman he loves to protect her, comes with a completely different baggage. The kind of people who would like seeing that character turn out to be an Anti-Hero rather then villain are completely different and not as likely to be in PLL's target audience. Fortunately this show wasn't built around flashbacks as much as PLL was.
I felt this 10 episode season was decently paced in terms of the actual plot structure, but the escalation was weird.
It kind of has the same premise as the prior show in that the Secrets our protagonists are dealing with are at first pretty typical of moderately well off teenagers. But they still do to keep them a secret instead of just coming clean causing the stakes to escalate until the original simple answer of "just tell the truth" is no longer viable. And then the anti-authoritarian themes of the show undermine the idea that simply going to the cops to begin with was ever a good idea.
But on PLL Classic Version that escalation took years, while this show takes us from the stakes of PPL Season 1A to PLL Season 5 in only 10 episodes. Which when watching it as an Allison and Mona show works fine, but for the newbies it feels like making someone start playing Ocarina of Time at The Water Temple.
What's amusing is how they handle the phase of the story where they think the person blackmailing them isn't the same person as the killer. This is a fundamentally weird route for a mystery show to take this early, but it does so because on PLL that was always how things actually played out. It's in the context of being a sequel to PLL that the finale's reveal that they actually are the same is a twist.
The show ends with the mystery unresolved, and in any other context I'd wish they'd tried to avoid that. But for PLL it was maybe for the best. I can head-canon that the Professor is simply Alex Drake and Jeremy another of her Wren contacts.
The character named Luke in the last episode I was expecting and hoping was indeed going to apologize for his past bullying. However what I also specifically didn't want was the "I did it because I was a repressed Gay" reveal, VraiKaiser has written about why that seemingly Woke trope actually needs to die.
Again, all those issues aside it was an enjoyable show. Because I was first and foremost watching it as an Ali and Mona show. It's a fun satisfying epilogue to the saga of Pretty Little Liars. And so in that context I'm hoping it will be for awhile the last time I talk about the show on this blog. I want to end my relationship with PLL on a positive note.
I enjoyed it, there is a lot of fan-service for fans of Pretty Little Liars but I also liked the new characters.
Spoilers will abound.
It's popular now to be cynical about this kind of fan service. They all organically serve the plot at hand in my opinion. And in my view no different then any completely new show that implies a lot of back story. Hell I still think the reign of the Mad King would make a better TV show then Game of Thrones.
But I ultimately don't and can't have the perspective of someone watching the show as a complete stand alone. As much as I loved PLL I currently have no interest in watching new shows of the same genre, not on American TV anyway. I was tuning in first and foremost to get more Ali and Mona and what they gave me was a treat that brought back all my positive memories of the show but none of the negative.
I will be talking about my criticisms below, but be aware my overall opinion of the show is still currently a positive one.
The decision to make the new Ali a male character was perhaps a short sighted one.
The reason a character like Alison DiLaurentis can become a Hero to Feminists in-spite of the almsot villainous first impression we're given of her is because of the role her archetypes plays in how Sexism works. How girls in real life and other fiction are condemned as far worse over doing far less. Because before PLL shows about Dead Girl murder mysteries were usually from a male perspective, and the inevitable shift of her perceived moral character goes in the opposite direction. The brilliance of PLL was that as much as it started seeming like a generic Teen Girl Drama it became a feminist subversion/deconstruction of the tropes popularized by Twin Peaks.
But a character like Nolan, a Ciz White Male (and Het as far as the public knows) blackmailing and manipulating his sexual partners who come from marginalized groups, and hurts the woman he loves to protect her, comes with a completely different baggage. The kind of people who would like seeing that character turn out to be an Anti-Hero rather then villain are completely different and not as likely to be in PLL's target audience. Fortunately this show wasn't built around flashbacks as much as PLL was.
I felt this 10 episode season was decently paced in terms of the actual plot structure, but the escalation was weird.
It kind of has the same premise as the prior show in that the Secrets our protagonists are dealing with are at first pretty typical of moderately well off teenagers. But they still do to keep them a secret instead of just coming clean causing the stakes to escalate until the original simple answer of "just tell the truth" is no longer viable. And then the anti-authoritarian themes of the show undermine the idea that simply going to the cops to begin with was ever a good idea.
But on PLL Classic Version that escalation took years, while this show takes us from the stakes of PPL Season 1A to PLL Season 5 in only 10 episodes. Which when watching it as an Allison and Mona show works fine, but for the newbies it feels like making someone start playing Ocarina of Time at The Water Temple.
What's amusing is how they handle the phase of the story where they think the person blackmailing them isn't the same person as the killer. This is a fundamentally weird route for a mystery show to take this early, but it does so because on PLL that was always how things actually played out. It's in the context of being a sequel to PLL that the finale's reveal that they actually are the same is a twist.
The show ends with the mystery unresolved, and in any other context I'd wish they'd tried to avoid that. But for PLL it was maybe for the best. I can head-canon that the Professor is simply Alex Drake and Jeremy another of her Wren contacts.
The character named Luke in the last episode I was expecting and hoping was indeed going to apologize for his past bullying. However what I also specifically didn't want was the "I did it because I was a repressed Gay" reveal, VraiKaiser has written about why that seemingly Woke trope actually needs to die.
Again, all those issues aside it was an enjoyable show. Because I was first and foremost watching it as an Ali and Mona show. It's a fun satisfying epilogue to the saga of Pretty Little Liars. And so in that context I'm hoping it will be for awhile the last time I talk about the show on this blog. I want to end my relationship with PLL on a positive note.
I’ve officially started watching 2020 Anime
Well, I’ve officially started watching 2020 Anime with BOFURI: I don’t want to get hurt, so I’ll Max Out my Defense. It was a fun first episode. I love that the game is called NWO.
I’ve also completed the High School Prodigies Isekai. It’s good.
I’ve watched the first episode of the Nekopara Anime and it was pretty amusing. I don’t understand why the Dub couldn’t just say Neko, Neko is in the name of the show in English still anyway so they might as well treat it as self explanatory what Neko means.
I couldn’t finish the pilot of Infinite Dendrogram, but it’s something I might give a second chance to later if I hear interesting things about it.
I watched episodes 12 and 13 of that Holmes show I ranted about. They are good, but that issue still lingers in my mind.
The first episode of A Certain Scientific Railgun T was pretty good.
I also tried the Pilot of that new Idol show. Not sure I like it.
SAO Alicization War of Underworld episode 2 was very good. I’m loving seeing Alice get to be the main Hero, and then I was on the edge of my seat during the exposition in the over-world.
Fate/Grand Order Babylonia episode 11 was also interesting.
I want to include in each of these posts links to my MAL and Twitter so you can follow along my experience in real time if you want.
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
I’ve also completed the High School Prodigies Isekai. It’s good.
I’ve watched the first episode of the Nekopara Anime and it was pretty amusing. I don’t understand why the Dub couldn’t just say Neko, Neko is in the name of the show in English still anyway so they might as well treat it as self explanatory what Neko means.
