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EP. REVIEW: Super Crooks


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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 4:36 pm Reply with quote
This looked pretty promising just based on the early PVs, but everything I've heard since its come out is not super encouraging.

Might check out a couple episodes purely because now that Heike Story ended, I'm literally only watching Ranking of Kings each week and re-watching a few shows here and there to check out their dubs... so its not like there's much seasonal anime on my plate at the moment haha
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 4:39 pm Reply with quote
Soooo any chance it'll cross into the "so bad it's good" category?
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 4:56 pm Reply with quote
So Millarworld is essentially becoming the Netflix equivalent of the Dark Universe. Anyone remember that? Just me?

Can’t say I feel too upset, even if the premise sounded fun. Jupiter’s Legacy was, to be blunt, bad.
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RockSplash



Joined: 28 Oct 2019
Posts: 495
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 5:27 pm Reply with quote
Admittedly haven't seen the anime yet, but when you described the pool scene, my fears were justified. I am not a fan of Mark Millar. Yet Kingsman is a great movie IMO. I was hoping, like Kingsman and Kick-Ass before, that the anime would get rid of some of the "Millar"isms that plague the source. Hos comics are extremely cynical. Nobody is ever a good person, and only doing good things out of greed. His run of Avengers is very interesting, but it attacks those heroic ideals with a chainsaw.

It seems they let him do what he wants. He also expects you to laugh at a lot of cruelty. This is a combination that rarely works for me. I can take cynical depressing stories(Berserk is a good example), but they don't try to make you laugh from that cruelty. I know some people love his work, so maybe this is just me, but I am already not very interested by the sounds of it. Its a really shame, since I love
BONES.
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Dayraven



Joined: 21 Jul 2021
Posts: 168
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 6:04 pm Reply with quote
That…. sounds like a Mark Millar project alright.
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dmanatunga



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 6:28 pm Reply with quote
RockSplash wrote:
Admittedly haven't seen the anime yet, but when you described the pool scene, my fears were justified. I am not a fan of Mark Millar. Yet Kingsman is a great movie IMO. I was hoping, like Kingsman and Kick-Ass before, that the anime would get rid of some of the "Millar"isms that plague the source. Hos comics are extremely cynical. Nobody is ever a good person, and only doing good things out of greed. His run of Avengers is very interesting, but it attacks those heroic ideals with a chainsaw.

It seems they let him do what he wants. He also expects you to laugh at a lot of cruelty. This is a combination that rarely works for me. I can take cynical depressing stories(Berserk is a good example), but they don't try to make you laugh from that cruelty. I know some people love his work, so maybe this is just me, but I am already not very interested by the sounds of it. Its a really shame, since I love
BONES.


Second to this.

Basically any Millar adaption is going to succeed or fail based on how close to the source material the adaption is. On one end, you can get the genius of Matthew Vaughn, who takes the general story points, but vastly improves by removing most of the teenage, edgy Millar-isms (Kingsman, Kick-Ass). Or, you can get closer adaptions that are super cynical and awful (Kick-Ass 2, Jupiter's Legacy). And sometimes you get stuff that toes the line in the middle (Wanted).

As for Supercrooks, so far, I have found it to be average at best.
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TexZero



Joined: 25 Oct 2017
Posts: 582
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 6:29 pm Reply with quote
The early episodes are by far the worst of the product.
Too much injokes to the point of it becoming masturbatory.

That said the later half of the show manages to be decent with a mix of deadpool action/romance with some Oceans 11 inspired heist shenanigans.

I feel the show really comes into it's own doing those things even if it's animation at times suffers to keep up with what could be a good product. Ultimately though i feel like this show will be compared to Invincible in that regard and as a poor mans take on the villan side of the coin for that show since they both happen to deal with the real world applicaiton of super powered individuals.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 6:42 pm Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
So Millarworld is essentially becoming the Netflix equivalent of the Dark Universe. Anyone remember that? Just me?


It'll always have a place in history for the terrible trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCm2PX5Iz00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqxyqjpOHs
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1419
PostPosted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 8:55 pm Reply with quote
I finished this show last night. While I don't care for the superflat look the character designs went for, I found the animation quality up to Bones's excellent standards, particularly in the gory scenes depicting Roddy's and Danny's self-healing powers.

As for the writing, I found that whole accidental mass-killing in episode 1 too ridiculous to be taken seriously and too forced to work as dark humor, but the show thankfully improved after that. What surprised me is that the comic book's storyline is only covered by the last three episodes, while the first ten are a long prequel that does a good job fleshing out the regular characters a bit more and making me care about Johnny and Kasey as a couple despite the fact that he really doesn't deserve her. I wonder if Mark Millar had some input in plotting those first episodes or if they were entirely devised by Dai Sato.

