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Post by astraldreams on Jun 20, 2022 19:56:13 GMT 1
[...] Fantasy racism and fantasy microaggressions are brought up, but to explain fantasy racism further, the show also gets into the life and childhood of an important political figure in this universe, and how he navigates racial issues being a particular kind of monster. And then to get into it even further, half of an entire episode is a gritty war flashback to fantasy-holocaust, just to explain why one nameless character in the previous guy's part wasn't racist to him. [...] I haven't actually watched this anime, but Nachtkern did show me the episode he describes here, and I just want to second how utterly wild it all was. Like, I knew what was gonna happen going in, because he'd already talked about it before, but I did not believe it would be this much. Absolutely and without question the most bizarre experience I've had with maybe any show I've ever watched. The personal highlight was the main characters showing up for like, half a minute at the very beginning of the episode and then never again. Anyway, speaking of things that were not at all what I expected and also very bizarre, I'd like to talk about Belle (2021). Going in, I just knew about the pretty basic premise - a beauty and the beast adaption/inspired story, but with a modern world VR environment spin to it - and that it was supposedly a really pretty movie. It certainly delivered on the visuals part- easily one of the most beautiful movies I've ever watched, the whole VR environment was amazing, and all the different character designs in it were fun and cool. 10/10. It's hard to do it justice with pictures, but here's some anyway to give you an idea: As for the plot, though... The basic gist of it is fairly simple. It's about a shy teenage girl named Suzu, who's living in a small rural town and has been struggling with pretty much everything, ever since some events in her childhood. But one day she finds out about a massive virtual world called "U" and once in it, her online persona Belle quickly becomes a star as a widely beloved singer. There is also a beast, as is to be expected from a beauty and the beast inspired story, and there's some back and forth on if she can get closer to him or not. So far, so good, right? But then it goes absolutely off the rails. Spoilers for the movie, as well as CWs for child abuse and parental death. {Spoiler}One of the main things Suzu struggles with is singing in public (and in general), as it is something she used to do with her mother. When she was a young child, her mother died while saving another little girl from a flooded river, and ever since then Suzu has pretty much stopped singing. So, her becoming a singer in the virtual world is a pretty essential plot thread, and pretty nicely executed. It shows her gaining confidence there, her singing is something that brings her and the beast closer together, and ultimately she has to drop the persona of Belle and sing as herself- it's a nice storyline that shows her regaining confidence and reuniting with something that used to be important to her. I actually really enjoyed that aspect of it!
But the beast... Knowing that this was a beauty and the beast inspired story, I personally spent most of the movie under the assumption that the beast would turn out to be one of Suzu's classmates whom she has a crush on, and the two would first get closer in the virtual world, then discover who the other is in real life, and end up dating. That is not what happened. Over the course of the story, Belle keeps trying to get closer to the beast; at first mostly just because she's interested in who he is, but after some time she gets increasingly worried about him, as he has a breakdown that implies he's struggling with some things IRL and also is covered in bruises (which she assumes to also be linked to the real world). Turns out, the beast is a young teenaged boy (probably around 12 or 13 years old) with a younger brother, who is being abused by his father.
Once Suzu finds out about this, she is determined to find out where they live in the real world and attempts to get their trust by revealing she is Belle; the communication gets interrupted before they can give her their address, but eventually she manages to deduce their general location anyway. They live in Tokio, so, naturally, she gets on the next train and travels there all on her own. Once there, she walks around aimlessly for a while, before seeing the two boys out on the street and giving them a hug. Their father exits the house enraged and threatens to beat them again, but Suzu stands up to him so he backs away.
And then she leaves. Tells the kids goodbye and goes back home. The end. If this sounds a bit weird or perhaps even nonsensical to you, no, that's not me doing a bad job of recapping it- that's just the movie! I watched this together with two friends, and once the credits rolled we spent about 30 minutes just going "??????". I struggle to even call it a bad plot, because it hardly was a plot at all? It was just incredibly confusing, I really don't understand why the producers did anything the way they did, and the conclusion didn't even feel like one. Anyway, I had a great time watching it and I recommend you do as well. It's a really beautiful movie.
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Post by Nachtkern on Jun 21, 2022 13:09:10 GMT 1
Anyway, speaking of things that were not at all what I expected and also very bizarre, I'd like to talk about Belle (2021).