I couldn’t finish the pilot of Infinite Dendrogram, but it’s something I might give a second chance to later if I hear interesting things about it.
I watched episodes 12 and 13 of that Holmes show I ranted about. They are good, but that issue still lingers in my mind.
The first episode of A Certain Scientific Railgun T was pretty good.
I also tried the Pilot of that new Idol show. Not sure I like it.
SAO Alicization War of Underworld episode 2 was very good. I’m loving seeing Alice get to be the main Hero, and then I was on the edge of my seat during the exposition in the over-world.
Fate/Grand Order Babylonia episode 11 was also interesting.
I want to include in each of these posts links to my MAL and Twitter so you can follow along my experience in real time if you want.
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
Friday, January 24, 2020
The Citrus Anime is holding up.
I recently re-watched some episodes and nearly two years later it holds up pretty well (sadly better then Katana Maidens did when I tried revisiting it). At least the episodes I was personally most interested in re-watching were, which are the Himeko and Matsuri centric episodes.
Citrus is the only Anime I've ever watched while being already a fan of the Manga. I read Manga pretty rarely and it's mostly just stuff that currently seems hopeless to ever get an Anime. But Citrus happened to be the main hot topic of the Yuri community when I was first getting properly into Yuri. I still haven't completed it however, I've read 25 chapters, which means the Anime wouldn't get past me till season 3 probably, and sadly it seems the Anime isn't likely to get a season 2.
I tend to like the perspective of being someone who doesn't enter adaptions with a filter of constantly comparing it to the original. So I'm glad to see my lack of nit pickniness even applies to the one Anime I've watched as an adaptation.
In fact I'm going to say that the character of Himeko particularly benefits from being Dramatized.
You see in a purely visual medium where all I'm looking at are still images, a character not at all drawn to look Sexy suddenly getting all Seductive at the end of chapter 5 is something I pretty much just forget about. However in a medium that includes acting, you can potentially rely on the Actress to make it work.
Bryn Appril is an Anime VA who's generally not voicing very sexual characters, she might be many character drawn with more "Talent" then this one, but her voice is usually not one you'd think of as a Fujiko Mine candidate. And as Himeko she's mostly the same as she usually is, a cutesy best friend character. But at the end of episode 4 she suddenly unleashes her inner Tigress and it turns out she can be quite dangerous.
Now is the point when some viewers go "all the set up for talking about the Actress and you only mention the Dub!!!". Well I'm a Dub person, OG Man watched the Sub so you'll have to ask them about the Seiyu, or maybe Zeria.
Citrus is the only Anime I've ever watched while being already a fan of the Manga. I read Manga pretty rarely and it's mostly just stuff that currently seems hopeless to ever get an Anime. But Citrus happened to be the main hot topic of the Yuri community when I was first getting properly into Yuri. I still haven't completed it however, I've read 25 chapters, which means the Anime wouldn't get past me till season 3 probably, and sadly it seems the Anime isn't likely to get a season 2.
I tend to like the perspective of being someone who doesn't enter adaptions with a filter of constantly comparing it to the original. So I'm glad to see my lack of nit pickniness even applies to the one Anime I've watched as an adaptation.
In fact I'm going to say that the character of Himeko particularly benefits from being Dramatized.
You see in a purely visual medium where all I'm looking at are still images, a character not at all drawn to look Sexy suddenly getting all Seductive at the end of chapter 5 is something I pretty much just forget about. However in a medium that includes acting, you can potentially rely on the Actress to make it work.
Bryn Appril is an Anime VA who's generally not voicing very sexual characters, she might be many character drawn with more "Talent" then this one, but her voice is usually not one you'd think of as a Fujiko Mine candidate. And as Himeko she's mostly the same as she usually is, a cutesy best friend character. But at the end of episode 4 she suddenly unleashes her inner Tigress and it turns out she can be quite dangerous.
Now is the point when some viewers go "all the set up for talking about the Actress and you only mention the Dub!!!". Well I'm a Dub person, OG Man watched the Sub so you'll have to ask them about the Seiyu, or maybe Zeria.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Still not watching any actual 2020 Anime yet.
But I need to vent about how episode 11 of Kabukichou Sherlock aka Case File nº221: Kabukicho betrayed me.
I was liking the show, recommending it as on par with Elementary, the BBC Shelrock and the RDJr Sherlock Holmes movies. I was thinking of writing something specifically on Episode 10. This episode I was enjoying even as I guessed who Jack actually was, finding that trope on it's own annoying but tolerable, then they began revealing why.
If you're familiar with when I used to talk about Pretty Little Liars, well this is that all over again, the sin that forever tainted PLL's legacy was repeated here. I was naive enough to think that Anime would never do this, at least not since the 90s ended.
I was recommending this show on my twitter, where I have followers who are Trans and Non-Binary. They might have watched this show because of me and got to this episode weeks before I did because they aren't Dub Scrubs like I am. And that makes me feel guilty.
Shows that are first and foremost mystery shows generally aren't my thing, the last 3 seasons of Anime have had an inordinate amount of them and this was the only one I watched because I have a thing for modern stuff directly drawing on Victorian through WWI era pulp. And PLL was the only murder mystery of the American 20tens I was highly invested in. So why am I cursed like this? Why are the few mystery shows I get into the ones actively trying to hurt the Trans Community that I want to help?
I'm not sure I'm going to drop it yet, I feel like at least watching episode 12 and finishing it's first cour. It's advantage over PLL is that arguably this villain isn't the only Trans representation. But the show is unclear on what Hudson's actual gender identity is, and either way largely treats them as a joke. So I am certainly done recommending the show, unless I report back that it somehow redeemed itself don't watch it.
Fortunately I don't have only Bad News to report. I completed Assassin's Pride and am giving it an 8 for now. If you're interested in a show that at first looks like a modern Light Novel Anime but is really a covert throwback to 90s Shoujo then this is for you.
Episode 10 of Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia was hilarious. And the Isekai shows I'm still following are also holding up.
And tonight will also be the Toonami/Adult Swim debut of Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld. I intend to update this post once I've seen and have an opinion on it.
Update. I saw it and it was a pretty good start. My main issue with Alicization part one was how it ended. So we'll see how things go.
I was liking the show, recommending it as on par with Elementary, the BBC Shelrock and the RDJr Sherlock Holmes movies. I was thinking of writing something specifically on Episode 10. This episode I was enjoying even as I guessed who Jack actually was, finding that trope on it's own annoying but tolerable, then they began revealing why.
If you're familiar with when I used to talk about Pretty Little Liars, well this is that all over again, the sin that forever tainted PLL's legacy was repeated here. I was naive enough to think that Anime would never do this, at least not since the 90s ended.
I was recommending this show on my twitter, where I have followers who are Trans and Non-Binary. They might have watched this show because of me and got to this episode weeks before I did because they aren't Dub Scrubs like I am. And that makes me feel guilty.
