What Anime and Animation are you currently watching?

[Jeffbert]

Was looking at an wiki page for FUNMATION, & found out that the 1960s FANTASTIC VOYAGE cartoon is available on YOUTUBE. Watched #1, was not thrilled.

 

[HareBrain]

Just finished The Dragon Prince S6 on Netflix.

I was struggling with this, just as I struggled with S4 and S5, which I thought a marked drop in quality compared to S1-3. Partly this was weak writing, partly annoying voice acting. Then for E7-9 I switched to the French dub and the improvement was huge (though I think E7-9 is also much better written). More expressive, less annoying, and the young male characters sound their ages rather than being stuck pre-puberty. I might watch everything in French from now on.

 

[Jeffbert]

Fairy Tail has a new series! FAIRY TAIL 100 YEARS QUEST has 7 episodes available on CR at this time. Far too few for my preference, so after watching 3, I must wait a few weeks before resuming. As far as I can tell, the voices are the same.

 

[Peppa]

I'm watching The Seance Notes again.

 

[Jeffbert]

TERMINATOR ZERO, 1st 4 episodes.

Cool!

 

[Jeffbert]

TERMINATOR ZERO, finished all 8.

Going way back to TTZone's In His Image, every time they show a cyborg or robot's wounded / damaged arm, it is the left & the wound/damage reveals mechanical parts under the skin, on the palm side of the forearm. Here also.

 

[HareBrain]

I tried watching Terminator Zero but the opening scene was terrible. The terminator fires a minigun at the fleeing character who's only a few metres away. Every one of the hundreds of rounds strikes the floor around her feet. Why was it shooting at her feet, when it's been shown to be very accurate previously? BECAUSE PLOT ARMOUR, that's why. I really don't get how writers don't realise that this kind of crap absolutely kills stakes and tension. Or is it just me?

 

[Cat's Cradle]

No, HB, my wife and I had the same reaction. The terminator (who had no personality; maybe they're not supposed to, but that's not what we saw after the first movie) hit every other thing it was shooting at almost instantaneously. This was bad. And a terminator having no personality (or rather, maybe no strong screen presence) made it nearly impossible to care about them as the enemy.

Even worse - and we watched only the first two episodes - about half the story was devoted to a childish anime (the main science dude's children). We never considered watching beyond two episodes; and two episodes of a terminator series should have been more than enough to hook a person (ex - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Big disappointment with this one, for us.

 

[Jeffbert]

Now I feel stupid!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Apologies, @Jeffbert! This is why I seldom post opinions here... I try to be cognizant of posting anything negative because others might enjoy the thing I'm being negative towards. Times are too difficult to be even unintentionally unkind.
Sorry - I always enjoy your posts, and I feel bad that one of mine contributed to your having to post the above.

 

[HareBrain]

Now I feel stupid!

Well, you could argue that developing a set of nitpicky critical faculties that means you hardly ever get to enjoy something might not be too clever either.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Yeah, agree with HB. I personally can be way too critical, way not-clever about these things.

 

[HareBrain]

I don't think it's something we can really switch off, though. We are who we are. What I think of as slapdash writing probably annoys me now more than it did in my youth because as a writer I try to make sure everything works -- and, really, good writing shouldn't be any more expensive than bad as far as a show's producers are concerned. When I do come across a show that does everything "right" in my eyes (such as Andor) it's a real joy.

I can "turn my brain off" when a show really appeals to me for reasons other than plot. So if I'd been a huge fan of the Terminator franchise as a whole, I might have got through this. Or if they'd built up the main character beforehand.

 

[Jeffbert]

SPY x FAMILY CODE: White; O.k, A ton of machine gun fire, & the guy misses every time. But, Anya is ssooooo cute!

loved it!

 

[alexvss]

The First Slam Dunk (2022). Great animated movie. A very tense high school basketball match with flashbacks showing the past of the players. Flawlessly directed and very inspiring. Available on Netflix.

 

[alexvss]

Avatar. I didn't have Nickelodeon back in the day, as did everyone else, and I've been neglecting it for so long (it's been on my Netlifx to-watch list). It's great! Especially the worldbuilding. And the action, without any blood and with goofy sound effects, feels very refreshing.

 

[alexvss]

New teaser for Netflix's Devil May Cry is just out. I don't dig Dante's voice, and the release date is a letdown!

 

[Jeffbert]

Rick & Morty: The Anime.

As I recall, the original R&M was funny. R&M: the anime is not funny, though it is interesting.

Morty becomes the 3rd character (to my knowledge] to be buried in space. Spock was #2, while Ross Martin's character in CONQUEST OF SPACE was #1.

 

[alexvss]

Uzumaki. A town gets sucked in the concept of spirals itself (pun intended).

Finally a good adaptation from the works of Junji Ito. There were two bad anime series and a movie (which I haven’t seen), but Uzumaki by Adult Swim is the only one that lives up to the hype. It was worth the wait.

Highly recommended.

 

[Jeffbert]

Via TUBI, I watched Pastel Yumi. Several years ago, a few anime studios got together to make certain series available to stream with English subtitles. This was one of them. Magic girls is a rather enjoyable genre.