Submitted 18 hours ago by wjs018@ani.social to anime@ani.social
Welcome to another general discussion thread! Feel free to use this thread to talk about things you have watched recently, questions you have, or recommendations you want to give!
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I watched Wolf Children, and you know what? Best Hosada film (that I’ve seen). It’s not even close. It turns out Hosoda can make a good movie when he’s not trying to shove metaverse bullshit into it.
I also went and got caught up to Goodbye, Lara. Wow! This is a great show! in a normal season it would be an easy pick for my #1 but right now it’s difficult to choose between this and Daemons of the Shadow Realm, Re:Zero, and Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia.
Kinda fun that I watched these two things in the same week; they’re the closest things I’ve seen to Miyazaki movies that didn’t have Miyazaki’s involvement.
Completely agree on Goodbye, Lara! It’s such a sweet and endearing show. I’m a little sad it’s almost over.
The Miyazaki comparison is so accurate. I’m particularly stuck by how things move, like the witch zooming around compared to No Face and other similar monsters.
ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 13 hours ago
I watched the Akira 4K remaster in the theater yesterday. Also the 1st time I ever saw Akira (I know…).
And tbh, I don’t get why it’s so highly regarded. Like, the animation was sick (especially for the time), but the rest felt so underdeveloped. It also didn’t help that I couldn’t stand Kaneda and Tetsuo.
wjs018@ani.social 10 hours ago
This pretty much reflects my experience as well. Though, like you, I didn’t watch Akira until relatively recently, so that probably has something to do with it. Experiencing it in the late 80’s/early 90’s might have left a very different impression. From reading retrospective reviews, lots of critics praise it these days for the impact it had on the industry as much or even more than the story it was trying to tell. Short story time…
A couple years ago, my partner and I decided to watch through all of the AFI Top 100 movies, and there were plenty on that list that I genuinely thought were pretty bad. However, in reading about them after watching them, they are on the list because of the tremendous impact they may have had on the industry; special effects innovations, directing techniques, etc. I kind of lump Akira in that kind of basket these days. It was a technical showpiece that had an outsized impact on the rest of the industry, especially the actual animators who have inserted countless Akira references into their art over the years.
ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 9 hours ago
I mean, a lot of the animation is still impressive today. And I guess it’s probably been a big influence for the cyberpunk aesthetic in anime and manga (if we ignore Bladerunner). But in terms of story-telling? I’m not sure what unique thing it was doing at the time. I see many reviews still praising its story and its message.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Tbh, this is the only reason why. The story is severely underdeveloped, but at the time big improvements in tech were what sold audiences.
I kinda feel the same way about the Star Wars: A New Hope. The story was fairly anemic and did a poor job of explaining anything that was going on. It felt like an old Greek myth in terms of how things just happen as opposed to a continuous series of cause and effect. But A New Hope revolutionized media because it was the first movie to really depict alternate worlds well, giving it that technological advantage at the box office that ut wouldn’t get if it released today