Shows that are first and foremost mystery shows generally aren't my thing, the last 3 seasons of Anime have had an inordinate amount of them and this was the only one I watched because I have a thing for modern stuff directly drawing on Victorian through WWI era pulp. And PLL was the only murder mystery of the American 20tens I was highly invested in. So why am I cursed like this? Why are the few mystery shows I get into the ones actively trying to hurt the Trans Community that I want to help?
I'm not sure I'm going to drop it yet, I feel like at least watching episode 12 and finishing it's first cour. It's advantage over PLL is that arguably this villain isn't the only Trans representation. But the show is unclear on what Hudson's actual gender identity is, and either way largely treats them as a joke. So I am certainly done recommending the show, unless I report back that it somehow redeemed itself don't watch it.
Fortunately I don't have only Bad News to report. I completed Assassin's Pride and am giving it an 8 for now. If you're interested in a show that at first looks like a modern Light Novel Anime but is really a covert throwback to 90s Shoujo then this is for you.
Episode 10 of Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia was hilarious. And the Isekai shows I'm still following are also holding up.
And tonight will also be the Toonami/Adult Swim debut of Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld. I intend to update this post once I've seen and have an opinion on it.
Update. I saw it and it was a pretty good start. My main issue with Alicization part one was how it ended. So we'll see how things go.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
TV Anime Writers and Directors
As I've said I want to start talking on this blog about how I think Directors often get too much credit and we should maybe start paying more attention to the writers.
The thing that makes TV Anime a particularly interesting medium in this case is how there are usually less writers then directors.
The "Series Composition" credit seems to be the writing equivalent of being the Series Director, it's a job that in theory could be done by someone not writing individual episode scripts at all, but it generally doesn't play out that way. Usually the writer with that credit also writes more episodes then anyone else and that includes the first and last episodes and a number of the other most definitely not filler episodes in-between. And there are usually only 4 or 5 writers in total, often only 3 who could be said to have written a significant amount.
However there are usually between 7-10 Episode Directors, and the first and last episodes usually don't have the same director. And the series director probably actually episode directs less Episodes then he would have if he weren't the series director. And no director even comes close to directing as many episodes as the "Series Composition" person usually writes.
Some shows fail to give a Series Composition credit, at least on the main English language Database websites (MAL, ANN and AniDB), but it's often easy to guess who was serving that function by looking at what and how many episodes the writers wrote. Like Sukehiro Tomitia for the first season of Sailor Moon who I've already talked about. He also seems to be this again for the Black Moon saga, but for the Doom Tree Saga I would argue the most important writer was Shigeru Yanagawa.
For Sailor Moon S things are a bit different. Tomita seems to no longer be obviously the most important writer, Megumi Sugihara wrote the most episodes for S at 10 episodes, but still not as many as Tomita wrote for prior seasons. She had been around since season 1 but not quite from the start of it. S had more writers total because of the newcomer, Youji Enokido who wrote 9 episodes, which began with the Jupiter and Venus spotlight episodes of the first cour, but would then include the HaruMi origin story episode. Tomito did write the first and last episodes, but S is structured so different from season 1 that even that doesn't mean as much, the last episode of S is literally filler. Tomita wrote 7 episodes total.
Three of Sailor Moon's writers including Tomita would leave after S to go work on other projects, to some extent I think they were writing less during S because they were doing the prep work for those projects. The one I talked about in the Cutey Honey Flash post was the lead writer of Gundam Wing, if you've ever felt like Wing is the most Shoujo esque of all Gundam shows, that's because it was written by someone who spent most of the 90s writing Magical Girl shows.
Sailor Moon SuperS is the first season to actually have a Series Composition credit, which is given to Youji Enokido. Kind of surprising as he was the complete Newcomer for S, Megumi had seniority but I guess you can't have the lead writer of a show for girls actually be a girl. Enokido also wrote the Screenplay for the SuperS movie, Black Dream Hole (the first two movies were written by Tomita).
Megumi and Enokido both left Sailor Moon after SuperS creating a situation where Sailor Stars the last season had no writing staff overlap with the first 3 seasons and two writers who had no prior Sailor Moon experience at all. If you think Sailor Moon's quality went down hill it was definitely the writing staff that changed more then the directorial staff, the Series Director of Stars had been part of the Sailor Moon directorial team since Goldfish Warning!. But I don't think the Stars writers are overall inferior writers, they were just at the time less experienced, some of them I know went on to write stuff that can compete with the early seasons of Sailor Moon (Doki Doki PreCure has the same Series Composition writer). When Sailor Moon started Toei hired some pretty experienced writers and directors because they kind of knew this would become one of their most important shows. But once those writers wanted to go on to other things they were replaced by relative newcomers.
The first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars I feel would work really well edited together into a 2 hour movie. What's interesting here is each one has a different director, but it was all written by two writers, the only two Stars writers who were veterans of SuperS, so ideally placed to write that season's epilogue. Though they had no experience writing the Outer Senshi since Enokido did their episode of the Special, in which case they did surprisingly well.
Megumi doesn't seem to have done much after leaving Sailor Moon. Enokido while doing SuperS wrote 4 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, all of them from the first half of the show. I at first thought the only reason he had writing credits in the Rebuild films is because the first two redo/remake stuff from his episodes. But then he also has a credit in 3.33 which has no connection to any episode he wrote. So either their credits by default list everyone who worked on the original or they did consult him on something.
The first thing Enokido did after he left Sailor Moon was be the head writer of Revolutionary Girl Utena. Yes I'm applying my maybe we give directors too much credit idea to even the most revered work of one of Anime's most worshiped Auteur Directors. Utena definitely looks the way it does chiefly because of Ikuhara, and the basic idea of it's story started with Ikuhara.
But there is a segment of the fanbase who thinks Utena is the only (completely original to him) Ikuhara show that's great and are not so infatuated with his over hyped 2010s stuff, like WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr, and that could be largely because the 2010s shows had completely different writers. I personally enjoy his 2010s stuff, and probably consider Penguindrum more rewatchable then Utena. But Utena is the only Ikuhara show I'd ever really call a must watch show. And YuriKuma's final act frustrates me, on a list of Yuri shows it'll always fall below Citrus and Strawberry Panic in my rankings. Of course even with Penguindrum I'd have preferred a happier ending.
And also on Utena Ikuhara was never even an Episode Director. So he was at the top of the pyramid but there was a lot of delegating. It was a collaborative effort on every level. It's almost like when that one comedian makes fun of Steve Jobs getting all the credit for the iPhone. Enokido may well have done more writing then Ikuhara did directing.
Enokido wasn't Utena's only writer. One I already made a post about due to my love of some of his other work. But a lot of the other writers seem to have Utena as the only Anime they ever worked on. Including the person who wrote most of the Nanami episodes, how is it that person hasn't gotten more work when they're obviously a comedic genius?
Enokido however had the Series Composition credit and wrote 20 episodes, just over half. They include the first five, episode 7, and 9, the two not as filler as you think recap episodes, the episodes that start and end the Black Rose saga, the start of the Akio arc, and The Barefoot Girl which if I recall is the one with the leg message scene, and almost all of the final Apocalypse Arc. And he wrote the Screenplay for the movie.
