I'm still Watching Anime

Now that the Winter season has ended I decided to start checking out some stuff that wasn't Dubbed.

I watched three episodes of Slow Start, it's a solid Cute Girls show I'll probably watch more later.

I've watched the four Episodes released so far of that Fate/ Cooking show.  It's an amusing little side story.

I watched a few episodes of A.I.C.O. and have mixed feeling about it.

Hugtto PreCure remains a pretty solid Magical Girl Show.

For Simuldubs I gave up on PopTeamEpic, the rest I'd been covering I'm still following.  Katana Maidens is still the best.

The lack of activity on this Blog lately has been a combination of a sudden surge of things I wanted to do on my other Blogs.  Combined with my starting to do what others are doing and use Twitter for expressing random thoughts on stuff I recently watched.  Like this Pretty Sammy Thread.

Some of what I plan to do on the Comparative Mythology Blog is Anime related.

I'll hopefully have a lot more to say once the Spring Simuldubs start.

Barry Dennen is still the best Pontius Pilate

I just watched the NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar Live Performance of Easter April 1st 2018.  I enjoyed it, it was very good.

Ben Daniels as Pilate was solid, but Barry Dennen is still the best.

My parents had the original LP of Jesus Christ Superstar back in the day, and we'd rented the movie a few times.  So this Musical was a big part of my childhood.  Me and my brother used to sort of act it all out as we listened to the Album.

There was a phase in my time as an Evangelical Fundamentalist that I came to share the same hostility many of my fellow Fundamentalists have for it.  One disparaging reference to it exists on my Prophecy Blog.  But while I still consider myself a Fundamentalist I've mellowed on things like that.  Yes some Biblical Inaccuracies in it make me a little uncomfortable then others, mainly the "heal yourselves" part.  And Andrew Loyd Webber probably doesn't share my theology, but the Author is Dead and so there is plenty of value someone who does think Jesus was God Incarnate can take from this musical.  Because we also Believe Jesus was Human and sometimes we downplay that out of fear of disrespecting His Divinity.

So before the start of this year I hadn't watched or listened to it for quite awhile actually.  Then it so happened that a month or so ago we obtained the 73 movie on DVD and watched it.  And then I started looking for related YouTube videos of various kinds.  If anyone actually follows my Twitter you may have noticed my Tweeting about it a bit, like saying I'd like to see productions that get creative with the genders of the characters since Mary as the only Woman is a dated aspect of the Play that could use some updating.  And I've said plenty on my Blogs that can justify even having Jesus be played by a Woman.

If there is one area where I feel Jesus Christ Superstar is more Biblically accurate then most dramatizations of The Passion you see now days, it's in the characterization of Pontius Pilate.

The Gospels paint a relatively sympathetic picture of Pilate.  Many feel the Gospels inherently contradict what Josephus had to say about Pilate, but I feel that ignore the context of the picture Josephus paints.  And Josephus was not an eyewitness to Pilate's Governorship anyway.

Hollywood has a tendency, especially in the Old Epics, to have Rome=Fascism. Since Mussolini was a wannabe Caesar anyway he and Hitler both borrowed a lot of Roman Imagery, so it happens to come naturally for Roman imagery to evoke Fascism.  And since Pilate kind of represents Rome in The Passion narrative, plenty of film depictions have him be like Conrad Veidt in Casablanca wearing a Toga.

And then Mel Gibson's attempt to capture the Gospel's more sympathetic characterization kind of made him come off as...... I don't wanna say "weak" but as not someone you'd expect be a military Governor.

This Musical manages to find the right balance for how to depict Pilate.  And much of the credit for that goes to Barry Dennen playing the role in the original LP, the original Broadway run and the 73 film.  And so when I say he's the best Pontius Pilate performance, I don't just mean in productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, I mean period.

It's interesting even to compare the different performances Dennen gave.  He seems kind of like he was cast for his acting more then singing, though he had been in other Musicals.  So on the original Concept Album his performance isn't quite as polished yet.  You need to see the 73 film to really see him shine.

He has that particular kind of Accent that I see Actors use only when they're playing Patrician Romans, and that Nerds of my kind always love listening too.  I'm not an expect on counting Meter, but I think some of the Trial Before Pilate is in Iambic Pentameter.  But I also like the more subtle things that he was only able to do in the Movie.  Like how he uses his Hands during the flogging scene.

However I feel the key place where other Pilates fail in comparison is in those last few Lines he has at the very end.  Which Barry Dennen delivered very intensely and loudly, what some might call "overacting" but he sells it perfectly.  And it's those final lines that make me as a fan of Anime Dubs kind of want to hear the role portrayed by Crispan Freeman (something else I already mentioned on Twitter), maybe he's the one person who could compete at delivering those lines.

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.