Watching any anime?

[Grefter]

Tokyo Godfathers is very concrete for Kon because that is the kind of movie it is.  He adapts to fit the style.  Best Kon movie is pretty much all about the viewer, this has shown it.  I am trained in Psychology stuff, so Paprika is for me.  Cid is all about old movies, so Millenium Actress is for him.  Jim is all about pretending to be a female pop star so Perfect Blue is for him.

[Bardiche]

I second Paprika being awesome. I went into it going slightly, "Meh", then came the music, then came the awesome, and by the end I was a massive fan.

[NotMiki]

Paprika's visually the most impressive of the lot, but I'm not thrilled with the woman-as-unattainable-object-of-desire idea behind it.  There's nothing wrong with exploring the dynamic between men and the women they idolize (see: Blue, Perfect) but the ending, where the menfolk still see her in pretty much the same way, seemed a bit shallow to me.  That opinion may change if I see it again; the main character, whatever-the-hell-her-real-name-is, certainly has depth, and her own romance cuts against that grain, but somehow that seems more like an aberration than an affirmation.  Maybe.

[Grefter]

Women as an object of desire is very Freudian.  Paprika is all Freud all the time.


Noein - This just in like AS we watch it.  Guy just chucked a giant hissy fit and scribbled all over the wall in lipstick he gave to a wench that just unplugged her meth bungie cord.  Hilarious.

[NotMiki]

Women as an object of desire is very Freudian.  Paprika is all Freud all the time.

My question: so what?  Paprika has a Freudian setup and fantastic visuals, but does it add up to more than the sum of those parts?  Or is there something else in the mix (not just spice, but substance) that I'm missing here?

[Grefter]

The answer is because it doesn't have to change the message or what it is about to be more palatable, it takes the Freudian concepts in their entirety and present it to you in spectacular imagery.  If you cut those elements out of it you are just making something pretty with dream interpretation getting a nod.  It is about taking the whole thing and putting it on display.

Of course women as an object of desire is incredibly base, disgusting and a little offensive, that is why it is pure Id, you know the part that is being suppressed, controlled and used for its strengths while having its weakness overcome by the higher levels of consciousness that make the world normal and regular.  That is part of the textbook Kon style hopeful ending in the face of adversity.  At the end of the day, yeah we ackowledge that it isn't nice, but there is an answer to it.

The obsession part is just far more prominently on display in Paprika for most of it because it is so solidly smack bang in the Id, I dunno, maybe it isn't really there and it is all in my head and I am just inserting more into the movie than is there.

This is of course rambling and disjointed.

[NotMiki]

Nah, I think what you're describing is there, and if you come at Paprika from the direction of most anime (a direction that is somewhat though not entirely legitimate; there's a pretty big gap between TV stuff and movies) it certainly deserves kudos for addressing the women-as-objects thing rather than merely employing it.  But I feel like the final message here is that the ideal way for men to fantasize about women is as muses rather than sex symbols.  That's certainly more palatable, but all it amounts to is sanitized sexism for the schlubs.  I dunno.  Maybe I'm focusing too much on the men and not enough on Atsuko.

Perfect Blue provides quite an interesting counterpoint; obsession with feminine perfection inevitably spirals into mental instability and collapse.

[Grefter]

Oh yeah Perfect Blue (Somehow?) gives a far better feminist view on females.  Freud just looks really good compared to the rest of his era and well yeah Paprika is true to the source material there.

[NotMiki]

Not that I think it was made for pedantic reasons, but Perfect Blue confronts the sexism toward women that exists both in men and women (and in the object of desire herself), which is why it works so well in my opinion.  Kinda like a much more extreme version of Rise's stuff in P4.

[Hunter Sopko]

Yeah. Rise's stuff was on track to make really poigiant, hard-hitting points on the nature of sexism and the pop culture industry in Japan, but it just completely pulled off at the last moment and tiptoed around it.

[NotMiki]

I think that's fine for P4.  the dungeons all reveal the stuff people don't want to talk about; none of the characters face the issues their dungeon personae bring up directly after the fact.  I felt the larger point there was that the cast can be normal even though they still have pent up issues, can live with them by acknowledging them without either ignoring them or agonizing over them.