Enokido would have a lot of post Utena work, but not always stuff that is still well known. He wrote 5 episodes of RahXephon, a show often compared to Evangelion that in my opinion is far better. Maybe that's partly because Enokido wrote more of it then he did Eva. He also wrote Redline which seems to be a popular racing movie.
But perhaps the most notable thing Enokido has done in the last decade is Stardriver. I haven't seen Stardriver yet mainly because it lacks a dub, but at this point I doubt it ever will get one so I might as well just give in and watch it subbed. I've seen it described as like if Eva and Utena had a baby who grew up to do musical theater. And I feel like Musicals are maybe extra difficult to consume through a language barrier?
Stardriver's director is the same series director as Sailor Stars, who had been an episode director on Sailor Moon going back to season 1 and also worked on Cutey Honey Flash. He then worked on Fun Fun Pharmacy and a number of the shows that proceeded Pretty Cure in it's time-slot, and did episode 8 of the first season of Pretty Cure. His visual style is certainly an interesting one to combine with the writer of Utena.
Gen Urobuchi is a rare example of a writer who's name gets mentioned as much or more then the directors of the popular shows he wrote. But sometimes his association is with the source material rather then the Anime directly, it varies. I find it interesting how many of his shows have Yuki Kajuria on the music even though nothing else connects them, maybe they just naturally go together.
All that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty more Anime where I think the writer is more why I like them then the director. I'll likely make more posts on this subject in the future.
One detail I'd like to point out before ending this post is that the two most popular up and coming Female Anime directors of the last decade also had female writers on their most notable work, who also wrote plenty of stuff directed by men.
Update 01/14/2020: Turns out according to AniDB two of those Utena writers who have no other credits are actually Non Deplums of people who were still working on Sailor Moon and Cutey Honey Flash while Utena was in production. Maybe there was a legal reason for that. One is the Director of Sailor Stars and Stardriver, and he also directed Utena episode 9 under that pseudonym. However there are still two Utena writers about whom we have no other information. And my mind is starting to wonder if one of them is really Megumi and that's simply been kept a secret all this time?
The thing that makes TV Anime a particularly interesting medium in this case is how there are usually less writers then directors.
The "Series Composition" credit seems to be the writing equivalent of being the Series Director, it's a job that in theory could be done by someone not writing individual episode scripts at all, but it generally doesn't play out that way. Usually the writer with that credit also writes more episodes then anyone else and that includes the first and last episodes and a number of the other most definitely not filler episodes in-between. And there are usually only 4 or 5 writers in total, often only 3 who could be said to have written a significant amount.
However there are usually between 7-10 Episode Directors, and the first and last episodes usually don't have the same director. And the series director probably actually episode directs less Episodes then he would have if he weren't the series director. And no director even comes close to directing as many episodes as the "Series Composition" person usually writes.
Some shows fail to give a Series Composition credit, at least on the main English language Database websites (MAL, ANN and AniDB), but it's often easy to guess who was serving that function by looking at what and how many episodes the writers wrote. Like Sukehiro Tomitia for the first season of Sailor Moon who I've already talked about. He also seems to be this again for the Black Moon saga, but for the Doom Tree Saga I would argue the most important writer was Shigeru Yanagawa.
For Sailor Moon S things are a bit different. Tomita seems to no longer be obviously the most important writer, Megumi Sugihara wrote the most episodes for S at 10 episodes, but still not as many as Tomita wrote for prior seasons. She had been around since season 1 but not quite from the start of it. S had more writers total because of the newcomer, Youji Enokido who wrote 9 episodes, which began with the Jupiter and Venus spotlight episodes of the first cour, but would then include the HaruMi origin story episode. Tomito did write the first and last episodes, but S is structured so different from season 1 that even that doesn't mean as much, the last episode of S is literally filler. Tomita wrote 7 episodes total.
Three of Sailor Moon's writers including Tomita would leave after S to go work on other projects, to some extent I think they were writing less during S because they were doing the prep work for those projects. The one I talked about in the Cutey Honey Flash post was the lead writer of Gundam Wing, if you've ever felt like Wing is the most Shoujo esque of all Gundam shows, that's because it was written by someone who spent most of the 90s writing Magical Girl shows.
Sailor Moon SuperS is the first season to actually have a Series Composition credit, which is given to Youji Enokido. Kind of surprising as he was the complete Newcomer for S, Megumi had seniority but I guess you can't have the lead writer of a show for girls actually be a girl. Enokido also wrote the Screenplay for the SuperS movie, Black Dream Hole (the first two movies were written by Tomita).
The first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars I feel would work really well edited together into a 2 hour movie. What's interesting here is each one has a different director, but it was all written by two writers, the only two Stars writers who were veterans of SuperS, so ideally placed to write that season's epilogue. Though they had no experience writing the Outer Senshi since Enokido did their episode of the Special, in which case they did surprisingly well.
Megumi doesn't seem to have done much after leaving Sailor Moon. Enokido while doing SuperS wrote 4 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, all of them from the first half of the show. I at first thought the only reason he had writing credits in the Rebuild films is because the first two redo/remake stuff from his episodes. But then he also has a credit in 3.33 which has no connection to any episode he wrote. So either their credits by default list everyone who worked on the original or they did consult him on something.
The first thing Enokido did after he left Sailor Moon was be the head writer of Revolutionary Girl Utena. Yes I'm applying my maybe we give directors too much credit idea to even the most revered work of one of Anime's most worshiped Auteur Directors. Utena definitely looks the way it does chiefly because of Ikuhara, and the basic idea of it's story started with Ikuhara.
But there is a segment of the fanbase who thinks Utena is the only (completely original to him) Ikuhara show that's great and are not so infatuated with his over hyped 2010s stuff, like WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr, and that could be largely because the 2010s shows had completely different writers. I personally enjoy his 2010s stuff, and probably consider Penguindrum more rewatchable then Utena. But Utena is the only Ikuhara show I'd ever really call a must watch show. And YuriKuma's final act frustrates me, on a list of Yuri shows it'll always fall below Citrus and Strawberry Panic in my rankings. Of course even with Penguindrum I'd have preferred a happier ending.
And also on Utena Ikuhara was never even an Episode Director. So he was at the top of the pyramid but there was a lot of delegating. It was a collaborative effort on every level. It's almost like when that one comedian makes fun of Steve Jobs getting all the credit for the iPhone. Enokido may well have done more writing then Ikuhara did directing.
Enokido wasn't Utena's only writer. One I already made a post about due to my love of some of his other work. But a lot of the other writers seem to have Utena as the only Anime they ever worked on. Including the person who wrote most of the Nanami episodes, how is it that person hasn't gotten more work when they're obviously a comedic genius?
Enokido however had the Series Composition credit and wrote 20 episodes, just over half. They include the first five, episode 7, and 9, the two not as filler as you think recap episodes, the episodes that start and end the Black Rose saga, the start of the Akio arc, and The Barefoot Girl which if I recall is the one with the leg message scene, and almost all of the final Apocalypse Arc. And he wrote the Screenplay for the movie.
