Winter 2018 Simuldubs disconinuted for now

I simply haven't had enough to say.

Just know I'm still enjoying the shows I've been watching.

Citrus and Katana Maidens are still the best.

The 2001 Metropolis by Madhouse may be the most Aesthetically Perfect Anime Film.

Digibro has a video called Aesthetic is Narrative, which defends liking an Anime for mostly purely superficial "aesthetic" reasons even if the writing doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  But the Anime in question there was Kabanei of the Iron Fortress, which I haven't gotten around to watching yet.

This year I watched the Metropolis Anime, and it is an Anime that keeps getting refereed to as something visually impressive but not all that well written.  And I think that film is far more worth defending for it's purely Aesthetic accomplishments then a show about Steampunk Zombies.

The movie version of Akira is also an Anime film that is visually groundbreaking but who's plot doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  But Akira is not dismissed on those grounds nearly as often as Metropolis is, which I think is unfair given how Metropolis's plot holds up better then Akira's due to it only being inspired by a much larger Manga and not really an adaptation.  Metropolis's disadvantage is having not as many Nostalgia points since it wasn't an entire generation of Americans' first exposure to Japanimation.  It seems to me like Japan doesn't revere the movie nearly as much, we in the West sometimes put Akira on the same level as Miyazaki, which I suspect would be laughed at in Japan.

The Metropolis film takes Themes from two prior works named Metropolis, the 1927 Fritz Lang silent classic, and a 1949 Manga by the Grandfather of modern Manga&Anime Osamu Tezuka.  Tezuka's Manga was inspired in concept by the the idea of the Lang film, but Tezuka hadn't actually seen it.  So that's what makes this film drawing on both a very interesting experiment.

Pause and Select did a video on how they relate to each other on a Meta Level, but it kind of doesn't hold up that well once you've actually seen the movie.

My point about the Film's Aesthetic appeal however is that it's not just inspired by those two works named Metropolis, but by the greater tends they represent.  It's the Art Deco style Sci-Fi of the early 20th Century, meeting the Mid 20th Century art-style that defined Manga and Anime for decades.  The Metropolis Manga was one of Tezuka's earliest works, but this movie drew on his entire legacy, and is perhaps the best example of seeing his style applied to modern Anime techniques.

And in the process of doing all that style blending, it is also a film that I can tell uses both hand drawn animation and CGI, but I honestly can't tell which parts are which, it seamlessly blends them better then any other Anime I've seen.

And it has some fun Music as well.

If I made a 3x3 of only Anime Movies, this would probably make it.

Winter 2018 Wimuldubs Week 7: SURVIVAL TACTIC!!!

Katana Maidens episode 7 was very good, my already high confidence in this show has risen even higher.

Death March to a Parallel World Rhapsody episode 6 was pretty interesting.

PopTeamEpic episode 7.  Some of these jokes go on a little too long, not unlike Family Guy.

Overlord II episode 6 starts a new arc, one I think I’ll find much more interesting.

Citrus episode 7 begins the Matsuri arc, I love Matsuri.

Wow, this is my shortest recap yet. 

I happen to also be re-watching Mawaru Penguindrum right now, also Dubbed.  There is no other Anime where I put as much thought into how I would re-imagine it in an American setting.

I'm tired of this Vendetta against Netflix being carried out by Crunchyroll's Privateers.

Netflix has the potential to help the Anime Community grow by making a lot of Anime easily available to lots of people who don't currently usually watch it.  Because half the Country already has Netflix.

So I don't care about the waiting for binge release stuff since I'm not gonna recommend a show to a Normie till I've seen at least a full season already anyway.  And I like that everything they get gets Dubbed pretty quickly.

The only thing that has been keeping Netflix Anime besides Devilman Crybaby from being the potential new entry points they could be, is the people already into Anime not doing their part of that equation.

Kakegurui was talked about by English Language Anime YouTubers when it couldn't be watched legally.  Even though one of them is a pretty Anti-Piracy.  So they expressed whatever opinions on it they wanted to express when only people who knew how could watch it, complaining about Netflix's release policy while doing so.  But then never brought it up again at all when it's Netflix release finally happened last February.

I'm tired of hearing people say Mother's Basement isn't actually on Crunchyroll's Payroll.  A traditional Payroll has never been how how one makes money on the Internet.  The fact remains it's in his interest for Crunchyroll to keep making money.

And his anti-Piracy videos saying the one exception he allows is if they're not legally selling it to you at all, I find rather disingenuous considering how he clearly counts Netflix shows in that.  If I were an anti-Piracy person, I would consider the "not legally selling it you" exception to be totally invalidated if they are promising a legal release in the near future.  If it's selfish to to pirate cause you don't wanna add subscriptions to several different sites to the bills you have to pay, it's equally selfish to pirate because you don't wanna wait a mere six months.

