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Apr 28, 2023
If you're interested in San Ti (三体) Animated or Three-Body, you had better watch the Tencent live-action adaptation which is available on Tencent's YouTube channel for free. The live-action adapts the first book of the Three-Body trilogy, which is indeed the "Three-Body" novel, while the animation adapts the second novel titled The Dark Forest "黑暗森林" (Hei An Sen Lin). If you go into bilibili's San Ti without watching the live-action, you will be missing a decent amount of context that sets up the plot for the animated series, especially the first episode with all the narration and monologues.
That being said, compared to the long and
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steady plot progression of Tencent's live-action series (30 40-minute episodes in total), bilibili's San Ti goes into full overdrive the first two episodes, with constant action that does allow some respite from time to time. San Ti will demand your full attention to detail in order to fully enjoy and appreciate it.
San Ti, however, seems to suffer from the bad pacing, and unlike the live-action, the animation's storyline seems so weird and bizarre. It's also not easy to appreciate the MC, Luo Ji, whose manner and behavior are so grating and painful to watch, at least in the first few episodes, though it gets better towards the end.
I don't have much (or anything) to say about the content and how well it has been adapted from the novels because I have not read any of the novels, but the animation quality is pretty good, I must say. If you've watched the live-action series, you'll see some animated sequences within the series itself. Bilibili's animation is similar to that, but much more polished and cartoonish.
I would definitely recommend this series, if only just to know the aftermath of the events that transpired in the live-action series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 6, 2023
I really don't see the point of watching this "Kanzenban" edition of The Magnificent Kotobuki other than the additional background info given in the beginning of the movie. It's neither kan (complete) nor zen (whole).
Really, the only reason you want to watch this movie is just for the first 10 minutes of the movie which provides new background content that helps set the plot of the anime series. Beyond that, the movie is a just a horrible compilation of the series with emphasis on the action and aerial dogfighting. Cutting a nearly-four-hour series and trimming it into half the runtime is not exactly the
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best move if the aim is to create a compilation.
If your aim is to get into the series for the first time, just watch the first 10 minutes of the Kanzenban movie and then proceed directly to the first episode of the TV series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Feb 23, 2023
If there's just one simple way to describe Evangelion 3.0+1.0, it is that the final movie of the Rebuild tetralogy is one heck of an "optimistic mess". I'll try to give brief thoughts as I go, but I'm sure this will devolve into a jumbled mess as well.
The Rebuild tetralogy was billed as a way for newcomers to the Evangelion series to experience what many of us did with the original NGE series and End of Evangelion. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Rebuild series can only be holistically understood with its predecessors. What's even worse is that one particular character introduced in
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the Rebuild series also took references from the manga adaptation itself.
The Rebuild series can only be understood as its title suggests. It is a Rebuild of a new Evangelion timeline that tries to improve upon the more pessimistic and nihilistic view of its predecessors, especially EoE. So, I pity those of you who came into the Rebuild series without having watched a single episode of NGE or even the EoE movie itself.
Whereas NGE ended with a mostly psychological introspection and EoE with a post-apocalyptic acceptance of the self, the Rebuild series ends with an action- and narrative- driven resolution that tries to break out of the never-ending cursed loop and grants most, if not all characters the chance of renewed beginnings to life.
That being said, no amount of brainpower or mental gymnastics can convince me that 3.0+1.0 is worthy of the praise and admiration that its predecessors enjoyed. You can come up with all the theories and explanations you want to fill in the never-ending number of gaps, it's still not going to change my observation that 3.0+1.0 is an "optimistic mess". A mess.
The best part of 3.0+1.0 is Shinji's and Gendo's brief but crucial reconciliation, as well as Shinji's very short reunion with Yui. If there's any saving grace with 3.0+1.0, it is this familial reconciliation that never materialized in either NGE or EoE.