Enokido would have a lot of post Utena work, but not always stuff that is still well known. He wrote 5 episodes of RahXephon, a show often compared to Evangelion that in my opinion is far better. Maybe that's partly because Enokido wrote more of it then he did Eva. He also wrote Redline which seems to be a popular racing movie.
But perhaps the most notable thing Enokido has done in the last decade is Stardriver. I haven't seen Stardriver yet mainly because it lacks a dub, but at this point I doubt it ever will get one so I might as well just give in and watch it subbed. I've seen it described as like if Eva and Utena had a baby who grew up to do musical theater. And I feel like Musicals are maybe extra difficult to consume through a language barrier?
Stardriver's director is the same series director as Sailor Stars, who had been an episode director on Sailor Moon going back to season 1 and also worked on Cutey Honey Flash. He then worked on Fun Fun Pharmacy and a number of the shows that proceeded Pretty Cure in it's time-slot, and did episode 8 of the first season of Pretty Cure. His visual style is certainly an interesting one to combine with the writer of Utena.
Gen Urobuchi is a rare example of a writer who's name gets mentioned as much or more then the directors of the popular shows he wrote. But sometimes his association is with the source material rather then the Anime directly, it varies. I find it interesting how many of his shows have Yuki Kajuria on the music even though nothing else connects them, maybe they just naturally go together.
All that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty more Anime where I think the writer is more why I like them then the director. I'll likely make more posts on this subject in the future.
One detail I'd like to point out before ending this post is that the two most popular up and coming Female Anime directors of the last decade also had female writers on their most notable work, who also wrote plenty of stuff directed by men.
Update 01/14/2020: Turns out according to AniDB two of those Utena writers who have no other credits are actually Non Deplums of people who were still working on Sailor Moon and Cutey Honey Flash while Utena was in production. Maybe there was a legal reason for that. One is the Director of Sailor Stars and Stardriver, and he also directed Utena episode 9 under that pseudonym. However there are still two Utena writers about whom we have no other information. And my mind is starting to wonder if one of them is really Megumi and that's simply been kept a secret all this time?
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Winter 2020 Anime preparations
I know a bit more about what to expect for Winter.
Of the 6 falls shows I'm still following two will be continuing into Winter. The Sherlock Anime and the Fate/GrandOrder Anime.
A Certain Scientific Railgun T's simuldub has been confirmed, it will premier on January 24th, it might not be till the 25th that I can watch it.
Magia Record still seems unlikely to get a Simuldub, but I've not entirely given up hope.
But now for some shows I didn't really know about when I announced the Anime 2020 project.
BOFURI and Infinite Dendrogram are both VRMMO shows. As someone who believes strongly in distinguishing VRMMO shows form Isekai shows I've been annoyed how few VRMMO shows we actually get, even Log Horizon doesn't really qualify.
Isekai Quartet2 I'll probably check out.
Most of what I was watching for Fall 2019 is stuff I didn't know was getting dubbed in advance because they wound up not being FUNimation Simuldubs, it seems like Curnchyroll does their own now. But I can't as easily find a page on their website that lists them. However I can't currently say there is anything else I'm particularly hoping to get a Dub.
It's always possible something will catch my attention later. But for now I think I have a decent line up.
It was also announced that SAO Alicization War of Underworld will start airing on Toonami/Adult Swim before the month is over. With SAO I often don't like watching week to week and may just wait to binge it.
And last but not least Healin' Good PreCure will be on the agenda in February. I will at least watch enough of it so I know what I need to follow the annual Crossover movies. I'm hoping this show will interest me enough to keep me watching all year.
Of the 6 falls shows I'm still following two will be continuing into Winter. The Sherlock Anime and the Fate/GrandOrder Anime.
A Certain Scientific Railgun T's simuldub has been confirmed, it will premier on January 24th, it might not be till the 25th that I can watch it.
Magia Record still seems unlikely to get a Simuldub, but I've not entirely given up hope.
But now for some shows I didn't really know about when I announced the Anime 2020 project.
BOFURI and Infinite Dendrogram are both VRMMO shows. As someone who believes strongly in distinguishing VRMMO shows form Isekai shows I've been annoyed how few VRMMO shows we actually get, even Log Horizon doesn't really qualify.
Isekai Quartet2 I'll probably check out.
Most of what I was watching for Fall 2019 is stuff I didn't know was getting dubbed in advance because they wound up not being FUNimation Simuldubs, it seems like Curnchyroll does their own now. But I can't as easily find a page on their website that lists them. However I can't currently say there is anything else I'm particularly hoping to get a Dub.
It's always possible something will catch my attention later. But for now I think I have a decent line up.
It was also announced that SAO Alicization War of Underworld will start airing on Toonami/Adult Swim before the month is over. With SAO I often don't like watching week to week and may just wait to binge it.
And last but not least Healin' Good PreCure will be on the agenda in February. I will at least watch enough of it so I know what I need to follow the annual Crossover movies. I'm hoping this show will interest me enough to keep me watching all year.
Friday, January 10, 2020
Don't expect a best of 2018 post
At the start of March in 2019 I made my best Anime of 2017 post, at a time when most people were already done making best of 2018 stuff. But I feel a more accurate analysis of any year's Anime is better achieved by providing some hindsight to it, some time for recency bias to wear off. So me ranking my favorites when over a year had passed since 2017 ended I figured would be an insightful experiment.
But part of why 2017 was a good year to do that with was because I'd seen more stuff from 2017 then any other single year, and the thing is I think that's still true now. 2018 is still a year where I haven't seen much more then I watched at the time. But I do think it's interesting now to look back on 2018 because of how that was a year defined by me not seeing eye to eye with the general anime community, or even the specific niches I frequent.
I don't set out for that to be the case, I want the shows I like to be popular, I want people to know what I'm talking about when I reference them.
I tend to keep what's going on with PreCure in my mind separate because it's not really part of the seasonal cycle per se. But besides that the shows I somewhat agree with popular opinion on are either from the end of the year or the one show I didn't watch till later, SSSS.Gridman. And pretty much no movies I actually saw at the time like most Western fans, but even more so me since I wait for the Dubs.
A lot of the most popular and talked about shows of 2018 were ones that didn't interest me, either I saw none of them or I dropped them pretty early on. Meanwhile the show I was initially calling the Anime of the year was one no one but me kept watching, Katana Maidens.
I'm seemingly the only person to complete Reveue Starlight who didn't love it, indeed it's rare for me to even finish a show I wound up disliking that much. I gave it perhaps a higher MAL rating then it deserves just from starting pretty good. But the show most people are defining as one that started good and then bombed was one who's ending I adored, Darling in the Franxx was perfectly fine, I don't care if they foreshadowed them being aliens are not, it was obvious they were bad guys from the start.
Citrus is in my opinion the Yuri Anime of the Decade, but the "Respectable" Yuri from 2018 that most Yuri critics were pointing to as what people should make in contrast to Citrus was all stuff I found boring and forgettable.