So his making mostly negative reviews of Kakegurui while justifying his piracy of it, while at the same time condemning any piracy of the shows Crunchyroll is selling, makes it clear he is effectively their spokesman, officially or not.

Now Kakegurui may not be the best example of a show that could have been Normie accessible.

But the fact remains, these same YouTubers will also complain about how quickly a show loses relevance, and that people don't talk about old Anime enough.  Maybe instead of being mad at Netflix for not catering to that problem, you should try to help them be a solution to it.

So if you have something to say about a show Netflix picked up, consider waiting till it's Netflix release to make that Video or Blog Post, it'd make the Analysis more informed if it's not rushed out while the show isn't done airing.

And in the meantime talk about shows already on there, both exclusive and non exclusive.  Maybe make some videos dedicated to whichever ones you think would make the best entry points and explaining why.

YouTubers keep complaining about being slaves to what's Trending on YouTube, but if you all worked together you have the ability to decide what's trending also.

I'm a fan of all the YouTubers I was just alluding to, this is a friendly constructive criticism.

Winter 2018 Simuldubs Week 6: Halfway Point

I’ve decided I probably shouldn’t keep talking about Hugtto PreCure while I’m putting Simuldubs in the titles of these posts.  Since I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking it has a Simuldub when it doesn’t.  So I’ll probably make a post on what I think so far later down the road.  For now I’ll just leave by saying that there is no way the main character is straight.

The rest are all Simuldubs.

Katana Maidens episode 6 continues to be highly entertaining.

Death March to a Parallel World Rhapsody episode 5 managed to make me a little uncomfortable.  I’m hoping they just got that out of their system.

PopTeamEpic episode 6 is still funny. 

Overlord II episode 5.  It seems like this was indeed the end of the Lizardmen arc.

As of episode 6 Citrus has finished the basic setting up of our main cast, and can now start getting into the really fun storylines.

I don't have too much to comment on this week.  But I have a few reasons to think next week will be more exciting.

Winter 2018 Simuldubs Week 5: Already have a show of the Year Contender

Hugtto Precure episode 3 was different than I expected.  The third girl is going to take a little longer to awaken.  I am quite interested in the character, having a fairly Bifauxnen look at school in the first two episodes, but we now know she does like dress to femininely as well.  Makes me wonder just how much she might be modeled after Makoto.

As of episode 5, I feel ready to say on this blog that I think Togi No Miko aka Katana Maidens has the potential to be the Anime of the year.  Especially since I know it’s gonna be two core.  I’d kinda said this in comments sections and on Twitter already.  But now I feel firm enough about it to say it on my blog.  Things could go somewhere I don’t like later, but for now it’s doing great.

Death March to a Parallel World Rhapsody episode 4 managed to be it’s most engaged episode so far.  At one point the Music sounded a little bit like something out of Noir, but that may be just me.

PopTeamEpic Episode 5 was pretty funny.  I don’t think I’m ever gonna have anything more to say about this show other than whether it was funny or not.

Overlord II episode 4.  Ya know, even just one year ago I would have been compelled to make David Icke references through all this Lizardman stuff.  At any rate Ains managed to outdo Xerxes in 300.

It’s really weird seeing a Lytch Evil Overlord quote Jesus to his council of monstrous Dungeon bosses.

In episode 5 of Citrus, the show finally goes a whole episode without any sexual assault.  It was a good episode.

So the Live Action Sword Art Online is going to be done by Netflix.

And like when the Death Note project started I don't know if it'll be a series or a movie.

With Death Note I have always been adamant that that should be a serialized story.  But Sword Art Online is more complicated.

The first Web Novel was a stand alone project originally.  And as such I think it could work as a stand alone film, though it would need to be longer then the Death Note movie was.  However if it's a movie I think I'd be a shame to miss out on getting a theatrical release.

Thing is, some of my personal favorite stuff from Aincrad wasn't in the original Novel, but based on the short stories written for the second novel. Like Scillica and Lizbeth's episodes.

Later on SAO however becomes something definitely written in the hopes it would get an Anime.

Now as far as the inevitable debate about westernizing it.  Which I don't know if it'll do that but it probably will.  I'm not against adapting stories to a different setting, it just depends how it's handled.  I feel a lot of the inherent outrage would die down if the American lead could be a type of American other then White for once.  In this case if I were doing it I would have both Kirito and Asuna be ethnically Japanese, even if I set it in America, and later that would add Suguha.

Fortunately the show has a pretty well written African American character right in the source material.  Seriously I don't think people appreciate how much credit SAO should get for not drawing Agil like an early black face cartoon.  That look is still pretty common in Anime because Japan just doesn't know why it happened or why it's offensive.