×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: Masaaki Yuasa Directs New Devilman Anime for Netflix


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3

 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article
Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Spawn29



Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 551
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:20 pm Reply with quote
I'm surprise people want the anime to be tone down. No offense, but I hate water downing stuff. If you are adult then you should be able to handle these type of stuff by now. If you can watch or read Game of Thrones, comic books like Punisher: MAX or anime like Corpse Party, Devilman should be not be a issue to you.

Last edited by Spawn29 on Thu Mar 16, 2017 8:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
uguu



Joined: 02 Oct 2010
Posts: 220
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 6:38 pm Reply with quote
Spawn29 wrote:
I'm surprise people want the anime to be tone down. No offense, but I hate water downing stuff. IF you are adult then you should be able to handle these type of stuff by now. If you can watch Game of Thrones, comic books like Punisher: MAX or anime like Corpse Party, Devilman should be not be a issue to you.


There's this condescending meme that Nagai anime is violence without thematic purpose even though he makes the thematic purpose extremely clear http://imgur.com/a/928tj

Case in point

residentgrigo wrote:
I have zero interest in the source materiel but it can be mined for interesting content and the director is strong. Color me intrigued and Netflix actually bothered to do this whole anime production thing for real. Huh. A better writer would be nice though.


I remember your name and avatar from the user reviews page for the Violence Jack manga on Manga Updates (and a ton of other pgaes, guy leaves reviews 24/7 it seems). He namedropped Bennett the Sage who's the perfect embodiment of someone who doesn't understand the obvious point of Nagai's more serious stories (or arcs, Jack could be 100% serious and somber or a wacky cameo-fest depending on the story arc).

jroa wrote:
residentgrigo wrote:
I have zero interest in the source materiel but it can be mined for interesting content and the director is strong. Color me intrigued and Netflix actually bothered to do this whole anime production thing for real. Huh. A better writer would be nice though.


If you were familiar with the source material, you'd understand that last phrase of yours is mostly pointless in this context. Like with almost everything made by Go Nagai, Devilman's strength is not found in the quality of the actual narrative. Theme yes, narrative no. Besides, you could argue this writer has some experience with content that is similar to certain things that happen in the manga (shocking twists included).


Grigo got his opinions about Nagai from an e-celeb who takes everything absolutely literally and can't grasp thematic content or emotion-driven storytelling. The guy couldn't even figure out what the purpose of the 'protecting bunnies' scene in the OVA was and called it 'awful pointless writing'; meanwhile I thought it was worse than the manga because it was too in-your-face and you didn't need bunnies to point out that Akira is pure-hearted. And obviously the point of portraying him as pure-hearted was to establish him as the best candidate for a demonic fusion because his goodness could override Amon's evil. It's really basic Lord of the Rings "only the hobbits can carry the ring because they're simple and nice" logic but somehow this goes past Nostalgia Critic clones.

Nagai and Yuasa's strengths are very similar, the only difference is the anime fanbase seeing one as 'high brow' and the other as 'low brow' based on memes. They both make very expressionistic surreal works with simple metaphorically-delivered themes.

Also the idea that Nagai's works are particularly gross and violent is silly. Maybe when Itano adapted Violence Jack in a far more realistic style (with a bunch of child murder, extended rape scenes and whatnot added in) but that's about it, his style is extremely cartoony and stylized. Berserk's weird gory rape content is far more disturbing because the style is so much more realistic.

All this said I don't buy Nagai's claims he's made in non-Japan interviews where he claims that he doesn't have fun drawing violence... especially when he said the polar opposite in a Japanese interview with Anno. There's nothing weird or unusual about the contradiction of "violence is horrifying/war is hell" being the message of the text, but the audiovisual execution being presented as cool. Gundam has been making millions off of that contradiction since the 70s.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group