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Author Topic: General Anime Talk/Reviews  (Read 44224 times)

Tequila

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #30 on: November 17, 2014, 02:00:06 PM »
This is one of my favorite threads.
'What am I doing? I'm quietly judging you'
http://letterboxd.com/Tagave/

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #31 on: November 17, 2014, 02:25:31 PM »
And here I was thinking no one would notice its return. :D

1SO

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #32 on: November 17, 2014, 03:06:20 PM »
Oh no. It's been noticed.

roujin

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #33 on: November 17, 2014, 06:47:17 PM »
Post noted.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #34 on: December 27, 2014, 10:49:14 PM »


7 Hero Show Association Circle

Following the protagonist’s decision to participate in multiple clubs, this episode one focuses on his time in the Hero Show Association where he dresses up and teaches kids virtuous lessons on heroics.  Faced with the prospect of three different women, this time he makes a choice and decides to run off with Kaori, the sex doll of another man he’s been charged to protect.

All in all, this episode is maybe the weakest of the lot. The circle feels the least interesting out of all of them so far and it repeats the most elements we’ve seen from a previous episode. However, the conceit of running off with the sex doll is still pretty hilarious and it’s probably one of the funnier episodes in the show.



8 Reading Circle SEA

The final club of the protagonist’s three-pronged membership is the Reading Circle. The protagonist finds the name and address of a woman in a book Ozu gives him and begins a correspondence with Keiko. Once again faced with the same prospect, the protagonist choses Keiko, who he believes embodies his ideal woman. He has anxieties about the lies he’s presented in his letters, but he believes he can overcome that. Sadly, he finds that he too has been deceived and that the correspondence was started as a prank by Ozu with the aid of Akashi.

While the trifecta of girls helped evolve the story, it’s good to see the show show finally circles back to Akashi as the love interest. This episode also gets into how building relationships through proxies (in this case letters) can lead to harmful and upsetting lies that end up hurting both people involved. This can easily be extrapolated to the modern day troubles of online dating with trolls abounding in Tinder and similar services.



9 Secret Society Lucky Cat Chinese Restaurant

For once in the show, the protagonist finds himself able to achieve a masterful amount of influence and power in his chosen circle. It is not without some hardship. He joins a secret society involved in all sorts of shady activities and initially finds himself failing even the simplest tasks. Ozu helps him out and eventually gives him leadership over the bicycle thieves gang. The protagonist ends up stealing Akashi’s plane and when she berates him, he suddenly feels something is lacking in his life in spite of how much he enjoys his powerful role in his life.

In probably the most blatant theme of the entire show, this episode rails against how even with power, affluence, and respect, the protagonist fails to find the true joy and happiness he seeks from campus life. In fact, this might be the loneliest of the stories so far. In spite of his power, his only real friendship with Ozu is more business than anything else.



10 The 4 ½ Tatami Ideologue

Seeking to not encounter the disillusionment of campus life, the protagonist decides to live as much as possible in his 4 ½ tatami room. He extols on the virtue of the space, how its simplicity, symmetry, and elegance provides him with all he needs to truly be happy and fulfilled as a person. He does his best to avoid all contact with others, solitude his highest virtue.

From this setup, this episode breaks into something truly strange. The protagonist finds himself trapped in a building filled with nearly identical versions of 4 ½ tatami rooms that seem to represent different versions of his campus life. The rooms are depicted live action rooms as the protagonist remains animated. It’s a strange, almost Kafkaesque setup as he explores the spaces of his alternate life, trapped and alone. It’s perhaps the saddest of all of his lives.



11 The End of the 4 ½ Tatami Age

Carrying over from the last episode, the protagonist is still trapped in the building of nearly identical 4 ½ tatami rooms. He eventually returns to his initial room and realizes the pattern of each room: Akashi’s mochiguman dangling from the light cord. In every life he let the opportunity dangling in front of him pass by. He seizes the opportunity this time and breaks from his trap. From there, the episode flies off into some truly crazy fun stuff that I’ll leave to be seen by interested readers.

