*The* Anime Thread.

[Doc_Scorpion]

My watchlist for the season:

Bofuri 2

Buddy Daddies *

Ippon Again *
Tsurune - Linking Shot
UniteUp!*

* indicates shows that are still on probation, will be re-evaluated after ep3 and again at mid season.  Buddy Daddies in particular is headed for the chopping block unless Ep3 improves considerably.

Overall, not a very impressive season...  Unless you're a rabid fan of cookie cutter isekai and vapid rom-coms.

Definitely looking forward to Dr Stone: New World.  I dropped One Punch Man just a few episodes into the second season and have no plans to catch up and return.

[Glacier Peak]

4 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

My watchlist for the season:

Bofuri 2

Buddy Daddies *

Ippon Again *
Tsurune - Linking Shot
UniteUp!*

* indicates shows that are still on probation, will be re-evaluated after ep3 and again at mid season.  Buddy Daddies in particular is headed for the chopping block unless Ep3 improves considerably.

Overall, not a very impressive season...  Unless you're a rabid fan of cookie cutter isekai and vapid rom-coms.

Definitely looking forward to Dr Stone: New World.  I dropped One Punch Man just a few episodes into the second season and have no plans to catch up and return.

What did you think of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury?

 

And My Hero Academia Season 6 is awesome so far!

 

I really enjoyed Spy X Family also. 

[Bad Luck]

I would like to see One Punch Man season 3 do the Monster Association Raid and Super Fight arcs, but there's a lot of ground to cover first.  And the Raid is so long.  But those arcs in the manga were awesome.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

What did you think of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury?

I'm enjoying the heck out of it...  dat cliffhanger tho...

My Hero Academia, definitely solid.  But Spy X Family, the first cour was way better than the second.  But I'm told it gets better soon.

[Doc_Scorpion]

Three episode rule post:

Bofuri - feels rushed and off, lacking a lot of the charm of the first season.  Still, keeping.
Buddy Daddies - keeps feeling just on the edge of getting good.  It'll be a miracle if it makes it past mid-season.
Ippon Again! - I just keep falling in love again with each episode.
Tsurune - Kyoani is back at the absolute top of it's game.  And then a new episode airs and you redefine "top of game" because the previous was inadequate.
Unite Up! - Is taking it's own sweet time getting underway.

Holdovers from last season:

My Hero Academia - keeps going from strength to strength.  And it's still in the setup phase!
Play it Cool, Guys - remains stupidly charming.

[biostem]

I'm rather enjoying Campfire Cooking.  I initially liked Eminence in Darkness, but it's gotten silly to a fault as the series progressed.

[Doc_Scorpion]

On 2/1/2023 at 10:25 AM, Doc_Scorpion said:

Tsurune - Kyoani is back at the absolute top of it's game.  And then a new episode airs and you redefine "top of game" because the previous was inadequate.

As I was saying...

[Bad Luck]

Shadows House is really good.

[Doc_Scorpion]

18 hours ago, Bad Luck said:

Shadows House is really good.

I've heard good things about it, but didn't find out about it until the 2nd season and haven't had any time to watch the first.

[biostem]

21 hours ago, Bad Luck said:

Shadows House is really good.

I liked the first season.  I really need to start the second.  It's a real mind trip!

[UltraAlt]

Japanese manga artist Matsumoto Leiji dies

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230220_43/

 

 

A Japanese author renowned for his cosmic epics has died. Matsumoto Leiji created "Galaxy Express 999 " and "Space Battleship Yamato" --- manga and anime that popularized the space genre.

 

 

The smash-hit titles also made it to the silver screen, delighting audiences the world over. He earned prestigious honors from both the Japanese and French governments. Matsumoto's signature drawing style was characterized by his meticulous attention to detail.

 

He relied on extensive research and his own family's history. Many of Matsumoto's works were influenced by stories his father told him about life as a pilot in the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Army.

He said, "My father told me his eyes met those of an American pilot, who he thought might have family and children. But he had to be a devil and shoot down the enemy plane."

 

 

Matsumoto was also known for his works of historical fiction. He said he spent half a century trying to depict the foolishness of war, stressing the importance of life.

 

He said "My hope, dream or wish is that someday there will be no more war."

 

 

 

Matsumoto died in a Tokyo hospital from heart failure. He was 85 years old.

