Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Ninja Slayer From Animation
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Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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So... can I be the first to say that was nothing like what I was expecting? I mean, knowing Trigger I wouldn't have been too surprised if it had been more over the top than serious, but that just looked like they weren't even trying. Kill la Kill had a spotty budget at times, but they used it to their advantage in an appealing manner. This just seemed... lazy. And the opening looked so damn good too! I'm really hoping that this first episode was supposed to be some kind of joke that gets subverted within the next episode, but I'm extremely wary that that will actually be the case. I know it's from the same director as Inferno Cop, and that that was essentially a slideshow but geez, this is supposed to be a highly anticipated show. And in that regard the teaser was completely misleading. I would have assumed Trigger had made enough money with KLK and Supernatural Battles to allot this new project a sufficient budget. I get budget restraints, but this... this is just embarrassing. I can't believe the studio would willingly put something out like this.
I will admit though, when there was animation, it was prety darn good. As expected from the studio considering stuff like Little Witch Academia. And it was also pretty hilarious at times too, I could definitely see how they were blatantly making fun of overused anime tropes and American ninja fiction. Yeeart! Feeling cautiously optimistic right now. Very cautious... |
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FlamingFirewire
 Posts: 461 |
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This is literally exactly what I was expecting from a project like this. The fact that FUNimation already got the home video rights for this one before it aired makes it all the better - looking forward to purchasing it on DVD or BD already.
As a 12-15 short, the poor animation bits and 4:3 aspect ratio only adds to my love for the show. I hope it can stay funny, irreverent, and still have some well-animated fight scenes throughout its run. You never know, this show might morph into something else by the time its done. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I get what they're going for here. I applaud them for attempting to do something unique. Boy though...what a complete and utter miss. And look, I quite like a lot of terrible 80s anime. I like it despite it being silly and over the top. Despite is the key word though. Such shows may be totally dumb but they're also a lot of fun. They're appealing in their own silly way. That's not really the case here. There's obviously no real story or characterization. That goes without saying. It's just random, barely connected nonsense. However, this show is also an utter turd visually. There's no animation or cinematic composition 90% of the time. It's just, literally, static cutouts of the characters being moved around slightly. And even when they do decide to cut to some actual animation, they completely undermine it by constantly cutting back to the aforementioned 2D cutouts. It ends up just feeling jarring and weird and makes the actual animation (no matter how good it may be) impossible to appreciate. Of course it doesn't help either that the visual design is crap too. Just an awful blend of sickly neon color with no focus or restraint that's downright ugly to look at. (This also pretty much robs the show of any action or atmosphere appeal too).
Of course, perhaps I'm simply looking for this show to be something it isn't: Anything but pure comedy. Indeed. All of this would be fine if Ninja Slayer was actually funny. But it isn't. There's little in the way of actual parody here. The thing about parody is, it doesn't really work if all you're doing is saying: "Hey! Here are a bunch of the tropes of terrible 80s anime and schlocky Ninja flicks". You have to present those tropes in such a way that either subverts them or at least exaggerates them to an absurd/comical degree. But is that the case here? Eh, not really. To some degree it's the problem of how to parody something already ridiculous. But really, this show doesn't even try that hard either. The most exaggerated feature of the show is probably it's crappy, 2D cutout animation sequences. And that's only funny for about five seconds. And they never really do anything uniquely humorous with it. Really, the bulk of the humor here simply seems to be derived from how intentionally bad the show is. That's the problem though. When you get down to it, Ninja Slayer is really just a terrible show. That it's intentionally, ironically terrible really doesn't help it. At the end of the day you're still watching a terrible show. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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You know, once you get past the everything that's terrible, it's not that bad. It got laugh out of me when the cop all ganged up the on the drunken salaryman and when the big fight was ended by a cutout chop to the end before exploding in real fire.
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Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
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I thought it was pretty funny.Like Inferno Cop it's similar to ATHF with it's nonsense humor. It's definitely a love it or hate show.The biggest question is how they plan to keep this fresh for 25 more episodes.
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JaggedAuthor
 Posts: 981 |
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Did this remind anyone else of Perfect Hair Forever or any of the other old school Adult Swim programs?