I still have much more to say about what I believe were screw-ups with 3.0+1.0, and even 3.0 itself, but I do not have any energy or time to spare at the moment. I might or might not add some more stuff, but for now, I stand by me verdict that Evangelion 3.0+1.0 is an "optimistic mess" that is nothing like what we imagined in the post-credits scene in Evangelion 2.0. I can only suspect that there was a radical change in the direction the Rebuild series were taking.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 29, 2023
Before I present my brief review, I have to state clearly that I am only familiar with and mainly concerned with Cat's Eye in this movie, and so most of my review will reflect that. I'll leave the critical review of Lupin III to other reviewers.
Let's start with the most obvious stuff. The CGI is HORRIBLE. It is painful to watch the whole movie at normal speed. For an anime that relies on a whole lot of fast action and motion, the CGI should be handled with utmost care, if CGI was even appropriate at all in the first place. That has not occurred. It
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is as if you're watching a typical stop claymotion at twice the speed. The only way I personally could enjoy this CGI product is if the movie was sped up at twice (2.0x) the original speed.
Then, the character design of the Cat's Eye trio is so foreign that I could barely recognize them if there was no "Cat's Eye" in the movie title. The CGI only made it worse. They look like barbie dolls swinging around Beverly Hills in a typical Totally Spies episode, and even one of those episodes has better animation than the Cat's Eye trio does in this movie. In addition, the 2019 City Hunter movie had short but brief cameo featuring the titular trio in an almost identical fashion but with modern animation. There, they looked better in all possible ways one could imagine a Cat's Eye anime in our present day.
The story itself is not exceptional. It is a typical heist action movie with a small grain of mystical element of treasure hunting sprinkled in. It's not terrible in any way, but it's nothing to write home about either. The only concern I have is that the overall (and I emphasize "overall") role of Cat's Eye in this movie has been reduced to nothing but mere stepping stones for Lupin III and gang to shine. Until the very end of the movie, Cat's Eye had everything handed down to them on a silver platter. If you're a Lupin III fan, you may rejoice at Lupin's and his gang's overwhelming appearance, but for one who thinks fondly of Cat's Eye after having finished the whole anime just a few weeks ago, it is rather disappointing to see Cat's Eye constantly overshadowed everywhere they got into action.
I would say that I still enjoyed the movie the first time I watched it, but as the movie concluded, the bitter epiphany began to sink in, especially with regards to Cat's Eye and the trio's involvement in this movie.
If you're looking forward to watching this movie, then try to banish all negative thoughts of CGI anime that might be swirling in your head right now. Oh, and don't expect too much of Cat's Eye in this movie. Do that, and you might just enjoy this movie like any other.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 14, 2022
Blue Thermal, at least this movie adaptation, tried its very best to deliver an engaging and wide-ranging plot centered around a first-year undergrad. The result, however, leaves much to be desired. If you have come expecting a very emotional experience, it would be wise to hold back some of those expectations yourself. This is not a sports-themed anime. It seems to fit into the slice-of-life category, but even I would still
In short, the movie starts with a very enticing narrative of a Tsuru Tamaki who broke a glider and was initially encouraged to join the aviation club as an act of penance. The premise itself
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should have been more than enough to bribe you into watching this movie.
Despite the interesting premise, the characters of this movie, including the MC herself, do not shine well, if at all. The first 35-40 minutes sets up the subplots of the three supporting characters of Sorachi, Yano, and Kuramochi. Sorachi's subplot didn't go anywhere for the remainder of the movie. Yano's conflict with Tsuru seemed to have no emotional weight at all. Kuramochi himself didn't get the proper screen time to explore his own personal and family issues.
All in all, the characters seem so bland and uninteresting. The lack of interpersonal dynamics also dulls the mood and atmosphere of the movie.
The story itself, especially the last 40 or so minutes, seems like another generic slice-of-life episode. The ending feels somewhat boring and tiring at the same time. While the movie prides itself with being unique in making a story out of gliding, the sports itself is not deeply explored and only seems to serve as a dressing instead of the vegetables in a salad bowl.