OH MAN... Belle... we watched that together with ceci I think, and it was such a baffling experience that right afterwards I knew I had to watch Weathering With You ( AP page) with them to balance the experience out. There are plenty of movies that are both really gorgeous but also have like... something of a comprehensible story. Belle spoilers, abuse mention: {Spoiler} It wasn't that Belle was so bad in theory - the beast turning out to not be a love interest but a young child was a twist, but not necessarily a bad one. It was sort of appropriate even - in the current day and age, family TikTokers who adopt children for views are a real evil and a burden that fits the beast better than being like... cast out or society for being a furry. It could've been something. It just didn't go anywhere after that! They presented such an oddly real problem, and then decided that every adult in this show, even the ones who had been responding realistically to everything before this, was just gonna let her go to a giant city unattended, without a plan or address, to... confront an abusive grown man. Nothing changed about the situation the children were in, other than that they felt a little braver meeting the protagonist, and then she just went home. It was all sorts of anticlimatic, and such a weird turn of events. But I can do you one better than Belle: if you want to see beautiful VR worlds and a drama set in the digital realm, you should watch Summer Wars ( AP page) or the second Digimon Movie ( AP page), both works by the same director as Belle. I say "or" here, because they're the same movie. Originally a Digimon movie, the same staff rewrote the movie as an original work (without the Digimon) named Summer Wars. It's about a group of children who try to save a virtual reality world - very similar to the one in Belle, with a similar visual aesthetic, too. Wolf Children and Mirai are by the same director, too, and are very lovely movies - Belle is just kind of, not his best piece. |
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Post by lentlsoup on Jun 22, 2022 2:03:07 GMT 1
Maybe not THE worst ever, but it is one that I remember a lot for being disappointing, and that is Mekaku City Actors. I have to second this. I used to be a huge kagepro fan back in the day, I followed all the songs, kept up with the manga, read summaries of the light novels (at the time i was a fan official translations of the light novels werent even out yet) and i dragged mothclown into it in high school by drip feeding him the songs slowly LOL. so i was EXTREMELY stoked when the anime adaptation was announced. The anime started off pretty strong, but the adaptation of events was so horrendously paced and executed that I ended up dropping it entirely. I had intended to pick it back up once the anime ended and binge it (thinking that it'd be less of a bad experience that way) but after hearing the way it ended, I never bothered picking it back up. I think its true that the anime kind of expects you to be familiar with the songs, since even WITH knowledge of the songs and everything going on I just found everything to be really vague and confusing.
The thing with the songs is that, since they're songs, there's only so much they can do with the medium and a lot of information in the music videos is portrayed vaguely or symbolically, and part of my excitement towards the anime adaptation was looking forward for a more concrete way to tell the story, since they had the ability to tie those threads and explain things without the restriction of a just songs. Similar to mothy's Evillious Chronicles if you're familiar with it; a lot of the songs are straightforward, but there are also a lot of instances where the imagery in the lyrics and music videos are intentionally vague, leaving you unable to know what's symbolic and whats meant to be literal, and his light novel series adapting the songs gives satisfying explanations and ties all his works together in a satisfying way.
Mekakucity actors on the other hand, despite having actual dialogue between characters and scenes, feels like it portrays even LESS information than you would just watching the song pvs. The worst part about it though is that you can't even read the manga or light novels or listen to the songs to get the intended story experience that the anime tried to portray. I mean you could get the background of characters and general gist of the backstory, but this is where it gets a little tricky. As bird mentioned kagerou project/mekakucity actors is a time loop story, but none of the adaptations actually tell the full story. Every different adaptation of the series (the songs, manga, anime, and light novels) actually represent a completely different story route, or "loop" in-universe. There is an actual chronological order to all the adaptations, starting with the songs, then manga, then light novel, and the anime was intended to be its conclusion. While this is a fun idea in concept it, as you might imagine, just kind of makes the whole thing an entire mess to experience. It might be the reason as to why the anime didn't bother explaining things to its audience but even so it didn't really do anyone any favours, fan or not. I personally love wacky mixed media shit like this but in the case of kagepro/mekakucity actors, the way its handled just made the whole thing feel not worth it.
All that is part of why I didn't enjoy the anime and stalled watching the rest, but the reason why I dropped it entirely has to do with the way I heard it ended. Okay to be completely honest I was about to put a spoiler tab here to explain what I didn't like about the ending while trying to summarize as briefly as I possibly can (because it requires explanation of the logistics of the universe and world it takes place in) but i found myself digging through wiki articles to make sure im remembering right because I got confused trying to remember things and then I decided I did not want to do that so I erased all of it LMAO but to just get to the point of what I didn't like, I think some of the previous adaptations/story routes were better endings than the anime which was supposed to be the actual ending of the story. The true ending went against all the parts I liked about the story as a whole and just left a sour taste in my mouth, which ultimately led to me dropping All investment I previously had with the series as a whole.