Curiously, the biggest change from the comic is the fact that spoiler[the last arc is set in a Japanese island rather than Spain. I suppose Millar only set the comic there because Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo (who was credited as a co-plotter) was supposed to direct a movie adaptation that didn't pan out, and since the anime was produced by a mostly Japanese staff, changing the setting to their home country made it much easier for them to get reference material.]
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AntiKuro



Joined: 01 Aug 2017
Posts: 200
PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:11 am Reply with quote
TexZero wrote:
The early episodes are by far the worst of the product.
Too much injokes to the point of it becoming masturbatory.

That said the later half of the show manages to be decent with a mix of deadpool action/romance with some Oceans 11 inspired heist shenanigans.

I feel the show really comes into it's own doing those things even if it's animation at times suffers to keep up with what could be a good product. Ultimately though i feel like this show will be compared to Invincible in that regard and as a poor mans take on the villan side of the coin for that show since they both happen to deal with the real world applicaiton of super powered individuals.


LOL, by the time my husband and I finished watching it he made a comment about how the anime is basically just one big show about a heist.

Admittedly I didn't like it at first and I tuned the show out but by the time they got to the episode where they are in the airplane trying to recruit someone I ended up actually getting into it and enjoying it but it definitely took a minute to get there.

I kind of had to suspend my own disbelief in the beginning that there someone dumb enough out there to think using electrical powers would be a grand idea to do around a pool and it was kind of cringe watching it and going "No, what is wrong with you? Not at a [expletive] pool! Your going to murder everyone!"

And then I laughed, because I am a terrible person and I am okay with that.
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datumguya



Joined: 28 Nov 2021
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 11:54 am Reply with quote
dmanatunga wrote:
RockSplash wrote:
Admittedly haven't seen the anime yet, but when you described the pool scene, my fears were justified. I am not a fan of Mark Millar. Yet Kingsman is a great movie IMO. I was hoping, like Kingsman and Kick-Ass before, that the anime would get rid of some of the "Millar"isms that plague the source. Hos comics are extremely cynical. Nobody is ever a good person, and only doing good things out of greed. His run of Avengers is very interesting, but it attacks those heroic ideals with a chainsaw.

It seems they let him do what he wants. He also expects you to laugh at a lot of cruelty. This is a combination that rarely works for me. I can take cynical depressing stories(Berserk is a good example), but they don't try to make you laugh from that cruelty. I know some people love his work, so maybe this is just me, but I am already not very interested by the sounds of it. Its a really shame, since I love
BONES.


Second to this.

Basically any Millar adaption is going to succeed or fail based on how close to the source material the adaption is. On one end, you can get the genius of Matthew Vaughn, who takes the general story points, but vastly improves by removing most of the teenage, edgy Millar-isms (Kingsman, Kick-Ass). Or, you can get closer adaptions that are super cynical and awful (Kick-Ass 2, Jupiter's Legacy). And sometimes you get stuff that toes the line in the middle (Wanted).

As for Supercrooks, so far, I have found it to be average at best.



Kick-Ass 2 was nowhere a close adaptation of the source material if anything it's the opposite, I have dropped Jupiter's Legacy so I can't say for sure but I believe it was different from the source material in a number of ways. TBH, I think Kick-Ass comic was better than the film adaptation and as for Kingsman both the comic and the movie has ups and downs. Just because you don't like Millar's style doesn't mean it's bad, as evident from the sale numbers.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1168
PostPosted: Tue Dec 21, 2021 6:28 pm Reply with quote
So I'll reserve my thoughts on the whole thing until these are done, but I'm at a loss over how harsh these reviews are.

I was honestly very surprised by this show - "lifeless and stilted" is the opposite of what it felt like to me. I figure it has a lot to do with the cast: Johnny is just easy to like, and I guess I'm a sucker for him getting in over his head with his goofball friends. It seems like there's a lot of impatience to "get to the point" here, and I would imagine so if you're not into these characters.

It reminds me of how hard people were on Yashahime for not "getting to the point", although I at least get that people wanted to see what happened to their favorite Inu-Yasha characters. Similarly, I've been on board for that show with a great deal of credit to the main cast and their dynamic. (I didn't even realize until after typing this that the same reviewer covered the first season of that)
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:22 am Reply with quote
Ther highest praise I can give SUPER CROOKS is that looked up what I was watching at the end of the whole affair rather than the middle, though flying the Mark Millar banner was enough of a start... edgelord humor and power fantasies of 13 year old boys. I started watching anyways...