The animation is decent, not marvelous in anyway but not horrendous either.
If you're looking for something you can marvel at for weeks, then you may safely skip this piece of art. Blue Thermal would have been much better had it been adapted into a one-cour anime series instead of a 4-episode equivalent of a movie.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 4, 2022
Right of Left is an integral part of SnF: Dead Aggressor. Without this, you won't understand why kids like Kazuki were kept secret from the truth of the island or their parents' real occupation. Without this, you won't understand why fighting a single Festum looked like doomsday whereas in the latter episodes of Dead Aggressor, it was almost a piece of cake. Without this, you won't understand why Soushi is the way he is.
Much of what was unexplained in the beginning of Dead Aggressor is eventually answered in Right of Left. The tone is much more darker and depressing, which adds to the atmosphere of
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despair felt in the beginning of Dead Aggressor.
Absolutely do not skip this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 4, 2022
Sometimes treasure hunting gives you, well, y'know, precious gemstones like old animes that are obscured by the advent of modern post-2010 animes.
Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor is one of those gems that slowly shines as you polish it further. For anyone who has finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion, SnF will immediately make you feel at home. Consider SnF as sort of a spiritual successor to NGE. Where NGE ends nearly in despair and hopelessness, SnF takes you towards joy and hope of what the future may bring.
SnF is supposedly steeped in Norse mythology, so make of that what you will. It
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doesn't shy away from religious themes and tackles existentialist issues much better than NGE did. Whereas NGE is a psychological assessment, SnF is more mythological in its approach.
This is certainly not an anime newcomers should jump into directly. Right of the bat, you are introduced to a host of mostly unnamed characters (unless you check the end credits) that would be featured in subsequent episodes. It is not designed to be self-contained within 26 episodes. Even after you're finished with the whole thing, you will not find all the answers to satisfy your unending curiosity.
If you want to fully enjoy SnF, you will have to watch the whole series at least twice, not just SnF: Dead Aggressor, but also Right of Left, Heaven and Earth, and Exodus.
The available subtitles aren't that great, and the dub has taken way too many creative licenses. There are only two choices, the official Funimation subs or the only fansub from the extinct Anime-Empire group. Both subs are not perfect, but the fansubs are generally more faithful, save for a few critical mistranslations that the Funimation subs thankfully avoided.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 2, 2021
The meme goes like this:
Violet whenever she's typing out a letter, talking to her friends, visiting various places, or doing just about any other mundane activty.
- Violet Evergarden: I sleep
Violet whenever anything concerning her beloved Major Gilbert is brought up.
- Violet Evergarden: (***Activates shining eyes***) REAL S#%! SHOSA! SHOSA! GILBERT SHOSAAAAAAAA!
That meme is what Violet Evergarden is basically trying to resolve in this final movie. This movie wraps up the whole Violet Evergarden saga. Did it pan out well? YESSSsssn't.
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Story: 5 / 10
The story is arguably the weakest part of the movie. Giving a 5 / 10 was by no means an easy thing to do, but I believe it was warranted. To put it simply, there was no climax, barely any worthwhile conflict, and very unsatisfactory resolution. I blame this partly on the TV series itself for setting up such high expectations.
Let's be honest. Major Gilbert played a silent and hidden yet important part in Violet's journey to move beyond the trauma of the past, move on, and look towards the future for better days ahead. This movie, however, takes the arrow of time and flips it 180 degrees to point backwards. You might think that this movie is sort of a simple revisiting of the past, but it's much more sinister than that. This movie sort of deconstructs (in a negative way) Violet to her original pieces and makes her revert to her old self, thereby depriving her of the emotional journey and experience that has benefited her in the struggle to face that painful trauma.
We all wanted to see Violet reunite with Gilbert, no doubt. None of us wanted to see Violet behave like the 14-year-old child she was. In the movie, she was 18(?) and much more mature. I can't help but surmise that this movie had been doomed from the beginning due to the difficulty in how the new and rejuvenated Violet will be challenged with facing the past.