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Post by Nachtkern on Jun 22, 2022 18:20:46 GMT 1
I have to second this. I used to be a huge kagepro fan back in the day, I followed all the songs, kept up with the manga, read summaries of the light novels (at the time i was a fan official translations of the light novels werent even out yet) and i dragged mothclown into it in high school by drip feeding him the songs slowly LOL. so i was EXTREMELY stoked when the anime adaptation was announced. The anime started off pretty strong, but the adaptation of events was so horrendously paced and executed that I ended up dropping it entirely. I had intended to pick it back up once the anime ended and binge it (thinking that it'd be less of a bad experience that way) but after hearing the way it ended, I never bothered picking it back up. I think its true that the anime kind of expects you to be familiar with the songs, since even WITH knowledge of the songs and everything going on I just found everything to be really vague and confusing. Again, I don't go there, but all of this is absolutely fascinating! Sounds like some horrible decisions were made and that this anime really sucks - but in a completely unique way. Kind of makes me wish I could experience the disappointment too, but I don't see myself getting into something so complicated retroactively just to see how bad it actually was. Thank you (and bird) for telling me about it LMAO. |
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Post by bird on Jul 16, 2022 18:55:38 GMT 1
Oh boy oh boy have I just remembered an anime perfect for this thread.
Let me introduce you to!
Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace.
Rampo Kitan is a 2015 anime following investigations around multiple murders. It was inspired by the work of Edogawa Ranpo and was made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his death. It's a really short anime, only 11 episodes but my god does it have issues. The only good things I can say about the anime: the opening's music honestly bangs, there was some mildly interesting visual ideas in the way they played with crowds being mainly faceless until the main character acknowledged them within his inner world...
As for the rest... Well let's just go down a non-exhaustive list of all the issues I can remember from the top of my head.
WARNINGS: Spoiler for Rampo Kitan (obviously), sexualisation of minors, endangerement of minors, murder/violence, pedophilia
{Spoiler} Literally all three of the main characters are minors, and are constantly subjected to seeing and investigating horribly violent cases. From what I remember barely any adults in the show does anything to stop them doing that. Two of the main characters are literally 13 and the oldest is 17. Like there's suspension of disbelief and then there's "literally absolutely insane situation you just gotta ignore"
- Kobayashi, one of the main characters (you know one of the fucking 13 years old), is often mistaken for a girl, they often use this fact by making him crossdress (which that in itself would be fine were it not for the rest) and making really weird sexually charged jokes about how his best friend, another 13 years old, feel about him despite them being both boys and therefor "wrong", you get the gist of it.
- Speaking of Kobayashi, this androgynous nature is also used as justification for the show to constantly make him the prey of absolutely disgusting predators. In the first plot line of the show, it's revealed that the murder victim had literally fallen in love with him, except the murder victim was his HOMEROOM TEACHER???? And literally the episode right after that they dress him up as a girl to be KIDNAPPED BY A GUY. Like their entire goal was to put him in explicit danger so they could see the guy kidnapping him and track him down. The guy only kidnapped young girls, and has brutally murdered most of them. It's an incredibly uncomfortable plot line and when you consider the previous sexualisation of this 13 yo it becomes even more uncomfortable.
- Again with the weird sexual tension in a show whose main characters are all minors, the opening, while having banger music, has some really. Strange visuals associated to each characters who are all very reminiscent of BDSM masks. And yes, that includes the minor characters. Because sure. Why not.
- The show's writing was honestly just. Not good. I will forever be mad about this one specific plot twist, so let me explain it: everytime there's a murder we get a sort of wacky autopsy scene with a character called Minami. Her scenes are often just gigantic break in the narratives, and feel more like a fourth wall break rather than actual genuine scenes. Which was fine...! Until it was revealed that Minami was one of the murderer they were chasing down in an episode... And this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that we've literally NEVER seen her outside those surreal scenes. Genuinely, I did not think she was a real person in the narrative up until that point. We literally learn everything about her backstory, personality, motivations all within ONE. EPISODE. So I think that should give you an idea of how much of a mess this show was.
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Post by Nachtkern on Jul 18, 2022 21:02:55 GMT 1
Oh boy oh boy have I just remembered an anime perfect for this thread.
Let me introduce you to!
Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace. Oh that sounds like a show I'd hate too LMAO. Both because it seems disappointing in execution, but also just because the whole sort of genre isn't for me - I just don't really enjoy shows that are mostly about terrible things happening to kids. They can be well-executed, and I can appreciate it when they are, but it's not for me even when they're well-made, and when they're bad, they're usually some of my most hated shows. It's for that reason I don't like PMMM for example, but that's a whole can of worms for another day. Most of the time I watch stuff I wouldn't like anyway, I know what I'm getting into, but sometimes my reading comprehension fails me. For example... Mezzo ( AP link) is a pretty fun bounty hunter show with good action and a cute found family dynamic. Mezzo Forte, the original OVA, is a hentai. Like, 10+ minute long explicit sex scenes at a time wedged in between the action scenes. Now, if I had read the tags on the show before watching it I would probably have seen the "explicit sex" tag on it, and maybe, I would have reconsidered if this would be for me, however... tragically, I did not read. (Also, a warning to those of you who need it:) {Spoiler}The hentai itself isn't great either - it's rape porn, so even if you tend to be the morbidly curious type, definitely pass on this one. |
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