Forum - View topicShelf Life - Junjo Come Here
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John Casey
 Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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Hmm, not bad, not bad. But I always considered Ken to be much more martial arts than post apocalyptic. You know? I mean, in the same vein, that would make Afro Samurai among the ranks too, right? Now, if you want a real post-apocalyptic anime, and a damned good one, you just can't go wrong with Wolf's Rain. |
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 598 |
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Sorry, writing this week's Shelf Life delayed my response here.
The purpose of my blog post was to define my own definition of what it means to "look cheap". I don't see how comparing it to other comparable cheap shows would help my definition.
Gartholamundi, I think your icon is great (I loved that book) and your point here about the archetypal wasteland is truly awesome. Keep up the good work! Nausicaa is another great story that involves the wasteland.
I've thought that before.
I had a film professor who said he could no longer watch movies because it distracted him too much to think about how they set up the shots and the other filmmaking technicalities involved. I'm not quite at that level. All animation walks a line between careful budgeting and storytelling. You're right, GitS, like every single anime series, budgets and uses money-saving techniques. When it's done well, I think "That was a great use of the budget!" and when the story is really boring, like in Casshern, I'm distracted by thinking about the budget instead of enjoying the story.
I looked at these backgrounds and they just sort of reinforced my hatred, for two reasons: 1. I can guess how they were made. It looks like they were painted with something like Corel Painter and then a blur effect was applied. On Kids Next Door we used the blur effect on some of the effects and backgrounds - I don't know much about what program it is in (Toon Boom or something?) but whatever it is, Casshern way over-uses that blur effect on every shot in every episode in order to look more artistic. Painter is easy to use (I've watched friends try it out) and the blur effect is probably easy to apply. All animation relies on backgrounds that can be painted quickly, but the coupling of those two effects just don't impress me, sorry. If it was some super-cool method of digital painting I'd never seen before that made me wonder "How the heck did they do that?!" I would be impressed. 2. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Is gray your favorite color or something? I grew up in Michigan, where, if it doesn't snow in the winter you get three godawful solidly overcast months where the entire world is gray and muddy brown. The plants are dead and everything is abysmal until the sun shows up again in March. It's depressing as sh*t. Those colors just depress me and I don't like them. I actually *like* the palette in Fist of the North Star's depressing backgrounds, because at least the sun is out. (Disclaimer: I do not actually have SAD.) What more can I say? It's as if we both watched the same thing and walked away with two radically different impressions. You can't argue that my feelings about this show are somehow incorrect. Plus it's kind of hard to change anyone's mind after their first impression of something. You haven't succeeding in changing my mind about this show. (Nor I yours, I imagine.) |
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gartholamundi
 Posts: 316 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Favorite. Manga. Ever.
Aw ... And ... well, I have to say -- I try not to take life too literally. 
Totally. Just re-watched that a couple weeks ago. I can feel that humid wind just thinking about it.
Hm. Well, then I may have stolen it from you via the Collective Unconscious. In the interest of academia, I'll try to remember to credit the CU next time. 
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gartholamundi
Posts: 316 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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actually, over the past week when i think of satoshi kon's recent death, and the near-death experiences he relates in his final blog entry (we never got his film concerning what he thought, if anything, about the border between the living and the afterlife! gah ... ), i think of these lines by walt whitman from his Leaves of Grass:
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere; The smallest sprout shows there is really no death; And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And cease the moment life appear’d. All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses; And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots ... |
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