----

 

Born: 1938, Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan

Died: February 13, 2023

[Doc_Scorpion]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:31 AM, UltraAlt said:

A Japanese author renowned for his cosmic epics has died. Matsumoto Leiji created "Galaxy Express 999 " and "Space Battleship Yamato" --- manga and anime that popularized the space genre.

Yamato (as Star Blazers) was my gateway to anime back in the day...  That and Shogun miniseries that aired a couple of years later were basically the start of me becoming a Japanophile.

[Dynamo-Joe]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Yamato (as Star Blazers) was my gateway to anime back in the day...  That and Shogun miniseries that aired a couple of years later were basically the start of me becoming a Japanophile.

My Journey was very similar. I was already an avid fan of sci-fi - even before the days of Star Wars. I was introduced to TV Sci-Fi of course by syndicated reruns of Star Trek in the early 70s ( I watched, but hid behind the couch as a 7-8 year old when the Doomsday Machine episode aired. Heh. ). I also loved Space 1999.

Then of course Star Wars hit like the proverbial BOMB in the American zeitgeist and I was an avid fan of that. ( later I rode my bicycle about 2 miles down to the local mall theater and back on 7 consecutive Saturdays during the 1980 Texas heatwave and saw Empire Strikes Back 14 times (twice each of those Saturdays). ) 

Concurrent to that I was an avid watcher of cartoons - and it's entirely possible, given my personal timeline and preferences as a kid, that I might've seen the ANIMATED Filmation Star Trek series FIRST, and THEN started watching the original. But I'm unsure of that. 

But among other things, I watched Speed Racer and Battle of The Planets - without really understanding that both were from Japan. Battle of the Planets in particular kept my interest in the waning years of the 70s and my (then) waning interest in animation in general. American animation at the time was - with a few notable exceptions - dying. Particularly on television. Stupid, repetitive fare. Not even the Animated Star Trek or Flash Gordan shows were that good (though later on, I discovered how hard Filmation had tried make things work with shoestring budgets and limited animation and still tell decent to good stories. They were simply doomed from the start by higher powers.) 

And then I was disappointed to see adverts from the local independent TV station that was running Battle of the Planets that something new was going to be taking it's place. Disappointed, but... then... VERY interested. Because this looked very VERY interesting! 

 

Star Blazers. 

 

Lets's start off with the first ten minutes of the first episode. We see Earth - and it's clear it is Earth from the outlines of the continents - but it looks overall more like MARS. No oceans. Burnt orange looking like her sister 4th planet! The Grizzled voice of Admiral Avatar describes how the Gamilon Planet bombs (asteroids with Nuclear critical cores) have essentially razed the surface of the planet - and how the populace is hunkered down in underground cities to escape the radiation on the surface. Earth's last major space fleet is going out to confront the Gamilons near their base at Pluto. 
You watch Earth - US - the good guys - against the aliens fight one of the most spectacularly animated (for those days) space battles you've ever seen. 

AND WE LOSE. BADLY.

All of the ships of the fleet save for Avatar's are destroyed, and that one ship is damaged and limping back to a planet that is no longer a respite! 

 

That's the first 10 minutes! That is HEAVY STUFF for a cartoon!

 

Can you imagine how INSANELY HOOKED I was as a 13 year old? The rest of the episode gives a glimmer of hope as a mysterious Queen Starsha of Iscandar has sent us plans for a Faster than Light drive that would allow us to get to her planet to pick up a device that might heal Earth of all the damage it has suffered. And we get a first glimpse of the sunken Yamato - still called Yamato at this point - though they'll soon change the name to ARGO by the 3rd episode for Star Blazers. (A surprisingly apt choice of replacement name for the time - since if you look at this first series in broad strokes it does definitely echo the ancient myth of Jason and the Argonauts!) 

The second episode is where we get the big reveal that what appears to be a long wrecked WWII Battleship... actually... isn't. Up from underneath the rust and mud launches a brand new Space Battleship in response to a Gamilon Attack (they finally figured out something weird was going on in the area and were finally attacking) and the power of the Yamato/Argo is beyond belief! 

It's also one of THE COOLEST DESIGNS FOR A SPACESHIP OF ALL TIME. (THANK YOU MATSUMOTO-SENSEI!!!!) 