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2205 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I had so much fun with this! It proves you don't need good animation to have a great load of fun. The bad animation is intentional, and I find it hilarious that the promos all had good animation as a serious story. I also find a lot of newer Trigger fans are getting upset because it's not huge budget flowing animation.
Usually. I would say that animation quality is not the focus, and that it's a combination of all elements that make an anime in any genre. However, I'm going to say it... This anime,in context ,has good animation. I know some people are going to spit out their coffee when they see that line. But the fact is, the animation is used to fulfill a purpose, and in this case, a comedic purpose. The anime would have been about 1000 times less intersting with fluid, top-quality animation. This anime's animation serves its purpose, and that puts a gold star for it in my book. |
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Dian Z
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I like everything else but the 2D cutout animation.
It may look unique, stylish, or funny whatsoever, but I kinda feeling like it disrespects animation as one main point of an anime (especially for one mimicking the old-look of those classic animation). |
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Brack
 Posts: 281 Location: UK |
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Ninja Slayer is simply honest where other anime try to deceive you.
Anime is limited animation, and will often use tricks to hide its limitations. The long static pans, dialogue spoken by characters with their backs to the camera, recycled footage, and so on. Ninja Slayer will not lie to you, its limitations are there on the screen for all to see, and they make the moments of exaggerated movement even wilder in comparison. It is the mechanics of anime construction laid bare. |
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gpanthony
Posts: 241 |
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I had heard that some of the Gainax team were fans of the Adult Swim shows and were surprised by what they could get away with on late night TV in the US, which was part of the reasoning behind Panty and Stocking. This is just the logical follow up... and while I was confused at first, by the end it was really awesome. This is show is literally trying to be so bad it's good on purpose.
I still think Carl from Aqua Teen was animated slightly better than the cutouts in this though and his drawings were higher res, too. But maybe they were going for that, too. |
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Brack
Posts: 281 Location: UK |
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I think they were, as it draws attention to the zooms and close ups they do. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5311 |
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Going into this I knew of 2 possible outcomes.
1, a show like Kill La Kill 2, a show like Inferno Cop I'm not really a fan of Inferno Cops animation. I applaud them for doing something completely original, it's almost like those parodies where they use sprites from 16bit games. But the animation is just too bad, I will continue watching it since there is entertainment to be had. But the fact we aren't getting anything more like KLK is disappointing. |
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neonie
 Posts: 27 |
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I find it a bit odd you've interpreted methods and techniques to make animation look fluid as "deception" and "lies". While I'm sure there are people who don't know or don't want to know the processes that go into making animation, no one is trying to deceive anyone. All that matters in the end isn't the intent of the studio creating the animation but the affect of how it looks. Animation is nothing more than a series of techniques designed to make drawn pictures look fluid. Panning, blinking, having certain things move and others not are all means to accomplishing this goal. If you think everything should be moving ALL THE TIME in animation, then that's both pretty sad and also completely unrealsitic. People don't actually move enough in real life to justify that much movement in animation. Also it's pretty jarring if you look at scenes in some anime where they went overboard with the movement (a good example if you're interested is the first episode of the first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha at the dining table with her family. Everyone was moving far too much, which creates too much visual information and you're not sure what the focus of the scene is.) When you do have people in animation moving so much, it actually comes off as unrealistic and exaggerated like an overbearing theatrical performance (see also: Any and all Disney animated CG films). Ultimately what Ninja Slayer is doing here is not being "honest", it's being insulting to the entire idea of animation in the first. It's the exact opposite of moving too much. It's a giant middle finger to techniques that work and just a bunch of lazy thrown together bullshit. |
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thekingsdinner
 Posts: 1069 Location: Geertruidenberg, Netherlands |
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I thought this was hilarious. Yes, the trailer's fooled me into thinking this was going to something different entirely, but honestly I don't even mind that it didn't turn out like that.
I loved Inferno Cop and I'm having a damn good time with this one. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13550 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I am watching the first episode as I type this. The opening animation reminds me of something that you would see on Adult Swim. Honestly, I wish this was a full 22-24 minutes. The main reason that I am watching is because Ninja Slayer himself is voiced by the Japanese Minato Namikaze.
Around the six-something minute mark, listen for a conversation with a character that I believe makes a discussion between Minato and the fox he sealed away in his son. |
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