There's also a side plot involving a dying child named Yuris. This plot at least carried more emotional weight than the main one.
Art: 10 / 10
The art is still as phenomenal and outstanding as always, but I can't help but feel like the art was dragged down by the mediocre story.
Sound: 7 / 10
The BGM soundtrack doesn't sound as good as the TV series was. I feel like there's a downgrade in quality compared to the previous BGM soundtrack, which was just amazing. That's not to say the BGM soundtrack here is objectively bad, but that relatively speaking, the quality was just not as I expected from a finale. Again, maybe it was just my bias speaking because I found the story underwhelming, but hey.
Character: 6 / 10
This is part and parcel of the story as well. Violet in this movie seems to be different from her usual modern self. All the emotional journey and experience that she has attained during 13 episodes seem to fly out the window whenever Major Gilbert is brought up. The penultimate ending scene where Violet writes a farewell letter to the Major was actually a good resolution, but the ultimate "resolution" where Violet and Gilbert meets each other face-to-face seems to be a slap in the face, at least my face on both cheeks. I think an alternative ending might have preferable where they would both reconcile but not in the very straightforward manner that the movie followed.
Gilbert as a character seemed rather shallow to me. The movie does him no favors by not giving him more screen time, especially when it came to exploring the aftermath of the separation between Violet and him. The movie seemed to meander between maintaining Gilbert's enigmatic figure and uncovering him. For most of the movie, Gilbert was stuck between both positions, and remained relatively uninteresting. I think it would have served him better if we actually got to know more about Gilbert early in the movie so that we might understand the rationale for Gilbert to remain hidden even from his closest family.
Hodgins and Dietfried didn't add much to the movie itself. Hodgins' main dilemma was trying to decide whether to remain as Violet's guardian or let her be independent and trust her. In the previous TV series, it was clear as day that Violet was slowly adapting to the postwar society and that Hodgins' guardianship would no longer be necessary, even when it came to matters concerning Gilbert. Well, that dilemma remained unanswered because Hodgins eventually accompanied Violet on their quest to find Gilbert. As part of my previous comment on the reversal of the arrow of time, the same observation seems to apply with Hodgins' dilemma because he reverted to the same guardianship that Violet had just as the beginning of the TV series showed.
Dietfried, as Gilbert's older brother, also didn't bring that much needed emotional weight to the movie, especially when Violet fell short of providing that emotional tension. In fact, both Dietfried's and Hodgins' interactions with Gilbert was very emotionless and soulless. Dietfried's presence was supposed to provide comfort to both Violet and himself as they struggled with accepting Gilbert's supposed demise, and I thought they might have made the perfect travelling couple in their search for Gilbert, but oh boy, I totally missed the mark.
Enjoyment: 8 / 10
I'd be lying if I didn't enjoy it despite the many shortcomings I've uncovered along the journey and afterwards. I think as a movie, it still holds well on its own but, as a sequel, fell short of the magnificence of the original TV series. For all intents and purposes, the movie is simply a downgrade of the TV series.
Overall: 7 / 10
I've decided to rate the movie as 7 / 10 overall (as the average of the five criteria), but even a 6 / 10 would not have been out of the realm of possibility. This movie fell short of my expectations, and it didn't bring that emotional response that I have been accustomed to act out when I watch the original TV series.
In any case, the movie is done and I'm sure different viewers will draw different conclusions and feelings about the movie, its story, characters, and other aspects, but this review is that conclusion of mine. It is part frustration, part disappointment, part enjoyment, and part sadness.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 13, 2021
LotGH is an absolute masterpiece of space sci-fi drama, and if you haven't, I highly and eagerly recommend the 10-volume novels. The novels are filled to the brim with details and descriptions that explain the inner workings of the LotGH universe deeper.
Die Neue These (DNT) is a re-adaptation of the original novels, and Kaikou adapts all but the last two chapters of Volume 1: Dawn, thereby leaving Kaikou with a cliff-hanger ending and Seiran completing the adaptation with its first episode.