The same didn't exactly happen in 2019. I still opted out of a number of popular shows and still completed a few that were mostly overlooked. But comparatively I was watching more stuff that was actually popular to talk about.
I've also been thinking about 2017 a bit more. When I made that post last March my mind had already changed from what I originally thought somewhat. Now my mind has shifted more, and I've seen even more stuff I originally skipped like season 4 of Symphogear. Maybe in time I'll be able to give it a proper top 10.
Update: I skimmed my MAL and was suprised to find that the amount of TV Anime I've completed from 2017 and 2018 are exactly equal. I guess in 2018 I completed a lot of forgettable shows that I then forgot about. However I've still seen way more movies from 2017 then 2018. And as far as ONAs go I've completed none from 2018 or 2019 but a handful from 2017.
Looking forward I still have more stuff I want to return to from 2017 then 2018, I'm still putting off LWA and Re:Creators.
Update again: Actually because I watched more 2 core shows from 2018, plus I completed Hugtto, I have indeed watched more episodes of TV anime in 2018 then 2017. I still feel like I have a better general picture of 2017. For 2018 a lot of the biggest events were ONAs of which I have still seen none. Of course from neither year have I seen any Movies that aren't franchise films.
Update: I skimmed my MAL and was suprised to find that the amount of TV Anime I've completed from 2017 and 2018 are exactly equal. I guess in 2018 I completed a lot of forgettable shows that I then forgot about. However I've still seen way more movies from 2017 then 2018. And as far as ONAs go I've completed none from 2018 or 2019 but a handful from 2017.
Looking forward I still have more stuff I want to return to from 2017 then 2018, I'm still putting off LWA and Re:Creators.
Update again: Actually because I watched more 2 core shows from 2018, plus I completed Hugtto, I have indeed watched more episodes of TV anime in 2018 then 2017. I still feel like I have a better general picture of 2017. For 2018 a lot of the biggest events were ONAs of which I have still seen none. Of course from neither year have I seen any Movies that aren't franchise films.
Saturday, January 4, 2020
The Rise of Skywalker has saved The Last Jedi
As much as I've sounded like a total TLJ hater for the last two years, a good 90% of what other people complain about didn't really bother me. By allowing Kylo Ren to be redeemed, and no it's not just the same as what happened with Vader, it has fixed my central frustration with The Last Jedi and so do genuinely now think that is a movie I can enjoy watching in the future. I still wish Han and Leia had more then just one kid, but these are the movies we got.
The Sequel Trilogy is still infinitely inferior to The Prequel Trilogy, and will always be less Canon in my mind then anything George Lucas was directly involved with. But as someone who's tastes in cinema are pretty modern these movies can still be more watchable to me then A New Hope.
The Rise Of Skywalker could have been better, this is not quite the movie JJ Abrams wanted to make.
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/?st=K4XMB15A&sh=bfb54b94
And I still think this plot would have been better if the villain was Snoke revealed to be Darth Plagueis instead of just Palpatine again. But it's a movie about Space Wizards made for children, they don't need to be perfect.
Now I shall address some common criticisms. But not what this video (A Guide to The Rise Of Skywalker) already covered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieoh178hBJ4
Rose Tico's role in this movie was a lot larger then I was expecting based on the way everyone complained about her being short changed. But yes her role is smaller then before and guess what, every Star Wars trilogy so far has someone in the third film who's not as important as they were in at least one prior movie. Lando's role was small in ROTJ and Jar Jar Binks doesn't even have any lines in ROTS.
"But lessening her role at all seems like appeasing the bigots" well guess what you can't write a story based on what people will perceive because of things that happened outside the story. They could have killed her off screen if they really wanted to pander to her haters.
And no I don't agree with the conspiracy theory that Jar Jar's role was lessened because of fan backlash either, his role was always going to decrease as the Trilogy got darker and there was less room for the childlike innocence he represents.
Likewise Rose's role in TLJ was entirety about how it effects Finn's development (a fact ignored by those loving or hating the film for how allegedly Feminist it was), Finn's development in this movie was different, her role there was already done. And I think it says more about the fans then the film that people assume Finn is now getting with the new Black Woman instead of Rose, I saw no real ship teasing there at all. It's not at all the same as with Poe's new girlfriend.
I would not have brought Palpatine back (well a decade ago I would have but I have grown as a writer since then). But the idea that Vader's sacrifice was for nothing because The Emperor isn't dead kind of misses the point. Vader was not redeemed because he killed someone, he was redeemed because he saved Luke. The Emperor as an individual dying is ultimately a small fraction of why that battle was such a devastating defeat for The Empire anyway, but regardless what did happen to Palpatine still rendered him out of the picture for decades. What ever peace and prosperity the New Republic did have before Starkiller base destroyed it was still entirely because of what the OT's heroes achieved at the battle of Endor.
That's another thing, a lot of ROS complaints seem like people finally realizing what this Trilogy's implications were all along.
"Rey killing the Emperor with Two lightsabers undermines all of the anti aggression messages of the prior films". Again, no not really.
Yes The Prequels are about how the Jedi lost sight of their true calling by fighting in a war, and Luke's throwing down his Lightsaber at the end of ROTJ is when he truly becomes a Jedi better then any we saw during the Clone Wars. But no the movies are not saying the Jedi need to stop using Lightsabers altogether. Luke does have his Lightsaber back when he's on Ednor again at the end of ROTJ if you pay close attention, and TLJ confirmed that he had it when he was training Kylo. Yoda said a Jedi never uses his power for attack but does say it is be used for defense.
In The Phantom Menace the Jedi Council is already losing it's way, however Qui-Gon Jinn is the last of what a Jedi should be, that's part of the Symbolic importance of his death. The Lightsaber duel with Darth Maul is how things should be, Maul drew his blades first and the Jedi were fighting him to defend the Naboo. But at the end of ROTS both Yoda and Obi-Wan draw their blades first.
The real comparison however for Reys' confrontation with Palpatine is to Mace Windu's. If Palpatine had kept firing his lightening while Windu's defenses were up till it killed him that would have been his own fault not Windu's. But he did stop and Windu's violation of the Jedi code in Anakin's eyes was attacking a Palpatine who seemed.to be helpless.
Rey resisted the temptation to attack Palpatine, but Palpatine's rage filled decision to keep attacking her is what killed him.
Linkara wants these movies to say Lightsabers are bad because he shares Denny O'Niel's opinion on Guns. I however share Karl Marx's opinion on guns.
The Sequel Trilogy is still infinitely inferior to The Prequel Trilogy, and will always be less Canon in my mind then anything George Lucas was directly involved with. But as someone who's tastes in cinema are pretty modern these movies can still be more watchable to me then A New Hope.
The Rise Of Skywalker could have been better, this is not quite the movie JJ Abrams wanted to make.
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/?st=K4XMB15A&sh=bfb54b94
And I still think this plot would have been better if the villain was Snoke revealed to be Darth Plagueis instead of just Palpatine again. But it's a movie about Space Wizards made for children, they don't need to be perfect.