Yes - it doesn't make NEARLY as much logical sense as some ships that had come before (or after) in TV and movie Sci-Fi - but HANG the sense of it - a literal SPACE BATTLESHIP - with energy weapons replacing shells - but the guns overall still looking very much like the old WWII counterparts - with the great WAVE MOTION GUN in the prow. And able to launch it's own fighter wing for support... 

RULE OF COOL man! RULE OF COOL! Sometimes you just have to GO with it to really appreciate it! 

Look - I'm as much a fan of HARD Sci-Fi as anyone.  I know that ships like the classic Space 1999 Eagle, The Rocinante from the Expanse, and the Discovery from 2001 have their OWN version of cool. But sometimes - and especially in anything done by or influenced by Matsumoto-sensei - you have to let all of that go and roll with the ROMANTICISM. 

( And to tie it in with the salute to Matsumoto-Sensei - a similar aesthetic - perhaps even more so - applies to Captain Harlock's Space Pirate Ship ARCADIA. Yes - the flag flaps in the non-existent air - IN SPACE. And I DON'T CARE!!! :D  )

 

I somehow managed not to miss ONE SINGLE episode of this series for its entire first run in 1979. We didn't have a VCR at that point in time (though we soon would) so I often recorded episodes on cassette tape from a recorder laid down in front of the TV Speaker in the living room so I could listen to it again later. Later on I did record my own copies of the series. And then later yet when they became available, I bought commercial tapes and later, DVDs. 

I became such a fan that I attempted to kit-bash a model of the Missouri into a space battleship. I had gotten about 80% of the way there before I found an ACTUAL model of the Yamato in my local comic store. While I'm still convinced I could've done a credible job with the kit-bash, it was SO much better to have the model. 

And - ironically - I found my first "Roman Album" (a type of "information guide" and visual reference to an Anime TV series or Movie that Japan produced at the time). 
I say - "ironically" because it was NOT a reference guide to Yamato. But to the feature film MY YOUTH IN ARCADIA - the origin story (at least one version) of Captain Harlock. Now I had NO IDEA who this Harlock guy was. But he was the COOLEST character I'd seen since Star Blazers first started airing. And he - and the cast of characters from this film - and his ship - the Arcadia (in her green variant) were OBVIOUSLY by the same guy who had done the designs for Yamato. 

 

Not long after that discovery, I attended my very first convention ever in 1983 - a one-day affair called "Yamato-Con" held in Dallas. And made contact with a whole bunch of other crazy folk like me who loved this stuff - and helped introduce me to the wider world of Anime in general. 

I was there at the beginning of American Anime fandom. I even helped put together the first national Anime Convention - Project Akon. A form of which is still running today. (Sadly - the original owners sold it and it's gone corporate now as of about 2015 or so. I consider the TRUE Akon convention to be dead at this point.) 

I could continue to write and talk about my adventures in Fandom. And in the past, I have. And in the future, perhaps I should again. But this single post is already TOO LONG. 

 

Suffice to say - I have a lot of history in Anime. And most of it starts with Matsumoto. 

Of course I knew his passing was inevitable. But I am still sad he's gone. I comfort myself with the fact that I still have yet to experience ALL the worlds and variations of his works that it's possible to see. And Space Battleship Yamato is STILL going strong in a new iteration under new hands. 

( EDIT: I used the word "Cartoon" instead of "anime" several times in reference to Star Blazers above - I was trying to write from the perspective of myself from THAT TIME when I didn't even know the word "anime". 

In fact - here's a bit of language amusement for you - most anime fans didn't know that word either when I first entered the fandom. We had to make do with the clumsy portmanteau "Japanimation" to describe our hobby. It was late in 1984 when several independent translators discovered the word "anime" and we began using THAT. 

And yes - "Japanimation" sounds vaguely offensive these days. What can I say - it was a different time - and it was a linguistic kludge anyway. We ditched it as soon as we had something better. And the word anime IS better. Fewer syllables for one thing! Easier to say! )
 

Edited February 21, 2023 by Dynamo-Joe

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Dynamo-Joe said:

My Journey was very similar. I was already an avid fan of sci-fi - even before the days of Star Wars. I was introduced to TV Sci-Fi of course by syndicated reruns of Star Trek in the early 70s

My start was TOS on a black-and-white TV...  and being very, very annoyed my parents wouldn't let six year old me stay up late and watch it when it was moved to late Fri nights.  On top of that we lived in FL at the time, and could step out into the front yard and see the contrails of the Apollo launches.

