I wouldn’t say that I watch a lot of anime. Maybe 2-3 new-ish series per year. Ones I watched over the past year with an J/E comparison are Sidonia no Kishi season 2, GITS ARISE, Gurren Lagann, and Gatchaman Crowds Insight. Actually, it was Gatchaman Crowds from a couple years back which was maybe the first anime where I actually enjoyed voluntarily watching the English dub - but I don’t know if the same people ever dubbed the second Insight season.
I have only watched a little bit of Cowboy Bebop socially, I should watch it in depth sometime.
The best thing about Kurosawa is that he was so innovative that you can literally see cinematic history being invented as you watch his films. You know that scene movies love to do where you see the enemy masses appearing at the top of a hill? You can thank Kurosawa for that.
It’s hard to go wrong with most of his films. Ran is one of my all time film favorites.
Was an annoying kid character in the show a legal requirement or something? It seems like kind of a trope in Anime that goes beyond creative necessity.
Oh, hey, maybe that’s part of why I don’t like the series. I read the books and really liked most of the series that’s out so far, but really didn’t care for the series. And despite being the straight dude, I really didn’t care for the gratuitous sex scenes.
Thank goodness someone else in the world realized this. ROTJ is totally, imho, George Lucas looking at ANH and saying, “You know, I’d like to try that again.”
The cynic in me thinks: Lucas could only rip off Foundation and Lensman twice. But the optimist in me realizes that, for all his artistic flaws, Lucas at least brough space opera to the silver screen.
Since I’ve watched my beloved childhood Star Trek get rebooted for the generation I’m chasing off my lawn, I’ve come to accept two basic realities. At least the kiddos are getting exposed to the films and shows that inspired us old fuddy-dudies. And the really novel stuff will be things we don’t see coming out of left field, not the franchises we know and love.
Regarding dubs, watching live-action Japanese stuff is a good way to realize what you’re missing with a Japanese dub. Kurosawa films are a great example because there are a lot of powerful performances - there’s no way to dub Toshiro Mifune and not have it sound like a joke. You don’t have to understand the language to appreciate the performance. But the same is true for anime - the performances are often very strong (not always), and because the rhythms and tones of Japanese-as-spoken-in-anime are quite unique, you lose a lot with a dub even if the performances are good. Look at any of the Miyazaki films with big Hollywood stars doing the dub voices - the same people who would be great in a Pixar film just don’t work with a Japanese film no matter how hard they try (admittedly these are far better than typical anime dubs).
Of course, there is the matter of having to read subtitles over a highly visual medium, but for me an English dub is far more distracting and annoying than subtitles (I am highly conditioned to read subtitles though, and often turn them on for English language stuff too).
Because of that one time when we showed him a script and @Donald_Petersen said no. I mean he tried at first to be gentle saying things like, “Filmmaking is hard,” and “Shouldn’t you guys focus more on your breadmaking and belly button lint.” Then he started to get agitated.
He started talking about consequences, something about all life of earth ceasing to exist, and then he just started screaming. No words. I felt that I had to get out of there before his eyes started bleeding.
Interestingly enough, I think the racism in his work is part of what makes it worth reading (not because I like the racism, but because of what it says about his time and place). I’ve been wanting to read this book because of Lovecraft’s racism:
I can understand not liking GoT because of these aspects. I do think that there is even some of the male gaze in the books too (though it was hyped up for the show, to be sure).
But having both read the books and seen the show, he does a good show at showing in realistic ways how women negotiate a misogynistic cultures (or in some cases, fail to do so). The women who are main characters also do feel fully developed and they often pass the bechdel test, so there is that.
And eventually, you get to a point where the story seems to be that it’s the women who are driving the narrative far more than the men. It’s seems like the last couple of seasons are going to come down to a battle between the women. None of which excuses the male gaze shit, but I do think it’s worth pointing out, especially given how flat women tend to be in other fantasy series. The Tolkien’s books are an excellent example of that. It’s very male driven (especially the Hobbit). They seriously expanded women’s roles from the books in the movies (in the case of the hobbit, completely made up a woman to add…
It’s one of those shows where no one is a real hero but no one is completely evil either. Stannis, for example, is most certainly “doing the right thing”… he’s very much a law and order guy, but that doesn’t mean what he does is morally right or defensible. End of season 5, is all I’m saying.
The Wire was the show my husband and I first bingewatched. You really root for the “bad” guys, although there are several flawed good guy characters that are well-developed. Some of the plot points will break your heart, too.
Also, my husband used to work for a Tribune newspaper and the seething commentary by Simon about the parent company is accurate (from the news side) and well- worth watching, @japhroaig.
Stannis breaks my heart. Talk about someone who desperately wants to do the right thing, but his version of right is so completely fucking wrong, yet justifiable in a warped, disgusting way. Him, Brienne, Sam, and Gilly are my favorite characters (Tyrion slapping Joffrey is of course one of the most epic scenes on TV ever)
FWIW, I can only now say I’ve seen GoT. I started with Season 5, and have watched from the beginning this summer. Watching S5 again, it makes more sense now.