Now I shall address some common criticisms. But not what this video (A Guide to The Rise Of Skywalker) already covered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieoh178hBJ4
Rose Tico's role in this movie was a lot larger then I was expecting based on the way everyone complained about her being short changed. But yes her role is smaller then before and guess what, every Star Wars trilogy so far has someone in the third film who's not as important as they were in at least one prior movie. Lando's role was small in ROTJ and Jar Jar Binks doesn't even have any lines in ROTS.
"But lessening her role at all seems like appeasing the bigots" well guess what you can't write a story based on what people will perceive because of things that happened outside the story. They could have killed her off screen if they really wanted to pander to her haters.
And no I don't agree with the conspiracy theory that Jar Jar's role was lessened because of fan backlash either, his role was always going to decrease as the Trilogy got darker and there was less room for the childlike innocence he represents.
Likewise Rose's role in TLJ was entirety about how it effects Finn's development (a fact ignored by those loving or hating the film for how allegedly Feminist it was), Finn's development in this movie was different, her role there was already done. And I think it says more about the fans then the film that people assume Finn is now getting with the new Black Woman instead of Rose, I saw no real ship teasing there at all. It's not at all the same as with Poe's new girlfriend.
I would not have brought Palpatine back (well a decade ago I would have but I have grown as a writer since then). But the idea that Vader's sacrifice was for nothing because The Emperor isn't dead kind of misses the point. Vader was not redeemed because he killed someone, he was redeemed because he saved Luke. The Emperor as an individual dying is ultimately a small fraction of why that battle was such a devastating defeat for The Empire anyway, but regardless what did happen to Palpatine still rendered him out of the picture for decades. What ever peace and prosperity the New Republic did have before Starkiller base destroyed it was still entirely because of what the OT's heroes achieved at the battle of Endor.
That's another thing, a lot of ROS complaints seem like people finally realizing what this Trilogy's implications were all along.
"Rey killing the Emperor with Two lightsabers undermines all of the anti aggression messages of the prior films". Again, no not really.
Yes The Prequels are about how the Jedi lost sight of their true calling by fighting in a war, and Luke's throwing down his Lightsaber at the end of ROTJ is when he truly becomes a Jedi better then any we saw during the Clone Wars. But no the movies are not saying the Jedi need to stop using Lightsabers altogether. Luke does have his Lightsaber back when he's on Ednor again at the end of ROTJ if you pay close attention, and TLJ confirmed that he had it when he was training Kylo. Yoda said a Jedi never uses his power for attack but does say it is be used for defense.
In The Phantom Menace the Jedi Council is already losing it's way, however Qui-Gon Jinn is the last of what a Jedi should be, that's part of the Symbolic importance of his death. The Lightsaber duel with Darth Maul is how things should be, Maul drew his blades first and the Jedi were fighting him to defend the Naboo. But at the end of ROTS both Yoda and Obi-Wan draw their blades first.
The real comparison however for Reys' confrontation with Palpatine is to Mace Windu's. If Palpatine had kept firing his lightening while Windu's defenses were up till it killed him that would have been his own fault not Windu's. But he did stop and Windu's violation of the Jedi code in Anakin's eyes was attacking a Palpatine who seemed.to be helpless.
Rey resisted the temptation to attack Palpatine, but Palpatine's rage filled decision to keep attacking her is what killed him.
Linkara wants these movies to say Lightsabers are bad because he shares Denny O'Niel's opinion on Guns. I however share Karl Marx's opinion on guns.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Anime 2020
I've decided for this year to try doing something similar to what I did with in 2018 with the Anime Weekly Updates tag. I'm gonna try it again because it helped keep this blog active even when I lacked inspiration for more specific ideas.
This year of course I'm not gonna feel quite so obligated to make it a weekly schedule, though it may often play out that way, the goal however is just whenever I feel I have enough thoughts for a good update. Because I mostly follow Simuldubs it may take a few weeks for it to properly start and then carry over into 2021.
This tag will chiefly be for Anime coming out this year, or at least Dubs that weren't available till this year. I may sometimes comment on what old Anime I'm watching or re-watching, but I won't feel obligated to. If one is interesting enough it'll probably get it's own post.
This tag will chiefly be for Anime coming out this year, or at least Dubs that weren't available till this year. I may sometimes comment on what old Anime I'm watching or re-watching, but I won't feel obligated to. If one is interesting enough it'll probably get it's own post.
Right now I'm currently following 6 Simuldubes that carry over from Fall 2019.
Azur Lane, who's last couple episodes were delayed but I just watched episode 10 which was pretty good.
Assasin's Pride, which I may not finish, but unlike the AniTubers who decided to talk about it, I'm seeing it intentionally or not as more of a Shoujo Anime, almost a throw back to 90s Shoujo.
Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front - Babylonia, which is proving to be a pretty entertaining show.
Kabukichou Sherlock aka Case File nº221:Kabukicho, which I genuinely think rivals Sherlock and Elementary as fascinating modern re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes.
CHOYOYU!: High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even In Another World! Is proving to be even more interesting then I expected.
Didn't I Say to Make my Abilities Average in the Next Life? Is a very Cute Girls doing Cute Things Isekai show.
Now for what's coming in Winter of 2020.
My top priority is A Certain Scientific Railgun T which I'm confident will get Simuldubbed even though it's not announced yet due to how both IndexIII and Accelerator were.
Magia Record, the new Madoka Magica spin off is on Funimation but that page has been including stuff they aren't actually Dubbing lately. The Madoka Franchise is generally Dubbed by Aniplex which means unless it gets on Adult Swim the Dub it will probably take awhile.
I will at least start Healing' Good PreCure when it starts in February, no guarantee I'll keep following it all year, I wound up dropping Star Twinkle around episode 12, nothing wrong with the show, I guess I just couldn't do the full PreCure thing two years in a row.
Since I did a post on The Clone Wars being like a Mecha show, maybe it'll include it in my winter 2020 coverage just for the fun of it. Where ever I choose to talk about it I'll probably be making Anime comparisons anyway.
Since I did a post on The Clone Wars being like a Mecha show, maybe it'll include it in my winter 2020 coverage just for the fun of it. Where ever I choose to talk about it I'll probably be making Anime comparisons anyway.
Right now that's all I know for certain I'm interested in for the Winter season. I suspect others will catch my attention in due time. For Spring I know I'll be keeping an eye out for that Otome Game Anime known as Hamefura.
I'm pretty sure Adult Swim will air SAO Alicization - War of Underwolrd at some point. Same with the final season of Attack On Titan. I don't know yet what the Lupin III project(s) for 2020 will be, but I wait for the Dubs no matter how long they take for those so I may not see any this year. There are also two 2019 Lupin III projects we're still waiting for the Dubs for.
I'm hoping the Dub for Heaven's Feel Spring Song comes out in November like the prior two films.
I'm hoping the Dub for Heaven's Feel Spring Song comes out in November like the prior two films.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
The Clone Wars is the closest thing Western Media has to a Mecha Anime
It doesn't quite officially qualify because there are no humanoid giant robots piloted by human pilots.
