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This Week in Anime - Is Exception an Exception to the Bad CG Anime Trend?




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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:18 am Reply with quote
The environment visual look pretty good, but /puke those character! It's a problem where the monster looking character is by far the best looking one.

Anyway I guess I wouldn't like it because of the same problem most "crew on a space ship" story have, why would they pick these loser for the super important mission?! Wouldn't they bother vetting the people before picking them to check if they're not going to try and derail the mission?

Also, if the ship can support more people, why only copy a small crew? Have a giant library of people and bring out whoever you need based on the current need.
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2261
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2022 2:14 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Anyway I guess I wouldn't like it because of the same problem most "crew on a space ship" story have, why would they pick these loser for the super important mission?! Wouldn't they bother vetting the people before picking them to check if they're not going to try and derail the mission?
Actually the crew are all competent at their jobs, not complete nutcases (well except for one) and pretty serious about getting the mission done.
Quote:
Also, if the ship can support more people, why only copy a small crew? Have a giant library of people and bring out whoever you need based on the current need.
Part of that is resources. Humans don't understand "Alternative Intelligence" (AI, I guess the singularity arrived?) or how to replicate its technology. They had a limited amount of "stuff" with which to replicate bodies in the show.

How I felt about the show:
For the most part the story is pretty solid in the beginning and started strong. It made a positive enough impression that I binged it over the weekend. It starts off a bit like a horror movie in space (think original Alien), but morphs into a sort of whodunnit story. There are enough decent fake outs that I was on the verge of giving this a high recommendation. Unfortunately, I felt that in the last episode or two the story got significantly annoying and weaker that it left me with mixed feelings.

Story wise the whole eco-terrorist angle felt a little cliched particularly in this day and age. Yes, we get it Japan you want to continue to hunt whales and club dolphins to death and anyone who protests that is a terrorist. Our antagonist makes a compelling argument why they shouldn't terraform the world, but its undercut by presenting her as unhinged along with the whole creepy twincest nonsense, which is a typical turn if you've read enough manga or watched plenty anime. I found it a little lazy, but I guess the reviewers found it awesome? Blegh!
Review wrote:
Which is maybe trusting yourself a little too much.
But still rules! It's the wild stuff you'd only do if you aren't a coward.

It's completely out of nowhere and I have nothing but the utmost respect for it.

Then there seemed to be some slight personality shifts that felt a little out of nowhere--everybody seems a little too ok with killing in the beginning, but by the end they maybe aren't? Let's kill Cool Lewis when he's trying to communicate with us, but let's hold off on the twins if we can when they will go to any length for their mission? Speaking about Cool Lewis he could barely put a sentence together, but then is fairly loquacious by the end. How'd that happen? Then there's a character who's all about family and friendship that then becomes all about himself and screw everybody else. Its like they didn't know what to do with him, so lets have him be a little bonkers. There's some action which not only felt lackluster in presentation, but has some ridiculous moments (seriously I don't think you can block hits from a large pipe with a surgical scapel).

Plus the dialogue comes off clunky and at times stilted. I watched it dubbed, so maybe this was a translation thing, but there was enough awkward language for me that it stood out. We've got character designs by Yoshitaka Amano which kind of excited me at first when I heard about it. However, it looked like he was recycling some old design ideas especially with glam rocker boy. Character designs were mostly meh for me, backgrounds and ship were much better. Finally, there's the very end which feels a little forced. I needed something more, or different or weird even for the conclusion.

The story and some of its elements (a crew printed by a 3D machine, interesting!) are decent, but its like a death from a thousand cuts. I could have ignored the mixed visuals, weak action and clunky dialogue if the story had finished as strongly as it started. This could have been a very good show imho despite some of its flaws, but it doesn't nail the landing and it becomes just ok for me.
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MagicPolly



Joined: 26 Nov 2020
Posts: 1577
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2022 12:14 am Reply with quote
I'm only on the first episode so I only read the beginning of the article and honestly I was prepared to dismiss it on the art (is that the right term for cgi?) and animation alone. I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that this was Amano's style. The plot on the other hand did a great job of pulling me in so I'll definitely be watching the next 7 episodes
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Ishida_Akira(fake)



Joined: 23 Apr 2022
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2022 8:25 am Reply with quote
It could have the best story of the century, it does not matter when it looks like garbage that an old PSOne spit out while sick.
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overlordrae



Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 90
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 7:39 am Reply with quote
Honestly the only 3D version of Amano's work I've been able to stand is FFXIV(google FFXIV Omega or FFXIV Endsinger for examples) so I already wrote this off originally...but now maybe not because those backgrounds are intriguing.
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Joker#941490



Joined: 15 Aug 2022
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 12:33 pm Reply with quote
it's interesting that Tatsunoko used Amano's designs since it's been a long time they did work with his designs even if it more odd this time but his designs for most of his anime with them were the same pillar.
Amano's character designs despite all of us saying that they're special and nice but it's harder for animation these days for most animators especially young ones since most anime have abysmal schedules to even have enough time to consider animating scenes

despite Tatsunoko being behind their glory days so providing CGi for it was their only option despite not being an easy option either but i think they did what they can do and it does look better than gibiate which was rough with both sides (2D and CGi).
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DamianSalazar



Joined: 25 Jul 2017
Posts: 720
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2022 11:26 am Reply with quote
I have nothing to say about this series. I just wanted to ask about something else. When are you guys going to review Vermeil in Gold? The anime aired in the Summer and I haven't seen a review or column about it.
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chrisb
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Joined: 07 May 2006
Posts: 617
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:54 am Reply with quote
The visuals are… something but it adds a lot to the mood. It reminds me of those PS1 scifi horror games I grew up with. I can’t help but look past its shortcomings and just enjoy the vibe. Excellent voice work in the English dub also adds to appeal.
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