[Sierra]

TTGL: Yeah, I watched it. Wasn't really impressed. While on some level I can appreciate the ridiculousness of a humongous mecha piloted by another humongous mecha, this kind of thing doesn't really do much for me beyond a moment's chuckle. I'm not sufficiently entertained by Refuge in Audacity to enjoy a show built on it. Perhaps it's an accomplishment that I didn't hate the show given that I'm averse to mecha and shonen in the first place, but eh, having a hard time finding anything complimentary to say (I suppose it's visually distinctive? Even though it's not a look I care for). Some of the music was okay, I guess (mostly this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOBG3CCew7Q). Ultimately, it goes in the "watchable, but completely average" category. I should probably just stay the heck away from Gainax for my own sake.

Also, the entire show couldn't have happened if the Anti-Spirals didn't completely fail at life. Spoilers, I guess: Dudes, if you are so convinced that people are a threat to everything that exists, you should kill them all the first time around. You don't leave a handful of survivors and say, "We'll come back and wipe you all out once there are a million of you." And don't give them a warning when you come back to finish them off! Just do it! Don't say, "You're dead in three weeks," because that gives them time to plan. And if the moon is going to fall on the Earth and kill everyone anyway, why bother harassing them with attack ships beforehand? It just gives people a chance to become familiar with your technology. Even Dr. Evil would be ashamed of giving an enemy this many safety nets.

Have to say, most amusing random detail about the show was Lord Genome being totally cool with the heroes using his severed head as a computer.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

No Shonen would be able to exist if at least one entire spectrum of their casts wasn't too dumb to live.

[Cmdr_King]

Huh.  No love for Yoko?

Anyway, to your spoiler bubble: They actually raise this point in the series (episode 26, when he's talking to Lordgenome's Head), and the Anti-Spiral King doesn't answer.  While you could say that it's just they got a bit squeamish at the idea of universal genocide of intelligent life, I think it's more related to their overall tactics.  Since they know that Spiral Power runs on raw determination, their entire strategy is an exercise in trying to break their enemies spirits as much as possible.  So I've always thought that they decided not to wipe out life because, ultimately, they couldn't, or at least couldn't safely.  Mop the floor with them and let them limp back to their homeworlds, you get broken, spiritless people who won't rise up again for generations.  Try to wipe them all out, and once people realize it's win or die, they get increasingly more desperate and determined.  Trying to wipe out all intelligent life in the universe could easily lead to the survivors generating exponentially more spiral power and bringing about the spiral nemesis just fighting back.  Nevermind of course it was pretty much the entire rest of the universe they were fighting against; trying to wipe out an entire species just gives all the other ones that much more time to figure out how to beat you.
Also note that, by all evidence, Lordgenome basically set up the entire Humanity Anhilation Moon Drop scenario himself, or had some hand in doing so.  If we suppose that this was a common happening for most races... Given that the Anti-Spirals were just one planet, convincing the great warriors of various planets to brutally oppress their people themselves is just that much more efficent.

This incidentally is one of the things I love about the show, it can actually hold up under shocking amounts of analysis, rare for the genre.

[Sierra]

Eh. I'm not really convinced.

Immediately after the anti-spirals are wiped out, Earth is contacted by other spiral races. This suggests to me that the anti-spirals were somehow blocking communications between them for all that time. They knew the instant the millionth human being was born and had even gone to the trouble of having the Messenger inserted into the human gene pool just so that they could one day have a really dramatic way to gloat about the ultimate fate of humanity (I can't see any reason for Lord Genome to rig the moon to fall except as a really crazy last-ditch attempt to motivate people--crazy even by the standards of this show, yes). It looks to me like they retained both significant influence over and awareness of the goings on of the spiral races throughout the thousand years after the war. A million people really isn't very many, especially when they're disorganized and poorly equipped (which it seems like humanity was for most of the time before Team Gurren got active). And for all the chatter about the anti-spirals having won the war because no one could find their homeworld, you don't win a war by simply being hard to find. Leaving the spiral races as thoroughly crushed as they were (less than a million human beings left?) requires some pretty overwhelming power.

I have to conclude that the anti-spirals could have eliminated humanity long ago with little difficulty had they chosen to do so. I think the closest the show actually comes to explaining why this didn't happen is in the various ramblings about inflicting "absolute despair" on humanity, which sounds less like a genius strategy and more like them being just really vindictive jerkasses. You didn't kill everyone because you wanted to draw out their suffering? Okay, whatever. To me, all of this just reads like a jury-rigged excuse for the plot to exist.

...Which is totally in keeping with my conclusion that show's reason for existing is the ludicrous action sequences and the plot is just there to give them a reason to happen. But hey, you did write out a long explanation and it warranted a response.

And I didn't really get attached to anyone in the cast, no. Yoko can score points for being fanservice that's actually competent in a fight, I guess. (Does she ever actually miss?)