I should mention that Space Battleship Yamato was redone as Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 in 2012 and it's awesome.  Well worth watching.  It's available on Crunchyroll.
 

In cooperation with another blogger, I did and episode-by-episode watch...
https://apprenticemages.com/category/uchuu-senkan-yamato/page/3/

[Dynamo-Joe]

17 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

I should mention that Space Battleship Yamato was redone as Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 in 2012 and it's awesome.  Well worth watching. 
 

I have seen that and let me tell you - as an old school Yamato fan - Yamato 2199 (and 2202 - and 2205)  - THIS is how you do a Reboot/Remake RIGHT!!! 

Let me absolutely GEEK OUT here on an example of how the reboot takes elements of the original but reworks them - not necessarily for realism - but for internal consistency. This is less for your benefit, Doc_Scorpion, so much as others who might not know. I assume this is all familiar to you. :D

The Yamato in the remake is bigger than the original. But not by TOO much. JUST enough to fit in things properly (and even then several elements are downscaled to how they were portrayed in the original. 

The fighter bay and the much smaller Wave Motion Engine room (that the hanger surrounds) were - aside from the ship being significantly larger than the original canon (333 Meters vs original 265) - were arguably the biggest internal departures from the original depiction. And they are absolute ingenious additions to the concept. (more below)

In the original, there was actually supposed to be an open space in the middle - a short "runway" ending in a drop out of the rear hatch downward. On either side of that "runway" were "Shelves" where the fighters were stored/parked. Three(3) levels high (though animation mistakes sometimes made this Four(4) levels high)) and 4 rows back on either side for a total of 24 spaces.

There was actually supposed to be an UPPER Fighter bay where a similar arrangement (reversed) led to two launch tubes forward of the catapult launchers. This fighter bay was almost never shown in operation. In total the original fighter complement of the original series Yamato was supposedly 48 fighters.

Needless to say - if you do the geometry, (particularly taking note of the MUCH larger engine room somehow sandwiched between the lower and upper fighter bays) this is WILDLY impossible, and the original Yamato would've had to have been somewhere around 600 meters in length for this to even get close to working as portrayed. The original series Yamato had to be part TARDIS! The length of the ship was always canonized at 265 meters despite all of this because that's nearly exactly the length of the original sea-going battleship Yamato and the producers insisted that it stay that way.

Why? Because the original Space Battleship was supposed to be LITERALLY the old wreck refurbished. This is also wildly impossible now that we understand two things - first - we now have a much better understanding of the process of corrosion at those depths. In 200 years there will not BE any wreckage left to resurrect, there will only be nodules of iron oxide and maybe a few scraps of the thicker armor sections left. (For comparison the Titanic will be COMPLETELY gone in about 100 years - possibly less) The other thing that kind of kills the concept of a resurrected Yamato is that the wreck is in worse shape than originally thought when the show began in 1974. (In fact they hadn't even FOUND the wreck until after the original run of the shows and movies concluded in 1983!) They thought it sank in one piece and landed upright. But in fact, the Yamato is broken badly into 3 distinct chunks and two of them are upside down. Yeah - that ain't happening...

So the remake version is NOT the original resurrected Battleship. It's built in the same spot. And likely the high concentration of iron ore from the original wreck helped disguise the construction from sensors. And it is built largely in the same shape - also for camouflage (but also for other reasons which don't bear going into in this post). But the space version is - as noted above - larger than the original.

And the engine room and fighter bay block make MUCH more sense than the original. Also - the remake makes it clear that the ship only carries 24 fighters in the fighter bay - plus the two Cosmo Zero catapult launched fighters - for a total of 26, not 48. The rotating launch system not only works - and also FITS in the space depicted - but it's AWESOMELY COOL to watch in operation! As a big fan of the original - I have to say the designers have kept the spirit of the Yamato intact while plugging numerous holes in logic and volume. This really is the best possible version of the Yamato.  

(Sorry for the word avalanche here. This is one of those topics that once you get me started, it's hard to STOP. :D )

Edited February 22, 2023 by Dynamo-Joe

[Dynamo-Joe]