Super Crooks asks a question no one ever thought to ask... "Hey Lex Luthor, you're just a normal guy and Superman can punch his fist through your skull so why do you keep doing what you do?" No one ever asked it because 1 That would make Superman an unrepentant killer and 2 It would make Lex Luthor rather kind of stupid.

So Mark Millar wrote that but also with Ocean's 11.... a movie series about really smart con artists.... so in order for this to work... they have to be really dumb for the dumb parts but really smart for the part that 100% steals Ocean's 11. And I think, maybe, there was one line to combine how they were dumb criminals but also smart criminals, that they are petty super villains who do what they do because it's a petty thrill.

And they're smart because....
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Ensaru64



Joined: 14 Nov 2018
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Wed Dec 29, 2021 4:20 am Reply with quote
RockSplash wrote:
Admittedly haven't seen the anime yet, but when you described the pool scene, my fears were justified. I am not a fan of Mark Millar. Yet Kingsman is a great movie IMO. I was hoping, like Kingsman and Kick-Ass before, that the anime would get rid of some of the "Millar"isms that plague the source. Hos comics are extremely cynical. Nobody is ever a good person, and only doing good things out of greed. His run of Avengers is very interesting, but it attacks those heroic ideals with a chainsaw.

It seems they let him do what he wants. He also expects you to laugh at a lot of cruelty. This is a combination that rarely works for me. I can take cynical depressing stories(Berserk is a good example), but they don't try to make you laugh from that cruelty. I know some people love his work, so maybe this is just me, but I am already not very interested by the sounds of it. Its a really shame, since I love
BONES.

The show is weird,but it's all boils down to adaptation jank. The studio was likely given the "OK" to do whatever they want for the first 10 episodes because they were the "worst" part of the show and are completely anime-original. The rest of the series was almost a completely direct adaptation of the comics (a 4-issue series), which is the strongest part of the Netflix series.

I say "worst" because it seemed that the show wanted you to not take it seriously for those episodes. They're weirdly chill and everything and everyone are laughably nonchalant about bad things happening, and a lot of suspension of disbelief is in order. Certain events are completely over-the-top. It has a lot of anime jank. Save for the first 5-6 episodes, I've enjoyed the series and wasn't disappointed. The ending was good.

It's not a show worth binge-watching. Watching one episode each whenever you feel like is more apt, until it gets into the binge-worthy part. I also think the dub is better, partially because the sub translations are off and completely changes the context of what is being said in some cases.
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Allison Addams



Joined: 19 Dec 2021
Posts: 120
PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:52 pm Reply with quote
datumguya wrote:
dmanatunga wrote:
RockSplash wrote:
Admittedly haven't seen the anime yet, but when you described the pool scene, my fears were justified. I am not a fan of Mark Millar. Yet Kingsman is a great movie IMO. I was hoping, like Kingsman and Kick-Ass before, that the anime would get rid of some of the "Millar"isms that plague the source. Hos comics are extremely cynical. Nobody is ever a good person, and only doing good things out of greed. His run of Avengers is very interesting, but it attacks those heroic ideals with a chainsaw.

It seems they let him do what he wants. He also expects you to laugh at a lot of cruelty. This is a combination that rarely works for me. I can take cynical depressing stories(Berserk is a good example), but they don't try to make you laugh from that cruelty. I know some people love his work, so maybe this is just me, but I am already not very interested by the sounds of it. Its a really shame, since I love
BONES.


Second to this.

Basically any Millar adaption is going to succeed or fail based on how close to the source material the adaption is. On one end, you can get the genius of Matthew Vaughn, who takes the general story points, but vastly improves by removing most of the teenage, edgy Millar-isms (Kingsman, Kick-Ass). Or, you can get closer adaptions that are super cynical and awful (Kick-Ass 2, Jupiter's Legacy). And sometimes you get stuff that toes the line in the middle (Wanted).

As for Supercrooks, so far, I have found it to be average at best.



Kick-Ass 2 was nowhere a close adaptation of the source material if anything it's the opposite, I have dropped Jupiter's Legacy so I can't say for sure but I believe it was different from the source material in a number of ways. TBH, I think Kick-Ass comic was better than the film adaptation and as for Kingsman both the comic and the movie has ups and downs. Just because you don't like Millar's style doesn't mean it's bad, as evident from the sale numbers.


People are still trying to use sales numbers as some indication of quality?

Mark Millar is a pretty terrible writer. He writes like an edgy, pretentious 14 year old. Nearly all the adaptations made from his work tend to be improvements. Logan, Captain America: Civil War, Kingsman, and the Kick-Ass movies.
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