[Ultradude]

Full Metal Panic, original 24 Gonzo episodes. I have to say, it exceeded my expectations for the most part. Genuinely actually managed to be funny when it tried (usually) and while the combat needs more budget, I like the Arm Slaves. Arbalest has a very practical weapon load for a mech who's special power is 'lol magitech'. The mechs feel pretty military for something 15m tall and walking on two legs, though I'd have liked them to keep the size smaller like the novels (apparently). I'm kind of a RK-92 fan as grunts go, the froggy look kind of grows on you. The Tuatha de Daanaan is also a freaking submarine for the crew's base/battleship, which is sexy.

I like the characters too. Sousuke... yeah, I see the Heero Yuy comparisons, but he's not that severe, and being FMP it's played for laughs. Kaname is a bit... too good at things, though at least she isn't piloting an AS and defending herself against armed soldiers, so she's not overly perfect or anything (also, that temper). Kurz is a bit much sometimes, but still not damning, and Mao is pretty entertaining. I was surprised by how much I liked Tessa though; the last couple episodes cemented that a fair bit. Gauron was generally a fun psycho, and then I watched 'The Wind Blows at Home' episodes and kind of more cared about him dying than being funny, though I know I'm being overly sensitive about that. The minor supporting characters were never terribly annoying, which works for me. Kalinin is pretty badass to boot.

Solid enough, though I've heard that The Second Raid and Fumoffu are both better in different ways. Good thing my good friend bought those as well ^_^

[Cmdr_King]

That really kinda surprises me.  Gurren Lagann, as a show, is really based on emotion more than anything else.  That is, the plot and battles are rather bluntly designed to maximize the impact of the big climatic scenes, with one of the techniques involved being to make the characters expressive and easy to empathise with.  Or at least, that's how I think of it.

[hinode]

Personally, my best guess is that The Anti-Spirals were specifically trying to *avoid* killing all sentient life. A universe completely devoid of life (aside from all of those anti-spirals who are basically in hibernation and effectively dead) isn't really much different from a universe that's been destroyed practically speaking, so sorta like Lordgenome they instead opted to merely contain the various races and keep their spiral power in check.

That still doesn't justify not instantaneously zapping Earth once they decided humankind needed to be put down, admittedly. Maybe the anti-spirals grew arrogant over time and decided to showboat their fancy tech instead of opting for a more practical method; here they really were acting as necessary for the plot to work.

[Twilkitri]

Gurren Lagann vol. 2

Well, the hot springs episode can go die in a fire. Interestingly they have the 'tv version' of it on the disc as an extra, but I don't plan on seeing what difference that makes any time soon.

Thylimph or however you spell it sequence was good, although I expected the takeover to have a more dramatic effect than it did.

And then we have the first episode with Nia, which was held back by Simon's understandably bad mood. All up it wasn't the greatest disc of all time.

Now to wait a month until the next volume comes out. On the plus side, Gundam 00 volume 1 is coming out at the same time, so I have more to look forward to.

On a related note, the powers that be are actually preparing to deign to grace us with some UC Gundam in the form of 0083 Stardust Memory. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come, but even if it isn't at least they had good taste in their machinations.

[Shale]

The TV version is the hot springs episode and a recap episode! Yeah, not worth bothering with.

[Ultradude]

Stardust Memory is always a good thing. Even if you don't like the characters, delicious GP series Gundams, Gerbera Tetra, and mobile armors.

Speaking of which, ordered third and fourth of five 2-disc volumes of Zeta Gundam at $8 a piece plus S&H. I suddenly love Rightstuf very much.

[Sierra]

Well, the hot springs episode can go die in a fire.

Needs more fire.

[Cmdr_King]

Personally, despite a mild distaste for overt fanservice of that nature, I can't help but feel that the intro to Episode 7 really does pay off the hot springs episode >.>

[Sierra]

Baccano: Okay, this is vastly more my style. Four episodes in, off to a good start. Don't disappoint me here, guys. Isaac and Miria in particular are inspiringly dim--it's like there's a little bit of Butch and Sundance mixed into each episode.

That mob boss in episode 4 has to have been modeled after Jon Polito.

[Ultradude]

5 eps into Gundam X, continuing my streak of mecha anime that would've been interrupted by Baccano if my HD hadn't died. While there are many differences, the overall style of X is vaguely Wing, though Garrod's more likable than Heero. Other than that... um... Jamil's pretty cool, and I like some of the Gundams.