But it does feature Droids of various sizes fighting in a war (called Clankers by the Clones), and ace fighter pilots, and being Force sensitive is a little like being a Newtype.
And the stories it tells are frequently about how war is bad, how it's usually not worth it even if one does have a good cause, and this war's cause is quite questionable. It features Heroes On Both Sides but also evil everywhere.
This war is like the One Year War in that the Antagonists are the secessionists. And like in some Gundam timelines we know the Protagonists' side's victory will only result in them becoming a totalitarian dictatorship later on.
There are many female characters in Sunrise shows of the last 20 years I feel were based on Padme Amidala, though some perhaps are more like Duchess Satine.
Ahsoka Tano is practically an Anime Girl, she even has a vaguely Japanese sounding name (not the only one in Star Wars). And the fanbase does plenty of Yuri shipping her with Barris Offee (the first part of the Forces of Destiny - Ahsoka & Padme comic feels like a Doujinshi that had the H scene edited out). And there are some other Lightsaber wielding Waifus as well, like Aayla Secura, Luminara and Shaak Ti.
Star Wars as a whole has been drawing on Japanese Media from the beginning, first and foremost the films of Akira Kurosawa starting with The Hidden Fortress. And Japan has returned the favor with the Real Robots sub-genre of Mecha having Star Wars influence right from it's 1979 beginnings. I see no evidence of specifically Anime influence on the Original Trilogy, but it wasn't long till Anime started being a factor. Grand Admiral Thrawn I suspect was inspired by the aliens in Space Battle Ship Yamato and maybe also Macross, both had localizations Zahn could have been exposed to in the 80s. And my theories about Anime influence on the Prequel Trilogy may be the subject of a future post on this Blog.
The inability of the other Star Wars to work this way isn't just because of less literal Mecha, but the fact that once everything becomes Rebels vs Empire or Resistance vs First Order everyone's perception is too wrapped up in the perceived Nazi allegory to allow any actual nuance.
The Clone Wars is unlike most Anime in that it doesn't much matter if you watch it in order. For the first three seasons the release order wasn't the chronological order anyway. Some may find it weird how I'm more okay with watching this show out of chronological order then the Six Episode Movie Saga. But that's because this show is all filler to the Skywalker saga anyway. Those who think it actually fixed problems in the Prequel Trilogy are morons.
And the movie isn't the best first impression of the show, it isn't as bad as some make it out to be but it doesn't work as a theatrical film and is far below the show's high points. I can't just compare it to the filler movies many Anime have because it's also the beginning of Ahsoka being Anakin's Apprentice, including the reason he calls her Snips. But there isn't much you need to know, the gist is Anakin's assigned a Padawan and is at first not thrilled with the idea but warms up to her. Actually all that happens in the first 28 minutes and 10 seconds, the rest is basically just a filler movie.
My biggest divergence from most Clone Wars fans is I don't support bringing Darth Maul back, fortunately that doesn't really come into play till the end of season 4. And I'm not big on the Ventress and Nightsisters stuff either.
I wish I could share other fans' excitement for Disney bringing the show back. But the main reason Clone Wars is like a Mecha show is something I'm afraid Disney will tone down, Disney doesn't like it when people think Capitalism is bad.
The main selling point of the show was Ahsoka, and they kinda wrote her off. I suppose they could do stuff with her, maybe show how she starts on the path that takes her to where she was on Rebels.
I'd like to see more spotlight episodes for Aayla Secura, and an explanation for what happened to Barris.
YouTube has some MashUp trailers of Star Wars trailers and Code Geass that are pretty cool.
But it does feature Droids of various sizes fighting in a war (called Clankers by the Clones), and ace fighter pilots, and being Force sensitive is a little like being a Newtype.
And the stories it tells are frequently about how war is bad, how it's usually not worth it even if one does have a good cause, and this war's cause is quite questionable. It features Heroes On Both Sides but also evil everywhere.
This war is like the One Year War in that the Antagonists are the secessionists. And like in some Gundam timelines we know the Protagonists' side's victory will only result in them becoming a totalitarian dictatorship later on.
There are many female characters in Sunrise shows of the last 20 years I feel were based on Padme Amidala, though some perhaps are more like Duchess Satine.
Ahsoka Tano is practically an Anime Girl, she even has a vaguely Japanese sounding name (not the only one in Star Wars). And the fanbase does plenty of Yuri shipping her with Barris Offee (the first part of the Forces of Destiny - Ahsoka & Padme comic feels like a Doujinshi that had the H scene edited out). And there are some other Lightsaber wielding Waifus as well, like Aayla Secura, Luminara and Shaak Ti.
Star Wars as a whole has been drawing on Japanese Media from the beginning, first and foremost the films of Akira Kurosawa starting with The Hidden Fortress. And Japan has returned the favor with the Real Robots sub-genre of Mecha having Star Wars influence right from it's 1979 beginnings. I see no evidence of specifically Anime influence on the Original Trilogy, but it wasn't long till Anime started being a factor. Grand Admiral Thrawn I suspect was inspired by the aliens in Space Battle Ship Yamato and maybe also Macross, both had localizations Zahn could have been exposed to in the 80s. And my theories about Anime influence on the Prequel Trilogy may be the subject of a future post on this Blog.
The inability of the other Star Wars to work this way isn't just because of less literal Mecha, but the fact that once everything becomes Rebels vs Empire or Resistance vs First Order everyone's perception is too wrapped up in the perceived Nazi allegory to allow any actual nuance.
The Clone Wars is unlike most Anime in that it doesn't much matter if you watch it in order. For the first three seasons the release order wasn't the chronological order anyway. Some may find it weird how I'm more okay with watching this show out of chronological order then the Six Episode Movie Saga. But that's because this show is all filler to the Skywalker saga anyway. Those who think it actually fixed problems in the Prequel Trilogy are morons.
And the movie isn't the best first impression of the show, it isn't as bad as some make it out to be but it doesn't work as a theatrical film and is far below the show's high points. I can't just compare it to the filler movies many Anime have because it's also the beginning of Ahsoka being Anakin's Apprentice, including the reason he calls her Snips. But there isn't much you need to know, the gist is Anakin's assigned a Padawan and is at first not thrilled with the idea but warms up to her. Actually all that happens in the first 28 minutes and 10 seconds, the rest is basically just a filler movie.
My biggest divergence from most Clone Wars fans is I don't support bringing Darth Maul back, fortunately that doesn't really come into play till the end of season 4. And I'm not big on the Ventress and Nightsisters stuff either.
I wish I could share other fans' excitement for Disney bringing the show back. But the main reason Clone Wars is like a Mecha show is something I'm afraid Disney will tone down, Disney doesn't like it when people think Capitalism is bad.
The main selling point of the show was Ahsoka, and they kinda wrote her off. I suppose they could do stuff with her, maybe show how she starts on the path that takes her to where she was on Rebels.
I'd like to see more spotlight episodes for Aayla Secura, and an explanation for what happened to Barris.
YouTube has some MashUp trailers of Star Wars trailers and Code Geass that are pretty cool.
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