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Shelf Life - The Polar Express


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TokyoOctopus



Joined: 07 Aug 2012
Posts: 5
Location: Alexandria VA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:02 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I loved the curvy old '80s character designs, replaced here with angular '90s designs (now also hideously outdated).


Maybe im in the minority these days but i happen to really enjoy how anime from the 80s and 90s looked compared to a lot of the stuff now... i find that so much of the stuff now, while maybe more colorful, is a little bland on the side of detail... some of the newer stuff seems so uninspired... i love the old cel shading but again maybe its just me
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Jrittmayer



Joined: 13 Oct 2009
Posts: 304
Location: New Jersey
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:02 pm Reply with quote
I'm sorry but I've got to agree with Zac and Bamboo on P&S, it really is a crap show. I don't mean to incur the wrath of its fanboys and girls (fanfolk?) but the show is incredibly immature humor, and it seems to mirror its fanbases quite accurately. The kids I see strutting around at Cons and the users who rave about it online do nothing to help its cause.

I wish people would stop touting it as some shining example of Japanese comedy when really, this is largely the kind of stuff you see everyday on Cartoon Network or the like, lowbrow immature humor for children, which, while theres absolutely NOTHING wrong with that, is not something that should be raised up as one of the top anime shows of recent times (or whatever people try to make it out as).
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KoujiTamino



Joined: 12 Dec 2004
Posts: 163
Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:07 pm Reply with quote
notazaku wrote:
Poor Kei, her character designs are so dated between her 80’s hairdo in the original and her big spikey hair in the 90’s.


It's almost as if when they were designing Flash!Kei, they deliberately wanted to date her character design as well.

"Okay, so Kei in the original had this big, poofy fro. How can we carry that over to this version?"

"Hmm... Giant spiky hair?"

"Nah, not extreme enough. Kei had a headband as well."

"Ouch, now that's retro... Ooh, I know, a big blonde skunk stripe!"

"Perfect!"
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Maidenoftheredhand



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:19 pm Reply with quote
Jrittmayer wrote:
I'm sorry but I've got to agree with Zac and Bamboo on P&S, it really is a crap show. I don't mean to incur the wrath of its fanboys and girls (fanfolk?) but the show is incredibly immature humor, and it seems to mirror its fanbases quite accurately. The kids I see strutting around at Cons and the users who rave about it online do nothing to help its cause.

I wish people would stop touting it as some shining example of Japanese comedy when really, this is largely the kind of stuff you see everyday on Cartoon Network or the like, lowbrow immature humor for children, which, while theres absolutely NOTHING wrong with that, is not something that should be raised up as one of the top anime shows of recent times (or whatever people try to make it out as).


As I said earlier I never watched the show & I highly doubt it's my type of thing, but I know quite a few fans of the series who are nothing like you describe.

Most people I know enjoy P&S for its unique style (at least compared with anime). They also tend to be Gainax and/or Imaishi fans.

I must be missing this immaturity you speak of. And if they think it is the best anime, let them. That is a personal opinion not fact which we all are never going to agree on.
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist


Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 598
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:55 pm Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
What did you think of Adam Warren's Dirty Pair series? Guess you could call it manga, since it was based on the original series. I loved the artwork and characterizations.

I haven't read them.

eyeresist wrote:
Haven't seen the shows, but find myself strongly disagreeing with Erin this week!

Wait, what?

eyeresist wrote:
The comments about Dirty Pair Flash seem to indicate a grudge of some sort. I mean, saying that "It's painted on cels, which looks insanely dated in this day and age" makes no sense when original DP is even older, and obviously was done on cels too.
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
That "washed out" look seems to be a thing that happened to anime in the early 90s.

It's partially the washed-out thing I'm talking about. The 80s series manages to look fresher, and I'm not sure if it's video restoration or what. Hmm... I wonder if Flash wasn't shot on film, but shot on video instead. Original Dirty Pair had some visible splices (like with tape), so it was certainly cut on 16mm film. Maybe Flash was edited digitally or shot on DV or something?

Animegomaniac wrote:
Quote:
It's painted on cels, which looks insanely dated in this day and age

I know this is insulting but I can't tell if it's intentional. I've recently restarted a rewatch of Blue Seed and I'm loving the cel animated monsters, as well as the Omakes epecially the one covering the limitations of cel animation. The CGI opening is dated but that's the way of it; However I would never call cel animation itself dated as there's too many shows I like because of it. Thanks to overly slick computer animation, viewers have gotten lazy and probably greedy.