Finally coming to a close, the series suggests that life opportunities present themselves are often missed and not taken in order to live lives of complacency. The protagonist throughout the show often leaves the world to act on him instead of initiating action. He must seize opportunity and take risks in order to gain something out of life. If life is to be lived, you must be the one to live it.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #35 on: December 28, 2014, 08:33:26 PM »
FLCL



1 Fooly Cooly

What the hell. I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but this is pretty high up there. I’m not even sure how to describe this episode. A boy named Naota (Jun Mizuki) is hit by a woman, Haruko (Mayumi Shintani), on a Vespa scooter and the bump he gets from the accident grows into two robots that fight each other. Haruko claims to be an alien of some sort and fights the robots with a chainsaw electric guitar. On top of that Naota hangs out with Mamimi (Izumi Kasagi) who is his brother’s girlfriend, but gives him a lot of inappropriate attention, including giving him hickies since his brother is over in America.

And while the plot is crazy, the animation style is even crazier. While the general look is this nice thin, pop look, the show often on a whim shifts into all kinds of other styles. There’s the sketchbook look that pops up from time to time in moments of surprise, there’s also the sharp, flashy look of intense action. At one point, a scene is rendered like the pages of a manga book as the camera pans from frame to frame. And everything is done in this frantic, rapid style with a lot of rapid editing and quick pans.

After the first episode, I’m really not sure what to make of all this. It does have this wild rock and roll vibe: a complete breakaway from the rules and the idea of order and consistency in favor of something frantic and loud. There’s a bold enthusiasm on display, but I’m not sure if I think its brash noise or righteous music at this point.



2 Fire Starter

Haruko turns one of the robots into a servant and also takes up residence in Naota’s home as the housekeeper. Somehow his dad and grandfather have no problem with a teenaged woman sharing a room with Haruko and generally bumming off of them. Meanwhile, Mamimi becomes obsessed with this game about starting fires to the point that she ends up believing the robot is some sort of deity of black flames and ends up worshiping him. Haruko also is suffering another growth after the last robot attack and it too eventually turns into a robot that Naota fights. However, this time Naota is able to go inside the robot and become a superior version of the robot with insane firepower. Which means one thing: explosions that would make Michael Bay cry tears of wonder.

With a second episode, I’m getting a better feel of the tone. This one isn’t quite as wild with the animation style but still has that intense energy and abandonment of logic and cohesion for the sake of doing something crazy, hilarious or awesome. There’s also a bit of a structure emerging with another abnormal growth leading towards another bad robot being born and another epic robot fight to cap off the episode.

The show is also starting to flesh out the world. Naota claims nothing interesting happens even amid all the spectacular events of his life, but there’s clearly something at work here being teased. Perhaps the central mystery is the medical plant in town that emits a mist each day. Haruko tries to investigate and comes up empty.



3 Marquis de Carabas

Naota finds himself the unwanted center of attention of Ninamori (Mika Itô), a classmate who is playing lead opposite of him in a version of Puss in Boots. Ninamori also finds herself caught up in unwanted attention as the pending separation between her father (the town mayor) and mother creates a scandal. Naota’s growth this time takes on the form of cat ears, oddly paralleling his school life in a strange way and in an accident with Haruko, Ninamori discovers his secret. Ninamori eventually makes an advance on Naota and he goes ballistic. Later at school they have a fight that results in Naota’s growth being passed to Ninamori somehow moments before a robot spawns and another epic robot fight happens.

This episode makes me wonder a bit if the conceit of the show is a metaphor of sorts for teenage angst and romance. I’m still not sure what growths that turn into giant robots might say about the process of adolescence, but there seems to be some sort of connection. Or maybe I’m thinking way too hard about something that’s slightly controlled insanity. In any case, the robot fight here is awesome, which might be all that matters.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #36 on: December 28, 2014, 08:38:43 PM »
I feel like this is my big contribution to the forums now. I do plan on getting back to more movie reviews next year.

I'll obviously be finishing up FLCL next. Then I plan on posting on Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I started Samurai Champloo but I put that on pause to watch FAB before it leaves Netflix. I already have some written, but I'll probably save that for after I post through FAB.

I never expected to get this much into anime. roujin has ruined a good man.  :P

roujin

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #37 on: December 28, 2014, 08:41:23 PM »
Save of some of those for a podcast!

Also: FLCL is great. The teenage angst/growth stuff is definitely a big part of it.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #38 on: December 29, 2014, 02:39:08 PM »
When are you going to watch Persona 4: The Animation and Danganronpa?

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Sam Watches Anime
« Reply #39 on: December 29, 2014, 04:56:06 PM »
After I beat Persona 3?

I'm cool with adding stuff to the list if people have more recommendations. Oldkid gave me one, other members are willing to speak up if they have a show they think I should watch. If you think I'd like it, I'll add it to the pool.