To preface this, I have yet to see the original 1980s OVAs and Movies, so I'm only going to compare Kaikou to Vol. 1. I've
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both read Vol. 1 and watched Kaikou in alternating sequences to be able to point out the differences between the two. It was a pretty tiring experience and I wouldn't recommend that you enjoy LotGH in this manner.
Now, here's the big statement: Despite all odds, Kaikou has masterfully managed to incorporate the core of the story and its character interactions. Yes, they've managed to trim details and come up with an intact core product that is still satisfying to watch.
What are the some of the major changes Kaikou has made in adapting Dawn?
1. Kaikou consolidated and rearranged some of the flashbacks and past events in Dawn to make it more chronologically smooth. Examples include Yang's and Reinhard's pasts. By consolidating their backstories in two episodes (E03 and E04), it does make it easier and more logical to understand the succeeding events.
2. The novels are told from a 3rd-person perspective of a narrator or a historian. The anime tries to incorporate details in the novels by using characters to tell or explain them. This reduces the amount of narration needed in the novel so as to not bog down the flow of story.
3. Some of the characters actually get more backstory than the novels ever did. Jessica was one of them. Yang's backstory added more interactions among Jessica, Jean Robert, and him.
4. Some of the existing characters like Alex Caselnes (Cazerne) and Dusty Attenborough are better utilized in the anime. Dusty, for example, was not present in Dawn and only appeared later at Vol. 2: Ambition. He was then only introduced as an underclassman of Yang, but the anime gave him a more crucial role in the ending of Kaikou and the beginning of Seiran (season 02) during the Battle of Amritsar.
*** *** *** *** ***
There are negative aspects of this adaptation that I believe ought to be pointed out:
1. Details. Yes, many details were trimmed and omitted from Kaikou. The most egregious is the lack of explanation for the history of LotGH. The anime barely adapts the prologue that details how the Galatic Empire and the FPA came into being, what happened to Earth, etc.
There are also details explaining why the Galactic Empire is the way it is, why the emperor's castle is so huge and impractical compared to the FPA's more utilitarian style.
This is why I would urge anime viewers to read the novels immediately. There's just so many details missing from the anime that you'll wonder why you didn't buy the novels in the first place.
2. Phezzan (Fezzan) was introduced pretty late into the anime, and Rubinsky didn't really have much screen time compared to the novel. This sort of gave the Anime version of Rubinsky a more mysterious veil around him, but it does so at the expense of not getting a clearer picture of what Phezzan actually is and what the leader is like.
3. Some details in the anime have been altered slightly, but resulted in a much different impression. One example would be how Lichtenlade gave the mission of putting down the Castrop rebeliion to Kircheis.
In the novel, it was Reinhard who arranged Kircheis to be appointed as the commanding general via Weitz. In the anime, it was Lictenlade himself who came up with the idea. The anime version tries to make Lictenlade appear more cunning and conniving than he actually is.
*** *** *** *** ***
Overall, I really liked Kaikou and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, especially the massive space battles coming to life. This is truly an epic space sci-fi drama with lots of political commentaries that are surprisingly still relevant to this very day. The politics I refer to are those related to governments and the military, and as you watch Kaikou you will find some striking parallels and notable quotes, especially from Yang the military historian buff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 30, 2021
*Time of Eve* is another one of those sci-fi movies depicting Androids of the future as capable of achieving sentience and autonomy.
Unlike others, *Time of Eve* takes the slice-of-life approach and takes place mostly in a cafe where humans and androids alike are treated equally without distinction. While the main theme of the movie is about android discrimination, *Time of Eve* also discusses minor issues such as human dependence on technology and by extension human attachment to technology.
Overall, *Time of Eve* shouldn't be taken too seriously in terms of philosophy. It's meant to be a visual delight showing what our future might be with regards
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to sentient robots and androids.
I would personally rate *Time of Eve* 7/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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