I love cel animation, but apparently I don't love it all the time. I'm always much more impressed when an old show pulls off a complicated effect before it was possible to do it all in CG. I especially like animated backgrounds, because I know how labor-intense they are (or were) to animate back then.

I'm having a hard time explaining how Flash manages to look older than the original Dirty Pair.


ikillchicken wrote:
I don't know. To say P&S is an homage to American animation (or more specifically, adult swim style American animation) seems fair. From what I've seen though, to call it a parody or credit it with any sort of subtlety seems questionable. Just generally mimicking the style and tropes of something doesn't make your work a parody. You have to actually do something with that. Comment on it, deconstruct it, or at least mock it by taking it to ridiculous extremes. If you don't...well all you've really done is make a show in the style of (that type of) American animation. You haven't made a parody but rather an imitation.

I think it is a parody and an homage... not so much to Adult Swim stuff as to classic Warner Brother cartoons and more recent Cartoon Network, Nick, and Disney Channel shows. Most Japanese people don't see a lot of American cartoons, but I suspect anime directors might watch more American stuff on cable to check out the rest of the industry.

I think P&S does do some deconstruction and takes things to extremes. I don't think it's imitation, I think it's a loving (yet tongue-in-cheek) tribute to US animation. I may be a malaprop most of the time, but I used those terms correctly here for what I intended to say.

I think something can be both an homage and a parody. P&S alternates.
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1419
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:15 pm Reply with quote
To me, Panty & Stocking is kind of Japan's answer to "anime-style" American cartoons. I believe it was meant as an affectionate, though warped homage to American animation, or at least the way the Japanese perceive it, mixing the gross-out adult humor of Ren & Stimpy and South Park with the highly simplified, angular character designs of Dexter's Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls. It emulates the look of those shows pretty well but it still feels like anime, much like Teen Titans feels like an American super-hero show even though it tries to look like anime.

Quote:
It's painted on cels, which looks insanely dated in this day and age (like watching season one of Dexter's Lab).


For my money, those first 52 gloriously cel-animated episodes of Dexter's Laboratory look better than anything Cartoon Network has produced ever since, including Samurai Jack. They just need a high-definition remaster.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 11:56 pm Reply with quote
I agree with Erin regarding Polar Bear Cafe not having tremendous marathon appeal ~ indeed, I often watch half of the show at a sitting.

But while I prefer it taken in bite size pieces, they are very tasty pieces.
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Shippoyasha



Joined: 28 Aug 2007
Posts: 459
PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 2:44 am Reply with quote
I can watch shows like Mushishi, Kaiba, Book of Friends and stuff like P&S just fine. I don't see how an anime is an indictment on a person's intelligence, behavior, stuff like that. P&S being highly irreverent, crazy ride is precisely why people like it.

As for Panda show, I actually think it's worth marathoning, but the issue is that the show is VERY well written and it kind of tests the brain in unexpected ways. So in that sense, I can see why some would think it's hard to marathon it.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 4:33 pm Reply with quote
Shippoyasha wrote:
As for Panda show, I actually think it's worth marathoning, but the issue is that the show is VERY well written and it kind of tests the brain in unexpected ways. So in that sense, I can see why some would think it's hard to marathon it.

I don't know that I evaluate shows in terms of "worthy" of marathoning. My reaction was more in terms of which shows better reward marathoning and which shows better reward savoring in smaller doses.

Then again, my inclination is against marathoning a show unless its plotline sucks me in and I have to find out what happens next ~ and Polar Bear Cafe is not a series with that kind of ongoing plot.
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norman728



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 11:41 am Reply with quote
After discovering Dirty Pair with the OVA's and Movies. I gotta say While flash had it moments. The First ARC was the best of the 3 and went downhill from there. The first Arc poked fun and pointed to the fact that these were a different Dirty Pair. with all the comments made by their first Supervisor. and with the Dragon being an Expy Of ODP Kei right down to her Hair cut in the finale. the 3rd arc did have shout out to the ODP with Flash Yuri wearing an ODP yuri costume. I agree the English Voices weren't much especially Yuri.

But If you chance to watch it the first Arc is at least watchable as it has a coherent storyline.

PS I am A big DP fan with (:the English Novels, Adam warren TP's, the TV series, the OVA shows and the movies.) Very Happy
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